My pot of meat
December 2021
Ahh .... those times we live in ... those interesting times ...
How intense is the longing to return to the meat pot, to those days two years ago, that one could fly anywhere without a problem, walk around anywhere, buy with free mouth and nose in the mall, return from work/ chores / duties / commitments to his/her convenience, go to watch a good movie without a problem, visit a restaurant without a problem… live our 'normal' life, where we do not see in front of our eyes people with masks on their faces, where there is no isolation and no fear of breathing, where the other person is not such a threat, that's going to kill me; Where there are no daily medical tests, where there are no dismissals and no media-coverage of numbers on screens from morning to evening, where there is no emergency and no new regulations, dealing with complicated questions like blackened agreements and everything around ... ahh...those days ..
And the wish that only if this "thing" will come and will allow again all that is familiar to us, that material-coasy-familiar "peace"; Only let it come and redeem us from all this hallucination. Just let it save us and finish with this story.
"The sons of Israel said to them, If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (Exodus, chapter 2, 23).
This is the power of deception.
A mental illusion.
And why a deception?
Because let us remember that only short time time before, the situation was...:
"And it came to pass in those many days, that the king of Egypt died; And they shall cry out unto God, out of bondage" (Exodus, II, 23).
what is happening here??
400 years of slavery are forgotten so fast ??
Slavery of hardship, of carrying huge bricks, poverty, misery, people with a whip are oppressing them - how come all this is forgotten?
The cry and sigh are forgotten, addressing the spirit, the greater power, is forgotten; and in a short time - short, compared to 400 years for sure - claims, accusations and complaints are arising against those who did everything to get them out of the greatest difficulty of their lives.
How does such a reversal occur?
Probably quite easily.
The power of consciousness that seeks the familiar convenience, even if it is slavery, is immense. It is a vast force whose essence is anti-evolution, anti-movement, anti-looking-forward, and anti-new creation.
It is such a tremendous force that goes out against the new, that it will do everything, and will not spare any means, in order to prevent the entry of the new.
The new - of course - is threatening, first of all because of the simplest reason: it is unknown.
In the deeper sense, the new asks from me to leave something that has become a part of me, inseparable from me, to leave a known reality. This "new" is not welcomed automatically in an open door unless I make an effort to do so. Unless I open myself to it - consciously.
How lucky that toddlers are not required to open themselves consciously when they move for example from a crawling stage to a standing and walking stage, because otherwise they would not do it: after all, it is much safer and more stable to walk on all fours and being lift-up by someone, than having to strain in order to walk on two, fall dozens of times and continue to strive to get up and overcome the force of gravity. What luck that there is a tremendous spiritual force that causes the human being, and only him/her, to do this unbelievable process, and allow him/her to release his/her hands in order to fulfill what he/she is meant to fulfill in the world, allow him/her to connect with other human beings out of his/her own initiation, as well as to connect to the world as part of it.
Because otherwise, it's really better to crawl;
It's better than falling. This effort must overcome the power of a magnet at indescribable intensities.
And in our days - it is even better for me, in my habits - that I will preserve my past with its convenience, which I already familiar of, and that no one interferes with it.
My meat pot.
Slavery to the partial place within me.
Slavery to the limited place in me: being a mere material existence, a hedonistic, nihilistic existence.
Enjoying it is fun, even a great privilege. Sometimes you really have to make an effort to learn to enjoy.
This is not about that.
It is a disconnected hedonism, in all areas of life - based on a inner-position that I am only for myself, belonging to the human family is only for my own-service; it is not belonging that I re-create, re-create every morning and evening by choice and out of moral human mutuality.
Remember the slavery, go through the difficulty of the desolate desert, walk in the desert for a while, and embark on a new existence. That's the thing, and it's happening to us all the time, just not in such clear and extreme forms as today's reality.
WE experience this extremism because it demands something from us, as humanity and as individuals; And if I do not ask what it asks from me both as an individual and as someone who belongs to the human family - a thought that some people have never thought of beyond assimilation for personal needs - if I do not ask, then there will be no answer, and it will go worse.
And if there is no question, and no answer, there is no human and no family of human- beings.
So actually there is no pot, nor meat;
The spirit is present here at my service and I am at her service - not only when I am in slavery that I am aware of (and therefor suddenly remember the spirit and ask desperately for her help) , but also when I am in slavery that has come out of my own realm of consciousness, a materialistic prisoned conveniency, that has made me close my eyes and sleep very deep; divinity is everywhere, the spirit is all over and around, and I must open my inner ears, heart and eyes in order to feel the connections and the loving fabric of the heart inside me, between me and the other, between me and the world.
So neither pot, nor meat;
Love - that's what is below those horrible days we are in now in this humanity.
And it's my job to run it,
Every moment.
let's make the effort.
The Thoughts' "Traffic Policeman"
June 2017
"I cannot control my thoughts" - I hear this kind of say many times.
Coming to work with our cognition, the fundamental thing is practicing the ability to separate our self from our thoughts, as if they were external objects themselves.
This is the first step, and it's not easy to apply, yet, totally possible.
When a certain thought "catches" our self, our self-drowned in it. the self`s existence is not separated from it. The thought is being experienced as a sole real essence.
And even if we have some understanding of a certain separation, we still need the tools in order to establish this separation and become the "traffic policeman" of my thinking, in the positive meaning of it. In other words, to become the landlord of my thinking who directs the thoughts` traffic.
One of the traps here is the immediate impulse to get rid of a thought that has a hidden potential to contribute to my development where we feel deeply stuck and we`re not even aware of this being stuck.
That's why the work of eliminating here is very important.
One of the basic tools is developing witnessing the thinking and the thoughts. A thought has its own "life". We learn to observe it, and the helpful power for that is the power of searching the truth. This power has its own "life" as well - an essence of asking, of inquiring, of life and vitality, a power of curiosity and evolution.
Since thinking is connected deeply to our will power, when we feel this block we can notice the disconnection between the thinking forces and the will power; then we look again and again after order and active doing in our lives, while feeling stuck.
Therefore, practicing the witnessing as mentioned is an essential phase working with our cognition for the next steps to come.
A Part of a Whole
January 2017
Self-revelation requires encounter between self and other: the revealer needs an other to whom to be revealed.
(Rabbi Arthur Green - Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology – p. 62).
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
(Mathew 18, 20)
The acknowledgment that besides being individuals we are also part of a larger "thing" – usually disappears from our consciousness, almost as a default. We are built like that: we feel our individuality (and freedom) as the center of the world. On one hand it is true, on the other it means that (unconsciously) we forget everything around us, or we consider it to be in our service. Usually, we`re even not aware of forgetting that, especially when we are in pain; Pain separates but it is also the main way to feel connected with the other.
It is really important to hold this acknowledgment active in our minds; then it becomes like a nourishing source, like the breast of a mother for a child. It can help us in difficult moments to re-connect and re-member with ourselves, with the world, and with the other; it reminds us the source, the original truth. And the "other" is exactly in the same situation as me: he is also – before and behind everything – a human being, a part of a whole, a part of connected and endless chain.
As Rudolf Steiner said:
"Those who judge human beings according to generic characteristics only reach the boundary, beyond which people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination...Characteristics of race, tribe, ethnic group and genders are subjects for special sciences...But all these sciences cannot penetrate through to the special nature of the individual. Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begins, the determination of individuals according to generic laws - ends."
Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path. A Philosophy of Freedom (GA 4), Hudson (1894)/1995.
When we re-open our eyes – through our active thinking - with this awareness, we learn to recognize in every experience that we have the wide connection, the big picture of us all being part of creation, each of us in her/his own unique way and expression.
This far, thinking was given to human being only; therefore, developing an active thinking – i.e., by asking questions, by inquiring situations and experiences, by doubting what seems to be a total true, etc. – we use our thinking to reveal itself for us, and thus also to reveal our own self in spirit.
Blessings to the year 2017 !
Holding Space
July 2016
Here is one of the most hard human challenges - how to hold space for the other (and why..)?
Sometimes it is so contradicted to my instincts - because here it is not comfortable, and there it is so hard, and there it is so exhausting, and here it is so - really! - against my opinions.. And it is most difficult when I feel I am hurt, really hurt.
And it is not about self-"deleting" - otherwise, then, who is the holder, if her/him does not exist?
So, how do we hold both? my-self and the other`s self?
The article here in the link - https://www.facebook.com/upliftconnect/videos/839188052884844/ - asks to give some important guide-lines.
And still, applying them takes time.
But life itself takes time.. :-) We develop in time, we move in it, we grow and get mature in time, and we study in time. So any application of different things takes time. it is nothing but an eternal process. So, it is totally ok.. :-)
The simple - and sometimes, the obvious - acknowledgement that there is something common in all of us, humans, helps me, each time a bit more.
Again and again I realize that humans have dreams (different and similar), pains (different and similar), faces (different and similar), bodies (different and similar), affections (similar, for example, towards children, and different), etc .....
And I do not go immediately to apply it on extreme and difficult cases, such as we hear on the news. I start from what is close to me in daily life.
And from time to time I also try to remember that there are so many things that I still don`t know...certainly not for somebody else. I can just offer, not more than that.
I try to remember what combines, not what separates.
I forget that and then ask to remember again.
It is thinking-activity - to be active in that as much as possible. And somehow, in hidden way, it also brings peace... :-)
Spirituality Today
August 2015
In ancient times spirituality was a path for unique people only. Those who had chosen that path – or were chosen by others - were searchers that had to go through a deep and very inconvenient, long and even very scary initiation, being guided by an experienced teacher. Spirituality was about experiencing the supersensible, meaning: the gates to higher worlds that exist beyond the familiar earthly senses.
Things have developed, moved, materialized and changed. Spirituality became a field that can be explored by every individual and not only by unique people, if she or he wishes to do that. But In this process the concept "spirituality" has gotten various approaches and "interpretations": Not necessarily anymore a deep and totally unknown process of initiation, an encounter with the non-physic level, but a way to enlarge and increase good feelings and emotions, which the common base of them is usually "Love".
So, has "Love" also become a concept rather than essence of a deep connection?
One`s life brings different events – smaller or larger – that encounter him with pain, anger, insult, humiliation, and especially fear; the uncertainty – which is the basic nature of life - brings anxieties and many unsolved questions. So it is only natural that we will seek for certainty, for answers and pleasant feelings, mainly love. Of course, we all want to be loved and to love.
The danger in this process is to hold "love" as a "magic" and easy "solution" for all the unpleasant situations and feelings mentioned above. It happens, it happens a lot, and it happens totally unconsciously. "I love you" became easy words.
Does it really mean "love"? Why are we all looking for a "true" love? Doesn't it mean that there is a "false love"?
As life teaches, (true) love is something to work very hard for and to build, usually through the encounter with pain; pain is the best way to awaken human consciousness, as if it sounds an alarm to awake us from our deep sleep and forces us to get up for work – not work in the office, but our inner work.. J
As I experience it, love is not automatic. And it is much more than a "regular" emotion of the emotional level; love is a choice, a choice that comes from the conscious level, and it means that I also have the choice not to love. In other words: The freedom to love.
In order to choose love, not only to increase pleasure in one`s life to "feel good", one has to decide to open oneself. One needs to listen, to widen oneself far beyond everything he knows, let one`s thinking to dis-cover for him a new reality; exactly like they did in ancient times - when they were willing to go through the initiation process and meet the supersensible - but up-to-date...!
It means, for me, to be willing to go also through the unpleasant experiences that I have – meeting myself, but especially while meeting the other – and actually work there and establish love, even with my closest people.
To love is to make an effort, to seek for positivity when one is in criticism, to make the transformation from the inner power of separation – and that can happen only if I choose and decide to do so actively.
George Ritchie, in his book "Return from tomorrow", describes – after his NDE (near death experience) - his meeting with Bill Cody, a holocaust survivor who lost all his family, that told him he had chosen love rather hate; I believe it was a conscious decision out of an active consciousness.
In order to implement a free choice of love one must also acknowledge the option of not loving, taking into account the result of what he chooses, after asking oneself honestly where his thinking- heart leads him to.
In other words, a possible "understanding" of the essence named "Spirituality", or "Love", is the expression of an active moving consciousness of the human being; it is an activity in the level of pure and free non- materialized thinking.
How Does One Know?
July 2015
Once We Knew / Wislawa Szymborska
Once we knew the world well.
It was so small it could fit in a handshake,
so easy you could describe it with a smile,
it was ordinary as old truths in a prayer.
History did not welcome us with fanfares.
It threw filthy dust into our eyes.
Before us only dead-end roads,
poisoned wells, bitter bread.
Our war's booty is knowledge of the world.
It is so large it can fit in a handshake.
so difficult you can describe it with a smile,
it is extraordinary as old truths in a prayer.
1945
*
Walking in the world without knowing. The "right" and the "wrong" are changing all the time; the Ten Commandments are being interpreted in many different, new and complexed ways; different "laws" of morality – what is their validity? Who decides? Who is choosing them? People are claiming for "freedom" but on behalf of "freedom" sometimes we see a deep chaos; what is "true" and what is "false"?
I hear myself inside, I listen to people around, to those wondering voices, and it seems that in our days – more than ever – the presence of "The tree of knowledge and evil" (and not "The tree of knowledge or evil") is here: we are confused about what is "good" and what is "evil.
And what do I know about myself? And about the other? And is it possible at all to know the other?
And what does it means "And the man knew Eve his wife" (Genesis chapter 4, psalm 1) –the knowledge that is brought here is not as any other knowledge; it is about real knowing, from the inside; it is not "knowledge" of empty quotes or blind repetition after someone who said something in another time; the Laster means to know intellectually, the former means a real knowing.
It is hard to "know" in the biblical meaning. It demands a Sisyphus' effort, an on-going effort of walking in the path, a path that starts with questions, and not with prepared- known-in-advance answers; In our times, each of us is invited to stay with the questions, while walking in a world that wants closed answers, that demands certainty and absolutism; and it is hard than ever.
In her above-mentioned poem, Szymborska writes that war is the reason for that chaos. And yes, wars do cause losing the path; but Szymborska also writes so deeply and lovely that regarding old truths in a prayer – even war cannot take that away. In our times, we are those who have to find in ourselves the old truths in a prayer, mainly with our own inner forces.
I don’t know how you feel, how you are experiencing your experiences. I will never know; I can assume, I can guess, I can put different assumptions about you, especially if we are familiar with each other; but I will never know your experiences the way you feel them inside you. And yet, when I meet a person – as it seems to me In my thinking – that says something that I am not certain he himself believe in, I then feel fear and loneliness, alignment and distrust inside myself; on the other hand, A person that seems to me honest with himself, or at least is willing to "work" in self-knowledge and to stay open (I love people whose mind is open- Eva Kilpi's poem), then I feel awakening of trust inside me, while attending this authenticity.
I ask myself – why do I feel this way? And I realize it is my own fear of not knowing myself; if I don’t know myself – how can I ever get to know the other?
So I think about an old truth: one can never know her/himself totally, and this is the meaning of "being human"; all one has is to develop and become, and through that to know her/himself for the moment in the best way one can; In the next moment I will not know myself again, and will hopefully be willing to study my new-self.. J And the same in the next moment. Endless process.
Once, in old times, we didn’t have to know ourselves. Once, the instructions were clearer, they came from the outside as rules of guidance – through religions and traditions – and humans have been acting according to them. Today we have to find the way by ourselves, as individuals, but with the willingness to corporate with others.
Whenever we meet the dark and helpless moments, the uncertainty and the question "how one knows?" – we have the option (sometimes with a help of someone) to stay in the question, moving towards the inner knowledge, knowing ourselves a bit more than before. This might bring us closer to the "Tree of life".
All best wishes to hold the path and rebuilt the ruins of the past.
Authentic Movement
July 2015
In life, in the external world, we move in different spaces – home, outside, school, work, in between places – we simply move, and of course we also act while moving. At the same time there are many situations in which we witness: we witness the outer world – people, nature, different situations.
It is similar also in our inner world – each of us can experience her/himself thinking/feeling/doing something: "I feel lonely", "I feel happy"; and also can notice her/himself knowing that he feels lonely, i.e., witnessing her/himself.
And as me, so is the other. It is usually the total opposite from what we do instinctively: our look is towards the outside.
The deep frame of Authentic Movement based on this acknowledgment of both mover and witness. It enables me experiencing the present moment vividly and in full awareness. That, of course, demands an on-going practicing, It doesn’t happen tomorrow morning.. We all have our habits and instincts from the past, from society etc. – for good and for bad; yet, as human beings we`re the only creature that has the possibility to develop freedom and choice; hence, by being aware through this method to our own present experience – in thoughts, in emotions, in will impulses – we develop the ability to recognize our motivations, and hence to choose our thoughts and actions, as well as our responses to daily situations and to life events.
Mainly, It is about individuality. Knowing myself through this practice, and getting know a bit about the other trough this practice, goes through totally subjective experiences.
In "subjective experiences" It means that every experience that I have – is my experience, the filter is only me – my senses, my opinions, my judgments, my past, my taste… everything!
This acknowledgment open a new channel to myself and to the other, for any other individual has her/his own subjective experiences. By living that, we can meet from a different point. By living that, I can witness my thoughts, my emotions and my doings with acceptance that allows me to choose to change them when I realize that this is my responsibility.