How Nothing Becomes Something — The Occult Law of the Void — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Nothing in your life has ever been
2. 0:01created without an empty space existing
3. 0:04first. Not one thing. The Kabbalists
4. 0:08built an entire system around this and
5. 0:10they put it into a symbol on this page.
6. 0:12A set of rings spiraling inward toward
7. 0:15the center that holds nothing at all.
8. 0:18What the symbol describes is the first
9. 0:20act of creation in the universe and it
10. 0:23wasn't the making of something. It was
11. 0:25the making of emptiness. Understand why
12. 0:28and you'll see exactly why so much of
13. 0:30what you're trying to build in your life
14. 0:32refuses to appear. So, let me show you
15. 0:34what we're actually looking at. The
16. 0:36Hebrew words at the top of this image
17. 0:38read Ein Sof, which translates as
18. 0:41without end, the infinite. That's the
19. 0:44Kabbalistic name for the source before
20. 0:46creation. The limitless thing that has
21. 0:48no shape or boundary because any shape
22. 0:51at all would make it finite. The caption
23. 0:54called this the symbol of nothing and
24. 0:56the all absolute. And that pairing is
25. 0:59deliberate because this tradition holds
26. 1:01two words in tension with each other.
27. 1:03Ain, which means nothingness. Yesh,
28. 1:06which means something or being.
29. 1:08Everything that exists came out of the
30. 1:11relationship between those two words and
31. 1:13the whole teaching sits in how that
32. 1:16happened. Here's the problem the ancient
33. 1:18mystics ran into and it's genuinely a
34. 1:20good one. If the finite fills absolutely
35. 1:24everything with no edge and no gap
36. 1:26anywhere, then where does the creation
37. 1:29go? There's no room for it. A thing can
38. 1:32only exist somewhere the infinite isn't
39. 1:35and by definition there is nowhere the
40. 1:37infinite isn't. Creation becomes
41. 1:40impossible not because of any lack of
42. 1:42power, but because of a lack of space.
43. 1:45What they concluded is the part I want
44. 1:47to sit with because it's one of the
45. 1:49strangest ideas in all mysticism and it
46. 1:52arrives in a moment. Before I get
47. 1:54[clears throat] into, look at the shape
48. 1:56of the symbol again. Rings inside rings,
49. 1:59each one smaller than the last,
50. 2:01contracting inward towards a tiny
51. 2:04opening at the center. The movement in
52. 2:07this image is not outward. Nothing is
53. 2:09expanding here. Everything is pulling
54. 2:12back. That pulling back has a name, and
55. 2:14the name is tzimtzum. It means
56. 2:16contraction or withdrawal. The idea
57. 2:18developed by Kabbalist Isaac Luria in
58. 2:21the 16th century is that the first act
59. 2:24of creation was not an act of making. It
60. 2:28was an act of removal. The infinite
61. 2:31withdrew itself from a single point,
62. 2:34pulled back from itself, and left behind
63. 2:36an empty space, a void. And into that
64. 2:39void everything else could finally be
65. 2:42poured. This reverses everything you
66. 2:44were taught about how things get made.
67. 2:47Creation did not begin with an addition.
68. 2:50It began with a subtraction. Before
69. 2:52there could be something, there had to
70. 2:54be somewhere that nothing lived. The
71. 2:57void was not the absence of creation. It
72. 2:59was the first requirement of it. This is
73. 3:02what makes the symbol so precise. The
74. 3:04contracting rings are the withdrawal
75. 3:06itself, the infinite stepping back ring
76. 3:10by ring. And the small clear space at
77. 3:12the center is the room it made. From
78. 3:15that one empty point, everything that
79. 3:18exists unfolded outwards. That's also
80. 3:20where the tree of life comes from. The
81. 3:23circles on that tree, the 10 stages that
82. 3:26creation flows down through, all emanate
83. 3:29from this. The tree does not start with
84. 3:32a trunk. It starts with the emptiness
85. 3:34that the trunk grows into. Every level
86. 3:37after that is just the filling of a
87. 3:39space that was hollow at first. Take a
88. 3:42deep breath right now and notice what
89. 3:45has happened first. You cannot breathe
90. 3:48unless you breathe out. The lungs have
91. 3:50to be emptied before they can receive
92. 3:53anything. And if you hold on to the air,
93. 3:56the new air has nowhere to enter. Nobody
94. 4:00ever told you that breathing is half
95. 4:02about emptying, but it is and you do it
96. 4:04thousands of times a day without ever
97. 4:07connecting it to anything larger. Look
98. 4:10at the seed in the ground. A seed cannot
99. 4:13grow in a packed crowded soil. It needs
100. 4:16gaps, pockets of air and space between
101. 4:19the particles. And the farmer who wants
102. 4:21harvest spends as much effort clearing
103. 4:24and turning round as planting in it. The
104. 4:26clearing is not a preparation for the
105. 4:29real work. The clearing is the real
106. 4:31work. Music is made out of this, too. A
107. 4:34melody is not a solid wall of sound.
108. 4:37It's notes with silence between them.
109. 4:40And if you removed every gap, you
110. 4:42wouldn't have intensified the music.
111. 4:45You'd have destroyed it. The silence is
112. 4:48not the part where nothing happens. The
113. 4:51silence is what makes the notes mean
114. 4:53anything at all. Even the room you're
115. 4:55sitting in works this way. What makes it
116. 4:58useful isn't the walls. It's the
117. 5:00emptiness the walls hold. A cup is the
118. 5:03same. Solid clay all the way through is
119. 5:06a lump. The hollow is the whole point.
120. 5:09So, the law holds everywhere you look.
121. 5:12Emptiness comes first and whatever gets
122. 5:14created arrives into the room that the
123. 5:17emptiness made. Which brings this to
124. 5:19you. And to the reason I think this
125. 5:21teaching matters more than anything else
126. 5:24in this tradition. Your life right now
127. 5:26is probably very full. Full calendar,
128. 5:29full inbox, full evenings, and a mind
129. 5:32that has something playing in it from
130. 5:34the moment you wake until the moment you
131. 5:36fall asleep. Every gap that opens gets
132. 5:39filled within seconds. Usually with a
133. 5:42screen. Standing in a queue, waiting for
134. 5:44a kettle, sitting at a red light, the
135. 5:47hand reaches for the phone
136. 5:49automatically. And a small void closes
137. 5:52before anything can grow in it. And then
138. 5:55people wonder why no new ideas come. Why
139. 5:59direction never arrives. Why they feel
140. 6:02stuck despite working constantly. The
141. 6:05answer is sitting in a 16th century
142. 6:07diagram. Nothing new can enter a space
143. 6:10that's already occupied. You are not
144. 6:12short of effort. You are short of empty
145. 6:15space. Think about where your best ideas
146. 6:18actually came from. Not from a desk and
147. 6:20not from hours of grinding. They came in
148. 6:23the shower or on a long walk or when
149. 6:26lying awake at 3:00 in the morning,
150. 6:29driving with the radio off or just doing
151. 6:32nothing at all. The one thing all those
152. 6:34moments share is that your mind has
153. 6:36nothing to chew on. The void opened and
154. 6:39something came into it. That's not
155. 6:42coincidence or a quirk of brain
156. 6:44chemistry. That's this law operating in
157. 6:47your own head and you've already seen it
158. 6:50work dozens of times without naming it.
159. 6:53So, let me get specific about how to use
160. 6:55it. The first move is to create the gap
161. 6:58on purpose instead of waiting for one to
162. 7:01appear. Pick a window in your day and
163. 7:03leave it completely unfilled. No phone,
164. 7:07no music, no podcast, no productive
165. 7:09reading. 20 minutes of deliberately
166. 7:12nothing. Go for a walk with nothing in
167. 7:15your ears or sit and stare at a wall and
168. 7:18let your mind run out of material.
169. 7:21Whatever comes up in that space is what
170. 7:23arrives from the deeper part of you and
171. 7:26it only speaks when the noise stops. The
172. 7:29second move is to remove before you add.
173. 7:32If you want something new in your life,
174. 7:35look first at what has to leave to make
175. 7:37room for it. A new habit needs a slot in
176. 7:40your schedule, which means something
177. 7:42currently in that slot has to go. A new
178. 7:45relationship needs emotional space,
179. 7:48which means the old one you're still
180. 7:50half holding on to has to actually end.
181. 7:53New thinking needs room in your head,
182. 7:56which means some of the opinions you've
183. 7:58been carrying need to be set down.
184. 8:01Clearing comes before planting every
185. 8:04single time and anyone who tries to
186. 8:06plant into packed ground wonders why
187. 8:09nothing takes. The third is the hardest.
188. 8:12It's where almost everyone fails. You
189. 8:15have to tolerate the emptiness while
190. 8:17it's still empty. When you clear space,
191. 8:21it does not immediately fill with
192. 8:23something wonderful. That's a gap, and
193. 8:25the gap feels awful. It feels like
194. 8:28boredom, like being behind, like
195. 8:30something that has gone wrong and you're
196. 8:32wasting time. The instinct is to fill it
197. 8:35immediately. And the moment you do,
198. 8:38you've undone the entire thing.
199. 8:40Discomfort in the empty space is the
200. 8:43sign the process is working, not
201. 8:46failing. The void is supposed to feel
202. 8:49like nothing because that's precisely
203. 8:51what it is. Hold it open long enough and
204. 8:54something comes. If you close it in
205. 8:57panic after 2 days, nothing ever comes.
206. 9:00I've watched myself get this wrong
207. 9:02plenty of times. I would clear out a
208. 9:05commitment, feel the strange hollow it
209. 9:07left, and have the slot refilled within
210. 9:10a week with something equally pointless,
211. 9:13just to stop the discomfort. It took me
212. 9:16a long time to work out that the hollow
213. 9:19was the asset, and I was throwing it
214. 9:21away every time I got uncomfortable.
215. 9:24There's one thing in this teaching worth
216. 9:26taking with you, and it's the part that
217. 9:28actually changes how you look at a bad
218. 9:31year. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the
219. 9:33withdrawal was not a loss. The infinite
220. 9:36did not become smaller or weaker by
221. 9:39pulling back. It gave up space on
222. 9:42purpose so that everything else could
223. 9:45exist. Apply that to your own life, and
224. 9:48it reframes a lot. Every period of
225. 9:51emptiness you've lived through, every
226. 9:53stretch where things fell away and you
227. 9:56were left with less than you had before,
228. 9:58was not necessary subtraction for its
229. 10:01own sake. The space that got cleared is
230. 10:04where the next thing grows. You can't
231. 10:07see what's coming while you're standing
232. 10:09in the gap because the gap by definition
233. 10:12contains nothing in it. Yet, the void
234. 10:15always comes first and from the inside
235. 10:18it feels like a loss. So, the next time
236. 10:21your life opens up a space you didn't
237. 10:23ask for or you get the urge to fill
238. 10:26every quiet minute with noise, remember
239. 10:29the shape of this symbol. Rings pulling
240. 10:31back from a center making room. Nothing
241. 10:35becomes something but only in that order
242. 10:38and never the other way around. If this
243. 10:40gave you something useful, subscribe and
244. 10:43tell me in the comments what you'd empty
245. 10:45out first if you took this seriously.
246. 10:48I'll be reading all of them.