I've been thinking about ways to love people, even when they are busy making a point of not loving those around them. The types whose egos overshoot their brains, and have a tendency to just like hearing their own voice, so they talk. We run into these people everywhere, and I personally have a great deal of trouble loving them. The other night, someone was asking about books, and it sort of went off towards different types of books, and Jewish Mysticism was brought up. Personally, I love Kabbalah, but it really is hard to live up to. (no, serious Kabbalah, not the new agey one). Then Phil's post triggered something I had read by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, a great Kabbalist and author. I'm going to quote something here that I really really like:It's called "Awareness--First Light".
"Most people remember that "light" was the first thing God made in the creation sequence, as recorded in Genesis. "And God said ' Let there be light' and there was light." Only a few people know on which day of the creation God created the sun, moon, stars and heavenly luminaries. The answer is the fourth day. You don't have to be a scholar to see that we have a problem here. If all the sources of light weren't made until day four, then from where did the light of day one come? Kabbalists solve the problem with a dazzling insight into the nature of consciousness. They explain that the light God made on the first day was not optical light, but that of ultimate awareness or human consciousness raising itself from the dark oblivion of unconsciousness. It was a consciousness-like light so dazzling that, in it, Adam and Eve could gaze from one end of space to the other end of time. But then, when God saw that they couldn't be trusted to follow even one simple commandment (Dont eat from the tree...), God realized that they might take this light of ultimate awareness and destroy creation. But this only posed another problem. Were God to completely withdraw that light of the first day, the universe likewise could not endure; it would implode. Therefore, God took the light and hid it in the material stuff of this world. There are sparks of it in literally everything. In the words of the Psalmist, " Light is hidden away for the righteous." And whenever we behave in a holy way, we "free" sparks and heighten our own mystical awareness".
So, when I'm having one of "those days, or those encounters", I choose to look for the Divine Spark that resides in all things. I may be short of being able to love the person, but I can, and do, love that Divine Spark that animates them. This is just something that works for me, not a suggestion nor advise, nor an opening for a debate. Just a cool way of doing it. Wren
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Funny, isn't it, how friends and a Power greater than ourselves can neutralize nightmares?
That gave me chills.....I have a person in my life who I have a very hard time with. Every time I have to be around him I am irritated and angry. The next time I am in that situation I will remember this post and try to see him in that way. Thank you!
And...... as Wanda said to you last week, another one of your Home Runs.
When I am having one of those moments, I force myself to contemplate the concept of "If I am a Beloved Child of God, then there is no one that is not included in this Process", when we ask Him. Try to turn it into a Spiritual concept, rather than a Thought concept, and when I have completed this transference, I begin to feel free, hard work to let go absolutely, but very necessary, if I want to be free.
As a result of working the Steps of this Program, many times we are asked to humbly ask God to remove our Character Defects, and when we begin feeling a release, from said Character Defect, there is a simultanious awareness of the Unconditional Love of God, as well as a very deep and humble awareness of his unending Forgiveness. I will ask myself, in Silence, if you have been forgiven, and you feel that in your heart, then who are you, to hold back forgiveness, end up feeling pretty aware that what holds me back can only be identified as my own limited human knowledge, this is what can hold me back.
In the book Prayers of the Cosmos, in a Prayer form, one of my favorite lines is this Prayer Book, is asking to "be released from what holds us back". My own limited knowledge is represented by darkness, and being released, represents Light. God's Light, inside us.
Have always thought that a Judgement of another is a little Prison I create for myself.
Great stuff, and Thank you Chris, for taking the time to write about these beautiful thoughts of the Kabbalah.
Thank you Iffer and Toni, for your beautiful shares. Here's something I ran across, Toni, when I was ruminating on how each of us has our own truth. ie: religion vs spirituality--
"No one person’s truth is greater than another’s, and no one person can grasp the whole. It is together, collectively, in the grasping of the various truths of life, derived from our experiences, that truth itself, can be approached.
To be able to know what is true and what is not we must develop two mental senses: discernment and discrimination. We must first of all develop discrimination - the mental ability to make a distinction between things and know the definitions of things. Then we must develop discernment to be able to relate to the inherent quality of things. (This requires soul influence on the mind.) The quality of things are revealed by their relationships. When something is in relation to something else it is the quality of the being or thing that makes the actual connection, not something external. The level of relationship discovered depends upon the observer’s ability to sense or be conscious. We discover the ultimate quality of anything when we can see its ultimate relationship to the Spirit cause of its existence, when we know the universal reality or law that maintains it in existence. This awareness is soul consciousness. The most universal quality of anything that we can detect is its recognition and support of the value of everyone and everything in the whole of life. It is completely selfless."
That quote is a very internal thought process, rather than an external grasping at ideas, so I really love it. Thanks for your thoughts. Love Wren
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Funny, isn't it, how friends and a Power greater than ourselves can neutralize nightmares?
Hi Chris, Good Morning and I hope you are here reading this.
Was re-reading these thoughts that you brought, and was thinking back to a Book from the Hippy era, that was a Book that everyone, well in California anyway, had a copy of, Called, "Das Engeri". some of the quotes, were those life time words we store in our little brains that make a tremendous impact.
One such line in this Book, was "Learning how to draw Discriminating Lines, with Evaporated Ink." The whole world was at the age of 28- to 30, (chuckle) and it was a time of trading in old worn out learned concepts that did not apply to our lives any longer, had only been borrowed and were now returned to the teaching source, and learning how to set up our value systems. Any food for thought was greatly appreciated, and the word, "discrimination' was a word that we all felt belonged in the "round file".
But this line of this verse, suggested we hold on to that word, and just throw out the bath water, not the Baby.
So we threw out the old version, based on ignorance, and utilized the essense of the word, for the inside stuff that had to retained for ourselves, if a new value was being determined.
The above mentioned line said it ALL.
Wow, I am feeling like an old Hippy at the moment, and some might be asking what does this have to do with Working the 12 Steps.
Just light-heartedly saying just an old "cake recipe here" Chuckles!!!
