Life-forces

Life-forces in the Genesis

"The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity.[1] The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word for God) creates the heavens and the Earth in six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh. In the second story, God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden, where he is given dominion over the animals. Eve, the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion." (Source Wikipedia)

Before creation was nothing. 

    1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

    2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters

(Source Genesis 1:1–2: Wikipedia)

A shorted list view of what happens each day, according the holy books looks like this (Source Wikipedia): 

If one takes into account that the Old Testament creation story comes from very old sources, one can better understand that the story lacks logic and is scientifically inconsistent. In the Qur'an on the other hand, the creation story lacks many details in comparison to the Bible, but makes scientifically much more sense.  For instance, "the Old Testament relates the story about God creating the earth and man in six days (Genesis, 1) and that God took a rest on the seventh day (Genesis, 1-3). The Qur’an also mentions that the Creation takes place within “six days” but never says that God had to take a rest on the seventh day. (Al-Sajdah: 4, Al-A’raf: 54).

In contrast to the Bible, the Qur’an does not have any contradiction with established sciences and common human sense. What appears to be fundamental importance in the matter is that the Holy Qur’an does not mention specifically the sequence of Creation or the manner in how God created the world. In Sura’ Yassin, verse 33, we are told that God gave life to the earth that is dead, without mentioning on which day it had happened." (Source)

Another important point about the story in the Bible is that it is somehow given, that it describes the creation of the physical world, which is basically problematic from a scientific point of view. But if the creation process would refer to the seven heavens, the whole story would gets much more plausible.  The concept of the seven heavens, derived, as the creation myth, from ancient Mesopotamian religions and can be found in the Abrahamic religions such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity; a similar concept is also found in some Indian religions such as Hinduism.

Another strong indices that the creation process describes the creation of the heavens, lies in the simple fact, that before there was nothing and then God created the heaven and the earth. But how the seven heavens have been created is nowhere mentioned in the bible. Of course it could be argued about the divergence between  the later introduced concepts about life-forces and the description of the seven heavens in the holy books. But on the other hand the qualities that are described in the holy books about the seven heavens and those about the life-forces have so many similarities, that probably the same is described but in different ages. The differences in naming and content could simply be a (cultural) language or translation issue over time.  

Life-forces according Neo-Platonism -Sufism

If ones starts to examine the writings about different life-force concepts after the writings in the Bible and in the Qur’an it starts to be puzzling, there exists so many concepts, some of them have a lot in common others not. When we consider that concepts about subtle energies are concepts for our mind on a subject that is beyond our normal understanding, we should be humble enough to accept that none of these concepts is THE TRUTH, but rather approximations.

Starting from the seven heavens which are more or less detailed explained  in all of the Abrahamic religions, we can find similar concepts in Platonism and especially in Neoplatonism.  Many of the later introduced concepts had a strong influence from  Neoplatonism.

"Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of philosophy. In the Middle Ages, neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed byMuslim,Christian, andJewishthinkers. In the Islamic cultural sphere, neoplatonic texts were available in Arabic and Persian translations, and notable thinkers such asal-Farabi, Solomon ibn Gabirol (Avicebron),Avicenna, and Moses Maimonidesincorporated neoplatonic elements into their own thinking.[3]Latin translations of late ancient neoplatonic texts were first available in the Christian West in the ninth century, and became influential from the twelfth century onward. Thomas Aquinashad direct access to works by Proclus, Simpliciusand Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and he knew about other Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, through secondhand sources.[4] The mystic Meister Eckhart(c. 1260 – c. 1328) was also influenced by neoplatonism, propagating a contemplative way of life which points to the Godhead beyond the nameable God.

Neoplatonism also had a strong influence on the Perennial philosophy of the Italian Renaissance thinkers Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, and continues through nineteenth-century Universalism and modern-day spirituality and nondualism." (Source Wikipedia)

Especially Marsilio Ficino had a great influence on many philosophers of his and later times and he was one of the first western thinkers, which modeled kind of life-forces into their own cosmology.

"Ficino ties in with the Neoplatonist Plotinus, for whom all creation presents itself as an emanation, an outflow of the primordial one, of the divine. So everything lower flows out of the higher, and the lowest level forms matter. The human soul takes part in this a middle position, which for Plotinus does not mean much more than a sober localization. For Ficino, however, the middle position is the decisive factor. Like Janus, the human soul is double-faced. Through its bond it unites everything that the lower forms of being contain. But she also participates in the higher ones, provided that her mind is a scintilla mentis superioris, "a spark of the higher mind". The human soul participates in the life of animal and plant souls, as it participates in the life of angels and in the life of God. From the middle position of man Ficinus deduces his unheard-of dignity. He is the victarius Dei "the representative of God" on earth. He is the master of the animals, the plants of the substances. It is independent and free, free for good and free for evil. If, however, as a microcosm it includes the whole big world - plant, animal, angel and God - in its self, it rises to the divine rank, since it unites the divine powers like those of all other beings into one another "(quot in Stützer, HA (1977). The Italian Renaissance. Cologne: Du Mont. P.20, German)

If ones try to synergies the concepts from antiquity, holy books, neoplatonism and sufism into one chart it can be puzzling again. The benefit of doing this, is to boil it down to  the most simplified model, that's still acceptable in comparison of the essence of all of it, and of course the scientific model of Charon.