To resume the discussion of the sephiroth from another perspective, or from another sphere of my memory: it will be helpful to recall that my preliminary focus, some fourteen years after baptism in the Holy Spirit, was upon Yesod-- on Foundation. Kingdom, which is Malkuth in its congregational sense, seemed-- even at that advanced stage of my life in the Spirit-- to belong to the far future.

I longed for the fellowship of those moving from the foot of the cross to the tent of meeting, but I imagined that the nature of my calling precluded it, for the moment: I had been separated-- not by the workings of my intellect, but by the workings of the Spirit in the events of my life. I had yet to learn that there are many clocks in the universe, and that everything is always-- whatever we might think-right on time.

I had just begun serious study of scripture at the time of my first acquaintance with Adam Kadmon, and did not realize, even yet, that the ridiculous aspect of my spiritual reality was serving well the Father of Lights (2 Cor. 12:9). In this honored and lamentable state, I looked upward in the symbol, finding that the right- and left-hand paths were blocked to my understanding: thus fulfilling, in my ignorance, the law that says, "turn not from it to the right hand or to the left" (Josh. 1:7). The only way for me to consider the symbol (and I was beginning to have real doubts as to whether I should-- not because of a foreboding of evil, but because of burgeoning vision, which I was certain I didn't deserve), was to proceed from Yesod on the center path: I simply had to come to know the Savior as He appears on the heavenly cross (Rev. 13:8)! I had to measure the Reality beckoning from the gospels and beckoning now, also, from Sephirah Tipareth.

Shortly after my commitment to learn of the Heavenly Messiah, an angel visited me with the message, "Ask what thou wilt, and I will give it thee." Without forethought, my immediate answer was, "I want you!"

I wasn't even sure to whom I was speaking; but my prayer was soon to be answered, nonetheless. Praise El! It had not been given to me to ask to be given unto wisdom: wisdom is justified by her children (Matt. 11:19), but we are called to be children of the Living God (Luke 10:21). Although Wisdom is an attribute of Elohim, divine Wisdom is of a different order, altogether, than human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:25; 3:18-19).

Many wonderful things then began happening in a very short period of time. Perhaps these events were what Paul meant by the teaching in 2 Corinthians 12:4. Before they began to happen to me, however, I had declared in prayer that the Father was well aware of my inability to keep silent about trivial matters-- let alone to safeguard secrets, and that I therefore charged Him to withhold from me things that He wished me not to noise abroad, as I had proven myself repeatedly to be unable to exercise my will for good, despite my continually good intentions (Rom. 7). My ignorance was nearly epic (Matt. 10:27).

YHWH has great pity for us and is full of tender mercy (James 5:11). I drank from heavenly cups; heavenly vials were emptied into my soul; angels in the name of Jesus Christ fed me the Bread of Life on a fork made of Spirit; the precious, spiritual blood of Yahushúa was sprinkled into my being; I saw great books without pages, whose letters were Spirit moving across vast spaces as I read without understanding a single word with my carnal mind. I was touched in the inward man by a finger of purest Light. He who speaks with the voice of many waters spoke to me twice. He who speaks without voice, writing His messages with Light in visions perceived upon the soul, began speaking with me continually (John 5:37), each message conveying in an instantaneous flash things that would require volumes to recount.

I was freed of a powerful spell of witchcraft that had been upon me, without my knowing of it, for many years. Not every event of this period was so clearly beneficial: disobeying, at one point, in a matter that was senseless to my residual carnal mind, a crystal-like globe containing an evil spirit was hurled into my soul to instruct me concerning my willfulness (1 Sam. 16:14). I lived with the messenger briefly, without complaint; and, when I was delivered upon acknowledging the importance of obedience to God's voice above understanding of God's will when God has taken care to instruct you directly, the buffeting spirit screamed as it ascended into the realms from which it came.

Most astounding of all to one such as I, I learned the mystery of the bridal chamber, becoming thereby a true brother to my honored elder, Y'shúa. Adam Kadmon had no more place in my thoughts than the pillow you left this morning has in yours, when I became One with Metatron, as He is called by some-- the Heavenly Messiah: Yahúwah Tsavuot, projected as Yahushúa haMashiyach in the glory He had within the Father before the worlds of man began.

"Great is YHWH, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King" (Ps. 48:1-2): Tipareth; Emanation Six; Beauty on the Tree of Life called Adam Kadmon: a mystery both revealed and magnified symbolically within the Crown Diamond of the believers' Tree of Life.

After my ascension to the third heaven, for that is surely what it was, a new dimension of an old struggle began in my life. Previously, my meditations had been primarily upon the righteousness of God-- of Elohim. I wanted to understand what HaShem is doing upon Earth, that I might truly praise Him without ignorant fear of His judgments. Now, convinced that at some point in time something somehow special would be required of me because of the revelations, I began to have great concern about my own lack of righteousness-- imagining, subconsciously, that God had, inexplicably, made some kind of mistake in designating me for some yet-unrevealed work.

Parting the hoof without perfect faith, I consequently began to focus partly on the spiritual righteousness of El and partly on my own worldly progress toward my private understanding of His standard (Matt. 8:22-24; 2 Thess. 2:7). Earthly progress attends spiritual progress; but when one tries to make of it the measurement of spiritual progress, the standard is blurred, defying measurement; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23).

One thing was certain: I would embarrass Him sooner or later, bringing the cross of Mashiyach to an open shame (Heb. 6:6)! It was not, exactly, that I feared myself falling away-- every day brought, and yet brings at this editing, new evidences of His mercy and favor, as also of His chastisement and judgment (Rev. 3:19)! Rather, it was that I imagined myself to have been unduly double-promoted, as it were; and that the enlightenment, if it had indeed come, had come to inaccessible portions of the mind of one consciously unprepared for its responsibilities.

As I re-read this now, I recall the admonition, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?" Yea, Kúrios; for eternity shall barely suffice to teach me of your great majesty. Strengthen, thou, my unbelief; and give me joy in your burden of Light. You are faithful in all things, and have answered before I called: being, Yourself, the strength needed for the completion of this work.

My journey in the study of Adam Kadmon, then, progressed from Sphere Nine to Sphere Six, having begun before my acquaintance with the symbol at Sphere Ten, somewhat unusually. The way from Sphere Six along the center path appeared to lead to Sphere One-- The Supreme Crown, or Kether. How does one proceed?! He does not: it is opened to him, or it is not.

Once, in the labyrinth years before my water baptism, I was performing Bhakti yoga, the yoga of religious devotion centered in the Master. My study was clean because I maintained that Jesus is the master yogi, and so he is (John 10:16; Matt. 8:11; Rom. 1:17); but at some point, I became more attracted to the event called yoga than I was devoted to Yogi Y'shúa. At that instant, an angel appeared, saying, "You want the circle of light?! You've got it!"

		Immediately, I was literally knocked to the floor by the appearance in the center of my forehead of a circle of light some three fingers in diameter. But something was wrong! The light was distorted by thin, undulating lines of darkness moving unevenly across its face! I humbly acknowledged my error of preferring the mammon of righteousness above its Source, and the circle of light was mercifully removed, and has yet to reappear. This third eye-- the single eye of the parables of Y'shúa-- is the forehead seal of the perfected, the many-petaled Lotus (1 Cor. 9:19-25; John 1:4-5, 6:27). The words of this book are being written in the power of the seal of promise, which is the earnest of our rest in the Father's hand. Not yet perfected, I have nevertheless been admitted to the circle of Kether, having been fed of its fruit; and I have been appointed to bring from there this work. May my imperfections serve hwhy. But one such as I! "If 'Paul' means 'Little,'" I lamented (I had been having my troubles with Shaul's writings), "let my name be called 'Very Little'!" "Minuscule," came the silent reply. And so the struggle grew: Bob versus Bora, the unrighteousness of the one being obliterated by the righteousness of God in the other-- only to reappear, unexpectedly, in unanticipated permutations. Day by day I have learned by the littles: more by my failures than by my successes (2 Thess. 2:3). The right- and left-hand paths I once despaired of learning have been and are yet being opened to me (Is. 45:1): Bob was becoming as Cyrus; and Bora, as Zerubbabel-- but not without terrors! "Adam Kadmon," I protested! "You know I have rid my house of all graven images" (I had actually only eliminated the wall hangings). "I cannot deny the image of Truth I see in the symbol; but I have (Is. 45:4) known (Is. 45:5) You, the Living God! What purpose, a mere image?!'' "Bob?" came the answer, "If I open a door for you, you ought to go through it!" Even I could understand the sense of that. The Preface recounts some details of this period in the revelations. Sorry about the time jumps, but what a joyous time it was-- too full to be contained in the telling! That my "intuition" of some need to extend the lines of Adam Kadmon beyond their usual representation was confirmed taught me that my thoughts were no longer my own, but the thoughts of Ruach haQodesh, the Spirit of the Holy (Matt. 10:20). And still the vision unfolds! As a child born and growing to maturity, it shall continue to unfold upon Earth long after the steward of its coming has gone home (Rev. 22:1-5). I would willingly continue in this narrative vein, telling of the wonderful grace I continue to experience; but this work exceeds the confines of my personal story. When this book is published, I understand that there will be those who have no interest in it beyond the implications of this confession-- allowing they receive it as such, and not as words of cunning (Mark 12:22): coming, as it does, from a self-avowed sinner in the Spirit for-- well, however long!

Let details come when they will. It is enough that every reader understand that I walked and continue to walk in the cross of the two Adams (Rom. 3:8), and that I am not ashamed of that cross; for it is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16): unto the alignment of the earthly with the renewing will of the heavenly by means of an orderly balancing of accounts (Matt. 16:27; Ex. 21:24).

Although it seemed expedient to give some of my testimony in this treatment of Adam Kadmon, I find that the text has taken a spiral course in relation to the central topic of this portion of the presentation. Although the dynamics of that spiral will be presented in the illustrations concerning the Crown Diamond as it speaks to the messages to the churches of Asia, this discussion ought presently to concern itself more responsibly with an investigation of meanings of the sephiroth, themselves, as many have no previous acquaintance with this tradition.

Before resuming the presentation, however, it is necessary for me to digress yet once more to convey a message that came at this point in the composition by a series of dreams. I am instructed to forego the modern-day practice of providing copious scriptural references.

The dreams indicated that the practice is restrictive to the free movement of the Spirit as I write, being therefore in violation of the precept, "Quench not the Spirit." Furthermore, it was made clear that there is a robotic malevolence in the modern practice in its best effects; in its worst, the practice fosters a concomitant focus on the author above the Source to whom he is in service. Some text that follows was written previous to this instruction. In those passages, I will not delete biblical references; in all text yet to be written, however, I will endeavor to write after the fashion of the apostles: quoting as I am led, and alluding to scripture without designating allusions by slavish references.

To continue with the discussion of the spheres, then, no single exposition of the sephiroth can convey their vast applications as testimonial symbols of the Logos. We must agree to consider them along one line of thought only so far as that context will take us. When it no longer serves, we must prepare to examine them from other perspectives. Also: as we know that the letter of scripture kills, we certainly must not permit ourselves to succumb to a literalism with regards to these symbols or any allegories they engender!

It will not always-- will, perhaps, never-- be that a single line of thought will be exhausted of possible extension; but rather, that (were we to persist in pursuit of ramifications of a particular concept at a given point in our development regardless of spiritual factors of which we might be unaware) it might lead us beyond the parameters of foundational understanding and onto the shifting sands of speculation: thus do doctrines developed through such persistence become idolatrous and demonic. We are instructed by the words of Spirit and Life to follow Ruach haElohim, and not to grieve the Spirit by choosing to follow our own thoughts beyond the Spirit's leading. Thought, along with all other dimensions of being, is to be offered in living sacrifice to HaShem.

This same mental orientation is recommended also, therefore, in studies of the scriptures themselves: the lively oracles of Elohim address themselves to many contexts by the same Spirit, according to the questions prevalent in the mind of the reader at a given reading. As the questions are reformulated according to accrued understanding, the oracles adapt themselves by the Spirit to the new intellectual and spiritual contexts into which they are received.

To read from a new level is not necessarily to dismiss the Word's meanings at previous levels, but to advance in the spiritual interplay of point and counterpoint. To read with willful attachment to a previous level, however, is to resist being led by the Spirit; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.