Meditating on the Holy Name
LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET CONSECTETUR
This drawing shows a woman sitting in meditation, visualizing her body as the Tree of Life Diagram - the 10 Sefirot - and the 4 Letters YHVH, the Holy Name of God. Often called the One Name, it points to the Eternal Existence. YHVH means Was, Is, and Will Be. This Eternal Name was revealed to Moses by the burning bush in Exodus 3:15. In Exodus 20:21 God said, "Any place in which my Name is called (or meditated upon), I will come to you and and bless you." I made a woman here because Malchut is Feminine, and is associated with שכינה (Shechinah) a word that means dwelling within. In Exodus 25:8, When God told Moses to tell the Israelites to build the Tabernacle (משכן pronounced mischan in Hebrew), He said, "Let them make a Sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell within them”.
To practice this meditation yourself, a become mindful that you are a Tree of Life, sit erect and comfortable. Take a few deep breaths and become aware of your breath. Now, place your awareness above your head (Keter-Crown) and bring an in-breath down into your head. Visualize your head as the Letter י (Yod). Take a few breaths feeling this, and then imagine two branches of our internal Tree of Knowledge extending to the right and left of your head (Chochmah-Wisdom and Binah-Understanding).
Bring your awareness down your neck with an out-breath, and feel the Letter ה (Heh) across both shoulders and down your arms (Chesed-Kindness and Gevurah-Strength). Take a few breaths feeling this. When you are ready, bring your awareness from the bottom of your head down your spine to your pelvis with an in-breath, and visualize your spine as the Letter ו (Vav). Take a few breaths and become aware of your heart (Tiferet-Beauty). When you are ready, put your awareness where your spine meets your pelvis (Yesod-Foundation) and with an out-breath, feel the second Letter ה (Heh) across your pelvis, down both legs (Netzach-Victory and Hod-Majesty). Feel this for a few breaths, and then bring this awareness down through your feet and into the ground (Malchut-Kingship). Take a few breaths to conclude the meditation and feel how we are created in the Image of the Holy Name of God; and how it is possible to reproduce ourselves in this same Holy Image.
When contemplating this image, people often see a connection between the Sefirot of the Kabbalah and the Chakras of the Yoga tradition (that comes from Hinduism). There are many parallels. Sometimes people ask me if this picture represents a female Buddha. Every once in a while someone will ask if I this is meant to be a cross, and if the tree forms around the figure's head is the 'crown of thorns'. That wasn't my intention. I intended it to be a woman, but it can be seen as a man with long hair, and I liked how people see something Universal here. Several years ago a Sufi Sheik told me that if you rotate the picture clockwise 90 degrees to the right you can see in Arabic letters the word Allah, the Arabic Name for God.
My intention was to represent symbols that are part of the Jewish kabbalistic tradition, but people see here Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim symbols as well. I believe that the deepest spiritual teachings are Universal, and when I read the books that the deep thinkers, the mystics, of any tradition, I find many similarities in what they are saying to what I have learned in the Kabbalah. As the Prophet Zachariah said(14:9), "and YHVH' s Kingdom will be upon all the Earth, on that day, YHVH will be One and His Name One."
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