Quote of the Week #17 - The Wanderer Who Is Never Lost

The sage is a wanderer who is never lost; every step is both departure and arrival.

--Rabbi Rami Shapiro, from The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature

Quote of the Week #16 - Nothingness

The same Nothingness that torments the existentialists delights the Zen Masters. There is but a hair’s breadth between desperation, anguish and terror on the one hand and awe, beauty, wonder, joy and love on the other hand. The trick is to find the right hair to blow you in the right direction – to suffer death and rebirth at the hands of the same Magician – Nothingness.  It’s a hair’s breadth away, yet at the same time, it is a million miles away.

--From Writings of the Dawn, the Spiritual Journey of a Baby Boomer,  

by Steven J. Gold 

Quotes of the Week #15 - Every Form

The best form in which to worship God is every form.

--Neem Karoli Baba

Which aspect of God do you prefer, the personal or the impersonal?

--Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

Quote of the Week #14 - Sexual Orientation and the Soul

The soul is sexless and a person is not the body.  It is natural for one soul to love another soul regardless of the gender of the physical body.  Sexual preference does not reflect on the spiritual development of the soul.

--Master Choa Kuk Sui

Quote of the Week #13 - The Mind is Like a Parachute

The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.

--Frank Zappa

Quote of the Week #12 - On Course

I know I’m on course. I know the destination is the horizon. But I sure don’t know the details along the way.

--Steven J. Gold

Quote of the Week #11 - Myth and History

For some inexplicable reason, we have a hard time reading the Jewish scriptures as a people’s story, a people’s mythology, and instead read it as a people’s history. Myth is not fact; it is truth. By seeing it only as fact, we neglect its entire purpose, its truth, its wisdom.

--from The Judeo-Christian Fiction, by Rabbi Gershon Winkler 

Quote of the Week #10 - Consciousness and the Human Brain

Neuroscientists still can’t agree on how to define consciousness, or how it arises in the human brain.

--from an article in The Week magazine about “Legal rights for apes”, August 9, 2013, discussing whether apes have any semblance of consciousness similar to human consciousness

Quote of the Week #9 - Easy Path to Liberation

It is easy to attain liberation: Just disconnect here and connect there. We make it difficult by our habits, attachments and selfish sense of purpose.

--Swami Rama

Quote of the Week #8 - The Purpose of Spiritual Practice

Many spiritual aspirants have a misconception that the purpose of spiritual practice is just to achieve divine bliss, divine ecstasy and divine oneness. 

These are just partial benefits. The purpose of spiritual practices is to accelerate the evolutionary development of the soul so that the person can be of greater service to mankind and the planet Earth.

--From The Origin of Modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga by Master Choa Kok Sui

Universal Mantras - Adonai Hineni and So Hum

Universal Mantras

From the Hebrew Tradition – Adonai Hineni (Hineni Adonai)

From the Yoga Tradition – So Hum (Hamsa)

Steven J. Gold

Spiritual Essence

Spiritualessens.blogspot.com

spiritualessens@gmail.com

At a sister site to this site, yajcenter.blogspot.com (Yoga and Judaism Center), and in my book, Yoga and Judaism, I have written other articles about Jewish Yoga Meditation and Hebrew Mantras. They make many suggestions for the practitioner to experiment with concerning various mantras. In addition to the foundational mantras involving the Tetragrammaton, the Shema, and the Amidah, over the years of experimentation, another Hebrew mantra has emerged as particularly potent in my own experience and in the experience of many who have been introduced to this specific mantra through my teaching sessions, Adonai Hineni, sometimes presented in the reverse order, Hineni Adonai. I have come to focus on it whenever I am introducing Hebrew mantras to new students. This article highlights its significance, along with the universal yoga mantra, So Hum, also sometimes presented in the reverse order, Hamsa.

The term “Adonai” (sometimes transliterated as “Adonoi”, phonetically pronounced “Ah-Doh-Noy”) has a particular significance as found in the Torah. Up until its first appearance, the terms utilized in referencing God, such as Elohim, YHVH (the Tetragrammaton), and El Shaddai, were terms spoken directly by God as the omniscient narrator of the Torah (or, from another perspective, through the agency/narration of Moses). “Adonai” is somewhat unique, because it is uttered not directly from God, but through man (Abraham) in addressing/calling out to God (Genesis 15:2). It is usually translated as “Lord”, as acknowledgement of an ultimate power existing that is much greater than the individual mortal self.

“Hineni” (sometimes transliterated as “Hinani”, phonetically pronounced “Hee-Nay-Nee”), likewise first appears in the Torah as spoken by man/Abraham, this time in responding to God’s call (Genesis 22:1). The last time it appears in the Torah is during the event when Moses encounters the burning bush on Mt. Sinai. When the voice of God calls out to Moses, his response is, “Hineni” (Exodus 3:4). It is translated as “Here I am”, or “I am here.”, but the commentary on the inner meaning of this response is very significant. This is not the common separative “I/self” asserting itself and indicating physical location, but rather the humble vestige of a separative self responding in awe to the greatness of the Almighty which it is beholding, and offering up itself in complete submission and service. “I am at your service”, would be a more correct translation capturing the inner meaning of the literal translation. Like Abraham’s earlier addressing God as “Adonai”, here again is an utterance of great servants of God in response to God’s call to them. (Other uses found in the Torah convey similar meanings).

What has felt right for me is to utilize the two words, “Adonai” and “Hineni” in conjunction and in coordination with the breath: “Adonai” is silently intoned internally, coordinated with the inhalation (breathing in the Divine essence/life force offered by God) and “Hineni” is silently intoned internally, coordinated with the exhalation (extending back to God what we can offer in humble service, in return, with profound gratitude). I have found it to be very powerful, as have many other people to whom I have introduced it.

There is a correlation of this mantra to a primary breath-coordinated mantra from my yoga tradition, the “so-hum” mantra, also sometimes referred to as the “hamsa” mantra (reversing the ordering of the syllables). “So” is silently intoned internally, coordinated with the inhalation, and “hum” is silently intoned internally, coordinated with the exhalation. “So-Hum” is generally translated as “I am That”, or “That I am”, with “So” meaning “That” and “Hum” meaning “I”. The general import is similar to “Adonai Hineni”, as what is perceived as God separate from the small self, “That”, is taken in, while what is perceived as the small separate self, “I” is offered out, acknowledging the deeper merging of the two as “I am That”. The reverse ordering of these two syllables creates the word “hamsa”, which means “swan”, a Vedic symbol of the ability of the mind to discriminate the unreal from the real, to come to the realization that what appears separate as “That-So” and “I-Hum” are in fact connected and not separated. It is similar to the concept of Martin Buber of transforming “I-It” to “I-Thou”. However, traditional Jewish notions maintain that one can never fully merge identity with the One, but can only become closely united/clinging, similar to the bhakti perspective in yoga (the path of devotion and praise) while the teachings of Vedanta maintain that the individual identity can fully merge with the One (which can also be found in the kabalist conception of yichud/unity and bitul/negation of separation).