In this Jewish meditation talk given at the Elat Chayyim Advanced Meditation Program, Rabbi Alan Lew speaks of patterns observed in the Torah that reveal the essential experienced ingredients for spiritual transformation.

This is the moment of leave-taking that life and meditation pushes us to. The moment when we realize that we just can’t go on the way we’ve been going, when we feel we have to do something and we have no idea what to do or even how to endure the next moment. And this according to the Torah is what we should do:

1. Stop running around in a panic, trying to run away from phantom stories that we’ve been telling ourselves.

2. Be with the moment, fearful or not.

3. See what is really there.

4. Feeling the calm from seeing the truth.

5. Take the next inevitable action which rises of its own accord, out of the stillness.

The beginning part of a talk given at the 2005 winter Elat Chayyim Advanced Meditation Program retreat, Norman aids the listener in delving deeper into seeing the true meaning and opportunity of life.

We have to not ignore our daily life and all the practical matters, relationships and obligations, not ignore them, searching for something bigger and more radiant, but rather see them as vehicles, see them as garments that need to be woven in the right way for a deeper and more beautiful purpose.

Every human act is either an expression or a request for love. This line from Yedid Nefesh, which Jeff Roth translates as my soul yearns for your love, please God, heal her is introduced with the kavanah (intention) that we may really feel both the yearning to give and express love as well as the longing to receive love.

The healing that’s implied [in this prayer] is not that the yearning should stop. The healing that’s implied is heal this yearning by helping us to experience this love. The yearning should continue. It’s what pulls us to search for this love.

The healing is bringing our awareness and our consciousness to this yearning and seeing that it is OK to have this. When we see it from this more conscious place we feel more connected.

The first part of a morning chant service from the March 2006, Discovering the Divine retreat, Sylvia Boorstein introduces Modeh Ani, speaking of the power unleashed by gratitude.

Saying thank you is the affirmation that one is able to hold the whole of experience in the awareness that everything, a desired thing or an undesired thing, is amazing just because it’s happening.