A Mystery Of Consciousness

For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, {N} and as a watch in the night.
Tehilim 90:4

Rite Of Serach - Eternal Memory
the mesorah was given to Serach
Yalkut Shim'oni 64



My remembering is eternal [1]. My memory [2] doesn't "begin" when I was a young child. My memory doesn't "begin" at all. I have "seen" [3] the whole of my existence - like the rough draft of a story unfolding from some elemental [4] core level of existence. This core existence was one of simultaneous being and becoming in flux. It was a pure undistinguishing protoawareness with an ever-connected unknowable yet only knowable "tail" into that absolutely ineffable [5] and as yet unmanifest. This nascent consciousness was without materiality [6], and was somewhere "in between" being ineffable and "yet nothing yet". It was an "acting without object" and a "moving against nothing". From the act of "undistinguishing doing of determined trying" [7] was generated a change from quasi-passive projection to active reflection, and to protocuriosity and protowondering -> further generating a "state of gathering" [8] an impression [9] of awareness together into a unified state [10] of "almost". This unified state of "almost" was itself further fleshed out more fully by actively distinguishing from a position within the unified state into "acting twin states" [11] of pure trying and pure doing in interaction. The interaction [12] of these twin states captured awareness [13] into an acting "substance" [14] expressing thought [15]. Whew! A singularly complex mouthful!

How can I describe it more truly? I don't know really. All I can do is try. And that is what my website, Walking On Fire, and online journals are about - telling my story as best I can with the evolving tools that I have - a soul, intelligence, emotion, and the languages of words, music and art to share it through.

GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON MY PREINCARNATE MEMORIES

My remembering has looked in. It has looked out. It has seen (from Atzilut INTO before and) "before passing through" and surviving, a churning river of fire [16] able to annihilate being. It has seen from all-being [17] and non being [18], and looked back into both from the other side (sitra ahra), where this world (olam hazeh, עולם הזה), the previous world (tohu, תהו) and the world to come (olam haba, עולם הבא) are all one (le-atid leva, לעתיד לבא) "perfectly fit" together from some bright (tehiru tata'ah) and brilliant (tehiru ela'ah) future/time to come, some olam ha-malbush of splendors - a vision of this was also part of the closet experience when I was a little girl (see Epiphany).

The sense of intuitive "smell" [19] is that which connects and threads through both "this side" and "the other side", enabling ultimate re-unification. The soul who crosses the river of fire which separates them is uniquely marked [20] by the experience of crossing. The mark (brit milah) identifies the whole soul [21], and establishes an eternal connection between the two soul halves (male and female, "the other" and "this" sides), even though in the worlds of separation (Beriyah, Yetzirah and Assiyah), they appear as separate entities. How does it do this? With a cry that pierces through worlds.

Brit milah in the physical world (Assiyah) is a male passive (feminine) reflection (aur chozer) of the brit which is performed at the female active (masculine) projection (aur yasher) interfacing Atzilut and Beriyah. This interface "of purposeful female activity" creates a web of complexity in simplicity. The cluster of created complexity becomes a barrier (orlah) which prevents the female soul from returning to and recentering in Atzilut. Consequently, the essence of the orlah a male is physically born with reflects this purpose.

Removal of the orlah also has purpose. Brit milah is the mechanism by which the whole soul may ultimately overcome the barrier, enabling the male and female halves to reunite and re-enter Atzilut. However, the path of re-entry into Atzilut is through the gate (tarah/targum) of the physical world.

The female soul, whose essential inclination derives from the dark light of Ein Sof (Atzmut) which seeks to rest in thoughbare unity (she-ein bo machshavah) is therefore naturally drawn "back" toward the supernal realms. She is "called" into further incarnation and manifest existence (through Beriyah, Yetzirah and Assiayh) from the treasury of souls (in malchut of Atzilut, the keter of Beriyah) in response to the cry of pain arising from removal of the orlah.

The presence of the male soul in existence is sensed (a function of yirah) by the female soul. She responds to his cry of pain (a function of ahavah) by turning away from Atzilut and toward further incarnation by the drive (a function of emet) to find the male soul. I describe these actions in several of my poetic writings. The ability to recognize one's bashert [22] derives from the soul level of chayah (as does eternal remembering) and is a feminine function of Hod. Once she recognizes him, there is no other.

Some years ago, a few years following my return to Judaism and Torah as an adult, after not knowing (and yet holding it forever cherished and near) how to name this experience of "the river of fire" and "before/to come", I identified the river of fire that I passed through from all-being/not being into a level of constricted consciousness [23], in addition to being the Nahar Dinur, as also being the Shabbat river, the Sambatyon, as described in Jewish kabbalah (the mystical tradition of Torah). These rivers are The River Abraham and Sarah crossed and marks the passage of the soul from the world of Atzilut into the world of Beriyah, and apparent separation of the male soul from the female soul.

My remembering is circular-like [24]and linear-like [25]. When "regular" times become incorporated into the times of the brightening and the brilliance [26], this light permeates all existence retrospectively, filling it all in all "times". This action is described in the kabbalah as an action initiated by the Hebrew letter "vav", the conversive vav (the guarantor of redemption, vav hahipuch).

As it is written by David HaMelech "for a thousand years in your eyes are but a bygone yesterday." (Tehilim 90:4). Poetry I surely know too.

My memories have not been "recalled" following a state of "forgetting". It is hard to explain. I was born remembering and I have never forgotten. My preincarnate (and pre/perinatal) memories of nascent acting awareness are not ones I have recalled following some trauma or in consequence to hypnosis or some other psychological technique to induce memory. I have never been hypnotized. I don't use drugs. I don't have any psychotic syndrome. I do have autistic features to my personality.

I JUST REMEMBER and have guarded the memories throughout my life [27], having never forgotten the experience of seeing before being born. In kabbalah, there is a story (Niddah 30b) that every human being is shown his or her destiny and taught the whole of Torah while in the womb. At birth an angel allegedly flicks the babe on the mouth and extinguishes the "candle in the womb", making the babe forget all it was taught and all it saw. Ashkenazi communities ritually mourn this loss the shabbat night prior to the ritual of brit milah. This story speaks to my experience of remembering before I was born physically and before I was born "into" physicality. There are no angels in my memories. Only you and I. And then others we knew / know / will know.

It is all whole within me. Still. Waiting for words to describe it to be unlocked.

Footnotes & References:

[1] a function of the partzuf Imma Ila'ah of the Chayah soul level of Atzilut
[2] a function of da'at, having the powers of memory, concentration, connection and unification
[3] ra'oh, an apprehending vision of the future/existence perceived generally due to the interinclusion of free-will into the experience of pre-physical existence
[4] tzurah
[5] Atik Yomin
[6] mi-ratz hiyuli, formless "running" energy, from the verb root ritzeiyah, רציה
[7] a function of hod, having the power of perserverance
[8] chomer hiyuli, formless protomatter
[9] reshimu
[10] aretz, which is malchut of Atzilut, tiferet of Beriyah and keter of Yetzirah
[11] gulgalta-state, the origin of will and enclothing the chesed of Atik Yomin, and the mocha stima'ah-state, which is the power to generate new intelligence and to clarify reality, through the expression of chochmah of Arich Anpin and of gevurah of Atik Yomin
[12] a function of the Yechidah soul level of Ak, Adam Kadmon
[13] Dikna
[14] malchut, having the power of self-expression
[15] machshavah
[16] the shabbat river, the sambatyon; and the river dinur, nahar dinur
[17] Ein Sof, generated by the malchut of Echad and the power through which the brightening, tehiru tata'ah, and the brilliance, tehiru ela'ah
[18] Ein
[19] smelling, from the Hebrew word reiach, like the vapor of an unextinguished memory of wholeness, originating from the orot ozen-chotem-peh of Adam Kadmon
[20] an identifying brit marking its unique connection to the Torah unlike any other
[21] shlaimus, male and female together
[22] true predestined soul mate
[23] katnut, a constricted state of malchut, spoken of in stanza 7 of the liturgical shabbat poem Lecha Dodi, and made in order to enliven the worlds of Beriyah, Yetzirah and Assiyah
[24] looking in from surrounding and more directed - toward time -and around from a myriad of perspectives and foci
[25] looking through the eye of time from one end to the other, where time itself becomes incorporated into the "times" of existence I describe as the brightening and the brilliance in my writings
[26] a redemption which can occur for soulmates and collectively for the nation of Yisrael and universally for all nations and all creation, through the secret of intercalation, sod ha-ibbur
[27] shamor vezachor, relating to the concept of guarding the memory of one's bashert, where achieving unity with one's bashert is a secret of shabbat observance

crossposted to my livejournal in Ba'alat Teshuvah Story (a series of 17 posts describing some of my pre-incarnate and prenatal memories leading up to and including the story of my return to Torah as an adult)

technorati tags: Torah kabbalah Judaism shechinah memory mind soul soul science soul development prenatal oath consciousness research consciousness science kabbalistic psychology psychology cognition science of mind science of memory autism autistic spectrum asperger's syndrome serach eliyahu brit milah