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.

Reviving a Poisoned Dog the Biblical Way

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

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

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

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/