Unhesitating, unpremeditated solidarity with fellow beings is perhaps the most vivid expression of Enlightenment.

Part 5:  Spiritual Life on an Earthly Plane

Contemplation of the Tale of Existence is not to be consummated by disappearance into Nirvana, Godhead, or Void.  The Bodhisattva and the Hasid desire to be born again and again among the People, among the human family, not from nostalgia but from solidarity with all life.  Thus, Rebbe Nachman’s parable continues, the soul cannot allow itself to be lost in Godhead by approaching too near the Spring of divine Love.  But the soul remains protected from the intense suffering of relative existence under cooling shade of two Great Wings:  the Torah, or teaching of Divine Presence, and the tzaddik, or awakened one, in whom this teaching is fully brought to life.  But such spiritual protection is not magical exemption from suffering.  Reading Rebbe Nachman’s account of his own chaotic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, we can perceive how the Hasid or the Bodhisattva takes upon himself or herself all the suffering of the world, transforming it into the ecstasy of God only. 

Vowing to reincarnate is extremely difficult when one has clearly understood the flaws of human existence and has directly experienced the spiritual beauty of the Divine Realm.  This hard decision to remain on earth, to focus one’s spiritual life on the earthly plane, is poignantly expressed by Rebbe Leib, who recounts the reluctance of his soul to accept physical embodiment.  His words are not simply metaphorical but reflect actual mystical experience of the transcendent Divine Realm:  Before I was born, I refused life.  What is the good of toiling among mortals who are prey to their own weaknesses?...Do you know who finally made me change my mind?  A peasant with a shovel in his hands who accosted me as though I were an old acquaintance.  “Hey you,” he said, “take a good look:  I work without respite to give a little joy, a little rest to people who sorely need it.  And what do you do?  You lie around here as if creation had no human purpose.  Why do you refuse to help me?”  You see, added the Rebbe, I could resist the angels but not him.  Because, well…Do you know who he was?  Yes, it was the Baal Shem himself.  The Baal Shem is a rare world teacher, who not only appeared on the earth but still wanders through higher planes of Being, convincing illumined souls to come down to this world rather than simply remaining lost to heavenly contemplation. Take birth to kindle holy ecstasy among all sentient beings, calls the Baal Shem.

Ramakrishna experienced a vision of the similar process by which his Enlightened disciple, Vivekananda, had been enticed to take birth for the spiritual welfare of humanity.  In this vision, Vivekananda appeared as an archetypal sage, rapt in contemplation within a transcendental realm close to the Mountain of the Absolute.  The golden light of this realm appeared to condense into the form of a small child, who began sweetly and playfully drawing Vivekananda back to the awareness of relativity.  Simply because the child was so delightful, the transcendent sage could not resist.  The child – who was none other than Ramakrishna, as the peasant with the shovel was none other than Baal Shem – remarked simply and lovingly, I am going down. Come help me.  The sage reluctantly agreed.

This solidarity with living beings need not be expressed metaphysically or mystically.  In fact it survives best in the most earthly surroundings.  Wiesel tells a story about Rebbe Wolfe:   He was attending a circumcision.  Stepping outside for a moment, he noticed the coachman shivering with cold…”Go in, warm yourself, have a drink and something to eat.” –“Who will watch the horses?” –“I will.”  The coachman did as the Master wished. Several hours later people saw Rebbe Wolfe, half frozen in the snow, jumping from one foot to the other, at a loss to understand why the guests were making such a fuss. Unhesitating, unpremeditated solidarity with fellow beings is perhaps the most vivid expression of Enlightenment.  This loving compassion is ecstatic, free from rational calculation concerning how much help one might be realistically able to give.  But, as holy ecstasy, it gives the gift of itself, which is, in Hasidic terms, God’s Life.  There is no help more far-reaching, practical or profound.

The ecstasy of the Hasidic Way, which often appears as nonsense or madness to mundane understanding, pervaded the lives of biblical prophets such as Jeremiah as well as the Baal Shem and the soul masters that his lineage has produced.  Wiesel evokes the prophetic flavor of Levi-Yitzhak:   Once he climbed the roof of a building facing the marketplace.  He watched the merchants buying and selling and suddenly he began to shout at the top of his lungs:  “Good people, do not forget, do not forget that God, too, is to be feared!”   This soul master was genuinely lost in the holy ecstasy through which his will became transparent to God’s will, his words became God’s Words.  Through the prophetic being, the Divine speaks in human language for all to hear.  Wiesel continues to describe this ecstatic rebbe:  Accompanying his dead son to the cemetery he began to dance, crying:  “Lord, you entrusted me my son with a pure soul and that is how I give him back to you.”   Holy ecstasy dances spontaneously.  The ecstatic one is not concealing some inner pain or despair with his or her dance.  The dance is not conceived as a talisman to be used against suffering and death.  Suffering and death have disappeared completely into Divine Presence.  God projects the soul, which is a perfectly clear expression of the Divine Nature, and then withdraws the soul into its Source: this outbreath and inbreath are God’s ecstatic dance as Life.  Levi-Yitzhak simply radiated that Divine Dance.   He worshipped with such abandon that the frightened faithful instinctively moved away. He gesticulated, howled and danced, jumping from one corner to the other, pushing and overturning whatever was in his way.  People ceased to exist for him.  When he prayed, he himself ceased to exist.

This is the Divine revealing itself through the human:  the individual disappears into holy ecstasy, re-emerges, and then disappears again as the inbreath and outbreath of Divine Plenitude itself.  Such intense intimacy with the Divine can deepen into complete mystical union.  Consider what Rebbe Nachman says about the I-Thou relationship, the devotional metaphor by which the experience of God’s Presence is most often expressed in Jewish tradition:  If I am and You are because I am myself and You are Yourself, then I am I and You are You.  This is the ecstatic I-Thous, the love play of Divine Plenitude with Itself as God and Hasid.  In this ecstasy, the I stands outside the I and the Thou outside the Thou.  The I and the Thou, no longer fundamentally separate, become intimate friends:  they quarrel, play hide-and-seek, merge in union, and re-emerge in conversation – all the while knowing that I am not I and You are not You, for the apparent barrier between human and Divine has dissolved.

Elie Wiesel writes of Rebbe Nachman:  “The angels never repeat their litanies,” he said, quoting the Talmud.  And he went on to explain:  “The angels praising the Lord are never the same; the Lord changes them every day.”  Rebbe Nachman’s conclusion:  “Whoever repeats himself displeases God and moves away from Him.”  We indulge in a basic repetition of ourselves when we insist  I, I, I –I am the separate individual.   The only way not repeat ourselves is to be the ecstasy that continually overflows all barriers between human beings as well as between the Divine and the human.  When we are immersed in Divine Presence, our individuality remains, but it is released from its repetitive or confining nature.  We become flames in the dancing fire of holy ecstasy.

See Also: Part 1: Holy Ecstasy
                 Part 2: Understanding Suffering
                 Part 3: Guidance from Soul Masters
                 Part 4: Awakening to Our Divine Nature