Some kabbalah enthusiasts and I get together once a week to meditate on the spheres and tone the holy names on the Tree of Life. This sort of meditation is part of the meditative kabbalah and is know to be healing. Archangel Raphael is placed at the middle of the Tree, Tipheret. His name comes from the word Rapha, from the Hebrew root “to heal”. We build the Tree of Life in the aura using visualisation. With repetition, we begin to contact the qualities, abilities and resources within that the spheres of the Tree represent. The energies we contact can bring about ecstatic states which is the reason why this practice falls under the Ecstatic Kabbalah.
It is here that I would like to introduce the idea of Inner Parts, also called subpersonalities in psychosythesis or ego states in transactional analysis. For example, we are all familiar with a part of us that would like to lie on the couch to watch TV and a part that knows we need to work and be responsible. Or the part of ourselves we show to friends and the part to colleagues. There are also parts that are unconscious and remain undeveloped due to childhood experiences, parts of yourself that protect you from being reckless and are protective. Often we internalise or introject the voices of our mother and father, these develop into inner parts all on their own and may be in conflict with that part that just wants to watch TV. Some of us may even have a inner war going on between the various parts of ourselves.
Keeping these inner parts in mind, when we build the Tree of Life in the aura, one possibility is to start with that most abstract part of ourselves – the part that is connected with the Limitless Light and Being. We then visualise each sphere toning its associated Holy Name or Mantra as we move down the Tree from the most abstract to the most concrete part of ourselves, the physical body. The effect of such a practice is that it takes energy to that part of the aura and subpersonality each sphere represents. Along with the contacting of actual energies with this meditation we also acknowledge these different parts of ourselves.
Some of these subpersonalities may have remained unconscious due to trauma and loyalty to a group or system. This is where building the Tree practice automatically stimulates integration because the Tree is a whole and no sphere is excluded, each one belongs to the Tree to complete it. The process is the same in Family and Inner Parts Constellations. As facilitators we strive for interventions that include family members or parts of the psyche that have somehow been cut off, repressed or excluded from the system. The exclusion of family members happen for many different reasons and often the emotion connected to the exclusion is valid. However, the intervention is always the same: it is designed to bring inclusion and therefore balance to the system and integration in the psyche.
Family Constellations has shown that trauma that remains unhealed is transmitted down the family line to descendants who unconsciously take them on. It is an important practice to identify the trauma and entanglements and to give them back to our ancestors with respect for their fates. With exposure to Family and Inner parts constellations, I have found that judgement falls away to understanding. So often evil actions have their root in a systemic disharmony and the perpetrator has succumb to systemic pressure. This does not condone the action (like sexual abuse) and it must not be condoned, yet with understanding of causes comes compassion, a quality we urgently need to develop in this world and towards ourselves.
There are traditions that suggest prayer for healing be directed to a solar deity. For example Lord Surya (Sanskrit for “the sun”) is known as the god of good health in Hinduism. Prayers for healing are also directed to Jesus in Christianity. I believe that meditation on such figures really is healing. This is because such deities are attributed to Tipheret at the centre of the Tree of Life, also symbolised by the sun. Tipheret is Hebrew for beauty and harmony and it connects all spheres on the Tree except Malchut, the physical world. Tipheret is connected with the heart centre and transpersonal love. It is here that we connect with inclusive, non-judgemental, love in ourselves. And it is non-judgement that brings the scattered parts of the psyche, within and family without, together.
At a workshop recently Karin Huyssen, a clinical psychologist, summarised the two days of intensive learning in one sentence: the most important thing for healing is we must develop a kind and compassionate part. She has noticed in her practice that if such a attitude can be developed by an individual, healing can happen. Kindness, compassion and especially non-judgement is key. All qualities that develop within us when we practice meditation and Kabbalah on a regular basis.
Such a premise can be extended to the world at large. It is loving-kindness and non-judgement that is the social technology needed to bring about integration in communities and tenderness towards the delicate ecosystems of our earth. I believe we can use such spiritual methods described in the Kabbalah to activate non-judgement and integration in the ethers of our planet and group consciousness of humanity. We can do this by drawing on the energy of Tipheret which is transpersonal love from our human perspective and the Integrative Function (like gravity) from the cosmic perspective.
There are group meditation practices like the Loving-Kindness meditation in Tibetan Buddhism or invocations of the Ruach Hakodesh in Kabbalah that can be effectively used to activate this integration function and send it into the world. I have stated in another article, that I believe it is our duty to do this as human beings. This is because we span many worlds from the most abstract to the most physical. We are in direct contact with the Energy of Being. It is our power to lovingly control the Light and bring abundance into this world of action. And we can do this by working with group meditation techniques and mantra to working with the poor to working in the sciences to understand economics and human behaviour.
So poetically we can say that it is love that binds the fabric of the universe together because it is love that integrates….
Oh yes, and thank you.