| |
DESIRE
| Inner
focus |
eyes |
| Outer
focus |
hearing information of the Light |
| Color |
yellow |
|
Welcome
Report from Jerusalem
Dreams of Desire
Why the Eyes?
Book Notes
Desire in the News?
Who’s Who in Desire
Poetry
 |
 |
From the Editor |
This month we are featuring the Descending Principle #25: DESIRE. Mystically, the Descending Principles manifest the highest degree of unification; but Desire is the first (going downward from 29) that suggests two-ness. Desire necessarily implies an Other that is desired. Desire carries something like a subtle electrical charge, because separation and union are held in dynamic tension.
From the Editor's desk: First , a big thanks from all of us to Robin Moore, who has served as co-editor for the first seven months as we have birthed this newsletter. Best wishes, Robin, in all your future ventures!
NEWS! Generosity Incorporated announces a new publication, the AUDIO BOOK of Tamar Frankiel’s KABBALAH: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION FOR CHRISTIANS, recorded by arrangement with Jewish Lights Publishing. Go to www.generosityincorporated.com and order the CDs or the DOWNLOAD version. Makes a great gift too!
Don’t forget: If you would like to discuss the ideas and teachings in this newsletter, please go to http://www.generositydreams.blogspot.com/ and post your question or comment there. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.
|
|
Report from Jerusalem |
Here is a teaching on Desire from one of our young spiritual sisters: |
Recently I've noticed the value of a certain style in prayer. Circumstances in my life have helped me become more open to appreciating the little gifts G-d was sliding under my door, and I felt these were related to prayer. When I mentioned this to a friend, she seemed to write off my sense of blessing by saying "yeah, well G-d listens to some people's prayers!" -- and I sat guppy-mouthed, knowing that it wasn't my prayers, but my prayers.
But I couldn't explain what was different about my asking, or how I could be so sure that it was because I asked... Then yesterday, in reading an essay on "Covetousness" by Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, I had a greater understanding.
Rabbi Hirsch reminds us that coveting, or what we usually call desire, is a fundamental necessity for the continuation of the human race. To survive, one has to desire and obtain the things that support life and achievement. Humans can, however, channel that desire directly towards G-d, so that desires exist only in the context of "this will bring me closer to G-d," and "this will bring more godliness into the world." That’s a high calling – the holy of holies in Desire. Otherwise, if desire is aimed at self-aggrandizement, it runs haywire and destroys life, holiness, and happiness.
The goal is "to make yourself a center from which as large as possible a collection of works pleasing to G-d streams forth, and to take your place, with the whole range of your activities, in the great circle of created beings, the holy and exalted center of which, is G-d." This is the context for prayer and desire.
There's a great difference between asking G-d for something beyond the things that I have, and asking G-d to use some sort of expansion mechanism on the things I already have. I can ask G-d to find me a well-paying job. Or, I can ask G-d for an occupation where my skills and talents are fulfilled and I'm part of His great plan. I can ask for money, possessions or status, for love and for children --all with good intentions. Or I can ask that G-d help me be who I am to the best of my ability. Being who I am may include bringing an income, or passing through grad school, or raising children... but asking in the context of "let me be the me that you want me to be" has a special ring to it.
Again, Rabbi Hirsch: "It is not how much or how little you have that makes you great or small, but how much or how little you are with what you have, how much or how little you utilize what has been lent to you for action in the service of G-d--that is what makes you great or small."
A simple prayer that the portion we have may shine brighter is one that can be answered. To ask G-d to allow what we already have to branch into greater clarity and greater participation in His master plan—that is a desire which G-d would be thrilled to fulfill! With this approach, we can make a vessel even with our desire, if that desire is in the context of what already IS, and our desire is truly to use that vessel in the best possible way.
--Chava Frankiel Lederer
|
|
Dreams of Desire |
We
can learn about the principles by examining our dreams.
Here are three dreams alluding to Desire:
In a white room with lunch tables, dreamers are gathered. We are supposed to eat seven fruits on behalf of Elaine Levi. They are arranged in a little centerpiece with 2 kinds of lemon. I’m supposed to eat one kind of lemon, Elaine & others the other kind, and then we eat 6 other tiny fruits like loquat & kumquat, all quite small, and all yellow or orange. Also Mr. Levy’s course is going on in another room and we plan to drop in.
This seems to be an encoded dream of deep spiritual significance. The two people named Levi/Levy in this dream may allude to the biblical Levites, the priests’ assistants best known for their holy song. The number 7 is also a priestly number. Placed in a context of eating yellow fruits, the dream suggests the alchemical transformation of desire, perhaps the reintegration of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Loquat and kumquat may allude to “What?” – suggesting a not-knowing that is the root of true wisdom.
I’m walking with a young blond man, a dream-acquaintance who’s a composite of people from my life. He invites me to see his apartment on the beach. It’s a beautiful day for a walk and we stroll along bright sandstone buildings. I’m aware he’s very attentive and I feel his love. We walk through a fruit and vegetable market which reminds me of the wholesale market in Chicago -- except you had to go there pre-dawn, in a dark warehouse district. Here it’s afternoon, sunny and bright. But then I notice a lot of fruit is pre-packaged; you can’t pick what you want, so it’s not so interesting.
We get to a corner and turn right. The ocean is in front of us. A few of his friends come up, a little boisterous. “Hey!” says one, “he wants to kiss you.” I start to laugh – such a teenage thing. But my friend says, “I do NOT!” in a dead-serious tone. I don’t know what to make of that so I’m quiet. I didn’t really want ‘that kind’ of relationship myself. When we get to his apartment, I lie face down on a lounge chair and he massages my neck. That feels great. I wake up feeling very happy.
Two types of desire – fresh food and intimacy. The dreamer reminds us that pre-packaged desire is not the aim, and happily experiences the kind of affection she really wants.
I’m driving down a road with two regular lanes, plus a third lane with unusual forms of transportation. For example, some children are in go-carts that use blue parachutes and the wind. Others have ponies, but instead of just riding them, they run beside the ponies then jump on. One girl doesn’t manage to do it right and her pony rides away without her. She walks around crying, “I lost my pony; I don’t know how I’m going to get home."
We arrive at an amazing mall with all kinds of shops, restaurants, and amphitheatres. I see the girl’s pony window-shopping, as if trying to decide what to buy. I go and tell her where to find her pony, but she is so distraught she can’t listen – she just keeps saying, “I lost my pony."
I sit down with a group in a beer garden; I don’t know any of the people except my old boyfriend J and his wife. I’ve heard his wife is insanely jealous, so I deliberately flirt a little. I don’t mean any harm, I’m just feeling devilish. Then they start passing a joint around and, not wanting to smoke or explain myself, I invite J to go over to where a Jamaican band is playing. The band leader is a huge man with a heavenly voice. He sings, “A, E, C, nas es das!” I don’t know what it means – is it German? Maybe it’s something like “Neti-neti” in Buddhism. I ask J, but he ignores me and walks rapidly away. The band leader comes over toward us, puts his head through the bushes and says again, “A, E, C, nas is das!” I say in an over-the-top voice, “Whatever it means, it’s NOT THAT!"
The pony is the girl’s vehicle to “go home” – an epithet for Desire. As the window-shopper, the pony may represent instinctual animal desire which she had tried aggressively to master. However, the girl becomes so absorbed in her loss that she cannot hear the dreamer, can't “hear the information of the Light.”
As in the previous dream, an affectionate gentleness also signals the presence of Desire. A mischievous aspect appears too –teasing in the first dream, flirtation in the second. Either way, Desire is not aggressive.
These dreams were from different dreamers, years apart but they both contain a strong negation: “I do NOT!” “NOT THAT!” Perhaps we are being told that Desire is definitely not WHAT we think it is.
To find Desire
in your dreams, look for references to the eyes
... to food or intimacy ... to the colors yellow or peridot.
|
|
Why
the Eyes? |
The eyes are a primary generator of desire in the ordinary sense. When Eve saw the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, she saw that it was ‘desirable to the eyes.’ And the Bible warns ‘not to follow your heart or eyes to lead you astray.’ But the true use of the eyes is to grant enhanced beingness upon what surrounds you, to generate blessing upon the people in your life. Ultimately, the eyes gaze, in meditation, toward the deepest realities; while the ears open to the "information of the light."
|
|
Book Notes |
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, written by J. K. Rowling
The publication of the seventh and last of the famous Harry Potter series deserves some comment. But what does Harry Potter have to do specifically with the principle of Desire? - surely many of the Principles are exemplified in the stories. In fact, the entire structure rests on the premise of Desire: Harry is a homeless orphan, a misfit in ordinary society, who discovers that his real home is another realm – the magical world of wizards and witches and particularly the school named Hogwarts. On a most basic level, Rowling touches the knowledge in each of us that our true reality is Spirit, and we engage the meaning of life in a realm that is not material.
Genesis: The Beginnings of Desire, written by Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg |
.
A most unusual commentary on the first book of the Bible, using classic Jewish sources to present the entire project of Divine creation as an engagement between passionate human beings and an equally passionate God. Structured in terms of the weekly Shabbat readings, Zornberg’s “meditations” as she calls them shed new light on familiar biblical figures and themes.
|
|
Desire in the News |
Desire in the news seems mostly distorted into a vulgar pursuit - how to manipulate human instinctual desires in order to make money. How can we recover its spiritual meaning as a basic principle of form?
- Headline: Girls Gone Mild? When it comes to fashion, girls are moving from trashy to flashy
ABC News, July 20 - While skimpy clothes still dominate the fashion scene, today there's a flip side to girls gone wild. Call it "girls gone mild" — a building modesty movement among many young women… “women can dress sexy, but in a way that's classy."
LA Times, August 21 - Anne Ream's op-ed piece "The false modesty movement," questions whether this fashion message is dangerous. "What's lost in this view of the world is the power of female desire - not just sexual and sartorial but professional and intellectual. . . the right to take risks."
Underlying the debate over our physical-world ‘garments’ is a question about the dynamics of desire – is there empowerment in restraint? Or does a more delicate style, not just of dress but of action, necessarily go hand-in-hand with submissiveness?
You Can Make News Too!
Spiritual consciousness is needed desperately in manifesting the principle of Desire. How can we remind ourselves to use the word properly, to recognize the differences among needs, wants, and true Desire?
|
|
6.
Who's Who in Desire |
Famous
people through whom Desire came to life – those below
have Sun in Desire. By the way, in some years people born on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, have Sun in Desire!
- Jack Benny, 1894-1974
Famed radio and television comedian, known for his exquisite sense of timing and his trademark violin. Also the first to include a black man, Eddie Rochester, as a regular and equal part of his fictional household.
- Greta Garbo, 1905-1990
Glamorous Swedish star of silent and early movies, best known for her phrase, “I want to be alone,” from her role in the Oscar-winning Grand Hotel.
- Nelson Mandela, 1918-
Anti-apartheid activist, jailed 27 years for his opposition to the policies of the South African government. Became President of South Africa in 1994, in the first representative elections.
- Jimmy Hoffa, 1913-1975?
President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the 1950s-1960s, associated with the Mafia, pursued for corrupt activities under the Kennedy administration, and finally jailed for bribing a juror in 1964. President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence in 1971, but in 1975 he mysteriously disappeared.
- Max Factor, Jr. 1904-1996
Heir of the founder of the famous cosmetics company, who extended the company’s reach beyond Hollywood to become an international company, and also to develop department-store product lines. This major industry helped women actualize their desires by enhancing their physical desirability.
- Lance Armstrong, 1971-
Champion American bicyclist, winner of the Tour de France seven times in a row, 1999-2005; also known for his battle with cancer.
- George Gallup, 1901-1984
Statistician who first gained renown through his accurate predictions of the 1936 elections, based on a sampling of only 5000 voters; he continued to creating reliable polls to find out what people desire.
|
|
Poetry |
A TETHERED FALCON
My heart sits on the Arm of God
Like a tethered falcon
Suddenly unhooded.
I am now blessedly crazed
Because my Master's Astounding Effulgence
Is in constant view.
My piercing eyes,
Which have searched every world
For Tenderness and Love,
Now lock on the Royal Target--
The Wild Holy One
Whose Beauty Illuminates Existence.
My soul endures a magnificent longing.
I am a tethered falcon
With great wings and sharp talons poised
Every sinew taut like a Sacred Bow
Quivering at the edge of my Self
And Eternal Freedom,
Though still held in check
By a miraculous
Divine Golden Cord.
Beloved,
I am waiting for You to free me
Into Your Mind
And Infinite Being
I am pleading in absolute helplessness
To hear, finally, your Words of Grace:
Fly! Fly into Me!
Hafiz,
Who can understand
Your sublime Nearness and Separation?
With gratitude to our source for this poem:
I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky (Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented, 1996), p. 97.
|
|
