Frequently we are starting an endeavor and from the start we encounter strong resistance to our efforts,

An Obstacle

not even from people but from circumstances around us.

Are those Obstacles the Sign from Above that we are on a wrong path and should use our resources differently?

or, may be otherwise, those obstacles are simply an opposition to holiness and should be fought tooth and nail until they are overcome ?

The answer depends on where the opposition comes from.

If the source of the opposition is our own soul, then we are on the wrong path and need to quickly re-route our efforts into other channels.

If however the source of the opposition is the Other side, one definitely needs to add more efforts to break through the obstacles no matter the cost!

The question is: how to distinguish between the two?

Simple but fool-proof answer is Tefilla, tefilla that is properly directed and not highjacked by the ego.

We need to divest ourselves from ego to the maximum and direct our prayer to empower our soul, asking to clarify the situation.

Our current goal in question should become completely irrelevant for us during this Tefillah, as our only desire should be to submit our will to One Above and channel our energy for our Soul’s disposal.

If after that we see the obstacles weaken or disappear, we know to add more efforts to achieve our goal and break the opposition.

If however, our soul  was the source of the blockage, we will see clearly that the  endeavor is to be abandoned.

To arrive to this clarity however the Tefillah has to be structured  properly – under no circumstances we should pray for the obstacles to disappear on that first stage -

not even a hint of this desire should be in our Tefillah, or it can lead to  misleading results.

After we had confirmed that our goal is positive from Hashem’s perspective, we can and should use Tefillah to achieve it with all our energy, with both physical and spiritual effort.

This principle is simple enough, however to actually apply it on a daily basis, we need to start seeing the situation in perspective.

We need to learn to stop before we throw all our resources against any opposition we meet,

being that people or circumstances, and check: do we really fight the right party ?

Do we have a hard time because our ego is having major fun here? Do we battle our own soul?

The above might look a bit simplistic since it doesn’t address the subconscious blocks and programs,

this topic however is for another post.

Connection · Divine Providence · HASHEM · Ish Tam · Meditation · obstacle · Prayer · Soul · Tefillah

Tefillah at the Kotel

Tefillah is extremely potent spiritual tool, however like every tool it needs proper tuning and usage skills – that’s what we’ll try to cover in this posting.

There is a tremendous amount of literature dealing with the topics of prayer and meditation, however there is a lot of ambiguity in the meaning people give to those terms.

Here is the Wiki definitions:

“Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional connection to some greater power in the universe through deliberate practice”

“Meditation is a holistic discipline by which the practitioner attempts to get beyond the reflexive, “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness”

Those definitions might be culturally accurate but they give little insight into the principles of how Tefillah and Meditation work.

The working definitions that help us would be:

“Prayer is an active act of changing the reality through changing yourself”

This definition is the resolution of the Paradox of the Prayer.

The paradox is frequently presented as this argument:

“If G-d knows what’s good for me, he will give it to me anyway as loving Father would – why would I need to pray? On the other hand, if something is not good for me, he won’t give it to me anyway even if I ask for it, so why pray?”

This simplistic approach doesn’t take into account that our life is a reflection of who we are on all levels of our soul and our body; our experience is a mirror of our entire self, which is the sum of all levels of our consciousness.

Since Hashem reflects to us exactly who we are, the way to change our reality is to change ourselves. The Change takes energy – the deeper is the level of the change, the more energy it takes.

Tefillah, prayer, is the primary tool for any change, spiritual and physical.

In order to use Tefillah, we need to focus and channel energy along the pathway of our desire, desire to change ourselves.

So our desires define the channels along which the energy of the Tefillah is directed and flow, the more refined and holy are the desires, the deeper and more elevated will be the change.

Ideally, during Tefillah our Higher Self, our soul takes over and gives us the direction to pray.

This is the meaning of short verse from Tehillim (51:17) we say before the Amidah prayer:

“Hashem, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise”.

Our Lower Self (body/nefesh) supplies the energy for the Tefillah, our Higher Self gives us the desire/direction, and the process works in the unison towards the same goal of elevating the world, changing all of “me” and all of reality.

In a wider sense we can view “me” as the handle to the reality. Since everything is connected, our self is an integral part of the entire creation and the entry point into all levels of existence.

This is another perspective why changing the “self” is the only way to change the reality:

We can’t open a door by banging our head against the wall (unfortunately that’s how most people are trying to change the reality), we have to find the door (realize there is a proper way of changing the reality – Tefillah), grasp/turn the handle (learn to use Tefillah dynamics), open the door and come through.

The energy for Tefillah sometimes might come from above as well – particularly on Moadim and Hagim – Jewish holidays, so we can use the tremendous wave of holiness descending on those days to power up our Tefillah. Every special time (Moed) has it’s own energy flavor and helps to rectify/change the respective area of our soul (Pesach supplies energy of freedom, Shavuot is great for “upgrading” to higher level of consciousness, Succot allows us to achieve the state of joy, etc. )

Speaking about receiving energy from above, brings us to the second part of the whole -

Meditation and the role it plays. Without getting into the definitions and semantics of what word “meditation” means to different people, we’ll say that meditation is conducive to entering into the state of internal balance, the state of being connected to the subconscious part of mind, state of being nullified and open to receive from above.

If Tefillah can be very forceful, pushing and channeling energy with one’s will,

This state of meditation is completely opposite – it doesn’t allow any tension or forcefulness, it’s completely let go, opened and relaxed, like a flower under the sun,  all one’s body, mind and soul tuned in to receive.

It is said in Gemora that Chassidim Rishonim (Early Saints) would spend three hours each prayer service:

An hour for Pre-Tefillah meditation, an hour for the Tefillah itself, and an hour for after-Tefillah meditation. If we view meditation as the “recharge” operation and Tefillah as the energy-spending act, it is very probable that Chassidim Rishonim would accumulate energy before the Tefillah and restore it afterwards.

Hence Tefillah and Meditation have been two inseparable practices in Jewish tradition from the ancient times; those two are as breathing in and breathing out, being two sides of the same coin. Tefillah is working according to the male principle (in Kabbalistic definition), actively changing reality, Meditation according to female, passively receiving energy (to beused for the active stage). When one’s Tefillah/Meditaton is structured according to this male/female dynamic, the result is harmonious spiritual growth.

One of the reasons for the tremendous power of Tehillim (Psalms), is that they seamlessly combine both modes. They draw the energy from the spiritual realm and this energy is channeled towards the target of reading the Tehillim (being another person or situation).

Most people however have emphasis over one or another mode, frequently not even realizing the second mode even exists. So the neglected mode is happening subconsciously somewhere on the background, which greatly slows down one’s spiritual growth.

One has to be aware of this male/female dynamic to feel when is the right time for which stage. The high-energy stage is asking for the male Tefillah mode and energy-depleted or mellower state is conducive to the female Meditation mode.

Connection · Energy · Hitbodedut · Ish Tam · Jewish · Meditation · Prayer · Psalms · Tefillah · Tehillim

Establishing the successful communication with the soul also requires overcoming erroneous expectations that literally close from us the real paths of connection.

One of those myths is that once soul communication is functioning, you have a video stream of information filling your mind with amazing revelations, or voice resolving your dilemmas, or …. you fill the blanks.

This would be nice but most of us simply don’t have the minds and souls developed enough for the intensity of communication like that. In reality our soul communicates in much more subtle ways. The blessing and the issue at the same time is that many people already do hear their soul, they, just don’t realize that. The barrier in this case is simply self-made. We are constantly receiving a lot of information beyond our five senses; however most of us simple learned to tune it out from conscious awareness.

With this in mind, carefully examine and re-evaluate the input you are receiving:

Body signals:

Body Signals are another way our soul communicates to us – we need to develop sensitivity to this non-verbal language our Neshama uses. Examples might include throat tightening or choking when saying something inappropriate at the moment, eye or hand lightly twitching (frequently right one signifies “Yes” and the left one “No” to the thought that is currently passing through your mind), or feeling of warmth lighting up in your heart. Whatever the physical signal is, it’s only important in the context of what is happening at he moment.

Synchronicity:

Frequently the sigh or indication comes as “synchronicity” – meaningful “coincidence” of events in our life, for example turning on the radio and having talk-show host to answer the question you just asked in your mind.

It’s important to distinguish those events from the superstitions they told you. Actually those superstitions might have been a part of someone’s “communication system” – it’s just they loose any meaning once they are out of context. So unless you are sure your soul picked up one of those superstitions to really consistently communicate something to you – take them easy.

I remember many years ago I had a “three-times rule” – if I get three seemingly unconnected events point to something, I’d give it a thought. Gradually I started to see if it’s meaningful with less prompting, the a “three-times rule” become a “two-times rule” and afterwards one can learn to view events as they happen with deeper realization what they mean – the repetition becomes unnecessary.

Connection · Divine Providence · Ish Tam · Neshamah · Soul · Superstitions · Synchronicity · Unconscious

How to establish the connection with own Soul?

There are many reasons and possible answers to that question,

in this posting I will focus on one of the most fundamental reasons most of us are not connected 24/7

and suggest a practical way to deal with the situation.

Subsequent postings will look at the question from other angles.

So, Why don’t most of us by default have a connection to our Neshama?

The primary reason is that we are too absorbed in our ego-drives to hear it.

It’s hard to get rid of them immediately forever, but we can temporary shift them to “the back of our mind”.

Obviously this requires minimal control over one’s thoughts – but it can be achieved with some meditation training

(Brainwave Entrainment music can give a good start to people having trouble even initiating the practice).

If we divest ourselves from all our concerns, worries, fears, attachments and pleasures only for a few minutes, we can create an opening for our Neshama to squeeze in a thought or two into our mind .

This approach works for some, others meditate till they turn blue, and still all they hear is silence and their own thoughts breaking in

Let’s address it in the subsequent postings.

Connection · Ish Tam · Meditation · Neshamah · Soul

Why do we want to connect to our Soul?

Most people use one or another approach for a guidance system to navigate though life.

Some use a mentor, frequently in the context of an ideology.

Still others use the internal connection, again often combined with a form of ideology.

However, no believe system can give us a GPS-like directions through life, and no mentor can do it for you either.

The question: “What do I do in this particular situation?” Is usually resolved by people either by following purely rational logical train of thought (heavily influenced by subconscious mind, which most have no idea about) or by trying to see the situation though the lenses of particular ideology, which hopefully takes more accurate picture of the reality.

The logical pathway usually doesn’t work too well, because people tend to take into account very negligible number of factors leaving out most real “situation makers” and also because the subconscious bias frequently makes a joke out of this “logic”.

Following a form of ideology that has developed solution templates might work better,

Especially if this ideology survived a few thousand years and helped it’s adherents to survive as well.

Still, too often those pathways leave us grasping for the ultimate answer to the question:

“How do I really know which decision is right?”

The great news is that we all have our own GPS with complete map of our life and almost unlimited (compare to our constricted feelings) visibility.

Our soul provides us with Divine Providence in our lives, however extent of this guidance depends on us: our actions, emotions, speech and thoughts.

How do we “turn on” the system and make it work? How do we make the connection to our soul?

We will continue in the next post.

Connection · Divine Providence · GPS · Ish Tam · Neshamah · Soul