a line of light

Tonight I went to Morgenstern's and had a very interesting and intense experience. I have started to take a class with him on Wednesday nights on Hayyim Vital's Otzarot Hayyim. I've only gone to two classes so far, but it's very interesting. The class is supposed to be in English, but I think only 50% or less in actually in English. The rest is in either Yiddish or Heavily Yiddish accented Hebrew. Many of the words he uses have multiple meanings, or they are used to refer to concepts (which I only sometimes know) so it's been very challenging to follow what he's saying.

I've been studying the book on my own before class and reading all the commentaries in the edition I own, so I think I'm keeping up! Fortunately, I live in the 21st century and all the classes are digitally recorded as MP3's. In the next week or so, the classes will be posted on a website and I can listen to them again to make sure I'm understanding what he's saying.

The first lines of the book (we've only covered two or three paragraphs so far) is about the creation of the world. God, who is called אור אין סוף (ohr ayn-sof) or light without end, created the world by a process of contraction. In the middle of the light, God contracted himself and created a ball of חלול (meaning both hollow space and desecration against God). Into this ball, God inserted a קו (straight line of light) or צינור (pipe) and filled the ball with his light. Thus all of the worlds were created.

The rebbe interpreted this to mean that outside of the ball, there are no borders, but within the ball there are. There is a division between inside and outside that is still a border, and the pipe is also a border, but within the pipe, it's still light ayn-sof. If there were no borders, the world would return to pre-contraction state. But this pipe remains open so God can send his light into the world. How an infinite light can exist in a finite pipe is a good Koan.

When I first read the book, I wrote in the margins: This is just like a shamanic tunnel. Shamans always talk about going through a tunnel to get to the spirit world, and we have a tunnel that lead to God. Thus, if one can access this pipe, one can use it as a shamanic portal into the spirit world.

Tonight, at the Rebbe's Tish, I was flowing with the energy of the room and as he began to talk, I found myself wondering about this pipe. And, as happens with these things, the picture of the pipe in the book came to me. As I focused on the pipe within the circle, there it was in front of me. I went towards it, and as I looked up it's length, it twisted and turned. I kept moving forward through the wall of the pipe and was inside it. It was like nothing I've felt before. I felt like I was completely immersed in a heavy liquid, but felt no pressure anywhere. When I looked up, I could see the pipe going straight above me to Ayn-Sof. And then there was no up or down anymore.

The light in the pipe was moving, but it felt very random until I realized that I no longer had any sense of directionality. There was no up or down or left or right. Everything was exactly the same in all directions. Except that I knew that if I backed up, I would be back through the wall. There wasn't anything except the substance surrounding me.

Morgenstern had talked about using the line to go up through the worlds and for God to emanate light into our world, but inside the line, there was no movement in any particular direction. I backed out of it and found handles on the outside of the pipe. I grabbed hold of them and before I knew it, I was flying upward through the worlds. When it stopped moving, I don't know where I was, but it felt pretty high and far from where I'd started.

I have always wanted to know what the sephirot feel like, and when I asked at this point to feel them or feel the worlds, I was told to wait, one thing at a time.

I used my time at this high point, to check in with some old and current patients and see how they felt from this vantage. One of them in particular felt very rough and, as I'm writing this entry, I received an email from her with some bad news.

We'll see what the coming weeks bring, but it's amazing to read something and get an intellectual understanding of it and then get an experiential feel as well!