The Holy of Holies and how Consciousness Will Change for the Better

Isaac said,

Whether it was traveling in the desert, or built to last like Solomon’s Temple, the ancient Temple was always set up the same way. The innermost room was the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This space was 20 x 20 using a measure of the forearm, from fingertip to elbow.

Every name of God emanated from the Holy of Holies, each name in its own stream, flowing out into the world to fulfill its particular purpose. These streams flowed first through the sanctuary, then through the courtyards, and finally out into every place in the world.

A larger sanctuary encompassed and surrounded the Holy of Holies.

On either side of the doorway to the Holy of Holies sat two important items. On the right side was a special menorah with all of its lamps turned toward its center stem, which is regarded as the face of the menorah. On the left side, a golden table held a loaf of bread. This was to remind everybody of the blessings eternally bestowed.

In the center of this large sanctuary stood a square gold altar, and here only one kind of offering was burned, the highest offering, which was incense. Only the high priest was able to make this offering.

This altar, where the incense was burned, was considered the umbilical cord of the whole world, because this incense connected all human souls to the bliss of the divine flow, or “shefa.” In a sense all the bliss of the world was concentrated at this one place, at this altar.

Incense burns down, totally consumed by fire, with virtually nothing left over. In the same way the human soul is consumed by the Divine.

In Solomon’s Temple, this altar, the umbilical cord of the world, was placed on the same rock where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, which was the same rock where Jacob slept and saw the ladder of angels coming and going to divine realms. So this altar was connecting all realms to the human world. All human souls would receive this blessing of shefa (divine flow) from this very place.

Moving further through the Temple, beyond the large sanctuary, outdoors stood the higher and the lower courtyards. Here the archangels and angels would receive their blessings of shefa. Beyond the courtyards the blessings would spread throughout all the physical world.

Solomon was gifted with special sight to see all these streams of divine energy flowing everywhere. He could choose the best spot for a non-indigenous plant to grow, and it would thrive there. These courtyards were beautiful gardens with wondrous variety.

As we know, said Isaac, angels are born to serve God. When they fulfill their function, they’re finished. A human can become like an angel, running to serve God. After their season of being like an angel, the person will become human again, to enter into the deeper sanctuary and receive the greatest blessing, which is for human souls.

In our written records it says the third Temple will be built by God. Yet another passage says it will be built by people. Currently one of our Sages says it will actually be a holographic Temple that will appear, sent by God, and people will fill it in with the physical building. And it will be placed on the same site as Solomon’s Temple.

Apart from these traditional mystical teachings, the time is approaching when we may experience a new reality. Consciousness will change, and everything will look different to us. A shift will occur from the old wisdom into the “time of Keter.” The crown. We will understand that we are truly extensions of God. God is flowing through us and becoming all that Is. We are simply conduits.

At this point we will fully understand that I am you and you are me. There will be no doubt. It will be undeniable and obvious. Everything has consciousness. Birds, trees, rocks.

We will see God in everybody and everything. We will watch God’s will pouring through us, right into every aspect of our lives.

A person needs to be only two things: available and alert. Ready to serve the needs of the moment, whatever they may be.
This kind of readiness is more valuable than intelligence.

Our lives won’t change much. Daily life will play out as usual. We’ll still have challenges, but our perception will change. Our consciousness will deepen. We’ll be watching God pour through, everywhere we look.

There is no telling when this new understanding may arrive. It may take a long time yet. But here in our circle we may feel a little of it. It really depends on people. And this is the sort of teaching that, when you name it, you call it forth.

So said Isaac.

These are Isaac’s words from Chapter 59 of Volume 1, Walking the Bridge – With a Fearless Heart.

 

(Thanks to Mary Harrsch on Flicker for this image of Solomon’s temple.)

Advertisement

How to Shift Beyond Duality even a Little, and Find the Larger Self

Isaac said,

How do we build our dualistic “reality,” and how can we possibly go beyond that box?

As we’ve said before, we use our sensations to define ourselves, build our identity, and characterize our “small self.”

We experience this world through our sensations: feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling. Sensations seem to determine our reality.

Imagine the stream of all possible sensations. It is a river of many currents, a river of many colors. This river holds all sensations, from pleasure to pain and everything in between.

In this colorful river we choose which sensations are “ours.”
We adopt a group of sensations and call it ours. Our bundle of sensations.

In our bundle these are not just any sensations. They are sensations we experience steadily, all the time, so much so that we believe they are “us.” For instance, you wouldn’t attach yourself to a hiccup. A hiccup is intermittent, happens maybe once a week. A hiccup sensation would not give you a place to stand. It is not constant enough.

The sensation you attach to is constant, steady, and so continuous you hardly notice it’s there. It’s “you,” what you feel yourself to be.
And not just one sensation but a whole bundle of them.

Sensation can be quite subtle, like our inner talking to ourselves, which some people barely notice. This is a sensation that becomes part of my definition of me.

These identity-building sensations have two qualities.
They are continuous and steady.
They hold a tone of pleasure or pain.

For instance, I feel a bit afraid of others – they have been mean to me. I carry this pain.
Or I am such a beauty, people give me what I want, and that’s a pleasure.

You get the idea here, although anybody’s bundle of sensations is far more intricate, diverse, and complicated.

The mind assembles this bundle and calls it “me.”
“That’s me. My pleasures, my pains.”

In this river we have our chosen bundle of sensations, and because we circumscribe them, we naturally pit our bundle against other bundles.
These sensations are me, and those are not-me. I stay away from those.

Our bundle helps us compare, classify, and contrast everything else.

This is duality in the making.

But we know everything is projection.
The mind is projecting and creating all of this.
The mind chooses which sensations are me and which are not-me.

It’s the same way the mind creates a dream when we sleep. The mind invents everything. The mind keeps track of time and space in the dream, by using comparison of sensation. This place is not that one. This time is not that time.

The mind behaves the same way when we’re awake. It compares sensations. It creates time through comparison. Past, present, future – which one does this feel like?

Time and space arise from sensation.

Time and space arise within our mind. Nowhere but our mind.

The mind creates Subject and Object: me and that-out-there.

 

The Larger Self is not spatial and not temporal. It is not involved in space nor time.
It is nonlocal. It is All.
It can sit alongside and watch the river of sensation flow, without attaching any importance to any color or flavor.

On our spiritual path, our mistake is in thinking we are sitting on the bank of the river, watching these currents flow. No. We’re not there yet.

We are much more attached and defined by sensation than we realize. We live in Duality.

We live in the river. We are the Subject confronting the Object.

Both subject and object live in the river together.
This is how Duality perpetuates Itself.

But who are we, really, without sensation?

Underneath it all, no matter what we’ve been through in our life, we have the same sense of Self: the Inner Witness who does not change.

(The above excerpt is from Chapter 8 of Volume 5, Walking the Bridge: to Freedom and Light.  Isaac goes on to describe how to become the Inner Witness in meditation, releasing sensation and uniting with the boundless sea.)

(Thanks to Dom Gould at Pexels for this river image.)

Bring Your Own Happiness – the Good Wisdom of Purim

On Purim we are commanded to be happy, said Isaac. It may sound odd, but this is what is required of us.

When I was a young man, I entered the Yeshiva (seminary) in Jerusalem without knowing anybody or anything. I did not grow up as an observant Jew, so I knew little about my ancestral tradition. As the months went by, when each holiday approached, I would learn about it.

When it came time for Purim, I read about it, but I didn’t know what to expect. I was invited to dinner with a respected rabbi, a serious man, who spent his days learning and teaching, rising early and going to bed late. His days were filled with devotion. This was life in the Yeshiva for all of us – study and devotion, to the best of our ability.

When I sat at his table on Purim, to my great surprise, he pulled out a bottle of homemade cherry schnapps. He told me tonight it was a mitzvah (good deed) to get drunk. There was so much about Yeshiva that I had to scramble to learn, but here on this night I said to myself, this is something I know how to do.

He poured me a glass and I drank it. It was delicious. Being a good host, he filled my glass again. I drank it again. This went on awhile until I had no memory of the rest of the dinner.

The next thing I do remember that night, I was out on the streets of Jerusalem. People were walking around. Kids in costumes, people singing. People drinking. One or two throwing up. The world was topsy-turvy that night. That is Purim.

.

On Purim everything goes upside down. It’s a mitzvah to get drunk to the point where you don’t know which end is up. You don’t know good from bad.

It gets all mixed up because all of it, the good and the bad, is from God.

Most of you know the story about Haman (“Boo,” we answered) and Mordechai (“Yay!”). (Boo-ing and cheering from the crowd is traditional with this story.)

Well, Haman (“Boo!”) was not a happy man. He had worked hard. He had risen to the top of his achievements, to the point where the king elevated him to an even higher post.

In his new elevated role, everybody had to bow to him. He would walk through the courtyard and everybody bowed. But Mordechai (“Yay!”) would not bow.

Why was Haman (“Boo!”) such an unhappy man? He was given so much, after all. He should have been grateful. He had a high post and lots of people complimenting and bowing to him. But like many of us, he lost sight of the ninety-nine percent of the supportive people, and all he could see was the one person who was not supporting him.

He focused his entire attention on that one guy, Mordechai (“Yay!”) who refused to bow to him.

Haman (“Boo! Boo!”) . . . Haman (“Boo!” we shouted him down). . . . He didn’t know how to be happy.

“Who?” Somebody asked amid the laughter.

Him, said Isaac.

He focused on his one small trouble. He expanded his trouble to include not only Mordechai (“Yay!”) but all the Jewish people in Persia. He plotted to destroy them all. He was a man filled with jealousy, anger, and violence.

But in the end, the tables were turned, and the very death he had planned for Mordechai (“Yay!” “Boo!”) was carried out on himself (“Yay”). (Thanks to Queen Esther who brought the truth. She told King Xerxes that Mordechai had saved him from an assassination plot.)

.

So Purim is a time when things going in one direction can reverse into the opposite direction. It’s a time when karma pays out. The good or the bad you have done may catch up with you now. If you have sown seeds of kindness, they are returning to you now.

We know the world is our mirror, and whatever vibration we offer will be reflected back to us. Even though the response is slowed down in this world, and it may take awhile, we will eventually receive the reflection of our own faces.

Maybe I was angry and upset, lashing out, and a couple weeks go by until the day someone becomes angry with me. I might not make the connection that it began with my own anger. Because this earth plane has a time lapse, we might not connect related events.

Our practice is to learn to be happy.

Learn to be happy.

Your happiness will create more of the same in the world.

An important ingredient in being happy is to accept your own dark side and light side.
When we are young and we are forming ourselves, we tend to hide away the things we don’t want to reveal to others. I don’t like this part of me. I’m not good at this. I hide away my negative aspects.

We need to embrace all parts of ourselves. Relax and allow it.

That’s another reason to dress funny for Purim tonight.
Can I let down my guard?
Can I let myself go?
Is it okay to show my messy side?

You know we need all of ourselves.
We need to be whole.
We need both our right and left wings before we can fly.

Parents tend to tell their children how to behave, what to do, how to be. But those are just words. What the children really learn from you is how you live in the world. They see and imitate your way of being. Are you happy enough that they can learn “happy” from you?

Don’t be seeking happiness and working hard to find it. It’s already available. Seeking mode means you don’t have it yet.

Realize your happiness is already with you.
Find your happiness right where you are, within the situation you are living right now.
Find the happiness in it.

Your soul is naturally happy.
We get so busy that we cover up the soul’s natural happiness.
We do too much and stay too busy.

Don’t depend on others to bring happiness to you.
Bring your own happiness.
Bring your happiness to the party.

In any situation, you can be happy if you bring it with you.

No matter what kind of people you are with or how difficult the situation, you can still find happiness – because you bring it with you.

.

These are Isaac’s words from Chapter 11 of Volume 4, Walking The Bridge: With Courage And Trust.

(Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for this Purim smile.)

How to Stand Back from the Movie Screen Story and Stay Close to the Light

Question: Isaac, your metaphor about the movie projector, the film and the screen – it’s a teaching you’ve given us often, but a couple of weeks ago I think I “got it” in a new way. Are you saying that our sensations exist at the location of the film?

Yes.

Question: And the screen is the location of our story. When I can be more mindful to stay at the level of sensation and not go to the screen, then two things happen. I don’t feed another story and get wrapped up in that, plus the sensation moves through easier – we hope. But also, if I’m at the location of the film, I’m closer to the light of God. Would that be true?

Isaac smiled. “You’ve got it absolutely right.”
When you stay with the sensations without going into the story, you are closer to the formless Light which infuses everything.

The point is to focus on the sensation before it goes into a story. This way the energy of the sensation dissipates, and you don’t move toward the screen.

You stay closer to the Light.

Remember this Light is not neutral or indifferent. The Light of God is benevolent and loving. You can feel it and know it.

Our goal is not to stay only at the film, but to visit all locations. We want to harmonize our awareness of God’s Light, and the film of sensation, and the stories that arise from that. We don’t reject any part. We become comfortable with all three parts.

All three are needed so God can bring Light into the world of Form. We value and appreciate all three.

This benevolent Light wants to produce benevolent stories. This is the bias. This would be the highest outcome of God’s intention. The Light loves and appreciates every creature in its creation and wants to see happiness for all of them.

We vary in our ability to let the Light pour into our lives.
We narrow down the Light according to our own problems and issues.

The world is our mirror and will always bring more of whatever vibration we offer.
If our attention stays on suffering, then we’ll experience more of that.

But the world is not meant to suffer. Not at all.
More peace in us will create a more peaceful story on the screen.

The world is not meant to suffer.

The world is meant to become more loving and peaceful. At the moment we may see lots of trouble. But if we can disengage our attention on that, and turn our attention toward more peace and happiness, then more harmony will flow.

These are Isaac’s words from Chapter 6 of Volume 4, Walking The Bridge: With Courage And Trust.

Favorite Quotes from Isaac

Here are a few of Isaac’s favorite sayings:

Gam Zoo L’-to-va ~ This, too, is for the good.

Give Loving Attention.

Let It Go.

Transmute the Will to Receive into the Desire to Bestow.

Let Kindness be the Guide.

from a song written by Isaac:

My Child, see my hand reaching to you
back through time
With the love you needed then
but could not find.
Try to take hold of it now
and understand
That our future depends upon
our joining hands.

…

See more in:
Volume 1, Walking the Bridge – With a Fearless Heart.

Volume 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.

 Volume 3,  Walking The Bridge: The Art of All-Is-Well

 Volume 4, Walking The Bridge: With Courage And Trust.

 Volume 5, Walking the Bridge: to Freedom and Light

Thanks to Stockvault for this musical image.