Torah-Veda

An Interspiritual Journey
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Torah and Veda are two ancient sources of spirituality still vibrant today. Torah is conveyed through the sacred language of Hebrew and Veda is conveyed through the sacred language of Sanskrit. The focus here is on meditation, mysticism, philosophy, psychology and the underlying spirituality that has been incorporated into religions, and not as much on the religions themselves. Your comments and posts are welcome.


Quote of the Week 419 - Listend/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance

Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance


Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…


--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Role of the Jewish People on Earth

The Role of the Jewish People on Earth

“It has been stated, and certainly most feasibly so, that the Jewish race was a family group sent from one of the other systems to help mankind. This may have been the reason why it has been referred to as ‘chosen’ by ancient texts. We know that because of the great intellectual capability of these individuals, they were chosen to carry forth the wisdom conveyed to them by God. This great intellectual capability may have been inherited from a prior evolutionary process within the system of one of the other brothers – perhaps the brother who is establishing Fifth Ray energy, that of concrete knowledge and analytical science. This Fifth Ray energy is a blending of Rays One and Three, according to Alice Bailey.

“If this is true, then one can easily see how the greatest blessing became, in turn, through unawareness and egocentricity, the greatest curse, for the intellect can crystallize and contain the essence of Truth until, because it cannot expand, it begins to die and dissipate. Given understanding that would help mankind break the bonds of slavery to manifested living, the Jewish race, by containing that understanding within the limits of its own culture, not only failed to instruct mankind, but lost most of it themselves due to that containment. The Kabalah is the greatest gift to mankind, for it leads mankind out of its bondage and into the development of each man’s own self-realization. Truth can never be contained, for containment will cause its disintegration. Many broke the crystallization of their own containment within that culture and many still within it are now beginning to question and seek out the Truths given to their forefathers so now one is beginning to see Kabalists from all cultures and races taking up the task of giving to mankind that through which he can become his own ‘messiah’. They are also bringing forth those Truths into an understanding and workable method akin to today’s frequency of evolution.”

The above is taken from Lesson Ninety-Five of the 1984 version of the Karin Kabalah course, by Shirley Chambers. It expresses a perspective from certain schools of thought within the Western Esoteric Tradition, including Theosophy, as indicated by the reference to Alice Bailey. It references and incorporates what many may consider far-fetched metaphysical concepts which I will attempt to explain here only to the extent necessary to facilitate the message that I am trying to convey.

First, there is reference to the Jewish race being “a family group sent from one of the other systems to help mankind”. There is a conception within the Western Esoteric Tradition that we are not alone in the universe. These notions are likely partly the source for the recurrent crazes about extraterrestrials, aliens, flying saucers, abductions and the like. However, those involved at that level have a limited materialistic focus which leads to many misconceptions. The mystical view is that what we commonly refer to as material life here on earth, “life as we know it” (as if we really “know” much about this life!) is just one of many different forms of intelligent life that exists throughout the universe and all of its far-flung corners. Those on the scientific fringe are obsessed with UFO’s, while others in the scientific mainstream are equally obsessed with a search for “life as we know it” on other planets. From a mystic’s point of view, this is all quite humorous, if not a little sad and pathetic, because firstly, we don’t “know” life, and secondly, because it is otherwise such a limited, shortsighted, and bloated-with-self-importance point of view. In accord with this mystical notion is that there are a multitude of other beings of varying natures existing in other evolutions and systems, many of whom continually visit our humble little planet earth in our little corner of the cosmos.

This viewpoint incorporates the idea contained within the Western Mystical Tradition of “monads”. Monads are the most basic core subtle units mysteriously arising as impulses out of the Ultimate Oneness from which individuals develop and evolve, comparable to the Kabalistic conception of “sparks” of divinity that have separated from the same One Divine Source from which they have been emitted, which lie embedded within all apparently separate manifestations. There are monadic beings at various stages of development throughout the cosmos, in systems and evolutions separate than, but no less real than, our scheme on earth. There are beings on earth who are “native” to earth, as their monadic existence originated here, but there are also many beings in human earthly form whose monadic origins are from elsewhere, other systems and evolutions, who have come to earth and taken on human form. The conception discussed above is that the Jewish people are a family group of such beings having a common monadic origin from elsewhere, although there are also other individuals and groups in human form on earth who also have different non-earthly monadic origins. This again harkens back to the more literal speculations surrounding UFO’s and extraterrestrials, comparable to what is humorously portrayed in the movie, “Men In Black”. Certain schools of Western Mysticism similarly maintain that most extraordinary beings in human history in all walks of life, such as Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Alexander the Great, etc. all had monadic origins from elsewhere, as distinct from those on earth whose monadic origins are native to the planet earth. So that is what is behind the above notion about the Jewish race. It can be dismissed as outlandish, or it can be something worth pondering.

Accepting that notion as something worth pondering, the next otherworldly references concern a
“brother who is establishing Fifth Ray energy”, etc. This engenders a heavy dose of esoterica for which I will only venture to scratch the surface. The “brother” is a reference to a member of “The Great White Brotherhood”, a group of spiritually advanced beings specifically charged with the mission to aid the individual and collective spiritual development and evolution of earthlings. The Western Tradition also refers to them as “Mahatmas”, a term borrowed from the East, while the Indian tradition, although the source for the term, “mahatma”, prefers to refer to them as the great “Rishis” or “Sages”. The more mundane level Jewish tradition has its Patriarchs, while mystical Judaism has a variety of Archangels, Guides, Maggids. Within this scheme is the notion that phenomenal existence can best be described and understood as consisting of various degrees and grades of vibrational energy, not unlike as depicted on the chart of the electro-magnetic spectrum which most of us have encountered in high school science class. At one extreme is gamma, and at the other extreme is TV & radio, with the visible color spectrum (“the world as we know it”) a small section within this much broader spectrum. It is worth noting the scientific conception that the electro-magnetic spectrum theoretically has no real beginning or end. Beyond the shortest gamma waves that are usually depicted at one end of this spectrum is a theoretical end-point at the posited Planck length, the theoretically smallest conceivable unit of size (which nevertheless suggests the possibility of an infinity of never-ending minuteness that results from continually dividing a distance between two points in half). Beyond the longest radio waves that are usually depicted at the other end of this spectrum is a theoretical end-point corresponding to the end of the universe (which likewise suggests the possibility of an infinity of never-ending largeness, expansiveness, by continually doubling the distance between two points).

The Western Tradition esoteric school of thought has developed a scheme in many ways comparable to the electro-magnetic spectrum enunciated by science, using descriptors such as the “Rays of energy”. One of their teaching points is that many people consider what is real and important as only what is material, akin to maintaining that all that is real and important is the visible color spectrum. But just as our own science tells us (through instrumentation developed that expands the range of our otherwise limited gross physical senses) that there is much more to our electro-magnetic reality than the visible color spectrum, our mystics tell us (through the medium of inner subtle senses) that there is much more to our being than that which we experience with our gross physical senses or any extensions thereof. We should no more deny the existence and significance of mystical realms beyond our gross senses than we would deny the existence and significance of x-rays that are likewise beyond our senses, and yet many of us do. We accept findings based upon the scientific extension of our gross senses, and even further theoretical extrapolations made therefrom, yet reject comparable findings based upon meditative expansion of subtle inner senses, most of which pre-date the scientific findings by hundreds and even thousands of years.

So the above text is claiming that those of us known as the Jewish people came to this earth as a group some time ago as highly evolved spiritual beings with the mission to assist native earthlings and work with others who arrived here from other evolutions to aid the individual and collective evolution of this planet. Thus the moniker of “the chosen people” and the associated mission to serve “as a light unto the nations”. The story of the Jewish people seen in this light thus becomes the story of a people struggling to fulfill this mission, but often losing their way or getting caught up in a mass of distortions, misconceptions, confusions, and bloated self-importance and self-absorption.

Perhaps prevalent Jewish stories, myths and practices should be reexamined in the light of this perspective. For instance, perhaps the Jewish myth that this world came into creation 6000 years ago actually relates to the time when this family of beings came to this earth from their other realm. Many common, but puzzling or hard-to-accept Jewish conceptions and beliefs might be better understood when seen in this light. For example, “Israel” is a state of spiritual development whereby one recognizes a connection with The Oneness, The Source of All. The Jewish people were charged with establishing the Temple in Jerusalem not only as a physical mechanism to aid others in coming to that state of spiritual realization, but also as a physical representation corresponding to a Temple that exists both microcosmically within each individual and macrocosmically on a more subtle level of the Beyond Which is Close.

The above text suggests that the Jewish people have by-and-large lost their way, for whatever the reasons may be. It repeats the message so eloquently conveyed in the Torah itself of how easy it is to slip away from blessing to curse. However, it also points to the recent resurgence of the Received (Kabalah) Teaching (Torah) both within traditional Jewish circles and also outside of those avenues. People of Jewish origin are prominent teachers and participants in a vast variety of mystical and meditative non-Jewish arenas, such as Yoga, Buddhism, Sufism and Mystical Christianity. Others are rediscovering the lost mysticism and related practices within Judaism. It is becoming increasingly clear and obvious that Kabalah is not just for Jews, and that Jews are not supposed to remain solely in insular enclaves proclaiming exclusive proprietary rights, “the inside scoop”, and reveling in the specialness of their choseness which the rest of mankind just cannot appreciate and understand. Perhaps even those practices and beliefs among some segments of the Jewish community serve a useful purpose for all of mankind. But it is not the only authentically Jewish approach, as many of those within those segments maintain. Many from those same segments of Judaism raise a frequent alarm about assimilation, although historically, Jews have remained as an identifiable group despite all past efforts of assimilation and annihilation. I am not personally worried about assimilation. If we are meant to survive and fulfill our mission, then it will happen. I do not know if this would be empirically corroborated, but my own limited experience seems to indicate that for every person of Jewish birth that I have come across who has assimilated, I have come across a similar number of people who have converted to Judaism or rediscovered a significance to their Jewish identity with renewed verve and vigor, so it appears that any depletions in the ranks get refurbished one way or another.

I do, however, appeal to all those of Jewish birth who have assimilated or are on the verge of assimilation to closely examine why you were so born and to give it some serious consideration before you abandon it totally. As I have attempted to convey in this piece, there are more varied ways in which to understand and express your Jewish birth, identity and function than is commonly conceived in the traditional segments of the Jewish community.

Sleepers Awake!

Ponder Infinity.

Awake and Arise.

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