Friday, April 13, 2007

Parsha Shemini

You must have a direction in mind. For every course there must be a pathway that you may follow based upon where you want to end up. Without this pathway, focus or direction the mind will meander becoming subject to this or that flow depending upon the momentary strength of these currents that move all around us every day. By determining your direction in mind beforehand you are able to skirt these currents and proceed along the way of your intention arriving in time to congratulate yourself on keeping yourself on track throughout the entire journey.

Become aware of your background meditations and periodically seek to refresh your mentation actively providing positive emotions to provide a clear passageway for your intentions. Mind looks to emotion for its way forward. Mind and emotion may be described similarly to thunder and lightning. When emotion produces inspiration there is a connection with Infinity. This is the light about which was said ‘let there be.’ What follows then is thought bursting forth from this light as the thunder booms its crashes in the skies. In the case of thunder we hear its sound later because sound travels slower than light. The same thing happens with thought following the inspiration of emotion. We sometimes won’t recognize the connection between the two. In either the case of emotion and thought or lightning and thunder one must follow the other in due course although in truth both are simultaneously produced.

One might conjecture that when something happens it is because we had the thought that this something might occur however, what actually happens is that we have felt the truth of our being and turned towards that truth. Then we witness the outcome of those feelings that includes by the way everything that we thought about the way we felt and are feeling. The transformation that takes place within our emotions is the backflow of thinking where a negative thought is dismissed and a positive one emerges in its place.
Instrumental in these operations are what are called the seraphim and the chayoth ha kodesh. These are the transformative agents linking thoughts and emotions. It is how we move from unclean to holy.

So there are three operations we have now described. One is that of emotion occurring due to connection with the Divine or holiness. Two we have thoughts about this experience that leads to certain choices that we must make concerning which way to flow with those thoughts. Three we turn back towards holiness to remove the doubts that may have occurred due to our focus being reshaped by the field of mass mind all around us. There is a fourth operation that completes this cycle. This occurs when as a result of emotion thinking backflow and correction we see or experience the results in a flash of unity. We understand that were it not for the initial inspiration we would never have arrived at the moment of the demonstration of our intention. In our wisdom we recognize that thought may be transformed after its initial appearance to return its nature to that of the emotional state out of which it originally issued. At the moment of demonstration we know that what we have just witnessed is the essence of truth itself about which is said, ‘thou shalt have no other G-d before me.’

Okay now to link all of this together with this Parsha Shemini. The blood poured and dipped in the sacrifices symbolizes emotion. It is the life force of inspiration. Despite the gruesome details we have to understand that the symbolism of the Torah dates back before time when the Torah appeared in Gan Eden as living letters forming themselves in vines shaping the heart and soul of the world. Moses commands are the thoughts that direct the flow of emotions however, Moses cannot do any of this alone because Moses is thought itself subject at times to negativity. Nadab and Abihu represent the backflow of thought that turns itself into the transformative substance along with the incense offering in order to purify Israel or thought itself. Following their deaths the sacrifice can no longer be consumed in the prescribed manner as Aaron who is the progenitor of Nadab and Abihu refuses to partake of the meal in the sanctuary. What has taken place has been the spontaneous transformation of thought from impure to pure allowing for a complete healing of all thought meaning all of Israel. Moses at first challenges Aaron on this point but Aaron says to him enigmatically, Isn’t this pleasing to the LORD, where after Moses agrees that this is pleasing to him. Thought cannot be detached from connection that is the unity of thought must always have a central focus. This central focus is the LORD and even Moses who symbolizes thought has to go along with the natural events of the moment which was that Nadab and Abihu were translated into something higher and that the sacrifice was already pleasing by definition. The sacrifice is always the lower thought to the higher thought. In this way transformation is accomplished. The perception seemed to be that the LORD was angry with Nadab and Abihu because of their ‘strange fire’ but this is not the case. The strange fire turns out to be the instrument of transformation that is the ultimate goal of all of the sacrifices. It is strange and wonderful how these passages here really turn on Aaron’s comment to Moses.

Lev 10:19 And Aaron spoke unto Moses: 'Behold, this day have they offered their sin-offering and their burnt-offering before the LORD, and there have befallen me such things as these; and if I had eaten the sin-offering to-day, would it have been well-pleasing in the sight of the LORD?

Aaron is saying to Moses, listen even with the people’s offering there have befallen me such things as these that I should not try and complete the sacrifice in the prescribed manner. There is something else going on here Moses, don’t you get it. Then of course Moses says oh okay now I see. Yes it is pleasing to me.

This passage serves as the link between what is holy and what is clean. The animals, fish and fowl that are described continue this discussion of how thought sent forth by emotion may be either pure or impure.

What happens then on the eighth day besides all of the obvious things in our traditions? It is the day of transformation. It is the transformation between what is holy and what is unclean and then the process to go about making what is unclean holy. These transformations take place all the time within our thoughts and emotions. The trick is to recognize the flow of one into another and then the subsequent backflow of transformation that brings about the soul of intention. Most of the time we can perhaps remember the thoughts that we are thinking but we rarely pay attention to our emotions. Emotions then are the key to all of our transformations and indeed the very essence of connection to Hashem.

Lev: 9: 24 And there came forth fire from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat; and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces.

The people experienced the joy of transformation. This fire is the backflow of thought that reaches upwards for connection and as it achieved this connection all related thoughts are transformed in the glow of that connection. What the LORD consumes here are the gross parts of the matter or the body of the matter and its linking essence or the fats. Lower thoughts and everything then that hold together these lower thoughts are blinked out in the flash of the consuming fire. The consuming fire is the connection that reasserts itself in the mind allowing the awareness and celebration of the emotion of joy to transform all outward flows.

What does this mean to me practically? It means that I can change my thinking to initiate the backflow of thought for connection with the emotion of joy and I can also listen for that emotion of joy to understand to promote those thoughts that arise due to its pervasive influence. I change my mind by changing my emotions, which then change my life. It’s all good.

B’H”

Mark Siet

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