This is exactly the situation with regards to life on Earth, with regards to human beings.

Billions of people wonder, daily, why they are here, and what they are supposed to do. Are you one of them? I sure am and have been.

Billions of people wonder why life isn’t working the way it is supposed to work… because somehow we KNOW that life is supposed to be satisfying, joyeous, and full of light and love and pleasure.

What if there were a User’s Manual, and it were being “translated” little by little, so every human being that is interested in “riding the horse in the direction it’s going” could figure out which direction the horse is going. Because with life it is not that easy: even though the smell (life stinks) gives us clues… but life is ultimately more complicated that riding a horse.

Humanity has received at least one user manual (my hunch is that there have been several isolated attempts at giving us clues… that’s why there is so much similarity among the major spiritual movements on earth… among the teachings of “enlightened beings” like the Buddha, Like The Christ… ).

The “manual” this blog concerns itself most is The Zohar (a book), and The Kabbalah (an oral tradition).

If you wanted to ask the question why we would receive a manual that needs to be decyphered… good question. A good question deserves a good answer:

Have you noticed that what comes easy, what comes cheap or free doesn’t see to have a lot of value for people?

It is because no one really wants handouts, we all want to earn our light. When we get more than we “deserve” or have earned, the uncomfortable feeling of “bread of shame” sets in and somehow we aren’t inspired to use what we got, enjoy it, take real advantage of it. We somehow close ourselves to it.

This is also the case with spiritual knowledge. So the “powers that be” make it difficult to acquire the knowledge so that you can earn it, so that you can use it.

I have 23 years of “heavy duty” transformational training under my belt, and yet Kabbalistic knowledge, even the bite size easy pieces published by the Kabbalah Centre puzzle me, engage me, and it takes me a long time to “get it” and even longer to integrate it into my habits and way of thinking.

But as a result, my relationship to the knowledge is that of ownership. I am working for it long and hard, and I am benefiting from it, tremendously.

The question is: how many people are willing to trade hard work for fulfillment, joy, light, love, etc. That is the real question. If nothing changes, in my opinion, not many.

I hope I am mistaken.

Please talk back to me…

OK, simple question, simple answer.

First I tell you what I am not:

• I am not a Kabbalist. Kabbalists study, practice, and teach Kabbalah full time, for many many years. It could be even said that being a Kabbalist is like an insider… you need to be appointed.
• I am not a teacher of Kabbalah
• I am not a guru
• I am not someone who knows a lot about Kabbalah but doesn’t live it.

OK, then what am I?

Well, I was first introduced to Kabbalah by a friend of mine (who is accidentally out of my life… but more about it later.) My introduction happened by way of the book “72 names of God”.

She called me that must come, right away, to Borders… (for those of you that don’t know, Borders is a big book chain with excellent coffee and lots of room to read while there.) At the time I was new to Syracuse, so it took me a long long long time to get to the store… 7 or so miles in an hour… how is that for speeed.

I liked the book, I liked the idea that everyone has a “god-name” according to their birthdate, mine is 34. The letters, lamed-hey-chet losely mean “Forget Thyself”.

I didn’t think it applied to me, but you’ll notice, no one does. It has something to do with your soul’s tikkun (more about that later.)

Anyway, I bought the book, went home and did a search on the internet, found the Kabbalah Centre’s website, ordered their free (shipping only) book The Secret (not the “famous” movie). Then in a few days I got a call from the Kabbalah Centre and they sold me a set of 23 books, called the Zohar. I opted to pay in payments. It came in a huge box. I picked it up at my mailbox and in the next 10 minutes it saved my life.

What sold me to buy the book is that it is said to have an energy connection to “The Light” and it protects the space it is located. The story said that a shipment of a pallet of Zohars in Iran survived a warehouse fire. The only thing that survived, unscathed, was that one pallet. After how my life is going, I believe that this is true.

I bought the Zohar 5 years ago and since then I haven’t had a scratch on my body… which is a miracle, especially if you take into consideration that I drive like a maniac, and my history was lots of accidents… not since March of 2003.

The other amazing thing that happened right after I bought The Zohar is that I suddenly found the courage and energy to leave an abusive, going-nowhere, dead-end, soul-deadening relationship… which I’d wanted to do for about 3 years at the time. By the end of July I was out of there, found an excellent apartment, and had more energy to live than in the past 10 years. Yaay.

Two years later I got my own “student support” person/teacher, Sivan Bramli. We have been studying Kabbalah together ever since, I have gone to several big holiday events, watched screencasts of others, and read lots of books.

Aside from Kabbalah, I was active in Landmark Education for 20 years, am a trained axiologist/ Value Profile consultant, studied with different transformational teachers (will compare the teachings in other articles… ok?), am an avid reader (read about an hour a day in spite of my dyslexia and add).

But more important qualifier than anything: I am a thinker. I am a right-brain thinker. I am in touch with that hidden dimension where all is known.

So, here you are, this is what gives me the right to write about Kabbalah.

If you want people closer to the horse’s mouth, go the the Kabbalah Centre’s website, or find the many orthodox kabbalah sites, or the sites that teach the mystical aspects of the Kabbalah. I, personally, subscribe to the Kabbalah Centre’s interpretation of what the Kabbalah and The Zohar say, and I see it work in my life, and in the lives of people that I coach… oh, I forgot to say that I have been a transformatinal coach for 22 years.