The Four Journeys

In this excerpt from The ABBA Tradition, we look at the Four Journeys of Humanity.

The physical and transpersonal Worlds around us are not what they were intended  to be and we, too, are not yet who we are meant to be. There is work to do for all of us. This is known as the Great Work and it is the shared task of healing all the Worlds, of making the physical, psychological and transpersonal Worlds better.

It is not possible to heal the psychological World alone because none of us is alone. We are all One. To complete the Great Work each of us individually, and all of us together, must go on four Journeys, called here the Journeys of Incarnation, Ascent, Mission and Homecoming.^[1].

Fortunately we have been given a map to guide us.

The map shows the Way that leads from God to Earth and back again, the Way from Here and Now to the Kingdom of God. It has many names and many versions: The Way, the Royal High Way, Great Chain of Being, Jacob’s Ladder, the Son of Man, the Staff of Stars, the Seven Chakras, all of these refer to the same underlying realities.

It is the purpose of the ABBA Tradition, and of this book, to open up the map of these realities and to be a guide to orient us as we journey through these worlds. In Chapter Three we looked at it as the Ladder that Jacob dreamt about in Genesis on which angels ascend and descend^[2] and as the ladder Jesus revealed in the Gospel of John.^[3] In this chapter we look at modern and traditional views of this map showing it as the Many Eyes of the Column of Consciousness; and the Lord’s Prayer.

The Four Journeys take us through all four Worlds of Jacob's Ladder (see diagram).

The first Journey is the journey of Incarnation. It starts at the top of the Ladder, before the Beginning, and descends into the beginning when God creates time, the Heavens, the Earth and Mankind. It continues as God forms individuals, male and female souls, living in the Paradise we call the soul World. And it finishes in the physical World where and when our soul wakes up and becomes conscious of itself as an individual, incarnate in a physical body.

The Second Journey is the Journey of Ascent. It begins with Body-Consciousness, the Serpent in the Garden of Physicality described in Chapter Three. As that serpent is lifted up,^[4] as my Consciousness ascends, I[MW1]  form an image in my psychological World of who I am, based on my body, what I am taught and what I experience for myself. In this place of ego consciousness there are truth and falseness, light and shadow, sleep, dreams and partial waking. Here I am conscious of who I appear to be but not of who I actually am. When I wake up from this place of appearances and shadow I come to the place of Self-Consciousness. Here I become aware of who I actually am, here and now in a veiled reality shared with others. Here, judging and forgiving myself, I choose whether I ascend further and pass to the place of Interpersonal Consciousness. At this place it is no longer I who judge but rather I who am judged. If the judgment is favorable, if my heart is pure, a door opens and I pass through and discover who I am meant to be. Here I find my SELF in the Kingdom of God. Here I discover who I am meant to be, why I am now here and receive my mission. This is the end of the Second Journey.

The Third Journey begins when I discover who I am meant to be. Knowing who I am meant to be gives my life meaning and purpose. It also shows me that I have work to do, a mission to go on, a third Journey to take. I have psychological work to do, to transform who I actually am into who I am meant to be. And I have transpersonal work to do, to help the lower Worlds more perfectly reflect God’s will. This is my Mission. It is the task of a lifetime, my lifetime. Fulfilling it will fill my life full of blessings and will make my life a blessing.

The Fourth Journey is the shared Journey of Healing all the worlds, .  It is the biblical Homecoming of the Prodigal sons and daughters to Abba, Our Father. Some say Homecoming is a long way off. Others see it near at hand. Either way, this Journey is well under way. Its end was in its beginning. Tradition tells us that we began in a Garden, we live in a Garden and we will come home to a Garden where “there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.”^[5]

---

^[1]. These Four Journeys are described in detail in the work of Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi and in ABBA: The Four Journeys, Part III of the ABBA Trilogy.

^[2]. Gen. 28:12.

^[3]. John 1:51.

^[4]. John 3:14.

^[5]. Rev. 21:4.

Temptation

Here's a short excerpt from The ABBA Tradition. This is a section about 'lead us not into temptation' from the Lord's Prayer.

The sixth imperative is “Lead us not into temptation.” On the Lord’s Ladder we are below the level of the Soul, at the Foundation of the physical World. This is at the place of our vegetable body and our

autonomic nervous system. From the left come the stimuli of Hod, to which our body reflexively responds and from the right at Nezah come the natural cycles of Life with their inner rhythms and hormones. Here are the laws and drives that support and sustain our bodies, such as eating, sleeping and reproduction.

In all the Worlds, in any building, the Foundation must be sound or the structure may fall^[1]  And to assure that the Foundation is sound it must be tested. ‘Testing’ is the primary meaning of the Greek word peirasmos which is translated as ‘Temptation’ in the Lord’s Prayer. Testing is “an attempt to learn the nature or character of something.”^[2] Tradition teaches that Satan is the great tester whose task is to test the nature and character of the Holy One’s creations to find out if they are sound. So it is that we, too, will be tested.

A temptation is any distraction that may create an imbalance or leads us in the wrong direction, a way away from the Holy One. Temptations are particularly dangerous when they are not conscious. Here, below even the lowest level of the psyche, we may not be aware of the forces that can lead us to forget whence we have come and who we are meant to be. Even more dangerous are temptations that threaten the Foundation on which we are built. These are temptations that test correct or incorrect use of basic functions we often take for granted, such as nutrition and reproduction or need to balance activity with rest. The Foundation is meant to operate automatically without the need of our constant consciousness. When we misuse food or sex or stress, we disturb the base on which we are balanced. If the autonomic systems that operate here are unable to restore the proper balance, the misuses may be incorporated into the autonomic systems, establishing an addiction. When this happens the Foundation is dysfunctional and this dysfunction will recur automatically. To correct an addiction requires action from above.^[3]

This petition is a prayer for direction. The foundation is meant to be a balanced base from which we can rise up, rise out of, not into, the realm of mere physicality. The prayer here is to lead us “not into” but rather “out of” temptation or testing. We pray to be turned around if we are going in the wrong direction. It is a prayer for what is called in Hebrew teshuvah, in Greek metanoia and in English ‘repentance’. Repent. Think again. If you are going in the wrong direction, going down, turn around and rise up. When we come to a time of testing, a place of temptation, it is time to turn around and remember which direction is up. Lead us up, not down. Out of, not into testing.

The tradition says that every temptation is really a test of whether we will move away from or toward the Holy One. Will we, like Adam and Eve, yield to a temptation that leads us away from God? If so, we have failed the Test. But if we do not go into temptation, but rather turn away from temptation and toward the Holy One, then we pass the test. For every temptation is also an opportunity to reject the wrong and follow the right. It is a reminder that there is a difference between right and wrong and that we have a choice. The Way out of temptation is the way Home.

---

^[1]. Luke 6:47-48.

^[2]. BDAG, peirasmos.

^[3]. Cf. Gillespie, G, The Kabbalah’s Twelve Step Spiritual Method To End Your Addiction, S.P.I. Books, New York. 1997.

The ABBA Tradition

The ABBA Tradition is the Spiritual and Mystical Tradition that lies deep within and behind Judaism and Christianity. 

It recognises that we live in Four interconnected Realities, Physical, Psychological, Transpersonal, and Mystical. 

Although we often forget, these four worlds are always with us, so this tradition is known also as the Four World Tradition. In Judaism it is called kABBAlah. 

The ABBA Tradition is central to understanding the Biblical World View and teaches ways to ascend and descend from one World to Another. Jesus taught this tradition to his disciples, providing a way of connecting directly with God. The Lord's Prayer is a precise summary of the ABBA Tradition. 

My book, The ABBA Tradition, discusses the Four Worlds, The Tree of Life, the Ladder of Consciousness, the history of the Four World tradition, and details of each of the Four Worlds. It then shows how the ABBA Tradition facilitates Psychological and Spiritual Development, and opens a Way of conscious connection with the Holy One.

In future blogs, I'll be sharing excerpts from the book, together with details of new projects. Thanks for joining me on the journey.