Wars on Earth are initiated in Heaven

About a month back, one of my Kabbalah teachers stated that wars on earth are initiated in Heaven, (as opposed to in the psychological or physical universes ; see my blog posts 'The Four Universes' and 'A Spiritual Cosmology'.)

I have taken a little while to think about this. My teacher was referring, among other things, to the role of Providence, something I’ve already touched on in this blog (see 'Vegetable, Animal and Human People'.) Wars ‘stir up’ ‘vegetable’ people, affording them opportunities to become’ animal’ or ‘human’ people. They move populations around, face them with new situations, speed up the introduction of new technology, and test the mettle of all those involved. Like natural disasters, they provide opportunities for acts of courage and love, and not just towards our family or our comrades, but towards our enemies as well.

And of course, wars are responsible for terrible suffering and loss.

How I long sometimes for the God of my childhood, for ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ (his smashing things up in the Temple in anger was swiftly glossed over). God did not start wars, humans did, in strict disobedience of Him. God was Love.

Of course ‘he’ is, and a whole lot more.

Even as a child I knew that there was something awry with the view of God that my Sunday School teachers were giving me. So a lot of evil might be down to humans using their free will, but what about the natural world? Did it become red in tooth and claw because Eve ate the apple and, if so, wasn’t that a bit ‘unfair’ on animals? Furthermore, if God cared so much, why didn’t He intervene more to stop really terrible things? But it didn’t matter because, when we died, we would all go to heaven and live in bliss and splendour for ever and ever, so that was all right then.

It was via James Hillman’s writings, such as his book ‘The Soul’s Code’ that I first became aware of just how ruthless the soul can be in pursuit of its Divine purpose, and what it can put its various earthly incarnations through in the process. When I came to study Kabbalah I learned that existence in its fullness is manifested between the two opposing poles of mercy AND severity (force and form, see my blog post 'A Spiritual Cosmology') The aim of the kabbalist is to help to keep these two poles balanced, to proceed in consciousness back up through the universes, using a path centred between the two poles, to reunite again at one with the Divine, bringing with us all our experiences of those realms. And while we make our journey upwards, we act to ‘bring down’ the freedom and glory and Divinity of the upper universes to this material one.

Each incarnation is an adventure. Don’t get too attached to it, or anything in it because, like a dream, it will all dissolve. Throughout this life, and many others, you’ll win some, you’ll lose some. It is all simply a process which you can use to become more and more fully human, wiser, more loving, more aware of who you really are. Like childbirth, it’s going to hurt and, yes, you’ll voluntarily go through the whole thing again.