Awe Exchange

Discovered a rare nugget - thanks Ben - in the form of a website devoted to the teachings of 'the Rebbe' a 19th century Jewish mystic, almost a Kabbalist.

Just to brighten everyone's day, a few morsels to ponder...

"Develop your awe of heaven and you will diminish your fear of everyone else's opinion."

The grandeur of the morning overshadows small nocturnal fears, something I get to see every day as I watch the sunrise over the Arabian Gulf. Small ambitions are thus easier to abandon.

"The human being is a composite of body and soul. Consequently, all our affairs and activities likewise contain elements of both body and soul-the material and the spiritual. One's mundane and routine activities are generally motivated by material and physical gain. Yet the "soul" within all these mundane affairs calls out for recognition-for the infusion of these ordinary affairs with an awareness of greater objectives and a higher purpose."

Quite easy to forget when a class is close to riot and the AC has stopped working.

"Each one of us is a microcosm of all Creation. The achievement of harmony between one's soul and one's material life, is the achievement of harmony between the heaven and earth."

Something of St John of the Cross here, I think. The idea that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God is the eternal human paradox, against which we kick and snarl.

I really must get out more..