Getting my stuff together IV
It has been a little over a month since I started doing Rabbi David A. Cooper's Meditation on Harmony. I would guess I've missed maybe five days, which if you know me represents quite a breakthrough in self-discipline.
As an aid to performing the exercise I sampled the CD that came with the book to make an mp3 that consists of the ding of a bell, twenty minutes of intoning five Hebrew vowels--eh, ee, ah, oh, and uh--while visualizing the Sephiroth Keter above my head, Daath in my throat, Tiphareth in my chest, Yesod in my naughty bits and Malkuth below my naughty bits, respectively. After twenty minutes of intoning, the bell dings again, followed by ten minutes of silence while concentrating on my breath in the state Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan refers to as Binah consciousness and then comes a final ding for a total of thirty minutes. It has been very helpful for me because it frees me from having to peak at a clock or counting the repetitions to know when the time has passed.
Actually, it eventually became too helpful because I found it did not really require the concentration I sought to just follow along with the mp3. I was able to do the intonation along with Rabbi Cooper with only half my mind while my thoughts would "run and return" taking me along with them.
So I made a separate mp3 with just a ding, twenty minutes of silence, another ding, ten minutes of silence and then a final ding. Having to concentrate on the intonations without just following along creates a deeper focus and my thoughts, as they are want to do, still come and go, but they don't generally take me with them.
While my goal--the only one that really matters: drowning in the Sea of Love--may still be years away, I have found the work manifesting in an overall centeredness and clarity that is refreshing. My life seems a bit more ordered and I find myself shedding a bit the frivolity and dallying that has often characterized my approach to spiritual matters. I'm less distracted and more at peace with myself and the world.
My good friend and brother siel asked that I put these mp3s online. So here they are:
with intonations
with just the dings and periods of silence
Speaking of which, it's about that time...
.
As an aid to performing the exercise I sampled the CD that came with the book to make an mp3 that consists of the ding of a bell, twenty minutes of intoning five Hebrew vowels--eh, ee, ah, oh, and uh--while visualizing the Sephiroth Keter above my head, Daath in my throat, Tiphareth in my chest, Yesod in my naughty bits and Malkuth below my naughty bits, respectively. After twenty minutes of intoning, the bell dings again, followed by ten minutes of silence while concentrating on my breath in the state Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan refers to as Binah consciousness and then comes a final ding for a total of thirty minutes. It has been very helpful for me because it frees me from having to peak at a clock or counting the repetitions to know when the time has passed.
Actually, it eventually became too helpful because I found it did not really require the concentration I sought to just follow along with the mp3. I was able to do the intonation along with Rabbi Cooper with only half my mind while my thoughts would "run and return" taking me along with them.
So I made a separate mp3 with just a ding, twenty minutes of silence, another ding, ten minutes of silence and then a final ding. Having to concentrate on the intonations without just following along creates a deeper focus and my thoughts, as they are want to do, still come and go, but they don't generally take me with them.
While my goal--the only one that really matters: drowning in the Sea of Love--may still be years away, I have found the work manifesting in an overall centeredness and clarity that is refreshing. My life seems a bit more ordered and I find myself shedding a bit the frivolity and dallying that has often characterized my approach to spiritual matters. I'm less distracted and more at peace with myself and the world.
My good friend and brother siel asked that I put these mp3s online. So here they are:
with intonations
with just the dings and periods of silence
Speaking of which, it's about that time...
.