The Beginning of Wisdom is Silence

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."

The Teacher to David: Why We Were Created

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

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.

What is Spirituality and What It is Not 2

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The False Prophetess

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.