Shed It!

Last night at the end of yoga class we had a guided meditation where we were told to breathe in love and breathe out hate or negativity. I imagined the letters of the Hebrew word for love, lit up and bright, being inhaled and the letters of the Hebrew word for hate being exhaled (looking smoky and sooty - like car exhaust).

During this meditation I had a flash of realization that I will still have a wonderful identity if I let go of certain painful childhood memories; particularly, from the way I was severely mishandled in grade school. All these years, the narrative of this mishandling was part of my identity. Now I realize that I am free to give myself the gift of detaching my identity from this narrative.

I can now shed it, to welcome a freshly liberated level of my identity awaiting within.

Voices in Dance

My inner voice changed from spiritual to romantic.

What’s happening to me, have I too changed?

I used to be so full of spiritual insight and depth.

Now I yearn to share shelter with a female.

Wherever I turn she appears in form or apparition.

Gentle breezes are ripe with the sound her voice.

I no longer feel like I can dispense spiritual advice.

I can only share the new music residing in my heart.

The songstress’ voice overlays the voice of intuition.

The “still small voice” whispers in the background.

She’s become an actress lurking behind my scenes,

While the siren sings of love, crooning on front stage.

My, oh my, do I call this progressing or regressing?

In the grander scheme it’s really so hard to tell.

The bigger picture always seems to have more room.

Out in the expanse of Infinity more’s right than wrong.

Regardless of my view, I don’t seem to have choices.

I am carried by forces from beyond conscious reach.

I look forward to when both voices will dance together,

When the spiritual and the romantic will sound one voice.

“living” or “LIVING”?

What’s really called “living”? Is it “living” or LIVING”? I’ve recently noticed an interesting connection between the two new years most celebrated around me: the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, and the secular one, January 1st.

Although there are other legitimate views, it has become fairly popular among Orthodox Jews to accept that Adam’s birthday was on Rosh Hashana. (Parenthetically, the other view is that Adam’s birthday would be on the 1st of Nissan - i.e. the 1st new moon of spring.)

The claim that Adam’s birthday is on Rosh Hashana can find support in the Talmudic story about the days gradually getting shorter and colder right after Adam was exiled from the Garden of Eden. Not knowing yet about the seasons, he thought that this was the fulfillment of what he was warned that on the day he ate the forbidden fruit, he would pass away. As the autumn/winter season progressed, Adams reasoned that pretty soon the planet won’t be able to sustain life. In response, on the shortest day of the year late December, he and Eve fasted and prayed.

About eight days later, January 1st, the days grew noticeably longer. Realizing that light was returning, he celebrated “LIFE” and set it as a future date of celebration for himself and his descendants after him, including us. So from Rosh Hashana to January 1st, he felt like he was “living”, i.e. he was a biological entity. However, on January 1st, he first felt like he was “LIVING”! What a difference! Until January 1st, he was psychologically tortured with deep seated concern over the demise of all biological life.

Being so psychologically tortured can barely be called living. It’s simply dismally dragging along. However, on January 1st, he was blessed by the Creator with a revelation of happiness and celebration. He was taught that his own life and the life of all the creatures around him will continue on. Now he was really alive, as it states by Jacob upon learning that his precious son Joseph was alive and well, “And the spirit of Jacob came alive!” Now Adam was truly alive for the very first time.

So in a sense, January 1st is the real beginning of Adam’s life; his true birthday! Rosh Hashana was his biological birthday, but, January 1st was his psychological birthday. Our perception of life, more than anything else, is what makes us feel alive. Let’s celebrate!

 

  

Happy New Year !

Today is the fast of the 10th of Teves. I am not feeling very strong. However, it is certainly easier to fast on a day when I am off from work, for I can contemplate the meaning of why I fast.

Whatever, my range of free choice is, within those limits, there’s still always room to lift my head a drop further away from the direction of selfishness or self absorption and open the door for Your Light to become revealed to humanity that much more. I don’t have to take an all or nothing approach. I can encourage myself with the teaching from our sages that while I am not expected to complete the work, I don’t need to feel discouraged about doing my part. My little bit, is valuable.

So today I stay away from a staple of human self absorption for a safe while, food. The problem with self absorption is that it’s the very opposite from what our Creator are about. Self absorption is about limitation, it limits the scope to a narrow focus, oneself. Our Creator about Infinity, an expansive scope, an all inclusive scope. One needs to look beyond the borders of one’s own skin to enter into a relationship with Him ~ for He has no borders.

This teaching not only applies to the scope of one’s kindness, but to the scope of one’s intellectual probings too. Why accept what imagined limits? As His thoughts are not limited, so too our thoughts should push beyond previously assumed limits, bit by bit. This way we begin to imitate Him and create closeness through a similarity with Him - however, small and insignificant such a step may seem from His Infinite perspective. Yet, what’s barely a fraction of an inch for Him might be light years for us.

Yet, we cannot totally burst out of limits either. Limits form the vessels which contain. They’re part of the fabric of anything which isn’t Him. Hence, neither the spiritual realms nor the physical realm could exist without limits. Neither souls nor angels could exist without limits. Every identity is a unique packet of consciousness, of sentience, contained within defined limits.

The building of vessels is part of what a Torah lifestyle accomplishes. Kabbalah teaches that counterintuitively the mark of holiness is the presence of vessels which contain spiritual lights. The mark of impurity is the free flow of uninsulated spiritual lights, which ends up wreaking havoc. So where’s the balance between too many limits which block true potential and too few limits which intoxicate beyond potential; the difference between not going far enough or going too far?

The answer is likely to be a life of selflessness built on the back of self preservation. In other words, take care of oneself first and be very giving from that basis, without losing that basis. For how can one give if one does not have what to give from?

We can learn a lesson from the afterglow left in the wake of the retraction of the Infinite Light. The afterglow allows in a single tenuous ray of Infinite Light from one opening on top. Rabbi Chaim Vital is very clear that if this tenuous ray reached the bottom of the afterglow too, there would be two openings to the Infinite Light and this would be too much. The Infinite Light would gush in and take over, causing the afterglow to disappear into the Light; much the way dim light disappears in intense light.  

Yet, Rabbi Shalom Dov Schneerson quotes a view of “some Kabbalist” who state that in the future the ray of light will reach the bottom of the afterglow, opening it up to the Infinite Light on both ends. Obviously, this will be a time of far more intense spiritual revelation than we experience today.  So what happened to Rabbi Chaim Vital’s concern that such a scenario would cause the afterglow to disappear into the Infinite Light?

Perhaps an answer is that the afterglow itself is a vessel which develops in capacity over a period of stages. In an earlier less developed state, the afterglow only has the capacity to give the Infinite Light the pleasure of entering from one opening. As the afterglow develops she becomes a more capable vessel, able to handle more Light. In her new capacity, she can now give the Infinite Light the pleasure of entering her from two openings. So too as we develop, we build our capacity to be more giving without compromising our gifts to give. Hence, we fast today with a balance; not to the point where it compromises our health, a very necessary basis for human selflessness. 

This seems like a nice attitude to begin the secular year with. Happy New Year!

 

  

All Union is Really Reunion

Last week’s Torah portion is visibly about union via reunion, as there’s a huge and celebrated reunion between Joseph and his family. And though barely mentioned as such, it must have been a reunion with much sacrifice, as a whole huge family, living in their dream spot, uprooted themselves to make an “apology in motion” and a demonstration of love to a family member who was treated unfairly and cast years earlier into an unjust situation.

Technically, Joseph’s wishes could have been fulfilled by having Jacob move to Egypt with a retinue of key family members. The rest would keep the Jewish settlement in the Holy Land going, a project which I am sure Joseph would have appreciated; visiting with their Egypt bound relatives from time to time and transporting goods back and forth.

While such visits might not have been easy, from the way the Torah describes Joseph’s brothers descending to Egypt to buy grain, it certainly does not seem like it was overly burdensome (inconvenient maybe, but overly burdensome not). As a common trade route, there must have been well worked out ways of making the journey back and forth between the Holy Land and Egypt.

Yet, the whole family decided to all move down to Egypt. Why? It must have been to make the reunion especially warm and fuzzy for Joseph; to really heal his psychological wounds.

This leaves me wondering why the brothers’ repentance was not deemed complete to the point that well over a millenium later, maybe closer to two, there was the story of the ten martyrs. During this incident ten holy sages were cruelly executed by the Romans, allegedly to restore balance to cosmic justice misaligned by Joseph’s sale into slavery.

When is enough, enough?!

I say the same thing about the exile we currently find ourselves in. And it’s not only the Jewish people who are in exile, all humanity is in exile; indeed, the whole planet is in exile. The displacement of one, sets off the displacement of all. Of course, there’s always room for human beings to improve in the areas of Torah, prayer and acts of kindness, but when is enough, enough?!

“Better to be the tail of the lion than the head of the fox.” Let’s have a messianic era already, even if it means that we don’t deserve the “cadillac” version of it.  Far better is the least ideal version of a messianic era than the most ideal life exile can offer.

Like the reunion of Joseph’s family, the messianic era too will be a union which is really a reunion. The way the Jewish people are one spiritual community above, actually one meta-soul above, so will the Jewish people be united below.

In a sense this like soul mates. The difference is that soul mates are still one soul on lower spiritual levels, closer to the earthly realm. Whereas, the souls of spiritual communities differentiate higher up. So in a sense, the messianic era union of people below is an even more poignant and more a intense union/reunion than soul mates, for it’s drawing spiritual energy from a unified state even higher up. This could be why it’s harder to attain. To date, many people have married their soul mates, while nobody has really experienced the messianic era.  

However, this notion can give emotional strength to non-soul mate couples too by making them aware that they too can attain a point where their souls are one; only it’s higher up and likely to be a point shared by others as well (not exclusive to themselves). However, with effort it can still be drawn from to enhance their marriages.

It seems like since the universe (spiritual and physical) exists in the Creator’s Seamless Oneness, there really is no such a thing as a union which isn’t also a reunion. It’s just a question of how far one has to stretch upward to reach the original point of union prior to differentiation.

Union via ReUnion

Intimacy of soul mates are baby steps towards prophecy. The essence of prophecy is union with the "Shechina", i.e. the Divine Presence. In this state the prophet's consciousness temporarily moves closer to his/her Divine Source. In a more ideal state of this experience, total union is achieved where the prophet's consciousness becomes seamlessly continuous with his/her Source. Consciousness merges; totally sheltered, nurtured, pleasured within the "Shechina's" cosmic womb ~ a spiritual fetal experience.

It's the highest possible experience of "other" which is really "same". It's an "other" which became "other" through the illusion of fragmentation, but was really "same" all along. It's the highest kind of union ~ as it's ultimate reunion. Yes, the highest of union is really reunion.

Uniting with a soul mate is a lower level of the same idea. Though it's not perched at the heights of prophecy, it's still union via reunion. It's about awakening to one's greater expanded self through love, caring, sharing and intimacy. It would make sense to me that just like there's a climactic moment in prophecy where the union is most intensely tasted, so too with soul mates in love. It's in the moment when the illusion of being separate selves most intensely dissolves and a feeling of seamless continuity takes over.

I still wonder whether I have tasted a spark of this the other night. Suddenly in the midst of conversing with my special  someone, my heart felt simultaneously lost and found in her's ~ we were like a single continuous heart. A tent of shared consciousness surrounded us. Internal barriers dissipated. I forgot the verbal content the moment our conversation concluded. However, the feeling of our hearts being aligned in singular continuity lingered on and carried me.

I wonder whether this is a sign.

Awaiting Love

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• I have many family members whom I love, friends who I am close to, but, the love of my life I still await.
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• I've been disappointed in love and fear that I might feel uncertain even if I were to stare her in the face.
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• My hope is that she'll recognize me first and inspire me to see beyond the fog of grief into the sunlight of her soul.
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• There is a cheerful side to this too. There is a kind woman who's trying to do exactly this for me. She tells me that on her side there is no fog. She assures me that the identical light she sees in her heart, radiates in mine too.
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• I truly give her a lot of credit and maybe, someday my heart in marriage.