Chapter Seven: Three Garments of the Soul
As we have said, the relationship between the absolute world
and the relative world is like that of the ocean to its waves. The waves are
the ocean in a specific pattern at a specific place and time. What is the pattern
the absolute takes that allows it to manifest the relative?
There are many from the physiological to the ethereal, but
for our purposes there are three patterns that matter most: thought, word, and
deed. These are called in Judaism the Three Garments of the Soul.
The soul is the equivalent to mochin d’gadlut, spacious
mind, that level of consciousness that knows the relative to be the absolute in
time and place. The Garments of the Soul are the ways mochin d’gadlut breaks
into mochin d’katnut and reveals the narrow world of competing selves to be but
one pole of the nondual reality of God.
The Three Garments of the Soul exist in the realm of the
relative, in the realm of mochin d’katnut. Because of this they can become
stained by excessive influence of Yetzer haRah. When our thought, words, and
deeds are driven by selfishness rather than a genuine concern for both self and
others, they become soiled.
From the Jewish point
of view cleansing the Garments of the Soul is what spiritual practice is all
about. Our thoughts can be liberating or imprisoning. Our words can be healing
or hurtful. Our deeds can be helping or harming. The more they reflect the
narrow perspective of mochin d’katnut and Yetzer haRah the more our thoughts
are imprisoning, our words are hurtful, and our deeds are harming. The more
they reflect the spacious perspective of mochin d’gadlut and Yetzer haTov the
more our thoughts are liberating, our words are healing, and our deeds are
helpful.
The task of the Nazirite is to move from the perspective of
mochin d’katnut to that of mochin d’gadlut. The way we do this is by cleansing
the Three Garments of the Soul through the three abstinences of the Vow.
We cleanse the Garment of Thought by abstaining from dead
bodies, understood as dead thinking. We cleanse the Garment of Word by
abstaining from intoxicants of mindless media and needless drama that often
lead us to saying things that are untrue and unnecessarily hurtful. We cleanse
the Garment of Deed by abstaining from cutting our hair: that is when we stop
giving into the psychology of victimization and grow our power to honor both
self and other.
Discovering this link
between the Nazirite Vow and the Three Garments of the Soul leads us to a
toolbox of spiritual techniques that Jewish sages have honed over centuries.
We will focus on four such tools: Shmirat haLashon, guarding our speech, Gemilut Chasadim, doing random acts of kindness for others, Cheshbon haNefesh, taking a nightly
inventory of our character, and Hitbodedut, taking solitary refuge in God.
The next few chapters will take up each of these in turn.
1 comment:
Now this is beginning to be interesting to me. I like your way of rereading the abstinences of the traditional Nazirite vow.
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