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Video Description
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is traditionally described as existing across four worlds: Atzaluth, the world of pure emanation; Beriah, the world of creation; Yetzirah, the world of formation and dreams; and Asiyah, the physical world of action. Rather than treating these as separate, stacked realms, this breakdown argues all four are present at once, right here, in ordinary experience, and that the vertical hierarchy is simply a convenient way of describing differing levels of density and activity.
Drawing a parallel with Advaita Vedanta’s waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep states, the discussion turns to the Abyss: the apparent darkness of Beriah where subject and object first separate. That darkness, it argues, is really just light with nothing yet present to reflect it, and the felt gap between self and world, dramatized as a sword holding two sides of a chasm apart, can be set down in any ordinary moment to touch the undivided ground beneath it.
Full Video Transcript
When you are a student of the Mysteries, it’s a good idea to do all of the assigned work that your teacher gives to you.
And when you interact with your teacher, your teacher will know whether you have done all the work or not.
It depends on the demeanor that you present as you’re working with your teacher, but it also depends upon the kinds of questions that you ask.
I’m saying this because there are some questions I get, let’s say on the Twitter account, where people say, okay, I’ve done all the work up to this point, but something I don’t understand.
What’s this and this and this all about?
One of those questions is for the supreme invoking ritual of the pentagram.
Why is it done differently?
Why do you start in the south and then go to the west and then go to the east and then go to the north?
That doesn’t make any sense.
Could you please explain that?
and uh i explained it of course but um my my thoughts secretly to myself are they haven’t
done the work because uh if you had studied the work done all the reading done all the ritual work
you would see that oh the south corresponds to absolute the west corresponds to baria the east
corresponds to Yetzira, and the north corresponds to Asiya. These are the four
worlds of Kabbalah, and that’s the order in which they perceive. The highest world
is Atzaluth, which is represented by fire. The second highest world is Beriah,
which is represented by water in the Golden Dawn system. And the next layer
below that is Yetzira, which is represented by air, again in the Golden
system. And then at the bottom is Asiya, the world of action where we live. And that corresponds to
the north and to earth. And so Raghardi taught the supreme invoking ritual of the pentagram
in that order. And that’s also in the order of the Tetragrammaton, which students would also know if
they had done the work. Today, let’s talk about the four worlds of Kabbalah. And what I’d like
to do is rescue these from being something so something from being something so utterly
mysterious and transcendental okay so let’s see if we can experience the four worlds as they exist
right here and now okay so the idea that the four worlds are you know stacked one on top of the
other that’s just a matter of convenience those are levels of activity okay levels of lack of
activity uh but uh you can experience all four worlds in the present moment more or less okay
so if when somebody assumes that oh we’re on the bottom most level and that’s where we are now and
that’s all there is to it and i have to do special things in order to experience the next highest
level to reach that level i don’t know grow that high or something like that right uh all these
ways of looking at it have some validity. Yes, you’re expanding consciousness, so it gets bigger
and higher and deeper. Sure, why not? But we have to remember that the idea of a vertical hierarchy
is artificial, okay? And very often I tell my students to investigate the difference between
a vertical hierarchy and a nested hierarchy, or the difference between a branched hierarchy and
a nested hierarchy and i don’t really want to say much more about it than that just look it up look
up those two concepts see how they work there’s so much that can be gleaned from the difference
between a nested hierarchy and a branched hierarchy okay or a nested hierarchy and a
vertical hierarchy all right so as you know uh the tree of life is the primary system used uh in the
golden dawn okay at least at first okay well it’s pretty much the underlying system for the whole
thing there are other things that come into play um and the the student in the outer order
at least in the kabbalah magic book okay the outer order as it exists today uh it goes through a
process of building four trees into the aura four trees okay so the tree of life supposedly exists
on in four different worlds okay uh there are many ways of looking at the tree of life you
could look at it as in terms of a holographic universe so like every svera every every circle
on this little diagram here uh has its own little tree inside it and if you go into that little tree
every every svera on that tree has its own little tree inside it and on and on and on ad infinitum
okay so uh the the tree of life is sort of this pattern that’s pushed into creation from the
smallest little microbe to the largest galaxy it the principles of it are operative at all scales
okay this according to the wisdom of kabbalah okay if you buy into it and it’s important to
buy into it when you practice it and yes the uh the the student builds the tree into his or her
aura in this way okay and here’s another diagram uh pretty much of the tree of life built into the
aura okay now in the kabbalah magic book uh the lowest level in this diagram asia the lowest of
the four worlds okay the lowest of the four kabbalistic worlds is asia the world of action
and that in this diagram appears as the physical body the figure in these in the midst of that
bubble there okay and then the next higher world uh manifests in this diagram as the sort of astral
double or etheric double of so in other words like a glowing interior interior body like a
secondary body that’s a glowing astral body okay so inside this figure you would see like a body
of light glowing and it uh pretty much sits inside the physical body as it were uh it is a higher
level of the being okay but it resides within the skin sort of and it kind of glows toward the
outside okay so that is the next higher level i mean that these things aren’t necessarily true
absolutely but this is the way that uh the four worlds appear uh in and around the human body
at least according to the Kabbalah magic book okay the next higher level is Berea that’s the
world of creation okay and that’s represented by the bubble by the aura itself all right so
uh that is the uh and of course there’s only one higher level than that okay and Atzaluth is the
highest level uh it cannot really be conceived of the absolute cannot be depicted in any of
these forms okay it’s beyond conception uh so we merely represent it as the pattern of the tree
itself with the 10 spheroth okay there’s 11 here anybody who studies kerbala would know why there’s
11 but essentially there’s 10 spheroth on the tree of life and there’s also uh daath which is
another sort of um shadowy sphera which exists in the throat or it manifests there okay all right
um and of course as one goes through the grades in the kabbalah magic book the grade of earth
corresponds to a sia which is the world of action and that’s where you will do some visualization
with a physical body you can even visualize it as a crystalline a crystalline form if you want to
or just have it just visualize the physical body itself.
And then in Theoricus, which is the grade of air,
then you will visualize the astral double
hovering inside the skin, glowing, okay?
And that will be in different colors, okay?
And in each grade, like in the Theoricus grade,
you’ll go through, you’ll visualize this interior space
in different colors and you’ll vibrate different names
to attune yourself to different levels of Yetzirah, okay?
you’re building trees into your aura okay and then of course uh oh well um yeah and then of
course in the grade of berea uh then you will visualize the aura around the body and that
that you’ll do that progressively through various colors and you vibrate various names of this
okay and then of course in the um in the grade of ataluth or a philosopher’s grade you are are
picturing the tree of atzalut which is just the tree of life diagram superimposed upon the body
and that entire tree of life takes on various colors and you vibrate various god names
for that okay and so layer upon layer you’re building this and so you have this by the time
you’re done supposedly you have this sophisticated astral body with all these different colors and
names built into it okay essentially what you’re doing is you’re making friends with different
levels of the of your powers of manifestation okay so different different as the um as
manifestation sort of condenses down and begins to crystallize into physical manifestation
you are making friends with all of these different levels you’re getting to know them okay that’s
essentially what you’re doing and on if you were to see the four worlds of kabbalah on a single
diagram of the tree they can be represented this way okay this is the way the golden dawn
represented the four worlds and i do find this uh diagram to be better than the one that’s maybe
typical this is more common i think in among other cabalists or kosher cabalists maybe
they see Berea look at that second level there Berea it has the three spheroth inside it okay
and if you’ll notice in this diagram Berea actually encompasses only two of this spheroth
okay and this diagram I consider to be more accurate more profound okay they both have
uh virtues to them right uh i’m going to talk about the different levels of of uh manifestation
okay as we experience them okay these things are not really all that mysterious uh certainly the
way i’ve been describing them so far it makes them sound mysterious baria is the world of creation
okay ataluth is the world of emanation yet sirah is the world of formation and asia is the world
of action okay very mysterious what’s what’s the world of emanation okay well and of course each
uh each of the four worlds could be conceived of as having a tree itself okay as you can as you can
see here the four elements are also related to the four worlds okay um some kabbalists would
rather see the four worlds in terms of um decreasing density so in other words as you
rise upon the plains going up it gets less dense so you start with earth and then the yetzira they
would say is water and then bria is air because it’s less dense and finally ataluth is fire
because it’s the least dense of all okay for the golden dawn something much more profound was done
in my opinion and that is uh there’s a vibration pattern incorporated into this so it’s sort of
if you proceed from this way, okay, this is the highest level, this is the lowest level
of manifestation, okay, so you can see it goes from active to passive to active to passive,
so yes, it gets increasingly dense as it goes down, but it basically descends lower here,
then it goes higher and less dense, but then even more dense, so virtually no density at all,
very dense not very dense super dense okay so it’s almost like a vibrational pattern as the
power descends like a wave pattern uh this is very profound and it is not the only way of looking at
it of course but it is super useful and i’m about to show you why and of course the tetragrammaton
the yod hey vow hey of jehovah or yahovah or yahovu um the yod in this case corresponds to
Asaluth, more or less, and, of course, Hakma, okay?
And then, of course, the first He, where you see the shoulders, that’s Berea, and the trunk
of the body is Yathzira, and, of course, the lower body is Asya, that world of action.
Okay, so now we have come across the experiential aspects of the four worlds, okay?
to experience these uh or to to look at these more directly and and more concretely uh i’m going
to turn to advaita vedanta which is a wisdom tradition very very old wisdom tradition from
india uh advaita vedanta means non-dual vedanta it’s a non-dual tradition uh tantra is involved
with that and uh anyway um according to vedanta the lowest level is your waking consciousness and
so the consciousness that you have when you’re awake in the world transacting business when you
go out and pay your taxes okay when you do the the gardening when you do work around the house
when you’re eating okay uh the world of action okay this is the world of your waking consciousness
and the physicality the literal world okay um the waking consciousness is the lower level okay
and notice how it’s not necessarily a lower level it is the most concentrated level okay so notice
how in this diagram we it’s sort of yes we’re going up but not really we’re not really going
up we’re going out so we’re expanding outward into less and less dense regions okay hmm this
looks a lot like the astrological version of the universe where we have the condensing spheres of
power how curious the uh the next layer up then which okay so waking consciousness would correspond
to asia the world of action the next kabbalistic world is yet sira the world of formation and this
is the world of dreams okay uh imagination dreams daydreams reveries okay the world of
hallucinations okay uh so the things you see in your mind’s eye uh and this is the place where
you go and you are dreaming at night at night okay and that is the world of yatsira okay then
the next higher level is deep sleep where there supposedly are no dreams at all it’s just black
out okay and so for most of us these are the only three levels that we are aware of so we have the
waking consciousness, dreamy sleep, and then deep dreamless sleep. And we only know about
dreamless sleep is because we wake up and we’re like, we don’t know where we were. We were
completely gone. And all we know is that we slept. It was a good sleep. I slept really well. I slept
deeply. Some people would even say I slept happily as though somehow they remember at least
that this was very nice. They were very happy when they were in their deep sleep, which they can’t
remember okay uh so the interesting thing here is that there is a fourth level okay and that would
just would be the white page okay so uh it’s the the white space outside of human consciousness
here so absolute would would be represented by the white space around that and in vedanta they
did have a word for that they simply called it turia uh and all that really means is the fourth
state okay many adepts of that tradition refer to it as deathlessness okay because uh as we
rise on the plains here uh when we go into deep sleep we black out and suppose that that’s the
same thing that happens when you die you black out and then you become non-existent you get snuffed
out of existence and then you’re gone but then miraculously somehow you come back you reincarnate
it’s like you re-emerge okay so the same thing happens at night you basically go into maybe a
dreamy reverie and then you descend very quickly into deep sleep and then earlier in the morning
and then you then you hover around in the dreamy sleep level okay uh and during the night do you
ever get to absolute hmm maybe we should talk about that uh problem with deep sleep that this
blacking out that happens in deep sleep that’s actually an illusion because there’s nothing
there is no darkness on that higher level of bria okay um and but essentially uh what we should talk
about then is let me go to a previous diagram here all right this diagram um so let’s go in
descending order from kether all the way down to malkuth or from atzaluth all the way down to asia
okay uh in absolute everything is completely unified so there’s no there are no forces that
are interacting with each other okay and if you don’t have anything interacting with itself or
or you know manipulating if you don’t have multiple objects nothing can be seen to exist
okay so absolute is already in a state of unmanifestation okay the only thing that’s
sort of manifest more or less within it is potentiality okay so when somebody dies they go
all the way up to the top supposedly they black out they’re going to oblivion but they enter the
state of pure potentiality and eventually they can come out of it again this happens to us when
we sleep at night too if we get a good if we get a good night’s sleep okay we go all the way across
the abyss disappear to nothingness and then come back out again and in in a sense this is happening
every second of every day as well there’s there’s this angels ascending and descending all the way
up and down the tree of life we’re just somehow not aware of all the different levels or we don’t
seem to be aware of all the different levels okay so at kether or at atzaluth everything is
undifferentiated it’s as you could see it as a sea of pure translucent brilliance not opaque
whiteness but pure a sea of pure transparent light okay now with berea you’ll notice you
have these two uh sphera the hokuma and bina those two now represent the principle of vibration
which is now um perceivable okay that’s the vibration between light and darkness okay so
at this level that’s the word that’s the world of creation this is where where things begin to
manifest, where this versus that comes into play, okay? So you cannot really perceive anything as
existing unless it can be perceived as other than yourself, and this begins to happen in Vriya,
okay? That’s why there’s darkness here, because anything that penetrates beyond Vriya will cease
to exist and what happens is that our our human minds will make darkness out of that
it’s like oblivion this is the oblivion monster that we talked about earlier okay
and so this is a horrible horrible frightening situation you know but one way to look at the
blackness the endless black nothingness of bria is that it is uh completely unobstructed
uh and light is shining through it but since there are no objects floating around in berea
there’s nothing for that light to bounce off of so you might want to picture yourself floating
in space uh and if you don’t have any objects around you you it’ll it’ll be all black all
around you if you’re floating in outer space everything’s all black okay can’t see a thing
except for the stars okay but then of course you hold up your hand and there’s light bouncing off
of it where is this light coming from i couldn’t see the light before well because the light is
passing through space effortlessly okay but now that you hold up your hand there’s light bouncing
off it oh the light was here all along so the darkness is really very much an illusion it can
be a very profound thing to understand because when you disappear into the dark of deep sleep
every night um the the oblivion or the um the complete lack of awareness that we suppose to
experience is an illusion and what that means is it is possible to retain awareness going into that
state and enter this sea of pure white brilliance of absolute okay and in that sense absolute does
not really exist it is simply the light that is has been there all along shining through the
darkness all right so really this level of berea is only the outward appearance of the divine which
is scary and dark because it looks like oblivion okay because if you’re entering a sea of
undifferentiated uh beingness your standard idea of existence cannot hold up you’ll be annihilated
okay uh but consciousness still exists at that level okay which is of course indestructible
okay so um there is nothing to fear but of course uh if you are attached to your body of course that
is eventually going to uh die okay um so in that sense as a biological entity there’s there’s
plenty to fear of course because we have an instinct to be afraid of extinction okay so
that’s difficult to describe okay but you can see now that they’re the light of atzaluth and the
darkness of bria they are really the same or like maybe two sides of the same coin okay now um let’s
let’s attach something interesting to this diagram let’s say that the light of absolute is red
and the uh the darkness of bria is blue just for convenience sake okay um the interesting thing is
that the light of red, the redness and the blueness will
combine as the red shines through the blue, they will
combine and form purple. Okay. And so at Yetzirah, you could
say that Yetzirah is a purple world, because it now has the
combination of the red and the blue together. Okay. And if you
were to be able if you’re floating around in Yetzirah, if
you look really closely at anything that’s going on, okay,
um you uh you’ll see it has strands or speckles of red and blue you’re trying to find where the
purple is there is no purple but of course you’re backing off and everything looks purple okay i’m
not saying that yetzira is a purple world i’m just doing this out of convenience okay so basically to
to show how ataluth and bria combine to produce this sort of mirage this illusion of yetzira
Now, Yetzirah is a world of dreams and phantoms and ghosts and images and memories.
That’s the astral plane.
It’s where we go when we dream at night, supposedly.
And if you become awake in, well, if you wake up while you’re dreaming, which is possible,
and examine the world you’re in, you might even see that it’s, if you start to look closely,
it’s it’s really a combination of light and darkness and and oscillation or vibration uh
okay so you you begin to see ataluth and bria at play in yatsura okay and then of course um
and if you’ll notice uh in the golden dawn color system uh this is the way they portray it so if
you are working with um tefareth let’s say that’s the center sephira that’s fira uh you you you’re
going to be um you can work with tephareth in all four worlds okay and tephareth has a color
in all the various worlds okay so tephareth in the world of atzaluth uh is uh it’s rosy pink
a translucent rosy pink okay transparent rose pink color okay then um tephareth in the world
of Bria is gold, like the gold of the philosophers, gold of the rising sun, golden dawn. And then
suddenly in Yetzirah, Tifareth is salmon colored. What you’re noticing then is that the clear pink
rose of Atzaluth and the gold color of Bria have now mixed together and they are now salmon colored.
Okay. And then for Asea, then we can have a further mixture of colors. Okay. It becomes very muddled at that point. It becomes darker versions of these mixtures of colors. Okay. But primarily the top three worlds, Ataluth, Bria and Yetzira. Yetzira in the Golden Dawn system of color tends to be a mixture of the colors of the two worlds above.
So if you look at the color scales that Golden Dawn uses for the four worlds, you will notice that they tend to represent this mixture of color.
Very profound teaching going on there.
What this is telling you, though, is that you’re floating around in Yetzirah.
You are still floating around in Berea and Atzaluth at the same time.
These things are not existing at different levels.
the principles of Asiya and the principles of Bria are actually present in the world of Yetzirah
and the same thing goes for Asiya all three of the worlds above are now concentrated upon the
physical world below okay this is the secret of secret of the trinity and the quaternary
okay the triangle and the square okay that the trinity exists in the quaternary if you’re
interested in these sort of um hermetic puzzles okay uh why the number four and the number three
are so important um the number three is a is represents forces that are not stabilized yet
that are not manifested and the number four then represents uh the three levels of absolute bria
and yet syrah now combining and focused in to create some kind of physical manifestation in
in Malkuth, in Asea, the world of action.
Okay, so let’s see now.
So when you go to sleep every night,
you are essentially crossing the abyss.
This is the thing that Crowley claimed to have done.
He claims to have been initiated past the abyss,
and many people doubt that he has been or that he had been.
Now, the abyss exists at the level of Bria,
which is that darkness, the place of blacking out.
So when you have dreamless sleep every night and there’s this darkness that you disappear into and that you emerge from, this is the abyss.
It is possible to maintain awareness when you cross that abyss.
Of course, crossing it becomes a bit strange to say because I’ve just revealed to you that the separation between the divine and the human world doesn’t actually exist.
Okay, if that’s the case if all the worlds are present with us right now
Okay, then why all this fuss over the abyss if you remember in the level of Bria
Okay, that’s when duality first appears
Okay, this is the duality between subject and object and at the very basic level you and I experience
Subject and object all the time. It’s built into it’s the way our consciousness works
there’s me and everything that’s happening to me okay so all the dramas
that we create about our life and our you know specialness and all this stuff
that results from the duality of the perceiver versus the perceived okay now
this duality of perceiver versus the perceived is the root essence of all
kinds of conditioning and trauma and it’s the reason why we suffer and if you
can see through that subject-object dichotomy that were our nervous system
is constantly creating supposedly then you can stop suffering you don’t suffer
anymore in fact you become quite jolly and you end up laughing at things that
happen uh so much so that people might think you’re a bit insane um uh it doesn’t mean you
don’t cry it doesn’t mean you you uh you still participate in the drama of the world but there’s
there tends to be an intense enjoyment to it knowing that it’s not real okay if you take a
look at this you can see this this gentleman here is standing in front of a chasm this is the abyss
okay now the if the abyss the abyss is simply the gap between subject and object that’s all it
really is okay and it manifests at night as the utter blackness of oblivion that you supposedly
cross into go into disappear into come back out of uh and this is crossing the abyss now the
interesting thing in this diagram is that there is a sword a sword bridge this is the grail legend
okay it’s good this is one of the pictures from the grail legend obviously this guy wants to reach
the grail which is floating in the sky uh which is a symbol of ultimate unity okay so he exists
in the world of separation okay so in other words he he exists in berea and below okay because in
berea as you recall that’s where we get the separation between light and darkness happening
okay uh so anybody who exists below that level of duality exists uh in a world of duality okay and
uh and you notice the sword is being pointed outward towards the other so the the sense of
self and the sense of the other is bridged by a sword okay this is not so complicated a symbol
as you might think okay uh you might imagine now he now has to walk the razor’s edge along this
sword to get to the other side yeah yeah well um nice thing is he could just pick up the sword and
uh basically sheath it put it away and then the other side of the chasm would simply come in
to join it’s it’s that sword that’s keeping the world at bay the sword his his looking at the
world seeing everything out there as dangerous or tantalizing or treacherous and him pointing his
sword at it accusing it of hurting him or enticing him or leading him into error this attitude is
what creates that duality okay so the the abyss is actually a product of the nervous system as it
creates that self and other okay which is fundamental to all living things which um once
you begin to perceive a sense of self then you begin to take care of yourself versus everything
else going on around you there is the abyss okay and you might see that when when the self dissolves
uh then there is no self and other and then you just basically are back out everywhere all at once
again that’s you crossing the abyss okay uh what this might indicate to you then is yes it’s
possible to cross the abyss while you are in this form you don’t have to literally die all you have
to be able to do is see through this mirage of self versus other okay that can happen in very
ordinary moments it happened to me and there’s a lot of grade and i barely noticed it at the time
i was like what was that but i had my wits about me and i did notice it and and of course it’s a
sensation that has grown ever since then um so now when when we talk about the ultimate initiation of
crossing the abyss um this would mean permanent enlightenment so in other words you are permanently
now in touch with the state of non-duality and you do not fall into error again it is not possible
for you to uh become non-lucid and uh and get caught up in the dramas of the subject object
existence anymore okay uh that is an experience um first of all the ability to experience
non-duality is not difficult as you learn meditation you can you can get there fairly easily
okay and you can get there fairly easily by doing the golden dawn techniques okay
but you’ll mainly get flashes of awareness okay eventually uh supposedly you can enter a state
where you’re permanently in touch with the non-dual level of existence where you’re walking
around in uh atzaluth the highest world all the time okay and of course uh the funny thing is you
you will laugh at yourself because it’s like oh i’ve always it’s always been this way i haven’t
really achieved anything because as we’ve already demonstrated here the higher worlds are already
present within the lower worlds okay yeah so uh i hope to shed some light on the four worlds of
Kabbalah to show how they all sort of operate within you right now, all at once. And it might
be worth just thinking, let’s say, well, okay, so when I go to sleep every night, if it’s a good
sleep, I disappear into the darkness, and then I emerge again. Why can’t I remember that? And then
you might want to remind yourself that that level of Ataluth, which you supposedly can’t remember,
doesn’t just exist while you’re sleeping it exists right now it’s actually present right now so what
is it about my current level of understanding or whatever it is my current level of consciousness
that keeps me from experiencing absolute consciously okay i think all you really need
to look at is this sword that is holding the chasm apart okay so you have this sort of aggressive
attitude towards your world okay or a neat a sort of needy attitude a crisis oriented attitude
towards the world that is keeping you from experiencing absolutes okay yeah so once again
yeah uh and of course when you’re doing the the golden dawn grade work uh you are now building
all of these levels into the aura and experiencing them as they manifest okay so you start at the
lowest level and you’re tuning into the body and how it feels okay and already within the body you
feel all four elements and vibration whatever um and you begin to sense the higher worlds already
operative there but you can’t quite make sense of it yet then the next level is where you visualize
the astral double and then you see their more rarefied forms there and vibration sort of a
swirling mist of faces and forms things that are trying to take shape this is a world of formation
then the aura around the body which is just a uniform glow almost like a barrier okay uh where
just like a wall of color around you or of course if it’s a solid bubble of color around you uh and
then eventually um you’ll penetrate through all that and at the the greater philosophers you start
to visualize the tree diagram itself penetrating through all that cutting through all that okay
and that of course can represent the sword itself so uh if some of you have seen diagrams of the
tree of life where there is a sword descending from on high which is the sword of the caribbean
which keep you out of paradise okay well that sword is in your hand and you are using it to
keep reality at bay this is your subject object nervous system at work and of course if you learn
how to achieve that sword figuratively speaking you can experience the divine consciously right
here right now all right so i don’t know if that clarified some things for you guys i certainly
hope it did um i know it can be quite confusing as well i threw a lot of new terms out there
but of course if you’ve been doing the golden on work all these terms are familiar to you
All right, so until next time.
Source: Lyam Christopher