On Eros and Holiness, Sanity, Speed Racer, Kabbalah, Why I Teach, Torah, Liberation, Humiliation and Humility, Non Duality, Part and Whole, The Holy of Holies and Thank You Larry. Part Three: Marc Gafni
marc gafni
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Speed Racer is about enlightenment realized in this world. In Buddhism this is the tenth Ox-Herding picture.
In Hebrew wisdom it is Abraham after realization returning to the market place.
At the moment of your realization you will become sane. And you will stop living like an insane person.
Hebrew Wisdom teaches, “Any person who sins is insane”.
To sin is to misperceive reality.
{Do not have Talmud at my home here in Salt Lake, need to buy a set, but I think it is Talmud Sotah 4A.. If I remember wrong please write and let me know}
No need for all the trauma and drama.
We all sin.
We all have moments of insanity when lose touch with what is really real.
In those moments we sometimes hurt each other. And then we do it again.
We forget what we already know about the structure of the self and the true nature of existence.
Something in our heart closes and we become opaque to God.
In Hebrew mysticism the goal is always Bittul. Literally that means nullification.
Nullify the self. self-annihilation.
Does not sound very attractive on the face of it.
But writes an early mystic Rabbenu Nissim, some seven hundred years ago — and I am paraphrasing;
“Bittul means to be —Shakuf = Transparent to God.
For that is the truth of reality.
When we are in Eros, and Speed Racer is all about Eros, we are transparent to God.
That is why the crowds love him so much.
He is a divine figure, a prophet and poet of Eros.
Eros means being transparent God.
Being transparent to God means…
Living on the inside
Participating in the yearning force of being
Fullness of presence
Radical Wholeness — where there is no separation between any part of reality- every part feels it’s place as part of the whole even as it retains it’s utter autonomy —and there is not contradiction — the paradox of whole plays out in the life of the human being in sacred laughter and joy.
“There is no righteous person on the earth who does good and does not sin” writes King Solomon. And he knew.
Eros is sanity. Eros heals sin.
To be sane is to know reality. If I tell you I am the King of England.
Oh my God, Gafni is insane you say.
For he has lost touch with reality.
That is to sin. Not to know yourself. Not to know your own reality.
To somehow mis-identify yourself.
Sin is the ultimate Identity crisis.
It is to know your nature as a “part” but not to realize in your heart, in your mind, in your toenails,
that the part, is a part of God.
That in the Part is the Whole of God.
“All Israel has a “part” of the world to come” writes one ancient text.
Meaning — All those who are Israel-
Israel speaks of three distinct experiences- Israel means three moments of God.
The word Israel in the original Hebrew has three meanings!
Shar El- those who see God,
More then that;
Those who
See with God’s eyes
To love is to see with God’s eyes.
Yasahr El- those who live in direct and unmediated connection to God.
To be Israel is to Source so much that you are not willing to let anything or anyone stand between you and Source.
Shar El, those who struggle with God; who refuse to accept the easy aphorism of the old or new age; who seek the paradox and complexity that hold the simple truth.
We can know re-read our ancient text.
All Israel —
that is every human being who is Israel, who sees with God’s eyes, who has not lost his knowledge that he is Source, who struggles with reality, reaching for paradox which is the name of God, in the name of God, as a manifestation of God, as God’s verb…
Every human being who is Israel —
realizes his Israel nature as soon as he knows
That he or she is A PART of the “World To Come” — which in Hebrew mysticism means
The Eternal world, the World of the Absolute, The World that is Always Becoming and Being, the world where being and becoming are One.
The world in which the part and the whole are both separate and One.
To know that I am,
that You are
part of the whole;
to feel the whole move in you;
move through you;
animate you,
penetrate you,
receive you,
speak from your throat
{Zohar:The Shekinah speak though the voice of Moses}
manifest in your smile,
your tears
your laughter-
even as you maintain your autonomy and individuality as a unique and irreplaceable manifestation of divine joy and pleasure-
that is what it means to be alive.
That is what it means to live in Eros.
That is the Messiah who is Speed Racer who is You.
When you live from that place — you are Holiness.
You are In
what Plato called Eros.
You are being and becoming as One.
You are Speed Racer. You act in the world Lishmah.
For it’s own sake.
Marc Gafni
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