Man is a creature in constant turmoil. At all times, a multitude of thoughts, impressions, moods and feelings course through and within him. Only the strongest of these rise to the level of conscious awareness; most remain unacknowledged and unrecognized. Let me give an example. Let's say that you walked by someone in the street who should have greeted you but did not. You let it pass but a few minutes later your mood turns sour and you do not know why. Much has taken place beneath the surface: frustration, anger, self-loathing, insecurity, regret, but chances are that you noted nothing, because none of this was conscious. Your lack of familiarity, also inability to honestly assess your own spiritual state did not allow full cognition. All that a person knows is that suddenly and without cause he is thrust into the experience of a changed mood, and he does not know why. The primary condition of living on the level of Ruach is becoming aware and attuned to the inner processes that are automatically running beyond your awareness and learning how to strengthen and encourage the noble emotions of the level of Ruach and weaken and ultimately attenuate the feelings and moods that stem from the level of Nefesh. As we said previously, living on the level of Ruach allows an opportunity for an occasional glimpse into the level above ( or before) it, what Sefer Yetsirah calls "ruach miruach". It is the level of Ruach Hakodesh, which is still accesable to us, and that is motivation enough.
We have previously explained that there are emotions, feelings and moods at each level of the soul. The nefesh, the animalistic, lower level of the human being, produces self-doubt, jealousy, anger. But, it can also produce pity (not compassion) and kindness and trust - all depending on the constitution and material from which a particular psyche is hewn. This is why even lowly people are sometimes capable of self-sacrifice and generosity. What nefesh will not produce, however, is fine discrimination of when these emotions are appropriate and when they are harmful or unjust. Neither can they produce Awakening, as opposed to Arousal, Compassion as opposed to Pity, Transcendence as opposed to Self-sacrifice. The ruach provides the more religiously positive and higher order emotions – joy, exhilaration, gratitude, wonder, awareness, compassion, satisfaction, hope. We humans constantly move and slide from mood to mood, feeling to feeling. The question then is: How do we transition from the unconscious background of unrecognized emotions to actively directing the background process? How do we train ourselves to experience the emotions that elevate the soul and push aside those that pollute and weaken it?
The answer is - it requires spiritual discipline and hard work. Chassidus mentiosn manu tools; meditation is one of them. In essence, meditation is a short-cut. It allows us to become aware of our emotions and thoughts. It can teach how to focus. Once one knows how to focus he can aim to call-up and enliven positive emotions in the place of negative ones. It is possible to wrest control from the unconscious and learn how to direct and affect feelings. There are different types of meditations and we will discuss it the next installment. One thing I must caution: Meditation is a shortcut, a psychological tool that makes it easier to be self-aware and enables gaining self-control and self-mastery; it is not a key to mysteries; neither does it in itself possess intrinsic religious value. However, in our rushed, busy American lives, it is rare to find a man with inner calmness, someone who has learned to focus and step out of the moment without using some kind of a meditative technique. This is what R. Arye Kaplan wrote in his (until recently) unpublished notes: " The highest level is closeness to and awareness of God. Many of our righteous people reached extremely high levels of consciousness and closeness to God without ever meditating. When you reach that level, in which you have a well-enough disciplined life, the entire concept of the Torah and commandments becomes a meditation." (quoted in the introduction to Living Kabbala: A guide to the Sabbath and festivals in the teachings of Rabbi Refael Moshe Luria, by Simcha H Benyosef, Feldheim, 2006.
It is indeed possible to reside at the level of Ruach but it takes years of determined, unremitting work to achieve it.
Comments