Kabbalah (Part 1)

What is Kabbalah?

 

When most people today speak of Kabbalah they usually refer to Jewish Mysticism. Wikipedia defines it as:

 

“Kabbalah (Hebrew: קַבָּלָה‎, lit. “receiving”) is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mystical aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings meant to define the inner meaning of both the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and traditional Rabbinic literature, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances.^”

 

(Wikipedia – Kabbalah)

 

For me Kabbalah is much more than mystical Judaism. Although it is a Hebrew word and it is usually used to refer to a teaching firmly set in Judaism, it is a word that refers to a process very much present in the Christian Spirituality as well. Kabbalah is a Hebrew word that literally means ‘Receiving’. Kabbalah can therefore refer to the process of ‘receiving’ something from someone. Kabbalah can be regarded as the process of receiving some sort of personal (often mystical) teaching from a teacher. This teaching is usually very personal and is not shared widely in the public. The image often associated with Kabbalah is that of a teacher whispering some mystical teaching in the ear of his disciple. It is therefore commonly accepted that this process if receiving is a very personal process. It takes place within a close relationship. Jesus’ personal teaching to his disciples can therefore also be considered a form of ‘Kabbalah’.

 

Another way in which Kabbalah can be understood is as the ‘receiving’ of a mystical revelation from God or the Beloved. When the Beloved whispers a revelation in our ear, while we are wrapped in his warm embrace through mystical union, this too can be considered Kabbalah. Kabballah is therefore a process of ‘receiving’ resulting from a close and intimate relationship with God and Christ. True Kabbalah can only take place within a living and real relationship between two friends, or between God and man. It is a natural process that emanates from intimate relationship between two beings.

 

 If Kabbalah is understood in this way we can see that it is closely related, if not identical to the Greek concept of Gnosis. Wikipedia defines Gnosis as:

 

“…, ‘A knowledge of spiritual mysteries.’ …The term being Koine Greek has, nonetheless, a much broader application than being exclusive to any sectarian group or groups. In Byzantine and Hellenic cultures gnosis is a special knowledge or insight of the supernatural,^[2] in some sense mature understanding or knowledge.^[3] It refers to the knowledge that comes from experience rather than from rational or reasoned thinking. Knowledge as in revelation and or intuitive knowledge…”

 

(Wikipedia – Gnosticism)

 

Over the coming weeks I will be posting some of my thoughts on Kabbalah and the role it can play within a balanced life. I hope all the readers out there will join in the discussion.

 

In my next post I will start by sharing some of my ideas about how Jewish Kabbalah can aid a Christian Mystic to build a living relationship with the ‘Beloved’ or Christ.

 

Have a great day.

 

A.V.O

Dante’s masterful description….

Hi there,

I apologise for posting fewer thoughts in the recent week. I have been moving home, and as many of you will know, its a big task. I will post some new thoughts by friday. In the meantime…….I leave you with Dante untill we meet again later this week.

Dante’s Cosmic Vision in Paradise

 

Within a single volume, bounded by love
I saw the scattered leaves of all the universe—
Substance and accidents, and their relations,
As though together fused in such a way
That what I speak of is a single light.
The universal form of this commingling
I think I saw, for when I tell of it
My heart rejoice so much the more…
How powerless is speech— how weak, compared
To my conception, which itself is trifling
Beside the mighty vision that I saw!
O Light Eternal, in Thyself contained!
Thou only know Thyself, and in Thyself
Both known and knowing, smile on Thyself!
That very circle which appeared in Thee,
Conceived as but reflection of a light,
When I had gazed on it awhile, now seemed
To bear the image of a human face
Within itself, of its own coloring—
Wherefore my sight was wholly fixed on it.
Like a geometer, who will attempt
With all his power and mind to square the circle
Yet cannot find the principle he needs:
Just so was I, at that phenomenon.
I wished to see how image joined to ring,
And how the one found place within the other.
Too feeble for such flights were my own wings;
But by a lightning flash my mind was struck—
And thus came the fulfilment of my wish.
My power now failed that phantasy sublime;
My will and my desire were both revolved,
As in a wheel in even motion driven,
By Love, which moves the sun and other stars.

—Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Paradiso, XXXIII.85-93, 121-145 (1321)
What a wondrous piece of mystical writing….

 

Have a great week.

 

A.V.O

 

Why our worlds get into a muddle…

A thought on how we sometimes contruct our worlds, even our spiritual ones….

“Father: All right – take another example. Sometimes in the movies you will see a lot of letters of the alphabet all scattered over the screen, all higgledy-piggledy….and then something shakes the the table so that the letters start to move, and then as the shaking goes on, the letters all come together to spell the title of the film…instead of getting more mixed up than before, the letters come together into an order, all right way up, and spelled a word – they made up something which a lot of poeple wold agree is sense….in the real world things never happen that way. Its only in the movies.

Daughter: But, Daddy….

Father: I tell you it’s only in the movies that you can shake things and they seem to take on more order and sense than they had before….And they make it look like that in the movies by doing the whole thing backwards. They put the letters all in order to spell Donald and then they start the camera and then they start shaking the table.” 

(Gregory Bateson, from the Metalogues in ‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind)

 

regards

A.V.O

Gnosis or Faith?

In these moderns times mystics spend a lot of time discussing Gnosis, yet few seem to be talking about Faith. It’s almost as if these two concepts have become diametrically opposed to each other in modern mystical Christianity. Evangelicals and other Christians say Faith is important. Gnostics on the other hand, emboldened by the Nag Hammadi and other texts says Faith is less important and that Gnosis is the most important element that will free us of suffering. Could it be that the truth is far more complex than that?

 

In my more sober moments I sometimes think that the word ‘Faith’ has been hijacked by Christian theology to the extent that it has lost its real meaning. ‘Faith’ has become an almost abstract philosophical term, where the individual has to have trust in unexplained, invisible, even nonsensical doctrinal statements. It is to believe in something improvable outside the human being, out there somewhere….

 

The same is starting to happen with the term Gnosis. When some of my esteemed mystical friends talk about Gnosis they talk about it as something unknowable that smites you from somewhere outside us. A lot of the time they talk about it as if it is abstract and divorced from ordinary life.

 

Both the concepts of Faith and Gnosis have become divorced from the context of real human lives.

 

 

One day a middle manager in a large commercial bank called Jo took a different route on his way to work. He walked past a small coffee shop where some men and women met every morning before each one went their own way to work. As he walked passed he was impressed by the openness, love and genuineness that they seemed to share in conversation. He stopped and asked what they were doing and they told him they meet there to pray and share their worries and happiness each morning before getting caught up in their daily lives.

 

That night, while having a drink on his balcony Jo thought about his day and about the people he saw that morning. “Sure,” he thought, “they looked happy and loving and genuine today, but surely they can’t maintain that all week?” Tickled by his own curiosity and armed with his vast experience of human nature, he walked past the shop again the next day. Again he saw all the men and women he saw the previous day there, sharing each other’s pain and joy. They seemed genuinely concerned for each other.

 

Jo, continued to do this every morning for two weeks. He was sure that their human nature would never allow them to maintain such genuine and meaningful relationship for very long. Every night at home Jo would think about what he saw. He became increasingly aware that he also wanted what those people had. About a week into his experiment a guy called Andrew did invite Jo to join them each morning. He had noticed Jo coming past the shop every morning. Jo didn’t join them at that time because he was sure he would catch them out. Now he wasn’t so sure any more. He thought to himself, “Maybe I should give it a go….I’ve experienced a lot of disappointment from people in the past, but they really seem to have it together. Maybe joining them would be worth the risk.”

Jo did eventually join the group, and as time went on his trust was rewarded. As time went on his trust in what that group of people grew, and his trust was rewarded with even deeper relationship. And as the relationship grew he got to know more and more about each person and their relationship with the Divine, which strengthened his trust even further.

 

 

In the little story above Jo discovered that in order to access true relationship with others and with the divine he first had to trust other people (and possibly later the Divine as well). But as time went on his trust was rewarded with the knowledge that comes with a deeper relationship and as his knowledge grew his trust in the relationship (human and divine) also increased. This trust to risk stepping into relationship, is what is truly meant with ‘Faith’, and when we look at Faith this way we can see that Faith and Gnosis (Divine Knowledge or Certainty?) feed off each other. They are not separate or opposed to each other. They need each other. Both are necessary for a growing and healthy relationship with the Divine.

 

Have a wonderful day.

 

Regards

 

A.V.O.

A Symbol paints a thousand words….

In the Summer, many years ago, I was initiated into a Spiritual Order of men and women. I can still remember it as if it was yesterday. There I was in the South of France, achieving one of the goals that I had travelled halfway across the world to achieve.  In the years preceding my Initiation I had read books, listened to lectures and listened to so many of the theories and teachings out there.  When I started my apprenticeship in an ancient spiritual order I was struck by how little ‘traditional’ teaching took place. I recieved no lectures and no new book knowldege. All I recieved was excercise and ritual with instructions on practice.

If there is one thing I learned over the years its this. With the right spiritual excercises you will learn things that can never be written down. A good spiritual excercise is an excercise, but also a summary of teaching. It contains inside it all you will every need to know. With the right excercises no teacher ever has to give you another  piece of theoretical information. Every monograph, every book, every teaching you ever heard is the result of spiritual practice. Since the source of all valid spiritual teaching is practice, a spiritual excercise is the most effective summary of those teachings.

Some poeple might say ‘What about symbols? Didn’t the great spiritual teachers use symbolism to teach? Are symbols not containers that can hold so much more than the written word?”

 Yes, many great teachers taught using symbols, and symbols are able to communicate so much more than just words, but spiritual practices are themselves the ultimate symbols. A  well constructed and genuine spiritual excercise, that combines words, visualisation, imagination, mind, body posture and breathing is a multi-dimensional symbol. It is a symbol that we enter with our whole being and that not only teaches us, but affects us in ways that only reveals itself to us over time. That is the magic of a true spiritual excercise.

Have a wonderful day.

A.V.O

(This post is a section from the introduction of the private Practices for Body, Mind and Spirit page of this blog.)

New Section on Blog.

Update! – New Section on the blog.    14.07.2008

I have added a new page to the Blog called ‘Practices for Spirit, Soul & Body’. In this section I will add some of the more powerful and private excercises and techniques that I have found useful over the years. This part of the page is password protected. If you wish to gain access to it, you will first need to satisfy me that you take your spiritual journey serious enough. I would also expect that you have read some of the general posts on the blog. I will also expect you to provide me with some feedback about your experiences with the excercises. To get access please send me an e-mail with a request, telling me something about yourself and about your spiritual journey so far at:

auroraastra3160@googlemail.com

Regards

A.V.O

Thought for the day – 14.07.2008

“ For every truth there is a counterfeit that mirrors it. Correct vision reveals there is a uniform reality. The world mirrors there is a right way and all the other ways are wrong. Correct vision makes clear the oneness of everything. The fractured world mirror reflects the oneness of everything as a fragmented jumble. Correct vision shows the space between things is more important than the things that space manifests. The world mirror makes it appear that the things are important while the space that creates them is not. It only takes a little shift in consciousness to begin to sense the reality of life even before we can begin to see it.”

(James Parkinson – Solid Rock Vista, taken fromVision July 11, 2008 )

The Beauty in the Ordinary.

 

 

Last night my wife and I joined a small group of friends to discuss our spiritual life. One of the topics that came up was the fact that part of a healthy spiritual life is a healthy detachment from the material world and the material life. This got me thinking. Could attachment to spiritual practices or ideas be just as detrimental to a healthy spiritual life?

This question reminded me of the story of a monk who left his residence in search of a spiritual ideal. One day he got up and said to a fellow older monk, “I would like to be like the angels, praising God all day long. I do not want to work or do anything else, I just want to praise God.”

The monk went into the desert, and for a week no one heard from him. After a week he came back. He knocked at the door of his old residence, pleading to be let in. The other older monk, said, “you can’t be who you say you are, he is now an angel.” The next morning the older monk opened the door and saw the younger monk lying naked in front of the door. “Ahh…,” he said, “..it is you. Just remember now that you are a man again you will have to work for your food.”

Sometimes we forget that unhealthy spiritual attachment can get us in just as much trouble as unhealthy attachment to material things. Man is an ‘In-between’ being standing between heaven and earth. At least in this earthyly life that is the case. After that great transition called death we may be in a position to attach ourselves only to the spiritual, but  for now we have a dual nature, and our spirituality is a dual one. Our spirituality is a spirituality of the ‘middle way’. The middle way is a path where we take enough notice of the material world to be able to survive on a day to day basis, but not enough to damage our spiritual life. Its a path where we pay attention to the world of spirit and our spiritual life, but not so much that we neglect our physical survival. The ‘Middle Way’ is a way where we can be detached at will from both spiritual and material realities, dependent on the demands of the situation and our own evolution.

If we are not attached to the extremes of dissociation from either the spiritual or the material we are free to pursue our spiritual progress and evolution within our daily ordinary day-to-day life.

“Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.”

“Jesus said, “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.”

(The Gospel of Thomas)

Regards

A.V.O

 

So often we forget that intense attachment in all forms are dangerous to spiritual development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even attachment to our own spiritual ideals.

A more simple life.

The Spiritual path is a path of Simplification. As we mature in our walk with the ‘Beloved’ we slowly but surely let go and put to the side many of the religious rules, regulations, and theology that we cling to. As my journey continues I hold on to less and less. The more I read the Gospels and other Early Christian documents, the more I see Jesus as a rebel, a revolutionary of his time. Rules and Regulations were at the centre of the Jewish life that surrounded him. At one time The Law, the rules and regulations created a way for poeple to keep God in mind, but Jesus seemed to realise that in order to see more of God than the Law allowed, he would need to step beyond them.

This is a frightening experience for most people. It feels much safer to follow rules and move within the institutions you are used to. Unfortunately these same rules, theologies and insititutions shape our lives and inner world in specific ways.  Our inner life and thoughts in turn place limits on how we percieve God. If we want to see more of God we sometimes have to step beyond the maps we hold in our head and the institutions surrounding us.

Does this mean we should let go of all rules, of all institutions? No, when I test and step beyond some of my own spiritual maps, I often realise that some of what I learned previously is still worth keeping hold of. But I realise that what is left is far more important than those things I let go. They are usually so precious for my continued growth that I cling even more to these than to any other principles or rules. It is probable that in the future, I might again step beyond the bounds of those priciples that I now hold as central, and then my path may be simplified even more. Its not that all rules and institutions should be rejected. Its just that the ones you thought were the most important, might not be the ones left over when you step outside your current map.

It is often a disturbing experience to realise that some principles ideas so central to your own faith are not truly important. But to realise what is truly important in your faith places you in a position much closer to seeing more of God. And to be able to stand outside the ideas and institutions of your faith is often a place of freedom, and a much more powerful place from which to pursue God, and help others.

I will end this post with a saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas:

“1. And he said, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”

2. Jesus said, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]“

(Gospel of Thomas – Translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer)

 

Have a great day.

 

A.V.O

The Transmuting Crucible of Prayer

Its been a week or two since I posted. My only excuse is that I had a fruitful period in my inner life communing with the ‘Beloved’. I like riding waves, including inner ones. Riding waves, inner or outer requires time, so I had less to spend on other tasks.

 

I wanted to post something about Prayer. We often think of Prayer just as speaking with Deity. We say a few words, or beg a boon on behalf of ourselves or others. Sometimes we pray a prayer of praise, although fewer people ever do this than you might think. Prayer is much more than this.

 

Prayer is a transformative, transmutive experience if done correctly. When we focus on God or the ‘Beloved’ wholeheartedly, and with all out being, we become one with him/her for a moment. At that moment we make contact with the Divine Light. This is only half the process of prayer. If we go further and acknowledge our own shortcomings, the spaces of need in our own life and that of others, the overflowing Light will flow into those spaces and transmute them.

 

This wonderful process is encapsulated in the simple prayer used within the Orthodox monastic tradition,

 

‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have Mercy on me a sinner.’

 

The first section of the Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…) focusses our attention on the ‘Beloved’, opening ourselves to the Divine Light contained in him. In the second part of the prayer we acknowledge the untransmuted space in ourselves. The moment we do that a transmutation is accomplished by the Light.

 

Each time we pray the Jesus Prayer with full attention and intention, we are speaking an invocation to the ‘Beloved’ who resides in the Light. Each time we say it with true intention and attention behind each word, we are engaged in Theurgy (divine magic), which slowly, but surely transmutes our inner nature. Each time we replace the word ’sinner’ in the prayer with a place or person who needs the Mercy of the beloved, we direct the transmuting power of the Light, and the love of God to that place or person. In this way we slowly but surely transmute the world.

 

It seems that the mainstream church still has something to teach us, and still contains many wonderful Theurgical and transmuting practices.

 

 

….for those who have ears to hear and still follow the golden chain.

 

I still have quite a few things I want to share, but will do so when I have some more time later this week.

 

Have a wonderful week.

 

 

Regards

 

A.V.O