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.
