How to Get in Touch with Rahamim – Mercy, Balance, Intelligence, and Love

Isaac’s teaching continues –

Question: The meditation prayer you gave us – “Merciful Father, have mercy on me” – can you please tell us more about that?

“Harachaman rahem alai.” The prayer centers on the concept of “Rahamim,” which means balance. Not only balance but a kind of mercy that has intelligence and love.

Chesed (loving-kindness) always says “yes,” and Gevurah (discipline, strictness) says “no.” Gevurah makes good rules to follow. But as time goes by, old rules might be outgrown. Times change, and what may have been a good rule becomes less suitable.

Rahamim is able to see what is appropriate each moment and apply the best response. It is a blend of any amount of Chesed or Gevurah to fit the situation.

When we ask for something, of course we like to hear “yes,” but sometimes it’s actually more merciful for God to say “no.” The reply depends on the larger picture.

In the world before this one, the ancient world of “Tohu,” there was great contrast. Things were either complete sweetness or total restriction and destruction. A world of extremes. Things were black or white, no shades of grey. This contrast was too much for our vessels. The vessels shattered. It was chaos.

Then came the next chapter in the cosmic dream, the world of “Tikkun” (“repair”), where we are now. Here you can have very cold water and very hot water mixing together into the sink. This we can handle. Our vessels can handle this blending much better.

Rahamim allows this blending. Every response may be a different blend of hot and cold. Rahamim mixes Gevurah and Chesed. It’s a mixing bowl.
Rahamim is the very quality that lets us repair the world.

So when we use this prayer, “Harachaman rahem alai,” we are saying not only “Bring balance to me, God” – we are also saying, “Help me bring balance to the world.”

For example, my child asks me for a third ice cream cone. What’s my response? I know he wants it, but the best answer is No. That looks like Gevurah (strictness) to him. But really it is Rahamim, balance with intelligence and love, because it is to prevent the child from a stomachache.

Or let’s say you visit someone in the hospital, and they are miserable. Is it your best approach to go in and cry with them? No. Neither can you walk in and tell jokes. You bring your mixing bowl. You bring Rahamim: mercy with intelligence, a blend of Gevurah (discipline, strength) and Chesed (loving-kindness).

Comment: It is a comfort to know that Mercy is pouring upon us, with all the destruction of that horrendous earthquake this week. It’s difficult to hear about this suffering.

Oh, yes. Suffering is real. You can’t tell the sufferer to look beyond their pain. They can’t do that. You would feel just as bad if you were in their place.

For your sick friend in the hospital, when you face this situation with Rahamim, you don’t need words. You don’t need to verbally support, defend, or avert their worries. You can just reach out and hold their hand. You bring love. You bring balance and mercy – Rahamim.

When you simply hold their hand, you bypass the whole ping-pong of thoughts that ask, “Will I get better? Won’t I get better?” You don’t even get into that.

You just offer your love.

Excerpted from chapter 3 of Volume 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.

Pray Peace God Dove Soul Hand Prayer Trust

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Use Your Elevator for the Higher View

Question: After yesterday’s Shabbos teaching, I’m having a conflict. In previous teachings, you said to always lean toward giving, toward generosity. But in yesterday’s teaching, where good and bad don’t seem to exist – I feel like it doesn’t matter if I give or not?

Here again we refer to the multi-storied building of many levels. On the ground floor, you see the traffic. In the penthouse you see the birds.

Of course, our teachers of all time tell us to be generous, to move “to the right” which is the location of Chesed, loving-kindness. Yes, we should be giving. But from the upper floors of the building, there is no right nor left, no good nor bad. There is no duality.

The two teachings seem to contradict each other, but it is a case of speaking from different levels. Some ears are open to the teaching about giving. Others may be open to the teaching that everything, good and bad, is simply part of our experience. If one person wants to talk from level A and the other from level B, they may appear to contradict, but it’s because their perceptions are different. Both are perfectly valid for their floor.

If you are invested in the first view, you will be giving, and your giving will loop around to restriction at some point, then back to giving. Because this is the way duality works in the pairing of Chesed-Gevurah: giving-restriction.

Duality is a balance of the positive-negative aspects of each form. The manifestation is constantly spinning as the opposite aspects take turns to balance each other out.

In the second view, from the penthouse, we eventually learn that everything that appears to be “outside” of us is really “inside.” All that we experience is literally part of us. We belong to all of it.

We know it is all occurring inside us, not outside of us. That is why we allow for all the negatives and positives to simply be just as they are.
With this viewpoint we truly understand that everything is for the good.

But when we visit a sick friend in the hospital, what do we bring? Do we tell them “This is good,” when they’re in pain? No, we bring compassion. We meet them on the floor where they are. The vibrational floor of their difficulty.

This is a great question you bring up for us, because sometimes one teaching does seem to contradict another. But remember our big building of many floors.

. . .

Question: I have to ask about evil, because as a therapist, I see evil, so many painful stories. I know that evil goes on. It has a life of its own, maybe down in the cellar of the building.

Yes, said Isaac, and as a therapist it’s your job to meet your client on the floor where they are. They can’t come to your floor. Remind yourself, you are visiting their floor. You don’t have to stay on it.

Develop your awareness that you exist on many floors simultaneously.
Get your elevator in good working order.
Learn to move from floor to floor when appropriate.

Know that evil has a ceiling.
In the higher vibrations, evil does not exist.

This dialogue with Isaac is excerpted from Chapter 34 of Volume 3,  Walking The Bridge: The Art of All-Is-Well

The Value of Lack, Limitation, Discipline

How are the worlds of duality created?

Through introducing the idea of lack. Restriction. Gevurah.

God is All, God is perfection.
Wherever there is lack of anything, there arises duality. Limitation. Form cannot exist without definition and limitation. We may complain about these limitations.

Abraham represents loving-kindness (Chesed). He traveled far and wide, filling up lack wherever he saw it. He was sensitive to lack even when people showed a confident front for their own defense. They were defended, didn’t want to show vulnerability. He could see past that and offer what was needed.

Isaac’s name means “He will laugh.” Isaac laughs because he can see duality is sheer illusion. When you see this, all you can do is laugh at it. Isaac is Gevurah, the discipline to see that everything is illusion. Isaac did not have to travel. He stayed in the Holy Land his entire life because he could see past illusions.

Sometimes we reach Gevurah when we’ve simply had enough of our own games. Like Isaac, we finally say, “Enough is enough.” We stop investing in the illusions of this world.

Jacob had the wisdom to balance both loving-kindness and discipline. Both Chesed and Gevurah. He could discern when each was required. He reached a balance of both, which is Tiferet.

Our own mind creates lack. Sometimes our problem arises from our imagination. Imagine the worst, and there it is.

Eventually you see you have been fighting a figment of your own imagination.

What irritates us the most in others is the very thing we do not want to see in ourselves.

Acts of loving-kindness, even if it is just to hold your tongue at a difficult moment, are celebrated more in the upper realms than if you’d won the lotto.

 

(Excerpted from Walking the Bridge – With a Fearless Heart.– Vol 1, Chapter 37.)
(Thanks to MaxPixel for this image.)