By The Light Of Neshamah (The Soul)   All of us are learning to shine by the light of our neshamah (the soul). If we cannot shine by our own light, it is because the light is blocked, like the sun’s light is obscured during a solar eclipse. If the light of neshamah does not show itself in us, what can we do? We can try to catch hold of the spiritual light of Kabbalah. As we study Kabbalah, gradually we become pure in mind, moral nature and bodily senses. When this happens, our spiritual body: nephesh-ruach-neshamah will begin to illuminate and guide us in the right direction.   How does this light become radiant within ourselves? The Torah says, by performing mitzvot in our daily duties. We don’t have to do anything extraordinary, we can just do little things continuously, in what we call our daily routine.   Our day-to-day schedule gives us the opportunity to make our own light as we come into contact with people who want to learn and grow. We begin to establish friendly, kindly and helpful relationships with everyone we meet. As we follow the path of a Tzaddik (the path of righteousness), we begin to recognize our wrong actions of the past and the right kind of actions that are necessary in the future. But, these realizations won’t help us unless we are mindful of teshuvah (redemption), which are principles of righteousness that we should exemplify in our daily living. It is through the performance of mitzvot that we practice teshuvah and thus, our neshamah begins to shine.   At the present time, some people are illuminated by use of the physical body. In others, it is the light of the mind that shines. There are those whose light shines with moral goodness. For the new student of Kabbalah, the light begins to shine upon the mind, moral nature and bodily nature.   Eventually, Kabbalah students move toward an understanding that their moral and compassionate nature cannot act alone, but needs to act in harmony with chochmah - the divine wisdom of the soul. Chochmah reminds us that we are our neshamah. We are not just the body, mind, moral nature and aspirations. We begin to shine brightly when we realize our neshamah is the eternal part of our being. The moment we understand this most important concept, all difficulties, pain, troubles and disappointments should cease. Automatically, our personal struggles can be viewed in their proper perspective, and we become grateful for the gift of life and the opportunity to help others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                               THE SECRET OF UNDERSTANDING    Every honest Kabbalah student, no matter how much they have read, realizes that Kabbalah holds the key to innumerable mysteries. Many students recall when some long-unknown mystery suddenly resolved itself as by a flash of light. Even if it wasn’t a very deep mystery, it was still a mystery due to the student’s delayed comprehension. This type of perception is a big step forward because it illustrates the future possibilities of understanding more complex esoteric ideas.   Very few nuggets of wisdom come to us by the mere process of study. Often, it is a combination of perception from our own particular viewpoint along with the innate curiosity of our mental forces. Once we experience self-forgetfulness and allow our willpower to flow along worthy lines, there is a re-orientation of our perspective which permits us to glimpse the vistas of valley’s unseen before. Prior to this awakening, however intensely we were looking for answers, we were looking in the wrong direction.   To many people, Kabbalah seems to be a collection of wild fables, volumes of words and numbers, configurations of constellations, meditation and vague symbolism that simply fails to make sense. Some people were led to Kabbalah because they were fascinated by one or two tenets that seemed comprehensible, so they were motivated to investigate further into the validity of the main teachings. This approach usually results in a piecemeal understanding of Kabbalah which can lead the student to reach false conclusions about the true nature of Kabbalistic study. Our minds are curious compounds that are capable of believing in true and false ideas simultaneously. Thus, it is possible for the average person to believe certain Kabbalistic doctrines, and at the same time, believe other ideas that totally disagree with the basic teachings.   Only our intuition, facts and logic should into enter the equation of what feels right to us – not what we’ve been taught in the past or what we’ve absorbed from others or the media. Most importantly, we should set aside everything that we would like to believe is true! So, when we choose to follow our intuition and evaluate facts and logic, let us be sure they are facts and that it is logic.   Now, Kabbalah is not a haphazard collection of facts. Kabbalah is based on the fundamental laws of the Universe (shemittot) and the unfoldment of these laws as they evolve outwardly. The great rabbis who stood behind these teachings, attested over and over again that this is the true nature of Kabbalah; it derives from fundamental, immemorially known truths and its doctrines lead to assimilation of eternal wisdom and inner-illumination.   Kabbalah is not presented as a speculation, but rather as something that can be split into sections and then understood as a whole. Kabbalah can appear confusing to some students, because after splitting the teachings into various categories, they still have to be considered with the rest of the teachings for it  to make any sense at all. Herein, lies the secret to understanding Kabbalah.   Those students who found sudden solutions to problems that puzzled them for years, usually found that the reason for their prior confusion was simply due to some teaching they had quickly dismissed, had not taken seriously or considered not important at the time.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                        Clearing Away Mental Obstructions  The greatest foe to kabbalistic meditation is memory and recollection. This form of mental resistance can also be called fantasy or creative imagination.The moment the mind is restrained in concentration for the purpose of meditation, at that moment the images, impressions and sensations of the past begin to troop through the brain and constantly disturb the concentration. Hence there is a greater need for Chesed consciousness (mercy, loving-kindness), less Gevurah consciousness (contraction of Chesed consciousness), less dwelling on Malkuth consciousness (feelings toward physical objects) and less Nephesh consciousness (seeking sensations for the physical body).      If the mind is full of impressions, there is also a reproductive power that is magnified by Netzach-Hod consciousness of emotion vs. intellect that enlivens these images of the mind. Recollection of these images, or the collecting together of these impressions, constitutes the first and the greatest obstruction to meditation. True Kavannah comes from the kinship of man’s Neshamah with the One Divine Source – Ain Soph! This is accomplished by balancing Ruach consciousness and centering the mind in Tiphereth (where Malkuth and Yesod below align perfectly with Daath and Keter above). Man’s Neshamah proves the Spirit of God exists, just as one drop of water proves the source from which it must have come. Tell someone who has never seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it as a matter of faith or reject it altogether. In the Torah, the Second Day of Creation tells us that there was a separation between the expanse of “the waters” before the earth, sun, stars and moon were created on the Third and Fourth Days. This gives us a hint that even our physical Universe is just a drop of water that springs from an infinite divine source from which it must have come. Once the meditator is free from doubt and skepticism, he will be able to cross the bridge from Malkuth consciousness to Yesod consciousness and thus be freed from the bondage of the mind. Once the Hebrews were freed from bondage, Moses was able "to receive" (Kabbalah) the Torah, and thus establish the foundations (Yesod) of Judaism. Herein, lies “the receiving” (Kabbalah) of God’s Law once the stage has been set for the Soul’s upward journey into Tiphereth consciousness. Tiphereth symbolizes “the promised land” of our inner illumination which transforms us into a Tzaddik. In kabbalistic meditation, the same concept holds true, whereby the spirit of Ruach and the soul of Neshamah unite together and become one. Thus, the meditator will experience the “no-thing” of Keter by raising his consciousness across the metaphorical River Jordan and enter into the “the promised land” of Kavanah where he will always find the metaphorical “milk and honey” of a joyful and meaningful life.      -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  The Sephirot – A Blueprint of The Universe And Ourselves                                                                          compiled by Robert Waxman     From “The Zohar”; ‘The Conduct Of The World Through The Sephirot’ (Tikkunei ha-Zohar, Second Preface, 17a-17b), “Wisdom of the Zohar”, translation by David Goldstein with commentary by Isaiah Tishby:   “You are the highest of the high, the secrets of all secrets; You are altogether beyond the reach of thought. You are he that produced ten tikkunim, which we call ten sephirot so that through them You might guide the secret worlds that are not revealed, and the worlds that are revealed”. And through them You are concealed from mankind, and You bind them and unite them. Since You are within, whoever separates one of the ten from its fellow is thought of as making a separation of You.”   “As for all the sephirot, each one has a known name, and the angels are designated by them, but You have no known name, for You fill all names, and You are the perfect completion of them all. And when You remove Yourself from them, all the names are left like a body without a soul.”             From “Sepher Yetzirah” by Aryeh Kaplan:   “The most primary relationship possible is that which exists between Creator and creation. This is the ‘cause and effect’ relationship. Cause is Keter, while effect is Malkuth. Once the concepts pf Cause and Effect exist, another concept comes into being, namely that of opposites. If opposites exist, similarities must also exist. Two new concepts therefore come into being. These are Similarity and Oppositeness. In our terminology, Similarity is Chochmah, while Oppositeness is Binah. These are the Yud and Heh of The Tetragrammaton.”       From “Guide For The Perplexed” by Maimonides (circa 1170 CE):   “There exists in the Universe a certain force which controls the whole, which sets in motion the chief and principal parts, and gives them the motive power for governing the rest. Without this force, the existence of the existence of this sphere, with its principal and secondary parts, would be impossible. It is the source of the Universe in all its parts. That force is God! Blessed be his name! It is on account of this force that man is called microcosm; for he likewise possess a certain principle which governs all the forces of the body, and on account of this comparison God is called, the life of the Universe” (“and he swore by the life of the Universe” – Dan. xii 7).                 From “Questions & Answers On Genesis, I” by Philo Judaeus (circa 50 CE):   “There are those that assert that what is meant by the tree of life is the center between the seven circles of heaven; but some affirm it is the sun that is meant, as that is nearly in the center, between the different planets, and is likewise the cause of the four seasons, and it owing to him that every thing which exists is called into existence. Others understand by the tree of life as the direction of the soul, for this it is which renders the sense of nervous and solid, so as to produce actions corresponding to its nature, and to the community of the parts of the body. But whatever is in the middle is in a manner the primary cause and beginning of things, like the leader of a chorus. But still, the best and wisest authorities have considered that by the tree of life is indicated the best of all the virtues of man, piety, by which alone the mind attains to immortality.”   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                   Progress-Happiness-Love   The teachings of Kabbalah clearly point to the knowledge of the great teachers of the medieval period, such as Moses Cordovero. From this vast body of wisdom each of us seeks answers to our most important questions. Thus, we will acquire new knowledge by an extension of our old knowledge. The student of Kabbalah draws out that knowledge from within his own heart.  However, sometimes the student of Kabbalah is apt to lose himself in collecting detailed information and acquiring only theoretical knowledge. He may overlook the spiritual attributes of the heart such as love, compassion and selflessness. The work of a Kabalist is to nourish all, morally, intellectually and compassionately. It will transform those who allow the divine wisdom  (Chochmah) to penetrate their being. Men and women who believe in the possibility of mental and moral regeneration through Ruach-Chesed Consciousness are the ones who will benefit the most by the teachings of Kabbalah. Sometimes, the words ‘progress, happiness and love’ are bandied about thoughtlessly. Many promises are made in books and rah-rah programs about how to be happy, but only a rare few carefully examine the sustainability of these qualities in an intelligent manner. First, there are numerous kinds of progress. There’s economic progress measured by the size of one’s bank account and standard of living. There is biological progress of bodily sensitivity through environment and heredity. There is the psychological progress of the subconscious and unconscious. However, not one branch of modern knowledge has a satisfying and complete answer about how one may progress spiritually. But, the day will come, however, when we understand whatever unique nugget of wisdom is our own. This divine gift will enable us to progress spiritually and bring with it a loving life filled with happiness. Anytime Neshamah is able to increase our ability to give and receive love through its connectivity with Daath, it creates an inner satisfaction born of understanding. Neshamah, itself, is defined as ‘understanding’ of the divine wisdom (Chochmah), which is ‘humanized’ into love through the Sephira Chesed (love, compassion and mercy). Our ‘progress-happiness-love’ connection depends upon our own ability to see our small place in the huge cosmos of an expanding Universe. BUT, however tiny that place may be, it is still our own special and unique place. A single small cog is as necessary to the smooth running of a complicated machine as the largest part is. This perception of Oneness (Keter) engenders within us a reverence for the unified progression of life in this world of Assiah. This leads us to the understanding that we all have the potential to become divine loving beings when we choose to express the truthful nature of who we really are. And let us remember, we do not progress to higher levels of spiritual illumination through Ruach-Mind Consciousness alone, but rather through our Ruach-Chesed Consciousness of the heart.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ##