Ana Bekoach

We've covered quite a bit of ground since the last blog post: a protection chant using the ineffable name YHVH, a further refinement to a Yichudiem, the Kabbalahistic cross, Body of Light and the Ana Bekoach prayer which has been the thread that ties the last few classes together...

The Name of the 42

The Forty-Two Letter Name of God is one Divine Name with 42 letters. I believe it wasn't practical to chant such a large name so it was used in a prayer - created in about the 1st century AD. The prayer is a giant acronym with 7 of the eight verses beginning with each letter. If you do the maths 7 x 7 = 42. Each verse has 7 words each starting with a letter of the Divine Name. The first letter of each verse in-itself spelling a Divine Name that corresponds to a day of the week, beginning with Sunday.

The purpose of the correspondences is to align one's individual energy-field with a portion the Universal Energy emphasised during that day. It helps us to tune into the radio-station broadcast on, say, Tuesday. Is this true you ask? My only reply can be is you must put it to the test (This Knowledge belongs to what the ancient Greeks called Gnosis - Knowledge in the sense of inner knowing). When we pronounce these Names I goto bed feeling so very good. And inner joy is one of the indicators of closeness to Divinity. Divine Names are a remarkable technology.

Here is a transliteration of the prayer:

Ana Becho'ach G'edulat Yeminchah Tatir Tz'rurah

Kabel Rinat Am'chah Sagvenu Taharenu Nora

Na Gibor Dorshei Yichudcha Kevavat Shomrem

Bar'chem Taharem Rachamei Tzidkatcha Tamid Gomlem

Chasin Kadosh B'row Tuvcha Nahel Adatecha

Yachid Ge'eh Le'am'cha Pneh Zochre K'dushatecha

Shav'atenu Kabel Ushma Tza'akatenu Yode'a Ta'alumot

Baruch Shem K'vod Malchuto le'Olam Va'ed

Now if you take each a letter from each verse the following ("meaningless") words can be spelt:

Avgititz - Sunday - The Sun

Karastan - Monday - Moon

Nagdichesh - Tuesday - Mars

Betratztag - Wednesday - Mercury

Chakvetna - Thursday - Jupiter

Yahlefzey - Friday - Venus

Shakutzit - Saturday - Saturn

In Hebrew tradition each day of the week starts with sunset. For example, Sunday evening is the beginning of Monday.

Keeping in mind that we are learning Practical Kabbalah, this prayer and the alignment one achieves pronouncing each Name for the day of the week, and alignment is one of the first steps of any such practice as this.

Pretty soon I shall write up the translation of the Prayer. Watch this space!

The Nephesh

It's been more than a month since the last update to this blog, for which I am sorry as the finer details of Kabbalah with Jacbus may have faded. On the other hand, if I had a good relationship with my Nephesh or Instinctual Self, the aspect of the Soul we share with the animals, then I should have total recall.

Nephesh and Ru'ach (Neshamah omitted for the time-being)

Primitive emotions like hate and anger, memory and insticts are all part of the Nephesh. Apparently it remembers absolutely everything but its reasoning is by association. For example if a dog bit you then the reaction to other dogs, even if they want to be your friend (and perhaps make you coffee), would be apprehension and fear. The Nephesh forms a generalisation with a premise at its foundation, a premise that may not necessarily be true. This is deductive reasoning.

The part of us that is aware and conscious is called the Middle Self or Ru'ach. Its reasoning is opposite to that of the Nephesh as its logic moves from specific facts based on observation to a conclusion. This is called inductive reasoning. Not like the Nephesh. Yet, the Nephesh is important as it provides the power needed to act, change our behaviour and bring creativity and fulfillment into our everyday lives. It is the builder of our lives.

I like the story attached to these 2 concepts of Nephesh and Ru'ach: J described a cartoon of a dwarf strutting with self-assurance, holding a rope. That was the first frame of the cartoon. The next frame showed what was at the end of the rope: an enormous rhinoceros obediantly following the dwarf.

Subpersonalities

Some Kabbalists believe that the Nephesh is almost like an independent person inside of us and can behave on its own; if the Nephesh is not in sync with the rest of the psyche it can act in bizzare ways, making the body sick because it has deduced that life may not be worth living. This idea overlaps with what I have learned about subpersonalities or archetypes within the unconscious. Some of these people within us may not see eye to eye, they may be in disagreement or they may lack awareness of the true nature of life.

The distress of these subpersonalities can be projected onto others causing them to act negatively to us.

Noten Kavod

As a result Kabbalists have developed a technique of “leveling the playing field”, a method of giving respect to all things in our world, from objects like a rock to animals and people. It is touching to hear stories of how people have come to J at a shopping centre or restaurant to ask what he did. Some people sense it. He would say that he gave them respect, and always the response is to give respect back.

The Nephesh responds to respect; it is exactly what needs to be practised in the world today, a respect for all life. Experts in communication say that 80% of communication is non-verbal – for example body language and more subtle means like sensing the energy-field of another. This fact makes the practice of Noten Kavod all the more important. If 80% of all communication is non-verbal then it is the most important way in healing and improving our romantic, everyday and working relationships.

With practice, it goes without saying then that Noten Kavod will heal our own Nephesh and subpersonalities.

Friends

Becoming friends with the Nephesh brings the qualities, abilities and resources of the Nephesh into our everyday lives. It is a vital part of healthy living, of being a person in the world and achieving our deepest goals.

Practical Kabbalah Schedule - 15 Feb 2010

Here is a schedule of events for the 2nd Kabbalah with Jacobus class:

1. Surrendering ("Book of Self Creation" — page 174f )
2. Body Awareness ("Book of Self Creation" — page 174f)
3. Mother Breath ("Book of Self Creation" — page 193f )
4. Toning and Tuning the Body ("Book of Self Creation" — page 175–178)
5. Spontaneous Song ("Book of Self Creation" — page 175–178)
6. Invocation of Subtle Energy ("Book of Self Creation" — page 221–223)
7. Yichudim: Aligning with Cosmic Foces
   A. The Universal Yichud ("Book of Self Creation" — page 320–346)
   The use of this Yichud in this specific manner, aligns the head, throat, heart, solar plexus (called the "liver" in the old terminology), and lower bowel/genitals. These positions are understood to be respectively representative of the "Middle Pillar" on the Etz Chayim (Tree of Life).
   
   a. Head — Keter/Crown;
   b. Throat — Da’at/Knowledge;
   c. Heart/Chest — Tiferet/Beauty;
   d. Liver/Solar Plexus — Yesod/Foundation; and
   e. Lower Bowel/Genitals — Malchut/Kingdom.
   
   The five vowels employed in this special Yichud are related to the body in the following manner:
   
   

   Vowels	Associated Bodily Part
   U (OO) O (OH) A (AH) E (EH) I (EE)	Lower Bowels, Genitals and Anus Solar Plexus (directly below the breast-bone) Centre Chest (Heart) Throat and Neck Head (from the Nose and Cheeks to the crown)

   Primary pronunciation of the Ineffable Name with vowels in related bodily parts:
   
   YA–HA–VA–HA in the HEART
   YE–HE–VE–HE in the THROAT
   YO–HO–VO–HO in the SOLAR PLEXUS
   YI–HI–VI–HI in the HEAD
   YU–HU–VU–HU in the GENITALS

Here it is important to extend the chanting of each name over an entire exhalation, and pronounce each name in the exact spot in your body indicated by the respective vowels.

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As you can see there are pages numbers that refer to The Book of Self Creation. The first 3 points form that basis of Practical Kabbalah. They cultivate body awareness, a quality that our modern lifestyles lack. My life is a prime example, I spend 8 hours a day in my head - my work is extremely mental, and it often drives me mental! I sit and sit and sit goggling at a computer screen. If I move it's because I saw a mosquito sit on my arm.

Perhaps the best way to begin summarising Monday's class is to begin at the end, the time between people leaving my home for their homes at about 10pm. My body feltvery revitalised and energised and felt supple even though I never left my chair. This is the power of toning, spontaneous song and dance. Well, I danced in my fashion.

Preparation began with breathwork by breathing in to the Aleph and Mem, out to the Mem and Shin. Toning these Hebrew letters while breathing is called the Mother Breath and balances the Energy-field and physical body (through resonance). Aleph = Air Element, Mem = Water and Shin = Fire. Earth is excluded since it is considered a passive element. The Aleph, Mem and Shin require our active participation. When we rest in the prana/chi (or whatever) invoked, that is Earth.

Then to continue this process of body awareness we "smiled" and visualised each body part smile back. During the day we smile at our friends with our mouths but I experienced my body "smile" by relaxing and sort of glowing. After all, that's how I respond when a pretty girl smiles at me... then I had a chuckle when I saw my anus smile back!

Chuck, laugh, weep, cry. All this could be responses we have when becoming more aware of the physical body. This is because the body is said to store memories; thoughts and emotion cling to the nervous tissue and we can experience them again when the body relaxes and releases them. This is especially where there are places of stress and tension, where the blood-nervous energy cannot circulate easily.

Along with the smiling was inhaling using the Mother-breath then exhaling and humming to that specific body part, accepting it exactly the way it is - that's what a smile is about. After the humming then resting. The humming, when done on the physical body, progressed into spontaneous song. Initially lead by Jacobus everyone in the room hummed then sang how they felt. This resulted in the most ecstatic chanting, all of us in harmony - much like Red Indian Shamanic ritual. It was special and extremely beautiful.

With the song came lessons in spontaneous dance, beginning in awareness of the hands and the sense of prana in and around them. The more awareness and attention on the hands the more there is a sense of energy until the point one is sensitive to the flow of prana in the energy-field and around us. One moves to this sensation then dances to it.

Toning (part of the Yichudim - Unifications. Universal Yichud above)

I like the way the toning is an extension of natural sounds we and animals make in response to the world around us. This was how the toning was explained at first and I could see it manifest in creatures, our responses to something beautiful or the MOO sound a cow makes with their entire body and especially all the way from the anus (yes, I used that word twice now!) Kabbalistic mantra has developed them further and united them with what it calls Names of God, like Yahweh or YHVH (Yud Heh Vav Heh) yet without losing that connection with these natural responses.

I can understand how Kabbalah may have developed out of millennia of observation of the natural world, from a time when people were more in touch with physicality, not holed up like us in an office driving from A to B. In a word I can say our classes in Practical Kabbalah are Shamanic. I don't mean Shamanic in the sense of primitive but in the sense of primal; a getting in touch with the basics of creation, its very building blocks - and I love it!

The Book of Self Creation by Jacobus Swart

It is very refreshing to read a book on Kabbalah with such a broad commentary of old and contemporary Kabbalistic thought. I find the Kabbalistic section of my mind is going through a spring clean of sorts and many preconceived ideas and concepts are being blown away or put properly in their place. I have many years of reading to put in order...

For example, I didn't realise that the Eits Ha'chaim, the Tree of Life glyph, was a relatively new invention and that it forms quite a small part of Kabbalah (like listening only to radio Tuks or Classic FM.) That Kabbalah sort of evolved out of Merkavah mysticism and that it was influenced by Gnosticism to a large degree. It is organic and I think I have a greater respect for it because it is evolving and organic.

I always find historical facts helpful in gaining a more objective perspective on something like Kabbalah. Just knowing about the various personalities that have contributed towards it as a system or even that set it back a little - like Rabbi Tzvi who gained a large following, proclaimed himself as the Messiah then converted to Islam. It helps to earth or ground it for me.

When exposed to the spiritual energies that practices such as Practical Kabbalah bring it is important to be able to recongise these people within ourselves. Kabbalistic methods can profoundly altar one's perceptions of oneself and the world around one. For example, when practicing Tikkun (Tikkun Olam = "repairing the world", Kabbalistic techniques for helping our planet on a spiritual level), what if I started to develop of Messiah complex? I would want to see the signs!

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on the first chapter so far. Can't wait for tomorrow's class and chapter 2. Till then!

Blogism

Very sorry to those that tried to comment on this blog but couldn't. It had something to do with "comment restrictions", I have changed them so commenting should work now. I'm new to the Blog-a-verse and very much a Neophyte Blogist.

BTW, it's a pity the word Blog is so similar to the word BOG and what that is associated with. I leave it up to my readers to inform me if they believe that's where my ideas are coming from...

The Beginning

The First Monday - Part 1

These blogs are my perspective on a subject that is profoudnly facinating to me: Practical Kabbalah. When I first heard the name Jacobus Swart I knew we had to meet, all I knew is that he's a Kabbalist but I had no idea he was the successor to William Gray. I didn't even know who William Gray was about 12 or more years ago when someone was speaking about him. I knew Kabbalah though and I knew the crackle of magic that I connected with it. This blog is on exactly that, Practical Kabbalah.

It is shunned but many modern day Kabbablists who, I was to learn last Monday the 1st Feb, are mostly influenced by Isaac Luria's student Chiam Vital. Vital wanted to claim sole right on the teachings of the Ari and he slandered the name of the other students. Most of contemporary Kabbalah is based on Vital's account of Luria - who taught only for 2 years in Safed. I didn't know all this! We (a class of about 10 students) are being primed for teachings that are pre-Luria and of which there is a vast body of untranslated text in super condensed hebrew inwhich it was written. That there are not a handful of Divine Names but thousands this thrilling. The crackle of magic intensifies.

The story of the man that was helping to translate some of these texts and his discovery of a Divine Name that causes confusion in ones enemies is a good example. He was one day confronted by "enemies", people that wanted to rob him, and he remembered that name and repeated it. The enemies became confused. The man didn't believe, or wasn't into, Kabbalah yet the Divine Name worked for him. No faith required. The explanation: Divine Names are a combination of Hebrew letters.

Each Hebrew letter is glyph that represents a force-energy pattern. They are Keys Jacobus says and they are archetypes, they are the building blocks of who we are and the Universe. They are an integral part of the collective unconscious of all humankind. We throw switches in the unconscious when we visualise them and especially verbalise them - which I soon found out. Fortunately Koffi (one of the 10 students) asked for some practical exercises. Combinations of these letters are the Divine Names and so far we were taught one: YHVH.

When I chant the YHVH with the combination of pronounciation we were shown, there is an actual physical resonance or vibration in the body. It's extremely invigorating. Being in a wheelchair I find my body misses the stimulation of movement, but my body loves chanting the YHVH. It makes me present in the moment and it feels goood. So very good.

Basic concepts

"What you act on is what you make real". This was introduced first and this one I find (so far) the most challenging. J says he lives in a world in which there is no crime. And this is South Africa you hear? When speaking to people from overseas they mention it in the very next breath. But he believes by living with unlocked doors, no burglar-bars and no alarm systems he is acting on and making real his world of no-crime. He hasn't been burgled or anything for more than 30 years while the houses on the same street have - numerous times. Even if one feels the fear, let it be there, BUT don't act on it or else it is made real.

Ok, I understand the theory here, yet for me leaving the doors unlocked or open while I sleep is similar to lowering myself into a shark-tank without a cage around me. Sharks are predators and I don't know if I would want to put the theory to the test if I only had one crack at it. Clearly this one is going to take some practice. It is an idea firmly based in Kabbalah though and not invented that Monday evening, that we activate the "4 worlds of the Kabbalistis" of Atzilute, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah - Assiah is action. In our actions come together the whole of Creation; J mentioned it when speaking about the Microcosm / Macrocosm connection - we put in motion Creation when we act...

Oops, this is a sudden end but I just looked at the time. That's it for tonight. I have some more thoughts brewing, so watch this space!

Before the beginning

Every alternate Monday starting on the 1st of February, Jacobus Swart will be teaching the Practical Kabbalah. Jacobus is a well respected Kabbalist that I've been bugging for awhile to start classes here in Centurion, South Africa.

He's put together an interesting program. It will serve as a starting point yet I believe the lessons will morph according to what we are collectively looking for over time. Kabbalah means "to receive" or "tradition" which makes receiving it directly from a practicing Kabbalist important. And that that Kabbalist has himself (her herself) received the tradition from one that received it etc.etc. It not static but organic and grows and learning it from a book is like learning to drive from a book.

To keep the lessons heart-centred the overall teachings will emphasise service to humanity: in using this spiritual technology to help others we indirectly help ourselves, the idea is that we become better conduits for Divinity. It is a type of esoteric training that helps bring Light into the world the way electricity makes light radiate from a light-bulb. Yet it is not about becoming a missionary - they usually land up in pots!

So, that said, bring on Monday evening. And if it be Thy Will, let Thy Holy Spirit, Ruach Hakodesh, descend about this company so that we may know Thy Presence, Shekhinah.