81 Taoist Tetragrams/81 Kabbalist Tetragrammatons

[Songshou]

Hi!  I haven't (yet) seen this insight elsewhere, but in ancient Kabbalist literature they have recognized about 54 (if I remember rightly--from the book "Meditation and Kabbalah" by Aryeh Kaplan) four-letter permutations of Yud, Hey, and Vau (representing the 3 Pillars of the Tree of Life)

 

However the full number of possible permutations is 81.

In Taoism, though not as well-known as the 64 Hexagrams, there are also 81 Tetragrams (using solid, broken, and twice-broken lines for "Heaven", "Earth" and "Human").

 

These Kabbalist 81 Tetragrammatons can be placed on the Tree of Life as 81 energy relationships between the 9 lower Sefirot -- in this matrix, Kether the "Crown" remains above as prior to manifestation and energy relationships.

The 81 Tetragrams of Taoism are equivalent structurally to the (possible) 81 Tetragrammatons of Kabbalah:  solid line = Yud, broken line = Hey, twice-broken line = Vav.

Just as the Taoist 81 Tetragrams are composed of 9 Bigrams, so the 81 Kabbalist Tetragrammatons are potentially composed of 9 Bigrammatons (one for each of the 9 lower Sefiroth).

Maybe next time I'll post some drawings to illustrate this. It's quite interesting!

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2017 by Songshou

[nohbody]

Whisper the tetragrammaton without any vowels.  That's the only one that matters. (YHWH)

[thelerner]

One of my practices is Rawn Clarks YHVH canticle The magic of IHVH ADNI -- at http://abardoncompanion.com/csm/contents.html .  Its a very interesting kind of chant practice that edges into the magical realm.  It's Hermetic, Bardon inspired, I notice the middle part is from the famous Rabbi/mystic Nachman of Breslov, the middle phrase was his mantra (strange but he used them in the late 1700's).  

 

There are 9 deep lessons to it, as well as healing modality version.  Plus sounds good in the shower  

[Michael Sternbach]

On 9.8.2017 at 7:59 AM, Songshou said:

Hi!  I haven't (yet) seen this insight elsewhere, but in ancient Kabbalist literature they have recognized about 54 (if I remember rightly--from the book "Meditation and Kabbalah" by Aryeh Kaplan) four-letter permutations of Yud, Hey, and Vau (representing the 3 Pillars of the Tree of Life)

 

However the full number of possible permutations is 81.

In Taoism, though not as well-known as the 64 Hexagrams, there are also 81 Tetragrams (using solid, broken, and twice-broken lines for "Heaven", "Earth" and "Human").

 

These Kabbalist 81 Tetragrammatons can be placed on the Tree of Life as 81 energy relationships between the 9 lower Sefirot -- in this matrix, Kether the "Crown" remains above as prior to manifestation and energy relationships.

The 81 Tetragrams of Taoism are equivalent structurally to the (possible) 18 Tetragrammatons of Kabbalah:  solid line = Yud, broken line = Hey, twice-broken line = Vav.

Just as the Taoist 81 Tetragrams are composed of 9 Bigrams, so the 81 Kabbalist Tetragrammatons are potentially composed of 9 Bigrammatons (one for each of the 9 lower Sefiroth).

Maybe next time I'll post some drawings to illustrate this. It's quite interesting!

 

 

 

 

The 81 tetragrams are the core of the Tai hsuan ching - a remarkable book, of which there is an English translation by Derek Walters.

 

The number 81 has some significance in various metaphysical systems, especially Chinese ones. Just  consider that the Dao de ching has 81 chapters.

 

I wasn't aware of the Kabbalistic permutations though - thanks for that. Any idea why Kaplan acknowledges only 54 of the 81 possible permutations?

[Songshou]

Hi Michael!

For some reason, the Kabbalists never explored all the possible permutations.  They did use some of the permutations for meditation, healing, etc.  Kaplan doesn't say much about that, though.
 

I'm familiar with Derek Walters' translation. He (or the publisher) makes one error in his chart: reverse-labeling the once-broken and twice-broken lines. Correctly:  once-broken is Earth, twice-broken is Humanity.

The other translation by Michael Nylan is more complete, but the publisher (despite the author's pleas to have it corrected) misprinted several tetragrams in the chart and throughout the chapters of the book, so the illustrations are full of errors. (There are corrected charts available on the Internet.) However, at least the book has the once-broken and twice-broken lines correctly labeled! 

Printing this book seems to bring out dyslexic tendencies!  

Anyway it's interesting how close in concept the 81 permutations of Heaven/Earth/Humanity are to the Kabbalistic threefold model (3 Pillars, 3 Elements, Father-Mother-Child, 3 Father letters, 3 Mother letters, etc.)

 

As I intuited it, once you place Keter "above the fray" (above or before Manifestation--and Daat is beyond Manifestation, on another dimension), you start with Yud on the Pillar of Mercy, Hey on the Pillar of Severity, and Vav on the Pillar of Balance. You end up with 9 bigrammatons that interact to form 81 tetragrammatons.
So, for example, the most important tetragrammaton Yud Hey Vav Hey is an interaction of Hesed --> Malkhut -- which might be interpreted as God's Mercy descending and expressing in Earth.

The 9 bigrammatons are:

Yud Yud  = Hokhmah

Hey Hey = Binah

Yud Hey = Hesed

Hey Yud = Gevurah

Vav Vav = Tiferet

Yud Vav = Netzah

Hey Vav = Hod

Vav Yud = Yesod

Vav Hey = Malkhut

 

Put them on a Tree of Life/3 Pillars diagram and you'll see the pattern more clearly.  What we end up with is 81 Patterns of God's Spirit in Manifestation (manifesting from Hokhmah to Malkhut). Kabbalists explored some of them, at least 54, though I don't know what they said about them other than the little Kaplan writes--and I don't know if they may have used another matrix, since this is just my intuition and not likely the only approach!

 

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Songshou

[Songshou]

And just to finish my thought, in line with the principle of "wheels within wheels", each of the 9 lower Sephiroth includes aspects of all the other nine--therefore 9 tetragrammatons for each of the 9 lower Sephiroth.  And 9x9=81.

Using just HOKHMAH as an example (and using Y, H, V for Yud, Hey, Vav):

 

HOKHMAH (its Hokhmah aspect)     YYYY   

HOKHMAH (its Binah aspect)           YYHH

HOKHMAH (its Hesed aspect)          YYYH

HOKHMAH (its Gevurah aspect)       YYHY

HOKHMAH (its Tiferet aspect)           YYVV

HOKHMAH (its Netzah aspect)          YYYV

HOKHMAH (its Hod aspect)               YYHV

HOKHMAH (its Yesod aspect)            YYVY

HOKHMAH (its Malkhut aspect)         YYVH

From another perspective (in a Yang/Yin mode), you could say, for example, YYHH is HOKHMAH leading / Binah following. And so then, the opposite HHYY would be BINAH leading / Hokhmah following (or fulfilling, etc.)

 

The tetragrammatons for the 9 lower Sefirot by themselves just repeat the two-letter sequences:

YYYY (Hokhmah), HHHH (Binah), YHYH (Hesed), HYHY (Gevurah), VVVV (Tiferet), YVYV (Netzah), HVHV (Hod), VYVY (Yesod), and VHVH (Malkhut).

These are SACRED codes. Just as King Wen formulated the 64 hexagrams, but his nephew the Duke of Chou later interpreted them (and later generations added further insight), the holy and virtuous meanings and uses of these will need to be both intuited from within and revealed from above. But in this Age where such systems have been, perhaps must be, made public, and Kabbalists, Taoists and others have revealed much that was formerly kept secret, it's worth setting out this matrix for those who can meditate upon it, for the glory of God and to bring God's kingdom down on earth as it is in heaven. Those who study the Sefirot deeply and broadly enough will surely receive insights about how the Sefirot relate to each other in these 4-letter codes of Yud, Hey, and Vav. Just proceed with love and reverence for God and God's Will, and with deep-seated Awe toward the holy Letters (Yud, Hey, and Vav) which are Conscious as God is Conscious.  

 

Let God's Letters call us their "friend", as God called Abraham his "friend", for our right-use-ness of them to bring in God's healing and resolution of all problems, all crises.   (Of course, those who misuse or abuse God's Letters and become their enemy will pay the penalty.)

(Of course, if written in Hebrew letters, each tetragrammaton is written from right-to-left, in reverse to what I wrote here with Roman letters.)

Edited August 18, 2017 by Songshou

[Taomeow]

On 8/12/2017 at 9:03 PM, Michael Sternbach said:

 

The 81 tetragrams are the core of the Tai hsuan ching - a remarkable book, of which there is an English translation by Derek Walters.

 

 

 

I have it translated by Michael Nylan (a few years later). 

 

[Asmo]

On 9.8.2017 at 7:59 AM, Songshou said:

Hi!  I haven't (yet) seen this insight elsewhere, but in ancient Kabbalist literature they have recognized about 54 (if I remember rightly--from the book "Meditation and Kabbalah" by Aryeh Kaplan) four-letter permutations of Yud, Hey, and Vau (representing the 3 Pillars of the Tree of Life)

 

However the full number of possible permutations is 81.

 

On 13.8.2017 at 6:29 AM, Songshou said:

For some reason, the Kabbalists never explored all the possible permutations.  They did use some of the permutations for meditation, healing, etc.  Kaplan doesn't say much about that, though.

So, for example, the most important tetragrammaton Yud Hey Vav Hey is an interaction of Hesed --> Malkhut -- which might be interpreted as God's Mercy descending and expressing in Earth.

 

Hi!

There is a reason why Aryeh Kaplan lists only 54 permutations.

 

Look at the 81 permutations and imagine them as a flowing dynamic, like your example above.

To have a flow, you need an imbalance. There has to be a higher/lower difference.

 

The middle pillar is the pillar of balance, so from a flowing dynamic viewpoint  it does nothing.

Therefore you have to take the 81 permutations and substract the middle pillar tetragramms (3*9).

 

Hope this helps

 

Have a nice weekend!

Chris

 

[Songshou]

5 hours ago, Asmo said:

The middle pillar is the pillar of balance, so from a flowing dynamic viewpoint  it does nothing.

Therefore you have to take the 81 permutations and substract the middle pillar tetragramms (3*9).

-------------------------------------

That's quite interesting. Thanks for that perspective, Chris!  Kaplan didn't give a list of the 54 he mentioned (not in that book), so I can't at present look for a pattern in them; but I see what you mean from the flowing dynamic view.   Songshou