On Eros, Speed Racer, Kabbalah, Why I Teach, Torah, Liberation, Humiliation and Humility, Non Duality, Part and Whole, The Holy of Holies and Thank You Larry. Part Five: Marc Gafni

marc gafni
published on marcgafni.com
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Speed Racer is Eros= Holiness= Sanity= Atonement= Joy

Everyone has a place in life where they can be sane.

That is the place where they know reality.

Where part merges with whole in the fullness of presence, which wells up from the inside.

This is Eros. This is Speed Racer. This is You and this is Me.

Oh my God….

This is why I teach.

I do not teach for fame and fortune.

I do not teach for financial security. I do not teach to become embraced as a great wise man or profound and brilliant scholar and transmitter of the tradition.

Although in more contracted moments each of these motivations has tried to find it’s way in and sometimes impacted the purity of a moment…

But that has never been the core of it for me.

And these two years —with their searing pain

have purified something in me that thirty years on the mediation cushion —

Which I would never do anyways☺ —

Could never do.

These two years stripped away much that was unnecessary and helped me hold core,

not only in moments of ecstasy,

but as part of an integrated and steadier realization of the Not me but I. I am the Lord your God.

Humiliation has a way — if your surf it’s waves and do not drown- of becoming humility.

Not self-abasement, which is but another strategy of hubris.

But the humility in living the full audacity and courage of being transparent to God.

I teach — because as I open the text and submit myself to it;

the text of the great traditions,

the text of torah,

the text of the torah of life;

If I am humble and open and in love…something happens.

The me falls away and the texts —after checking to see if — I- am really present — begin to talk. In me. Through me. The I speaks.

If I am willing to cry before I teach —

then the tears cleanse the dross and the surface pain,

opening up the palaces of realization, wisdom, insight, compassion, and joy.

Sometimes…

I can hear the Chassidic master whispering in my ear.

I can feel the Talmudic master as his lips move and say torah — in complete unison with my lips.

Every word becomes torah.

Every word is chosen by the torah as it flows through me finding it’s way with a sure sense and song —

completely beyond any ability, which resides in my skin encapsulated me ego.

Sometimes..

As I begin to teach I can feel the room slowly fill up.

A rabbi from the 14th century comes and sits in the back.

A mystic from the 12 the century sits in the front row.

Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Rachel, Leah, Rebecca and Sarah find their places and smile as the teaching pours from me — the me which is not me, I,

the self which is small and contracted falls away.

The mind which is small expands to Big Mind- mochin de-gadlut

and the heart which is closed
opens and expands to Big heart — mochin de-gadult;

and my heart is aflame as the heart of the spring which yearns towards its Source

And in the yearning fully merges with Source.

At some point in the story Speed Racer merges with his car.

Hear O Israel.

Listen to the Car.

It will tell you..

The hills are alive with the sound of music…

When one is in the fullness of Eros

the animate and inanimate become whole and ultimate alienation between matter and spirit is overcome.

Much as in the final scene in Larry’s movie Matrix Three, the Hero merges with the machine

as he/we realize that there is truly no separation.

All dualities are overcome.

The text is no longer letters written on a page by men who have long died.

The text is alive.

It becomes a living breathing, pulsating organism.

The separation between the reader of the text,

the writer of the text,

the inspiration that breathed the text into life,

the words and even the very parchment

is transcended and included;

all become a seamless one.

This is the hidden meaning —
according a hidden kabalistic teaching of the Hebrew wisdom mantra —
God Israel and Torah are One.

Why I teach-
whether as a rabbi, a spiritual teacher or spiritual artist it matters not at all…

I teach because I am.
I teach in order to teach. I teach because in teaching God breathes through me as he and she has inspired all the teachers in my lineage and in all the lineages.

I teach for the same reason that I eat ice cream.

Just because. JUST BECAUSE.

For it’s own sake. Lishmah. For the sake of the name
as an expression of the Name.

Speed Racer.
To live from the inside in the full wonder,
true humility,
radical amazement
and holy audacity of realization.

When I teach or paint words as a spiritual artist on the canvas of my life
I am not better then you.
It gives me no power over you.
I am rather your servant, your friend, your brother and your sister.

We do not need today more rabbis posturing and preening and powering and pushing, and pretending.

We need not more spiritual teachers but more spiritual friends.

Spiritual friends from whom we are willing to receive transmission.

Spiritual friends that we will love even as they love us.

We must stop all the trauma and drama. Trauma and drama are sometimes real,

but all to often they are pseudo eros

masquerading as piety, integrity and outrage.

We need — all of us — to let go of the pathos of our selves
in order to come INTO
the full Power of our Selves.

A spiritual friend is a spiritual teacher who becomes a spiritual artist when they renounce all power and live —
truly live from the inside.

For you see the essence of Art
is Lishmah —
for it’s own sake.
For the sake of the Name.

The true artist draws no distinction between his canvas and his life.
His life is both his text and his canvas.

From his life,
from the particulars and concrete details of his unique and individual life he teaches.

But only if he is willing to be utterly destroyed.

To lose everything in order to find everything.

To surrender into God even as he affirms his autonomy and acts with discernment and fierce grace on the stage of Samsara.

In Hebrew we say that enlightenment is achieved
when Ani- the small self — and Ayin, the no — thing nature of the Expanded self —
realize their identity.

When this happens you understand that you can enter the holy of holies at any time and any place.

In the end it does not really matter where you teach.

Whether on a stage to a thousand people or in an intimate circle of student’s
Or in a casual conversation with a watier..

The holy of holies is everywhere.

When Speed Racer races the last race of the movie
he is in the holy of holies.
He is in Zohar, in Eros, in Holiness.

From that place of Eros — Fierce Grace is born.

From that place of Eros, Ethics are born.

From that place of Eros,
in the teaching of the Zohar {Gen. 4a}
God is born and reborn

in the sacred play of hide and seek

which God and Man stll play with each other.

God hides because he desperately wants to be found.

Man in search of God.

God in search of Man

Meet in Eros.

This is the holy of holies.

Marc Gafni
Published on marcgafni.com
Please feel free to leave comments on info@marcgafni.com

ps.

these five posts were written spontaneously very last night as tears streamed down my face.

The voice of the “I” of love, channeled in human form

wrote this note to myself.

“I have also been crying all night…It is so much that we have been through, and there is still

another year of work ahead..

I am tired and grateful and deeply sorrowful and grateful and humbled and

wanting to walk the path of Love more fully.

Thank you God for your gifts.

Thank you God for the challenges you present to me..

Nothing about anything is bad…All good as they say”