• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tarot and Kabbalah: Arcanum 10

Arcanum 10

The Tenth Arcanum of the Tarot is the wheel of fortune; it is the same wheel of samsara, the tragic wheel that symbolizes the ancient law of return. We must differentiate between return, reincarnation, and transmigration, which are all completely different.

Return

The worlds, the heavens, the stars, the four seasons return to their original point of life. The ego returns through all of the 108 lives of each human being, in accordance with the 108 beads of the Buddha’s necklace. Disincarnated egos penetrate into the infernal worlds and others return into a new womb when death arrives. The ego is a compound of many entities; some of those entities return into animals or plant-organisms, and some of them return into human wombs. This is how the ego returns into a new organism. The Buddhata (Essence) which is our divine and substantial part, returns bottled up within the ego. Undoubtedly, many parts of ourselves live within animal organisms.

The same events are repeated when we return into this valley of tears by law of recurrence. Everything returns and occurs as it was in other lives. The law of return is intimately united and associated with the law of recurrence. In other words, everything occurs as it occurred before, with its good or evil consequences; the same dramas are repeated. This is called karma.

Reincarnation

This is the descent of divinity into a human being. The incarnation of Vishnu into a human being is what is called an Avatar. Properly, Vishnu is the Christ, the Solar Logos. This is why in India they say that reincarnation is performed by Vishnu. Krishna spoke about this by saying, “Only the Devas reincarnate.”

Transmigration

This starts when the Being becomes part of the mineral kingdom, then evolves into the plant kingdom; after a lot of time, subsequently through eternities, the Being rises into the evolution of the animal kingdom in order to rise up to the human state where 108 lives are assigned to us. If at the end of the 108 lifetimes, the Self has not reached realization, then the devolving process commences in the submerged kingdoms of the planet Earth, where the Essence or Buddhata recapitulates its previous states as an animal, plant, and mineral. The Essence or Buddhata is purified in the profoundness of the abyss, in the atomic infernos of nature. This Essence is purified, is liberated from within the ego through the disintegration of the ego. Thus the Essence, free after eternities, comes back to rise again, beginning a new evolution from the mineral kingdom, then the plant, the animal, until finally claiming the human state which was previously lost. This is the law of the transmigration of souls.

Only through awakening the consciousness is it possible to know if we have already devolved and started again. Everything related with return and transmigration is of a lunar type. Only reincarnation is solar.

The solar forces are separated from the law of return and the law of recurrence. All of this is part of the Tenth Arcanum. While we do not disintegrate the ego we have to return.

To die is necessary in order to be liberated. The death of the ego is indispensable. Only thus will return cease.

If the Egyptian Book of the Dead is studied, it will be noticed that Isis is the one who is called in order to kill the ego. The death of the ego is impossible without the Divine Mother. The Essence is liberated with the death of the ego and is lost within Osiris, the Divine Christ. The Essence resurrects within the heart of Osiris. Thus, the affections, the attachments to things, our desires, all of this will cease to exist.

We must die in order to liberate ourselves from the tragic wheel. The seeds of the ego must be burned in order for them not to resurrect, and then we bathe ourselves in the waters of Lethe and Eunoe, thus confirming ourselves in the Light. We must kill Cain, which is the lunar mind. This mind is worthless and it must be eliminated. It must be killed because it is animalistic.

For this reason, the ancients saw the figure of Cain in the Moon. The mind is called Cain. The mind is a hunter. The mind is hunting for fortunes, social positions, fame. This mind is utilized by the know-it-all-scoundrels in order to triumph; they feel they are wise and powerful with that animal lunar mind that is well-cultivated.

There is a sculpture of the figure of a decapitated angel, the Angel of Samothrace. This sculpture signifies that after the ego has been dissolved, after having burned the seeds of it, after having bathed ourselves and having been confirmed in the Light, etc., the initiate has to pass through the decapitation. This is because the death of the lunar body and the lunar mind is missing. These two bodies that form Cain are the two subjective elements which must be decapitated. After all this, only Osiris remains, and the Essence that remains within the heart of Osiris; thus, the right to carry the asp (the serpent) on the forehead is granted. As the Book of the Dead states: he can sit down as the great Osirises who are chiefs of their abodes are seated, he then can carry the serpent on his forehead, he already has the Verb, he has triumphed, and he does not utilize powers in an egotistical way.

Osiris is a Cosmic Christ. An Osirified Human Being is one who has the Cosmic Christ, one who does not have subjective elements, one who has been liberated from this tragic wheel of life and death where the cause of pain resides.

The most violent struggle that we go through in order to achieve the elimination of the ego is that struggle against the terrible tempting serpent which is the abominable Kundabuffer organ, the tail of Satan. This serpent is the horrible python that Apollo hurt with his darts. This serpent is the antithesis of the Divine Mother. This is a dense and frightful matter that fights against us.

While we are not within the “boat of Isis,” we are worthless.

According to Egyptian wisdom, Thoth is Hermes, and Hermes is Mercury, the great hierophant, the minister, the ambassador of the Solar Logos, the great instructor, the one who raises us from initiation to initiation. However, who is he within us? He is the Ens Seminis.

We can escape from the great wheel and from the pain of this world, which is totally transitory and painful, only by means of the Great Death. To go beyond the affections, beyond our most beloved beings, is necessary, and this is a very difficult exertion.

This world is terribly painful. The only thing that is worth living for is the realization of the Being, because all else is vanity.

Synthesis

- We liberate ourselves from the wheel of Samsara only by means of the Arcanum A.Z.F.

- The body of Adam-Kadmon is formed by the Sephiroth.

- The human being enters into the kingdom of Adam-Kadmon when he attains in-depth realization of the Self.

- The kingdom of Adam-Kadmon is finally absorbed into the Absolute, where life, free in its movement, shines.