Kabbalah and Higher Levels Consciousness

In Hebrew “kabbalah” means “tradition” or “reception”: the tourist arriving in Israel is met with this word upon entering hotels, the spiritual seeker might ignore its mundane meaning, and train his eager thoughts on the mystical sites of the country where the sages of this tradition are buried, and where thousands of contemporary students of Kabbalah pilgrim yearly.

What did/does it mean to be a student of this ancient mystical system originating millennia ago in Israel?

In the past, the study of the literary and mystical corpora that made the body of the Kabbalistic teachings was restricted to married male Jews, over forty, with children and a considerable familiarity with the mitzvoth (rules/commandments) of the Jewish faith, as well as with the Torah - basically the first five books from the Old Testament, and the Talmud (a central text of mainstream Judaism, in the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history).

Presently, as taught in the Kabbalah Center in LA, the practical aspects and rewards of the system are highlighted through courses and lectures open to all peoples, regardless of gender, age, marital status, or ethnic origin.

The applied Kabbalah student is wearing the red string around the left wrist for two reasons: to prevent his/her reactive judgments towards others, and to protect against any such towards himself/herself. Every morning and as many times throughout the day as possible, the student will tap into higher levels of consciousness by restricting immediate reactions and observing the Kabablistic precept of “cause and effect”: there is a cause for all effects/results in our life. Just because we cannot see, or failed to see this cause/causal seed does not mean that no such thing existed/exists beyond our realm of perception.

By way of explanation, imagine yourself in South America, felicitously (and safely) placed above the breathtaking canopy of the Amazonian forest. From your vantage point, you can see, in the heavy mist imbued with heady fragrance and myriad sounds, the tips of many branches and can guess from a distance, and witness the muffled undergoings of the lifeshow below. As the sun rises and the mist evaporates, your eyes follow down those branch tips to the thicker arms of a majestic tree, and you realize that those spearing tips that in the veiled morn seemed to be far away and independent from each other, are actually part of the same arboreal system, with sturdy roots firmly planted in the ground. So, “somewhere in time,” a seed fulfilled its mission and produced the splendor now enchanting your eye.

As a Kabbalist you take this same concept of causality and effect and apply it to your every action, i.e.: plant some “good seeds.” So, how does this spiritual/horticultural activity manifest in our 21st century daily lives?

The serious Kabbalist starts his day by reciting the Ana Bechoah, or the “prayer of the Kabbalist.” In itself, the prayer is a compilation of “42 names of God” or words believed to help human consciousness tune in with the pure energy of cosmic consciousness. Line by line, consciousness is up-tuned to higher levels of understanding: the believer walks into the mundane carrying this knowledge and brings mindfulness into everything s/he does, says, or believes. Paramount is the idea that as earthlings, we are all, by cosmic design, drawn to finding answers to our existence, but that we are doing so, in different ways. Kabbalists and others pursuing spiritual enlightenment can help speed up this process by focusing on the bettering of the self and being mindful at all times.

One way of maintaining this high level of consciousness is to always revisit the concept of “the big picture,” in our case, that epiphany moment above the Amazon forest. All is connected, everything that surrounds us is the manifested effect of a causal action we (all) did in the past. A seed, literal or metaphoric might rest comfortably on a shelf for years. With the right consciousness, in the right conditions, with proper care in the right soil, might create a fruitful tree with myriad other seeds, which through sharing, will feed, shelter, shade and multiply myriad times over, ad infinitum. All of this, from the same seed that could have lazed forever in dark shadows…The concept of the seed, is of course, in other forms, present in all spiritual traditions, most famously, as Jesus’ “parable of the talents” or in more contemporary takes, for those of us into Science Fiction, in Octavia Butler’s phenomenal “Parable of the Sower” novel.

Ultimately, what Kabbalah could provide for the avid seeker of spirituality is of course, subjective and proportional with the time invested in study and practice.

Personally, I cannot praise it enough!

Back in 2004, one of my professors suggested that “I am a Kabbalist who doesn’t know it yet” and with this incendiary statement sent me “go and read!” So, I did: Barry W. Holtz’s “Back to the Sources,” Editor Lawrence Fine’s “Essentials Papers on Kabbalah,” the Bergs’ extensive collections on the applicability of Kabbalah to daily life. I also took an amazing course at University of Michigan, taught by professor Eliot Ginsburg (many universities offer high level courses on Jewish mysticism these days).

I wanted to learn Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew, so in the summer of 2006 went to Israel and did so. Joined the Kabbalah Center (www.kabbalah.com) same year and been studying ever since, happily living a “fruit-full” Kabbalistic life.

Here is to you, those who asked, and all of us who search: to being kind to others, to learning endlessly, to enjoying life in Light…

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About Author

Corina Kesler is currently pursuing a Phd in Comparative Literature at University of Michigan (since 2003). Her present utopian interests have been shaped by her growing up in a communist country self-declared “utopian,” and from spending extended time in a Romanian Orthodox monastery.

Her dissertation project’s premise is that the utopian impulse has disguised itself in late forming nations of the world and that in these cases, the utopian impulse took mystical, mythological and temporal form much more often than in the case of the canonical tradition that favors rational constructs, dialectical approaches and spatial forms. To test her hypothesis Corina has read extensively on various utopian traditions, participated actively in national and international utopian conferences, visited and volunteered at several international utopian projects in England, Romania and Israel.

www.corinakesler.com

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