INTRODUCTION
1. Daniel 12:3.
2. Zohar II:2a.
3. Arthur Green, Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology (Lanham, Md.: Jason Aronson, 1994), p. xxiv.
4. Daniel Matt, God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony between Science and Spirituality (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 1998), p. 36.
5. Genesis Rabba 68:9. The Midrash asks “Why is God called a ‘dwelling place?’ (Psalms 90:1) Because God is the dwelling place of the world and the world is not God’s dwelling place.” The term panentheism was coined by German philosopher Karl C. F. Krause (a disciple of Schelling) in 1828.
6. Psalms 65:2.
7. David Aaron, The Secret Life of God: Discovering the Divine within You (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), p. 161.
8. David A. Cooper, “The Godding Process,” Parabola, http://parabola.org/content/view/137/.
9. David Loy, Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 17.
10. See Rachel Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God: The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism, trans. Jeffrey Green (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 25–26.
11. “Running and returning,” Ezekiel 1:14. See R. Yakov Yosef of Polonnoye, Toldot Yakov Yosef, Yitro 54b: “This is the mystery of ratzo v’shov: that there are two levels, Gadlut [expanded mind] and Katnut [contracted mind].”
12. Yeridah and aliyah are often associated with the angels on the ladder in Jacob’s dream, Genesis 28:12.
13. Nisargadatta, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, trans. Maurice Frydman (Durham, N.C.: Acorn Press, 1973), p. 269.
1. Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda, trans. and eds. How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (Los Angeles, Calif.: Vedanta Press, 2007), p. 130. The wording I have freely translated here as “God” refers to “the Atman,” which can also be translated as “Self.” However, since in Vedanta, Self is the All, it corresponds to the nondual “God beyond God” discussed here.
2. See Loy, Nonduality, pp. 1–35.
3. R. Shmuel Schneersohn, Mi Chamocha, trans. in a bilingual edition by Yosef Marcus as True Existence (New York: Kehot, 2002), pp. 67–69. The translation here is my own.
4. See Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (London: Little, Brown & Co., 1991); Patricia Churchland and Terrence Sejnowski, The Computational Brain (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); John H. Crook, The Evolution of Human Consciousness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
5. Transcribed by Sadhu Arunachala, in the introduction to Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness (Carlsbad, Calif.: Inner Directions, 2000), p. xxiii.
6. Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi, p. 257.
7. Ken Wilber, “From You to Infinity in 3 Pages,” http://integralinstitute.org/talk_infinity.aspx.
8. The term “meme” was coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. See Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 192.
9. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, p. 210. See also Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 175–81.
10. Ibid., p. 219.
11. Susan Blackmore, “Waking from the Meme Dream,” in The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day-to-Day Lives, eds. Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor, and Guy Claxton (London: Rider, 2000), pp. 112–22; also available at www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/awaken.html.
12. Ibid., pp. 112–22.
13. Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World (Boston: Shambhala, 2006), p. 277.
14. Ibid.
15. See Dennis Genpo Merzel, Big Mind, Big Heart: Finding Your Way (McLean, Va.: Big Mind, 2007).
16. See Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan, eds. Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism: 50 Years After (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), pp. 166, 175; Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, trans. Allan Arkush (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 8–10, 221–28, 423–25.
17. See Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen Mackenna, (New York: Penguin, 1991), 5.2.1, 6.9.4, 6.9.6.
18. Ibid., 5.1.7.
19. Porphyry, “On the Life of Plotinus,” in The Enneads, trans. Stephen Mackenna.
20. For a nondualist reading of Heidegger, phenomenology, and deconstruction see Loy, Nonduality, pp. 79–89, 248–60. For Heidegger, subject-object dualism is but one way of looking at the world, and in fact a derivative one. Our true sense of being, Dasein, is a form of caring for Being, a finding of significance in it. Only secondarily do we divide up the world into various objects, some of which we regard and others of which we do not. For Heidegger, each percept necessarily carries with it a concept, and an emotive investment; pseudoscientific detachment and objectification are but one attitude among many.
21. Baruch Spinoza, Ethics and Selected Letters, ed. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1982), part 1, props. 2–6, 8, pp. 32–34.
22. Ibid., part 1, def. 6, p. 31.
23. Ibid., prop. 14, p. 39.
24. Ibid., part 5, p. 36.
25. Meister Eckhart, “Sermon IV: ‘True Hearing’ on Ecclesiasticus 14:30.” In Meister Eckhart’s Sermons. Translated by Claud Field. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian Classics, 1909), p. 13, www.ccel.org/ccel/eckhart/sermons.html.
26. See F. C. Happold, Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology (New York: Penguin, 1991), pp. 45–55.
27. Or Ha Emet 2b, in Arthur Green and Barry Holtz, trans. and eds., Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 1993), p. 55.
28. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 390–91.
29. Wilber, Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm, (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000), pp. 55–57.
30. Blaise Pascal, Pensées, translated by A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin, 1995), p. 28.
31. See R. Aharon of Staroselye, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 3b. Citations to R. Aharon’s books are to the new 2004 Jerusalem edition. Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
32. Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz, eds. and trans., Your Word Is Fire, p. 14. See also Maggid Dvarav L’Yaakov 154 (likening the ayin to the liminal time of bein hashmashot).
33. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 13a.
34. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 7a–b.
35. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, recorded by Mahendranath Gupta, translated by Swami Nikhilananda (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942), p. 217.
36. The Cloud of Unknowing, trans. Clifton Wolters (New York: Penguin, 1978), p. 68.
37. Merzel, Big Mind, Big Heart, p. 101.
38. Keter Shem Tov II: 2b.
39. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: Signet Classics, 1965), p. 184.
40. See Karen Warren, Ecofeminist Philosophy (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Greta Gaard, ed., Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993); Judith Plant, ed., Healing the Wounds: The Power of Ecological Feminism (Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society, 1989).
41. Adyashanti, My Secret Is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti (Los Gatos, Calif.: Open Gate, 2003), p. 27.
42. Rami Shapiro, Open Secrets: The Letters of Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael (Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Monkfish, 2004), p. 18.
1. Meister Eckhart, rendered by Daniel Ladinsky as “Expands His Being,” in his Love Poems from God. (New York: Penguin, 2002), p. 112.
2. Adyashanti, My Secret is Silence, p. 41.
3. On the many meanings of devekut, see Miles Krassen, Uniter of Heaven and Earth: Rabbi Meshullam Feibush Heller of Zbarazh and the Rise of Hasidism in Eastern Galicia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 5–7, 50–54, 237–38, discussing, and differing from, Scholem.
4. On the appearance of pantheism and panentheism in medieval texts, see Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (New York: Plume, 1978), pp. 144–45. As Scholem notes (at p. 148), no Kabbalistic sources say that God has no existence apart from created beings.
5. Quoted in Scholem, Kabbalah, 144.
6. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 20b.
7. See Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 83–110.
8. See David Cooper, God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism (New York: Riverhead, 1998), pp. 65–66.
9. Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), p. 413.
10. Green, Seek My Face, p. 19.
11. Cooper, God Is a Verb, pp. 69–72.
12. Green, Seek My Face, pp. 18–19; see also Arthur Green, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 2004), p. 2.
13. Deuteronomy 6:4.
14. Aryeh Kaplan, trans., The Light Beyond: Adventures in Hassidic Thought (New York: Moznaim, 1981), p. 37.
15. Sfat Emet, Otzar Ma’amarim u’Michtavim, 75f, in Green, Ehyeh, pp. 22–23.
16. R. Shmuel Schneersohn, Mi Chamocha, p. 29. Translation here is mine.
17. Shenei Luchot HaBrit, Shavuot 189b.
18. An alternate translation of Deuteronomy 4:35.
19. R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Tanya, 161 (Shaar HaYichud chap. 6). Citations to the Tanya are from the 1981 printing by Kehot, the Chabad publication society (New York.: Kehot, 1981). Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Page numbers are from the standard London edition.
20. Moshe Gordon, “Vayishlach 5763.” www.yoy.org.il/article.php?id=97.
21. Likutim Yekarim 14d, trans. Kaplan, The Light Beyond, p. 37.
22. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 1a.
23. See also R. Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (the Tzemach Tzedek), Torah Or, Ki Tisa, 172, in Rachel Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 51: “‘I am the Lord, I have not changed,’ for He has no change, just as before the creation of the world so too is He truly now, for all the worlds are annihilated in total annihilation before him . . . and although the worlds seem like an entity to us, that is an utter lie.”
24. Psalms 139:7–12.
25. Ruach alone, meaning “spirit” or “wind,” is found commonly in the Bible, beginning with Genesis 1:2. Ruach HaKodesh appears only twice, in Psalms 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10, 11.
26. On the Shechinah as “face,” see BT Berachot 64a, BT Sanhedrin 103a; Deuteronomy Rabba 7:8 (commenting on Moses seeing God/Shechinah “face to face”). In some cases, the Shechinah was used in translation to modify the problematic theology of biblical statements. For example, Onkelos renders “God in Zion” (Psalms 65:2) as “God whose Shechinah is in Zion,” “I dwell among them” (Numbers 5:3) as “My Shechinah dwells among them,” and “Is God among us?” (Exodus 57:7) as “Is the Shechinah of God among us or not?” See Joshua Abelson, The Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature (New York: Hermon Press, 1969), pp. 78–79, 98–99.
27. See, for example, BT Sotah 5a; Lamentations Rabba 25 (describing ten journeys of the Shechinah), Song of Songs Rabba 2 (describing Shechinah as “compressed” between the fingers of the priests during the priestly blessing). See also Abelson, Immanence of God, pp. 104–8.
28. Exodus Rabba 2:5. The remark refers to the “choice” of God to manifest in the burning bush.
29. See BT Sanhedrin 39a; BT Baba Batra 25a.
30. Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 1:4.
31. Zohar III:225a (Raya Mehemna, Pinchas).
32. Ibid.
33. Iggrot Baal haTanya u’Bnei Doro 97–98 in Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 16.
34. See Louis Jacobs, Seeker of Unity: The Life and Works of Aaron of Starosselje (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006), p. 119.
35. See, for example, Zohar II:85b. Later strata of the Zohar are more traditionally theistic. See Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 148.
36. Quoted in Schäfer and Dan, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 222.
37. Sefer ha Rimmon, quoted in Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 147
38. R. Azriel of Gerona, quoted in Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, p. 423. (I have substituted “nothingness” for Arkush’s “Nought.”)
39. R. Azriel of Gerona, “The Explanation of the Ten Sefirot,” trans. Joseph Dan, The Early Kabbalah (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), p. 94.
40. Ibid., p. 90.
41. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 222.
42. Exodus 32:8.
43. As one later Hasidic master said, “God Himself needs the presence of the Shechinah in the lower world.” R. Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl, Meor Einayim, Noah, trans. by Arthur Green, The Light of the Eyes (Mahwah N.J.: Paulist Press, 1982), p. 100.
44. Scholem, Major Trends, p. 252.
45. Scholem, Kabbalah, pp. 149–51.
46. R. Moses Cordovero, Perek Helek trans. of the Shiur Komah, Modena manuscript, 206b, quoted in Bracha Zack, “Moshe Cordovero’s Doctrine of Tzimtzum,” Tarbiz 58 (1989), pp. 213–14.
47. R. Moses Cordovero, Elimah Rabbati 24d–25a. (The first sentence is: ha’eloha kol nimtza, v’ ein kol nimtza ha’eloha.) See Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 150.
48. Sefer Baal Shem Tov, Va’etchanan 13, trans. Aryeh Kaplan, The Light Beyond, p. 37.
49. Sefer Baal Shem Tov, Bereshit 15, The Light Beyond, p. 43.
50. Tzavaat HaRivash 76.
51. Keter Shem Tov 51b. My translation.
52. Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, On the Essence of Chassidus (New York: Kehot, 1986), p. 28.
53. Zohar I:18b.
54. Tanya, 154 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 2).
55. Tanya, 155 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 3).
56. Ibid.
57. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 2b–3a. See Jacobs, Seeker of Unity, pp. 98–99.
58. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 2b.
59. See Scholem, Major Trends, pp. 260–64. Scholem notes that Hasidic rereadings of tzimtzum are often pantheistic rebellions against a fundamentally theistic doctrine.
60. Tanya, 156 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 4).
61. Tanya, 159 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 6).
62. Ibid. In the Zohar, Elohim is usually associated with Binah. Both, however, are the principle of the “left side,” the feminine, and that which contains, encloses, and bounds.
63. This phrase is found in the Shacharit (morning) prayer service.
64. Tanya, 164 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 7).
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 28.
68. R. Meir ibn Gabbai, Avodat Hakodesh (1531).
69. Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, Mi Chamocha. Translation here is mine.
70. The literal meaning is “thought makes new [or ‘is made anew’], but the Holy One is ancient/primordial.” Kaplan renders it, “Thought is something that was created, while God is without beginning,” in The Light Beyond, p. 45. My reading is that thought’s content is based upon new sense data and perceptions, whereas God is antecedent to all of these. Another reading might be: thought is a posteriori but God is a priori.
71. R. Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, Kedushat Levi, Mishpatim, 190, translation mine. In the rest of this section, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak speaks of distance and nearness, transcendence and immanence, fear and love, in the context of revelation. The quotation here comments on the Children of Israel standing back from Sinai. As the elders move closer, they are able to see both immanence and transcendence, which Rabbi Levi Yitzchak analogizes to the two “legs” seen at Sinai.
72. R. Yakov Yosef of Polonnoye, Ben Porat Yosef 50b.
73. R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, Likkutei Amarim 26b, trans. Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 17.
74. R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, Torat HaMagid II, p. 162, The Light Beyond, p. 37.
75. R. Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl, Meor Einayim, Noah, trans. Green, The Light of the Eyes, p. 100.
76. Ibid., Vayetze, The Light of the Eyes, p. 224.
77. Likkutim Yekarim 115b, trans. Krassen, Uniter of Heaven and Earth, p. 86.
78. Ibid., 117b, p. 91.
79. Ibid., 115b, p. 89.
80. R. Nachman of Bratzlav, Likkutei Moharan 33:2 (translation mine).
81. Yerushalmi Taanit 1:1.
82. Isaiah 21:11. “Seir” is generally a euphemism for Rome, or Christianity.
83. Deuteronomy 30:11.
84. R. Nachman of Bratzlav, Likkutei Moharan 33:2 (translation mine).
85. Tanya, 54 (Likkutei Amarim, chap. 22).
86. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “A Triumphalist Table of In/Compatibility of Other Religions with Judaism,” Zeek, www.zeek.net/802zalman/, February 2008.
87. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Wrapped in a Holy Flame: Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), p. 20.
88. Green, Ehyeh, p. 19.
89. Green, Seek My Face, p. 6.
90. Ibid., p. 7.
91. Ibid., p. 109.
92. Ibid., pp. 133–34.
93. Rami Shapiro, Open Secrets, p. 19.
94. Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, introduction to Shankara, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Viveka-Chudamani): Timeless Teachings on Nonduality, trans. and ed. by Prabhavananda and Isherwood (Los Angeles, Calif.: Vedanta, 1970), p. 7.
95. Aitareya Upanishad 3.3, Rig Veda.
96. Mandukya Upanishad 1.2, Atharva Veda.
97. Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, Sama Veda.
98. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, Yahur Veda.
99. Shankara, Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, pp. 72–73. For detailed expositions of Vedanta philosophy, see Hans Torwesten, Vedanta: Heart of Hinduism (Jackson, Tenn.: Grove Press, 1994); Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969).
100. Ibid., p. 104.
101. The best philosophical treatment of nonduality of which I am aware is Loy, Nonduality, which compares nondual systems and theories of reality and language, and works through problems in duality and nonduality in a philosophically rigorous way.
102. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 32.
103. Vivekananda, Living at the Source: Yoga Teachings of Vivekananda (Boston: Shambhala, 2001), p. 3. Living at the Source is a compilation of selections from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (available online at www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/complete_works.htm) In the original source, see vol. 2, p. 461.
104. Ibid., p. 4 (in original, vol. 1, p. 403).
105. Ibid., p. 118 (in original, vol. 8, p. 429).
106. Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi, p. 3.
107. Ibid., p. xix.
108. Nisargadatta, I Am That, p. 30.
109. Ibid., p. 16.
110. Ramesh Balsekar, Consciousness Speaks, ed. Wayne Liquorman (Redondo Beach, Calif.: Advaita Press, 1992), p. 384. See also p. 193.
111. On the interrelationship of Buddhism and Vedanta, see Loy, Nonduality, p. 199.
112. See Loy, Nonduality, p. 192–94.
113. Edward Conze, trans., Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra, (New York: Vintage, 2003).
114. Loy, Nonduality, p. 30.
115. James Broughton, “This Is It,” in Special Deliveries: New and Selected Poems (Seattle, Wash.: Broken Moon Press, 1990), p. 88.
116. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 842.
117. Jan Kersschot, This Is It: The Nature of Oneness (London: Watkins, 2006), p. 25.
118. Jean Klein, Who Am I: The Sacred Quest, compiled and edited by Emma Edwards (Salisbury, U.K.: Non-Duality Press, 2006).
CHAPTER THREE
1. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 5. In the original source, see vol. 2, p. 471.
2. Quoted in Rabbi David Cooper, “The Godding Process.”
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Brahma,” in Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 524.
4. Meister Eckhart, “Tractate II,” quoted in F. C. Happold, Mysticism, p. 275.
5. Nisargadatta, I Am That, p. 16.
6. Bereshit Rabba 9:7.
7. Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
8. Quoted in Jay Michaelson, “The Buddha from Brooklyn,” Forward, November 26, 2004.
9. R. Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl, Hanhagot Yesharot, trans. Arthur Green, The Light of the Eyes, pp. 35–36.
10. Aaron, The Secret Life of God, p. 138.
11. See Matt, God and the Big Bang, pp. 47–57.
12. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 80.
13. See Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber’s Life and Work: The Early Years 1878–1923 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981), pp. 99–123.
14. See Loy, Nonduality, pp. 283–91.
15. They are also devotional pathways. To quote Ramakrishna again: “Suppose there is an error in worshipping the clay image; doesn’t God know that through it He alone is being invoked? He will be pleased with that very worship. Why should you get a headache over it? You had better try for knowledge and devotion yourself.” Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 80. Of course, for Jews the “headache” is more severe than for Hindus. In my own practice, I have found that respecting the form of Judaism often compels me to turn aside from other forms in order for the Jewish one to remain stable. In such moments, however, the emphasis is ideally on the fidelity to one form rather than on aversion, judgments, or disrespect regarding another.
16. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 39 (in the original, vol. 8, p. 256).
17. Adyashanti, “There You Go Again,” in My Secret Is Silence, p. 98.
18. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah, 2b; Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Likkutei Torah, 20c.
19. Charles F. Keyes, “Buddhist Economics and Buddhist Fundamentalism,” in Fundamentalisms and the State, eds. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
20. See Elliot Wolfson, “Oneiric Imagination and Mystical Annihilation in Habad Hasidism,” ARC: The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies 35 (2007): 131–57.
21. R. Shlomo of Lutsk, in Norman Lamm, ed., Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary, (Jersey City, N.J.: Ktav, 1999), pp. 23–24.
22. Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamikakarika, 25: 19–20, in Candrakirti, Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way, trans. Mervyn Sprung (Boulder, Colo.: Prajna Press, 1979).
23. See Green, Seek My Face, pp. 14–17.
24. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Torat Menahem: Hitwwa’aduyyot 5743, vol. 2 (New York: Lahak Hanochos, 1993), p. 1060, quoted in Wolfson, “Oneiric Imagination.”
25. See R. Hayyim Vital, Etz Hayyim 1:1b–1d, 8:1; Shaar HaHakdamot, R. Dov Ber Schneerson, Torat Hayyim: Bereshit, 243c–d, quoted in Wolfson, “Oneiric Imagination.” The symbolism of circle and line has been traced to Pre-Socratic philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus.
26. In classical Kabbalah, these symbols are gendered: line masculine and circle feminine. However, because of the dangers of essentializing gender and gender dichotomies, I have not emphasized this aspect here.
27. Exodus 25:8.
1. e.e. cummings, “i thank You God for this most amazing,” in 100 Selected Poems (New York: Grove Press, 1959), p. 114.
2. St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 88, 5, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the Twenty-First Century, edited by John E. Rotelle (New York: New City Press, 1990), p. 422.
3. Jack Kerouac, On the Road (New York: Penguin Classics, 2002), p. 5.
4. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2008), p. 105.
5. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 217.
6. Green, Seek My Face, p. 25.
7. Loy, Nonduality, p. 283.
8. Ramakrishna, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 138.
9. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 36. In the original source, see vol. 2, p. 377.
10. Robert Frost, “The Secret Sits,” in A Witness Tree (New York: Henry Holt, 1942).
CHAPTER FIVE
1. Buber’s interpretation of Hasidism was a subject of controversy between him and Gershom Scholem. See Gershom Scholem, “Martin Buber’s Interpretation of Hasidism,” in The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1995), p. 243ff; Karl Grotzinger, “The Buber-Scholem Controversy about the Hasidic Tale and Hasidism—Is There a Solution?” in Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, pp. 327–36.
2. Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), describes this history in fascinating detail.
3. Arthur Green’s pseudonymous essay on this subject—“Psychedelics and Kabbalah,” written under the name Itzik Lodzer—is contained in the anthology The New Jews, edited by James A. Sleeper and Alan L. Mintz (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), pp. 176–92.
4. Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 32.
5. Ibid., p. 133.
6. Moses Cordovero, Or Ne’erav, part 2, chap. 2 (Jerusalem: Kol Yehuda, 1965), pp. 18–19. Translation mine.
7. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 105. In the original source, see vol. 1., p. 325.
8. See Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordan, eds., Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2008).
9. Robert Levine, There Is No Messiah and You’re It: The Stunning Transformation of Judaism’s Most Provocative Idea (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 2002).
10. David Friedman, “A Cure for Messianic Madness,” http://www.kosmic-kabbalah.com/cure-messianic-madness.
11. Joel 2:28.
12. Epistle of the Baal Shem Tov, translation mine. See also David Sears, The Path of the Baal Shem Tov (Lanham, Md.: Jason Aronson, 1996).
13. Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, On the Essence of Chassidus, pp. 41–43. Translation mine.
14. It is also an essential Hasidic teaching: the “effusion of new light, of the aspect of the interiority of keter and higher—effusion of the innermost of Atik, that is Ein Sof, that is ineffable.” Ibid., p. 26. Translation mine.
15. Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi, p. 256.
16. See Ken Wilber, Integral Spirituality, pp. 58–70; and Ken Wilber, A Theory of Everything (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), pp. 5–8. Of course, the content of these stages varies greatly from culture to culture; the theoretical underpinning of the models is that the overall structure does not. See Lawrence Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development: The Psychology of Moral Development (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 250–52; Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Cambridge, U.K.: Blackwell, 1996).
17. See generally Jean Piaget, The Essential Piaget, edited by Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Voneche Gruber (New York: Basic Books, 1977); and also Piaget’s The Moral Judgment of the Child (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2008).
18. Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).
19. Susanne Cook-Greuter, “Maps for Living: Ego-Development Stages from Symbiosis to Conscious Universal Embeddedness,” Adult Development, vol. 2: Models and Methods in the Study of Adolescent and Adult Thought, eds. Michael L. Commons et al. (Milton Park, U.K.: Praeger, 1990).
20. James Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981).
21. Lawrence Kohlberg, Charles Levine, and Alexandra Hewer, Moral Stages: A Current Formulation and Response to Critics (New York: Karger, 1983). But see Carol Gilligan, “In a Different Voice: Women’s Conception of Self and Morality,” Harvard Education Review 47, no. 4 (1977), critiquing Kohlberg’s model as androcentric.
22. Beck and Cowan, Spiral Dynamics.
23. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (New York: Noonday Press, 1951), p. 11.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 36 (in original, see 6:133).
2. Quoted in Philip Kapleau, Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment (New York: Anchor, 1989), p. 205.
3. Zohar I:241a. The Aramaic is yistaklun, which might also be rendered “looks closely.”
4. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 7a–b. In Kabbalistic language, R. Aharon says that hochmah and binah are insufficient for true knowledge; da’at must also involve the lower sefirot of emotion and physicality.
5. Schäfer and Dan, eds., Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, p. 347.
6. See, for example, Jan Kersschot, This Is It, pp. 8–14, 43–47, 90–91; Ramesh Balsekar, Consciousness Speaks, pp. 148–56, 192–95.
7. Wei Wu Wei, Ask the Awakened: The Negative Way (Boulder, Colo.: Sentient, 2002), p. 23.
8. The original story is available in The Essential Rebbe Nachman, trans. Avraham Greenbaum (Jerusalem: Azamra, 2006). See Aaron, The Secret Life of God, p. 150. Aaron suggests that monotheism itself is just such a ruse; if one doesn’t profess it, one seems to be insane, so one professes it as make-believe.
9. R. Aharon, Shaarei Ha Avodah 13a.
10. Ibid., 1b.
11. Ibid., 12a.
12. Ibid., 71a–b.
13. Ibid., 4a.
14. Ibid., 7a, 12a.
15. R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, “Boney Yerushalayim,” in Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 29.
16. DovBer Pinson, Toward the Infinite: The Way of Kabbalistic Meditation (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 25–26.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Tanya, 14 (Likkutei Amarim, chap. 3).
20. Solomon Maimon, “On a Secret Society, and Therefore a Long Chapter,” in Essential Papers on Hasidism, ed. Gershon Hundert (New York: New York University Press, 1991), p. 16.
21. Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, Mi Chamocha, pp. 27, 31. Translation here is mine.
22. Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, ed. Arnold Kotler (New York: Bantam, 1991), pp. 95–96.
23. Ajahn Sumedho, The Way It Is (Hertfordshire, U.K.:, Amaravati, 1991), p. 132.
24. Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi, p. 21.
25. Quoted in Wei Wu Wei, Ask the Awakened, p. 15.
26. See Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), pp. 319–20.
27. See Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, “Meditation,” in The Dzogchen Primer: An Anthology of Writings by Masters of the Great Perfection, ed. Martha Binder Schmidt (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), pp. 50–54.
28. Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within, p. 319.
29. DovBer Pinson, Toward the Infinite, p. 91.
30. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, I:13.
31. Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (New York: Vintage, 1989), pp. 22–23.
32. Tiferet HaYehudi, 176 no. 93. The Hebrew for “rule” is klal, which might also mean “general principle,” as in there are no general principles for the service of God, only specific paths. See Michael Rosen, The Quest for Authenticity: The Thought of Reb Simhah Bunim (Jerusalem: Urim, 2008).
33. Wilber, Eye to Eye, p. 33.
34. Green, Seek My Face, p. 23.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Imrei Tzaddikim 18c, trans. Kaplan, Meditation and Kabbalah, p. 302.
2. Green, Seek My Face, p. xxiii.
3. Likkutim Yekarim 2b, 20a.
4. R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, Maggid Dvarav L’Yaakov 110.
5. Shemu’ah Tovah 79b–80a, quoted in Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz, eds. and trans., Your Word Is Fire, p. 57.
6. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 2a, 9a.
7. See Jacobs, Seeker of Unity, pp. 12–13, 115–18; Naftali Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1990). R. Aharon’s blistering attack on R. Dov Ber’s Tract on Ecstasy may be found in Shaarei Ha Avodah 6a–7b.
8. Tzavaat HaRivash 68.
9. See Maggid Dvarav L’Yaakov 162.
10. R. Yakov Yosef of Polonnoye, Toldot Yakov Yosef, Bereshit 8c, in The Light Beyond, p. 44.
11. Meister Eckhart, “Always Kissing,” Love Poems from God, p. 100.
12. Psalms 31:23.
13. Psalms 119:20.
14. BT Sanhedrin 106b.
15. Likkutim Yekarim 116a, Uniter of Heaven and Earth, p. 90.
16. Tzavaat HaRivash 93.
17. St. Francis of Assisi, rendered by Daniel Ladinsky as “He Asked for Charity,” in Love Poems from God , p. 33.
18. Deuteronomy 16:20; Isaiah 1:16.
19. Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 24:20–22; Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 19:17.
20. BT Shabbat 31a; Leviticus 19:18.
21. Richard Smoley, Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), pp. 180–83.
22. John 8:32.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. Sfat Emet, Otzar Ma’amarim u’Michtavim, 75f, in Arthur Green, Ehyeh, pp. 22–23. Brackets in original.
2. See, for example, Tzavaat HaRivash 5–6 (“Attach your thought to Above. Do not eat or drink excessively, but only to the extent of maintaining your health. Never look intently at mundane matters, nor pay any attention to them, so that you may be separated from the physical.”).
3. Likkutim Yekarim 54, trans. Arthur Green, “Hasidism: Discovery and Retreat,” in The Other Side of God: A Polarity in World Religions, ed. Peter Berger (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1981), pp. 117–18.
4. Proverbs 3:6.
5. See Krassen, Uniter of Heaven and Earth, pp. 48–49.
6. Keter Shem Tov 102.
7. See R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 216a–b; Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 146.
8. Nehemiah 9:6.
9. Zohar III:225a.
10. R. Solomon of Lutsk, Dibrat Shelomo, Shemini, 2:25–26, quoted in Seth Brody, “Open to Me the Gates of Righteousness: The Pursuit of Holiness and Non-Duality in Early Hasidic Teaching,” Jewish Quarterly Review 89, nos. 1–2 (July–October 1998), pp. 14–15.
11. Spinoza, Ethics, part 5, p. 14.
12. Quoted in Loy, Nonduality, p. 238.
13. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 121. In the original source, see vol. 5, p. 270.
14. See R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 45a–b; Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God, p. 132.
15. R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Maamarei Admor Hazaken 26, in Elior, Paradoxical Ascent, p. 29. Italics in original.
16. R. Menachem M. Schneerson, On the Essence of Chassidus, p. 28.
17. R. Nachman of Bratzlav, Likkutei Moharan 64:2.
18. R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, Maggid Dvarav L’Yaakov no. 97.
19. Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love (New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 188.
20. Ibid., p. 191. The guru quoted is Swami Muktananda.
21. Aaron, The Secret Life of God, p. 173.
22. Rami Shapiro, Open Secrets, p. 114.
23. R. Aharon, Sha’arei HaAvodah 42b.
24. R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, Maggid D’varav L’Yaakov 240.
25. R. Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, Or Hameir, Pekudei 85, in Rachel Elior, The Mystical Origins of Hasidism (Portland, Ore.: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006), p. 76.
26. Baba Kuhi of Shiraz, trans. R. A. Nicholson, in F. C. Happold, Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology (New York: Penguin, 1991), p. 251.
27. Loy, Nonduality, p. 212.
28. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaAvodah 14a.
29. Elior, Paradoxical Ascent, p. 26.
30. Chuang Tzu, trans. Francis H. Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism (State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), p. 27.
31. See Loy, Nonduality, pp. 248–60; Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philosophy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 71–104; Jacques Derrida, “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,” in Derrida and Negative Theology, eds. Harold Coward and Toby Foshay (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 88–95.
32. Nicholas of Cusa, quoted in Happold, Mysticism, p. 46.
33. DovBer Pinson, Toward the Infinite, p. 124.
34. Elior, Paradoxical Ascent, p. 67.
35. R. Aharon, Avodat HaLevy I, 1, in Elior, Paradoxical Ascent, p. 125.
36. R. Aharon, Shaarei HaYichud v’HaEmunah 157b.
CHAPTER NINE
1. Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal, p. 408.
2. Rivka Shatz Uffenheimer, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth-Century Hasidic Thought, trans. Jonathan Chipman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).
3. See Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 174; Jerome Gellman, “Hasidic Mysticism as an Activism,” Religious Studies 42 (2006): 343.
4. Ramesh Balsekar, Consciousness Speaks, p. 48.
5. There are those who disagree. The neo-Vedantist writer Jan Kersschot has said that “as soon as it is clear that Beingness is reflected everywhere, there is no point in trying to bring peace and bliss into our lives, or to try and work towards a better world.” Kersschot, This Is It, p. 67. I would reply that there is “no point” absolutely but that there remains a “point” from the relative perspective.
6. Ramesh Balsekar, quoted at Clearsight, “Wisdom Quotes from Enlightened Teachers,” http://peterspearls.com.au/spiritual-quotes.htm.
7. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9XbcyaJlTo.
8. Tanya, 164 (Shaar HaYichud, chap. 7).
9. Timothy Conway, “On Neo-Advaitin Ramesh Balsekar,” available at www.enlightened-spirituality.org/ramesh_balsekar.html.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. Padmasambhava, the half-mythical founder of Tibetan Buddhism, put it this way: “Do not interrupt conditioned roots of virtue even though you realize appearances to be mind.” Padmasambhava, “Taking Refuge,” in The Dzogchen Primer, p. 151.
12. There may be exceptions. R. Mordechai Lainer of Ishbitz suggested that there are some circumstances in which one may disobey a law, as in the Biblical tales of Judah. And it is possible that the seclusion of R. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk (the Kotzker Rebbe) was an act of quietism. However, these are the exceptions more than the rule.
13. See generally, Robert Kane, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
14. Spinoza, Ethics and Selected Letters, part 3, p. 2S.
15. Daniel Dennett calls this the “Cartesian theater” view. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, pp. 109–15. On the scientific consensus regarding Cartesian dualism generally, see Dennett, Consciousness Explained, pp. 33–39.
16. Ibid., pp. 219, 253–54.
17. Famously, Descartes himself suggested that there is a nexus between the material and the non-material in the pineal gland of the brain. Given what we now know about the pineal gland and its role in consciousness, that Descartes chose it is quite remarkable, even prescient. But even electricity and the various energies of the brain are still material.
18. Ken Wilber’s Quantum Questions (rev. ed., Boston: Shambhala, 2001) is a terrific anthology of the twentieth-century masters of quantum theory all lining up to say that, while this hypothesis is remarkable, mystical, and amazing, it has nothing whatsoever to do with “thoughts creating reality” or free will.
19. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, p. 185.
20. Ibid., pp. 169, 304–5.
21. Ibid., p. 136.
22. Mishna Avot 3:19 (hakol tzafui, v’reshut n’tunah).
23. Quoted in Theodore Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic Part One (1930) (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004), p. 133.
24. See Loy, Nonduality, pp. 96–112.
25. Rami Shapiro, Open Secrets, p. 104.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Quoted in Joseph Goldstein, The Experience of Insight (Santa Cruz, Calif.: Unity Press, 1976), p. 32.
2. Vivekananda, Living at the Source, p. 5. In the original source, see vol. 1, p. 501.