Knots in the heart

a) The following quotes from Abulafia's writings are taken from Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism(Schocken Books, NY 1961)131:
'Abulafia's aim ........ is 'to unseal the soul, to untie the knots which bind it'. 'All the inner forces and the hidden souls in man are distributed and differentiated in the bodies. It is, however, in the nature of all of them that when their knots are untied they return to their origin, which is one without any duality and which comprises the multiplicity.' 'The 'untying' is, as it were, the return from multiplicity and separation towards the original unity'.'
[Idel considers Abulafia to be 'a central figure in Jewish mysticism' - Moshe Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah (SUNY Press, Albany, 1988) p1.]

b) 'When He who is immanent and transcendent is perceived, directly experienced, then all doubts are dispelled, all knots of the heart that tie an individual to this sensible universe are completely cut asunder, and all the deposits of [past] karma is wiped out.'
Mundaka Upanishad II:2.8

c) 'Not by the slothful, nor the fool, the undiscerning, is that Nirvana to be reached, which is the untying of all knots.'
Buddhist scripture

Return to stage 11 analysis.