Insights into the New Energy
with Dr. Michael E. Brandt
Re: The Teacher's Series, Shoud 5 given by Kuthumi lal Singh through Geoffrey Hoppe, December 2nd, 2006
Even though this Insights article is being published about ten weeks past the winter holidays it seemed like a good "excuse" to allow the holiday spirit to prevail in a place beyond time. Indeed much of Kuthumi's message this month - as many of Tobias' and Saint-Germain's - have a timeless character about them.
In some ways the holidays function as a kind of "post-it note" to ourselves - a reminder that the holiday spirit is perennial with respect to time and locale, and does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, health status or otherwise. That post-it note says something along the lines of "remember The One forever, and keep Her in your heart." The magic of the holidays is enabled in our lives when we do this and allow Spirit's grace to flow into and throughout the very core essence of our existence.
There was a comment on the Shaumbra message board recently by someone who said "I'll pass on reading Brandt's column as I'm just not interested in all that Madonna Kabbalah stuff." By all means I'd love for y'all to read this column. And please don't get me wrong, I love Madonna's artistry and also respect that she has significantly contributed toward bringing the wisdom of Kabbalah back into the popular cultural consciousness. Yet, it is also important to recognize that Kabbalah predates Madonna by at least a few thousand earth-years. In my writings, I refer to Kabbalah as a perennial wisdom system - one that goes beyond time and space and one that is as relevant for living today as it has been in ages past - and will remain so in ages to come.
I invite you to learn why neither Madonna nor the Kabbalah Centre "own the patent" on Kabbalah from some musings on my website and elsewhere. Even so, both have made important contributions to bringing awareness to and publicizing Kabbalah at this time in all appropriateness even will they have misrepresented some of it. Even so, there still remains a great deal of mystery and misunderstanding about the nature of Kabbalah - some of which I will no doubt be raising in future columns as I have in previous ones.
For now, suffice to say that Kabbalah is a very general framework out of which the rubrics of creation in
all its aspects are born. It encodes the omniversal laws of functioning of the System in Creation. Even so it is
neither a dogma, religion, nor even a philosophy (while maintaining connections with things philosophical). Historically
as well as in practical terms, Kabbalah is intimately related to Judaism - it indeed forms or represents the spiritual
core of the religion. By virtue of that historical truth, it is also and therefore intimately connected with all three
of the Abrahamic (western) faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. No question it is also closely connected with
eastern philosophical systems, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism as well. In fact, Genesis (25:6) says this:
"But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away
from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country."
Some believe these sons of Abraham traveled to the Far East, Tibet and China and the "gifts" they brought with them were
the perrenial ancient wisdom imparted to Abraham through Spirit.
You will indeed hear me speaking of Kabbalah a great deal in this column. The reasons should become increasingly clear to you
if you are willing to suspend judgement and remain open. While Kabbalah is far from the only mystical wisdom tradition
in the world (and it is not "better" or preferred in any sense over any other MWT), it is one I happen to be most
familiar with in my work and reinforces my life purpose for being here on earth at this time.
As all these traditions do, Kabbalah has its own special and unique place in the pantheon of Divine human experience. Its particular specialness comes from its being the very FIRST of those traditions, predating creation itself (that might raise at least one eyebrow). That it is first is not a statement of "betterness" nor that it is preferred over any other particular wisdom system. It is one about place and position. Each brick in a wall is the same as every other brick in it in appearance and structure. However, each brick has a unique place - and therefore functional position in the wall, contributing to it in a unique manner. Removing the "chief cornerstone" of a building will have a very different effect on the structure's stability than if a brick is removed from the top of the wall for example. Nevertheless, all the bricks "work" together to bolster that stability.
Kabbalah forms an essential foundation for the creative manifestation of New Energy. The more insight one has into Kabbalah (which resides within) the more one will release the potential to go "beyond the beyond" in manifesting and utilizing New Energy in their lives. Future discussion in this column will no doubt take into account other mystical/spiritual traditions besides Kabbalah (in particular Tao). The emphasis will be on illuminating the many ways they are interconnected and in turn how they shed light on the mechanisms of creation in the New Energy. When we build bridges in this way we perform an act of "cosmic Yichud" - a divine merging/uniting of the Spiritual and the "physical."
I'd like to focus a bit on Tobias' own past tradition of Channukah for a few moments. Not just because he is an "old Jew" (I think he has now converted to a New {Energy} Jew anyway ;-)) but because this Jewish/Kabbalistic holiday, with a very long history, still holds salient symbolic-metaphoric significance for us New Energy-ers. You will see what I believe is an important connection between Channukah and this quantum leap year. No doubt Yeshua and family celebrated this holiday 2000 years ago with all this in mind.
The holiday of Channukah originated from the historical account of the Maccabean revolt for freedom from the reigning power of the Syrian-Greeks who ruled over the land of Judea (now Israel) in the years around 300 BCE (about 200 years after Kuthumi's lifetime as Pythagoras). The Syrian King Antiochus had ordered the Jews to reject their God and worship their own gods. The Syrian-Greeks had desecrated Solomon's Holy Temple in such a way that the Jews could not practice their religion (The Temple being the centerpiece of the Jewish religious community).
Judah Maccabee and his band of brothers fought the Syrian-Greeks for three years, eventually defeating Antiochus' forces and re-acquiring the Temple. They removed all vestiges of the Greek culture (the Greeks were viewed by the Jews as worshippers {not just mere lovers} of physical beauty - a no-no to the Jews who eschew idol worship in all its forms), religiously purified and re-dedicated their holy shrine to Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh and attempted to re-light the so-called Ner Tamid - the Eternal Flame (a lamp that is kept lit perpetually in every temple/synagogue in the world, to this day) - a symbol of the eternal essence of the Ain Soph Ohr - Spirit's emanated Light.
In the Temple the Maccabees found a single cruz of oil - only enough to last for one day. Yet this oil lasted for 8 days. In commemoration of this "miracle" (as New Energy a one as I can think of ;-)), Jews ever since and to this day celebrate the festival by lighting a Chanukiah (a special lamp having holders for a total of 9 candles). One candle is lit progressively each night for 8 straight days in this way (1 candle on day 1, 2 on day 2, 3 on day 3, …, 8 on day eight).
Channukah - this Hebrew word means re-dedication - is not the only winter festival in which candles/lights are lit of course. This is also true for Christmas, Kwanzaa and others. December containing the shortest days of the year having the most darkness, it makes sense that candles are lit during this time around the winter solstice. A good time to dispel the darkness and bring in plenty of warmth and light to last throughout the year.
Take a look at the following: there can be no Light without darkness. Sounds obvious I know. What is darkness?
It is the absebce of light, rather than a "thing" itself. This is subtley profound because it means that darkness, nothingness,
is the wellspring of all of creation - all that is manifest. It is the "groundstate" of All That Is. This is a decidely
Judeo-Christian notion - that the creation of the universe is ex nihilo - out of nothing. And it is the paradox of
paradoxes - one that if we "get" (make that "aha" for ourselves) takes us one step beyond where we are in the now.
This gives insight into Tobias' claim that "the darkness is your Divinity." Indeed, darkness, as Kabbalah has taught
for millennia, is the core essence from which the Endless Light - Ain Soph Ohr - emanates from. We have the following:
Ain Soph Ohr - The Endless Light - or potential in an actualized state, which emanates from ...
Ain Soph - "That Who is Without Bound" - the Conduit and Mover of potential existence and actual creation.
It is intimately connected with ...
Ain - "The Without" - or the Big Negation = Nothing - the unactualized potential of the All That Is and Shall Be.
One great big secret about Spirit - now revealed here (and not for the first time either) -
is that its essence is beyond any revealed thing, any thought, any action, any dimension, any thing - while
infusing all things. That means that Spirit's relationship (and therefore yours) with nothing is profoundly important!
So right here and now I want to reassure you that when you're doing nothing you're doing a heck of a lot
(I however could never convince my mother of that)! I know this sounds like some spiritual psychobabble doubletalk
but let me assure you it is not. Actually it is a simple idea that we are all familiar with. The idea is this: within
nothing resides the potential for all things to be revealed.
Let's look at an example - a simple circle - 360 degrees (please don't write me that I've thrown you with
mention of a degree measure - I could have said 2 pi radians now ;-)). Think of your analog (vs. digital) clock or
watch for a visual. Let's start at "12 o'clock high." See that clock and focus in on the 12 o'clock point on the circle. If we were to traverse the circle in the "regular" clockwise direction we would encounter the numbers 1, 2, 3, … and back to 12. In other words we are counting up or positively in the usual manner. Actually since 12 AM (midnight) is the start of the day we can think of this time as "zero hour" (in fact in military time it is 00:00) so we are also actually counting from hour 0 to 1 to 2 to 3, to … 11, and back to zero hour when we traverse the circle clockwise.
If on the other hand we were to traverse around the circle in the counter-clockwise direction from 12 (essentially going "backwards" in time) counting down from 12, 11, 10, 9, … 1, then back to 12, we are then traversing in the negative direction with respect to the clockwise direction. We therefore could use negative numbers (stay with me here) to signify this direction of traversal rather than counting down from 12, 11, 10, …, 1 and back to 12. So we could count like this: 0, -1, -2, -3, -4, … -11 and back to 0. No matter which direction we circumnavigate in, we get back to 12 o'clock high or zero. So both "roads" get us back to zero - which is therefore the "balance" point of the clock - balanced between the positive and the negative numbers. One goes through 11 positive numbers (hours) to get back to zero traversing in the clockwise direction and one goes through 11 negative numbers to get back to zero traversing counterclockwise.
The point is that zero is the starting point/position of all things when taking into account that
all potential existence and all actual-manifest existence includes both positive AND negative energy-matter.
An even simpler example - from the world of money - is the idea of a deficit
(as in how most governments conduct a good deal of their business by deficit spending).
One is transacting business in "negative" currency. Thus negative money - "spending" is
just as real as "earning." (no question I'd like to earn more than I spend. AND it is
important to realize that the best {arguably only} way to earn more is to spend more -
but that's a discussion for another day ;-)). And finally a third example - from the world of
particle physics: I mentioned in January's article that particles "appear" spontaneously
out of seemingly nothing. A gamma wave creates a negatively charged "piece of matter" -
an electron, and at the same time a positively charged particle - the positron or anti-electron.
In a bubble chamber their tracks appear out of seemingly nowhere and of nothing. At the single
point where they both appear (!) the particles travel in exactly opposite directions away
from each other.
Recall our discussion in February about "in the beginning" - the very first events
of omniversal creation in the Kabbalistic system-framework. There we said that Spirit
reflects upon Self and creates a "place" where She is not - an event that goes well
beyond the capacity of limited mind to behold. This act if you will (no pun intended)
is the creation of a "containment unit", a vessel or womb which will be the "space" occupied
by all of subsequent creation. But prior to that, this vessel contains nothing - it has no
light, only darkness. Darkness is fundamentally not a "thing" - it is a "no-thing" - a
negation or absence of any-thing, particularly of light.
In summary then, Spirit is therefore the Big Nothing! - I emphasis that and do not mean to be
sacrilegious. Two keys
for us are 1) to begin to understand that "nothing is something" - nothing (zero)
is the great balance or calibration point of the omniverse - balancing between positive
and negative existence, or between potential energy and manifest creation; and 2) that
Spirit - Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh - is the Great Calibrator/Integrator/Balancer - the
et - aleph to tav - the beginning, end, and everything in between - the Boundless,
Limitless Nothing that goes beyond all substance, thought, thing, word or deed.
And this is the essence of who we Divine humans are - residing integrally within
our most microscopic level all the way up to our most macroscopic (ie, the entire omniverse).
The Endless Light - Ain Soph Ohr - is a kind of code phrase that means "the potential
existence of all possibilities and things." This metaphoric Light is "injected" into
the vessel, not only filling it to and beyond capacity but also filling the containment
of the vessel itself - to the point where it explodes! It is the true melding of the
infinite light with the finitude of creation - the melding of Spirit and "matter"
(oh this is so beautiful how Tobias and Saint-Germain's words start coming together
and integrating with the understandings of our ancient wisdom masters - not surprising,
just a lot of fun ;-)). This explosive act of "piece-afying" the vessel is the creation
of what we refer to as duality. But the word duality has taken on a bit of an (unjustified)
negative bias for us. So let's think of this explosion as the creation of Divine diversity.
Imagine if you will, a fabulous crystalline sphere in the darkness. We inject a powerful laser
beam into it. It heats up and … explodes. Appears very violent - but suspending judgement for
a moment - can you imagine the beautiful colors that you'd see from the shards of glass reflecting
and refracting the laser light and heat energy? … well this scientist/engineer would
enjoy the fireworks display! (guys do tend to enjoy blowing things up I know). There is
much more to this shattering of the vessel which we will come to in time, and I will
have a lot more to say about "nothing" ;-) in the future (I may have just dissed myself,
I don't know).
The total number of candles lit during the 8 days of Hannukah is 44. Interesting that
4 + 4 = 8 and 8 numerologically represents eternity. If you exclude the
candle that is used to light the other candles each night (called the shamash in Hebrew),
the total number of candles lit over the 8 days is 36. Obviously this number has the 9
energy, but there is much more to it which we cover below. It's interesting that a word
for light in Hebrew - ohr - has the gematria of 207 - also a 9 energy.
First, note that the pattern of progressive candle lighting over 8 days forms an equilateral triangle (each side same length). Sacred geometry-wise such a triangle represents an "ascension to infinity" - by its very nature as you ascend upward toward the apex of the triangle, you'll notice that paradoxically you never quite reach it - this is known in another context as Zeno's paradox (Zeno was another Greek philosopher in the Kuthumi-Pythagoras school). One can also view this triangle as if you were looking upward from the bottom of a ladder that extends endlessly. The illusion of perspective makes the ladder appear triangular. And of course the "Star" of David is formed by two such overlapping/merged triangles.
In engineering when we think of multiples of a basic frequency we refer to these as "harmonics" or
sub-harmonic frequencies. Each number in the basic series progression of 9, 18, 27, 36, …, 72, ...
retains its fundamental 9 energy (the digits always sum to 9), but each number takes on its own
distinct and sometimes profound numerological significance. Here we will talk about the 4 numbers
18, 27, 36, and 72.
As discussed in a previous article the word for "life" in Hebrew - Chai has the gematria of
18, you might think of this as a "double-9" frequency-energy. Chai is sometimes used as a name
for Spirit Herself. One could use this Name interchangeably with say, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh or
even Ain Soph. Spirit and life are considered One in the Kabbalistic frame.
The next number in the series, 27, represents the total number of letters in the Hebrew
aleph-bet (22 base letters plus 5 so-called finals). 27 is 9 x 3 or 3 cubed
(3 raised to the 3rd power). The Hebrew word et -
את - is sometimes construed as the
indefinite article "the." It consists of the first letter, aleph and the very last
letter, tav. Thus, in a sense et represents the entire Hebrew aleph-bet as it
"spans" all the letters from "the first to the last" (in Greek this would be spanning the
alpha and the omega). In Kabbalistic thought, Spirit creates all that is using the
"frequency tools" of the Hebrew letters - which represent in a sense the basic energies
of creation. Therefore the word et represents all of creation and the creation process itself.
The opening verse of Genesis says (Hebrew transliteration) ..
Beresheit bara Elohim et hashamayim v'et ha aretz
"With the beginning, Spirit filled up the heavens and the universe." We see the two uses
of et in the original Hebrew - the first one to signify the entirety of heaven
and the second the entirety of all in creation.
The next number in the series 36, is sometimes referred to as "double chai" - an "extra portion" of life.
Symbolically-metaphorically this number represents the expansional or evolutionary aspect of creation - becoming.
We take another step and go beyond where we were - we make a shift or a transition - we "throw life into second gear"
and ascend (that process of ascension is never-ending). In Jewish tradition when a child reaches their 13th year
("love is one"!) they read from the Torah scrolls in a special ceremony that takes place in the
synagogue or temple. They become a B'nei Mitzvah - a Son/Daughter of the Commandment
(Bar for boys, Bat for girls). A mitzvah is a simple prescription for optimal living
- like a good deed, or a service rendered to fellow humanity
(613 of them are identified in the Torah - 248 "do's" and 365 "don't do's").
It is analogous to a physician's prescription - "do this (or refrain from this) and your
health (and therefore your life quality) will improve."
The ceremony is usually followed by a celebration honoring the achievements of the child
(it was at that age where my contemporaries and I awkwardly learned the intricacies of
girl-smooching ;-)) in which gifts are given to the B'nei Mitzvah teen. Decades ago if
the child received a gift of $36 that symbolized their rite of passage from childhood to adulthood
(due to inflation, a $36 gift today would likely be considered an insult. I've been to B'nei Mitzvah
parties that were more lavish than some weddings, including my own!).
There is a legend in Kabbalah that at all times throughout history the world is "upheld" by 36
unknown and unnamed "righteous" ones - who keep the world safe from destruction, usually without
knowing who they are (they have no egos) or how they are protecting the world
(perhaps you will look at yourself in the mirror differently from now on ;-)).
Now, notice the date of the quantum leap according to Tobias - 9-18-2007. If we add together
the separate numbers, 9 + 18 + 2 + 7 we get … 36. Thus, would it not be symbolic that on this date
we make a "quantum leap" in moving
from the Christos Era (Yeshua said "I AM The Way and the LIFE" - Chai, 18) to the "double Chai" era
(go ahead. Have a double latte to celebrate ;-))? That is exactly what a quantum leap is (a quantum is a
fixed amount of something - more discussion about quanta in the context of physics certainly in future articles).
If we were to add the digits of the date 9-18-2007 together, 9 + 1 + 8 + 2 + 7 we get 27, which is the total number of
Hebrew letters from aleph to tav. As we stated in the last section, these two letters form the word
et which is a special code word in Kabbalah which means "all of creation and the creation process itself."
Thus the date for the QL, September 18th, 2007, is doubly significant.
Notice that if the date were 9-9-2007 it would not have this double
meaning. In addition 9-18-2007 happens to fall in
between the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year of 5,768
and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This is also highly significant! If the date for the QL was
9-9-2007 it would fall before the new year. Note that the sum of the digits of the year 5,768 add up to
26. This number is the gematria of arguably the most sacred name for Spirit known in Judaism -
the four Hebrew letter Tetragrammaton, יהוה.
It is also the gematria of the word kavod which refers to the aspects of the Glory and Presence
of Spirit. We discussed this further in the shoud 7 Insights (February 2007).
But let's push it another level to 36 x 2 = 72. I'm sure many of you by now have heard of the
so-called "72 Names of God" (note the book of the same name by Yehuda Berg of the Kabbalah Centre -
he is not the discoverer of these names though - they have been well known in Kabbalah for centuries -
each one a three Hebrew letter name. These names are not only conceived as "character traits" of Spirit,
they are energetic codes or tools for manifesting New Energy. For example the sequence mem heh shin -
מהש
- (a variant of the name Moshe - Moses) can be used to amplify and/or focus healing/rebalancing energy.
Remember, its gematria 345, is a mirror reflection of the gematria for Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh - 543.
The mirror number of 72 is 27 - recall this latter number is the total number of Hebrew letters
which in turn represents the "span" of creation. So God's 72 names are literally reflected in the 27 letters of
Hebrew - 27 primary energies that can help one create New Energy along with the 72 three letter sequences.
Interestingly when we add 27 + 72 we get 99. Summing its digits gives 18 - Chai. 72 is also 9 x 8 -
meaning a 9 energy infinitely expanded!
Kuthumi said this:
"It has been an intent of yours of clearing old energies. As Saint-Germain says, energies that want to
hang on. You know, every little bit of consciousness, every little bit of energy has its own life form,
has its own unique identity. Every little bit of consciousness has somewhat of an understanding of itself,
and it wants to hang onto that self. It doesn't want to let go. It considers it a death rather than a
transformation and an evolution. Every little bit of energy tries to hold on even though like a young
child that knows that it's time to evolve, it's time to change, it's time to grow into something grander,
something bigger, but yet it still tends to hold on.
You know what that little bit of energy wants? It wants the parent energy - the creator energy - to
come to it to assure it that everything is going to be all right. That part of you that is somewhat
afraid, not sure what tomorrow is going to bring, not sure what happens when you let go of your job
that you really don't care for anymore, let go of a relationship that was old karma. All these energies
just want the parent self, the creator self, to come in and assure it. Just like a little child, to take
it by the hand and say it's time. It's time we move on. It's time we evolve. The past will never be
forgotten. The past will never be buried. The past can be transformed into the newness, the potential of who you are."
To me, this is so telling. It highlights the persistence of old habits/old energies and fears that we allow
to take on a life of their own. We give them life by "entertaining them" and when it comes time for them
to "cease and desist" (as that would serve us best) we "forget" to truly let them go. What we're
entertaining is a static snapshot memory of them - a "zombie" potential! If you recall, in my January I
nsights article I spoke a great deal about human death and its flipside human life. These processes are
integrally connected as most of us understand. Death and life are one. We know that when a loved one
experiences physical death it is not the "end" of them. "They transform and they evolve" as Kuthumi mentioned above.
We let the loved one go - in all senses, not just physical, yet paradoxically they are always "there" for us
because they are Spirit which is boundless and everlasting. When we accept their choices (this is called
unconditional love) then we give ourselves the opportunity to engage with them in a new, dynamic, evolving,
"movin' on up" kind of way. Alternatively we can choose to hang on to old memories, to the grief of the
physical loss, to static memories of what our loved one WAS. That would be one's choice to limit themselves,
to stagnate - to create a stuck energy! By letting these go we paradoxically and naturally actualize those
myriad potentials of what our relationship with them could become - i.e., a New Energy expansion = creation!
Let the old go, set it free and allow it to come back to you in a new way - as sparkling, bubbly New Energy
(hmmm, that sounded like an ad for a new CCEC product ;-)). This is (of course) interesting because it gets us
into the question of how can we tell if something is old energy or new? Does it have anything to do
with WHEN the event happened or when the "thing" came into manifestation? I think by now we are clear that it does not.
If one views reality from a 5th dimensional camera, one sees the entire landscape of space and time - past, present,
future in the eternal now moment.
We are beyond the notion of time as we experience it in the 4 dimensional sense of our everyday lives.
From that perspective the descriptors "old" and "new" have nothing to do with the notion of time from the 4D camera view.
In the January Insights article if you recall I discussed nonlinear dynamical holistic systems. The word
dynamical is a fancy word for "evolving", "changing", "on the move." The flipside of that word is "static" -
which implies unchanging. If something is unchanging it is, of course, not necessarily "bad."
If we go beyond dualism to the world which is unified as one, dichotomies such as "bad-good", "dark-light",
"masculine-feminine", "endless-nothing" become united in their paradoxicality
(I think I just made up a new word - can you give me a G in a circle? ;-)).
From this I would construe old energy to be something like a photograph that one takes from a 4D still
(not video) camera view. One "takes a snapshot" of the scene and insists that the picture IS the reality
when it is only a limited representation of the reality. Old energy is staid, stuck energy - not moving,
not in a process of becoming. New Energy is more like a video - it is on the move, unfolding, evolving,
expanding. It is life in all its fullness.
This brings us back to the Name of Spirit Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh and why it is important to not
only translate it as "I AM that I AM" but also as "I AM that I Shall Be" and as "I Shall Be that I Shall Be."
As Shakespeare wrote, "To be or or not to be" - this is not the ONLY question. Beingness is not enough
to sustain life and creation. BECOMING is necessary for both. To the extent that we are not becoming
is the extent to which we are also not fully embracing life. The translation of Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh -
"I AM that I Shall Be" captures simultaneously the senses of static/absolute beingness and dynamic/relative
becoming that Saint-Germain referred to when he said in January "... when you limit your potentials you will die …"
Let me give an example of "old vs. new". Recently I watched a documentary on the History Channel.
It had to do with a discovery made in 1900 off the island of Antikythera in the Mediterranean sea near
southern Greece. Sponge fishermen discovered the wreckage of an ancient ship in 2000 feet of water.
Several fine bronze and marble statues and other objects were recovered before the salvage effort became
impossible. One of the objects turned out to be a machine - a wooden box with a mechanism in it consisting
of gears and gear trains.
Two things have since been determined about this object since its discovery. The ship and its contents
date back to around 65 BCE, and that the "Antikythera Mechanism" as it is now known as, was built by the
Greeks to compute times of the changing seasons and the orbits of the known planets. This find is an
unprecedented one because present archeologists recognize that this machine is known to be a computational
"engine" comparable in technology to the previously earliest known such device - the so-called differential
engine built by one Charles Babbage - English engineer - in 1837! Babbage's invention is recognized as the
first calculator-computer of the modern era. So the Greeks, over 1900 years before Babbage clearly had access
to comparable knowledge and wisdom as Babbage did in his day.
The documentary pointed out that this was just one find "down there" in the oceans. One of possibly countless
many yet to be discovered, some may go back much much further to Atlantean days. No telling what is yet to
be discovered. The show also asked the question "what happened to a lot of related knowledge and technology?"
One answer involves history. One of the greatest institutions of the ancient world was the Library in Alexandria Egypt.
It was an amazing repository of writings (hundreds of thousands of scrolls) of the ancient world. It unfortunately went up in smoke sometime
prior to the 6th century CE (nobody knows when, why, how or by whom), and with it a treasure trove of information.
No telling where humanity might be evolutionarily if it had not.
I bring up the example to point out that old vs new energy is not about "when" something happens. It is about
how we perceive events and what we choose to do with them. Of course the Greeks and many other ancient peoples
were trying to capture the cycles within cycles of various seasons and time periods. But the character of the
cycles is shifting now. They are no longer exact nor inevitable. In addition, chaos gets us off the cycles now!
This is related to near palindromes. The "nearness" means that it's not exact - exactitude would keep one
running around the wheel like a hamster. The inexactitude allows for expansion in potential - it allows for
getting off the old wheel and into New Energy manifestation.
Now we've arrived at a time in history where we are harvesting - we're off the "limit cycle" and onto the
chaotic strange attractor whose trajectories no longer juxtapose or cross with each other.
Kuthumi discussed the many lives he lived which were characterized by a deep, intellectual study
of many things. These included Pythagoras - the mystical Greek mathematician, and Balthazar - one
of the three wise men who greeted Yeshua's birth into the world. In his lifetime as Kuthumi, his parents
were scholars who encouraged him to follow the path he had already chosen for himself. As Kuthumi related
"I fancied myself again as a philosopher, as a studier and as a seeker of truth. I studied very, very hard,
day and night, had no social life whatsoever." He was clearly "stunted" in the realms of life experience,
emotion, feeling and social discourse.
After four years of this intense study at prestigious Cambridge University, Kuthumi came to a
stunning realization one day - that despite all that he learned, about philosophy, science and mathematics,
he caught a glimpse inside his soul and realized he had learned nothing of any real personal consequence.
This experience was shattering to him and led to a nervous breakdown. He found himself in a more or less
catatonic state and had to be cared for, for several years, by one of his professors.
And then one day Kuthumi got up and simply left - the university, his degrees, all his intellectual pursuits,
even his friends and family - and began the life he always dreamed of - a life of experiences. He spent
the next 40 years traveling, experiencing, learning how to laugh, how to feel, how to share and ultimately writing about his experiences. He spent time with Madame Blavatsky - both a great thinker and energy feeler-mover. Kuthumi realized how serious and heavy he had been most of his life and then he learned how important it is for humans to not take things so seriously, to have humor because life is not only fun it is funny, and to realize that there is much more to life than seeking and question-asking.
And then Kuthumi said this: "The biggest thing that I learned in that lifetime, and the reason
why I come to talk to you today, is I learned that philosophy was really, as was said here earlier
today, really a bunch of crap. And I come here today to make the announcement, the profound
announcement, that philosophy is dead. Philosophy is dead as of this point."
What did he mean by this? Clearly philosophy as a field of human inquiry is very much alive, well, and
kicking just as it has been for millennia. Philosophy also continues to play important roles in many
sciences - such as physics and biology, as well as mathematics, theology, and metaphysics. The problem
with philosophy may be about the nature of its process of debate. In science, debates occasionally rage on
for long periods, but science works from a foundation of accumulated evidences over time which when taken
altogether either forms a pattern or not - in either case the debate usually comes to a conclusion (the original
hypothesis is accepted or rejected - case closed). But a serious problem with philosophy is that almost
anyone can take a defensible position on a given topic of debate and many of these are irrefutable as opposed
to those in the sciences.
Thus debate may go round and round like a dog chasing its tail - the problem of endless cycles we mentioned
before (in another context this is a habit or an addiction). I recently picked up a copy of the British
journal called The Philosopher's Magazine. Regarding this point about debate in philosophy, one of the
columnists wrote this, "Whilst there is debate in science, there is also consensus. But the extent to
which consensus exists in philosophy is itself debatable." Even among professional philosophers
(yes it is still possible to make a living as a philosopher), there is beginning to be a recognition that
"Houston, we have a problem!"
Long ago in history, going back to at least the biblical times of Abraham the patriarch, the heart was recognized
as "the seat" of knowledge and wisdom. At some point in history after the era of the scribing of these ancient
wisdom texts, the mind - specifically the intellectual-rational portion of it "took over" the heart's position
and became the "master" of knowledge and wisdom. This resulted in an imbalance in how humanity processed information
and lived their lives. That imbalance has persisted to this very today.
In Kabbalah there has always been a recognition that feeling, emotion, spirit, and mind exist in an interweaved
system of "checks and balances" that is not inherently stable - i.e., balance and integration of this system
must be maintained actively and dynamically - much like a modern engineered feedback control system such as the cruise
control in one's car. Where we find ourselves today is in a highly unbalanced state where humanity has allowed
the intellect to "run wild" with itself like some unruly child.
What I believe Kuthumi is suggesting by saying "philosophy is dead" is that we recognize that so-called
"stinkin' thinkin'" (a southern US expression) no longer serves us as we move into the New Way. And this does
not mean we should abandon thinking altogether or seek to extinguish the intellect. Quite the contrary. When we focus
on the balance of that 4-legged stool Tobias spoke about this past summer - mind, body, Spirit, gnost, we are
making a choice to actually honor the intellect by becoming aware of its true and rightful position within the
human psyche and enabling it to take its rightful place in that system. When we do, our consciousness - our Spirit
essence integrated with gnost becomes the "loving leader of the pack" whose true responsibility is to guide the
intellect rather than the other way around - to mix metaphors a bit more "the dog needs to wag its tail", not the reverse!
In Kabbalah, that human "system" is metaphorically symbolized by the Tree of Life - an intricate (not necessarily complex),
interconnected network consisting of many characteristic primal energies (such as wisdom, knowledge, understanding,
and feeling among others), paths and dimensions - and one with both symmetric (like a cube) and asymmetric
(like a strange chaotic attractor) topology. The Tree is thus a mapping of the Divine human (the latter is sometimes
referred to as the Adam Kadmon - the archetypal human) that provides us guidance on how to maintain an
appropriate balance and stability of interaction among the intellect, the life-experiential, the emotions and the feelings.
The rational-intellect is only one part of us. Learning does not only take place through
this facility. Experience, as it is said, is one of humanity's greatest teachers. Kuthumi
had not been in touch with that part of himself in his formative years. He arrived at a point
where he had to completely reject - actually nullify - the thinking part of his mind before he
could expand beyond it to the realm of experiencing and feeling life - REALLY feeling it!
It was clear that Kuthumi needed to set aside the books, the classes, the mental explorations.
He was stunted experientially and emotionally (we can see that from his parents). Even so,
notice this - Kuthumi did not stop learning! He simply shifted into a different mode of it. Learning
goes well beyond the mind - includes the whole self - while not throwing the intellect/thinking away.
About 10 years ago a book was written called "Emotional Quotient" - abbreviated EQ (as opposed to
"intelligence quotient - IQ). This book became the lynchpin of realizations on the part of the
scientific and educational communities that whatever intelligence happens to be (and science
still hasn't totally figured that out yet!) it goes far beyond the mind. It includes the
emotions and one's feelings. It includes intuition and creative activities such as music,
painting, sculpture, athletics - kinesthetic intelligence if you will. Michael Jordan, renowned
basketball player (retired) has a high EQ. If you've ever seen him play you immediately recognize why.
Thus Kuthumi, changed directions so that he could add a type of learning through direct experience to his
mind-brain repository of knowledge, wisdom and intelligence.
I have been asked many times "how have you been able to integrate the feelings, mind and Spirit aspects of your life?"
So let me share a little bit of my own experience with you in this regard ...
As a young child, even before kindergarten it was recognized that I had a prodigious ability to draw/sketch. I drew what
I saw. Nature was alive for me in a way words can never capture. I sketched out of this fascination, partly from a
desire to capture it, understand it and listen for the "still small voice" of Spirit. I believe I was trying to
merge "outside" and "inside" in order to capture the fleeting essence of Spirit. I was also fascinated with
butterflies and spent the summers in the New York Catskill mountains chasing after them with my net - and
subsequently drawing them too. I felt the energy - the vibrations of nature melded with Spirit very strongly.
They called me constantly in a game of hide-and-seek and my love affair was a pursuit!
That pursuit changed into the most intense curiosity of its mysteries in my teen years. At that time I became
fascinated by states of feeling. Mostly because I felt deep emotional pain and wanted to "figure that out." Clearly at the same
time I wanted to know that I was in the safe space - was loved, cared for and protected. I thought I had to come to understand
everything I could about human psychology - about the mind. I studied it intensely, and right after graduating high school I became a
participating member in a psychotherapy group (just for the experience of it you understand. I had no problems - my parents did,
but not me ;-)).
In my senior year of high school I studied physics and I came to realize that if I wanted to truly understand the mind, I needed to study
the mother science physics, which in Newton's time was known as "the philosophy of the natural world" or natural philosophy.
With my A in high school physics and a 98% score on the New York State Regents exam (only NY and California had such standardized
tests in the 1970's) I went to a technical institution in Brooklyn now called Polytechnic University to study physics.
This was an immense challenge, but a glorious one! My college years were 4 great ones of being a physics major and playing college basketball
(the latter even more important to me than the former at the time).
All along the way - from my earliest days growing up in Brooklyn,
Kabbalah was present for me in my life. Kabbalah is all about experience, it is "within the within" and
"beyond the beyond" at the same time. Later, armed with physics knowledge, I spent 10 years of graduate study
of the mind through
cognitive neuroscience, human psychophysiology, and biomedical engineering - sciences that are today bringing
together the feelings, the emotions,
and the experiential with the workings of the mind in very exciting ways. I continue these pursuits with the desire to help children who suffer
in the world from their differences related to their dynamic brain development, such as learning issues, autism, and injuries-insults
to the brain.
I am also here on earth now to share all this with you - the bringing together of the mind with the feelings, and with the physical,
the emotional, the gnost, the Spirit - 4 legs of the stool holding it up as one!
Feeling and thinking do not have to be dualistic - they do not have to be opposing forces as both
Kuthumi and Madame Blavatsky were well aware. It was necessary for Kuthumi to have many lives of
thought-based study, followed by a nervous breakdown, a rejection of mind, and an engagement of
experiential learning in order to finally and fully recognize that feeling and thinking merge now
to create whole new sources of energy, wisdom, thought, and "new" philosophy.
But the old philosophy - it is time to let that go now because it is dead. And what happens
when we let go of the dead? It comes back to us in a whole new way. No longer just of the rational
mind. No longer of linear logic. It comes back as expansional, as chaotic, capable of adaptation,
growth, evolvement - with feeling, passion and New Energy. It enables us to visit new potentials
and reach for brand new vistas of achievement, discovery, and experience! So although philosophy
as we currently know it has fulfilled its purpose to enlighten humanity - it leaves "the stage"
now, making room for a brand new philosophy to come in.
"Philosophy is dead! Long live philosophy!
Thank you very much for joining me this month.
Michael E. Brandt is a tenured medical
professor and research scientist-engineer working in a major health sciences university
in the Houston Texas Medical
Center. He has degrees in physics (BS) and biomedical engineering (MS and PhD).
He has performed research into the human brain-mind, the heart, and the immune
system for over 24 years. But his "real" work is in teaching how science and
Spirit relate to each other. He applies this information in his counseling and
Kabbalistic healing practice. For further information please link to
www.DivineHealingPrayers.com.
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© Copyright 2007 Dr. Michael E. Brandt, Houston, TX, who is solely responsible for the contents herein.