What we can understand about Lilith...
Hello again!
Well, here I am again at the "Controversy" page! First I want to thank everybody that answered my previous discussions.
So let's start! Lilith is considered nowadays to be a goddess or a demon. And Blavatsky shared two different views about her. One of them is from the Theosophical Glossary:
"Lilith (Heb.). By Jewish tradition a demon who was the first wife of Adam, before Eve was created: she is supposed to have a fatal influence on mothers and newly-born infants. Lil is night, and Lilith is also the owl ; and in mediaeval works is a synonym of Lamia or female demon."
Another work by Blavatsky, The Secret Doctine, shares another perspective:
"But with the Fourth Race we reach the purely human period. Those who were hitherto semi-divine Beings, self-imprisioned in bodies which were human only in appearance, became physiologically changed and took unto themselves wives who were entirely human and fair to look at, but in whom lower, more material, though sideral, beings had incarnated. These beings in female forms (Lilith is the prototype of these in the Jewish traditions) are called in the esoteric accounts "Khado" (Dâkini, in Sanskrit). Allegorical legends call the chief of these Liliths, Sangve Khado (Buddha Dâkini, in Sanskrit); all are credited with the art of "walking in the air", and the greatest kindness to mortals; but no mind - only animal instinct."
Well, so here starts the confusion. In the Theosophical Glossary, Blavatsky says that Lilith is a terrible demon, but in the Secret Doctrine she says that the Liliths have the greatest kindness to mortals. And to make things worst, in the Tibetan Buddhism is said that:
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Although dakini figures appear in Hinduism and in the Bön tradition, dakinis are particularly prevalent in Vajrayana Buddhism and have been particularly conceived in Tibetan Buddhism where the dakini, generally of volatile or wrathful temperament, act somewhat as a muse (or inspirational thoughtform) for spiritual practice. Dakinis are energetic beings in female form, evocative of the movement of energy in space. In this context, the sky or space indicates shunyata, the insubstantiality of all phenomena, which is, at the same time, the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations.
Dakinis, being associated with energy in all its functions, are linked with the revelation of the Anuttara Yoga Tantras or Higher Tantras, which represent the path of transformation, whereby the energy of negative emotions or kleshas, called poisons, are transformed into the luminous energy of enlightened awareness (jnana) yielding rigpa.
When considered as a stage on the Vajrayana Path, the dakini is the final stages" From Wikipedia.
So, what are your thoughts about this subject? Is Lilith a neutral entity or energy that can be manipulated?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ferran Sanz Orriols on
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I dare say that anyone who is prepared to practice the higher tantras has long ago learnt not to manipulate.... ;-)
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Permalink Reply by ornamentalmind on
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In the context of tantras such as the Guhyasamaja, I agree with Ferran… unless perhaps if one uses the notion of ‘manipulate’ as an aspect of the clarification process involved with poisons…a stretch of the use of language.
Continuing with the style of questioning that Lady Lilith used, I’ll ask if ‘poisons’ are an aspect of mind? I ask this based on the quotation she presented from the Secret Doctrine. Personally, I question interpreting “no mind – only animal instinct.” as being in any way contradictory with the rest of her presentation. Of course, conflating different cultural concepts and language can be fraught with difficulty.
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Permalink Reply by Lady Line on
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I understand but what's a contradiction is that they have the greatest kindness to mortals, not because they have no mind.
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I really don't know. Maybe that they are a kind of elementals. So they are neutral beings, not good and not evil, just like animals are.
Well, I think that's it. ; )
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Permalink Reply by Bart Lidofsky on
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Blavatsky's second description is accurate about Jewish tradition, but the first is not.. In Jewish tradition, borrowed from the Sumerian, Lilith was a dybbuk (malicious elemental) who was responsible for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or "crib death"). The first mention of her as Adam's first wife appears In the satirical medieval book, The Alphabet of Ben Sira, the story of Lilith first appears as a story Ben Sira tells to Nebuchadnezzar to explain his healing methods when trying to cure Nebuchadnezzar's son. This, at most, can be considered a "midrash", a fictional tale designed to fill in holes in the Bible and teach a lesson in the process. Although ignorant Jews have treated it as real, it is no more Jewish Tradition than Blavatsky's "Nightmare Tales" should be considered true stories.
It is ironic that many women have treated Lilith as the avatar of women's rights. Maybe not as suprising; even as prominent a woman as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has stated that she does not see a difference between killing a ready-to-be-born fetus in the womb, or taking it out of the womb alive and then killing it as "the law saves not a single fetus from destruction."
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Permalink Reply by Mark Kusek on
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For a modern healthy perspective on dakinis, check out the work of Lama Tsultrim Allione (www.taramandala.org) and the writing of Judith Simmer Brown (Dakini's Warm Breath). I can also reccommend the recently published (2018) "Dakini Activity" from Rangjung Yeshe Publicatons.
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