Soul – The Neshama Factor

Most intriguing for one like me who had never had any previous interest in anything remotely religious or spiritual and who was happy ‘managing life’ one ego-centric move at a time (What? Isn’t that the privilege of adults?) was Yudit’s immediate insistence that there was no such thing as ‘the future’. l My amateurish argument that Matthew, the gospel, had long ago stated that the meek had been earmarked to inherit the earth – presumably in a very distant future – did not carry much weight with her. l “CC, there’s only the moment connected to your breath,” Yudit repeated, “and it’s only by being awake and aware inside these moments that you can create better thoughts for yourself in the moment. What you think now creates what you do next and that next moment is the only future there is. There is no future beyond the next moment and the next one after that.” l Yudit was equally adamant when it came to our purpose in this lifetime. “Simply accept that, in one way or another and far beyond the reach of human understanding, each moment you like and each moment you don’t like pushes you to jump out of your rigid mindset. They’re intended to shift you out of the ongoing playback of past moments which, you already know, cease to exist the moment you choose to blow out the memory of them like a flame. Up to you whether you blow or don’t blow.”  Sure but, surely, it’s easier said than done. “Don’t fall back on good karma or bad karma,” she added, “because it’s not about that. It’s not about good luck and back luck either. These things don’t exist. They’re like urban myths. We get from life exactly what we need to grow, to become genuine persons who are resilient and coherent. What does exist is a cosmic cycle that expects us to produce better outcomes in this life than produced those who were our soul’s vehicles in the previous ones.” Past lives? Is this getting a bit woohoo-ish? I frowned but read on. l “Moments of nothingness when nothing seems to be happening are good,” Yudit had gone on explaining. “They allow your nervous system to rest. You should not see them as boring. Don’t shorten them by seeking thrills. The next push forward out of lazy thinking will come soon enough.” l In the follow-up mail, Yudit had resumed the conversation in progress about the ‘blow to the head’, as she called the nudge or strong push we, humans, need every so often to challenge our ego-persona’s default program in favour of generating more authentic responses, such as the potential for positive divergence and genuine free will. l Serious question: what to do if a new disappointment or setback conjured out of our energy field, out of our same-old/same-old modus operandi, materialises once again in the moment underfoot? Whether our storm could be contained in a teacup or whether it was a full-on drama or devastating trauma, we are now alert and full of misgivings. We gnash our teeth. Anxiety clouds over and tightens our solar plexus. Perceived through a mere keyhole understanding of the world immediately in front of us, difficult moments often produce an experience that feels uniquely personal.       We are overcome with a pronounced feeling of unfairness. l Yudit’s message was a daunting four-pronged approach: Make a whole-heartedly peace with the situation and with those who may have enabled it. Shift your focus to shift your pattern of reaction. Breathe with awareness. Present yourself shining from the inside. “Anything else is poison for your heart, CC,” Yudit had typed. “Think about this. Even if an angel told you that you were invited to accept a severe setback, a trauma or a loss because it would, in the fullness of time, send you in a better direction or make you a much better person, would you volunteer now for that failure, pain or sorrow?” no. I would not. I scare easily. l Yudit had continued on her tack, “There’s a flipside to everything and the flipside is this: few persons would volunteer even for a breakthrough or a big win if they knew that, in time, this outcome would directly or indirectly cause a circumstance that would affect them, personally like a poisoned gift. Ken?” Yes, ken … agreed. But … l I expressed my qualms regarding this belief system, and Yudit replied, “CC, this is a good time to ask yourself what’s this impulse that’s pushing you to communicate with me daily, three weeks already without skipping a day, although you are a very busy high school teacher with personal life and other responsibilities. Think about it!      “You are not a simpleton, and so you know well the danger of getting close to strangers on the internet. You don’t know anything certain about me. You don’t even know what I look like. You only know of me what I say in my emails, and you trust that to be truthful, including that I am a woman and that I live in Jerusalem. Why? I’m not a trained spiritual teacher. I don’t have a website, and nothing comes up under my name. Me, I saw pictures of you on your website, and I know what you do as a writer, so I’m not completely in the dark. I read your bio. I know you find all this strange, of course, you do, so ask yourself from where comes this urge to seek a different truth about life beyond the one you think you know?” l I held my breath and read on. “Don’t feel your emotions from the past. Trust your soul in the present,” Yudit had typed. “Your neshama loves you. She is devoted to you. Neshama is your guide in this lifetime. Her voice is your intuition when you are open to hearing her whispers. Nothing distracts her from you because she has been assigned to you even before you were born. She knows your energetic thumbprint.” Neshama, Soul in Hebrew, was Yudit’s constant protector and companion. Neshama was her intuition. Neshama was her Queen. Neshama was the captain of her life. Her soul. l Working from home, Yudit led the solitary life she had chosen for herself after her husband’s premature passing at the age of 40. She only had herself to rely on for all her needs. Yet, no matter what complications popped up, Yudit never fretted about ‘tomorrow’. l Most amazing was her conviction that though, on the surface, all might not end up necessarily as she had hoped, it would always end as it should and that, once strengthened by the experience, she would be better ready for the next ‘thing’, always safe under Soul’s wing. The absolute trust Yudit had in her neshama, her soul, was inked on her psyche. l Yudit never tried to influence or manipulate a situation to bring about an outcome that, outwardly, might appear to carry the solution to one of her problems. Instead, she trusted Neshama to work her magic as long as she, herself, refrained from generating energetic ripples that would belie her trust in Soul. Thus, Yudit did her best to remain conscious and placid in each moment underfoot. “Look, CC,” she would explain, “if a little angel whispered in your ear that you could achieve beyond your wildest dreams, what would you choose to have and to do on the spectrum of abundance?” l Good question, I thought. What would I choose? Which line of work would I pursue? Where would I choose to live? With whom? Why? How to know for sure that what I might take for healthy intuition would not, once again, be the whisper of that overwrought brain of mine? l “Whatever you would think is the answer to your dreams and whatever you would reject as not right for you, it will always create energetic ripples. These ripples will always create new sets of circumstances, tests and challenges. They will go on doing that till your last breath. So, CC, little blind mouse that you are, what would you willingly choose for yourself?” l Seen from that angle, it seems that the way we pick and choose, even if from a somewhat re-wired mindset, amounts to little more than a game of chance influenced by our emotions which influence our thoughts. l As long as Yudit did not deviate from the belief system that she had slowly distilled to maturity like a comforting, heady homebrew, she trusted Neshama, the essential part of her that was as much a part of the universe as of herself. As the keeper of Yudit’s karmic blueprint, Neshama would always provide her with everything she needed, on a needs basis. Nothing more. Nothing less. And so it was until the precise second when, one morning just before dawn, Neshama suspended Yudit’s breath forever. l “From above, in the astral realm,” Yudit continued, “our neshama has the overview of our life. She knows where we should be headed and how we could get there faster. She sees how we repeat the same wrong turns and how we allow the past into the present. Don’t you see? Wrong decisions made from anger, resentment or poor me feelings, they’re all created by our ego-persona because that’s what our brain has evolved to do since the days of the cavemen. CC, if you can tap into your real heart, the other aspect of that organ that’s keeping you alive, Soul will move heaven and earth to bring you joy and well- being right where you are.” My … soul? Voices in my head? My real … heart? Joy and well-being. OMG! Like, seriously? That’ll be the day!