You are the Tree of Life in human form, a microcosmic reflection of the Universe. To begin to realise this is to consciously inhabit your body, and to live within awareness of non-duality.
The word for tree in ancient Hebrew is Etz. This word is deeply significant and has three profound meanings. It signifies firstly the totality of multi-dimensional life, in all its beauty and diversity: The World Tree, consciousness beholding consciousness through the diversity of everything that exists.
The second meaning is spinal cord. This takes us beyond the vertebrae and the skeletal structure of the physical body. It refers to the central axis of your entire spiritual, physical and psychological being, your vitality, right down to the cellular level.
The third meaning is “building blocks” – the building blocks of life, not only that which is visible and tangible, but the deep underlying structures at the cellular and atomic levels.
The Tree of Life is not a theory, something to believe in, or that needs to be endlessly discussed. It is our spiritual reality, our wholeness, connecting us directly with the life of the physical body, and the life of the Earth and all our fellow creatures.
To truly realise Etz Ha-Haim – The Tree of Life – bring all of your attention to this abundant vitality of life within. This vitality has its source in the formless Spiritual dimension at your core, and continually creates your mind and body, out of the timeless Present Moment.
Sit or stand quietly and breathe with awareness, breathing from the base of the spine so that the breath deepens naturally.
Enjoy the feelings of increasing aliveness, following the breath as it enters and leaves the body. Through each conscious breath you are connecting with the vitality of Life – both inner and outer – in all its magnificent diversity. From here you enter space without thought, simply being present.
Through conscious breathing, and enjoying the vitality that continually creates and sustains the body, the mind becomes still. Silent space opens within; inner and outer merge, are realised as One.
Through the practice of the Conscious Breath of Life, realisation comes that you are a multi-dimentional being, connected to every living thing in the natural world, the solar system, and the Cosmos.
At your heart, you are rooted in the Eternal Present – I Am, timeless Now – out of which everything is created, formed and made into the life of the Cosmos.
The Tree of Life represents the still and silent spaciousness out of which the creativity of Universal Life continually emerges. This is always accessible to you. It is only through identification with the thought forms in the unobserved mind that you lose connection with timeless creative space. With its addiction to drama and crisis, the unobserved mind is always trying to make one problem after another. Then the spiritual dimension seems remote and inaccessible, and you feel disconnected from life.
As you practice conscious breathing, movement and speaking in daily life, you open the possibility to consciously choose to be free from the collective and individual negative thought forms that torment us, and drain our life. Breathing and being present in all the little things of daily life, through all these seemingly insignificant routines and gestures, gives back the freedom of creative space.
Then you realize that in reality creative space has never left you. You are the Tree of Life in human form.
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3 Comments on “Awakening to the Tree of Life”
Another beautiful article. I love how you always express Kabbalah as a poetry of being, versus viewing it as something to intellectualize on. This is closer to the authentic tradition IMO.
I want to highlight this part, as I think it is very significant:
“With its addiction to drama and crisis, the unobserved mind is always trying to make one problem after another. Then the spiritual dimension seems remote and inaccessible, and you feel disconnected from life.” So true. Awareness of these unconscious thought patterns is such a critical and often overlooked aspect of Kabbalistic practice.
Thanks for another amazing article.
Hi Deborah,
Thank you for your wonderful comments, I feel that you sum up the essence of Kabbalah very beautifully when you say that it is “Poetry of Being.” My practice is to be as consciously present as possible, wherever I am. This for me is the essence of Kabbalistic teaching, and is expressed very clearly in the Hebrew texts I meditate on, and translate. To be consciously present means that the individual and collective unconscious thought forms can be observed as the surface phenomena of human life – with no root in Being. When we shift our perspective to the deeper (spiritual) dimension, we are joining with the essence of all Life, and these thought forms lose their power over us.
Reblogged this on Spiritual and Creative Retreats in France.