Days of Awe: At-One-Ment

"There does not exist any vow, oath, pledge, promise, or intention. But there does exist pardon, forgiveness, and atonement." —from Kolaynu Santa Cruz's Rosh Hashanah service

I attended The School for The Work right after 9/11; an amazing time to spend 10 days immersed in The Work, not that any time there isn't equally amazing. It's just that this was one heck of a story to undo. We spent exactly one evening on it together, in session. The rest of the week we focused on the usual suspects: mother, father, boss, partner, children, money, health, and in my case, cat.

Yom Kippur also happened during that week. I spoke about it in the work room with my classmates, remarking that what we were doing at the school was remarkably like teshuva (turning), tefilah (sincere asking), and tzedakah (right action).

I'd asked to sing something in the room that I would have chanted for my deceased parents in the synagogue, had I been at home. These words are part of the Mourner's Kaddish, the prayer for the dead:

Oseh shalom bimromov, hu yaaseh shalom, aleynu v'al kol yisroel, ve'imroo omein.

The translation is: The One who makes peace in high holy places, may this One bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel (literal translation of Israel: one who struggles—that would be most of us); and let us say Amen.

I realized then that the essence of the High Holy Days, and of our practice of inquiry, was about peace; peace within, peace without, peace with Creation.

In the concluding Yom Kippur service, the congregation admits to all the sins that we have ever committed, knowing that forgiveness is at hand in the recognition. Is there any one of us who has never done these things, if only to ourselves?

"We have trespassed, we have been faithless, we have robbed, we have spoken basely, we have committed iniquity, we have wrought unrighteousness, we have been presumptuous, we have done violence, we have forged lies, we have counseled evil, we have spoken falsely, we have scoffed, we have revolted, we have blasphemed, we have been rebellious, we have acted perversely, we have transgressed, we have persecuted, we have been stiff-necked, we have done wickedly, we have corrupted ourselves, we have committed abomination, we have gone astray, and we have led astray."

Only in our awareness that we have been confused and mistaken can we come to clarity. Only in seeing that we are what we thought our enemies were can we make peace with them. Only in realizing the truth about our loved ones can we honor them in life or death; they turned out to be us. At-one-ment.

After I sang at the School that day—a day during which I had believed myself to be bagging the holiest of holy days in the Jewish calendar—Katie said to me, "You're doing Yom Kippur big-time!"

I have endeavored to do Yom Kippur big-time ever since.

Let all who struggle be peaceful at last, in this high holy place. Today, I am blessed to know how to find peace within: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? How do I react when I believe that thought? Who would I be without this thought? Turn the thought around.

God is good.

Happy new you.

Love,
Carol


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Days of Awe: Whose Business Are You In, Mentally?

During my research for these High Holy Days blog posts, I discovered that there is one sin that Yom Kippur cannot atone: sin committed against another, including hurting someone's feelings. It is said that the wrong-doer must gain forgiveness from the victim before this kind of atonement can occur.

If that's true, wouldn't it then mean that we're never in a state of grace unless everyone else agrees? I don't think so!

This might simply be the universe's way of reminding us that, ultimately, we're the one hearing our own prayers. If the universe is friendly—if God is good, and God is everything—we are perfect as we are. If nothing terrible has ever happened, we are already forgiven; if we don't realize this, then we need our own forgiveness.

One of my favorite subquestions to Question Three of The Work is, "Whose business are you in, mentally, when you believe this thought?" Byron Katie has said she could find only three kinds of business in the world: my business, your (their) business, and God's (Reality's) business. When we are mentally in the business of another, Katie says, we abandon ourselves. This only creates more "sin," or separation from our true nature.

Whose business is it what others think of me? Their business. This may also be God's business, since there is nothing I can do about it; people are going to think what they think, no matter how good my intentions. "It's not your job to like me," Katie says, "it's mine."

Whose business is it what I think of myself? My business. Herein lies the only possibility for healing, and this is why the Days of Awe focus on taking stock and casting off what no longer serves. No one else can make me feel okay about myself, no matter what they say. If I believe I'm a beeyotch, I am, but only according to me. If you call me a bitch and it hurts, you're right...but only according to me.

If I think I need your forgiveness, love, approval, appreciation, or acknowledgment in order to be okay, I'm very confused, and that is not the point of Yom Kippur. However, staying in my own business mentally—viewing my transgressions as something between me and my higher self—doesn't mean that I don't make amends for any wrongdoing I may have done. I like myself when I'm my best self with you.

If I have said or done something to you that I'm later sorry for, and you tell me you didn't even notice, it doesn't mean there is no need to make amends. I need to do it to remain in my integrity.

You may feel so wronged by me that you will not acknowledge or accept my apology. The one I perceive to have wronged may be dead, or I'm unable to reach them...or I may feel it might do more harm than good to make contact. I make amends anyway, in private if need be, in a letter I will never mail, as part of my cleansing practice during the Days of Awe.

Forgiveness is already here, in the moment of my recognition of my true nature, and my sincere wish to do better. I do it for my sake, really; you are me.

May all be inscribed in your Book of Life for a beautiful year/beautiful mind.

Love,
Carol


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Days of Awe: Authenticity

Rabbi Susya said, a short while before his death, "In the world to come, I shall not be asked, 'Why were you not Moses?' I shall be asked, 'Why were you not Susya?'" —Martin Buber

Many of the prayers of the Jewish High Holy Days speak to the nullification of the ego-self, so that we can align more deeply with, and be a channel for, the expression of "divine will," or our true nature: who we are without our story, in essence.

What stories of "you"—the stories that typically begin with the words, "I need," "I want," "I shouldn't," "they should," "I'll never," "I don't ever want to"—keep you from your true nature? We can know this is happening because each type of statement above creates a separation from, and an argument with, what is, and this separation causes us to suffer. "What is" is also who we are, as we are: entirely good enough, in the parallel universe of peace. If not, then God is punishing us, therefore we must have done something wrong, therefore we are flawed, therefore God's perfect creation isn't perfect. Believing this is the source of our insanity.

These beautiful holidays exhort us to be our true self: not Moses, not Jesus, not Buddha, not Elvis, not Mother Teresa, not Martin Buber, not Byron Katie. That which we admire in them, we are already. If I can just be authentic, there is no more seeking.

So why am I pretending I am not Carol, the authentic Carol as opposed to the Carol of my beliefs? Is this one that I think I am even remotely real?

When I ask this question, and sincerely answer, I can't find the story of Carol to be true. How and why am I not true to myself? That's part of the answer to question three of The Work, "How do you react when you believe that thought? What happens?" What happens is, Carol forgets who she is and gets into all sorts of trouble...which, fortunately, isn't trouble at all. Have you noticed this as well?

In these days of awe, we look back on what is not: we transgressed in the story of the past, which is over. We seek forgiveness for an imaginary being, not for the one we are in the moment we seek forgiveness. It is already healed; we just don't realize it yet. In each moment, there is an opportunity to know who we are. That is the forgiveness.

The present moment is nothing if not forgiving, because there is nothing prior to it, nothing coming down the pike. Forgiveness is already here, because, as Katie says, "Forgiveness is realizing that what you thought happened, didn't."

The good news is, we can't be anything other than who we really are. God, reality, knows this; the universe needs no beseeching. All is forgiven in the moment of recognition.

May all be inscribed in your Book of Life for a beautiful year/beautiful mind.

Love,
Carol


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Days of Awe: Who Decrees Severity? That Was Me

Here is more about why I love to celebrate and contemplate the Jewish New Year.

The Rosh Hashanah prayer Unetanneh Tokef concludes:

"Repentence, prayer and right action avert the severe decree."

Sounds like The Work to me.

In Biblical Hebrew, teshuva, repentance, literally means to turn around, to think differently. This return to the source is possible when we unravel the contents of the "I know" mind and come to see what lies beneath. The turnaround, a reversal of our original belief, allows the bigger picture of "what is," the infinite mind, to emerge; we are all things, and nothing is simply as it appears.

The Amidah portion of the Rosh Hashanah service also seems to speak of turnarounds:

N'varech et ayn hachayim v'cho neetbarech. "As we bless the source of life, so we are blessed."

Prayer, tefillah in Hebrew, is an outpouring of the soul to the source. When done with sincerity, that outpouring is heard, and answered. We could say that, lovingly and sincerely asked, "Is it true?" is the language of the heart, as is the answer we hear when we really want to know the truth.

Tzedakah, literally "righteousness," is a word used for charitable giving as well as right action. The most charitable thing I know to do is to recognize my errors and make things right, to the best of my ability. When I question thoughts I have that seem unkind to others, to me, to the earth, to God—and I turn these thoughts around—I get my prescription for curing the sickness with which I have lived. I get instructions for making amends. I express my sorrow, forgive myself for being confused, ask (tefillah) what I can do for healing, and write my own prescription.

Let nothing in the world of our personal relationships, relationship to our own selves, and relationship to the earth, stand in the way of our loving relationship with What Is.

May all be inscribed in your Book of Life for a beautiful year/beautiful mind.

Love,
Carol


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Days of Awe: Fresh Starts

It is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Rosh Hashanah is at once a celebration of the birth of the world, and a time of self-examination and repentance. These days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (at-one-ment), called the Days of Awe, are my favorite holidays. I grew up believing this holy time of judgment and penitance to be very solemn, but in recent years I see them as a cause for celebration, because I am reminded of the true, forgiving nature of God, of reality. I love the timing of the high holy days; September, back-to-school time. I've always loved fresh starts.

This year I am not celebrating in the most traditional way. I did go to (very feminist, egalitarian, progressive, Santa Cruz-style) services last night, and heard the sound of the shofar (ram's horn), a call to wake up. I can always use the reminder.

Today I went down to the San Lorenzo River, steps from my front door, to perform my personal version of tashlich, the custom of casting bread upon the waters, symbolic of throwing off the year's accumulated sins. For me, sin is about separation: how have I separated myself from others, from the earth, from my body, from Creation, by believing anything is less than good? Where did I drop the ball, and why? With ducks and seagulls as my witnesses, I asked myself and the universe for the clarity to make things right, and for a clean slate. The birds happily fished the stale bread bits out of the river, and having no concept of such things, took on no sins of mine.

Afterwards, I went swimming, cognizant that this was also my mikvah, or ritual bath. As the water cleansed and supported me, I was reminded of the words of a beautiful song:

Return again, return again,
Return to the home of your soul.
Return to who you are, return to what you are,
Return to where you are born and reborn again.


"We always begin now." —Byron Katie.

May all be inscribed in your Book of Life for a beautiful year/beautiful mind.

Love,
Carol


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.