Day Of 'At One Ment' - Embracing Nothingness And Offering Self Compassion

Welcome to Within All Things,

Where we explore universal spiritual teachings to enhance our lives and better our world.

My name is Azrielle Jacobic.

My goal for each one of our shows is that you and I both will walk away feeling inspired and empowered to live with more joy,

Purpose,

And a greater sense of spiritual connection.

Welcome to Within All Things.

Let's get started.

Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Within All Things.

Today is going to be a solo episode.

It is just going to be you and me and some teachings that I'm going to share with you about At-One-ment.

Today is a special day on the Hebrew calendar,

Which I observe.

It is the day before Yom Kippur.

It is the day of atonement.

So when you look at the word atonement,

It appears to say at one minute.

So we're going to talk a little bit about what those things mean,

What is this day,

And what is its universal significance.

So again,

I am Jewish and I'm a practicing Jew.

And I also feel that many of my own observances have universal significance,

Which I would like to share with you.

And this show also includes all types of different traditions.

And I think that the one thing about truth is that it is universal and it makes its way through all times and all spaces and places.

So let's talk about this day of atonement for a moment.

It begins this evening here in Israel and it is known as the holiest day of the year and that people are the closest to the infinite and to the essence of their own souls.

And it says in the Torah,

In the Bible,

It says,

For on this day you will be forgiven,

You will be purified,

You will be cleansed from all your sins before the infinite.

And it's a really powerful idea when we think about the idea of being forgiven and being given a clean slate.

And so often in this tradition we might focus on asking other people for forgiveness,

Which is so hugely important,

And then also asking the infinite for forgiveness.

And that's hugely important as well,

Right?

We're always evolving and becoming and growing.

That's the goal.

And those two things are incredible,

Although the focus of this podcast is going to be a little bit different.

That's going to be on the focus of forgiving ourselves.

And what does that mean?

What does that look like and how do we do it?

How do we offer ourselves compassion?

Now on one hand with this day coming it might seem somewhat selfish to think about forgiving ourselves,

Like shouldn't we be asking other people for forgiveness or asking God.

So all of those things are good.

But beneath what we do to other people and beneath what we do in this universe,

There's a conversation going on within us at all times.

And in the Jewish tradition there's an idea that there are two different inclinations within every person.

There's an inclination to do good and there's the inclination to do otherwise.

And I think what's so important to point out about all of this is that a person is neither the good inclination or the other inclination.

There's an I that exists beyond the good and the otherwise.

There is something deeper than that.

And how do we get to that place?

How do we get to the space?

I want to share a teaching with you.

It is a Hasidic teaching and it says the following thing.

At every instant all universes receive existence and sustenance from the infinite.

It is humanity,

However,

Who motivates this sustenance and transmits it to all worlds.

When a person wants to bring new sustenance to all universes,

He must first attach himself to the level of nothingness.

This is nothingness with a capital N.

This nothingness is the level in all universes that was not constricted.

When humanity nullifies himself completely,

Attaches his thoughts to nothingness,

A new sustenance flows to all universes.

This is a spiritual sustenance that did not exist previously.

Also that is a teaching from someone known as Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev who lived in the middle of the 1700s.

It's a really beautiful teaching that capitalizes the word nothingness.

Within Judaism we have many words for the ineffable,

But ultimately what we recognize is that there is something beyond us as well as within us that cannot be communicated with words.

It is something that exists in silence and in this nothingness that this teaching gives over and shares with us.

How do we access this place of nothingness?

This has been something that I've been focusing on a lot recently and looking into my own tradition as well as other traditions to figure out how do we get to that place.

I think in a lot of ways it seems complicated and at the same time what I've come to discover is that there are some very simple practices that can help us tap into this space of nothingness.

I'd like to share one with you today.

Before I do so I want to share a story about a village.

It's a story about a village of spiritual seekers,

People of all ages.

It was a really thriving community and there was a lot of spiritual learning going on,

A lot of joy,

Purpose,

Growth,

Connectedness,

Social connectedness,

Interpersonal connectedness.

Although over time for whatever reason there was a certain spark that fizzled out in this community.

This happens on a personal level,

It happens on a communal level.

It's an act,

It's a work to stay inspired and it requires reminders.

The leader of this community was very wise and sought out some advice,

Much needed advice about how do I reinstill the spiritual vigor and the energy back into my community.

We've just kind of fallen by the wayside.

So the leader of the community visited a great sage and sat down with the sage and began to tell the sage everything,

You know,

Pour out her heart.

The sage responded as follows,

The sage said,

You know I'm so happy that you came to me today and as much as I want to give you advice I don't have advice for you but I know something to be true about your community and I know that it is filled with righteous people.

So the leader took this information and went back to the community and shared the news,

Shared the information and what she had learned from this great sage and little by little the community started to change.

So what we can understand about this idea,

First of all within the Judaic tradition there is an idea that there are hidden righteous people in the world and they're hidden.

We don't know who they are or where they're hiding.

So the leader of the community brought back this information about the righteous people hiding and pretty soon there was a shift that was experienced in the community and it looked like people returning to their homes and seeking out,

You know,

Maybe this righteous person lives in my family.

Students would come to school and interact with one another and think to themselves,

Maybe it's one of my friends,

You know,

And this went on in every combination of relationships within the community.

And at a certain point one friend would be speaking to another and say something that was,

You know,

Somewhat unkind or unthoughtful and the other friend would simply respond by looking for more and looking for something righteous because the friend was so convinced that she was speaking to a righteous person,

That this righteous person could be hiding next to her and that it was very much her job to find this person.

And over time the community started to transform because each person was looking to the other as well as internally to find,

Could this righteous person be my friend,

My family member,

My student,

My teacher?

What if it's me?

Wow,

What if it's me?

Well that's the question.

So what if it's me?

And what we all come to know and what we can all come to learn is that,

Okay,

What is the I?

The I contains within it these different inclinations,

Right?

But those inclinations are not the I.

The I is what is going to be the conductor over the inclinations.

There is a Hebrew word for conductor,

A conductor of a symphony.

Imagine what does the conductor do?

The conductor brings together all the different parts.

This very same word for conductor in Hebrew is also the word for someone who wins,

Someone who is victorious.

And someone who is victorious is finding a way to conduct these different inclinations,

These different elements,

To literally guide them,

Conduct them and create a victory through them.

So perhaps it is through this conducting and tuning into the oneness of which we are a part and also really melding these different parts of ourselves with the I.

The I that is connected to nothingness.

The I that is capable of striving for more and being a vessel for light and for righteousness in the world.

And I think that in order to do that there is a very powerful practice of forgiving ourselves with this day of at-one-ment coming up.

What does it mean to be at one?

And as we strive to be at one we can come to a place of acknowledging that okay there are these different inclinations within us.

There are sixty or seventy thousand thoughts which might cross our minds in a day but we are not the creator of those thoughts.

It simply cannot be possible.

We are not creating these inclinations.

These inclinations are not the I.

They are not the nothingness.

They are not the at-one-ment.

So how do we get there?

How do we get to the I and kind of come down deeper from this choppy surface of these inclinations pushing and pulling our little boat in different directions on the surface of the water.

We want to get deeper and we want to come to a place of stillness.

And so I want to offer you a practice which is again seemingly simple but it is actually something practiced by some of the greatest spiritual masters in all different traditions.

And that is a practice of embracing silence and embracing nothingness and embracing breath.

And it's done as follows.

So you can find yourself a comfortable position.

This might be done more easily by lying down and slowly you're going to work through the different parts of your body from your head on down and as you breathe in through your nose slowly,

Deeply out through your mouth continuously you're going to draw your attention to your breath,

Closing your eyes,

Letting your eyes relax,

Each body part relax until finally you're physically relaxed and you're so focused in that on what you see with your eyes closed and the sensation of breath entering and exiting your body.

Entering your body,

Filling your body and exiting your body.

And this is a practice you can do for a few minutes.

You can slow your breath.

You can focus your attention solely on your breath and really know that because there are so many thoughts that can pop up in the time that we're focusing on breath here,

It's really okay because thoughts appear,

Thoughts come and rather than pushing them away we're going to simply acknowledge that they're there and refocus on the breathing,

The physical sensation of breath entering and exiting the body,

Filling the body and with each breath attuning oneself more and more to the idea of letting thoughts go,

Just letting go and just allowing yourself for right now,

Even just for a moment to be.

There's nothing outside of this moment that is pulling you away.

You are creating a space for yourself to tune into the deeper levels of your consciousness and accepting any thoughts that come in,

Just acknowledging and returning your attention to your breath.

So this is a practice that can be done in any space,

Anywhere.

It can be done lying down or sitting up.

It can be done with eyes closed,

Even in a noisy room.

We always have the capacity to focus on what it is that we choose to focus on and there's nothing that can take that away from us.

So that's the first powerful practice and it's something that has brought me a great amount of unexpected peace that I'm so grateful for and that's why I'm really happy to share it with you.

And then the second practice that I want to share with you,

If you're open to trying something like this,

For this practice of at-one-ment and forgiving ourselves and getting in touch with a new level of compassion for ourselves,

Which in itself will flow out into other areas of our lives and allow us to have compassion upon other people as well.

So this practice of having compassion begins with the breathing that we introduced earlier and it goes on to us envisioning ourselves,

Looking in onto ourselves as children.

You can peer through a window of your childhood home and see yourself at different ages beginning in infancy and at age three just beginning to speak and age five or six beginning school and all throughout the different ages on the journey of your childhood and simply offer yourself words of compassion.

Words of compassion,

You're doing the best that you can.

You have so much love within you.

You're trying so hard to be a good child and a good sibling and a good friend.

You are growing each day and you're making so much progress and don't listen to what other people say because you know the truth that's deep inside you.

Offer compassion to this child and offer this child the wisdom that you have.

Only compassion and only love because that is exactly what will feed this child who is a seed.

You're watering it with love and watching it grow and you're listening from a place of stillness and allowing that water of compassion to really nurture the inner child that's still alive within you today.

I hope that you enjoyed these teachings and I bless you that it should bring you peace and compassion and connectivity.

Thank you so much for joining me today and I bless you with at one minute and healing and really turning over a new leaf in your life wherever one needs to appear.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

If you enjoyed this episode,

You are going to love my new book Beyond All Things.

It's available in both ebook and print format on Amazon.

Once again,

The title is Beyond All Things,

Insights to Awaken Joy,

Purpose and Spiritual Connection.

If you want to join the conversation around these things,

Please come join us on Facebook.

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I look forward to personally welcoming you to the group.

Thanks so much for being here and we'll see you next time.