G_d promised to Joel the restoration of prophecy, "After that, I will pour out My spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions." (Joel 3:1) Old women will dream dreams, and young women will see visions due to the line before it which includes sons and daughters.
What's the difference between dreams and visions and why is age the barrier between them? We are involved in dreams---sleep walking and talking---we're participating in a dream. When we have a vision, it's just like watching a movie. We are seeing it in an uninvolved way. We can't stop it or change it.
Why do we only see visions when we are young, but when we are old we are allowed to participate in a dream? When we are young, we have so few references and education that we may join what is revealed to us in an inappropriate way. We are not allowed to participate, because we may innocently do something very dark with our new found gift from G_d and pervert and sin with our gift.
Now my grandma who started me on my spiritual path outside of religion, only had a 4th grade education. She was also chased out of the Catholic church by a priest around that same time when she left school to support her drunkard father. Grandma learned to go into people's minds without their knowledge and make them do what she wanted them to do, and she became a millionairess. As a kid I found this a great way to cheat at Rummy, a card game. You just make your opponents discard the card that you want them to discard. My brother is a CEO and multimillionaire, who's given in to evil, so I can only imagine what he's doing to people's minds. I just stay far away from him.
When I became an adult, I stopped using this mind-control skill with the only exception: I used it last December at the Christmas staff party of a Tahoe high school that ran me out of town for being Jewish. When it was the principal's turn to pick a gift, I made her pick the gift that I chose for her. She walked over, looked at all the presents, picked up the present that I was focusing on and sending to her mind, and it was the worst gift of all! Because I had a little fun and revenge with her, she also got a lighter consequence from G_d than everyone else involved in my harassment. So, that's what we do when we're angry, young, uneducated, basking in darkness, or not wise. Hence, the youth and untrained, naturally-gifted spirituals are only allowed spiritual gifts with huge restraints.
There is an exception to this. Due to the quantity of people who are assimilated Jews with prophetic capability, G_d lures them back. After Grandma was done teaching me how to cheat at cards, G_d gave me visions of who I'd see the next day. These were people that I would not normally see, so it had more impact that I was experiencing a bit of prophecy at 16. As I fell over to the darkness with my spiritual gifts and no religious training, I started trying to manipulate the physical world.
I practiced and practiced with no results for a year. Then at the Big Game between Stanford and Cal in 1982 I was in shock at what I did---I didn't act like a vessel of G_d, I selfishly did something on my own (with G_d's help without my knowledge). The year before my two brothers had razzed me cruelly at the Big Game tailgate party at Stanford when Cal lost to Stanford. This next year, 1982, Stanford and Cal were neck in neck. We had 2 seconds left and I wasn't going to be razzed by my brothers again, since Cal was losing! In the middle, 5th row of the cheer section and with deep emotion I went within myself and visualized an unorthodox way to win the game, since I don't follow football and don't know football plays. I opened my eyes and Cal did everything that I visualized and won the game. Now that play is in the top 10 most famous football plays and is called "The Play."
My mouth dropped open after "The Play" happened, and I dashed out on to the field with our cheer section to scream, "We're number 1! We're number 1!" to the Stanford fans. I learned how powerful my gifts could be in this world, even though I didn't have too much of a relationship with G_d. G_d allowed me to do this to encourage me to selfishly continue honing my abilities, so when I did bother to study G_d's Word and follow His Mitzvot later in life, my skills were so honed that it was like breathing.
My way of learning spirituality is not a recommended way to go about learning how to be in a prophetic realm and alter this world by any means. G_d just wanted me to continue to develop myself and gave me amazing reinforcement by allowing me to alter this world without truly knowing Him. I had no human support system like some spiritual families do.
There is a severe drawback to learning spirituality in an untrained and selfish way. Now that I am G_d's servant, I am paying for decades of being selfish and detached from G_d. I've suffered enormous loss---loved ones dying, millions of dollars disappearing, several health catastrophes, and my heart being broken over and over again by people that I love. My brother who is a CEO and misuses his gifts may never suffer like I am in this world, but he will have no part of the World to Come. My beloved Grandma will be saved by me. We can save our ancestors by being righteous, because they had a part in making us righteous. So prophetic skills are not to be used selfishly and without G_d's Word or practicing Mitzvot.
So why would G_d let me alter the world when I was young, yet only have dreams when I'm old? What is that about? When we're old we don't usually need to part the Red Sea or create a famous football play just to win a game. G_d's made it clear to us that the manna will fall, all our needs will be provided, and if we stray we will pay. We have faith in Him and have a close relationship with Him. He does want us to listen to Him, interact with Him for others as a witness to others in order to strengthen other people's faith, do exactly what He wants us to do or it will be painful, and be His interface here, as well as anything else G_d may want to do with us.
Once G_d trains us with various baby steps year after year, we finally rate spiritual dreams. So we old people will connect all our various gifts that we've learned to use which are appropriate to see and experience that which G_d allows us to see and experience while we are wandering in the spiritual world. We have enough life experience and training to interpret and interact with what we are seeing and participating in.
The only problem is how do we interpret what we see and experience? We interpret what we see and experience with what G_d has taught us so far. Per Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in Inner Space "G_d can only speak to us in a language we understand and we therefore have a rule: 'The Torah speaks in the language of man.' This means that a physical allegory may be used to express a very profound philosophical relationship between G_d and his creation."
This allegory evolves as we evolve, as well. For instance, when I was a Christian, I interpreted a major dream in Christian allegory. Now that I'm an orthodox Jew, I interpret the allegory of the dream much differently. Each interpretation of allegory is appropriate and valid for that time period, because it's meaning was what I needed at the time, even though it was one dream. G_d knew that I would unfold the depths of the dream as I studied about G_d further and followed His Mitzvot. In years to come, more from the dream will be revealed to me, as I draw closer to G_d. On a macro level the Torah that Moshe (Moses) wrote also reveals to us more as we evolve.
We draw closer to G_d by studying His Word in the Torah. The Torah uses anthropomorphisms, so that we can better understand what we're absorbing. However, G_d has no parts or body, so there is really no physical description of G_d when these anthropomorphisms are utilized. "G_d's eyes" alludes to His omniscience in this world. "G_d's hand" alludes to His power and guidance of this world. He is the master chess player that is letting us chose how to move our pieces while He is moving us to a certain corner.When something smells good to G_d's nose, He understands the bright light of our love, restraint, beauty, dominance and empathy, and foundation. Perverse acts would smell bad to G_d like the acts of Sodom and Gomorrah. When G_d speaks, He is showing us kingship and our boundaries. Though there are many emotions and other anthropormorphisms, we should always remember to not take them literally, since we don't have the capacity to completely grasp G_d's unity while in this world of many parts.
So grow with G_d and Mitzvot all you prophets in training. Bare your iniquity, as I did to know God's Glory. Now is the new age to be ushered in. We must do the work that we're destined to do. We are servants of G_d and need not this world, yet here we are.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
No comments:
Post a Comment