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!

Honi and the heavens

This past week at Morgensterns I learned a new thing. When I first walked into the room, the energy was very flat. At some point soon after, Morgenstern left the room and then returned. At that point, it felt like an inverted funnel opened above his head into the heavens. And then the energy in the room really started to build.

As I meditated during his talks, I kept wondering how I could support him, rather than take energy from him. At that point, I felt a small tunnel open above me. It was almost like looking up what I imagine the eye of the storm looks like, only there was no storm, just an hole leading up. I've been playing around with this since.

Today during Talmud class we read a passage about Honi the Circler. He's someone I've contacted before, and someone I really like. He was a priest and a Shaman during the second temple period. We read a section for Mishnah Taanit about Honi praying for rain. If you would like, you can read it in Hebrew (ג,ד) or in English. At the end of the section, they tell Honi that he might have been excommunicated if he wasn't Honi. This bothered me a lot. Then we asked the question why? and people threw out all sorts of answers such as Honi was arrogant and he made God do his will, not the other way around. These didn't seem right to me.

So I opened up the tunnel about my head and down came Honi until it felt like he was inside me but I wasn't channeling him, rather his soul joined mine. He told me that the priests were scared of him, which is why they wanted him out. He also showed me how he was able to bring the rain - it was kind of like healing, but he was connecting to the clouds and the skies. To do this, his power must have been immense, though I felt only an echo of it. He told me that it was going to rain anyway, he just helped it out, and that he was acting with God's will because how else could he make it rain? If God didn't want it to happen, it wouldn't happen.

So here I am in class with answers straight from the horse's mouth, but no way to say that. So I brought up my objections carefully and based them in the text. He stayed around until I had managed to convey all his ideas to the class, and then he ascended back up the hole into the heavens. I been working very hard to learn how to express these type of insights in ways which others can digest them.

Later on, while I was seeing patients, I again was playing around with this hole. Particularly while I was working on one patient, at first the light of heaven came down through the hole to help her out, then the two of us went up through the hole. It felt like we came out the top above a large floor of clouds. The light of heaven surrounded her then so she could heal.

I'm excited to play with it more and hope it lasts for a while.

Honi the circler and a line of power

Tonight I went to see Morgenstern again. The energy felt very good tonight, and I wasn't disappointed.

When we first got there, I had a long conversation with a man there I have met before who seems to take care of a lot of the logistical details around the yeshiva. He had told me earlier of another Hasidic master that I should meet. Tonight I asked him how to get to meet this person. He told me there were several ways: the first was to get accepted into his "Kollel" or adult study where a person receives a stipend to study. Baring that, the easiest way to meet him was to donate money, say, around $1000 or bring people to him that would donate. When I indicated that those weren't good options, he told me that he teaches classes, and if I dressed like a hassid, I could sneak into one of the classes. At that point, I realized that this teacher was probably not someone I'd want to meet with anyway. Too many layers. And I don't want to meet someone for whom I have to pretend to be someone else. So I'll keep looking for other kabbalistic masters.

I also asked him how he experienced Morgenstern's energy. he said it was like light emanating out from him. It was in the sephirah of Keter. An interesting way of talking about it, but not one I understand yet.

During the first talk that Morgenstern gave, I went very deep and felt a lot of power. At first I tried to connect with Morgenstern, but quickly realized that there was another soul right in front of me, above and to the left. Last week, when I was there, I was very sick, and another soul came to the same place. I thought at that point that it was the Amshinover. He pressed into the left side of my head until I finally let him in. He then put a long pole of light down through my head into the center of my body. I asked him what it was and he said: Boundaries. I've been playing with it all week.

Tonight, the soul was much more powerful, and again pushed a rod of light into my body. This time, however, it went above and below me, and had handholds like knots in a rope every few feet. When I asked who it was, I was asked back if it was important. No, I said, so I let it be. Later on, I thought it was Honi the Circler (a talmudic figure) and asked again. This time, he drew a circle for me. I asked him about how to get powerful and he said that in asking the question, I was preventing it from happening. That my motivations for becoming powerful were to impress others. I thought that I needed to become more modest, and he said no, that would happen on it's own. I needed to focus on learning, not self-aggrandizing, and I would move forward. Then he said he was done, and he was gone. He is definitely not a soul I can call, and I count myself blessed that he showed up.

I connected to Morgenstern then, and again, he was very far away. I realized that I could use the rod that Honi had put into my body like a ling shu, a spiritual pivot, to climb into the spiritual world. So I went up and found myself inside myself looking down at the room. I could see that Morgenstern didn't have spirits around him, as I suspected, telling him what to say (magidim), but instead was filled with divine light that gave him the inspiration. And that light emanated out into the room. Just like my friend had described. But I also realized that he wasn't getting anything back from the other people in the room.

Some people have a guru mentality, where they are nourished by the attention they receive from others. Some have a dark guru power where they take other's power to use as their own, thereby making the other people dependent on them. Morgenstern didn't seem to get anything from the people in the room. He was doing what he was doing, and some of the people in the room were taking from him, which I think must be hard on him, some were not connecting at all, and almost none were giving anything back to him. I can only think it must be very draining on him. I tried to figure out how I could give back to him and make it a two way connection, but I'm not sure I succeeded. It made me think it's time to meet him outside of these Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night) talks.

A simple yet powerful thought.

Tonight I went to see Morgenstern again. I got there late because I went to see a different chasidic master. This one was more populist and less powerful. It was interesting, but not something I think that I will do again.

When I got to Morgenstern, he was already speaking, so I just let myself drift into it. I sensed the calm and the focus of the room. Everything was very quiet and just Morgenstern speaking. I again went to the heavenly beit midrash where they scolded me for being late. I told them that I was at the other master and they told me not to go there again, but to come here.

Then I sat down to study there with a chevruta who's face was entirely a shadow, I couldn't see it at all. We started to study and he showed me the word אתה (you) and I understood that it includes aleph to tav, all the letters of creation, with the ה representing the 10 sephirot of the tree of life [Note on October 22, 2009: I don't understand this now, but would explain it as ה meaning Hashem which contains everything]. Then I was shown that אני (I) can mean אין (nothing). I was told that when I study, I have to pay close attention to my partner, and not get absorbed in my own stuff. If I can really make a heart connection, as well as a mind connection with my partner, then the study will be a very powerful experience. If I focus on that, the worlds can be open to me through study.

It's a very simple, but a very powerful thought.

I went to see a Hasidic master named Morgenstern last Saturday night. Not really see him, but sit at his table while he prays and speaks entirely in Yiddish. I don't speak any yiddish, nor do I really understand the Hebrew as it's so heavily accented. So mainly I'm there to soak up the energy, which can be quite powerful.

It is their custom to extend the sabbath as long as possible, so even though it was after shabbat for me, for him, the sabbath continues until late in the night. Accordingly, I was there for seudah Shlishit, or third meal, which usually occurs around four in the afternoon. I got there about 10:15 pm, and they had only started a half hour earlier.

I went last week, so this was my second time. He does this every week as the sabbath goes out. The general flow is that people sing and pray, then Morgenstern speaks for a while, then more songs and prayers, then another talk. So these were my thoughts on my visit tonight.

The room was packed. Someone had gotten married today, so this was a blessing for him or something like that. It also meant there were a lot of people there who don't normally come.

During the first time he spoke, I went on a journey to the beit midrash elyon (the heavenly study house, a place of power for me that I go to often). All was quiet there as people listened to him. They made occasional side comments about what he said, but as I couldn’t understand what he was saying, I didn’t know what they were saying either.

I went to table there and sat down. A book was open and I looked at it. The words were vibrating. The letters were floating around the page, and all through it, the words were infused with the multi-colored ribbons of creation. I understood that Morgenstern goes to the other side by studying, and the words carry him there. And I understood that I can do this too.

I realized also that the physical room was full of distraction. The people there were listening to what he was saying, but they didn’t really get it, so the room was terribly distracted. He spoke for a long time, so people got very restless. I found their behavior distracting. And I closed my eyes again, and was told to open my heart, which has been the message I’ve been getting for the past few weeks. I did and it was overwhelming. I could feel all of the people in the room and their distraction. All of their emotions, and thoughts. I wanted to check out again, but I was told to stay and ride with it. I did until the end of his talk. It will take a lot practice to do that without being overwhelmed or taking on other people’s stuff.

When he spoke the second time, I felt myself pulled very fast forward, like everything was in super-speed. I just went with it, and then found myself in a yard with a bunch of logs and an axe. I was told to chop wood. I chopped. I got distracted, I was told to chop. My thoughts wandered, I was told to chop. Towards the end of his talk, I was shown some of the exercises I need to do to learn Hebrew, and I was told to chop. I realized that I’m not chopping wood to achieve the zen enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. I’m chopping wood so I can learn to focus and do the same exercise over and again until I get it. I was also shown that some people get through to the other side by doing a repetitive action.

I'm excited to go this week and see what happens.

A difference

There are moments in my life when I suddenly look up and realize that people are different and there are more ways to do something than I thought possible. And in that moment, I gain enormous perspective on how I actually do things. Tonight at Tai Chi class was one of those moments.

We were doing some very beginner push hands techniques trying to sink down while pushing our partner away from us. I am not very good at this at all. Most of my partners pushed me off balance while I was unable to move them at all. While I was working with one partner, I realized that both of us were trying to feel the connection and not really push the other. So I reverted back to my healing connection and started to establish a heart connection with him, and it was then I realized that the push hands connection was very different.

I realized that the heart connection I make brings the person Love. It can bring them to an altered state of consciousness, but fundamental to it is the lack of desire to move them anywhere. The connection becomes the most important part and all of the work is in establishing and maintaining the connection. The push hands is all about projecting one's Qi outward, and in particular, finding your opponents weakness and pushing through it to knock him/her off balance.

In my healing work, I don't project my energy outward, I invite souls into the room to heal. But this has recently been one of my issues, I need to learn to project myself outward, so this means either a change in the heart connection, or I have to learn to be able to do both and use either as appropriate. Very exciting to be learning a new way of moving energy around.

A fear of Cossacks

I was walking up to my Tai Chi class tonight when I realized I had walked down a familiar line of thought. I imagine some disaster that suddenly, God forbid, takes my family away. I imagine my reactions and how it would destroy my life. Usually, when I catch myself thinking these thoughts, I thank God for what I have, and try to feel the fear of loss more intensely so that I can put it back in its appropriate place and not let it control my actions.

Tonight, however, I suddenly felt the fear as part of something much, much larger. It almost felt as if the whole city was a part of the intensity of this fear. I had to stop walking several times and just let the fear run on past me. It almost felt like the ancestral flow. That's when I realized I was probably feeling the Jewish fear that no matter how good it gets, someone will come and destroy it all and take it away from us. I call this the Cossack fear, though it should probably be called the Tisha B'Av fear (that's the date of the destruction of the second temple).

It's the fear that we are going to be sitting in our village, and then, for no reason we can see, a bunch of cossacks come running through town destroying everything. How many times has this been repeated in our history: the expulsion from Spain, the holocaust, and now, the fear that Israel will fall. Does it happen because we don't know how to deal with this fear, and we remember all the times we were almost destroyed (or were destroyed) without knowing how to respond to the fear that comes with it? Or is it just a part of who we are?

Another possibility is that this is my personal ancestral fear, as my forebearers certainly had life hard. I'll have to interact with it a little more to get a clear read on it.

What I am really interested in is how to change this fear, or if that is even possible. It was so powerful, so strong, that I'm not even sure it can be done. In that case, I'll have to learn how to live with it without giving it any power over me.