We must reflect on the warnings the permanent awareness of our connection with the Creator gives us. We have learned in our own flesh the outcome of living ego’s fantasies and illusions and the negative choices we make. Love as our Essence and true identity calls up to our intellect and discernment, emotions and feelings, passions and instincts, to make a lasting commitment in life.
Either we live moment to moment the transcending Essence of who we are, or the fleeing fantasy of fashion, glamour, sophistication, consumer society, political correctness, light culture, distraction, entertainment, social status, and trends instigated by ego’s illusions. At some point, sooner or later, we all will end up committing to the Final Redemption many of us yearn for.
Our individual and collective Redemption begins when we remove the fantasies and illusions mentioned above from all levels of consciousness. This means removing them from what we believe, value, feel and do as ideas, ideologies and principles. We live as we believe, and we are individually and collectively accountable for what we follow and support as our lifestyle. Hatred, racism, abuse, exploitation, humiliation, cruelty, indifference, prejudice, intolerance and violence are part of the lifestyle of many people in this world. Take Islamic fundamentalism, for instance. Many of its followers believe, think, feel and act motivated by such destructive trends. They already destructed their lives by their belief. Have they ever considered that life is meaningless without Love’s ways and attributes as the opposite values to their beliefs? They turn life into a desolated land by their negative fantasies and illusions.
“Thus said the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are round about.” (Ezekiel 36:4)
Our intellect and discernment are responsible for the principles, beliefs, ideas and values we choose to live in. These are the mountains, hills, rivers and valleys. On these we build our thoughts, emotions and feelings that make us be and do. If we desolate them with negative traits, we are dead.
“But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to My people Israel; for they are at hand to come. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and you shall be tilled and sown.” (36:8-9)
God’s Love speaks to our Love. Our Father speaks to His children’s discernment and common sense. He knows that Love is the blessing our positive creative potentials need to fructify as redeeming qualities. His Love nurtures our Love to sprout, blossom and bloom, turning us into the abundant harvest of a fruitful land. God’s Love helps us lead all levels of consciousness into Love’s ways and attributes.
“And I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited after your former estate, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (36:11)
As we walk in His ways and make them our ways, His Love multiplies the goodness of life. This means a broader perspective and perception of the material world. This wider approach to life is the Messianic Consciousness with which we receive more blessings. This additional abundance represents the double portion for the Shabbat, when we receive more than the previous days as our beginnings. In this immeasurable abundance we will know that the Lord is God.
“For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your impurities, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” (36:24-25)
We frequently say that the land is the geographical manifestation of life. Our surrounding space is the vessel than contains our life, therefore it is part of it. Hence we can’t live without a land, but the one God calls ours is the Promised Land where life is even better. He conceives life for Israel as the ideal existence His wants for us.
This special goodness is fully enjoyed only in Love’s ways, means, qualities and attributes, for which God’s Love cleans our consciousness from all kinds of negative trends, traits, attachments or addictions.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My ordinances, and do them.” (36:26-27)
The Messianic Consciousness as the bearer of our final Redemption has a different way to discern, think, feel, sense and act. For this we need a new heart as a new way of thinking, and a new spirit for new motivations exclusively dedicated to know our Creator. This new consciousness is understood, felt and experienced vividly as a living heart of flesh, not as a dead heart of stone.
This new consciousness unfolds by God’s Spirit that is His Love. In this total awareness we walk in His ways, do His statutes and keep His ordinances with a consciousness free from material fantasies and illusions.
“And I will save you from all your impurities; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye may receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations.” (36:29-30)
As we fully embrace God’s Love and integrate it in all levels of consciousness, He increases the goodness we are destined to live in the world. As the goodness of Love’s ways and attributes fill our life with their abundance, there is no room for beliefs or feelings of lack. These are what make us feel empty and hungry by ego’s fantasies and illusions. As we live moment to moment in Love’s ways and attributes, the land that is our life blooms and its goodness fills our creativity, thoughts and feelings as the desolate cities of the past, now fortified by God’s Love. Then we will recognize the Creator, and we will know Him.
“And they shall say: ‘This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’ (…) and they shall know that I am the Lord.” (36:35, 38)
Ariel Ben Avraham (f. Zapata) was born in Cartagena, Colombia in 1958. After studying Cultural Anthropology in Bogotá moved to Chicago in 1984 where he worked as a television writer, reporter and producer for 18 years. In the 1990’s he produced video documentaries related to art, music, history and culture such as “Latin American Trails: Guatemala” distributed by Facets.org. Most of his life he studied ancient spiritual traditions and mysticism of major religions, understanding the mystic experience as the individual means to connect with Divinity. Since 2004 he studies and writes about Jewish mysticism and spirituality mainly derived from the Chassidic tradition, and the practical philosophy of the teachings of Jewish mystic Sages. The book “God as Love” is the compilation of his last years studying and learning Jewish mysticism, and the messages of the book are part of the content, exercises and processes of a series of seminars, lectures and retreats that he facilitates in Israel.
