Divine Grace Light Shower Upon Us

Isaac opened our morning with his amazing sweet new song that tasted like awe. After meditation he gave us a teaching about these lyrics.

Arut perum jyoti tani perum Karunai.
Divine Grace Light shower upon us.
Or zarua la Tzaddik uleyishrey lev simcha.
Light is sown for the saintly, and joy for the pure in heart.

Isaac said the first line is from the mantra of Ramalinga Swami who lived in the 1800’s in Southern India. Ramalinga Swami wanted to do away with the caste system. He preached no rules and no steps to follow, only simply to connect with the Divine Light, as light.

He spent his life praising the Light and feeding the poor.
His main teaching was just to be harmless. To do no harm to anything.

Light filled Ramalinga so much that his body gradually became light. First came the golden body, at which time he glowed with golden light. As the light in him increased, he wrote a poem of forty thousand verses telling how he became more and more light. Eventually even his physical organs stopped working. His heart no longer beat, his blood didn’t flow, his lungs didn’t breathe. And yet he lived.

His body cast no shadow. He was careful to cover his head and entire body with clothing, as he did not want to frighten his people.

Ultimately, he became nothing but astral light.

He didn’t die as we would in a body. Instead he told his devotees he would be leaving, and they should lock the door of his room. While they were chanting outside his door, they saw a flash of violet light. Then his room was empty. He had dissolved into the very Light of the Universe.

The third line of this verse, in Hebrew, is from King David’s psalms (97:11). It translates as: Light is sown by the tzaddik, the upright heart is blessed with joy. This says Light is sown everywhere the tzaddik goes, the same way a farmer sows seed. And we enjoy the fruit of that seed in our joy.

This new song brings together similar messages of Light. It brings West to East, and past to present. With our singing we bring West, East, past, present, right into this Present Moment.

Each of us gravitates to one of these four phrases, and we sing them together.
(Our hearts expanded as we sang it again. Such deep Peace!)

This Isaac teaching is excerpted from Chapter 33 of Volume 3,  Walking The Bridge: The Art of All-Is-Well

Ramalinga Swami, a.k.a. Vallalar

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When Does God Wink at You and show Strong Love and Caring for You?

I’m driving along by myself, praying out loud like I often do, just having another chat with God and my angels and guides.
“Please help me drop all this old baggage. I so feel like it’s time. It’s overdue. I keep seeing these recurring themes and all this crap that I still hold onto. These old resentments and regrets. Please, please, help me really, truly drop the baggage. I don’t need it anymore. I don’t want it anymore. Please help it dissolve. Please lift it away. Let all the heavy emotional charges disappear from my mind and heart.”
Next thing, I pull up behind a license plate that says, NOBAGS.
Now I’m laughing out loud with gratitude and wonder.

I’ll bet you’ve received messages on license plates, too?
Do tell! I would love to read your comments.

It can’t be “just our imagination,” because so often the message is exactly to the point.

For something a little crazier:

Some years ago, one night after an extremely harrowing shift of working intensive care, I drove home wasted, shell shocked from that battlefield.
But I was singing along to some of my favorite music, to feed my soul. I was thinking how my shift went haywire in so many ways, and yet I knew God was helping me through that day. Still, the perfectionist part of me wanted to apologize for everything that went wrong, even though it wasn’t my fault.
I sang along with David Newman and Friends’ song, You Can Count On Me, the line, “should the stars fall from the sky, I’ll be the One to come to your side.”
Simultaneous with those words, a falling star streaked cross the dark sky in front of me.
Whoa.
Absolute awe and wonder.
Tears of the deepest happiness and trust in the universe.
Unforgettable!

Fast forward to this season now.
We have been through a lot in the past few years. A lot of isolation, a lot of bewilderment, and a lot of soul searching.
In my world, fewer and fewer people want to read a blog anymore, and I ask myself if I should even bother anymore.

But then – wouldn’t you know it – after a Chinese lunch, I received the most remarkable fortune cookie wisdom. The message was so personalized, so obviously intended for my eyes.
It was the line about how the whole world is a narrow bridge.
That line is embodied in our book series title, Walking The Bridge.
Somebody in that fortune cookie factory had taken Rabbi Nachman’s words and dropped them onto that tiny paper. (No credit given, but that don’t matter.)

“The whole world is a narrow bridge, and the main thing is to have no fear” (‘to not make yourself afraid,’ in some translations). – Nachman of Breslov

I got the message loud and clear: carry on – don’t quit. We’re in your corner. Remember, you’re on a narrow bridge, so relax, have faith and trust. No fear.
Don’t give up.

Dear Reader, tell us please, when does God wink at you and show strong love and caring for you?
We would totally love to hear your story.

Sending Hugs –
Diane

Walking The Bridge books

from our blog, JoystreamHealth:
Wing Nut Whispers – when license plates talk to you.
How Does the Cosmos Surprise You and Care for You?

And here’s that fortune cookie I mentioned – no kidding!

Reflections on Daas, Elijah, and the Garden of Eden

Esoteric discussion with Isaac –

Question: Recently you did a teaching about unblocking the throat and allowing energy to flow through it. I found that so helpful. Would you review that?

The throat is the location of “Daas,” where all attributes may be united as one. This connection doesn’t happen through ordinary speech, but through spiritual speech. Singing spiritual songs opens the throat and provides this connection. Giving speeches about spirituality leads to “Daas,” as well.

Have you ever noticed, when you’re thinking about something that’s bothering you, the more you examine it and listen to yourself internally, you sink deeper into confusion? But if you speak it out loud to someone, suddenly clarity comes in. You get new insights just by speaking it out loud. This is because the aspect of “Daas” is active when you open the throat and speak aloud.
(Daas is also known as Da’at.)

Question: Does this topic have anything to do with those saints and yogis who received sweet nectar coming down at the back of the tongue?

Not directly, but we know this nectar is a real experience that has happened to those adepts. This is not for us ordinary people, but it does happen to a select few who have managed to progress to an extreme degree.

In the Torah they speak about people who lived four hundred years or six hundred years. We tend to think that’s an odd exaggeration. It can’t happen, right? But it truly did happen. They did live that long, because they had shifted from the biochemical body to the electric body. They were living from the Tree of Life, living from the Light.

And they weren’t trying to live long to avoid death. They were comfortable with death. There were other reasons for them to keep living so long.

Even now we have some people living that long, hundreds of years. They don’t want to be known, but they do exist.

Elijah transformed from a flesh body to a light body. He never died. He is still roaming from world to world, wherever he is needed. If he needs a physical body to do his job of the moment, then a physical body is instantaneously manifested for him. Our teachers speak about Elijah “hopping” from realm to realm.

Question: Please say more about the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge?

The Tree of Knowledge represents Duality, which is the lowest realm.
The Tree of Life is Unity with God.

In the beginning Adam and Eve had bodies of light. This would be like astral bodies. Not physical bodies. They lived at the same level as the Tree of Life. They were made of Light.

The Tree of Knowledge, of Duality, was below them. When they wanted to eat from it, in effect they fell into that lower dimension. When they fell, they immediately took on physical bodies. From that point on they were in the physical realm.

Question: And what about the cherub and the two flaming swords guarding the way back to Paradise?

The swords are crossed and pointing down. When they say “flaming” – that’s only one way to interpret the Hebrew, and it’s not accurate. The translation of that word really means “inverted.” The swords are inverted upside-down. And they are revolving.

This is to teach us that we must invert ourselves, we must revolve ourselves, we must change a lot in order to return to Paradise.

We need to shift from our physical biochemical body to our light body. Shift our priorities away from this lower realm to the higher realms.

Question: And what was the fruit Adam and Eve ate?

Not an apple. On the Tree of Knowledge the fruit is “thinking.” When we indulge in thinking, categorizing, separating, we eat the fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil – Duality.

Excerpted from chapter 26 of Volume 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.

How Awareness Heals Us and the World

Isaac said –

We don’t need to fix our flaws. Awareness itself is curative. Just being aware of your own behavior, just seeing it, is often enough to correct it. When you see your blind spot, your habitual reaction and how it impacts others, you naturally want to make a better choice.

We accept our traits, positive and negative. We accept our humanity.
I contain both light and dark, giving and taking, aggression and retreat, all these opposites.

When opposites split from each other, they yearn always to get back together. They want to be held, both together. They go together, really, in this duality. You can’t have one without the other. Mountain and valley, high and low, the crest and the dip of the wave.

The positive and negative poles of a battery need each other. When you hook them up to each other, the current flows.

The Divine current is always seeking a way to flow.

Question: You say it’s enough to see our poor behavior, but isn’t forgiveness important?

Yes and no, because the very awareness heals. Underneath everything, we really don’t need to fix things. All is in right order. It is our awareness that is growing, our understanding that brings more freedom and peace.

Question: Sometimes the words of the Masters can help us into greater release?

Yes and no. The Masters can point the way, but you need to learn to release on your own. You don’t really need a teacher. There is too much reliance on teachers. The best way is to choose your growth for yourself. Learn your way.

Question: As my spiritual journey continues, I find myself sometimes forgetting the daily-life things I used to keep track of.

Yes, and this is not all Alzheimer’s. As you evolve, you naturally re-prioritize the things you’re really interested in. Your old interests don’t match up with your new interests.

Emotion causes us to remember things. If you don’t feel as much emotion with certain things, you won’t remember them like you used to do. Your priorities have changed. You will be remembering on new topics. You will remember what you really care about.

It is this increased awareness that helps us move from one level of our metaphorical building to the next level. In a way, every bit of increased awareness is more enlightenment.

This discussion with Isaac is from Chapter 58 of Volume 1, Walking the Bridge – With a Fearless Heart.

(Thanks to Nancy White on Flickr for this image.)

Balancing the Horse and Rider, Body and Soul

Question: Isaac, you have spoken about the horse and rider, body and soul. I think you said the horse – the ego and physical body – produces your physical children. The rider – the soul – produces devotion and connection to God. Would you please say more about this?

In this metaphor the horse is “Nefesh,” the physical body. The Nefesh is sometimes called the animal soul. Nefesh is one level of consciousness or awareness. The body has consciousness, just as you have consciousness.

Many of us assume we own our body. We do not. The body is given to us temporarily, to be our vehicle while we are here.

It is a mitzvah (good deed, commandment) to take good care of one’s body. To exercise and eat healthy foods, to get enough rest.

Some of us neglect our body.
If the body were a pet in our house, we would treat it better than many of us do.
Some of us might be turned in to the police for mistreating our pet.

We should respect and nurture our horse, our body, our Nefesh, appropriately. Comb it down and treat it well. We should not drive it so hard.

We are only borrowing it.
Take good care of it.

The rider is the Soul. The Soul operates in an orderly way.
The Soul has wisdom. The Soul can engage in higher ideas, in devotion to God.

There must be a good balance between rider and horse.
The horse should obey the rider, and the rider cares for the horse.

The Soul directs the body.
The body, the horse, should not be the master.

When the horse tries to run things, that’s when your animal drives take over. You eat the whole carton of ice cream. You succumb to road rage. You follow the impulses of the ego and the body.

We need to master our ego, master the horse, and rein in the excesses of the body.

What we want is a good team, good cooperation between horse and rider.
When rider and horse team up well, they produce good works in the world.

Question: Okay, and the body helps produce our children, if we have any. The admonition to “be fruitful and multiply” does not apply only to having children, is that correct?
Correct.
Our sages say your primary “children” are your actions in this world.
What ripples have you created by your good actions, your mitzvot? This is primary.
Having children, teaching children, is wonderful of course, but it’s even more important to keep an eye on your actions in the world.

Comment: I’ve also wondered about “be fruitful and multiply” because we are getting so overpopulated.

Yes, many of our religions have handed that advice to us, until we are crammed in shoulder to shoulder here. Sometimes religions say impractical things.

Comment: Isaac, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us.

Isaac shrugged, smiling, and said, it’s just information. I’m just a mouthpiece. We’re on an even playing field when it comes to our horse and rider. I have a long way to go in that regard, just like anybody. I often notice people in this community giving to each other so beautifully, and I am deeply impressed. We are all on this journey together.

This is an excerpt from Chapter 21 of Volume 5, Walking the Bridge: to Freedom and Light

(Thanks to FreeSVG for this image.)