PREFACE
Before I reveal my personal story of how I came to be a devoted scholar of Kabbalah and before I take to the web, now for the second time, to begin sharing my studies, I want to take a moment to emphasize an idea I wrote during my earlier Kabbalah online journals: “We share the ground, but not the road.”
My journey is just that: Mine. While I do hope to inspire and share, I am also fully aware that my road is my own. We all share a basic common ground but walk our own roads that lead us to our ultimate destination. My road is neither the superior nor the inferior of any other.
Here’s the thing… Kabbalah works for me. It might work for you or it may very well not. I remember one of the things that initially struck a chord with me while reading my first book on the subject, “The Power of Kabbalah,” (which I highly recommend to anyone as THE introductory text), one of the first things they teach is: “Do not believe anything in this book.”
A true Kabbalist is a seeker and a doer, not one who follows orders blindly. This is what separates it from being a religion in any form other than that it is a way of life. We are all encouraged to take the interpretations of this ancient wisdom and apply it practically to our own lives. But only to the extent that it helps bring us to a better place. If it does not, then by all means… it is not for you at this moment in time.
I am not a Kabbalah teacher or even an expert. I am merely a student who feels an intense obligation to share what I have learned. While everyone’s road to any such enlightenment is their own personal journey, I hope the ideas discussed and hopefully even debated herein will open the gates to not just a better road for my readers but a better map and navigational system. For that is what Kabbalah gives a student: The tools to navigate the path you choose to carve out as your own so that your every imaginable — and even unimaginable — desires are fulfilled.
Welcome to my walk.
BORN AGAIN
“I took a bath Saturday, the mikveh in the afternoon, and it was like I had taken some euphoric drug. A feeling washed over me, a warmth of Light and I heard it speak that nothing – no person, no thing, no moment ever needs to be anything other than what it is at any particular point in time. Our consciousness, ENERGY… that is the only truth and all that matters. I am not ashamed to say I actually hallucinated (at first I thought I must be trying to make it happen or I must be squinting my eyes or something – and then I realized that my eyes were wide open and I just let go and couldn’t believe this was all actually happening in front of me) all of the physicality of the world crumbled around me and all that was left was Light. I cried from sheer happiness as I felt not ONE thing and I mean NOTHING… except LOVE. Love for myself and all of humanity for the first time in my life and I prayed that I would take that knowledge with me and walk with it.”
This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote my teacher about an experience that happened to me on Saturday, June 19th, 2010.
I had been studying Kabbalah since 1998 and in those 12 years nothing like this had ever happened to me. So what was I doing wrong before? And what had I done to get to this point now?
I can’t say that during those 12 years I had been the best of students. In fact, at times I hadn’t even been a student at all. Something always seemed to pull me away from the Centre’s teachings, like I was being tested and if that was the case well then I consistently failed.
In 1998, shortly after I graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles, a friend took me to a tour of the Scientology building in Hollywood. I caught on quickly that this would not be any form of spirituality I was interested in. Besides the fact that the overall vibe there gave me the creeps, they were very secretive when I persisted with questions and I woke up the next morning with two books by my bed that I don’t remember buying and my credit card being charged for them which I don’t remember giving. All this on top of the fact that it was a religion based on a 1970’s sci-fi novel was enough for me to say, “No thank you.”
So I was naturally skeptical when another friend of mine took me to The Kabbalah Centre. Ancient biblical texts and wisdom certainly won out over fantasy fiction however, and even at the age of 18 I was fascinated with theology and spirituality. The ideas in the my first Kabbalah book, “The Power of Kabbalah,” were life changing and resonated with me on a level that other various forms of religion and spirituality had not. People would ask me what it was like and the closest thing I could describe was the idea of The Force in the movie “Star Wars.” Little did I know, George Lucas based a large part of the idea of The Force on Kabbalistic teachings.
Unfortunately, I have never been much of a “group study” person and didn’t have a car at the time either so my studies waned as my friend’s did.
Several years later, the Kabbalah membership site launched with monthly lectures and weekly wisdom seminars all available online. I found myself gravitating back to my studies there and it was during this period that I was given The Zohar as a gift from a friend of mine and began studying Kabbalah a bit more beyond the elementary level of the Centre’s basic books.
Still, I felt the Centre was dumbing down a lot of the wisdom to make it more universal. It all seemed one big form of “self-help” repeated over and over at times and if that was the case I found myself wondering why I was reading their interpretations instead of the actual texts themselves. I wanted deeper study! I wanted the secrets! I wanted the real thing! I wanted MORE!
So I sought out another online study group whose Kabbalistic focus was different from the Centre’s, more meditational and magical in theory. I bought a lot of books on Kabbalah magic during that time, many of which I never opened or when I did, I couldn’t make it past the first few pages because my mind couldn’t comprehend what I was reading. Something intrinsically repelled me from these other studies outside the Centre, despite my desire and fascination with them, and eventually I gave up what felt like an uphill battle and stopped studying Kabbalah all together for a few years.
That is, until the launch of UKabbalah.com.
It had been several years since I’d done any spiritual study and I found myself missing it. To be truthful, it had been a few years of intense indulgences. I was eating a lot, drinking a lot, not taking care of my body and I didn’t seem to care much about it. I wasn’t unhappy with my life by any means. But I also was completely oblivious to how much happier I could be.
What drew me to U Kabbalah was the idea that you not only get the live streaming seminars but also every class from every course taught at every Kabbalah Centre around the world archived for you to watch whenever you want. That’s a LOT of classes! Essentially, if you wanted to be a student 24/7, you could be! So I dove in on my off days.
I was very drawn to Ruthie Rosenberg’s weekly Zohar studies. They brought much inspiration and clarification to my life and her energy and passion was contagious enough for me to branch out to other teachers on U Kabbalah to hear what they had to say as well. The more I studied, the more I wanted to study. It was making me more patient and less easily annoyed with people in my life. I was practicing love that was much more unconditional than ever before. I remembered what I’d liked so much about Kabbalah in the first place and I felt more connected to a better version of myself.
THE BIG MOMENT
Then, on a Friday afternoon in June 2010 I decided to take a listen to David Ghiyam’s new course on “The Power of Shabbat.”
I’m sure for other people it is a different course, a different teacher, a different idea that clicks with them and brings them to a place where they have a much deeper understanding of Kabbalistic wisdom. But for me, it was the first ten minutes of David’s first class in “The Power of Shabbat.”
David Ghiyam so passionately reveals during the first moments of his course that there is a shortcut to all the secrets of Kabbalah, all the wisdom, all the volumes of the Zohar and all the writings and ancient teachings! There is one thing that can bring you all the light and fulfillment you’ve ever wanted in life! And that is, at every moment of every day to have the Desire to Share.
He screams, “We think, ‘I want my money. I want my chair. I want my Light.’ NO! I want to share. … I want to share. I want to share. I want to share. I want to share.”
Something clicked.
I think I wrote “I want to share,” over thirty times just to engrave the concept in my head because it was so powerful to me.
All my study in Kabbalah up to that point had been, “What can I get out of this? How can this benefit me and my life better? And sure, how can I be nicer to the people around me to make the world a better place?” I had not yet walked with ye ole Christmas time concept that it is better to give than to receive! I never knew the way to bring miracles and everlasting fulfillment into one’s life is to be in a constant state of having a desire to share. To share with the people who you love, the people who annoy you, the people you hate.
The profundity and yet simplicity of the idea is that if we were to all behave this way, to give selflessly to the people around us as much as possible… wow, the wars that would end and the chaos that would halt!
In essence, we would be emulating the Creator and his unconditional love and selfless sharing for all of us every second of every day. We would be God’s hands.
I made a few pacts with myself after that class and ever since, I walk with a different consciousness at every second of every day. “Born Again Kabbalist” is a term I came up with as a joke, but it’s not really because I can find no other way to describe the way I felt in that moment.
Am I perfect? No, it’s not about being perfect. It’s not even about being better. It’s about taking responsibility and no longer being a victim to the people, places and things that happen to you in your life. It’s about not being reactive to life as it is presented to you, but proactive to create your life.
This may sound insane, but as I mentioned in the letter’s excerpt at the beginning, I actually hallucinated during a mediation following that class. It’s one thing to know the wisdom and to have certainty in it and devotion to it, but to actually feel it and see it on a physical plane I felt was such an amazing gift.
Now should you begin to study Kabbalah or even go deeper into your current studies, by all means don’t expect something like this to happen. I didn’t! And it only took, what? 12 years? In fact, the following week in my Saturday mikveh, I did NOT hallucinate and you can imagine my disappointment! I asked the Creator why I had been given such an incredible gift the week before and now I was unable to feel it. About seven minutes later, the answer came to me that Kabbalah study is about many things but it’s not about hallucinations. It’s about sharing. The hallucination was a gift in that moment to me and nothing more. Now it was time to get back to work.
About seven minutes after that, I received an additional answer, that what I had seen was in fact not a hallucination at all. What I see with my eyes every day is the true hallucination. Any scientist will tell you we don’t see reality. We don’t seem atoms and protons and neutrons and electrons. We hallucinate these physical structures from our eyes in the bodies in which we reside. We hallucinate every day of our lives.
With this knowledge, though those physical manifestations of my first Shabbat have come and gone, I have been changed internally forever and I feel that on a daily basis as it manifests itself physically in other ways.
Now when I study Kabbalah, if something resonates with me on a deep level, it’s as though someone is turning up the wattage on whatever light is in the room at that moment. It will literally get brighter. I also find my pupils often dilate when I study or practice Kabbalah and sometimes the world will go into a sort of 3D like state. In short, the euphoria remains.
I don’t know if this is something most Kabbalah students feel or if I am in a small group. That’s part of why I’m writing this blog and opening up this forum of discussion. To not only share my experiences but to hear yours.
SELF-HELP INDEED!
I recently went to The Kabbalah Centre to check out their book store for the first time in several years. I wanted to drop a lot of money there in exchange for the amazing turn my consciousness had taken as of late and I wanted to buy a lot of books and other tools to keep studying as much as possible.
When I got there, my friend Nicholas who works for the Centre showed me some of the books he thought I’d be interested in. But these books were not the dumbed down pieces of “self-help” I’d known from the Centre’s past. These were interpretations of each chapter of the Old Testament, ancient Kabbalists’ writings on study of The Zohar, books on reincarnation, books on angels, books that boiled down Kabbalistic prayer letter by letter to reveal their profound meanings. This was deep stuff!
“These books must be new!” I said to my friend. “When did they start publishing these?”
“These are some of the first that the Centre published,” he replied. “They’ve always been here. Where have you been?”
Now I can’t tell you the amount of times I had been to the Centre’s bookstore and looked for books that I felt were more than just basic self-help.
It was at this point that I accepted maybe I had needed a little self-help. Maybe I had needed to help myself a little bit before I was ready to receive such gifts and knowledge! So I decided to embrace the process and stop trying to control it.
These books were there all the time? And I just didn’t see them?
Imagine all the things that surround us all the time, right in front of us, and we don’t even see them.
Imagine that CD you searched all over the store for and could not seem to find until you ask the sales clerk and she shows you it was right under your nose the whole time.
Imagine all the good that comes out of what seems like horrific tragedies that we are unable to see until so many years down the pike.
Imagine the atoms of everything we touch, all the protons and neutrons and electrons we can’t see with our physical eyes.
Imagine the Light of the Creator that gives us ultimate fulfillment at every second of every day to the point that we can’t even comprehend it, much less see it.
Imagine being able to see all of it, to feel all of it… and ultimtaely, to share all of it.
This is Kabbalah.
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