Messianic Consciousness
By Illustration by Yoseph Savan based on The Zohar . by Ariel Ben Avraham. We must understand Jewish prophecy as something previously decreed by our Creator. Thus we grasp that the Shabbat was the first in the thought of God, and was the last in His Creation. The Shabbat already existed before all that is, as well as the Torah and Israel. Based on this principle our Sages say that God, the Torah, the Shabbat and Israel are One. Hence, as God announces His promises through His Prophets, these are already in motion. It means that they already exist in our consciousness. We just have to become aware of them. Thus we understand why the Prophet is delivering his messages in past tense.
We learn from this that in our connection and relationship with the Creator there is no time or space. All exists at the same time, and we have to assimilate this even if our consciousness is restricted by time and space. Time and space simultaneously combined are the context of life in the material world, and this does not mean we intrinsically belong to those restricting dimensions. Sooner or later we will become aware that our connection with the Creator, who is undefinable as unrestricted, also brings us to the realm where there is no time or space. Thus we understand transcendence, for transcendence is the context of our bond with God. At this point we realize that what truly transcends in our awareness of life in the material world is Love as our common bond with God.
“He has swallowed up death for ever, and the Lord God has wiped away the tear from off all faces; and the reproach of His people He turned aside from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8)
This verse makes us understand what we just indicated. This is the beginning to assimilate the meaning of our Final Redemption, and start living the Messianic Consciousness. This occurs as we also begin to remove the negative trends in consciousness, and the attachments, addictions, obsessions and patterns that keep us far and away from who we truly are. All these represents death or lead us to death, as the opposite of the goodness in life. Once we begin to recognize our Essence and true identity as the goodness that transcends time and space, we become immediately aware that death never existed. Tears (suffering), as the negative result of fantasies and illusions out of ego’s beliefs and feelings of lack, are all removed as if they have never existed.
There is also something very important to reflect on this verse, for it refers to Israel as the chosen nation to represent and deliver the will of God for the material world. Israel will be finally recognized and acknowledge as what has been and is for the rest of the nations. All againstness, insult, mockery, humiliation, oppression and vilification as “reproach” of Israel will disappear from human consciousness. This means that humankind will begin to assimilate the goodness of Love’s ways and attributes as the entire reason and purpose of God’s will for life in the material world, as we know it and experience it. In this sense, as we have mentioned many times, Israel represents all the positive creative powers in human consciousness through God’s Commandments in the Torah.
It is ironic that the fact that Israel has contributed more than any other nation to humankind is still denied in this world. It sounds like evil denying the good in goodness. Thus we understand the message of this verse as the end of evil in human consciousness. Once we remove all traces of negative trends in what we discern, think, feel, say and do, goodness takes over all facets and dimensions of life. This is our Final Redemption and the Messianic Consciousness.
“And it shall be said in that day: ‘Lo, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might redeem us; this is the Lord for whom we waited, we will be glad and rejoice in His redemption’.” (25:9)
As we said above, our Redemption exists since the moment God created us and put us in the material world. He made us intrinsically good to be and do goodness, as the cause and effect of His Creation. In His eternal and unconditional Love, He endowed us with free will in order for us to use our discernment and common sense for choosing goodness as our Essence and true identity. God respects us as His creatures by giving us free choice. Hence He created darkness and evil as a reference for us to choose Light and goodness. All this doesn’t contradict that goodness has been eternally available as it is for us. It is our decision to choose the goodness of Love’s ways and attributes over the outcomes of ego’s fantasies and illusions.
In this sense we understand these verse. We are the ones who wait to make our choice, not God. His Redemption has been around all the time, as the Prophet has indicated by referring to it in the past tense. We will begin to be glad and rejoice in this Redemption when we make the final and transcendent choice of permanently living in the goodness of Love’s ways and attributes. We do that by enthroning goodness in every level and dimension of consciousness. Thus we live the Messianic Consciousness as an inheritance God already gave us even before He brought us to this material world.
