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Friday, June 15, 2007

Soul Searching

Spend more time contemplating the makeup of your soul or meditating frequently, then you will be better prepared to deflect the noise of your life, to reach into your deeper intellect and higher soulful state. This process is akin to a slow unraveling of an onion’s layers, but in this case each is a layer of 'noise' that distracts and prevents you (the average person) from connecting with your inner 'self'. People who are able to invoke a meditative process through truthful prayer begin a journey to cleanse and remove the layers that surround their soul. This is applicable to everyone regardless of how well connected to G-d you may be, regardless of how holy you feel, how rich your are or how important you are, when this process is conducted thoroughly it will reveal weakness surrounding every soul, weakness that needs to be contemplated in order to remove layers and find ones true sense and true purpose on earth and to be strengthened on the journey. ‘Soul searching’ is a well known phrase, but soul searching armed with an understanding of the soul’s construct and ways to reach deeper, is a very different process, which can lead to a continuously productive and very healthy outcome for all.

Without you making this connection there can be no resolution and cleansing of the impurities that are attached to the soul, there can be no recognition of the issues that cause the decay, the decline or the walk down the slippery path on which man traverses life on this planet. Fundamentally a world, which devoted more of its time to self discovery, is a wiser world for sure, but there are dangers lurking in dead end and blunt solutions that mask themselves to be the solutions we seek. Lifestyle, living and well being occupy more and more of our collective time these days, but too often people compromise and follow systems that are flawed or do not carry with them the capacity to set vast societies of large numbers of people on a credible path that is imbued with the eternal wisdom necessary to answer every question and solve so many of the daunting issues we face.

The path forward to a perfectly defined system of the soul is already in existence. It is so deep and perplexing that it’s compelling enough to retain the interests of the most advanced minds ever. Man has already worked out how to analyze the minds of people, we already know how to identify compatibility, we know how to spot dangers, but we don’t apply these thoughts and we don’t seek to create a society that benefits from this perfected logic. A strange, but compelling contradiction!

The world is filled with great souls, holy people that play second fiddle in the orchestras of society, people who make their life in the study of holiness, in teaching righteousness and rightfulness, people who dig very deep into the ancient wisdom's of minds that are mostly ignored because we are all too busy with our material world to pay attention. These people are the fabric of our society the defenders of the truth, the balanced minds that bring a sense of equilibrium to attitudes and positions of good and evil, these are the people that guide us, that we identify with because they are special, yet lurking, intermixed with these holy souls are those that profess the qualities of holiness, but themselves are incomplete. If we fail to identify the right people to advise us and to connect with, we may just continue to support a self inflicted spiral toward hopelessness. Modern fundamentalism bordering terrorism is an obvious trait housed within religious groups who appear to be holy in their construct. Even though these people have chosen a path of holiness and may identify with holy people, their ways and their causes are not holy at all they are often the evil souls that know no good.

Holiness has a specific and very particular meaning associated with words like purity, G-dliness, righteousness, sanctity, saintliness, devoutness and devotion. Mostly it can only be associated with those people who have truly sacrificed themselves to the benefit of other people and to those who seek cleansing and completeness of their own souls before seeking ways to correct others.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Argh! There is something just beyond my ability to communicate to anyone. Something amazing that i experienced in 2003 or 2004.
Everyone around me thought i had lost my grip on what they thought of as "normal".
My Wife was worried because i wasn't acting like i did the day before i had my, i don't know what, But whatever it was, it was wonderful!
So wonderful that the anti-depressant, prescription (Zoloft)i had been on struck me like poison. That was the last time i used it.
An allergic reaction that Charity (my wife) witnessed.
A phyciatrist called my experience a phychosis, "because", she said," that's a word we use when we can't explain something."

Don't get me wrong, i still feel sadness and inner pain but nothing compared to the feeling of being in an abyss.
The feeling of being engulfed in hopelessness.
It was only through alot of suffering that i came to that cross-roads of complete despair or like it say's in the Bible about lowlyness of heart and a contrite spirit, that i broke down and felt lifted up. Literally in the blink of an eye.

rivka said...

sources?

Anonymous said...

rivka
Was that for me or Being Holy?

Kevin Bermeister said...

Most of 'Soul Searching' is my own work assembled from various sources used throughout the Being Holy blog.

The Hebrew word Qliphoth, kliffoth or klippot (Heb. קליפות qelippot, meaning "peels", "shells" or matter,[1] singular: קליפה qelippah) and (sometimes (קליפות the primeval "husks" of impurity) refer to the representation of evil forces in the mystical teachings of Judaism (such as in the Kabbalah.)[2] (www.wikipedia.org)

A source of these layers or husks is to be found in Torah, here is one source regarding Pharaoh
http://www.safed-kabbalah.com/Zohar/Bo5762.htm

The meaning of the thirteenth of the thirteen principles of Jewish faith; the belief that those who lived true lives will live again, in a real and corporeal way, is a rejection of temporalism, a confirmation that there are things in the world that really matter, that have endless meaning and absolute purpose. (www.chabad.org)

Finally a more detailed look at meditation pathways and foundation in kabalah can be found at http://www.inner.org/audio/aid/5765/bridging.htm

I am proposing the benefits of reaching inward as practised in Jewish mediation, the correct path is one that nulifies (removes layers) the opposing forces that deflect the positive forces of holiness. Understanding all this requires devotion, but as Dougman has experienced, that inner light (point) from which all good comes shines relentlessly, but for pain, suffering and the forces of evil that smother it, our world would be better.

Unknown said...

i've also found in my soul-searching and soul-cleansing that a very important part of my process was/is understanding that we humans house both holy and unholy souls.

yes, it's extremely important to align oneself with another whose propensity is toward holiness versus un-holiness, yet caution must be used to ensure that the nature of this "following" is not blind; that is, we must continue looking inside - as you, "being holy," stress - through awareness, meditation, etc.

The experience and understanding that even very lofty, holy souls may be incomplete has brought me to a place where my own unholiness has not led to shame and a subsequent turning-away from G-d, but rather to an acceptance, resilience, motivation, and emunah in the ultimately successful shift from unholy to holy, a holiness which isn't only reserved for those with "complete" souls. This is what I rely on to pull me through the dark times - the light at the end of the tunnel...
marla

Anonymous said...

BS"D

Well, quoting Wikipedia as source for Zohar, Kabbalah and Judaism is quite questionable, to say the least. Quoting other websites as well seems not enough. A more complete answer would be to include at least real quotes from our blessed Torah and the holy texts of Chazal, our Masters.

Kevin Bermeister said...

Zohar - spend a bit of time reading the blog, you'll find sources from Tanya, Zohar, Derech Mitzvotecha, Duties of the Heart, Sefer Yetzirah, Midrashim, Bahir, Talmud etc...plenty legitimate sources and this one Wikipedia link in my response to the definition of Klippah