One of the big movers is Fear. The question is still how to create change in the physical world by making changes in the spiritual one, and how the shaman is able to do that intentionally and directly. Often, in myself and my clients, fear is often a big factor in influences the events around us. Fear is one of our basic emotions and cornerstones of human existence. As such, there is no way for us to get rid of it or push it aside, but it always remains with us. So we need to learn how to have a good relationship with fear. I think about it as a power based relationship - either fear has power and dominance over us or we have power over our fear and can use it for our benefit.
When I think about it, talking about fear in this sense is more about not letting fear influence one's life, so more of a preventative. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people planning big events, about which they have a great fear, only to have numerous things go wrong at the last moment.
In my practice, I often see fear clearly in expectant mothers, though this is more about how our fear effects us personally than how it moves the world around us, but I think it's informative. I worked with a woman who was a trained nurse had worked in obstetrics in the past. She understood the birthing process very well, and had seen in numerous times before, but she also knew everything that could go wrong. And it scared her so much that she was preventing herself from going into labor. When she actually got to me, she was already post due date, though we had made several appointments prior to when she actually came in. She'd had to change and cancel the appointments as things kept coming up for her.
I was never sure if those things were under her control, but my sense was that there were things she was doing and things happening around her that kept her from taking care of herself. In the end, nothing I did could help her as the fear was too great and she ended up having a c-section. My personal fear was that her fear would cause something to go wrong with the baby, but was happy that her fears were about the delivery, not about the health of the baby.
Fear is an important emotion, it tells us when to think about something, and when to run for our lives. But if we fear something, and the fear has power over us, it can cause an internal result, of our own actions causing the fear to come true, or an external reaction, of causing the world around us to help the fear come about.
So how do we deal with fear? In Chinese medicine, fear is controlled by thinking (Water controlled by Earth). So one way of dealing with fear is knowledge. We can name our fear, we can learn a lot about it, we can study it, or we can do anything that helps our minds to understand it. The image is of a child who is scared of the cloths hung over a chair because they think it is a monster, but when you turn the light on, the fear goes away because the child knows what she is dealing with. So if you know what you are scared of, and can name the fear, then the fear is weakened.
But there is also the emotional component that needs to be dealt with. My approach to this is exemplified in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink. He discusses police officers "desensitizing" themselves to the fear of being shot, which allows them to enter dangerous situations and still exercise good judgment. Once the fear has been named, it's important to spend time with it, so that one is aware of when it is present, one is used to it's presence, and one can decide whether or not to act on it.
In regards to the main discussion, I think fear and other strong emotions influence the world around us, and to gain control over one's ability to move things spiritually, one needs to have control over one's fear.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Making things move
One of my preconceptions about shamans was that they have the ability to make things move. Events, people, health, or chance occurrences that end up for the good or bad, the shaman has the ability to change the course of things to go one direction or another. I never really understood how to do this until recently, though I think I have always done it in my healing.
Several years ago, a patient came in with a thyroid problem. She had gone to all of the standard doctors without much result, but was on a year long waiting list for a new specialist who had an innovative approach that could work for her. During her first treatment, I felt a great shift in her energy, especially in regards to the thyroid problem. The next week she came in and told me that she had called that specialist to give his receptionist her new phone number (she had moved), and was told that the phone call immediately before her was someone canceling an appointment the next day, did she want it? And she saw the specialist with good results.
What was my role in that? I don't know for sure, but it happened often enough in my practice that I've come to think that sometimes my treatments don't always heal, but they can open the way to healing in ways I don't expect. Did I make it so she could jump the waiting list? Not intentionally, but something in the energetic shift allowed it to happen. So I started looking for ways to make it happen intentionally.
John, my teacher, once told me that he could look at upcoming decisions and see choice that led up or down. Sometimes he could see them go into the light or dark, but he could see, generally, where they would lead. For me, when I would "vibe" a decision or an upcoming event, I would see how the choices would feel. Sometimes, one of the choices would get a buzz and another would get nothing, so I would go with the one with the buzz. Or sometimes, both options were flat or both options would buzz, and I interpreted that to mean that both choice led to the same place.
Lately, I've been trying to extend them forward from a simple buzz inside me, by pushing the energy of the decision forward from me and seeing what it does. The image or the feeling is that the energy shoots out from me and then goes either upwards or downwards. I treat the upwards as the better choice. If neither of them goes anywhere or goes upwards, I start to think of other choices I could make until I find one that goes upwards.
So what do I do when I find something that goes in a bad direction? The obvious choice would be not to do it, but what if it's something over which I have little control, but need to have happen. There can be a whole discussion here of determining what should and shouldn't happen, and how to determine that, but I think I'll try to come back to it in more depth later. Suffice it say that I try to be very aware of if I'm doing this for my own ego or for some other reasons. There is also a clear feeling I have of when I am going with the flow and when against, and I only try to go with the flow. That is to say something that will happen anyway, and I'm just helping it along, or removing blockages that were preventing it from happening. When I've gone against the flow and tried to make something happen that it supposed to happen, it goes badly. But more on this another time.
I recently had to fill out some paperwork for the Israeli Licensing Agency to transfer over my American driver's license. When I vibed the paperwork after I dropped it off, there was nothing, no movement at all, which didn't surprise me as Israeli bureaucracy is legendary. The clerk had told me the process could take anywhere from a week to six month, and needless to say, I preferred if it would happen on the sooner side. So I connected to my paperwork and pushed it through the sludge of the agency until it was moving. I connected to it three or four times and, not surprisingly, it felt a lot like I was giving it a treatment. On the last time I tried to connect to it, I didn't feel anything at all. The next day, three weeks after I'd dropped it off, I got a call that it was all done and to come by and pick it up.
In this case, it was something that was going to happen anyway and I just helped it happen faster by escorting it through the sludge of the bureaucracy. But what was the mechanism that helped me to do that?
I talked with John about it recently, and his take was that it's love. If I can send love to it, then it will open up. So power, in this sense, is the ability to send love to something to make it move.
Which also helps me in another thing I've been thinking about, which is: What is the power of love? It's very clear to see the strength of dark power, to see how people achieve things in the world by hurting others and pushing themselves up by pushing others down. It's easy to hate. But what about Love? I have always heard that the power of love is the strongest, but it's harder to see because the power of love is the power of connections which are slow to grow and easily disrupted. But now I see how the shamans of light do it, they surround a thing with love and it moves.Which, as I think about it, is what I do during my treatments, I find my patient's hard and stuck energy and I surround it with love, it moves, and they get healthy.
I guess, I can use the "vibing" to tell me how to act, and to see where my decisions will lead me, and then the love to make changes or remove blockages. Now I need to pay attention to the vibing to know when something needs help and when it will happen on it's own. And I always need to remember that none of this is my doing, I can use the power, but it's not my power, otherwise I will lose track of the line between when my ego wants things to happen and when God wants them to happen. I suspect that this a common way to step off the path.
Several years ago, a patient came in with a thyroid problem. She had gone to all of the standard doctors without much result, but was on a year long waiting list for a new specialist who had an innovative approach that could work for her. During her first treatment, I felt a great shift in her energy, especially in regards to the thyroid problem. The next week she came in and told me that she had called that specialist to give his receptionist her new phone number (she had moved), and was told that the phone call immediately before her was someone canceling an appointment the next day, did she want it? And she saw the specialist with good results.
What was my role in that? I don't know for sure, but it happened often enough in my practice that I've come to think that sometimes my treatments don't always heal, but they can open the way to healing in ways I don't expect. Did I make it so she could jump the waiting list? Not intentionally, but something in the energetic shift allowed it to happen. So I started looking for ways to make it happen intentionally.
John, my teacher, once told me that he could look at upcoming decisions and see choice that led up or down. Sometimes he could see them go into the light or dark, but he could see, generally, where they would lead. For me, when I would "vibe" a decision or an upcoming event, I would see how the choices would feel. Sometimes, one of the choices would get a buzz and another would get nothing, so I would go with the one with the buzz. Or sometimes, both options were flat or both options would buzz, and I interpreted that to mean that both choice led to the same place.
Lately, I've been trying to extend them forward from a simple buzz inside me, by pushing the energy of the decision forward from me and seeing what it does. The image or the feeling is that the energy shoots out from me and then goes either upwards or downwards. I treat the upwards as the better choice. If neither of them goes anywhere or goes upwards, I start to think of other choices I could make until I find one that goes upwards.
So what do I do when I find something that goes in a bad direction? The obvious choice would be not to do it, but what if it's something over which I have little control, but need to have happen. There can be a whole discussion here of determining what should and shouldn't happen, and how to determine that, but I think I'll try to come back to it in more depth later. Suffice it say that I try to be very aware of if I'm doing this for my own ego or for some other reasons. There is also a clear feeling I have of when I am going with the flow and when against, and I only try to go with the flow. That is to say something that will happen anyway, and I'm just helping it along, or removing blockages that were preventing it from happening. When I've gone against the flow and tried to make something happen that it supposed to happen, it goes badly. But more on this another time.
I recently had to fill out some paperwork for the Israeli Licensing Agency to transfer over my American driver's license. When I vibed the paperwork after I dropped it off, there was nothing, no movement at all, which didn't surprise me as Israeli bureaucracy is legendary. The clerk had told me the process could take anywhere from a week to six month, and needless to say, I preferred if it would happen on the sooner side. So I connected to my paperwork and pushed it through the sludge of the agency until it was moving. I connected to it three or four times and, not surprisingly, it felt a lot like I was giving it a treatment. On the last time I tried to connect to it, I didn't feel anything at all. The next day, three weeks after I'd dropped it off, I got a call that it was all done and to come by and pick it up.
In this case, it was something that was going to happen anyway and I just helped it happen faster by escorting it through the sludge of the bureaucracy. But what was the mechanism that helped me to do that?
I talked with John about it recently, and his take was that it's love. If I can send love to it, then it will open up. So power, in this sense, is the ability to send love to something to make it move.
Which also helps me in another thing I've been thinking about, which is: What is the power of love? It's very clear to see the strength of dark power, to see how people achieve things in the world by hurting others and pushing themselves up by pushing others down. It's easy to hate. But what about Love? I have always heard that the power of love is the strongest, but it's harder to see because the power of love is the power of connections which are slow to grow and easily disrupted. But now I see how the shamans of light do it, they surround a thing with love and it moves.Which, as I think about it, is what I do during my treatments, I find my patient's hard and stuck energy and I surround it with love, it moves, and they get healthy.
I guess, I can use the "vibing" to tell me how to act, and to see where my decisions will lead me, and then the love to make changes or remove blockages. Now I need to pay attention to the vibing to know when something needs help and when it will happen on it's own. And I always need to remember that none of this is my doing, I can use the power, but it's not my power, otherwise I will lose track of the line between when my ego wants things to happen and when God wants them to happen. I suspect that this a common way to step off the path.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Purim Darkness
I just returned from the rebbe's on this Purim eve and several things struck me about the experience. The table was reversed from it's usual position, so the rebbe sat at what is normally the foot. There was a lot of alcohol and wine being drunk. Most of the people there were drunk by the time I got there at 9:30 pm. And the spirits in the room were not at all who I expected.
Purim is a holiday where most people dress up, though most of the hasids were not. I always assumed is was very different from Halloween as there are none of the scary costumes or traditions. Halloween is a night the dead return and we dress up so they don't recognize us. Purim has always been light and frivolous: we dress up to have fun.
But when I got there, the spirits in the room were dancing about, and when I finally connected to the strongest one, it felt like Loki, the Norse god of mischief, or Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It struck me that Purim is a holiday that pre-dates Judaism, and we adapted it to fit one of our stories, though poorly. I need to learn from where in the story the costume and drinking is derived, as it doesn't seem a natural extension of the story. As I stayed longer, I could see that this dark energy was just another manifestation of God, but I do not understand why we devote a holiday to it. It has never been my way, but I guess it's important to acknowledge all the aspects of God, even the ones that don't speak to us personally.
As I walked home, I wondered why there was not more violence or mischief on Purim, but I'll have to think on that.
Purim is a holiday where most people dress up, though most of the hasids were not. I always assumed is was very different from Halloween as there are none of the scary costumes or traditions. Halloween is a night the dead return and we dress up so they don't recognize us. Purim has always been light and frivolous: we dress up to have fun.
But when I got there, the spirits in the room were dancing about, and when I finally connected to the strongest one, it felt like Loki, the Norse god of mischief, or Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It struck me that Purim is a holiday that pre-dates Judaism, and we adapted it to fit one of our stories, though poorly. I need to learn from where in the story the costume and drinking is derived, as it doesn't seem a natural extension of the story. As I stayed longer, I could see that this dark energy was just another manifestation of God, but I do not understand why we devote a holiday to it. It has never been my way, but I guess it's important to acknowledge all the aspects of God, even the ones that don't speak to us personally.
As I walked home, I wondered why there was not more violence or mischief on Purim, but I'll have to think on that.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Looking for Jewish Koans
Text study is the koan study of Judaism. Koan study is a part of Zen Buddhism which involves long hours of meditation over paradoxical statements. At some point, the student has a moment of insight and gives the teacher the answer to the Koan. Jews spend long hours in a room filled with books pouring over texts looking for contradictions, and then trying to work on the text some more until the contradiction is resolved. Usually this involves either a deeper reading of the text which may reveal how the seeming contradiction isn’t really a contradiction, or bringing in a midrash or other idea that is not in the text to propose a solution.
Text koan study leads to two things: really, really good critical thinking and/or mystical insight. The former is the result of really close text study and learning to link other pieces of the texts together to form a solution. The second is when there is no solution and after thinking hard on the text, a flash of insight comes that explains the contradiction. Sometimes, when one has the answer, one can go back and find the proof in the text. Sometimes there is no proof, just the insight.
My experience of studying the texts is more the later, the flashes of insight. What seems unusual to me about it is that I often feel the presence of a soul or tzaddik guiding me through the text. When I studied about Jacob and the rape of Dina, Jacob came to me and explained the story to me. I didn’t find the textual proof for what he told me, but it sure made sense.
A shaman is a person who interacts with the spirit world for healing. I have spent the last eight years of my life learning about how to do that and it led me back into Judaism. I’ve just begun my text koan study, and I want to write about the shamanic in Judaism. I see a lot of similarities between my shamanic study and what I am learning in Judaism, and I think the shamanic way of looking at things can help to explain a lot of what it often puzzling to me in Judaism. I don’t know where this will lead me, or why I’ve been led on this path, but I hope that writing about it will give me insight into my studies and maybe help you understand both shamanism and Judaism a little better.
I am also going to see if I can come up with some Jewish Koans. Things like: God is everything. God is Ayn Sof, without limit, so God can not have any boundaries, but as soon as God is everything in the world, there are lots of boundaries and limits. So God is both everything and not-everything.
Mull that one over for awhile.
Text koan study leads to two things: really, really good critical thinking and/or mystical insight. The former is the result of really close text study and learning to link other pieces of the texts together to form a solution. The second is when there is no solution and after thinking hard on the text, a flash of insight comes that explains the contradiction. Sometimes, when one has the answer, one can go back and find the proof in the text. Sometimes there is no proof, just the insight.
My experience of studying the texts is more the later, the flashes of insight. What seems unusual to me about it is that I often feel the presence of a soul or tzaddik guiding me through the text. When I studied about Jacob and the rape of Dina, Jacob came to me and explained the story to me. I didn’t find the textual proof for what he told me, but it sure made sense.
A shaman is a person who interacts with the spirit world for healing. I have spent the last eight years of my life learning about how to do that and it led me back into Judaism. I’ve just begun my text koan study, and I want to write about the shamanic in Judaism. I see a lot of similarities between my shamanic study and what I am learning in Judaism, and I think the shamanic way of looking at things can help to explain a lot of what it often puzzling to me in Judaism. I don’t know where this will lead me, or why I’ve been led on this path, but I hope that writing about it will give me insight into my studies and maybe help you understand both shamanism and Judaism a little better.
I am also going to see if I can come up with some Jewish Koans. Things like: God is everything. God is Ayn Sof, without limit, so God can not have any boundaries, but as soon as God is everything in the world, there are lots of boundaries and limits. So God is both everything and not-everything.
Mull that one over for awhile.
Wisdom from the Baal Shem Tov
For years, when someone would ask me what was shamanic healing, my stock answer was that there are two worlds, the physical and the spiritual. Shamanic healing is making a direct change in the spiritual world that is then reflected in the physical world. One type of shaman is a person who has power in the spiritual world and is able to actually make changes there. There are others who are able to perceive the spiritual world or travel there. But for me, the important part was always the ability to be able to make the change.
I was at service a few weeks ago, and the man leading the minyan quoted this text about the ba'al shem Tov (the founder of Hasidism):
I was at service a few weeks ago, and the man leading the minyan quoted this text about the ba'al shem Tov (the founder of Hasidism):
רפואת הבעל שם טוב נשמתי בגנזי מרומים היה רק על ידי יחודים, שהיה מייחד ומעלה השכינה אל מדת אין. וממילא נתתקן למטה גם כן
-מאור עינים פרשת נשא
Roughly translated it means: The essence of the healing of the Baal Shem Tov was only by means of yichudim (unifications), in which he unified and raised the shechina to the level of Ain (God), and in truth, that would repair down below (in this world) as well.
That sounds remarkably like my conception of what I try to do. The challenge now is to learn the yichudim so I can really understand what he did.
That sounds remarkably like my conception of what I try to do. The challenge now is to learn the yichudim so I can really understand what he did.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Akeda in the desert
There is a very interesting passage in last week's Torah portion that reads:
Shemot 4:24-26
The context of the story is that Moshe has just seen the burning bush and is headed off back to Eygpt to lead the people to freedom. The chronology of the chapter goes like this: Moshe encounters God in the burning bush and receives instructions on how to lead the people out of slavery and prove that he speaks for God (sign and wonders). Moshe leaves his father in law Jethro with his wife Zipporah and his two sons, then receives further instructions about what to say to Pharoah, and then we have the puzzling passage above.
At Morgenstern's last night, I meditated on the passage and Zipporah came to me and showed me her perspective on the events. I will do my best to recount what she showed me.
Moshe came to stay with Jethro and married her. He began then to study with Jethro, who was a priest and taught Moshe about how to connect to God. He could see in Moshe great potential, which was limited by his view on himself. He saw himself as never one to win arguments with his mouth. As he said to God (Shemot 4:10) "I am not a man of words... I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech." But he was always good with his fists and was an imposing physical figure.
But when Moshe came down from the mountain one day and spoke of a burning bush, something within him had changed. It was obvious that he had had an intense spiritual experience, and he shown with an inner light. He talked it over with Jethro, who advised him to follow the vision. They packed up their two young sons and belongings and headed off for Egypt. During the journey, the presence of God came to him again, and it was there that Zipporah saw that what he was experiencing was far beyond anything she had seem in her father's house. She could feel it as it came within him and surrounded him.
But there was something else that it was asking him to do that he was refusing to do and refusing to talk about. The presence left him and it took something out of him as it went. He fell sick. They were near a town, so they stopped. She sought out the local healers, most of whom were charlatans and Zipporah knew enough to stay away from them - growing up in the house of a priest has it's benefits. She finally found one who was genuine. He came to Moses and quickly said that there was nothing he could do - it was far beyond his power.
That night, Moshe awoke from his fever and said that the lord was asking him to sacrifice his eldest son Gershom. It was then that Zipporah understood what she had to do. Moshe had refused the order of God and was sick or dying for it. Zipporah needed a ritual of such power as to appease God and sway the decree. She performed the circumcision, touched Moshe's feet with the foreskin and released Moshe from this decree.
That's more or less the story she showed me. I was impressed with what a strong woman she was. Being able to perform such a powerful ritual on her own son must have required immense courage. She had felt the power of God and knew what she was trying to influence, and she did it anyway. Perhaps there should be a book like the Red Tent about her and her perspective on the Exodus.
Shemot 4:24-26
The context of the story is that Moshe has just seen the burning bush and is headed off back to Eygpt to lead the people to freedom. The chronology of the chapter goes like this: Moshe encounters God in the burning bush and receives instructions on how to lead the people out of slavery and prove that he speaks for God (sign and wonders). Moshe leaves his father in law Jethro with his wife Zipporah and his two sons, then receives further instructions about what to say to Pharoah, and then we have the puzzling passage above.
At Morgenstern's last night, I meditated on the passage and Zipporah came to me and showed me her perspective on the events. I will do my best to recount what she showed me.
Moshe came to stay with Jethro and married her. He began then to study with Jethro, who was a priest and taught Moshe about how to connect to God. He could see in Moshe great potential, which was limited by his view on himself. He saw himself as never one to win arguments with his mouth. As he said to God (Shemot 4:10) "I am not a man of words... I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech." But he was always good with his fists and was an imposing physical figure.
But when Moshe came down from the mountain one day and spoke of a burning bush, something within him had changed. It was obvious that he had had an intense spiritual experience, and he shown with an inner light. He talked it over with Jethro, who advised him to follow the vision. They packed up their two young sons and belongings and headed off for Egypt. During the journey, the presence of God came to him again, and it was there that Zipporah saw that what he was experiencing was far beyond anything she had seem in her father's house. She could feel it as it came within him and surrounded him.
But there was something else that it was asking him to do that he was refusing to do and refusing to talk about. The presence left him and it took something out of him as it went. He fell sick. They were near a town, so they stopped. She sought out the local healers, most of whom were charlatans and Zipporah knew enough to stay away from them - growing up in the house of a priest has it's benefits. She finally found one who was genuine. He came to Moses and quickly said that there was nothing he could do - it was far beyond his power.
That night, Moshe awoke from his fever and said that the lord was asking him to sacrifice his eldest son Gershom. It was then that Zipporah understood what she had to do. Moshe had refused the order of God and was sick or dying for it. Zipporah needed a ritual of such power as to appease God and sway the decree. She performed the circumcision, touched Moshe's feet with the foreskin and released Moshe from this decree.
That's more or less the story she showed me. I was impressed with what a strong woman she was. Being able to perform such a powerful ritual on her own son must have required immense courage. She had felt the power of God and knew what she was trying to influence, and she did it anyway. Perhaps there should be a book like the Red Tent about her and her perspective on the Exodus.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Barchot 18b - the wrong motivation
We just studied a Talmudic story in Berachot 18b. The general question that was asked to which the story is an answer is if the dead know what the living are doing. Here is an English translation from Come-and-Here.com (This is a christian site that, according to one of the Jewish sites, is not really very kind towards Jews, but they have a good translation on line.):
Come and hear: The father of Samuel had some money belonging to orphans deposited with him. When he died, Samuel was not with him, and they called him, 'The son who consumes the money of orphans'. So he went after his father to the cemetery, and said to them [the dead]. I am looking for Abba.23 They said to him: There are many Abbas here. I want Abba b. Abba, he said. They replied: There are also several Abbas b. Abba here. He then said to them: I Want Abba b. Abba the father of Samuel; where is he? They replied: He has gone up to the Academy of the Sky.24 Meanwhile he saw Levi sitting outside.25 He said to him: Why are you sitting outside? Why have you not gone up [to heaven]? He replied: Because they said to me: For as many years as you did not go up to the academy of R. Efes and hurt his feelings,26 we will not let you go up to the Academy of the Sky. Meanwhile his father came. Samuel observed that he was both weeping and laughing. He said to him: Why are you weeping? He replied: Because you are coming here soon. And why are you laughing? Because you are highly esteemed in this world. He thereupon said to him: If I am esteemed, let them take up Levi; and they did take up Levi. He then said to him: Where is the money of the orphans? He replied: Go and you will find it in the case of the millstones. The money at the top and the bottom is mine, that in the middle is the orphans' He said to him: Why did you do like that? He replied: So that if thieves came, they should take mine, and if the earth destroyed any, it should destroy mine. Does not this27 show that they know? — Perhaps Samuel was exceptional: as he was esteemed, they proclaimed beforehand, Make way [for him]!
There are many possible explanations and issues with this story. I wanted to touch on a shamanic aspect that struck me. The story starts with money given to Samuel's father that is charity for orphans. His father dies and no one knows where the money went, so people start saying that Samuel must have taken (eaten) it. So Samuel goes to ask his father where the money is.
When Samuel goes looking for his father, the translation here is "So he went after his father to the cemetery..." The word in the Talmud for cemetery is "חצר מות" which means garden/yard/court of the dead. This can refer to a cemetery or it could refer to some sort of place where the dead hold court. I have to get a concordance and look up other places where the word occurs. In any case, he is using a technique to enter into the spirit world.
When he gets there, the souls give him a hard time about finding his father. The question arises as to why this is so. Usually, when looking for the soul of a loved one, it's not that hard, especially when someone is recently dead. So why the difficulty? In reading further, the souls do tell him where to find his father, but he still doesn't meet his father until after meeting with Levi. Levi was a friend of Samuel's in life, but was denied entrance into the heavenly beit midrash (academy) due to a slight of another teacher.
At that point, Samuel's father comes to him both laughing and crying. Crying because Samuel will soon join him and laughing because Samuel is so important. Samuel than uses his importance to get Levi into the heavenly beit midrash. His father then tells him where the money for the orphans was hidden.
My thinking is that Samuel could not find his father due to his motivation. His initial impetus for seeking his father is that people are slandering his reputation, saying that he stole the charity money for the orphans. Spiritual work is not done for personal gain. That might be a by-product, but it's not the goal. Samuel was seeking to clear his name at first, not to give charity. When he met Levi, he was presented with an opportunity to do for others. Samuel gains nothing by asking for the inclusion of Levi, but redeems himself by doing good for others. Only then is he worthy of finding out where the money is and redeeming his name. When it is clear that he is looking for the money to give it to charity and not just for his own benefit.
Come and hear: The father of Samuel had some money belonging to orphans deposited with him. When he died, Samuel was not with him, and they called him, 'The son who consumes the money of orphans'. So he went after his father to the cemetery, and said to them [the dead]. I am looking for Abba.23 They said to him: There are many Abbas here. I want Abba b. Abba, he said. They replied: There are also several Abbas b. Abba here. He then said to them: I Want Abba b. Abba the father of Samuel; where is he? They replied: He has gone up to the Academy of the Sky.24 Meanwhile he saw Levi sitting outside.25 He said to him: Why are you sitting outside? Why have you not gone up [to heaven]? He replied: Because they said to me: For as many years as you did not go up to the academy of R. Efes and hurt his feelings,26 we will not let you go up to the Academy of the Sky. Meanwhile his father came. Samuel observed that he was both weeping and laughing. He said to him: Why are you weeping? He replied: Because you are coming here soon. And why are you laughing? Because you are highly esteemed in this world. He thereupon said to him: If I am esteemed, let them take up Levi; and they did take up Levi. He then said to him: Where is the money of the orphans? He replied: Go and you will find it in the case of the millstones. The money at the top and the bottom is mine, that in the middle is the orphans' He said to him: Why did you do like that? He replied: So that if thieves came, they should take mine, and if the earth destroyed any, it should destroy mine. Does not this27 show that they know? — Perhaps Samuel was exceptional: as he was esteemed, they proclaimed beforehand, Make way [for him]!
There are many possible explanations and issues with this story. I wanted to touch on a shamanic aspect that struck me. The story starts with money given to Samuel's father that is charity for orphans. His father dies and no one knows where the money went, so people start saying that Samuel must have taken (eaten) it. So Samuel goes to ask his father where the money is.
When Samuel goes looking for his father, the translation here is "So he went after his father to the cemetery..." The word in the Talmud for cemetery is "חצר מות" which means garden/yard/court of the dead. This can refer to a cemetery or it could refer to some sort of place where the dead hold court. I have to get a concordance and look up other places where the word occurs. In any case, he is using a technique to enter into the spirit world.
When he gets there, the souls give him a hard time about finding his father. The question arises as to why this is so. Usually, when looking for the soul of a loved one, it's not that hard, especially when someone is recently dead. So why the difficulty? In reading further, the souls do tell him where to find his father, but he still doesn't meet his father until after meeting with Levi. Levi was a friend of Samuel's in life, but was denied entrance into the heavenly beit midrash (academy) due to a slight of another teacher.
At that point, Samuel's father comes to him both laughing and crying. Crying because Samuel will soon join him and laughing because Samuel is so important. Samuel than uses his importance to get Levi into the heavenly beit midrash. His father then tells him where the money for the orphans was hidden.
My thinking is that Samuel could not find his father due to his motivation. His initial impetus for seeking his father is that people are slandering his reputation, saying that he stole the charity money for the orphans. Spiritual work is not done for personal gain. That might be a by-product, but it's not the goal. Samuel was seeking to clear his name at first, not to give charity. When he met Levi, he was presented with an opportunity to do for others. Samuel gains nothing by asking for the inclusion of Levi, but redeems himself by doing good for others. Only then is he worthy of finding out where the money is and redeeming his name. When it is clear that he is looking for the money to give it to charity and not just for his own benefit.
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