meditating on yosef's story. 38 m + 9 m

i still can't get over what a fantastic torah study we have on yosef's story. not only do i have a great teacher in my rabbi learner, i have this bunch of thoughtful and bright congregants (my beyttikkuners, and o-me-o-my they can be so funny too.)


vicky and david help open my mind's eye to see that dreaming is a level of consciousness. it does not limit to what happens in sleep. their insights illumine my understanding of dreams. they are fundamentally different from the physical reality around me in that dreams are non-linear in time and multi-dimensional in space. what is deemed impossible in the waking state is reality in dream state.

aaahhh. meditation cultivates my capability of being anchored in the dream state and breaking free of the bondage of the limiting force of the ego that enslaves me in the illusions that i can't do this, i am not enough, i don't have enough and i am not good enough. 

and what about the infinite wisdom of the architecture of torah study whereby we revisit the story year after year? since my state of consciousness differs year to year the light of the torah shines on me at a different angle. torah is a perfectly cut diamond.

this year, rabbi lerner gives us several gems to contemplate on.

i put this one to hwubby: why is it that in yosef's story g-d doesn't speak directly the way it is with avraham and yaakov?

hwubby says, his brothers selling yosef down into the land of restricted consciousness, mitzrayim,  a k a, egypt, is the beginning of a people going into exile in narrow consciousness. the voice of the ego is becoming the voice that grips most people's attention most of the time. so the only way g-d's voice can come through in some way is when the ego is asleep.

hwubby is so right. again, this reaffirms my conviction that the only way i can be liberated from the shackles of the ego's voice is through meditation. day by day, little by little, over time, i build up the power to receive the voice of the inner self, a spark that is as bright as the full force of the universal self.