Especially if your Philosophy is "Loving Kindness" ....

Wisdom and Understanding ....

According to the Sefer Yetzirah(The Book of Formation) the Right side of your brain is called Chakhmah-Wisdom and the Left side of your brain is called Binah- Understanding.

Understanding (Binah) involves verbal thought, while Wisdom (Chahkmah) is pure nonverbal thought. Understanding consists of the normal reverie, where the person thinks out things so as to understand and organize the thoughts. Wisdom, on the other hand, is pure thought. (P 39 Sefer Yetzirah)

The undifferentiated Light of the Infinite which existed before the Constriction (Creation) is on the level of Wisdom (Chakhmah) which is pure undelineated Mind. (p.14 Sefer Yetzirah)

It is only on levels below Wisdom that people are separated into different individuals. Only on lower levels does the division between good and evil exist.

The Talmud likewise states, "Who is wise ? He who perceives the future." This is because Wisdom is the pure mind force that transcends time. On the Level of Wisdom, past, present and future have not yet been separated. Hence, on this level, one can see the future just like the past and present.

The antithesis of Wisdom is Understanding. The Hebrew word for Understanding is Binah, which comes from the root Beyn meaning "between"

Understanding (Left side of brain) is the level immediately below Wisdom. (Right side) It is on the level of Understanding that ideas exist separately, where they can be scrutinized and comprehended. While Wisdom is pure undifferentiated Mind, Understanding is the level where division exists, and where things are delineated and defined as separated objects.

On the level of Wisdom-Chakhmah (Right Side of Brain), all men are included in a single world Soul. Understanding-Binah (Left side of brain) is the level of Neshamah, where the Soul of each individual assumes a distinct identity, and each one is seen as a separate entity. (p 12 Sefer Yetzirah)

Wisdom and Understanding are seen as being male and female respectively. In the Kabbalah, Wisdom is seen as the Father (Abba), while Understanding is the Mother (Imma). (p. 13 Sefer Yetzirah)

Maybe now when we read the final line in the Gospel of Thomas (Sayings of Jesus) we can understand what is being said.... Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male (Wisdom), so that she too may become a living spirit resembling the male (Wisdom-Right). For every woman (Understanding-Left) who will make herself male (Wisdom-Right) will enter the kingdom of heaven." - Gospel of Thomas 114

" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two One, and when you make the Inside like the Outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male (Wisdom) and the female (Understanding) One and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom." - Gospel of Thomas 22

Oneness, Perfect and Infinite - from the Isha Upanishad

The Isha Upanishad is significant amongst the Upanishads for its description of the nature of the supreme being (Ish).It presents a monist or non-dual perspective of the universe. The text then asserts the oneness of the supreme self;

"For the enlightened one all that exists is nothing but the Self". Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi thought so highly of this text that he remarked, "If all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live for ever."

The shloka Mahatma Gandhi was referring to is as follows. "From the whole the whole, from the complete arises the complete. Deducting the whole from the whole, the whole alone remains."

"Om Poornam Adah Poornam Idam Poornaat Poornam Udachyate Poornasya Poornam Aadaay Poornam Evaa Vashishyate"

Simple Meaning:

'You are the fullness. There is fullness, here is fullness. From the fullness, the fullness is born. Remove the fullness from the fullness and the fullness alone remains.'

Implied Meaning:

That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.

That (the invisible Brahman) is full, this (the visible Brahman) is full. This full (visible Brahman) proceeds from that full (invisible Brahman). On grasping the fulness of this full (visible Brahman) there is left that full (invisible Brahman)

Higher Level Meaning:

The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.

The Isha Upanishad $5.95

Jesus and the God of Spinoza.

Spinoza said: "Whatsoever is, (ie: everything) is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." - The Ethics

Jesus said: " I am the ALL (ie: Everything); the ALL came forth from me, and the ALL attained to me. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there." Gospel of Thomas(77)

Spinoza said: "God is the indwelling..."

Jesus said: "The Kingdom of God is WITHIN you..." - Luke 17:21

Moses Cordovero said : Do not say "This is a stone and not God." God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity."

Jesus taught : "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you ?" 1 Cor 3:16

Abraham Abulafia said : "Now we are no longer separated from our Source, and behold we are the Source and the Source is us. We are so intimately United with IT, we cannot by any means be separated from IT, for we are IT."

Jesus said : " May they be One as we are One, I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete Unity" John 17:23

Albert Einstein said : "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world...."

Carl Sagan said: "Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others - for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein - considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."

Albert Einstein said : ""A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace ALL living creatures and the WHOLE of nature in its beauty."

Books of Illumination, Love and Light

From Spinoza's Eithics

Spinoza begins by describing what can be known about God. God is infinite being, according to Spinoza. God is infinite substance, consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses God’s eternal and infinite essence (I, Prop. XI).1

God necessarily exists, argues Spinoza, because God’s essence is existence. God’s essence is perfect, and therefore God's perfection implies that God must exist. God’s essence and existence are the same (I, Prop. XX). Each attribute which expresses God’s essence also expresses God’s existence.

According to Spinoza, infinite substance is indivisible (I, Prop. XIII). If infinite substance were divisible, it could either be divided into two finite parts, which is impossible, or it could be divided into two equally infinite parts, which is also impossible. Thus, there is only one infinite substance.

Since God is infinite substance, Spinoza argues, no attribute which expresses the essence of substance can be denied of God (I, Prop. XIV). Every being has its being in God. Nothing can come into being or exist without God.

Substance is defined by Spinoza as a mode of being which implies necessary existence. God is infinite substance, and outside of God no other substance is possible. Thus, Spinoza’s philosophy is Non-Dual, in that it claims that God is One, God is present in all things.

"Spinoza" - by Jorge Luis Borges

The Jew's hands, translucent in the dusk,
polish the lenses time and again.
The dying afternoon is fear, is
cold, and all afternoons are the same.
The hands and the hyacinth-blue air
that whitens at the Ghetto edges
do not quite exist for this silent
man who conjures up a clear labyrinth—
undisturbed by fame, that reflection
of dreams in the dream of another
mirror, nor by maidens' timid love.
Free of metaphor and myth, he grinds
a stubborn crystal: the infinite
map of the One who is all His stars.

Chesed - Loving Kindness, אהבת חסד

Chesed (or khesed (חסד)) is the Hebrew word for "kindness." It is also commonly translated as "loving-kindness," or "love." Chesed is central to Jewish ethics and Jewish theology. Many Jewish thinkers view chesed as the primary virtue. Kindness is valued by religious Jews of all denominations. It may be seen as a virtue or as a value which contributes to tikkun olam (repairing the world). It also is seen as the foundation of particular interpersonal commandments and of a variety of communal institutions.

Chesed is also one of the ten sephira on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. It is given the association of kindness and love, and is the first of the emotive attributes of the sephirot.

The World is Built on Kindness The fourth of the Ten Sefirot -- chesed -- precedes all others because it is the only one that is unconditional and unmotivated.

God is Love. ... what is Love ?

.... God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the Love which God has for us. God is Love, and the One who abides in Love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, Love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in Love; but perfect Love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in Love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I Love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the One who does not Love his brother whom he has seen, cannot Love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the One who Loves God should Love his brother also. - 1 John 4:16-21

MITAKUYE OYASIN , We are all Related

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin A

ho Mitakuye Oyasin... All my relations. I honor you in this circle of life with me today. I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you in this prayer...

To the Creator, for the ultimate gift of life, I thank you......

To the Four Winds of Change and Growth, I thank you.

You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other. One nation evolving from the other and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery.

Thank you for this Life.