Meditation and the Moral Compass

Begin analyzing the structure of Biblical Law and you will find that the nature of all of the Commandments is predicated on morality. When you boil down the essence of Biblical Law, you are dealing with a universal, divine imperative. God speaks to us with the direct intention of imparting to us, specifically what He wants from us. From the biblical standpoint the very law of the universe that governs humanity is based squarely on the importance of moral behavior.

The covenant at Mount Sinai sets down in terms of our relationship with the divine. Not only is that relationship worked out directly with God, but also involves to an even more explicit extent how we interact with each other. In short, our relationship to God and our relationship to mankind are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, the Commandments are meant to be an intricate fabric of moral instruction.

On the practical level, all of the Commandments found in the Bible are meant to be a training process for the soul. The objective is twofold. First, by following the Commandments one is trained spiritually on how to approach God.  Drawing close to God involves reverence and devotion. By being able to sense the holy, we are imbued with an abiding sense of reverence. With a deepening of reverence comes the growing desire to serve with devotion. These are the keys to an expanding experience of the divine.

Second, the Commandments are designed to instruct us as to how to interact with one’s fellow man. Communication and interchange with other human beings requires moral consciousness. From the biblical vantage point, the entire universe is governed by the laws that God has set down.  In regard to the cosmos as a whole, the law of God is understood as natural law. The counterpart of natural law as it applies to humanity is moral law. It is a specific application of universal law.

Because humanity is endowed with both high intelligence and free will, there is a great capacity within human experience to move away from the divine toward self-aggrandizement and self-interest. Therefore, God articulated the Commandments as a system of moral instruction. The objective of this instruction is to move the soul consciously and deliberately toward holiness and a deeper connection with the divine.

In communicating with us at Mount Sinai, God was setting down a behavioral pattern that is to regulate human interchange along moral lines, which parallel universal law. Hence, the injunctions regarding the approach we need to take with the divine are designed to bring the soul into more direct experience of the holy and the Holy One.

Moreover, the divine imperatives that underlie the Commandments are also designed for the spiritual development of the soul. This is accomplished by setting specific, moral guidelines for ones interaction with others that train the soul in the behavioral imperatives that are essential for peace, harmony and alignment with the divine will.

One way of understanding this concept simply is to understand that service to God comes primarily through action. How we relate to the world is also how we relate to God. Morality has to be understood as an absolute. It is universal law as applies specifically to human beings. In other words, morality is righteousness.

It is through the process of moral behavior that we walk in the path of righteousness. Righteous conduct honors God as creator. Righteousness produces, as well, continual benefit and great blessing specifically for others. In Jewish tradition it says that throughout his whole life Noah strove to help and enlighten all those around him. That is why the Bible states clearly that Noah was a righteous man that walked with God.

Righteousness is the realization that every soul, as a created being, is interconnected as part of the divine fabric that constitutes humanity. By following a righteous path, a soul is affirming its connection to God through acting in accord of the divine will as laid out through the moral instruction revealed at Mount Sinai.

The reality of our sojourn on earth is that we are continually navigating life and the  lessons that the experience imparts. Righteousness is the compass that allows the soul to navigate one’s lifetime successfully. On the path of life, one has to have faith both in God and in one’s own divine spark in order to fulfill the mission of one’s life purpose. Righteousness and the moral law that underlies it is what guides our steps and makes them steadfast.

The road of life is always one of trial and error. If we are walking in the world  consciously, we’ll learn from both our successes and our mistakes. With an operative moral compass, we are much more likely to be aware of our mistakes and confident of our successes. We become eager and willing to learn from them both. It is also likely that we will be much more appreciative of the wisdom we’ve gained from our overall experience and willing to model it behaviorally and spiritually.

Walking the path of righteousness leads to a practical crescendo. By strengthening our moral compass, we deepen our connection to spiritual life and to the higher worlds. When we do this, we gain access to increasing light within the soul. The more light the soul has the more we are in line with righteousness, which in turn allows us to continue to evolve more efficiently. As we evolve, we succeed in improving the accuracy and the calibration of the compass itself.

The moral compass is internal and reflects a direct connection to higher consciousness. If we err and transgress the boundaries set by God, our compass can be repaired through repentance. If we acknowledge and regret what we have done, we are acting consciously and therefore in a position to know what needs to be done by way of rectification both with others and with the divine. Once that is done, our inner compass is more directly aligned to the higher and higher realms as well as our own  reservoir of inner wisdom.

Calibration of the moral compass of righteousness is most effectively accomplished through meditation. Since meditation allows us to move inwardly, to initiate the introspective process and elevate consciousness, it is a superb tool not only for self-enrichment, but also for aligning the soul with the divine will.

In Kabbalist meditation, there is always a conscious focus. There is an aim and goal to any specific meditation. However, the objectives are generally always the same. They include subordinating the ego, so as to move into deeper levels of self, to open doors of perception, to explore the structure and reality of creation and one’s relation to it as a creative being and to allow for the ascension of consciousness in order to encounter and experience the Divine.

All of these facets of meditative experience have the effect of strengthening the soul by expanding consciousness. The result is a direct increase in the light of the soul and a subsequent refinement of the moral compass. Increased experience of higher consciousness through meditation leads to a deeper connection to moral law, which results in a strengthening of not only ones moral fiber, but of one’s moral sense as well.

To sum up; If we move into ourselves and thereby expand to higher consciousness we not only come to understand ourselves more deeply, but also what God is instructing us to do. Aligning to the divine will and evolving as souls is predicated both on understanding the deeper nature of moral imperatives through meditation and study on one hand and the righteous action taken at the behest of ones moral compass on the other.

When we internalize the principles God is imparting either through the Commandments or through our Higher Self we become more aligned with divine wisdom, which is the basis for both natural and moral law. This alignment between our Self and the divine imperative, in turn, places us more firmly on the path of righteousness. Whereby, we are led to increased wisdom and connection with the divine will as a result.

 

An Insight into Being in the Moment

In the Mishnah, the teaching is that one should live every day of their life as if it was one’s last. In some ways, this is the Jewish version of the Eastern concept of  “living life in the now” or “being present in the moment”. If every day one’s focus is on preparing for a departure from this lifetime, the past is then only the record of our experience and the future is a moot point.

By centering our attention on conclusion, we are simultaneously preparing for a totally new beginning. If in practice we conclude our life on a daily basis, then when we awaken the next day we begin a whole new reality. This process keeps us perpetually focused in the moment.

The other day, I had an interesting and unexpected conversation about this very topic while sitting at the counter of a cafe. The exchange led me to a very profound realization and I want to share it with you.

While I was at the counter waiting for my order, I found myself engaged in conversation with a gentleman sitting next to me. During the conversation, I casually asked about how his week was going. His rather surprising response was “I can only vouch for today. However, today’s going wonderfully.” “What about yesterday?” I asked. To which he responded, “To be honest with you, I can’t really say much for sure about yesterday because I have no direct sense of time”.

I was intrigued. He went on to explain. What he told me was that when he was in his very early twenties, he was nearly killed in a car accident.  A couple of days after the event, while he reflected on what had happened, he suddenly made the decision consciously that if he was going to die he wanted to die happy. Moreover, since he had no idea when he was going to die and realizing it could happen at any moment, he decided that his focus had to be on being happy every day. He explained that he has consistently honored that commitment ever since.

He made it a point to tell me that his decision permanently shifted his entire perspective on how to live life. If he was going to be happy, it had to be a constant, because every day could actually be his last.  “As a result”, he said, “the past simply became a record of his experience and material to reflect on. The future ceased to exist as anything more than a simple possibility”. What he then emphasized to me was that he could remember clearly events in his past, but could not determine whether the event happened yesterday or years ago. And that it really didn’t matter.

What truly mattered to him was that he found himself vividly aware of the great joy of just being. Every day of his life became a prolonged, self-contained moment.  Time had transformed itself. It was no longer chronological. It became the focus of consciousness. Now, in his experience, the reality of life functioned with much more intensity and far more meaning.  The result of this shift was that joy in particular, along with an accompanying gratitude, stood at the consistent core of his present life experience.

This gentleman’s story hit me at a very visceral level and it sparked within me a very important realization. What I came to understand from this conversation added another, vital element to the teaching from the Mishnah. In a very dramatic way, it gave me a greatly deepened perspective on one of the most central teachings of the Baal Shem Tov.

The Baal Shem Tov placed supreme value on joy as the spiritual and emotional platform upon which service to God is based. Service to God, he taught, is predicated on approaching the divine with pure joy.  In the Kabbalah, the teaching is that to serve God is to love God and that love emerges from joy. They are both dimensions of Hesed, the highest level of experience we can reach consciously.

What I came away with from my discussion in the cafe was a heightened perspective of the function of joy. I had never made the equation between  “being in the moment” and “being in the state of joy”. It had not occurred to me, fully, that the two were actually the same in essence.

To fully be present in life is to be centered in the moment. The key to being centered in the moment is to appreciate the total expansiveness and inclusiveness of “now” and the beauty, awe and gratitude that such awareness generates.  Moreover, the key to such a reverential focus is to continually be positioning yourself within the spaciousness of joy through an open heart.

If I were to summarize the realization that I came to as a result of our conversation, it would be the following;

If one makes it a point to open one’s heart to God, consciously, on a daily basis, the  intention and focus move one  first into love  and then from there directly to joy. Once connected to the state of joy, one becomes fully involved, centered and present within the eternal moment that is the actual essence of life.

The key to communion with God is joy. Being in communion with God, holding an abiding sense of the holy through joy as a conscious focus in daily life places one squarely in the eternity of the moment. The past and the future are no longer anything more than mere adjuncts to our experience. They take on an auxiliary role and no longer dominate our thinking or our experience.  We become free to be ourselves.

In short, to open one’s heart to the divine is to bring oneself to the state of joy. To experience joy is to elevate your consciousness beyond the confines of time, which in turn places you directly in the moment, where one experiences the full essence of life, both its detail and its all-encompassing inclusiveness.

This equation is a very simple, yet extremely deep and profound reality. As the Kabbalists would say, “Consider this well, for it is a great secret.”

About Light, Creation and Us

The view in Kabbalah regarding the nature of light and its function is founded on the Creation narrative in Genesis. Biblically, when the heavens and earth were created initially the earth was in chaos and amorphous. God’s command, “let there be light” not only brings light into existence, but makes it the very foundation upon which creation stands.

The light at first is implicit in the darkness. God refers to the light as goodness and this reference is made before God separates the light from the dark. The light is then made manifest in its own right. At the point where this occurs, dark and light become the revolving cycle of time and of life. There is evening and then morning as each subsequent day of creation emerges.

As God first makes heaven and earth, the earth plane is described as a deep, dark field of chaos and turmoil. Since the darkness is specifically associated with the earth level as it emerges, light by implication is confined originally at the higher level of the heavens. On the earth plane, light is still hidden within the darkness. The heavens are stable and the earth is not. Light and the divine will implicit in it are at first contained in the heavens, not yet manifest on the earthly plane.

The earth at this point has been created, but not yet formatted. So then God says, “Let there be light”, meaning that light is being extended from the higher planes toward the primordial commotion on earth. The effect on our level, the earth plane, is dramatic and vital. Once the light enters this level, it establishes itself here by separating the experience of light from that of dark. Once integrated into our reality, the interplay of light and dark becomes the experience of good and the cycle of life. The reality of light per se is the ordering principle of creation. The presence of light creates and sustains order. There is evening. Then there is morning and another day of creation is finished. Light emerges and follows the darkness in the flow of creative forces. By doing so, the principle of light progressively brings things into existence and then serves as the force behind evolution and development.

On each day of creation a new level of reality unfolds successively. Light follows
the dark. The waters are separated and dry land appears. Then there is darkness again succeeded by light and vegetation appears on the land. The cycle of dark and light repeats and animals begin to appear and so on. Light is the understood as the force that both brings order to chaos, creates the cycles of time and also directs the forces of life that cause progression, change and development in all that exists in the world.

In the physical universe, darkness is the primal matter, the unformed frenetic commotion, waiting to be acted upon and given form and meaning. The dark is the potential of life. In response to the dark and in fulfillment of it is the light. It is the light, which acts upon the deep, on the vast ocean of darkness and potential.

The word of God, the articulation of the divine thought, ‘Let there be light’ is the act of bringing creation, the universe, as we know it, into clear focus and explicit form. Light is the organizational principle that brings everything into definition and imparts function and purpose to all that is. Light is also the very driving force behind change and evolution, which are the central pillars of physical existence. Light represents the flow of life and the expression of our experience as created beings.

Light is the manifestation of the divine will on all levels of existence. The soul is an
eternal spark of the divine, an intense focal point of pure light. So, as long as we are present on the earth, we must remain fully conscious of our role and responsibility here. Our task is to continually bring through the light of creative genius and by doing so, create new levels of meaning and understanding in the world in order to further the evolution of life experience.

We must remain ever conscious of the reality that we as souls are the very embodiment of light on the physical plane, which implies enormous responsibility. That is the essence of the Biblical message. May it be in our hearts and in the forefront of our minds always.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

The True Dynamics of Prayer

There are times in the course of our lives, when circumstances impel us to talk to God directly, to pray from the depths of our souls and to express our thoughts and emotions freely, outside the context of formal prayer. We feel the need to pray to God in a straightforward, personal, intimate manner.

When attempting to do so, we experience one of the most difficult aspects of personal prayer; formulating a starting point. If one is seeking to express themselves to God directly from the heart, the hardest part of the process is knowing where exactly to begin.

The true beginning of prayer is not knowing what to say. If one is coming to stand before God, what is there to say? What can we tell God, that God does not already know? Faced with the realization of how vast the universe is, we are often overwhelmed and speechless. How much more so, are we overcome with awe and humbled, when we approach the Creator of the Universe?

In human perception, the distance between God and man can often appear to be so vast, that God seems unapproachable or remote. Under such conditions, prayer would seem to be of no value nor of any purpose. One cannot get close to God, if God is so distant as to be felt to be beyond reach. This view of our relationship to God is really not workable. If one clings to the perception that God is remote and unreachable, there is really nowhere to go.

Prayer is best understood in different terms. Prayer, in Jewish tradition, is not meant to be recited per se. Rather, prayers are meant to be expressed. Prayer should not be relegated to mere verbal explanation or to the reciting of doctrine. True prayer is the meditation of the heart. Prayer, in its essence, is affirmation of our intimate relationship with God.

In the days when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, worship was the act of sacrifice. In acknowledgement for what God had provided, or in acceptance of God’s Will, or in admission of a mistake, one would give something back to God. The offering could be the first fruits of the field. It could be a harvest offering, part of the bounty one received. What one offered to God was one’s most prized possession. One gave something of himself or herself.

The sacrifices were prescribed in detail by biblical law. God set down quite a number of Mitzvot regarding the exact nature of each of the sacrifices. The prayers recited were supplemental to the act of offering the sacrifice. Prayer was left up to the individual to express. King David wrote prayers and psalms to God from his own personal experience. The Levites in the Temple composed the liturgy themselves. The prophets and seers created songs and poems to God, throughout the Biblical period. As occasions arose, and the people were overcome by joy and thanksgiving, prayer was created spontaneously. This tradition extends all the way back to Moses and Miriam.

True prayer is the expression of heartfelt emotion. It is our dialogue with God. Whether we choose to put our hearts and souls into the prayers of the traditional liturgy, or whether we create our own, whether we meditate on the words of others or put our feelings into the wordless melodies of Niggunim, the same objective is being accomplished. We are reconnecting with God, through emotional reaffirmation.

We are affirming our essence as created beings by allowing ourselves to express our sense of self, our sense of thanksgiving and our sense of joy. We are open to communicating our exhilaration as created essences, directly to the Creator. By opening our hearts, we sing, we articulate, we rejoice and we connect with that which is at the heart of all existence, God’s Love and God’s Presence in the World.

To pray fully, is to allow the soul to open up and to reaffirm its connection with God, by honoring the experiences of one’s life. It is in the day to day world that we learn about ourselves. It is in the mundane realm of everyday life, that we experience joy and sadness, hope and disappointment, success and failure. What exalts these events and makes them important, are two factors; how we understand them and how we express them.

By expressing our feelings and emotions to God directly and by articulating our needs and our perceptions, we spiritualize our experience and elevate it to the level of holiness. We exalt our life, by elevating our life experience to the level of communication with God. That is why prayer followed sacrifice. From the doing, comes the understanding. From the understanding comes the joy. From the joy come the exaltation and the gratitude.

When we can drop the ego, and fall back to the point of true humility, when we are not too proud or too stubborn to talk to God, directly, heart to heart, then we give real meaning to our lives. Through true prayer, that which is heartfelt and consciously focused, we spiritualize our earthly existence. We transcend the plane of mundane consciousness and ascend to the higher realms of being, when we choose to live our lives as dialogues with God.
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To achieve communion with God, we must understand and offer prayer in its truest form, as emotional affirmation and as dialogue with God. We need to structure our lives as perpetual expressions of that interaction, which is the essence of prayer, thereby elevating the experiential content and spiritual awareness of our earthly existence. Let our prayers be like rivers, that well up from deep beneath the surface and create their own paths as they grow and extend toward their source.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

Spiritual Emergence

There are periods within our lives, when we, as individuals, go through tremendous internal change and deep soul searching. During such periods of introspection, transition and self evaluation, whether or not we are consciously aware of it, we have made a commitment to God and to ourselves. We have undertaken to do great inner work. We have committed our inner being to laboring, diligently, toward achieving greater self understanding. Through this process of internal focus, we deliberately orient our conscious selves toward facilitating our own spiritual growth.

In Jewish tradition, this process of inner soul work is an annual occurance. It begins with the High Holy Days of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, and culminates on the festival of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Having passed through a three week period of deep soul searching, rectification, repentance and atonement, an individual emerges from the most intense and most spiritually charged periods of the Jewish year.

If one has done the work self examination effectively, he or she has succeeded in transforming themselves internally. They have utilized, properly, the Days of Judgement (the High Holidays) for inner cleansing and spiritual realignment and have reaffirmed their relationship to God, through gratitude and joy during the season of Thanksgiving (Sukkot-Simchat Torah).

Deep inner work, when done in earnest, brings with it very practical consequences on the psychological, emotional and spiritual levels. If we have carried out, fully, the process of searching our souls, admitting our mistakes, rectifying the damage we have done and realigning ourselves to the good, the flow of divine love, we come out of this experience, holy, cleansed and reborn. For we have reached within and faced our own failings. We have reconciled with God and now, place our complete trust in God’s compassion and guidance. A great door has been opened.

Once a door is opened, many things can happen. You can find the morning paper or the dog can get loose. Guests and friends can arrive or an unwanted solicitor can. Regardless, the result is that by opening the door, fresh air circulates, connecting you with the greater world outside. You find that you are free to come and go. There are a lot of possibilities. Some anticipated and some totally unexpected.

The same holds true, when one opens the door of the heart. True return to God and to Self must come from the heart. Without emotion or without allowing for the meditations of the heart and the inner knowingness it provides, we would not be human. It is the heart, that makes us in the image of God. By allowing for the opening of the heart, much is brought to the surface and to the point of direct experience. Some of what comes forth from within, is anticipated. Some is accepted. Some is welcome. Some is overpowering.

During spiritual change, we are constantly being prompted to move forward, to move beyond where we were, to where we need to be next. Often, our conscious mind is the last part of our being to know this. It is the conscious mind that is also the most resistant to change, frequently. In the intensity of periods of deep internal transformation and due to their enormous potency, one can encounter a storm of powerful feelings. One can experience an upsurge of issues or an onslaught of events, which are, completely unanticipated and quite possibly, totally overwhelming. This is part of the process of spiritual emergence.

I would define spiritual emergence as an internal shift, prompted by the soul, that changes one’s life by altering one’s perspective. This type of change can be very abrupt and disconcerting. However, it will lead one to the next level of spiritual awareness and development, if one chooses to ride the process out.

When a spiritual shift takes place that is being orchestrated from within, emotions long suppressed or left unacknowledged, can explode to the surface in order to be recognized and dealt with. Events can occur, that shake the foundation of a person’s beliefs and disrupt the traditional ways one has looked at or approached something. What is happening is important to understand.

When you experience such a shift, your inner being has made a decision. It decided, that not only is it necessary for you to move on spiritually, but also that you are ready and able to handle it, whether your mind thinks so or not. It is laying the cards out on the table and you have to play out the hand. If you handle the situations presented to you, if you work out the life puzzles before you and weather the emotional storm, you will emerge a spiritually stronger and more integrated person.

There is no right or wrong way to handle what your inner self is impelling you to deal with. The critically important element is simply, that it is handled and processed. Then and only then, does one move on.

When one, successfully, works through this soul directed process of change, one passes through and moves beyond guilt and shame. One arrives, ultimately, at the point of spiritual maturation. Here, guilt and shame have dissipated forever. The choice one faces, here, is crucial. The choice is between learning to grow, spiritually, as a soul or delaying progress, indefinitely, by not facing one’s issues.

To expand and develop spiritually is the essence of existence on all levels of being. Spiritual evolution is the very core of life. Sometimes, we are lead to seek the path and walk it diligently. We are prompted to make changes and are given the insight and courage to embark on the journey. At other times, the door is suddenly thrust open and we are booted out, finding ourselves on the road, de facto. Sometimes, that is the way it has to be. The choice to move on spiritually can come from conscious choice or it can be thrust upon us from deep within. The former path is that of spiritual quest. The latter one is the route of spiritual emergence. Either way, one finds themselves on the road to soul development.

Whichever way one comes to embark on the path, it will eventually be the cause of great excitement, anticipation and joy. For the road leads to God. It is the path of life improvement on all levels. It is the way of peace, if walked in honesty and integrity. Spiritual emergence is one’s arrival at a new crossroads in life. This is a sacred event. It is not to be feared. It is to be welcomed.

Travel the road of spiritual emergence and pursuit with earnestness and devotion. Always bear in mind, that the conflict, pain, anxiety and confusion, you may encounter, are only signs along the roadside. They are, by no means, the road itself. The way of the spirit is the path of inner peace.

Recognizing Spiritual Transformation

In human experience, we tend to recognize change far more quickly when it is dramatic, rather than gradual. If something suddenly emerges or rapidly collapses, we are struckby the change and as a result, we feel a need to deal with it or at least cope with it. Change that takes place more gradually, however, such as the maturation processor the aging process, takes more time to notice. After the change has long since established itself, some event or observation occurs that triggers our awareness that a transformation has already taken place and we are first becoming aware of it.

The reality of spiritual change is that not only is it often a gradual process, it is also generally very subliminal. When physical changes take place, there are obvious external signs as well as changes in ones abilities. One cannot avoid noticing these types of developments. Spiritual change presents a greater challenge.

For one thing, we are all aware that both physical maturation and physical aging take place at certain points in our lives, and that these changes are going to effect us; that we will have to accommodate nature. Not as many of us are as keenly aware that as human beings we go through spiritual evolution, as well, in the course of our lives. When the spirit transforms, there are rarely too many obvious external manifestations.

Ironically, spiritual changes are often transformations that are at least as profound as physical changes are, though they are much harder to recognize unless one attunes oneself to them; something a person must train themselves to do. In actuality, the process of spiritual evolution is of far more long term import than its physical, emotional or intellectual counterparts. It is from the spirit, the level of the soul, that the intellectual, emotional and physical spring. It is the soul that is the core of our lives in This World. It is the soul that survives into the Next World. Therefore, what happens to the soul in its evolution of the utmost importance.

Interestingly enough, most people are most cognizant of, and attendant to, physical change. If we are suffering from a physical illness, we seek relief. If we experience physical discomfort, disability or change, we tend to pay attention to it and to seek rectification or rehabilitation.

Many people are attuned to intellectual and emotional distress or dysfunction. When we are confused or having a difficult time psychologically or emotionally, we tend to process with close friends, trusted relatives, or professionals in these areas. We confide in those close to us, who we feel can understand what we are going through and who can offer us sympathy, support and guidance. In the case of spiritual growth that is taking place within the individual, far fewer people recognize the change, let aside have any clear idea of how to manage it effectively.

Emotion and intellect function as processes. As we experience things emotionally and as we learn, we undergo a process of experience, internalization, integration and assimilation. By going through things experientially, we are provided with the raw material for growth. By emotionally and intellectually processing what we have experienced, our personality develops and evolves.

What is not clearly understood often, is that our emotional and psychological maturation leads directly to yet a third and most critical process, that of spiritual growth. When we have gone through developmental breakthroughs and reached new psychological and emotional levels, the internal material is provided for spiritual growth. At this point, processing begins on the deep level of the soul itself. The soul begins a process of deep self evaluation, self redefinition and transformation, for spiritual change is actually the evolution of the soul.

On a spiritual level, this level of processing is in many ways very subtle. Yet, there are ways to recognize that the process of spiritual change is taking place. As the soul begins to redefine itself and its context in the world, there are several manifestations. First, there is a full, general withdrawal into oneself. One can find himself or herself feeling very distant from everything that is going on around them. It begins to get difficult, trying to handle more than than one thing at a time.

Moreover, communicating with others may also become harder. There is a strong sense of needing a great deal of space and a lot of quiet. At the same time, one finds themselves operating with very low energy levels. It often seems like a great effort to get anything done at all, regardless of how small the task.

This is all due to the fact that the soul is working on the deepest inner levels of self, which require a great amount of energy. Subsequently, energy is pulled from all three of the other areas of the conscious self. We are drained physically, emotionally
and mentally, temporarily. It is very important to realize when going through spiritual transformation, that there is nothing wrong. One is not falling apart. What is merely happening is a massive transference of energy to deep within oneself. Accept that fact and you can flow with the process.

Second, as a result of the work being done on the deep inner levels of self, a great deal of shifting will take place. One finds many of their attitudes and perceptions changing. One’s beliefs and views about themselves, about their lives, about their relationships, about the world in general, are suddenly in flux. This often leads to a state of psychological and emotional discomfort. One can feel very confused and disoriented.

This is not surprising. If one is going through spiritual change, one is going through inner transformation on the deepest levels.

Many of the old structures of perception and belief are being dismantled, and disposed of, by the psyche. This creates an emptiness. In the void that is produced, there is not very much that is familiar. There is precious little to hold on to. Consequently, this can be very disconcerting. One simply must be patient and wait for the soul to build the new structures it needs. Keep in mind, that the process of spiritual transformation is one of restructuring for the future. One’s energy is diverted only as long as the reconstruction process requires it. It is not a permanent state of affairs. Let it run its course.

Third, the soul must also communicate to the conscious self what is transpiring, what transformations are taking place and what these changes mean. This is a purely internal interaction of the soul communicating with the mind. What happens in this communication can manifest in several ways. While one is going through this inner process of spiritual change and transformation, dreaming may be intensified. One’s dreams will then come to consciousness more forcefully and more frequently than normal. The dreams become very vivid, and easier to remember. These dreams are often very important messages from the soul to the conscious mind. There is usually heightened awareness during spiritual transformation. So, one also experiences deep insights, a series of intuitive flashes of understanding, and the periodic realization of changed perspectives.

Bear in mind, that spiritual transformation is not a regular, fixed occurrence. Unlike physical development, it does not come automatically as a function of time. It comes when we have grown sufficiently emotionally and psychologically and have reached a point in our lives when we are truly ready for soul growth. When that happens the soul itself takes over. On a conscious level all we can do is acknowledge what is transpiring deep within ourselves, and allow ourselves to flow with it.

To paraphrase a great rabbi; To have a door of opportunity open and not seize it is a great transgression. To not be aware of our spiritual state and not seek to develop it, is a tragic oversight. To go through the profound process of spiritual shifting and transformation of the soul, choosing not recognizing it when it occurs and not honoring it as a result, that is truly a sin.

Whether we acknowledge our spirit or not, the soul grows regardless. We all evolve spiritually whether we care to recognize it or not. There is no way to interfere with soul development. It is beyond conscious control.

The difference is that when a person learns to recognize the signs of spiritual
processing, he or she comes to a point of accepting their essence. When one embraces their own inner evolution, one connects with their soul and with the innermost core of who they are. That experience, which is voluntary and is directed by conscious choice, is the act of willfully uniting mind and heart with the soul. That experience is an act of moving toward God. It is an act of self realization and of self affirmation on the highest level. When we come to know ourselves better, we come to understand the Creator better. The road to Self is internal. The way to God lies within. They are parallel. They are the same.

Rabbi Fisdel

On Being Present and Conscious

Many people have remarked to me over the past few years that, in their experience, time seems to be speeding up. Their lives seem, somehow, to be in a fast forward mode. The feeling is that time is going by very quickly and yet, not enough, if anything, is really being accomplished. Either, there is an increasing amount to do with a shrinking time frame in which to do it or a lot of time has passed, in a flow of fog, and one is not sure how exactly this happened.

Much of the reality of time is how we experience it. If time seems to have disappeared, evaporated or have passed unnoticeably, the problem is not time. The problem is distraction. Distraction is the loss of focus. It is the loss of our sense of direction. It occurs when we become so rapped up in the events of our lives, that we lose track of the reality of our lives. When we become enmeshed in the process of earthly existence, we end up disconnected and distant from the purpose our souls have for being here.

To live our lives to the fullest, it is most important that we are not distracted. We must be vigilant in making sure that we are not thrown off track in the course of our everyday life. For, if our daily life is impaired, damaged or negated, it impacts heavily on the entire fabric of our existence. If the course of our lives is diverted from its true path, our potential is not being fulfilled, and our life purpose is not being achieved.

If we are not in touch with our true self, our true feelings and our soul’s purpose, we are not really alive. We are merely subsisting in an illusion. We are functioning, but we are not fulfilling. We are struggling to exist, but we are not truly living. The result of not living one’s purpose is to end up existing in a state of distraction.

Whether one is numbed or obsessed, blown away or driven, euphoric or in great pain, it is all distraction. Daily life with its survivalist pressures, its peaks and valleys, its mercurial demands, its conflicts and its pain can often draw much of one’s energy, concern and attention into the heart of the storm. The more one is pulled into the tempest of earthly struggle, the farther one is drawn away from self. One becomes lost in the maelstrom of need and desire.

The real You, the soul, cannot be heard through all of the noise nor be felt through all of the commotion. The still, small voice within is simply overpowered. The result is that we either identify with the storm, making our lives intense and dramatic or we seek to escape the turbulence altogether. The sense, that time is moving very quickly, is often the result of being lost in space, emotionally, psychologically and psychically.

How do we reconnect with our Self? How do we reestablish our link to life purpose? How do we learn to disengage from the level of duality, the level of psychological and emotional turbulence and to live our lives from the perspective of the soul?

In the Mishnah, in Tractate “Pirkei Avot”, we are advised, that to truly experience life, to live life from the soul’s perspective, one should live every day of one’s life as if it were one’s last day on earth. Live each day of your life as if it were the day of your death. That is the instruction. It is a profoundly important and transformative approach to life.

Judaism teaches that the soul is the essence of each individual, that the soul was formed before we were born into the earthly realm and will exist eternally in higher worlds, when the soul finally departs from the mortal coil. Death is the transition point between mortal life and eternal life, Between this world and the next world, is the eternal moment.

If we experience each day as the last day of our lives, each day has a totality and a finality of it’s own. It is the culmination of everything that came before it and it is the very focus of our life, for there is no future as we have understood or experienced it. The past is fully absorbed in the present and the future is fully nascent in the self same present. It is all one. There is only today. One comes to live in the reality of every moment, because the reality of the moment is all that is.

By living one’s life as if each day was the last, each day of our life becomes a day of judgment and a day of salvation. One’s life becomes one long day of truth, of focus, of light and of life purpose. This day of fulfillment is the day of salvation. On this day, illusion disappears. On this day, distraction ends. On this day, time no longer regulates nor dominates your life. Rather, it melts away into timelessness. One is free. One is free to simply be.

May we all heed well, the words of our sages and return to our essence, reconnecting with our purpose, living our lives from the perspective of the soul and daily expressing the true nature of  our unique spirits. In this we receive direct assistance from God. There is no human endeavor, that God is more interested in.

Rabbi Fisdel

The Two Sides of Spiritual Experience

As souls, the very core of our being is our spiritual essence, the divine spark of infinite light that is who we truly are as reflections of God. From that holy place, all the manifestations of self emerge and are sustained.

In the view of the Kabbalah, all levels of consciousness are interrelated and all emerge from the exact same source, namely from the soul. So, everything that expresses who we are is actually an extension of our essence. Our minds, our emotions and our bodies are all projected realities revealing different dimensions of the soul. Our mental, emotional and physical lives are all derivatives of the spirit seeking to express itself fully.

It is not at all difficult for us to understand experience as what is happening to us, what is transpiring in our lives and how we are relating to it. After all, our physical experience and our emotional responses to it constitute life as we are living it.

What is somewhat more difficult to grasp is the realization that our thoughts, reflections and perceptual patterns also constitute experience. A direct and abiding connection exists between what is transpiring in our lives , what we are feeling about it and what we believe. It is the mind that constructs the context of our reality. It is our thoughts and our beliefs that impart order and give meaning to life.

The decisions we make that direct our lives and that have such impact on us and on everyone around us are all predicated on the conceptual framework that we hold internally. So, our minds are intimately tied to our emotions and our external reality as an integral part of our overall life experience. We live our lives consciously through the interplay of physical stimulus and interaction with the world, through emotional response and through the learning process. This triad of experiential realities forms the very basis of life as we know and understand it.

The question then arises; if the events in our lives, our emotional responses to them and what we conclude from them constitute our life experience,then what exactly is spiritual experience per se? the answer to this question is straightforward in statement, yet complex in its implications.

In Kabbalist teaching, the soul is the origin of mind, emotion and physical being in the world. Soul itself is hidden. Yet, it is knowable through its extension of these three capacities. The realm of spirit with all its inner dynamics is hidden within, just as a tree’s roots are buried in the earth. From the roots, a tree’s trunk, branches and leaves emerge and interact with the world around it. The same process holds true for mental, emotional and physical consciousness. They emanate as extensions of the soul.

A tree standing tall in the external world is effected directly by its environment and by what is happening in the natural world surrounding it. Though not necessarily openly exposed, the roots of the tree are just as heavily impacted. The roots are not only part of the tree, they are the foundational level.

On the same token, since the soul is the root of all consciousness in the world, everything we experience in our lives impacts us spiritually. We live from the soul and our overall life experience reflects back the spiritual energy being put forth and played out. So, it can be said that spiritual experience is essentially the effect that life experience has on the soul.

Spiritual consciousness emanates out into the world as mental, emotional and physical process. This process, we refer to as life. We live life through these dimensions of soul.  Through the process of living, we give conscious expression to the soul, which in turn absorbs and assimilates the energy. As the soul takes in the experience of our lives, it transforms it into spiritual experience. It translates and reformulates what we have experienced cognitively and emotionally into essential knowledge of self. the soul absorbs what is of essence and important to it as pure spiritual content.

This level of spiritual experience is primal and central to the very mystery of life itself. The process of transforming life experience into spiritual essence occurs at the deepest levels of consciousness, totally and completely hidden from our view and our awareness.

There is, however, another aspect to spiritual experience that not only can we access, but we are actually meant to connect with and be deeply effected by it. This dimension of spiritual experience has multiple facets and its purpose is to specifically expand and elevate consciousness.

The entire process of life transpires within the framework of the seven lower sefirot of the Kabbalist Tree of Life, from Hesed to Malkhut. What we are cognizant of occurs at the mental plane of Hesed, Gevurah and Tiferet. What we feel operates within the realm of Netzakh, Hod and Yesod and what we work with and experience is taking place physically in the Sefirah of Malkhut.

The physical and psycho-emotional activity that occur within the structure of these three levels of the Tree of Life effect the spiritual plane of Keter, Hokhmah and Binah in two distinct ways. Firstly, as already discussed, the life experience taking place below on the mental, emotional and physical levels is translated by the the upper sefirot, the spiritual forces guided by the soul, into meaningful spiritual essence. It is the sefirah of Binah that takes in that essence, which is the transformed energy of life experience. Subsequently, it is assimilated into the soul as holy energy at the Keter level through the intervention of the sefirah of Hokhmah.

In other words, one process that takes place as spiritual experience is the conversion of life experience into pure, spiritual energy so that it can be absorbed by the soul. The other process that occurs, which is also spiritual experience, involves direct awareness of spirit and the resulting elevation of consciousness. here, the quality of our life experience when taken into Binah, can be transferred to the innermost depths of of pure consciousness so as to add its light to the light of being, thereby enriching the soul.

When the restructured energy of our life experience is pure enough and strong enough to add increased vibrancy to the hidden light of our innermost consciousness, the result is soul growth. When soul growth occurs, the effects are profound and they become perceptible.

The ensuing effects of this level of spiritual awareness are truly transformative,
altering one’s entire perception of self and relationship to the world. One experiences a heightened sense of the holy, which translates into a far greater sense of the sacredness of self and the soul’s relationship to God. Between oneself, the universe and the divine there is a very tangible sense of interrelationship and connectedness.

When spiritual experience becomes spiritual awareness, our cognitive focus shifts from “Mokhin de Katnut”, limited, restricted consciousness centered on personal and worldly concerns to “Mokhin de Gadlut”, expanded consciousness that elevates us. In this state, we come to understand more deeply our neshamah, our very essence and at the same time we become intensively aware intuitively of our abiding relationship to God.

In this context, our consciousness ascends and suddenly we are in touch with the level of Hokhmah and Binah. In the vast quietude of spirit, we experience a true sense of self, one that is not referenced to nor dependent on persona, process or relationship to other.

At this level, we glimpse the totality of self and engage with an all encompassing sense of our being. From the sefirah of Binah, we experience profound awe and deep reverence for God, creation and self. From Hokhmah, we feel infinite possibility and a tremendous depth of clarity. Through Binah and Hokhmah, we are brought to a contact point with soul. Emanating from the supernal hiddeness of Keter, the level of essence itself, we come to experience the ultimate spiritual reality, peace.

Such palpable, core spiritual experience happens often as an intensified moment of timelessness. It is not a constant state on the cognitive level. It is, however, the catalyst and the subsequent foundation for spiritual evolution. Its effect is enduring on the subliminal level. For true spiritual experience alters the very nature and structure of our inner world. The value of such penetrating change and internal transformation is immeasurable. Every such shift of internal reality, based on the work we are doing through our life experience moves us spiritually to the next level of becoming, to the next plane of soul evolution. Achieving soul growth and spiritual redefinition is an absolutely
vital element of one’s life work. It is simply not optional.

Coping With Darkness

With the coming of winter, we embrace not only the beginning of a new year, we are also faced with having to work through the season of darkness. During this season, days are still short and the nights are, determinedly long. The ground turns cold and vegetation is in stasis. There is no growth in nature, just extended darkness and cold rains.

There are seasons within our own lives when similar conditions prevail. Unexpected events, sudden change or misfortune, trauma or distress can affect us emotionally the same way. The loss of a job, the departure of a loved one, dashed hopes or broken dreams can send us into our own personal winters. That is part of the cycle of life.

For human beings, winter represents an end point. It represents the termination of an element or phase of our lives. There is a distinct finality to such moments, be it the conclusion of a relationship, be it the death of a loved one or be it the end of a personal era, manifested as a career change or a transition into middle age.

We humans, as sentient beings, have an option that neither the natural world nor the animal kingdom possesses. We have choice. We have the freedom and ability to alter our focus, to change the perspectives we have on our lives and our situation. We can perceive things differently, if we so choose to. An end can be mourned or it can be honored. The past can be pined for as an irretrievable loss or it can be cherished as valued experience. The decision is in our hands, exclusively.

During times of difficulty or pain, we can choose to sink into our own void and let the darkness overcome us. We can surrender to despondency, despair and melancholy. We can yield to anger, recrimination and aggression.

Surrendering to despair comes as a result of inaction. Outbursts of anger and hostility are reaction patterns to pain. Both approaches, one passive and one overt, lead to the same place, to a deepening of the darkness. Both stem from emotional investment in our own limited egos.

Winter, if properly understood, offers us a great opportunity. It is the season of regeneration, the season of rest. Darkness, in its truest sense, is not an absence of light nor is it the negation of light. It is the partner of light. Light is energy, growth and movement. It is joy, desire and achievement.

True darkness is the quietude of rejuvenation. It is the rebuilding process, by which the universe strengthens itself. It is the time, when the hidden forces of nature are busy regrouping. When there is darkness, life force is regaining it’s integrity, so that at the proper season it will reemerge and produce growth and revival.

Understanding this, we should look at the difficult periods of our lives in the exact same vein. When loss or disruption, misfortune or defeat affect our lives, we must embrace it. Such times are, in essence, an opportunity to close down what can no longer be, to relinquish what has already spent it’s energy or that which, simply, has finished running it’s course.

For spiritual, emotional and psychological growth to take place, we need to make room for it to happen. This involves a process of release. We have let go of what we no longer need. We have to relinquish that which we are still carrying within us, which may have been necessary and important at an earlier stage of our lives, but now has become either useless and burdensome to us or worse, detrimental.

This emptying process, though of great importance, produces a sense of loss and with loss comes grief. The aftermath of experiencing either a loss or a release is the process of grieving. It is, truly, necessary to grieve a loss. Grieving is essential to the process of letting go on all levels, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. To grieve is to empty oneself out. By so doing, one leaves the cup empty, so to speak, making room for endless, new possibility.

Once an individual empties out the old psychological constructs and disposes of the accompanying emotional contents, the way is open to internal regeneration and eventually, to the attainment of a new state of consciousness. There is a critical stage of transition between one’s past, completed experience and a new expression of one’s life. It is achieved by passing through the grief.

The stage beyond grief is that of neutrality, rest and peace. Our periods of darkness should be times of release, inner quiet and restoration. True darkness is the season of renewal. As such, we should accept it with open mind and embrace it with a tranquil heart. It is the gateway to spiritual evolution.

Periods of darkness, when understood properly, are the times of post-completion. After we have let go and released what we have finished with, in our life experience, there is a sacred time of peace. There is a period of great quiet when we become whole. During this sacred time, if we are using the darkness properly, we avail ourselves of the opportunity and the need to focus on the hidden resources deep within us. The season of darkness is the time to attune ourselves to the deep wells of spirit within and let the waters, there, be replenished by our connection to God.

The season of darkness is not a time of barrenness. It is not a time of death. The season of darkness is the time of restoration and regeneration. It is dark, not in the sense of the absence of light, but rather, that darkness is the manifestation of the hidden, the secret and the sacred. It is peace.

May God who establishes peace in the highest heavens, grant us the courage to forego what has past, to dwell securely in the quietude within and to embrace its potential for the future. And we say, Amen.

Rabbi Steven Fisdel

The Human Dichotomy: Good and Evil

The reality of Good and Evil expresses itself differently in Judaism, than in other religious traditions. Good and evil is not a strict duality in Jewish belief. Rather, they are seen as coming from the same basic source, God’s Will.

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby bringing them both into the world, by their actions. The act of assimilating the knowledge of good and evil produced its emergence in the world. In other words, good and evil was a potential that was brought into the world by man’s conscious decision. It was an act of will on mankind’s part. It did not have to be made manifest. In fact, God specifically had told the couple not to do so.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood at the heart of the garden of Eden. Therefore, it had a legitimate place within the structure of Creation. However, that was not meant for mankind to assimilate. God says so directly. He prohibits them from eating of the fruit of that tree. The Knowledge of Good and Evil, the full understanding of the polar principles that govern the functioning of the universe, was not meant for human beings to take upon themselves.

Once, having done so, the basic polarity of existence was fundamentally changed, as far as human experience is concerned.  Now, humanity was able to make subjective determinations. Everything would be seen through the focus of positive and negative, good and evil. Yet, much of this viewpoint is purely subjective. What is good for one person, may be evil for another. What is beneficial to one group of people, may be detrimental or devastating to another. What benefits one group, may be doing so at the expense of another.  When we make value judgements, we are overlaying connotations of good or bad on the basic duality of the world.

Everything in Creation is polarized into dualities. Living beings are either male or female. Space is polarized into left and right, forward and backward, up and down. Energy is the dualism of electricity and magnetism. Life takes place by movement within time and space. The basic duality of existence is inescapable.

So, what did Adam and Eve do when they ate of the Tree? They introduced subjective value judgment into the equation. Now, instead of seeing right and left or this and that as neutral and natural, they saw everything as good or bad. This added perception produces great distortion.  If one is looking at two apples, one fresh and one that is rotting, it is not necessarily true to assume that the former one is good and the latter apple is bad.

The rotting apple may fall to the ground and serve as badly needed fertilizer, which is good from nature’s standpoint. Whereas, there may too many apples on the tree, and the ripening one being considered, is draining off much needed resources from the other fruit. This prevents the apples on the tree from coming to full fruition. Hence, the whole crop of apples ultimately, will be ruined.

Goodness and Evil, good and bad are not always appropriate considerations. Much in life is actually neutral or a balanced admixture of positive and negative. Good or bad is merely a function of how something is being viewed.

Very little in nature is either good or bad per se. Rather, something becomes good or bad based upon how it is used. Enormous harm and tremendous evil have been done to countless people and nations over the millennia, in the name of what was thought to be the ultimate good.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood in the Garden of Eden to regulate the balance of the opposing forces, that constitute the very makeup of the world. That force of regulation was planted by God. The Tree was meant to serve Creation on a level of its own, beyond the pale of human comprehension and human thought. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree, they took it upon themselves to decide, what in the world was good and what was evil. The making of such distinctions would inevitably derive strictly from their own narrow frame of reference. This was the sin of mankind. We set ourselves up as the ultimate judges of what is and what is not reality. Moreover, we continue to make such decisions, and we are doing so through the distorted lens of subjective value judgment.

By setting ourselves up as judges, we are preempting God, the true, eternal judge. Our distorted perceptions lead to inappropriate action, causing harm, damage and destruction on many levels. We are bringing evil into the world, through actions precipitated by confusion and misconception.

How do we escape this unending cycle of good and evil, progress and retrogression? The answer is implied in the Book of Job. At the end of the story, at the point where Job admits he cannot fathom evil and suffering, God forces the issue. God demands to know why Job or anyone else, for that matter, thinks they can know the mind and intent of God. The true roots of good and evil lie deep in the very fabric of Creation, in the Will of God. This is far beyond the scope of human comprehension. No human explanation will ever be adequate to even remotely approximate the true reality. Why does man persist in distorting the world and human experience by playing God and making subjective judgments and then casting them in terms of good and evil?
A return to Eden involves the surrender by humanity of this dualistic view of the universe, and the permanent release of judgmentalism. Mankind must move beyond the cycle of good and evil, that has dominated human experience from the beginning. We need to return to the original pattern of experience, symbolized by Eden. Mankind must allow itself to be guided by God directly, rather than by the limited insight of our own reason.

The question then, is how exactly is this achieved?  Before mankind was created, God judged all of Creation to be good. The universe is innately good, according to the Torah. No mention of evil is made at all, in the description of Creation.This suggests, that there is a universal Good that transcends both good and evil as we understand it. There is a transcendent Good that is at the core of all Creation. Good and evil are relative to each other. They are interdependent. Without one, the other ceases to exist. This relative good, that we usually experience then, is only a reflection of the transcendent Good that underlies Creation.

The dichotomy of good and evil that mankind brought into the world interferes with our ability to experience the true Good.  According to the Book of Deuteronomy, good and evil is really a set of choices that we are forced to make continually. Choose life and good or death and evil. Choose to serve God or choose to abandon God. Do not assume that understanding what God wants from us is hidden away somewhere or far beyond our reach. That is not the case. God’s Will is very near to us. It is within our hearts and souls.

This is what the Torah teaches us.  To reach the Good, we must pass through the dichotomy of good and evil. We must first strive for the good, listen to our hearts, study the Torah and work to serve God. We must remain firm in our convictions and resist the temptations of ego and misplaced emotion that lead to sin and destructive behavior. By working through the good and resisting the inclination to do evil, we move in the direction of connecting with the transcendent Good, the light of holiness and joy, that is beyond good and evil as we understand it.

The Transcendent Good stands alone. It is eternal. It is the underlying force in all Creation. This is the goodness, light and love that will one day rule all life on earth, when evil has passed away and the Kingdom of God is finally established. May our lives reflect that coming reality. May our daily existence be filled with a striving for the good, so that we each lay down a small part of the foundation of God’s everlasting kingdom, little by little, in our everyday life. If we do this, we become one with God and God’s Will.

Rabbi Fisdel

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