Excuse the non existing format on the post above .... can't get it right, sorry ....
Lilith ?!
by Vivamus 22 Replies latest jw friends
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Ravyn
Viv,
get a hold of Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. I got it before I left JWs, and it just made it a whole helluva lot easier! She puts the feminine back into spirituality with her research on everything you thought you knew....including Lilith.
Ravyn
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Robdar
Viv,
I don't have much to add other than to say that I have always found the story of Lilith to be fascinating. Thanks for posting the info for others.
I have a copy of the 'book of Enoch' which by all criteria should be in the canon, but if you asked people to believe half the things in it you'd be fighting a loosing battle.
Searchfothetruth,
I have read the book of Enoch and found certain information regarding the elect interesting. I sometimes wonder if the WTBS didn't take some of their doctrine from that book.
I have been wanting to discuss the Book of Enoch with others who have read it. Here's my Yahoo IM addy: moonkissmi. If you are ever on line and want to discuss the book, look me up. Or email me at [email protected]
Love,
Robyn
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Vivamus
Robyn,
Thanx Ravyn, I'll definatly look for it
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greven
Interesting question, Viv!
I personally know little about lilith and those other myths, though I find it fascinating. I did once read up to other creation myths from tribes living before and with the israelites. Seeing how they correspond with eachother on various points shows you the futility of attributing much value to them other than historical signifiance (sp?).
Greven
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Vivamus
shows you the futility of attributing much value to them other than historical signifiance
I agree Greven.
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xjw_b12
Now, Lilith naturally is every men's horror, she is nothing like a woman ought to be, no subduing for her, she is independent, and naturally, all kind of evil is attributed to her
Just ask Frasier......He used to be married to her. I wonder if he knows she used to be married to Adam ?
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cellomould
In Hindu mythology, a woman named Kali occupies both a mother/goddess type role and a destructive role. When you mentioned Lilith, I started to wonder whether these mythical women were related. So I did a little internet search...
Both Kali and Lilith are the "other woman." Both of them have a husband who is married to others. Those others are more associated with their husbands than they are. Kali is seen more as a loner, and Lilith is not even in the real cannon of the Bible. Neither of these women fit into the role as wife, both of them are too independant to fulfill that role sufficiently. http://reli350.vassar.edu/trover/other.html
Kali's nudity has a similar meaning. In many instances she is described as garbed in space or sky clad. In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free from all covering of illusion. She is Nature (Prakriti in Sanskrit), stripped of 'clothes'. It symbolizes that she is completely beyond name and form, completely beyond the illusory effects of maya (false consciousness). Her nudity is said to represent totally illumined consciousness, unaffected by maya. Kali is the bright fire of truth, which cannot be hidden by the clothes of ignorance. Such truth simply burns them away.
She is full-breasted; her motherhood is a ceaseless creation. Her disheveled hair forms a curtain of illusion, the fabric of space - time which organizes matter out of the chaotic sea of quantum-foam. Her garland of fifty human heads, each representing one of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes the repository of knowledge and wisdom. She wears a girdle of severed human hands- hands that are the principal instruments of work and so signify the action of karma. Thus the binding effects of this karma have been overcome, severed, as it were, by devotion to Kali. She has blessed the devotee by cutting him free from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth are symbolic of purity (Sans. Sattva), and her lolling tongue which is red dramatically depicts the fact that she consumes all things and denotes the act of tasting or enjoying what society regards as forbidden, i.e. her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's "flavors".
Kali's four arms represent the complete circle of creation and destruction, which is contained within her. She represents the inherent creative and destructive rhythms of the cosmos. Her right hands, making the mudras of "fear not" and conferring boons, represent the creative aspect of Kali, while the left hands, holding a bloodied sword and a severed head represent her destructive aspect. The bloodied sword and severed head symbolize the destruction of ignorance and the dawning of knowledge. The sword is the sword of knowledge, that cuts the knots of ignorance and destroys false consciousness (the severed head). Kali opens the gates of freedom with this sword, having cut the eight bonds that bind human beings. Finally her three eyes represent the sun, moon, and fire, with which she is able to observe the three modes of time: past, present and future. This attribute is also the origin of the name Kali, which is the feminine form of 'Kala', the Sanskrit term for Time.
cellmould
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Vivamus
Interesting comparison, thanx Cello. both of them are too independant to fulfill that role [of wife] sufficiently. Both are independent, and also a bit dangerous...
XJWb12, lol
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Introspection
I think when and if I write my book Enlightenment Is Not Sexy it will shed some light on this subject. There's a reason why we talk about the non-dual and such. But those are cool stories.