Wisdom of Kabbalah

Tree of Life

Many of us are reluctant to look at matters of faith outside our adopted religion.  We worry if perhaps it could send us off on the wrong path, or worse come into conflict with our adopted belief system.   Perhaps our biggest fear is that we may suddenly find ourselves on the ‘outside’ of our established  religious community. But these doubts have more to do what others think rather than where we should place our trust i.e., on what resonates in the depths of our heart. (if it doesn't resonate - simply move on).  Our heart is the place where God resides. Trusting in God means we will not be  lead into temptation.  All true conversion, according to the greatest mystics, comes from accepting the inevitability of change.  Oh, by the way. the Creator is known by many names (just look it up in Wikipedia), but he reads our heart and intent and is never confused by our words.

Lets make the case even simpler.  Suppose you are listening to the radio and you suddenly hear a beautiful piece of music you had never heard before.  The melody, the tune, perhaps the words move you the point of tears.  Should you turn it off because it hasn’t been part of your previous experience?  Of course not!  You wait to hear it again and again until you hear it in your head without it even being played.  So it is with examining and even capturing God’s inspired wisdom from other traditions.  So this week I would like to share some wisdom  from some of our Jewish brothers and sisters who have studied  Kabbalah*.  The chosen topic proved to be very relevant because it relates directly to my anxieties and fears about the cancer with which I am dealing  right now.  

So I will deal strictly with the very inspired Kabbalistview on 'Paradox of Anxiety'  

 Is it friend or foe? In an age where time seems to be traveling faster and choices are vaster -- living on the verge of an anxiety attack is becoming commonplace. Learn what triggers this strange emotion and how to use its force in your favor.

One word is all it takes and suddenly your thoughts are going so fast that they create a vortex in your throat making breathing impossible. Confusion is the name of the game and you cannot imagine where to go from here.

These are some of the symptoms of anxiety. There is little comfort in knowing that we've all experienced anxiety on some level at some point in our lives. Anxiety comes when we are faced with a defining, life-changing moment or, perhaps, when we are required to make an important decision. We feel our worst imagined fears creep into our self-conscious where they multiply, inciting uncertainty and worry over something that might -- or might not -- ever happen.

The great French philosopher Montaigne once wrote, "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened." Anxiety distorts normal worries and magnifies them. We become trapped like flies in webs of our own making, struggling helplessly, paralyzed from taking the necessary action to free ourselves.
Fear is based on known danger, something tangible: a lump discovered during a routine breast self-examination, an impending bankruptcy. These are problems we know are real: we can touch the lump, we can see the debt. And although the problems are overwhelming, there are things that can be done: removing the lump, special diets, treatments; restructuring the business, finding investors. With anxiety, however, we feel haunted, out of control. Yet when pressed, we can rarely pinpoint the exact cause. Because anxiety has no physical origin, it is a disorder that baffles doctors and resists medicine. Sufferers who look to pills, tonics and drug regimens for relief rarely find it.

Yet, despite the negative connotations attached to the word anxiety, the sensation itself can create within us a truly positive effect. And though it is something we desire never to experience, we are usually better for having done so. Anxiety is both a terrible curse and an enormous blessing.

It all depends on how you look at it.

Kabbalists suggest that we should view anxiety in a positive light. They believe that it manifests itself to remind us that we are not realizing our full potential in this world, that we are not fulfilling our purpose. Only with the spur of constant self-evaluation, which often begins with anxiety, will we strive to do better and succeed in our efforts. In fact, medical science supports this perspective. Many doctors contend that some anxiety is a good thing. In his full-length treatise on the subject, Anxiety (Oxford, 1986), Donald W. Goodwin, M.D. suggests that stress is a useful tool that can "build character, enhance creativity and encourage us to do better." With anxiety, we experience a heightened awareness of ourselves. According to the American Medical Association, anxiety also helps us respond to emergencies.
Thus the paradoxical nature of anxiety -- is it good or bad for us? How can we diminish the negative effects of anxiety and use its positive effects to prod ourselves to do better? How can we best use our anxious thoughts to help us achieve our goals?

There is an old saying: "Fear knocked. Faith answered. No one was there." Those who study the Kabbalah believe that anxiety occurs when we don't have certainty. By refusing to trust in God, or in the perfection of the ultimate plan, we accept burdens we were never meant to bear and, therefore, feel uneasy, depressed and afraid. Our bodies respond physically to this spiritual imbalance, which is why anxiety sufferers often experience headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, incredible fatigue and respiratory problems.

According to the Kabbalah, however, our awareness of anxiety is the Creator's way of offering us a chance to reconnect with Him, a wake-up call to the spirit. Kabbalists believe that through anxiety we are alerted to a wrong turn we have taken, thereby giving us the capacity to re-orient ourselves on the path to our true destiny. Perhaps we were too focused on personal desires or in attaining fame or fortune and neglected our spiritual needs and the needs of others. Anxiety offers us the chance to step back and look objectively at our lives. "Review it and it will uplift you" (Mishlei 4:8). We need to examine our emotional and spiritual priorities and actively work to achieve them. Only then can we experience true peace of mind.

Tips For Dealing With Anxiety When It Strikes
• Keep a diary: each day write down five things for which you are grateful.
• Practice random acts of kindness.
• Recognize your incredible potential and strive to maximize it every day.
• Take your mind off your worries by helping others.
• Face your fears -- they are not as terrible as you imagine.
• Embrace the positive aspects of anxiety and use them to improve your life.

Some  of what has been offered here, I already practise.  Fear is the great motivator. Writing a diary is probably at the top of the list.  And I will expand just a tiny but very significant bit about that.  Allow God to speak directly to your fears and anxieties – it really, really works.  When I get braver I will share some of these letters.   But for now listen to your own heart and use the tools offered by our Kabbalist friends who seek the same God we look for.  

Lastly I hope I can encourage you to learn to use God's very practical gift of discernment to hear his Voice when it orginates from distant and perhaps unexplored places in our wonderful ever expanding universe.       

* Kabbalah is not a religion but rather ancient inspired text which offering  practical tools to help us come closer to God.  More about Kabbalah at a later blog.  In the meantime if you want to learn more about fear and anxiety from a Kabbalistic point of view you may wish to purchase Yehuda Berg's small book 'The Monster is Real: How to face your fears and eliminate them forever.

Transformation of the Ego

Butterfly emerges

 

When the Bible speaks of transformation I believe it talks about the necessity of a spiritual change. However such a change can mean different things for different people but both directly affect how we allow the Ego to influence our response to others and even ourselves. Kabbalist Yehuda Berg writes ‘the Ego is not just someone’s inflated view of himself or herself. Yes, conceit, self-importance, and over-confidence are part of ego. But ego also includes low self-esteem, shyness, and feelings of inferiority. The ego creates extroverts and introverts. Ego makes you feel you are the best, and it makes you feel like you are the worst. It grows when you feed it, and then it converts its energy into feeling of conceit or feelings of inferiority.’

Regardless, Wayne Dyer reminds us ‘It is our Ego that prevents us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.’ How frequently do we allow the ego to control our life? Well, again according to Yehuda Berg, some 99% of our everyday behaviour follows the dictates of ego. Is it any wonder then that the world today remains in such a mess? Have you ever wondered why after almost fifty-eight hundred years of Judaism, two thousand years of Christianity, and fourteen hundred years of Islam our major world religions have failed to bring us the peace we all so desperately desire? You guessed it. It is the ego that prevents us from rising above our self imposed limitations. It is the ego also called the adversary, Satan or the devil that supports our false belief systems. It is our ego that keeps us locked in fear of life itself. It is the Ego that calls for separation and war. It is the Ego that is responsible for so much pain and suffering in this world. It is the Ego according to Dr. David R. Hawkins, that thrives on shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger and pride and prevents us from experiencing our True Self. Only courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, and enlightenment will return us to our God driven True Self. While most enlightened people today recognize the destructive influence ego’s have in our relationships we (including our religious institutions) find it more convenient to keep on operating at the 99% level causing the fall out and suffering to continue on a worldwide scale.

Marianne Williamson’s latest book ‘The Age of Miracles – Embracing the New Midlife’ (2008) provides a perfect insight of how the Ego constantly creates a false image of who we really are and keeps us painfully imprisoned despite the fact that God desires nothing more than to set us free. The following excerpt from her book reveals how we can begin to transform our ego based False Self to a healing experience of our God given True-Self.

THE FEAR-BASED EGO GATHERS EVIDENCE AT EVERY TURN, mak­ing forgiveness hard. The ego is obsessed with two big cases: one against everybody else, and one against you.

Sometimes the face at the center of your bull's-eye doesn't belong to anyone else. Yours is the name on the docket of the case you feel compelled to pros­ecute—you, for your past errors; you, for your past stu­pidity; you, for your past immaturity; you, for your past irresponsibility; you, for just being you.

Prosecutorial witnesses are everywhere, and the courtroom is in your head. The ego is not on a search for justice but for guilt, for that is what it feeds on. Its case against you is not just based on the notion that you did something wrong, but that in some fun­damental way you are wrong. That's a hard rap to beat. Who could ever sleep well if convinced that everything about them is just wrong?

You feel you've blown it on so many levels, in so many ways, and on some nights for whatever reason it all comes back so clearly. . . . What a lovely life, hav­ing 20-year-old bad memories shooting through your brain like bazookas from hell—which, in a way, they are. And you have nowhere to put them except in that big fat file called "All the Ways I Screwed Up." How can you feel that there's goodness ahead when you feel that in the past you have been so bad? How can you have much hope for the future when your take on the past is so relentlessly vicious? And how can you really defend yourself against a ruthless prosecutor who is an aspect of yourself?

You know the religious image of "burning in hell forever"? Well, now you know what it means: anxiety and guilt and self-hatred without end. It wasn't God who sent you there, but rather the enemy in your own mind. The ego, the fear-based self, the shadow—what­ever name you choose to call it—is on active patrol to burn down your peace of mind.

The reason for faith that you can and will escape those flames is that God guarantees your fundamental innocence. He created you innocent, and what He cre­ates is changeless and indestructible. Have you made mistakes? Who hasn't? But God's will is to correct our mistakes, not punish us for them. We are punished by our sins, not for them. It's the ego that both sets us up to do the wrong thing and then punishes us savagely for having done so.

An all-merciful God has already dismissed every case against you before the ego has a chance to mount it. Your mistakes, no matter how bad you might think they were, did not emanate from your self as He cre­ated you. That's why remembering who you truly are is the key to deliverance from the flames of self-condemnation.

You're no better or worse than anyone else. No matter how much you might regret your past, there's someone out there who regrets his or hers more. The path to happiness is not determined by whether or not we made mistakes in the past. What paves the way to happiness is whether or not we turn our mistakes into catalysts for personal growth and illumination.

Think of everything you've ever been through, and try to reinterpret it gently. All the love you ever gave was real. All the love anyone ever gave you was real. Everything else was simply an illusion, no matter how bitter or cruel it might have been in your experience.

I'm not going to insult you by saying, "Just for­give yourself." God forgives you, because He never saw you as anything but innocent. Your mistakes did not change the ultimate truth about you or alter the per­manent nature of God's universe. Your ego is not that powerful. Truly atone for your errors, make amends where possible, and you'll be free to begin again.

According to A Course in Miracles, in the moments when you were not your best self—when you didn't stand up as the most loving you could be—then all the good you deflected is being held in trust for you until you're ready to receive it. God will return to you the years that the locusts have eaten. And the past as you know it shall be no more.

Wherever there was fear, love will ultimately pre­vail. Whether in response to your own mistakes or to the cruelty of the world, God will always have the final say. And His say will always be how very much that you are loved.

 

Sources:

Williamson, Marianne ‘The Age of Miracles – Embracing the New Midlife’,   Hay House, 2008

Hawkins, David R. M.D., Ph.D., Power Vs. Force, Hay House, 2002

Dyer, Wayne W., M.D., Your Sacred Self – Making the Decision to Be Free, Harper Collins,1995

Berg, Yehuda, The Monster Is Real, The Kabbalah Centre, 2005

  

A modern parable

The 'people of the book' are wonderful story tellers. They still use parables, just as Jesus did to convey a basic truth. Several years ago I came across a wonderful little book that sold under the title of 'The Monster is Real' (2005) by Yehuda Berg. Now I know that some people will be suspicious when they discover that Mr. Berg uses an ancient Jewish mystical tool (Kabbalah) to tell a story, in parable form, which finally reveals the real source of evil, but read on:

"As a child, you were probably afraid of monsters, but your parents assured you that there was no such thing.
Wrong. The monster is real.
You were probably told that there was nothing to be afraid of. On the contrary, you should be afraid. In fact, you should be very afraid. Before you panic, you should know that this monster is not the mythical creature you feared so deeply as a child. He is not lurking in your closet or preparing to leap out from under your bed. This monster is in your bed. In fact, he's inside of you! And he's been there since the day you were born. This monster was not implanted by some diabolical modern-day Frankenstein. He was actually conjured up by the master of the universe, the force you know as God or the Creator.

But why?
Why would a God that you know to be compassionate and all-loving place such a frightening creature inside of you? Because you asked Him to. Exactly why you asked to have such a terrifying entity implanted within you will be explained shortly.
Another term for the monster I've been describing is "the ego." According to Kabbalah, ego is not just some¬one's inflated view of himself or herself. Yes, conceit, self-importance, and overconfidence are part of ego. But ego also includes low self-esteem, shyness, and feelings of inferiority."

To discover why God implanted the terrifying entity, you will of course have to buy the book. At the same time you might want to invest in Mr. Berg's sequel 'Satan – an Autobiography' (2009). This biography at last explains how we can learn to die to our ego desires (false-self) and re-discover our God given nature or True-Self. Like it or not, readers will have a difficult time trying to blame a separate entity such as the metaphorical snake in Genesis or the devious little individual with the tail and pitchfork for their problems hereafter.

For an indepth description of the Ego readers are encouraged to read the best analysis I have read to date 'Ego - The False Center, From the Frontier of the Mind', by Osho and available online.

Addition:  February 03/2011
The CAC’s men’s work, Men As Learners and Elders (M.A.L.Es), encourages us to destabilize our imperial ego. I think our concentration on sin as various forms of “impurity” or “unworthiness” has actually allowed the ego to remain out of sight and largely in control within most Christian circles. I say this after 40 years of retreats with clergy and highly religious people. We too often “strain out gnats while swallowing camels” (Matthew 23:24)—camels of arrogance, pride, control, and ambition.







A few things can help facilitate change. The first and most effective is circumstances over which you have no control, especially suffering in its many forms. These rearrange your world view and awaken the dead places within. They are not what you want, but they are given to you; they become the teachable moments that can and will change you deeply. Another thing that sometimes changes us is verbal teaching, as I am doing here. It is the least effective and changes the fewest people, yet we rely on it the most.






Adapted from How Men Change: A Thin Time (CD, DVD, MP3)