Religion. The very word strikes fear in the hearts of your average citizen…or boredom, or maybe confusion. My Uncle Joel, a Chemistry professor at UC Berkeley, kept a scrapbook of clippings he said proved religion to be the root cause of humanity’s ills. And who could blame him? The traditionalist mindset holds tight to its religious construct, sure he is right and others wrong, convinced his life depends upon it. Wars are fought, atrocities excused, fear promulgated year after year, all in the name of a god. Humbug.
It’s understandable that culture heaves a deep sigh of relief as the modernist mindset deconstructs the traditional religious myths. The archeologist, the geologist, and the historian of religion all play their part in unraveling the context of meaning which has sustained humanity for 4000 years.
The evolutionary biologist and the cosmologist spin a new story of a big bang and the slow development of species. But, and this is important, the neuroscientist sheds light on the remarkable workings of the human brain and has discovered that our minds literally need to generate narratives to make sense of the universe. A coherent story is the very definition of sanity.
Narrative provides sanity and yet the dominant modern narrative seems devoid of meaning save “survival of the fittest,” extrapolated to mean we want to live as long as possible as comfortably as possible. What kinds of decisions does this narrative foster?…Look around you.
Faced with the global challenges of environmental degradation, intolerance and fear threatening even now to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war, we turn our eyes again to religion, but not with an eye to return to the past, rather as a guide into the future. We approach religion, be it the tradition of our youth or another, unconvinced of its unique claim on truth. And so we search out the deep structures of each religion looking for some resonance, some coherence that will guide us. We find it, to a point. Love is always there. Mystical practice within each tradition calls us to let go of the self and move towards union with all that is.
Yes, there is resonance, but their is dissonance too, for what does “love” mean? The traditions cannot agree and their differences are integral to what each one would have us believe. The theme of forgiveness can be found in each of the world’s religions, but only Christianity uses it as an organizing principle. Each major tradition has devotion to the divine nature as part of its context of meaning, but only Hinduism uses it as an organizing principle. When we explore the resonance and dissonance with one another – absent the arrogant posture that “I am right and you are wrong” – we wake up to the realization that we are evolving the narratives themselves; we are evolving the context of meaning within which humanity lives and we’re doing it none too soon.
The Center for World Spirituality, a dual citizenship community seeking to discern Spirit’s next move, is engaged in just this project.
by Sam Alexander
Blog: www.gracecomesfirst.net
Daily Wisdom Post, The Creative Gaze
February 25, 2012
The Creative Gaze
The Kabbalists were often referred to as mistaklim or chozim, roughly translated as the Looker or Seers. To get a handle on what that might mean, just imagine how we feel when someone looks at us with erotic, loving eyes. We feel energized, uplifted, and embraced. We become more vibrant, audacious, and alive. We feel safer in the world. The sense of alienation, separateness, and loneliness of our empty days and painful nights seems to lift.
The more steady the loving gaze is, the more we can steady ourselves and chart our direction and purpose on the path of being. It begins with the loving eyes of mother and father–our first lovers–and continues throughout our lives. Love’s eyes sustain us, nourish us, and connect us to the essential aliveness that courses through the universe. Being seen makes us alove and alive. The same is true of God. The gaze of the mystic sustains and even “creates” God.
Once a few years back, my son Yair walked into the room. He sat and started playing with his Gameboy. I began looking at him, but really looking, perceiving him, loving him, with all my heart pouring out through my eyes. I was seeing every beautiful detail of his being as he sat there innocently playing. Suddenly he started singing. Yair singing?! A rarity. Could it have been from my love pouring out in his direction? He got up and sort of danced his way out of the room. Yair dancing?!
Well, proper scientific data it is not. But it was enough for me. It was exhilarating! Since then I have done this practice in a thousand different places–in streets, lecture halls, pubs, churches, libraries and synagogues. As a result, the world has been much more full of singing and dancing. I realized that a loving gaze can transform reality. We call this in formal theology imatatio dei, the imitation of the divine force. Just as God looked lovingly into the darkness and there was light, just as God’s gaze made it good, so too can our loving perception transform darkness into light and chaos into harmony. Try it!
The Mystery of Love
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 125, 126
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, As You Love Yourself
February 25, 2012
As You Love Yourself
Of course, to remind another of their full beauty you have to be fully aware of your own. The Baal Shem Tov has a wonderful teaching on the biblical mandate “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” First it is a statement of fact–you love your neighbor precisely as much as you love yourself. For in the end, you can only perceive another’s greatness if you have glimpsed and believe in your own. Self-love is self-perception.
If this is so, then a powerful question arises. How do you love yourself when you know all of your foibles, pathologies and blemishes? Isn’t self-love self-perception? And does not honest perception yield forth all of the reasons why we are not lovable? And yet most of us manage, at least to some degree, to love ourselves. Is it just self-deception? No, not at all. Love is not merely perception, it is a perception-identification complex. Self-perception means that although you are aware of the full complexity of your personae–the good, the bad, and the ugly–you identify the essence of who you are with your good–your good, loving, giving, creative, and generous self.
That does not mean that you deny your beast. It is, of course, critical to integrate all of you into your self picture. To love yourself is to identify yourself as part of the Shechina. Writes the Baal Shem Tov, “To love yourself is to love the Shechina.” Not to love yourself is to send the Shechina into exile. So proclaim the Kabbalists, to which Rumi adds:
By God, when you see your beauty
You will be the idol of yourself.
In your deepest nature you must know that you are the hero of your story. In your deepest nature you are love and grace and strength and splendor. Now you must decide to identify with your deepest nature. Do you focus on your innocence or your guilt? Do you focus on your ever-inevitably dirty hands, or on your ever-eternally pure soul? To love yourself or anyone else, you need to know that your innocence is your essence. That you always remain worthy of love. That your innocence is never lost.
The Mystery of Love
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 121, 122
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, Soul Print Hints
February 25, 2012
Soul Print Hints
A word in the Zohar used for those souls who are living their story is lechisah, meaning “whisper.” To live your story is to be able to hear the intimate whisper of divinity erotically caressing your life. We are all recipients of cosmic love notes. Paul Tillich reminds us that we can only hear through the love that listens. Buber captured the spirit of biblical myth when he wrote, “To live means being addressed.”
To live one’s story is erotic in the resonance of its melody and the fullness of its canvas. The world, when we are in our story, is no longer empty. The soul is not here just pay back karmic debts. It has a contribution to make from the depth of its infinite specialness. Through making that contribution a human being feels ful-filled. That is the eros of living one’s story.
The universe is full of whispers, and they are talking directly to you. And here is the paradox–the more you act as if you are being addressed, the more you will be. The world is filled with soul print hints. It may be the lyrics of a song, a sign on a building, an old friend you meet after years of not seeing each other, or a book that grabs your attention and demands to be read.
Each person has their unique talent, pleasure, obligation, form of silliness, and pathology. These are all personal soul print hints that direct you toward living your story.
The Mystery of Love
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 243, 244
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, To Greet with God’s Name
February 18, 2012
To greet with God’s name
Calling out “the Name” is evoked the world over in greetings. The Spanish hello–hola–originated in Arab Spain from the term “O’Allah” — Allah of course being the Arab appellation of God. In Austrian German they say Gruss God. In Hebrew, the common response when asked how you are doing is Baruch Hashem–Praise God, or Thank God. The Hebrew greeting Shalom is actually a name of God. In English, we still follow this custom when we part from someone and say “Godspeed” or “God be with you.”
In a wonderful and mysterious passage, the wisdom masters talk of a special decree made nearly three thousand years ago. It taught that one should greet his friend with the name of God. Although the Third Commandment proscribes such “idle use” of God’s name, this new law legislated special permission to use the divine name in casual greeting. The source for the decree is said to be the verse “In a time to do for the Name (God) you may override the Torah.”
The idea underlying the decree is very powerful. To greet a person, we are allowed to use the sacred name of God, which is never taken in vain, because to greet a person is to recognize them, to perceive them. Perception is healing through love, for there is nothing more painful than anonymity. Love, you remember, is the perception of the infinite divine specialness in other!
You came to a party alone. No one recognizes you for several long minutes. You feel forlorn, alienated. Then someone taps you on the shoulder and calls your name in warm welcome. The world is transformed. You have been recognized, perceived. Called by name!
Of course, true recognition is deeper than a mere greeting. It requires a true knowing, receiving, and even merging with the name. This is what happens when the Name (God’s and the beloved’s) is called at the height of sensual passion. If the passion is situated in the context of a shared story and commitment, then the calling of the Name in the cherublike embrace of sexuality is the ultimate transcending of loneliness, both for the lover and the beloved.
Minimally, however, the wisdom masters write that we must greet each other with the Name. The simple and correct reading of the text indicates that they are referring to the name of God. But on some deeper level, the Name they refer to is none other than the Name of the person being greeted. In this powerful rereading the new decree is that no person should remain anonymous. Every person should be called by their Name. Never allow yourself to be served by someone without knowing their Name. In knowing the Name of the waiter serving you there is a fixing and healing of God’s Name.
It is a time to fix divinity. To create God. God is created by revealing the infinite divine in every person. God’s name is emptied when people live without having their Names recognized, without being called by Name. So the wisdom masters decree, “Greet every man with the Name.” The Name of God and the Name of the blessed and beautiful individual before you, for they are one and the same.
The Mystery of Love
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 237, 238
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, To Receive…
February 18, 2012
To receive …
The ultimate model for reality is the divine. The most central teaching of the Kabbalah is that God’s highest gift to world is to receive the human being as a partner in the perfection of the world. God allows himself, as it were, to need us.
This is God’s ultimate gift to humanity. It is therefore not at all surprising to learn that the very word Kabbalah means to receive – for to receive in imitation of God is the highest level of giving – and is thus the most profound form of spiritual service.
A friend and colleague tells a wonderful story about going to a class in Kabbalah. The teacher handed him an apple. He stretched out his hand to take it. No, said the master withdrawing the apple. This process repeated itself several times until my friend finally understood. Instead of stretching forth his hand to take the apple he cupped his hand to receive the apple. And this is the essence of Jewish mysticism – to be a vessel, Kabbalah, to receive.
Certainty and Uncertainty
Dr. Marc Gafni
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, Ten Sefirot
February 18, 2012
Ten Sefirot
Each one of these ten levels of divine presence represents another dimension of God in our world. They are referred to as the Ten Sefirot. When we perform a commandment, says Luria, we participate in one of these levels of the divine.
Indeed the mystical writers point out that the word Mitzvah has more than one meaning. Simply of course it mans commandment. The human in doing a mitzvah is thus seen as responding to a divine command which comes from outside the human being.
There is however a second sense of the word Mitzvah. It means Tzavtah – to be together with. When one performs a mitzvah one literally merges with divinity. One is together with God. Each Mitzvah in the mystical understanding moves me toward merger with a different Sefira, a different level of divinity. However, says Luria, we are only able to participate in the lowest seven levels. The human being, trapped in mortality, can never touch the highest three levels of divinity in this world. And yet one word can reach the heights. Ayeh.
Ayeh in Hebrew has three letters, alef, yod, hey. Alef, says Luria, is the letter that represents Keter – the divine crown, the highest sefirah – level of divinity in the world. Yod represents Chochmah – wisdom, the second highest level. And Hey is Binah – intuitive understanding, the third highest level. When the human being cries out to God in uncertainty – ayeh – he expresses the highest three levels of divinity and in so doing reaches beyond his mortal limits to touch “the highest.” Luria affirms that the expression of uncertainty in God does not contradict spirituality, but rather is the highest expression of the human search for divine connection.
Ayeh – where are you – the ultimate uncertainty – is then the highest level of religious authenticity
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Eros Audio Series, Sweetness and Sexuality
February 10, 2012
Join Dr. Marc Gafni in this free short audio clip. Tradition of sweetness is level three consciousness. The sexual will teach us the wisdom of every facet of life.
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, The Taste of the Tree
February 10, 2012
The Taste of the Tree
The goal of the erotic life is to engage every area of our lives with the mantra of lismah beating in our breasts. This means being fully present for each thing itself without needing always to justify our activity by recourse to some external gain. In the poetry of Hebrew mysticism this is referred to as taam haeitz ketaam haperi, meaning “the taste of the tree is as the taste of the fruit.” This phrase has its source in the delightful biblical creation myth where God commands the trees to be “trees of fruit which bear fruit.” The stunning implication of a precise reading of the divine instruction is that the tree itself, the bark, should also have the taste of the fruit. The point is, there should be no distinction between means and ends. A coarse tree that brought the fruit into being should share the very taste of its succulent fruit.
The Mystery of Love
Dr. Marc Gafni
Page 218
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
Daily Wisdom Post, Unique Obligation
February 10, 2012
Unique Obligation
… there is no person who does not possess Unique Gifts that respond to unique needs. From a nondual perspective, it is your Unique Gift that creates your Unique Obligation. To live your Unique Self and offer your Unique Gifts is to align yourself with the evolutionary impulse and fulfill your evolutionary obligation. The realization of your Unique Self awakens you to the truth that there is a Unique Gift that your singular being and becoming offers the world, which is desperately needed by all that is, and can be given by you and you alone. There is no more powerful and joyous realization available to a human being. It is the matrix of meaning that fills your life and is the core of your Unique Self enlightenment.
Your Unique Self
(in press)
Dr. Marc Gafni
Page 33
For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org
