The Awakening Ground: A Guide to Contemplative Mysticism - Hardcover

Smith, David Chaim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1620555336 ISBN 13: 9781620555330

Publisher: Inner Traditions, 2016

Synopsis

Contemplation begins with intellectual understanding. As contemplation deepens, the mind shifts from the accumulation of data to the unfolding of direct gnostic apprehension.Offering a step-by-step guide to the practice of mystical contemplation and direct ecstatic revelation, David Chaim Smith explores how to ride the razor's edge of the paradox of gnostic awakening and coax the mind from the sleep of habituation into nonconceptual gnosis. He sets the process within the symbology of the kabbalah, introducing six stages or gates of contemplation, each illustrated by original works of art that elaborate the stage's main tendency, kabbalistic implications, and symbolic functioning. Drawing upon the 13th-century kabbalistic text The Fountain of Wisdom, 17th-century alchemical texts, and writings of Isaac the Blind and other kabbalistic masters, the author reveals how meaning never remains static - its nature is to move, transmit, and display - yet its precious potential becomes buried under layers of mental constructs. He explains how the mind's habits and reflexes impose structures of containment to make sense out of phenomena, but these very structures obscure the essential nature of all phenomena.

About this title

Review:

“Well, this I would call a must have book. And one I intend to return to in depth. I think most people mainly associate David Chaim Smith with his beautiful and intricate visual cabalistic vistas, but this is something else. It’s his own story of awakening to what’s behind the scenes of symbol-heavy old texts. Which makes it valid and relevant for a general ‘occult’ audience too. Information, as we all know, can be ingested ad infinitum, but it serves no purpose (higher or lower) if the process doesn’t allow for insights and genuine wisdom to flow through and take hold. Smith calls this ‘awakenings,’ and that’s indeed a very apt term. As usual, his images are incredibly beautiful, and it’s totally possible to see how his manifestation of them helped him delve deeper/higher on his own path. That’s not saying you have to be a skilled master artist to ‘get’ any kind of bigger/inner picture, but the devotion certainly helps. You may file this under ‘Cabala’ and ‘great art,’ but make sure you actually use it in inspirational ways--whichever tradition you’re coming from.” (Carl Abrahamsson, filmmaker, musician, author, publisher of Fenris Wolf)

About the Author:

David Chaim Smith was born in 1964 in Queens, New York. His early career was as a visual artist throughout the 1980s. In 1990 he began an immersion into the root sources of Alchemy and the Hermetic and Hebrew traditions of the Kabbalah. In 1996 he abandoned visual art for a total dedication to spiritual practice, from which came a unique blend of practical mysticism and creative innovation. This blend coalesced while working with an obscure thirteenth-century text called The Fountain of Wisdom, which he mapped out diagrammatically in notebooks during his ten-year hiatus from visual art. The resulting symbol vocabulary served as the basis for his 2006 return to art, generating the content for several books. He currently lives in the suburbs of New York City with his wife, Rachel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Inner Traditions
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1620555336
• ISBN 13: 9781620555330
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208