It is presumptuous of me

It is presumptuous of me to attribute my ideas to the mind of God, but I am that arrogant, deep within myself, far from the surface of self that fractally separate’s from “out there”, so I do.

After Jews wrote down the six booms of the Mishna that they had kept as oral literature for centuries, necessitated by the destruction of the Temple by Rome, and had collected all the traditional sayings of the Rabbis and written down the two Gmearras, creating the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, then I imagine the Universal Mind observing that Jews still did not understand the purpose of it all.

Certainly some Jews found the true meaning within the performance of all the rituals and within the multiple repetitions of word-embodied ideas.  However most people learnt to perform all these rituals and repeat the formulae of words without losing their inner sense of self.  The “I” that thinks and therefore knows it exists is an illusion.  Hindu and Budhist teaching is that the “ego” is false.  Those who succeed find true bliss, others, like me just wonder at it and wander up dusty lanes.

What was needed was another Prophet who can explain to people that the intent of the complex practices is not the practices themselves, but the act of submission to a higher consciousness and the abandonment of the false sense of “self” that everyone is born with.  “Islam” is “submission”.  It has the practices and the recitations, but the intent is exactly the same for Orthodox Jews.

Twice in the last two decades I have started to become religious.  It came very naturally to me when I was struck with grief at the sudden death of my dearly beloved Father.  I made it through the mandatory year and about another month, before the “all or nothing” requirement got to me.  My sense of me, my ego was too strong.  Perhaps it was because I have always been an extreme introvert, and my “self” is buried deep within me, far from the real world.  No one has ever succeeded in penetrating into my psyche or sense of self or what ever it is called, to really connect with the true me. 

So I know about performing a person in public.  That is where I saw how so many people did everything and survived in the community and were quite happy with their lives, but they had a secret side to them, which wasn’t a “side” but their inner core that like me they kept safe from the full submission that can come from an honest approach and a love of God.  Therefore I could easily see the people that were putting it on, or acting it out.  Some sort of fooled themselves that what they were doing was correct and natural, and of course there were hidden social structures and connections between these secret selves that undermined the otherwise perfect community.  I hate to say, but it seemed to be most people, though some were trying and will get there eventually.

Anyhow, I could not do either, and certainly not keep up a pretence, so better to do nothing, and so I am typing this on Shabbat, and my only concession on the day is that I don’t shave.  It has given me a wonderful insight into how the Universal Mind might think, that mind that I believe exists but to which I have not submitted.

Islam, the Religion, teaches submission to the will of God exactly as Judaism had done.  In ancient religions such as Egypt and the Hellenic and Roman Mystery Cults, a priestly elite passed on the meditative practices that delivered the blissful life.  This was not shared with the bulk of the population.  Judaism was different in that it was to be a “nation of priests” so the techniques were not secretly held by the Cohanim,  though the stream of authentic knowledge was shifting to the Rabbinic, Pharisees.   However, by the time it was redacted and written down it had become the exclusive opportunity for only those prepared to study hard.  However, the promise of eternal bliss may be the reason such a large proportion of the Israeli population devote their lives to study.  Oddly, they do not seem to understand that it can be combined with a life in the wide world, and indeed is better when it is.  The move to make army service combined with Yeshiva study for everyone eqully would have totally transformed Israel into a totally Shomre Mitzvot society.  It was stopped by the religious people who did not see the benefits.  The idea of being soldiers in the cause of spreading the Will of God somehow dies not appeal to many theoretically trained minds. 

This is where the national groups that have adopted Islam as their religion have gone off the rails, too.  They are soldiers, hoping to die as Holy Martyrs.  The God who loved the “Sweet”smell of the animal sacrifices on the altar in Jerusalem, must equally love Sons of Islam, followers of The Prophet (pbuh)  who fight each other in the name of the One True God, and make Holy Martyrs of each other as human sacrifice to the Will of God.  Everyone dies, but only some die nobly for the ultimate cause.

Only a few, largely self-selected, men studied the Talmud, Zohar and other texts  and learnt submission, but they would have achieved a blissful life.  Many communities were lucky enough to have such a person, and it is little wonder that such people are held in awe by their communities, such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  Even in a religion called “submission” it is evident that too many people quickly assume that because they have mastered the rituals and memorised everything thy know everything and their ideas are best for everyone, but they do not know their ideas are very limited and do not apply to everyone. 

If the religious authorities in Iraq were to revive the Jewish centre of learning in Babylon, and teach the traditions of Judaism through the filter of Islam, then something truly wonderful would result.  It would be greater that an equivalent Academy in Jerusalem where Islam is taught from a Jewish perspective.  The two religions are so similar.  Living in the world was the way the Saducees lived, in opposition to the cloistered life.  Everything is a duality, but the best solution is a synthesis of the duality, combining the best of both sides.  (See New Whig for a socio-political version of all this.)  One day there will be Peace on Earth.  Suddenly people will see that they have lived in the Garden of Eden all the time.  The expulsion was purely mental, but how many thousands of years will it take for people to return to a State of Nature, being part of the Ecosystems of the Natural World as well as the social systems and other systems of organisation, including in the virtual dimension.  It is only a few decades now to the bimillenial anniversary of the Temple’s destruction.  It is pleasing to think it might be rebuilt, and with the new ground penetrating technology they are sure to find the Arc of the Covenant that was never retrieved for the Second Temple, but will be for the third.

Then again lightning can strike the open iron alter at the top of Mount Zion and kindle the fire for the sacrifices once again.  I am a vegetarian, but I accept that most people are not, and if animals are to be slaughtered for food they should be recognised as sentient beings whose souls are also part of the divine Universal Consciousness.   The ancient temples were butcher shops.  I have been to the Kali Temple above the west bank of the Kali River that borders Nepal, and seen the blood sacrifices in the temple courtyard, seen the vultures circling for abandoned flesh, and seen people of various castes come for the carcases.  It saddens me that I shall not live to see it.  All I can do is imagine it, and write this and post it to a blog that is not read and may never be read.