Each sephirah on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a state of consciousness, a jewel, a virtue of our internal Being.
The Tree of Life contains the history of creation, the many facets of God, and the map of the internal spiritual path within its branches. The Tree of Life is our own Being. To move consciously in the Tree of Life and to incarnate its fruits are what we yearn for.
These fruits are the holy virtues: victory over the mind, splendor of the internal worlds, real beauty, true justice, love, intelligence, wisdom, and the crown of life. These cannot be found externally but must discovered within ourselves.
The sephiroth of the Tree of Life are as follows, starting at the bottom branches and up to the roots in the Absolute. The names are in Hebrew and English.
Malkuth
The Kingdom. The physical world is a false world that we have created through psychological sleep and materialism. It is a kingdom without a king, a world without the Being. Malkuth is the physical world in the third dimension. Here we learn about our physical conditions, the limitations brought about by our karma. We have been given a powerful Kabbalistic prayer in this world, the Our Father prayer which contains ten segments, each relating to a different part of the Being.
Yesod
The Foundation. The vital world, is called the Foundation because everything physical is a crystallization of vital energy. Yesod is the energetic aspect of the physical world and related to the vital, sexual root of all of the energies in our body. In this realm we learn about the sacredness of our sexual force. Yesod is known as the ninth sphere and is always a reference to sacred sexuality.
Hod
Splendor. The astral world, the intermediary between the physical/vital and the superior worlds. The astral world of dreams is where the impulses of the higher dimensions become symbols, myths, archetypes, stories.
Netsach
Victory. Triumph in the world of the mind, where we work on conquering the battles of the opposites of the mind.
Geburah and Chesed
Mercy and Justice. Called Atman and Buddhi, the Divine soul and the Intimate. Mercy and Justice must be in equilibrium. Justice without Mercy is tyranny, Mercy without Justice is chaos and anarchy.
Tiphareth
Beauty. Central on the Tree, this sephirah is love and wisdom, mercy and justice in perfect combination. Tiphareth is the causal world, the origin of all cause and effect, and the world of conscious will, the realm of the Human soul.
Binah
Intelligence. This is not the same thing as mental quickness or cleverness, we can have mental quickness and still be psychologically asleep. Binah is the intelligence is of the Being, the chess master who can see 50 moves ahead. This sephirah is the unfoldment of the Holy Spirit into the Divine Mother, completing the trifecta of the upoer triad.
Chokmah
Wisdom. The Christ force is the wisdom and compassion that descends over and over into creation to sacrifice itself and bring light and salvation to all beings. When Jesus Christ said, “No one enters into the Kingdom of the Father except through me.” he was speaking as a manifestation of Chokmah, the Son, in relation to Kether, the Father.
Kether
The Crown. “Be thou faithful until death and I will give you a crown of life.” –Revelation 2:10. Kether is the highest sephirah of manifestation, the Father, who always faces the Absolute in deepest contemplation. The crown is the triumph of the Being and the entry of the virtues we have incarnated, brought into the Absolute.
The Absolute
Beyond matter and energy, beyond creation, from where the roots of the Tree of Life grow.
“The Tree of Eternity has its roots in heaven above and its branches reach down to Earth. It is Brahman, pure Spirit, who in truth is called ‘The Immortal’. All the worlds rest on that spirit and beyond him no one can go. This in truth is That.”
– Katha Upanishad
References and further reading
Kabbalah from Gnostic Muse
Dion Fortune, The Mystical Kabbalah
Samael Aun Weor, The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah