I have often used the analogy of a game to represent life, existence, Creation. Many people do. I have even talked about how, in the spiritual map of Kabbalah, it talks about an opponent. The Hebrew word for Satan is translated as Adversary. I think I have written several blogs where I use the game analogy to describe things of Dharma. What are “Things of Dharma?” Truth.
Up until today I would happily and with confidence use the game metaphor. I mean it juxtaposes nicely with The Five Phases. 1. Objective, 2. Component Parts, 3. Strategy, 4. Play, 5. Result. If it is a game then game theory can be applied and that also seems to fit.
Up until today. Today, I am dropping the game analogy from my repertoire of perspectives for this/my life. Today, I received a message that this ain’t no game.
I don’t think the word “Healing” is working for us nowadays. I believe it has become corrupted and, therefore, is highly misunderstood.
I think that, at the core, is a battle over who are the healers. Western Medicine is predominant in our society/culture. Every other approach has been labeled “Alternative.” In Western Medicine healing is usually not the objective but rather a potential outcome. In many of the strong alternative approaches healing is the objective.
I have been in several volunteer group efforts within the Type One Diabetes community. Often times there will be a mix of perspectives from Doctors, Nurses, Certified Diabetes Educators, Parents and People who have the dis-ease. On more than one occasion I have been cautioned by a health care provider within the Western Medicine Model not to talk about healing or curing. We are here to offer ways to “manage the condition.”
I have had extensive experience with Alternative approaches to health and wellness as well as being fully ensconced in The Western Model.
What I would like to do in this post is make an agreement with you that we drop the word healing as description of what the goal is and replace it with another word.
What is the purpose of ‘Creation?” Why are you here? “What’s it all about?” Why do the ‘responses’ to these questions seem so illusive?
There are answers.
A few of them are very comprehensive. For example, a religion is a system that provides assumptions, understandings, agreements, procedures, governing principals. Most religions are based on Scripture such as the Bible, The Quran and The Bhagavad Gita.
There are also very simple and concise answers to these big questions. The New Age Spiritual movement that began in the 1960’s expressed it as simply “LOVE.” Or, some say it is Nature.
Both the comprehensive response and the short one falls woefully short of “hitting the nail on the head.
As many of you know, I have studied Kabbalah for about 25 years now. In this blog post, I wish to first, describe my introduction, inquiry and direct personal experience {to/of/with} Kabbalah and second, briefly, share with you my perspective of The Creation Story according to the spiritual technology called Kabbalah.
“What came first”. The chicken or the egg?” That was the first question that the person who introduced me to Kabbalah asked me. He was a member of The Kabbalah Center in Boca Raton, Fl and he was one of my employees. I was the recruiter, hirer and trainer of sales people for a financial service and he was one of the highest performing representatives on the floor. He told me that a lot of the concepts that I had built into the training and development of sales reps were very similar to some of the concepts in Kabbalah.
Shortly after this encounter, I met Nedra. As it turned out Nedra worked at the Kabbalah Center and was a member for seven years. She provided me with a manual from The Kabbalah Center. It was like the master orientation manual and when I read it several light bulbs turned on. I had been studying many other spiritual/metaphysical/developmental “maps” such as Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics, Cybernetics, Transpersonal Psychology, Logos Therapy, Christian Metaphysics and more. The training I had developed for work was influenced by all of these. Becoming aware of and inquiring into The Kabbalah map simply validated in a big way that I was on the right track and, the kicker, was that Kabbalah was the only map that provided a “WHY”.
Why Creation? For what reason? For what purpose? The Buddha approached it in a different way – by exploring suffering; its cause and the way out. The life and message of Jesus Christ approaches it in a different way – Sacrifice and Resurrection. Islam calls it “Jihad.” But Kabbalah feeds it to you on a silver plate and then says…….now go and learn the tools, apply the tools and reveal The Light.
The only axiom (assumption/belief/understanding/acceptance of) that Kabbalah requires is the existence of “The Light” as a source of goodness, sharing and fulfillment.
So, in a nutshell, Kabbalah starts the story before “the beginning.” All that existed was Light…nothing else. The Light created A Vessel to share and receive its fulfillment. The mother cow desires to share more than the calf wishes to eat. This Original Vessel was the perfect Desire to Receive. In other words, it was a direct, uninterrupted connection. There was no time, space, cause or effect. Every desire was fulfilled immediately. There was no lack, want for, disappointment, striving, These things would come later. In my opinion, one of the most profound and consequential quotes I have come across studying Kabbalah is. “Fulfillment is the seed of Desire.” This implies that fulfillment (The Light) came before and created desire (The Vessel of receiving). Yes, the egg came first. And this was the image my friend/employee began with when he introduced me to Kabbalah. This “state” before the the beginning is called, in Hebrew, the Or En Sof or The Endless World.
So, what happened “in the beginning?” The Vessel began to develop a desire to be like The Light; The Vessel desired to share. But, in the Or En Sof there is no opportunity for The Vessel to do this because it is being a perfect vessel of receiving. So, in order to fill this new desire The Light withdrew itself and created a space of darkness. The Vessel “panicked” and wanted The Light to come back and when It did The Vessel shattered into many pieces (the Big Bang?). This is when space, time, lack, wanting for, the appearance of the phenomenon of cause and effect, dis-ease, sorrow, birth, death, decay, lamentation, mental suffering and tribulation appeared.
To understand “The Why” of Creation according to Kabbalah one must explore the development of The Vessel’s desire to share. The Vessel was receiving everything it desired. Why would it want to share? According to Kabbalah, the seed level of The Vessel’s desire to share is in the feeling that grew from receiving without doing anything to earn it. This feeling is called “Bread of Shame.” The reason for this Creation, your life, my life, everyone’s life is to eliminate Bread of Shame.
The tools of the spiritual technology known as Kabbalah are ways to become aware of, apply and see results in eliminating Bread of Shame. The tools of Kabbalah and any other spiritual map are there for us to accelerate our progress towards this end.
Now, I would like to provide you with some contrast. Here is a 5 minute clip from a movie that came out this year entitled, “Nefarious.” Remember, The Work is to confront, explore and incubate on these perspectives. Not to believe or adopt them. Just like when in Shavasanah ………..Be the witness.
It is really funny how things pop up when you are working on something. This video came into my feed today. I have listened to the first 10 minutes and I must add it to this post. Arguably, Terrance McKenna is one of the most prolific prophets of the 20th century. This excerpt was from 28 years ago. WOW!
