By Sheldon Stoff and Barbara Smith Stoff
We have attended a “town hall” meeting. It was a long evening. There was much noise and emotion, seemingly no understanding, and little reasoning. Positions seemed to have been firmly taken even before anyone had spoken. We had innocently thought that there would be an honorable presentation of thoughts and facts and that this meeting would offer an opportunity for deeper understanding of the healthcare reform issues. This was not to be. If only for our own self-therapy, we are writing about our thoughts about this experience, while still recovering from a kind of sick feeling.
There were three wonderful speakers...don't know who they were. One was a man who stood up to share with us the reading he had been doing of the actual bill. The crowd laughed at him, and the congressman interrupted him to call for a sudden expression of yays and nays from the entire assembly. Exactly what they were yaying and naying about, I was not sure. Once the shouting subsided, the man was allowed to continue. At this point I began to feel some anger that this man, who had attempted to do his homework and become informed, was laughed at and basically prevented from speaking. Another was a man who brought a five year old girl with him "to see how democracy works"...He spoke of our need to learn to care for each other. And then there was a woman who spoke movingly of her feelings in response to the irrational fear and selfishness stirring in the crowd. Other than that...the atmosphere was just plain toxic and irrational. We have tried to write something of value to counterbalance...a feather in the wind.
The Republican congressman who had called for this town hall meeting presented his position, but did not present “the other side of the argument” for rebuttal or even discussion. There were posters, signs and slogans, and even loud cat-calls by some attendees. Those supporting President Obama were in the minority, and seemed more reasonable in their behavior. Those siding with the congressman seemed absolutely sure of themselves, and their opinions and were very passionate in their spontaneous vocalizing. Very few seemed to take notice of the realities, or points of view, of the others. There was no meeting of minds, no reconciliation, no understanding—just a hardening of positions. It was an experience in futility.
That night both of us had a very restless sleep. Even our dreams seemed to be invaded by all those wildly gyrating placards… “What would Jesus do?” … “No socialized medicine.” …”Healthcare is a right.”… “Don’t take away my freedom!” Often, in our meditations, as we ask for clarity, our inner guidance somehow offers an answer. This morning, after some time, it came:
“You are responsible to your brothers and sisters. Let that responsibility guide you on this path.”
So, for us, this is the answer. This is a moral responsibility, a mutual and communal responsibility. We need to join quietly together, as a nation, to forge a new path toward Healthcare Reform. It must meet the test of responsibility to our brothers and sisters. We emphasize responsibility to…Responsibility includes responsiveness to our brothers and sisters. There is a difference between responsibility for and responsibility to. There is a difference between giving the man the proverbial fish and the proverbial teaching him how to fish.
It seems that the direction of the looked-for solution to the problem is guided by the basic assumption about the nature of our human society. One thought, or assumption, is that it’s everyone for himself or herself. Another thought, or assumption, is that it’s “we’re all in this together.” Both assessments say something about the basic belief about what is possible for humankind, and whether we as individual participants have some say in the direction humankind takes for the future. Together, let us create a more benevolent path.
SUGGESTED READING:
Robert Reich's blog on the subject of these 'discussions'....
www.robertreich.blogspot.com
Wendell Potter | Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover
http://www.truthout.org/090109T?n
Wendell Potter, Common Dreams: "I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today."
Editor’s Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Sheldon Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. During in his long career as an educator and spokesperson for Humanistic Education, with inspiration from Dr. Buber, he established the International Center for Studies in Dialogue. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1974. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness, and the newly released The Western Book of Crossing Over: Conversations with the Other Side. As well, he is co-author, with Barbara Smith Stoff, of the forthcoming Partnership Community: Listen to the Gathering Voices. Barbara Smith Stoff, teacher, painter and poet, is producer of Emmy Award winning “Poems of Wonder and Magic.”
Friday, September 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
FREEDOM: OUR INHERENT RIGHT
FREEDOM: OUR INHERENT RIGHT
By Sheldon Stoff (Excerpted from Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness)
As I begin this, I write with a heavy heart. It is October 12th 2001, not long after the destruction of America’s World Trade Center in New York on September 11th. This horrific deed has been attributed to Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda network. It would be easy and much safer for me to bypass that tragedy and define “freedom” in an abstract way. It would also miss an opportunity to shed light on a very misunderstood concept. One that holds immense opportunities in our daily lives. An understanding of “freedom” is an understanding of who we are and what we are really about.
We could react to such hatred in a typical way, a superficial way, a way that is often used to define freedom in America.
1. Have the desire to accomplish your goals.
2. Have the ability to accomplish your goals.
3. Have the power to accomplish your goals.
Acting in this way, we would be performing an action little different than that of the drug addict or of Osama himself (an individual who has no understanding of the concept of freedom). It would be an act of vengeance, hardly a response of freedom of thought as I know it. It would be an act based on hatred for the individuals and their ideals. You cannot act in both freedom and hatred at the same time. Osama was pleased with the loss of so many human lives even though they were guilty of no actions deserving such a fate. Understanding a more significant level of freedom is what this chapter is now all about. It will also enable us to fully appreciate the depth of insight in Rabbi Abraham Kook’s statement that “…the greater the freedom, the greater will be the level of holiness.” [Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, The Lights of Penitence, Lights of Holiness (Paulist Press, New York) 1978, p. 213]
The concept of freedom entails more than physical movement, more than physical action, even more than the absence of mental compulsion. Freedom is, essentially, spiritual activity motivated by love. Even as I write in the midst of war and great uncertainty we can, by inner effort, rise above revenge. Our thoughts can soar, regardless of these external circumstances, into the pure air of freedom. The many examples of noble thought during and immediately after the destruction of the Twin Towers attest to our ability to transcend physical conditions. For you and I to be free we must overcome inner and outer conditions, whether favorable or adverse. We can become our own person! We can act out of our essence! We can act as we really are! Our spirituality cannot be lost in a time of great need. It is our key to both growth and action.
When are we, as individuals, free to be ourselves? We become masters of ourselves when we have achieved a harmony of thought, action and Being. If we respond automatically to any action, horrible as it may be, we act without control of our own will power. There is then little of the individual in such response. Such action ignores who we are and what our values are all about. In its undue emphasis on externals, it loses sight of our inner quest, our primary need for self-conquest, to never act in hatred, to act out of our core, our spark.
The finest guide in our quest for our higher self, the only self which suits the individual and benefits the world, has always been found in the self-forgetting concepts of sacrifice and active service to humanity. Without our willingness to sacrifice any limited self advantage for the whole which becomes dearer than self, we are doomed to pursue the kinds of self-aggrandizement that has always ended in self-defeat.
Throughout history our great sages have sought to lead communities of people to the light and power of such ideals as that of rebirth through the giving of ourselves. Today, each of us must discover these ideals anew if we are to progress on the path of decency, maturity and spirituality.
For each of us to think in freedom is to overcome stereotype and tradition, religion, regionalism, nationalism, gender and peer pressure. It is for the individual to consider how the pure ideal can be imaginatively, efficiently and lovingly realized in action. It is to overcome our bias of self-importance in order to truly know who we are. With the help of our inner spark we can execute that which is knightly and just for all. We can act in freedom. We can act in love. We can act out of our spiritual core. They are one and the same.
On this level of experience our intuition is awakened. The person using only intellect as a guide is alienated from those about him or her. That individual becomes simply a spectator in life. When we combine intellect with loving intuition, the balance brings about wisdom, freedom, responsibility and creativity—the goal of human achievement.
A society of free individuals, capable of rising at critical moments above inner and outer compulsions, becomes the goal of an enlightened civilization. The individual who searches for meaning in life comes to feel the pain and joy of the hour’s claim on his or her soul. Such a person begins to chart his or her own course and to shoulder social and spiritual responsibility.
Ours is the beginning of an age in which external restraints are crumbling. In such a situation we have the rare possibility of making our own decisions. We can walk on the thin edge of freedom that rises between the abyss of self-immersion on one side and the abyss of self-abandonment on the other. We were born with free will. Whether we use it for good or evil is our responsibility! We are completely responsible for our actions.
An aspect of the growth toward freedom lies in the development of independent thought. Society must not be afraid to help each of us confront the ultimate questions:
Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life on earth?
It may well be that the most relevant challenge the individual can face is the time-honored one of learning to know who he or she is. The inner spark can be found. We make progress in this encounter as we come to recognize our essence within: a spirit in a physical body!
Out of clear thinking each of us must determine where we ought to go and what we ought to do. The individual can experience himself or herself as both commonplace and sacred. Our consciousness can expand until all about us comes alive and we can experience our oneness with all that there is. We can experience the reality of oneness, of unity. Each of us, and all the world, is symbol and the symbol is to be penetrated. Reality is to be known! When loving intuition joins intellect in the complete act of thought, a realization of the wonder, sacredness and beauty of the earth becomes the joy of the free person. When we resonate with the spark within only then are we acting in freedom! We have always been given free will. When we act from the spark within, our essence, we are acting from our core. We are fulfilling our essence. It is our identity. When we surrender to another, even if it be to a perceived God, we have lost our free will and the reason for incarnating. We have given up our perceived identity to another. We have never identified with our essence. Surrendering our will is the opposite of freedom!
Today, it is vital that the extremists weigh their passions. Action based on hatred or lust is base and unworthy of humankind. It is never free. It can never favor the cause of free men and women. Buddha’s words are as true today as when first spoken:
He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me: In those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.
For never does hatred cease by hatred here below: Hatred ceases by love; this is an eternal law.
Each of us must understand our motives. Our action can result from the balance of intuition and thinking if it is to be a step forward on the path. The conquest of our base self is the painful, laborious task of our time. It is also the gateway to our upward climb.
The concept of freedom means, essentially, acting out of spiritual motive, not religious motive. Freedom is permeated with love. Without a spiritual love for the deed there can be no freedom of action. Mark this truth, we are, each one of us, destined for a life of love, a life immersed in spirituality, a life of freedom. They are one and the same.
To fail in this quest is to miss the meaning of our time. To fail in this quest is also to guarantee individual and social disaster.
Freedom of action and action resonating from the spark within are the same. Our actions are free actions when they are based on our essence. Our essence is our spark within, placed there by the eternal One. It is also called the soul, always connected to the eternal One. It alone is always our center. It brings sanctity to each of us. It tries to help us on the climb to spiritual awareness, awareness of our unity with the eternal One and of all creation.
Since our soul is always connected to the eternal One, as we seek to act out of our essence, out of what we now recognize as our soul, we are also thinking and acting out of our source, the source of our creation, the eternal One.
By Sheldon Stoff (Excerpted from Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness)
As I begin this, I write with a heavy heart. It is October 12th 2001, not long after the destruction of America’s World Trade Center in New York on September 11th. This horrific deed has been attributed to Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda network. It would be easy and much safer for me to bypass that tragedy and define “freedom” in an abstract way. It would also miss an opportunity to shed light on a very misunderstood concept. One that holds immense opportunities in our daily lives. An understanding of “freedom” is an understanding of who we are and what we are really about.
We could react to such hatred in a typical way, a superficial way, a way that is often used to define freedom in America.
1. Have the desire to accomplish your goals.
2. Have the ability to accomplish your goals.
3. Have the power to accomplish your goals.
Acting in this way, we would be performing an action little different than that of the drug addict or of Osama himself (an individual who has no understanding of the concept of freedom). It would be an act of vengeance, hardly a response of freedom of thought as I know it. It would be an act based on hatred for the individuals and their ideals. You cannot act in both freedom and hatred at the same time. Osama was pleased with the loss of so many human lives even though they were guilty of no actions deserving such a fate. Understanding a more significant level of freedom is what this chapter is now all about. It will also enable us to fully appreciate the depth of insight in Rabbi Abraham Kook’s statement that “…the greater the freedom, the greater will be the level of holiness.” [Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, The Lights of Penitence, Lights of Holiness (Paulist Press, New York) 1978, p. 213]
The concept of freedom entails more than physical movement, more than physical action, even more than the absence of mental compulsion. Freedom is, essentially, spiritual activity motivated by love. Even as I write in the midst of war and great uncertainty we can, by inner effort, rise above revenge. Our thoughts can soar, regardless of these external circumstances, into the pure air of freedom. The many examples of noble thought during and immediately after the destruction of the Twin Towers attest to our ability to transcend physical conditions. For you and I to be free we must overcome inner and outer conditions, whether favorable or adverse. We can become our own person! We can act out of our essence! We can act as we really are! Our spirituality cannot be lost in a time of great need. It is our key to both growth and action.
When are we, as individuals, free to be ourselves? We become masters of ourselves when we have achieved a harmony of thought, action and Being. If we respond automatically to any action, horrible as it may be, we act without control of our own will power. There is then little of the individual in such response. Such action ignores who we are and what our values are all about. In its undue emphasis on externals, it loses sight of our inner quest, our primary need for self-conquest, to never act in hatred, to act out of our core, our spark.
The finest guide in our quest for our higher self, the only self which suits the individual and benefits the world, has always been found in the self-forgetting concepts of sacrifice and active service to humanity. Without our willingness to sacrifice any limited self advantage for the whole which becomes dearer than self, we are doomed to pursue the kinds of self-aggrandizement that has always ended in self-defeat.
Throughout history our great sages have sought to lead communities of people to the light and power of such ideals as that of rebirth through the giving of ourselves. Today, each of us must discover these ideals anew if we are to progress on the path of decency, maturity and spirituality.
For each of us to think in freedom is to overcome stereotype and tradition, religion, regionalism, nationalism, gender and peer pressure. It is for the individual to consider how the pure ideal can be imaginatively, efficiently and lovingly realized in action. It is to overcome our bias of self-importance in order to truly know who we are. With the help of our inner spark we can execute that which is knightly and just for all. We can act in freedom. We can act in love. We can act out of our spiritual core. They are one and the same.
On this level of experience our intuition is awakened. The person using only intellect as a guide is alienated from those about him or her. That individual becomes simply a spectator in life. When we combine intellect with loving intuition, the balance brings about wisdom, freedom, responsibility and creativity—the goal of human achievement.
A society of free individuals, capable of rising at critical moments above inner and outer compulsions, becomes the goal of an enlightened civilization. The individual who searches for meaning in life comes to feel the pain and joy of the hour’s claim on his or her soul. Such a person begins to chart his or her own course and to shoulder social and spiritual responsibility.
Ours is the beginning of an age in which external restraints are crumbling. In such a situation we have the rare possibility of making our own decisions. We can walk on the thin edge of freedom that rises between the abyss of self-immersion on one side and the abyss of self-abandonment on the other. We were born with free will. Whether we use it for good or evil is our responsibility! We are completely responsible for our actions.
An aspect of the growth toward freedom lies in the development of independent thought. Society must not be afraid to help each of us confront the ultimate questions:
Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life on earth?
It may well be that the most relevant challenge the individual can face is the time-honored one of learning to know who he or she is. The inner spark can be found. We make progress in this encounter as we come to recognize our essence within: a spirit in a physical body!
Out of clear thinking each of us must determine where we ought to go and what we ought to do. The individual can experience himself or herself as both commonplace and sacred. Our consciousness can expand until all about us comes alive and we can experience our oneness with all that there is. We can experience the reality of oneness, of unity. Each of us, and all the world, is symbol and the symbol is to be penetrated. Reality is to be known! When loving intuition joins intellect in the complete act of thought, a realization of the wonder, sacredness and beauty of the earth becomes the joy of the free person. When we resonate with the spark within only then are we acting in freedom! We have always been given free will. When we act from the spark within, our essence, we are acting from our core. We are fulfilling our essence. It is our identity. When we surrender to another, even if it be to a perceived God, we have lost our free will and the reason for incarnating. We have given up our perceived identity to another. We have never identified with our essence. Surrendering our will is the opposite of freedom!
Today, it is vital that the extremists weigh their passions. Action based on hatred or lust is base and unworthy of humankind. It is never free. It can never favor the cause of free men and women. Buddha’s words are as true today as when first spoken:
He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me: In those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.
For never does hatred cease by hatred here below: Hatred ceases by love; this is an eternal law.
Each of us must understand our motives. Our action can result from the balance of intuition and thinking if it is to be a step forward on the path. The conquest of our base self is the painful, laborious task of our time. It is also the gateway to our upward climb.
The concept of freedom means, essentially, acting out of spiritual motive, not religious motive. Freedom is permeated with love. Without a spiritual love for the deed there can be no freedom of action. Mark this truth, we are, each one of us, destined for a life of love, a life immersed in spirituality, a life of freedom. They are one and the same.
To fail in this quest is to miss the meaning of our time. To fail in this quest is also to guarantee individual and social disaster.
Freedom of action and action resonating from the spark within are the same. Our actions are free actions when they are based on our essence. Our essence is our spark within, placed there by the eternal One. It is also called the soul, always connected to the eternal One. It alone is always our center. It brings sanctity to each of us. It tries to help us on the climb to spiritual awareness, awareness of our unity with the eternal One and of all creation.
Since our soul is always connected to the eternal One, as we seek to act out of our essence, out of what we now recognize as our soul, we are also thinking and acting out of our source, the source of our creation, the eternal One.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Pumpkin Bread
PUMPKIN BREAD
2/3 cup honey
2/3 cup boiled pumpkin
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. pumpkin spice
2 tbs. toasted wheat germ
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1/3 cup dried milk
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/3 cup raisins
Mis ingredients together. Bake in an oiled pan at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour, and then at 300 degrees for last 1/2 hour. Good served as is or with cream cheese spread.
2/3 cup honey
2/3 cup boiled pumpkin
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. pumpkin spice
2 tbs. toasted wheat germ
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1/3 cup dried milk
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/3 cup raisins
Mis ingredients together. Bake in an oiled pan at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour, and then at 300 degrees for last 1/2 hour. Good served as is or with cream cheese spread.
Poem - The Pumpkin
THE PUMPKIN
By John Greenleaf Whittier
Ah! On Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
On-fruit loved of boyhood—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of a fairy who travelled like steam,
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team?
By John Greenleaf Whittier
Ah! On Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?
On-fruit loved of boyhood—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,--our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of a fairy who travelled like steam,
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
WE ARE WITHIN GOD
Sheldon Stoff
In the belief that if we learn to share that which we deem best from our thoughts and experiences with our fellow humans, I make these attempts at such expression. It is audacious to try to explain what little I know about the eternal One, of which, in itself, I know nothing. The divine that I experience is only one small drop in that ocean of divinity. I feel that I must go beyond the written word toward experience in order to catch a glimmer of some attributes and emanations of the eternal One. So, I meditate, opening myself to our constant lover, and then I try to pass something of my thoughts and experiences with on to you in the hope that you will also come to know that love which is beyond all knowing.
We are told that the eternal One created both space and time. Jewish mystics often refer to creation as Ein Sof, which means Endlessness. Quantum physics teaches us that we are all created beings, united in unbounded consciousness. Ancient India, and today, Ervin Laszlo, refer to the word Akasha or “cosmic sky” as encompassing all of space. “A-Field” is another term for it. In this “A-Field, consciousness is to be found, in varying degrees, all beings, space and material. There is a luminous unity within the thoughts of our common creator and lover.
In effect, we humans are a small part of a community of life, but it is a community that is endless. This community is also intuitionally connected. This community existed even prior to physical creation. Brothers and sisters are everywhere joined together within the A-Field. Without and within this A-Field of connection is that which birthed it and sustains it, the eternal One. To repeat, the eternal One is WITHOUT and WITHIN the ALL and sustains it with a love impossible for us to even realize.
Peter Russell says it this way: If our own essence is divine, and the essence of consciousness is to be found in everything, everywhere, then everything is divine. Panpsychism becomes pantheism. It doesn’t matter whether we call it Universal Mind, Allah, God, Jehovah, the Great Spirit, or the Quantum Vacuum Field, we are all of that same essence.
We are stardust. We are also divine. Our actions must reflect who we are and who we are becoming. We are whole. We are holy. Our souls are created by God. The whole universe is created for us.
The first act of creation by the eternal One was that of the incubation of souls. These first souls were loved as a mother loves her offspring. These first souls also had a strong desire to share and return this love. In order to have this happen, the eternal One created the physical universe. Physical experience was necessary for the souls to share and offer love. As creations of the eternal One we are holy and have a spark of the divine within us, a spark called by various names — “souls” and “consciousness” being the most common. Just as all creation was planned for evolution, so must we now endeavor to expand our consciousness and become more fully evolved, as was intended in the beginning. How to approach this profound understanding? Since all humans and all “things” were created in God, our attitude toward everything must change as we awaken to this reality. We are firmly in connection to all that there is and all that will ever be. I can only begin to think of the implications.
In the belief that if we learn to share that which we deem best from our thoughts and experiences with our fellow humans, I make these attempts at such expression. It is audacious to try to explain what little I know about the eternal One, of which, in itself, I know nothing. The divine that I experience is only one small drop in that ocean of divinity. I feel that I must go beyond the written word toward experience in order to catch a glimmer of some attributes and emanations of the eternal One. So, I meditate, opening myself to our constant lover, and then I try to pass something of my thoughts and experiences with on to you in the hope that you will also come to know that love which is beyond all knowing.
We are told that the eternal One created both space and time. Jewish mystics often refer to creation as Ein Sof, which means Endlessness. Quantum physics teaches us that we are all created beings, united in unbounded consciousness. Ancient India, and today, Ervin Laszlo, refer to the word Akasha or “cosmic sky” as encompassing all of space. “A-Field” is another term for it. In this “A-Field, consciousness is to be found, in varying degrees, all beings, space and material. There is a luminous unity within the thoughts of our common creator and lover.
In effect, we humans are a small part of a community of life, but it is a community that is endless. This community is also intuitionally connected. This community existed even prior to physical creation. Brothers and sisters are everywhere joined together within the A-Field. Without and within this A-Field of connection is that which birthed it and sustains it, the eternal One. To repeat, the eternal One is WITHOUT and WITHIN the ALL and sustains it with a love impossible for us to even realize.
Peter Russell says it this way: If our own essence is divine, and the essence of consciousness is to be found in everything, everywhere, then everything is divine. Panpsychism becomes pantheism. It doesn’t matter whether we call it Universal Mind, Allah, God, Jehovah, the Great Spirit, or the Quantum Vacuum Field, we are all of that same essence.
We are stardust. We are also divine. Our actions must reflect who we are and who we are becoming. We are whole. We are holy. Our souls are created by God. The whole universe is created for us.
The first act of creation by the eternal One was that of the incubation of souls. These first souls were loved as a mother loves her offspring. These first souls also had a strong desire to share and return this love. In order to have this happen, the eternal One created the physical universe. Physical experience was necessary for the souls to share and offer love. As creations of the eternal One we are holy and have a spark of the divine within us, a spark called by various names — “souls” and “consciousness” being the most common. Just as all creation was planned for evolution, so must we now endeavor to expand our consciousness and become more fully evolved, as was intended in the beginning. How to approach this profound understanding? Since all humans and all “things” were created in God, our attitude toward everything must change as we awaken to this reality. We are firmly in connection to all that there is and all that will ever be. I can only begin to think of the implications.
Monday, October 6, 2008
What Does It Mean To Walk With God?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WALK WITH GOD?
BY SHELDON STOFF
I have two sons, Jesse and Joshua, who are now in their fifties. Prior to the conception of each of them, their mother and I prayed that “this child will walk with God.” After the birth of each, we again prayed that we could give him that which he came to us for. We also prayed that we would learn the lessons than he would provide for us.
Now, I am seventy-eight years old, and although I have used the expression “to walk with God” for all these years, I realize that I scarcely know what that means.
What does it mean to me “to walk with God?” Knowing that what we term “Sacred Scriptures” provide many, many examples, I have often relied upon their advisements. Three stand out so strongly in my mind. The first is Hillel’s injunction to “learn to love God and all of God’s creatures.” The second is Micah’s directions: “And what the Lord does require of thee: Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” The third is and shall ever be: “You shall love your Eternal God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your might.”
These examples are an adopted part of my consciousness. Now, I want my own understanding. At my age, it is not enough to have reached out to make these directives my own, as I have fully tried to do. For more than fifty years, I have sought to find answers through personal meditation. Having been taught, those long years ago, that meditation is an entrance into the world of spiritual understanding, this is a practice I have followed ever since. For answers to my deepest questions, it is an awesome step beyond the intellectual and the rational. What answers might I receive? What veils might be lifted? How might my understandings grow? I fully believe that each of us must pose our own questions and find our own answers.
I will share something of my own personal experience. After an unsettling start at meditating with the question “What does it mean to walk with God?” I suddenly “knew” that I was with Rabbi Isaac Luria, who, through his writings, had guided me in the past. Rabbi Luria of Sfad, Palestine, (1534-1572) had clarified for me much in Kabbalah, and he had always seemed “to be there for me.” During this particular meditation, he gave me one simple answer which spoke volumes. He said, “Always have your heart filled with love and have the strongest desire to bestow it upon all that you meet.”
While still in that meditative state of consciousness, I received many other thought gifts, and additional insights were still being showered upon me as I awakened in the morning. After all these years, as I walk among the autumnal dance of the leaves in my garden, I find that I recall many and much and I still ponder them as I still pray to know what it is to “walk with God.”
I am suddenly reminded of a film about Carl Jung, the image of him near the end of his life, and his response to a question about whether he believed in God. He make a soft fluttering sound with his lips and said, “Well I know…!”
So…Dear Reader, with your indulgent permission, in the coming days of this autumn and winter, I will attempt to write from time to time of those “thought gifts” and in so writing I will be re-membered with them, and thus, it is to be hoped, grow more in my own attempt to walk the walk.
BY SHELDON STOFF
I have two sons, Jesse and Joshua, who are now in their fifties. Prior to the conception of each of them, their mother and I prayed that “this child will walk with God.” After the birth of each, we again prayed that we could give him that which he came to us for. We also prayed that we would learn the lessons than he would provide for us.
Now, I am seventy-eight years old, and although I have used the expression “to walk with God” for all these years, I realize that I scarcely know what that means.
What does it mean to me “to walk with God?” Knowing that what we term “Sacred Scriptures” provide many, many examples, I have often relied upon their advisements. Three stand out so strongly in my mind. The first is Hillel’s injunction to “learn to love God and all of God’s creatures.” The second is Micah’s directions: “And what the Lord does require of thee: Only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” The third is and shall ever be: “You shall love your Eternal God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your might.”
These examples are an adopted part of my consciousness. Now, I want my own understanding. At my age, it is not enough to have reached out to make these directives my own, as I have fully tried to do. For more than fifty years, I have sought to find answers through personal meditation. Having been taught, those long years ago, that meditation is an entrance into the world of spiritual understanding, this is a practice I have followed ever since. For answers to my deepest questions, it is an awesome step beyond the intellectual and the rational. What answers might I receive? What veils might be lifted? How might my understandings grow? I fully believe that each of us must pose our own questions and find our own answers.
I will share something of my own personal experience. After an unsettling start at meditating with the question “What does it mean to walk with God?” I suddenly “knew” that I was with Rabbi Isaac Luria, who, through his writings, had guided me in the past. Rabbi Luria of Sfad, Palestine, (1534-1572) had clarified for me much in Kabbalah, and he had always seemed “to be there for me.” During this particular meditation, he gave me one simple answer which spoke volumes. He said, “Always have your heart filled with love and have the strongest desire to bestow it upon all that you meet.”
While still in that meditative state of consciousness, I received many other thought gifts, and additional insights were still being showered upon me as I awakened in the morning. After all these years, as I walk among the autumnal dance of the leaves in my garden, I find that I recall many and much and I still ponder them as I still pray to know what it is to “walk with God.”
I am suddenly reminded of a film about Carl Jung, the image of him near the end of his life, and his response to a question about whether he believed in God. He make a soft fluttering sound with his lips and said, “Well I know…!”
So…Dear Reader, with your indulgent permission, in the coming days of this autumn and winter, I will attempt to write from time to time of those “thought gifts” and in so writing I will be re-membered with them, and thus, it is to be hoped, grow more in my own attempt to walk the walk.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
I-Thou: The Missing Ingredient
I-Thou: The Missing Ingredient
By Sheldon Stoff
Martin Buber saw Israel as a homeland, wherein there could be a flowering of true brotherhood of man, a true relationship with life, with the natural world, and with spiritual beings.
"When Dag Hammarskjold’s plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia, the Secretary General of the United Nations had with him the manuscript of a translation that he was making of Martin Buber’s classic work I and Thou. It is because of this book and the philosophy of dialogue that it presents that Dag Hammarskjold repeatedly nominated Martin Buber for a Nobel Prize in Literature. I and Thou is recognized today as among the handful of writings that the twentieth century will bequeath to the centuries to come…"
The foregoing is the opening statement in Maurice Friedman’s introduction to Professor Buber’s Between Man and Man. One of Secretary General Hammarskjold’s last acts was the writing of a letter to Dr. Georg Svensson to recommend that Dr. Buber, Jewish philosopher and theologian, receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1938, when Professor Buber spoke in Germany about the menace of Hitlerism two hundred Nazi Storm Troopers stood surrounding the audience in an attempt to intimidate him. His friends knew that he was to be arrested the next morning, so they flew him out of Germany that night. They brought him to Palestine, and there he established himself in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. He believed in brotherhood, and he practiced brotherhood. In 1967, when the Egyptian troops briefly took over that section of Jerusalem during “The Six Day War” they ordered a special guard to surround and protect his house. He was a “holy man” and they honored him.
During my university years, I carried on a long correspondence with Dr. Buber. He became one of my mentors. His seminal work, I and Thou, had been a best seller on college campuses in the United States for fifty years. In this book, Dr. Buber describes two kinds of relationships. The relationship of "I-Thou" is a relationship of caring, empathy, respect, cohesion, and even love. The other kind--"I-It"--is a relationship characterized by distance, coldness, analysis, manipulation, and even hatred.
How can it be in a world with three mighty religions—all preaching the “word of God”—that we have continuous wars and terrorism? In proliferating distortions, religious leaders all too often stress differences rather than the central message which is held in common. That message in common, that common denominator, is love and compassion for all.
It is incumbent upon the United Nations organization to mediate the current urgencies of political and economic agendas in order to actualize that common denominator, that “I-Thou” principle which must define humankind. Martin Buber put this very clearly and simply. We need to listen to him:
"And in all the seriousness of truth, hear this: without It man cannot live. But he who lives with It alone is not a man." (Martin Buber)
In a war between such divergent ideals, only the finest ideals will have a possibility of long-term success.
Editor’s Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Dr. Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, and Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness.
By Sheldon Stoff
Martin Buber saw Israel as a homeland, wherein there could be a flowering of true brotherhood of man, a true relationship with life, with the natural world, and with spiritual beings.
"When Dag Hammarskjold’s plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia, the Secretary General of the United Nations had with him the manuscript of a translation that he was making of Martin Buber’s classic work I and Thou. It is because of this book and the philosophy of dialogue that it presents that Dag Hammarskjold repeatedly nominated Martin Buber for a Nobel Prize in Literature. I and Thou is recognized today as among the handful of writings that the twentieth century will bequeath to the centuries to come…"
The foregoing is the opening statement in Maurice Friedman’s introduction to Professor Buber’s Between Man and Man. One of Secretary General Hammarskjold’s last acts was the writing of a letter to Dr. Georg Svensson to recommend that Dr. Buber, Jewish philosopher and theologian, receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1938, when Professor Buber spoke in Germany about the menace of Hitlerism two hundred Nazi Storm Troopers stood surrounding the audience in an attempt to intimidate him. His friends knew that he was to be arrested the next morning, so they flew him out of Germany that night. They brought him to Palestine, and there he established himself in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. He believed in brotherhood, and he practiced brotherhood. In 1967, when the Egyptian troops briefly took over that section of Jerusalem during “The Six Day War” they ordered a special guard to surround and protect his house. He was a “holy man” and they honored him.
During my university years, I carried on a long correspondence with Dr. Buber. He became one of my mentors. His seminal work, I and Thou, had been a best seller on college campuses in the United States for fifty years. In this book, Dr. Buber describes two kinds of relationships. The relationship of "I-Thou" is a relationship of caring, empathy, respect, cohesion, and even love. The other kind--"I-It"--is a relationship characterized by distance, coldness, analysis, manipulation, and even hatred.
How can it be in a world with three mighty religions—all preaching the “word of God”—that we have continuous wars and terrorism? In proliferating distortions, religious leaders all too often stress differences rather than the central message which is held in common. That message in common, that common denominator, is love and compassion for all.
It is incumbent upon the United Nations organization to mediate the current urgencies of political and economic agendas in order to actualize that common denominator, that “I-Thou” principle which must define humankind. Martin Buber put this very clearly and simply. We need to listen to him:
"And in all the seriousness of truth, hear this: without It man cannot live. But he who lives with It alone is not a man." (Martin Buber)
In a war between such divergent ideals, only the finest ideals will have a possibility of long-term success.
Editor’s Note: Now Professor Emeritus at Adelphi University, Dr. Stoff taught a course on the philosophy of Martin Buber while he was studying for his doctorate at Cornell University. He is author of The Two Way Street, The Human Encounter, The Pumpkin Quest, and Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness.
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