spirituality information

The Mystical Significance of 49: Counting the Omer Between Passover and Shavuot

2008-05-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

Counting the Omer:

Time spent with the Teacher moved more quickly than anyone would have liked. Yet, no matter how little time we had, his words burned into our minds and our souls and remain with us always . We all hear his voice to this day speaking to us from the inner quiet of our being.

He said, "The number 49 is a significant number. There are 49 days between Passover and Shavuot which Jews counts in a commandment known as "Counting the Omer." Know that there were seven days of creation, and therefore this number represents perfection and completion.

If you multiply 7 x 7 we arrive at purification which is expressed in the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot when the Torah was revealed in all its majesty to humanity. Had our people accepted the Torah as it was given to Moses, then Moses would have been the channel by which the "Messiah force" would have changed everything. In a twinkling of the eye, the next universe, the world to come, would have super-imposed over this imperfect world. Temporal time would have turnedinto the eternal time line.

This purifying time was also a representation of the need for us to learn to control the seven basic emotions that make all of us human.

Love (hesed in Hebrew) includes anything that pertains to this powerful emotion. Hesed is the first week, or the first seven days of the 49 days between Passover and the holiday of Shavuot.

The second week in counting the Omer is gevurah, which is the opposite of love--discipline, focus, and channeling.

The third week in counting the Omer is tiferet--the week of harmony and compassion. Though related to the first two weeks, it goes far beyond that. It is the first stage of empathy and compassion, not only for your own people or family, but also for strangers and even those who do not deserve mercy.

Netach is the week of victory, but in order to have victory over self, you need fortitude, ambition, and endurance.

Hod is splendor which causes the emotion of humility--the knowledge of the smallness of self in contrast to the "All". This balances Netzach.

Yesod is the sixth week and it is an emotion that causes bonding which is another step on the road to complete empathy. It is more than experiencing something from the outside, it is the foundation of becoming what you observe by bonding with it.

The final week is called Malchut which is Nobility or Kingship: This is nobility of character, directing one's phsyical nature to become subservient to his or her spiritual nature. In in our own individual way, we can each become so much more by bonding with the Noble Eternal Light . We can bring about the redemption of ourselves as individuals and the universe in which we are all fellow travelers.

On Rebirth: Israel and the Messiah

2008-05-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

Israeli Independence Day came and went reminding me of something very profound that the Teacher told us, although the others and I didn't realize it at the time.

In the daily page of the Talmud, a great deal of time is spent discussing the Cohen (Priest) and defilement from touching a corpse. On one Independence Day the Teacher spoke about this and said:

"The Talmud teaches us that there are three stages of defilement after the body dies. When the body dies the spirit flies free and returns to the Everlasting. But the body goes through three distinct stages of decomposition, each one being less defiling than the last. The first is the flesh. When the flesh passes away, the ligaments remain. When the ligaments pass, only the bones are left."

The Teacher stopped talking for a while and seemed lost in thought, and then he continued, "Consider for a moment the words of the Prophet." And he read to us from Ezekiel 37:1-14:

"The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.

"Then he said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

"So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them."

The Teacher paused a moment and then explained, "Know that this is the rebirth of our people and our nation…first the bones were brought together, and then the tendons, and finally the flesh…but we have no breath in us. We are at the stage of the ultimate defilement…dead flesh with no spirit. Do not be amazed at the flaws and faults of our leadership…the defilement is total, from the head of state, down to the lowliest…because they have no breath of life in them. But this was necessary for the next stage." He took up the book and continued reading:

" Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

"Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' "

He smiled and said, "This is the meaning of the age of the Messiah, a time when we will receive the breath of life from the Everlasting, and through this become the fulfillment of the promise of the First Man. The next step in human development which will spread to all the peoples of the world, and then all will expand together with the Universe.

On the Way to the Promised Land

2008-05-05T02:15:00.000-07:00

One day the Teacher was explaining the significance of the confrontation between Israel and Amalek, which happened after Passover, when Israel was on their way to the Promised Land.

He then asked , "Why didn't Moses take part in this first battle that G-d commanded Israel to wage against Amalek?"

Knowing that this question was rhetorical, we remained silent and waited until he continued.

"Because Moses knew that the battle was to be fought on two levels, the spiritual level and the physical level. R. Simeon teaches us in the Zohar that Moses didn't participate in this war because it was necessary for him to concentrate on the spiritual level. This war was the most critical battle fought between the forces of light and dark; even more important than the coming battle against Gog and Magog. Not only did Amalek attack Israel on the physical level. Amalek attacked the Holy one, Blessed be he, on the spiritual level."

The Teacher continued. "It is written in the Torah that Moses sat on a stone and Aaron and Hur held up his hands. Aaron represented the attributes of Grace and Hur represented the attribute of Strength, and Moses, between the two, became the living representative of Faith. The Torah further teaches that when Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. When he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. Here we are speaking of the right hand which he held above the left representing the spiritual Israel. Remarkably, when Israel ceased praying Moses couldn't keep his hand up at all! This teaches us that even when the priest spreads out his hands at the sacrifice, the physical Israel must co-operate by praying.

"What we can learn from this is clear. Israel must fight the forces of darkness on the physical level but never let that fight distract them from fighting the same forces on the spiritual level. No war can ever succeed by force of arms alone, but only by a balance in which there is perfect coordination between the spiritual and the physical."

The Beginning of Wisdom is Silence

2008-03-24T02:50:00.000-07:00

One day, the Rabbi was asked to explain who should be allowed to learn the Hidden Wisdom.

"There are several schools of thought," he explained, "Some teach that only men over the age of 40 should learn. Others say that teaching women is forbidden. Yet others claim that only those well versed in the Talmud should be allowed to ender the Garden."

He remained silent for a while to let us think about what he had said, then continued, "Listen to me closely. The Wisdom is there for all, men and women, young and old, learned and ignorant. There is only one pre-requisite for learning the Kabala and that is a desire to learn. It is not necessary to understand anything at all when being introduced to the first levels, since the student is only drinking from the well of knowledge to satisfy an instinctive thirst that he or she doesn't understand yet. The thirst is known…yet not understood. They are much like nursing babies who don't understand either the source of their nourishment, or how it will be absorbed into their bodies.

"They only know that they are thirsty. The light of the Ain Sof responds to that thirst like a Mother…giving freely and nurturing all who search for it, unlimited in its ability to quench thirst. For this reason, I never search for students. A student must come to me, as a wanderer in the desert to a cool spring, drinking instinctively from the life giving waters without questioning or understanding anything beyond that basic need. Only later, when he has quenched his thirst, will he be called upon to transfer this hidden wisdom to others.

"If he doesn't share with others, he will explode from selfishly retaining the unending wisdom, and will be forced return to the same shattered un-enlightenment that drove him to the well in the first place.

"So the desire to receive should be in order to give or influence…and the timing of this step is critical to the student, since it must happen when he is full almost to the brim, but before his 'container' bursts."

It took me awhile to formulate my question. "How do you know when to reject a person who comes to you to learn ?

"A true seeker doesn't come to me with pre-conceived notions of Kabala, re-incarnation, ego or a desire to change the physical by using the meta-physical. As I said before, the true student comes because of a thirst, which he or she, cannot identify. A false student will always try to teach rather than learn, to influence rather than be influenced, to assert his or her own ego rather than to receive, to tell rather than to ask.

"They never seem to learn that the beginning of wisdom is silence."

From the Teacher to David: The Unity of God

2008-01-17T23:34:00.000-08:00

I asked the Teacher to explain why divine name ELOHIM in Hebrew is in the plural. Why isn't God called called"EL" in the sungular form? The Teacher answered me like this:

"The Zohar teaches us that Rabbi Simeon, who wrote the Zohar, received a prophecy and this was it:

"When the most Mysterious wished to reveal Himself, He first produced a single point, which was transmuted into a thought, and in this, He executed innumerable designs, and engraved innumerable gravings. He further engraved within the sacred and mystical lamp a most holy design which was an edifice issuing from the middle of this thought. This is called in Hebrew "MI" (WHO). This thought became matter by creating a vessel for itself ("ELEH" in Hebrew or "these" in English). The letters of these two words intermingled to form a complete name ELoHIM. And once combined the name remained forever, and this was the word upon which the world was built.

"In his vision, Rabbi Simeon also understood saw that the sin of Israel as recorded in Exod. XXXII, 4--the making of the golden calf--further alludes to this mystery when they said "Eleh (these are) thy Gods, O Israel."

About ths golden calf, the Teacher said:

"The main sin of the Israelites was not only in making images, but also in interpreting God as a plurality. They did not understand that there is no plurality at all, only the combining of separate concepts into a unity.

"All is one. God is n everything and everything is in God."

From the Teacher to David: The Coat of Many Colors.

2007-12-31T04:27:00.000-08:00

One day the Teacher spoke about Joseph in the Bible and the coat his father Jacob made for him. Jacob made the coat for Joseph because Jacob loved Joseph his youngest child so much. It was a special coat, a Coat of Many Colors.

"As you know", the Teacher said, "The salvation of man comes through two forces. One is called 'Savior the Son of Joseph' and the other is called 'Savior the Son of David.' Can anyone here tell me then, the significance of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors?"

His deep blue eyes searched ours, meeting our gaze, one at a time. No one answered.

"I will tell you the hidden mystery of this thing." And then he looked at me, "You Rabbi David, have studied art in the world's universities. Tell me…what is color?"

"Is it when invisible light becomes visible to our eyes?" I asked.

"And when there is no light source?" he asked, smiling.

"Then there are no colors, only black or darkness…" I said hesitantly.

"Exactly!" he said, "And this is what the Coat of Many colors was. To the enlightened, it looked like the rainbow representing the light from all the various worlds, or levels of spirituality, to the others…darkness…it was black…a bitter joke, for they were blind to it.

"So Joseph put on the coat of many colors and went to his brothers in the field.They were jealous of the coat for two reasons. First, Joseph was given this gift by their father, which meant Joseph was above them on the spiritual plane. As they only saw a black garment, the brothers asked one another, "Who is this Joseph who claims to have a coat of many colors? He is a liar and a fraud!"

"The second reason the sons of Jacob were jealous was because their father loved Joseph more than he loved them. Their envy made them blind to the brilliance of the coat. Their envy also made them blind to the colors of Joseph's aura and the light of the Creator with which Joseph was encompassed.

"So the sons of Jacob cast their youngest brother Joseph into the pit (which represents an attempt at throwing him down from the spiritual heights represented by the coat) leaving him in total physical darkness while they decided his fate.

"Judah, the eldest and most spiritually aware, had indeed seen the light of the coatand pleaded with his brothers to release Joseph. But they were intent on killing him and extinguishing this light from the world of men. However, they sold him into slavery in Egypt instead which represents the lower realms of spiritual darkness. In this way, the brothers hoped that darkness would completely extinguish the light of Joseph and the light of his coat which was meant to be a spiritual sign for all the nations.

"Then the brothers took the coat, still just a black rag in their eyes, and soaked it in the blood of an animal, to show their father that Joseph had been killed. The light, if there had been a light, was now extinguished. Upon seeing the cloak their father refused to be consoled and went into prolonged morning. He mourned, not for his son alone, but for what Joseph represented. Joseph represented another chance at raising the world of mankind to the level of Messiah, another chance of repairing of the broken vessel. Had they accepted Joseph and the coat he wore, the world would have evolved into a higher world. The tikun or spiritual repair of the world would have been complete.

"But for every unjust action, there is always a reaction which brings a tikun. Just as Joseph was sold into slavery, so were the descendants of Jacob's sons, the Israelites. During a severe famine in Israel, the Israelites went down to Egypt. Enticed by a vision of plenty, they became slaves like Joseph. The first part of their tikun or restoration was the years of slavery that they had to endure. They endured this until Moses, another Savior Son of Joseph came to lead them back into the light.

"Blood was placed on the doorposts during the exodus from Egypt as a sign of Joseph's Coat of Many Colors soaked in an animal's blood. The tikun for this evil action was also given to Israel for Joseph's sake. By the sign of blood on doorposts, the angel of death did not take the firstborn of Israel as punishment for what had happened, and took instead the first born of Egypt.

"Each culture and every nation has in every generation a Savior Son of Joseph to lead them out of the darkness because this salvation is one of choice…one of free will.

"However, the final salvation, or the Savior Son of David, is not a matter of free choice, but a forced evolutionary change of the spirit. Happy are those who make the choice offered us by Joseph before that final and terrible day."

From the Teacher to David: God is Everything and Everything is in God

2007-12-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

"Teacher" I said, "If God is everything and everything is in God, and, as we learn God is good…what then is evil? Where did it come from?"

"If I give you your hearts desire, you will call me "good"…and if I strike you, then you will call me "evil," he said patiently. "But here in this world you define good and evil by what affects you subjectively. The Wise have always said that God is not confined by our view of good and evil, and He cannot be defined by the limits of our mind."

"If so, Teacher," I said, "What then is evil and how did it come into the world? What then is Satan…what are angels, devils…?"

He held up his hand for me to be silent and continued, "The Torah says, "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' And later, 'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.'

"The Hebrew, as you know, reads נעשה אדם בצלמנו, which comes from the source צלם or image, but the root of this word is צל , which means shadow or shade. This is what man is: not the image of God as we understand an image, or a copy…but a shadow or shade of God, not equal to God, but still capable of being God-like and capable of creating within the limitations of our collective being.

"We create "good" in this world and we also create "evil." We create devils but we can also create angels. Satin is simply the collective embodiment of man's failure to use the incredible unlimited energy of the Creator to fill the universe with light and we chose to keep this light or energy to ourselves. This perversion of the creative force granted to man is the cause for the "breaking of the vessel" which we talked about before. This inevitably leads to waste, ecological crises, famine, injustice, war, death, and destruction. These become the crippled children of our collective being.

"We were given the power to create, within the boundaries of this, our test-tube world, and the collective "we" chose ego and self gratification over everything else…the desire to receive for the sake of receiving…and thus we created what we now call "evil."

"Our salvation will come because our soul recognizes this creation of our as being out of harmony with the universe and just as we have created "evil" we can also strive to create "good." This also is the first step in "repairing of the vessel.". We do so by striving to fill our creation with empathy and love until this collective effort will channel the unlimited energy of the Creator into everything and everyone, and we return to the garden.

From the Teacher to David: Inducing Consciousness and the Messiah

2007-12-10T01:06:00.000-08:00

One day our conversations concerned consciousness. We discussed the passages in the Zohar which explained that at one time, before the prior worlds were destroyed because of selfish desire to receive without contributing to the all, communication was possible between all created forms of matter; animal, vegetable, and minerals such as rocks.

I asked "Teacher, how is this possible?"

Once again, with infinite patience, the sage explained:

"Know that there were, and still are for those who are initiated, three levels of consciousness.-- the sub-conscious, the conscious, and what I like to call the super-conscious (for want of a better word).

"The sub-conscious, which all people share, is instinct and hidden memory. These direct our basic functions like heartbeat or primordial reactions to danger. The conscious level, which most people have to various degrees, is our ability to learn and reason within the physical environment in which we life. A baby learns to walk…falls…and then develops a protection mechanism like cushioning a fall with hands.

"This in turn sinks into the sub-conscious level and passes from conscious thought to unconscious thought. In this way, many of the things we learn as we grow start at the conscious level and sink to the unconscious level of instinct.

"The subconscious doesn't have the ability to communicate verbally, nor does it reason. Yet it is the rock foundation upon which we, as beings, are built.

"The conscious level is our decision making level; it includes verbal and non-verbal communication, writing, and culture. This level determines, to a great deal, the mythology of who and what we are and gives us the ability to choose our path.

"The super conscious level, on the other hand, is realized by only a few. It is the ultimate expression of empathy…giving and receiving energy from all that is around without taking or hording anything for oneself. It is the ultimate communication in which we can get a glimpse of the unity of all things.

"It cannot fully be attained by meditation, since meditation requires introspection which is division. Nor can it fully be attained by prayer, since prayer, either verbal or non-verbal, uses language. So even prayer is limited by a rational conceptual framework . No, the highest level is empathy with all things…losing the self in the all.

"This is the beginning of the next step in human evolution.At this stage all created forms of matter; animal, vegetable, and minerals such as rocks will once again be in deep communication. This stage is called "the revelation of the Messiah."

It is the stage of super-consciousness for all human beings.

The Teacher to David: Why We Were Created

2007-11-23T02:16:00.000-08:00

I once asked the teacher why we were created and I was blessed to get his answer:

In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth. So that is the first sentence in the Book of Genesis which is about the beginning of the world.

But consider, for a moment, why Genesis, the first book of the Torah or Bible, begins with the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet rather than the first? Wouldn't it be logical for the creation of everything to start with the first letter, which is aleph?

I said, yes, that would sound logical.

He said, "The reason for the aleph א is that it is open on all sides, meaning it is the symbol of an expanding and contracting universe. Consider the big bang theory. The constant expanding and contracting of all, which is called in the Kabala, גדלות can be translated as greatness as well as expansion. It's opposite called צמצום or collapsing, or folding in onto itself, is also necessary for the expansion of the universe and has been going on for all of eternity.

The Torah starts with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet ב and there is a small dot placed inside the letter to the left. But it is blocked above, blocked below, and blocked to the right. Remember that Hebrew is written from right to left which indicates two things.

One, that our reality was created within the expansion and contraction of all things for a purpose.

Two, do not look to the past for answers or above or below. Look only forward since time is a linear 6,000 years set aside from eternity, which is timeless.

Three, the dot indicates that there were worlds or realities that came before and it is sufficient for us to understand this without trying to explore concepts outside of our reality.

Therefore, as you have learned before, we must concentrate on the time reality made available for us, which exists within and yet is apart from eternity, in order to repair the primordial soul, which we spoke about earlier.

"And after this period of time, what will become of us?" I asked.

"We will have fulfilled our destiny." He smiled, and would say no more at that time.

From the Teacher to David: On the Feminine and Masculine Aspects of Divinity

2007-11-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Teacher said: All things are either matter or energy. Equally true, all things are either feminine or masculine; which is to say, connected with the right side or with the left side.

The unity of the divine is expressed in the indivisibility of the Name of Four Letters found in Hebrew (Tetragrammaton) ; the first two letters from the right being masculine and the first two letters from the left being feminine.

With the exception of Judaism, the world's religions have always either worshipped either the masculine (the right) or the feminine (the left), and, for the most part, still do. Those that prize mercy over justice worship the the left and those that prefer justice over mercy worship the right.

The Right is associated with Law and Justice. It is also associated with cold logic, and what can be cruel and dictating behavior. To pursue justice no matter what the price and without consideration of pain caused can cause terrible damage to a person, to a family, friends, and neighbors, to the world.

And alternately the Left which is associated with mercy and passion, if un-tempered, can cause terrible damage to a person, or a society by leaving evil influences unchecked by the tempering influence of law.

When there is a unity of feminine and masculine, left and right, we have creation: the balance between the two primordial forces creating the central line or axis from which energy can be drawn upon and transformed into matter; or, in other words, from which all physical objects are formed.

A misunderstanding of this function of unity has always led to chaos; Adherents of one side or the other clashing without combining,is the cause of intolerance, war, and persecution.

Peace and harmony occurs when the balance between the feminine and masculine is achieved in a total oneness.

The Teacher then said:

The perfect example of harmony between left and right, which is the harmony of God's four letter name in Hebrew (Tetragrammaton) is the joining of a woman and a man to create new life. The male and the female principles seek to balance their natures . That is why a perfect mate is called the soul-mate for life. All creation strives for harmony and unity.

Food and Spirituality

2007-11-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

Part of my definition of spirituality is a consciousness of what we eat and what we think when we eat and our emotional state when we are eating. People who are highly sensitized can feel the vibrations of food when they eat and long after they eat. They can also feel the emotions and intentions of the person who cooked the food.

I was studying yogic philosophy of living and health--ayurveda--and my teacher, an ayurvedic doctor told us this story of a man he knew. The man was a very kind and compassionate person who took care of his ailing father. Though his father could be rambuctious and demanding, his son never became irritated with him and never short-tempered. But one day, when the old man started complaining about his son's lack of love for him, the son burst out in anger. "After all I've been doing for you all these years? This is how you pay me back? You take care of yourself!"

No sooner had he finished his outburst, then he was overcome with remorse. Why did he speak this way and what made him to do it? He began to think about what he ate the day before, and suddenly it occured to him that he had eaten in a restaurant. He went to the restaurant, found out the identity of the cook, and spent the next days finding out as much about the cook as he could.

On his last day of detective work, he made a discovery which in once sense was shocking but in another not suprising at all.

The cook had been released from prison three years before after having served time for commiting a murder.

What is Spirituality and What It is Not 2

2007-11-07T00:05:00.000-08:00

If my definition of spirituality is not communicating with spirits, by way of pendulums, tables-tilting, seances and mediums....

If my definition of spirituality is not using mind control to free a parking space in Manhattan, or imagining a mouse running before a cat's nose so strongly teh cat runs after the mouse...

If my definition of spirituality is not gongs and chakra bowls and chimes and crystal and all the beautiful things sold in new age stores...if spirituality is not other-worldly, projecting ourselves into higher worlds, speaking to angels and devils and disembodied beings, what then is spirituality?

I believe spirituality is here and now, in this world and nowhere else. It is in everything we do. It is the life we have been given and what we do with that life, every single little thing. It is what we eat and how we eat and what we are thinking and feeling when we eat. Feeling the miraculous life force in food nourishing us as we eat is for me the beginning of a spiritual state of being. When we eat unwholesome food, and feel it clog our minds and spirits, this is also the beginning of spiritual awakening. Spirituality is being alive, deeply alive and attuned to the miraculous forces all around us and within us.

Spirituality is our very thoughts. It is the very quality of our mind. If we think about perfecting ourselves, tuning our instrument ever more finely we are making a step towards becoming the spiritual creatures we were meant to be, god-like human beings on a beautiful and blessed earth.

I know I sound like little Miss Know It All. But really, spirituality is in the hard day to day banal, boring difficult things--dealing with other people, with husbands, wives, family and friends. I fail in most of these little sacred things every day.

What is Spirituality and What It is Not

2007-11-06T03:28:00.000-08:00

Since the name of my website and this blog is Spirituality Information, the time's come for me to set down my thoughts on this question--what is spirituality?

It is easier to say what it isn't. For me, it is not other-worldly. It is not leaving your body. It is not hating this life and waiting for another life after this one.

It is not exerting power over people or using mind control.

A man I grew up with wrote to me and said that on a crowded street inManhattan, he could will himself a parking place. Zip, he just closed his eyes, and he could make anyone do anything, even hurry back to their car and drive away!

No, spirituality for me is not magic. It is not imagining a mouse like W.B Yeats used to do and projecting the image to a cat who then runs after it. It is not inducing an altered state of consciousness, like Yeats used to do, by meditating on symbols then communicating with disembodied spirits angels.

It is not holding a pendulum in your hand, like I used to do and asking a question and watching it move to answer "yes" or "no. It is not putting your hands on a table, like people used to do, and asking a spirit a question and watching the table tilt in yes or no.

It is not listening to the silvery tones of astral bell, the vibrations of chakra bowls, the soft and soothing music sold on CD's. It cannot be bought in stores. It is not smells or bells or burning a flower to ashes and putting the ashes in a bell jar in order to make the phantom of the flower rise.

It is not so many things and more.

So what is spirituality?

spirituality information from the Teacher to David 3

2007-10-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

The Teacher was telling me that reincarnation is not how many people think it is. The personality is not reborn, nor is the "I." What is reborn is something else, a spark or sparks from the Primoridal soul.

"Each speck of the Primordial Soul has a memory inside of it: of the "past" as we understand it and also of the "present" and the "future."

"As the Eternal creates new souls to inhabit this "reality", he places within that new soul a speck of the Primordial Soul. This is the Tikune, or the repair of the shattered Primordial Man, which burst because the Ein Sof put too much light into it.

"The new soul wraps layers of itself around the speck of the Primordial Soul, covering it with good deeds, and it becomes like a pearl, which has grown from a speck of sand. Then the Eternal harvests this soul, with the speck of the shattered soul, and outside of our "reality", the Creation functions as it was meant to: The desire to receive in order to Create has been the choice of the souls sent to redeem the specks of the Primordial Soul.

"So, to answer you question, David: Yes: a piece of that soul lives within you, with a fragment of the memory of either past, present, or future, but that memory is not you. You are all unique as you go through your life choosing the path of light.

spirituality information from the Teacher to David 2

2007-10-26T00:41:00.000-07:00

He remained silent for a long time and finally I asked if he would explain what he meant that in the beginning there was only one Soul.

"Yes, in the beginning, there was just one Soul which was the united soul which is the collective of all beings created by the Eternal, Blessed be He.

This original soul had only one duty: to water the garden. That is, to be a channel of the Eternal Light, bring it into the world of Matter, filling all things with Eternal Life. This is what the Wise call: "The desire to receive in order to create." This was the primordial state of the Primordial Man."

Suddenly his piercing eyes looked at me and he asked a strange question: "Can you drink the ocean dry?"

Confused by the question I stammered and told him that I could never hold that much water.

If you could be a pipe, you could draw on unlimited water as long as you kept nothing for yourself. It is just so with the Eternal Light. Like the ocean, if you plug the pipe, the pipe will explode when it is filled and no longer functioning as designed. This is called by the Wise 'The desire to receive in order to receive.' This then is what happened in the beginning. The Primordial Soul was shattered into infinitesimal pieces and scattered over the 6,000 years allotted by the Eternal for this reality.

Each speck of the Primordial Soul has a memory inside of it: of the "past" as we understand it and also of the "present" and the "future".

spirituality information from the Teacher to David 1

2007-10-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

One day, in Hebron, I asked the Teacher about re-incarnation. He answered me like this:

"Know that the written Cabbala is a trap, cleverly designed to leave out or mislead the uninitiated. This is because the knowledge has always been considered too dangerous for the uninitiated to grasp. Therefore it is required that the student learn with the Masters of Cabbala the secrets of the oral traditions which are passed down from father to son and from teacher to student."

Confused, I asked the Teacher if souls are re-incarnated or not. He answered:

"Know that the answer to your question is both yes and no. Much has been misunderstood about transmigration and reincarnation of souls. Many pretend to understand but really are blind to the truth and many more fall into the trap of half-truths."

He remained silent for a long time and finally I asked if he would explain further.

"The greatest truths are most often the simplest which is what makes them hard to understand except by the Wise. Know this: In the beginning, there was just one Soul which was the united soul the Adam Kadmon, which is in effect the collective of all sentient beings created by the Eternal, Blessed be He."

To be Continued by David
who learned this from the Teacher

Meeting an Enlightened Person

2007-09-06T04:42:00.000-07:00

When I walked into the classroom, and saw an olive-skinned Lama sitting hands clasped on bright orange robes, the sense of an inner vision coming true raced through my blood. Was this the teacher I had been looking for? My husband had organized a two day workshop at the university with Gendon, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was also a doctor of Tibetan medicine, residing in Israel, at a kibbutz in the Negev Desert. As I had to teach anyway, I thought I would stop in.

I stopped dead and gazed. The monk was so silent and centered. Years of living in a monastery had made him vibrant, lithe and strongly built. Frank had told me he soothed end-of-life patients. It seemed to me that years of working with dying patients had made him tender. Years of prayer and meditation, simple diet according to laws of health, had given him great energy and power of concentration.

When he began to talk, I knew meeting him was going to heal me. Though I came in Monday feeling tired and weak, I began to feel vitality and tranquility, sweet golden nectar in every word he spoke. He spoke about the effect of the stars on our mental and bodily health and how to read dreams and omens and why we should eat warm and healthy food. He also talked a lot about karma.

Chin in the palms of my hands, I leaned forward to absorb his words and to grasp a point where religions meet, a shared point of universal truth. The idea of tikkun in cabala and in Hasidism means fixing. We are reborn to fix some blemish in our souls. In Buddhism and Hinduism, they call it karma.

Karma is the law of reincarnation. Karma explains the relation between cause and effect in human existence by placing causes in previous lives. This world is only a world of effects. All human beings incarnate to this world to reap the fruit of their thoughts, beliefs and actions planted in previous lives.

If the fruits of our karma are good, we are radiant, healthy and happy. This may be what Christians call "grace." Religious Jews call this being blessed, righteous and walking before God.

If the fruits of our karma are bad, we have unhappy lives. But karma may also be the crust of thinking and feeling habits which imprison us and make us unlucky. Karma can be felt as a substance which sticks to our insides and curses our existence. The sticky stuff can melt though; the darkness suddenly lifts and we think and feel differently. All at once we see light streaming from beneath the walls we have built. At this moment we understand that we create the thought and perceptual patterns which confine us and prevent us from grasping the true nature of existence.

Every person should look for and pray to meet a wise teacher who can open the soul. In this way we can uncover the secret workings of cause and effect, the law that runs through our lifetimes. A wise teacher can help us do this because he or she is a highly evolved being. A real teacher is someone who in previous lives has done so much spiritual work in past lives that in this life his enlightened mind is so strong it shines for others. But if it is tainted with ego and love of power over others, it is not light but poison.

If you meet a real teacher, a person who is modest and unassuming, know that he or she is a gold nugget sent to you because you have directed your intentions above. Now I feel opened, lifted out of the rut of my mind and heart.

Reviving a Poisoned Dog the Biblical Way

2007-09-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

Our German Shepherd was six months old when she swallowed poison which our municpality spread in order to kill rats. My husband was out of the country when Tagar went into convulsions and began having violent spasms of diarrhea. There was no vet in Kiriat Arba that day, so my children and I put her on a folded carton and slid her into the hallway and sat around her stiff body hopelessly watching her die. It seemed that she already had rigor-mortis; her limbs stuck out straight like pieces of pipe. The diarrhea stopped as her systems began shutting down. Even the convulsions stopped. It seemed that her breathing had ceased too. Shmulik called some friends over to help bury her. By the time they came, we noticed a fluttery movement in one of her legs, Estie said, "Maybe you can do something Ema with meditation?"

A healing verse popped into my mind. It was from The Book of Kings. Elijah spreads himself out on the body of a widow's dead child and chants a phrase with God's name in it. In the Bible, the boy miraculously revived. Quickly, I made a few changes in the wording so we wouldn’t be using one of the explicit names of God. "We are going to say Chai Tagar Chai, which means "Live Tagar, live!"

"Chai Tagar Chai. Chai Tagar Chai!"

Our voices merged together as we repeated Elijah's magical plea again and again. We began to move our bodies in a rocking movement which religious Jews do. It helps propel the soul upwards, and then helps the soul re-land in the body. Tagar responded with twitches in her muzzle. Her eyes fluttered open then closed. Our plea rose in volume. Live Tagar, live!

But Elijah spread himself over the body of the child; hands on the child's hands, mouth on the child's mouth, a spiritual resuscitation! I didn't feel comfortable about putting my mouth on the puppy's mouth, but I did go and sit on her as my children continued their chanting. She twitched some more, then I got up. Slowly she raised herself on to wobbly legs and found a corner to get away from me. We cried and hugged each other.

Though it took Tagar two more weeks to finally regain her strength, she was living proof of the healing power of Biblical words.

The False Prophetess

2007-07-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

Beware of False Prophets!
By June Leavitt

My husband and I met Karine at the seashore where she was gathering stones. With long silver hair, radiant blue eyes and tawny young skin, she made a striking figure surrounded by her devotees. We asked her what she was doing. She replied that she was teaching them to have greater powers of concentration, to be more attuned to beauty. She asked if we wanted to take part in the workshop. We declined, but told her if she were to have another workshop, we might be interested. Two weeks later, we got a phone call. She was having another weekend seminar at the same seashore. "Can't do any harm, I suppose," I said to my husband. "And if we don't like her meditation workshop, at least we'll enjoy the seashore."

But when we got to the seashore retreat for the weekend workshop, we were shocked. Karine was alone and in a nasty mood. "Where is everybody?" we asked.

"I threw them out, "she answered

"You threw them out?" I asked surprised. "What do you mean?"

She replied, "I threw them out because they will never progress spirituality." When we pressed her to tell us what she meant, she said, "Ask the moon." Then she walked away.

Three years later, we got a call from her secretary. Karine, after traveling around the world, had returned and was having a workshop in an evergreen wood. She would be teaching once again meditation, this time with chimes. Would we be interested in coming? Can't do any harm, I suppose," my husband said to me. "And if we don't like the chimes, at least we'll enjoy the woods."

We sat on a hillside with Karine's bells, triangles, cymbals and chimes hanging from Juniper trees. In between taking a clapper and touching off beautiful sounds, she bragged about the meditation techniques she had invented; the teachers she had thrown out when they didn't live up to her expectations. Most of all, she bragged about the prophetic abilities she had, and her ability to see the future. The students sitting at her feet began asking her questions about her spectacular powers.

Forgetting about chimes and triangles, Karine sat down and began lecturing about herself. I looked at my husband and he made a slight face. We didn't know how we could get up politely and leave. We hadn't signed up for a course called "Introduction to the Wisdom of Karine." But there we were in the middle of this forest and to say "Excuse me, I have an important meeting," just wasn't honest.

We sat for another hour, and my husband, a lecturer in religious philosophy finally said very respectfully, "You know there are different levels of prophecy. Moses was at the highest level. After that came the lesser prophets. Karine, maybe you are like one of the Minor Prophets."

Karine turned red. "How dare you accuse me of being a minor prophet? Who are you to recognize the level I am on? You only think I'm on a minor level, because you're blind, and you want to ruin my workshop! You've come to ruin my workshop. All the people here know my worth! You don't know? Why did you come?"

She ranted and raged for at least ten minutes exhibiting pride, arrogance, an uncontrollable temper, an exaggerated sense of her own worth and scorn for other people. It was obvious that her spiritualistic or occult skills had not changed the awful qualities she possessed, and there was no way she could help or heal other people because she could not see beyond her little self. Finally when we picked ourselves up and left, one of her disciples came with us crying. She told us how Karine had kept her thinking for years that she would always be a lost soul if she wasn't Karine's disciple.

Clearly, Karine was searching for power, not in order to control her devastating emotions, but to control other people. My husband and I realized then she fit the definition of a false prophet. Real prophets like Moses were humble. They annihilated themselves and exalted God. False prophets annihilated God and exalted themselves. When we got home, we wrote Karine a letter and we told her this.

One week later Karine's secretary called, not acknowledging our letter, but demanding two hundred dollars for the workshop. Afraid of the bad spell this false prophet might cast on us, we quickly sent her a check, and thankfully we have never seen or heard of her since.

Doing the Chicken Asana Under Rifle Fire

2007-07-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

All of the family was here one Sabbath. Estie fried up eggplant salad. Adi baked cakes and challot. I roasted chickens and sweet potatoes. Miriam poured buckets of water on the floor and then with a rubber-bladed mop, drew out all the dirt so the house shined.

We were so relaxed, so happy all day Saturday. But just as the Sabbath was going out, and I was thinking of whipping something up for dinner, gunshots and automatic fire, clip after clip just feet away. Frank, Shmulik and Yossi went racing out. Joshua stood guard at the entrance to our house with his pistol. Inside we only heard the terrible noise of shooting.

Adi and Estie quickly picked up Oriah and Shachar and with Miriam rushed into our reinforced second apartment. I was about to go with them when I stopped. This was the time to bring bird wisdom and Yoga into my life. This was the time of the test. I did an about face and went back into my kitchen. The shooting was intensifying and from the kitchen window I could not see where my sons and husband were. To stick my head out of the living room window would not be wise. The first regulation during a terrorist attack is "Do not go near windows!"

I took a deep and slow breath and opened the freezer. I was getting into a Yoga asana , a position of balance and poise. Steadying my hand that was shaking, overcoming my fear, I reached inside and found a package of chicken wings. I stood there for a moment, finding the stream of strength that runs through our blood, and it was there.

There are asanas named after birds. The Heron asana-- sitting on the floor, one leg bent behind, foot by the side of the hip joint: Other leg stretched up in the air and held by both hands. There is the Eagle asana and Crane too. The Crane one is hard. Squat, put your hands on the floor, then slowly tip forward putting your knees on your elbows.

Now try the Chicken Wing Asana. Stand straight and poised, feet together. Take out wings and do not get frightened by the fact that your sons and husband are in a gun battle with terrorists.

Our Children are Our Teachers

2007-07-08T05:41:00.000-07:00

Our children can sometimes be our teachers.

One day my son called me outside.He pointed to the sky. Storks were migrating, making strange patterns over our home. My son told me they were looking for hot air which rises; on the hot air they would make their way to Syria without having to use their wings.

"Look their wings are not moving at all!"

Something can be learned from everything in the universe if we would only open our eyes, and this a son can do for his mother. Though we admire birds, and think they are much happier than we are, and certainly more free, they have troubles too.

It is very hard for birds to fly by their wings alone. They get exhausted; they get wing damage, and there are bird accidents in the skyways. If a migrating stork or goose gets carried away with himself, if he wants to show off for the females and he thinks he can get to Syria, Europe or Africa without submitting and surrendering himself to a greater power, he might find himself plunging to the earth below.

The storks had revealed a law of nature. They did not resist it or try to change it. They respected it. Submit. Surrender. Acquiesce to the law. So crystalline and clear! Despite the changes, the contradictory air streams in which we are always caught, hold steady and glide in a clear mind. The life force can carry you through life, through everything you do.

It is not like going to church or synagogue then coming out and doing everything in the same dull way you used to do. My son was showing me how to become aware, quiet and vigilant. I decided I would not let this message and lesson slip out of my hands. I would make it mine. I would cling to this law with all my heart and all my soul. An opportunity presented itself shortly after I saw the migrating birds.

Part Two coming soon! And do visit my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/

Curing Athsma through Yoga Part Two

2007-06-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

Sandra is a quiet girl. I to have to pry the information from her. "How is your asthma?"

She shrugs her shoulders. "Fine."

"What do you mean your asthma is fine?"

"Yoga has helped me. I am down to squirting from one inhalator a day. I don't use the stronger one at all anymore."

"When do you squirt it? I asked.

"Before I go to sleep."

It was during savasana one night when all my students were dutifully concentration on breathing, that I leaned over Sandra. "Why do you use that inhalator?" I whispered.

"I'm afraid of not breathing at night." She whispered back.

All of a sudden I had an idea. "Have you ever tried holding your breath for a short time?"

I told her to inhale, and hold her breath, two seconds--kumbaka. This would clean out the air sacs of her lungs, clean out the memories of her little sister dying, give her the feeling she was in control and ease her fear about not breathing. Kumbaka is supposed to be the secret of long life, mental health and longevity. Soon she could hold her breath 15 seconds. Sandra was thrilled with her accomplishment.

"See? Not breathing a little bit is not frightening. When you go to bed, think of this." I told her.

Wanting to cure herself of asthma, every night before she went to bed, not only did she do deep breathing from her belly, she increased her breath retention to 25 seconds. And you know what?

Just last week, six months after she began Yoga, Sandra stopped using an inhator altogether! Better than that, Sandra is cured of asthma!

Curing Asthma through Yoga Part One

2007-06-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

One of my first Yoga pupils was a teenaged girl, Sandra, who had been suffering from asthma since she was a little girl. I vaguely knew her family. Her sister who had had congenital heart disease died about twelve years ago; I had seen the little girl being wheeled around in her oxygen mask. I didn't say anything to Sandra. I just welcomed her into my class.

I began by teaching her deep breathing from the belly; then showing her how to stretch the inhaled air up through her ribs to her chest. I saw she only breathed superficially,and was only filling the top of her lungs. The breathing exercises relaxed her; her concentration improved, and she seemed stronger. Once a week she would hitchhike to my house where I held the class. It didn't matter if it was raining, sleeting or storm, she would arrive hopefully at my door, breathing through her mouth in a loud wheezing way. Though she was dedicated, she continued to be asthmatic and to use two different kinds of inhalators.

The first breakthrough came when none of the other pupils that night showed up and I could work with her alone. I asked her when her asthma began. She told me when she was six years old. ' Was that when your sister died? " I asked her.

"I got asthma two years before she died," she responded.

I told her to lie down and do the deep breathing, and I propped pillows beneath upper back to open up her lungs. But this time I said to her, "You are lying on your bed, a little girl. You don't have asthma yet, and your sister is still alive." Suddenly her breathing became quiet, flowing like a stream.

The minute she came back to the present, her wheezing resumed, but she was glowing, as if she had made a discovery. The problem was emotional and deeply rooted. Over the next few months, we worked on this.

Stay tuned for Part Two and do have a look at my website!
http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life and Mine

2007-06-22T04:11:00.004-07:00

At the age of 56, I felt like I had come to the end of a branch on the kabbalistic Tree of Life, and even more than that, the branch was about to break. I felt like I had made the wrong decision in my life about profession and career. In addition to raising five children, and doing Yoga and meditation, I had been writing books that sold and books that no one wanted to touch, articles that were published and articles which never saw the light of day. A writer's life is a lonely and egoistical life, and no one knew it better than me. Sitting on the end of that branch, I realized a happy life was giving to others, hearing their thoughts, feeling their pain , reaching out heart and hand. "If I could do it all over again, I would be a healer!" I cried to myself.

I must have cried aloud because my children, now grown, heard me. "Mom," they said, "You've been doing Yoga all your life, why don't you start teaching Yoga?

"Just like that?" I asked

"Sure, just let people know that you are starting classes. Now jump down from that branch."

And that is just what I did.

I called up a neighbor and she called other neighbors. Within one month, I had six pupils. I was on another branch of the Tree of Life and from this vista, the world was the most beautiful thing and human beings were exquisite creatures.

See more on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/

Genesis of a Book

2007-06-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

Writing a book for a few years is not an easy matter when you have children and even some granchildren running around the house. It is even harder when you are writing a book about Tarot symbols which you happened to discover in Franz Kafka when no one in the world thinks Franz Kafka was familiar with the Tarot, and your own neighbors do not know you even use Tarot cards. But there it was, the Tarot card The Hermit, staring out at me from Kafka's Amerika, and I knew I couldn't be quiet about it. The world had to know that the occult Tarot and respectable literature do meet.

I ran to my own Tarot library. Using esoteric scholar Robert Wang, I studied his bibliographies. There was a strong connection between Tarot and Kabbalah. So I began studying kabbalah at the university where I was doing my doctorate and for one year I studied the Zohar and the kabbalah of Rabbi Yizhak Luria, (the kabbalah that Madonna studies) Yet, I knew in order to write about the Tarot in literature I had to write more concretely and academically and I had to use models. Where had the Tarot in literature been discusssed before? I ran to the Encyclopedia Britannica. No entries for the Tarot, but their index directs me to T.S Eliot’s “The Wasteland.’ I learn that the Tarot figures in his ‘Wasteland’, in Madame Sosotris's Tarot.

I ran to the data base called the MLA. There were no entries for Eliot and the Tarot or this particular poem and the Tarot. I searched for ‘the Tarot and Literature.” It opened up to W.B. Yeats who was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. So my bibliography grew. I studied and researched and looked at the Tarot cards and read their meanings in the stories, poems, and novels of Yeats, Eliot and Kafka, and wrote and wrote, and edited and sweated, and compiled a bibliography and even did an index.It was a journey of discovery with lots of pain and confusion and frustration on the way.

The most frustrating thing of course was sending out letters to publishers and either being ignored, or politely refused, But finally my manuscript was accepted by the University Press of America, and just this week three years after I began, my publisher just sent me my copies hot off the press!

You can see my book on Amazon.com or on my website http://www.spiritualityteaching.com/