Origins of my spiritual philosophy

The first spark of interest in my chosen belief system occurred

in 2006 when synchronicity found an odd but effective way to

ignite an across-the-world connection with a secular woman in

her sixties, a widow who had been living on her own for some

twenty years already.

Yudit Cohen-Shoore was also known by a few close ones as Moriya. l Yudit did not dream of having more money in the bank than she already had. Owning neither TV nor car and not wishing to escape from her daily routine by embarking on holidays, Yudit’s needs were modest. l She earned her living in the same way she had in the past. Her client base was made up of a dozen faithful university professors for whom she typed, edited and formatted manuscripts written in Hebrew. Her schedule of fees was the same in 2016 as in 1996. l Yudit lived in Jerusalem, Israel, and I, in Brisbane, Australia, but distance is no object when ‘things’ are meant to happen and, almost in the blink of an eye, sight unseen, this person became my first and only spiritual mentor. l From that initial karmic spark of interest ensued ten years almost to the day of daily and long emailed dialogues on the spiritual, religious and esoteric themes of Yudit’s choosing. As it turned out, Yudit was a widely-read, ascetic woman, as well versed in Judaism and the Kabbalah as she was in the Vedas, Zen Buddhism and its sacred texts. Ranging from the works of prophets to poets, she was also familiar with the doctrines of Christianity and Islam. She was equally at ease with broader esoteric science and with the findings of neuroscience as she came across them on the web. l Selfless was the dedication it took Yudit, for my benefit, to pare down the richness of the thoughts that came to her, in Hebrew, to a much-simplified translation into English, a language she learned in high school but practised after that only by reading many books written in English, one after another. Dedication, too, kept her typing every evening, Jerusalem time. l As she explained early on, too much knowledge imparted too quickly is often counter-productive. As the filaments of a light bulb can only take so much heat per unit of time without overheating or blowing up, the brain can absorb and process correctly only so much ‘rewiring’ of information per unit of time, before it feels overloaded. Moreover, so, for precisely ten years and one month, regardless of her daily circumstances, Yudit made time to scaffold her content to suit the pace of my need- to-know. l It could also be said that Yudit’s guidance was a ‘thank-less’ task if, by that, it is understood that throughout the years of her tutelage, she did not wish to be thanked by either gifts or money. Not even by little donations. Instead of strings of thank yous, what she appreciated most was the certitude that she was not wasting her time on yet another dilettante student. l Perhaps surprisingly, Yudit did not meditate. Early on, she explained that, instead, she merely observed the world immediately in front of her. “And,” she added, “I also observe the shifts within me.” The world in front of Yudit was literally what was present in her line of vision, inches away, between her hands and under her feet. Observing those things consciously had become, years earlier, her form of meditation. “When you make a cup of coffee, breathe,” she urged. “Imagine an entity looking at you from above and asking, What is CC doing right now? Look at your hands and see that the answer is: CC is turning the tap to fill the kettle. Pause. She is looking for her cup. Stop before your hand grabs the jar of coffee. Be in the moment as you remove the lid. You look for a spoon. You watch the swirls of coffee dissolve in the water. Be aware of such little actions. They are the only concrete things anyone does all day. Tiny actions non-stop are what humans do.” l Yudit continued, “When you walk your dog, don’t just walk the dog. Walk WITH your dog. See. Smell. Listen. Breathe. Look up and around as he does. Don’t be like those who block off all senses with their earphones. When you are in the shower, listen for sounds. Notice the patterns splashes make on the floor. Feel the strength and the temperature of the water. On your face, it feels different than on your feet, ken?”  Ken. Yes, it does. “Mind-meandering allows spontaneous flows of creativity, but always take a second out of your schedule to feel what you touch and don’t let unsolicited thoughts come in through cracks. Oh, surely they’ll sneak in any way but let them go, and return to your senses.” l Yudit asked rhetorically, “Being aware of what your eyes, your hands and feet are doing is a very useful practice, don’t you think?” She must have anticipated a reticence on my part for she added, “How else can you be in the moment or present anywhere if you don’t know what your body parts are doing at that moment?” I rolled my eyes and grumbled but, as I reached for the mouse, I made myself pause long enough to be aware of the shape cradled by my thumb and fingers. I nodded. However, as soon as I began typing my reply, I promptly lost all awareness of the mouse and of the clickety sound of the keys under my fingertips. “Yes, it’s a great idea but, OMG! Yudit, who can sustain THAT for more than a couple of minutes?” l Patiently, Yudit replied, “Wake up and be aware. Don’t be lazy. One day, maybe, the preparation of your dinner will become a real hands-on meditation. Because you think like an ignoramus, it will take you many weeks, even months, to learn, so start now! When you eat, chew slowly. Breathe consciously. Take pleasure. Say thank you to the fish or chicken that lost its life just so you could eat healthily. Say thanks to the farmers and to your garbage collector, too. Be grateful for all those who enable you to live comfortably and safely on this planet.” l Though we had yet to meet in person, I imagined Yudit shaking her head benignly as she typed on, undeterred. A lone woman on the Path with a very human mission is what she was. She also had a wry sense of humour. In regards to my early days’ lack of enthusiasm when it came to learning the skill of being in the moment while doing mundane activities, the next day she had jokingly typed back, “What is it, CC? How can it be that, suddenly, you no longer think it’s useful to do two things at the same time? Isn’t it what multi-tasking is about?” Origins of my Spiritual Philosophy – cont’d By pushing herself to keep our written conversations relevant and thorough, day in/day out, over so many years, Yudit demonstrated ‘in the moment’ the rigour and commitment, the discipline, necessary to make any new intention a long-term improvement that eventually became a part of one’s enhanced identity. l Her only expectation was that I would duplicate her commitment – daily. That and her occasional gruffness which I knew was partly cultural reminded me of the stern, no- nonsense discipline exacted by Buddhist monks towards novices. l At least, I didn’t have to get up at 4 a.m. to pray and sweep the monastery floors. Besides I, soon, got used to the abruptness of Yudit’s tone, including her use of the word ‘ignoramus’ which she typed whenever she suspected I had once again fallen asleep at the wheel, letting my Ego-persona react in my name, which was often the case. Of course, I never took it as a put- down, and after a few months, she began referring to me as ‘ahoti haketana’, my little sister. l Yudit explained that the uniqueness of our spontaneous, across-the-world connection, its purpose and depth, were sure signs that, in the never-ending cosmic cycle, our souls had already been in one or more close teaching/learning partnerships before. And, for reasons best known in the realm of souls, resuming this partnership to improve it further in this lifetime had been deemed necessary. Her reasoning indeed went some way in explaining why this impromptu arrangement had so quickly become familiar to us and so enduring – and so fruitful for me. l Early exploration under Yudit’s wing led me to the overlapping philosophies of Al-Ghazali, one of the most influential philosophers and mystics of Sunni Islam with those of Swami Vivekananda, a significant player in the revival of Hinduism in India and the key figure who introduced the Indian philosophies to the West. l One day, the postman delivered a rather large and heavy box stamped with an Israeli postmark. Two similar, heavy boxes soon followed it. Unannounced, Yudit had sent me the favourites in her collection of books written by Alexandra David Neel, P.D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, Paul Brunton, Alan Watts, Idries Shah, and others who had been instrumental in shaping her own understanding of non-religious spirituality. l Weeks later, somewhere within the thousands of bound pages, Yudit had sent me, among other treasures, I came across a line from Alan Watts who, by then, had become my favourite philosopher of his era. This man knew better than to confuse spirituality with divine thoughts. “When one is peeling potatoes,” he wrote in The Way of Zen, “Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.” That sounded very familiar indeed. l That said, Alan Watts, like so many other highly influential spiritualists, had not walked straight down the Path. Married three times and an excessive drinker, he argued that absolute morality was in no way linked to one’s most profound spiritual identity. More recently, the writings of Don Miguel Ruiz, Gregg Braden, Doc Childre, Yuval Noah Harari, Terry Patten and that of other philosopher-visionaries, past and present, have consolidated my interest in a modern approach to spirituality within     a pragmatic, functional perspective that, for the most part, has its many benefits confirmed by the latest findings in neuroscience. l The absorbing but demanding, silent, keyboard exchanges with Yudit, my ‘perfect stranger’, were peppered with deconstructions of the otherwise trivial occurrences that ‘just happened’ to catch our eye or ear on any given day. l From symbolic interpretations of clues embedded in our dreams, in casual utterances pronounced by others and in the significance of innocuous objects that seem to randomly come within our line of vision, indeed, for the one who is awake and aware, soul-inspired messages and synchronicity abound all around. Understand what others call coincidences and do your best to decode their meanings. It’s the only way Soul has to interact with us. So, pay heed, CC. Stay awake and use your eyes!” Yudit admonished.” l Already a fluent user of the internet by 2007, she would point me to TED talks, YouTube clips, films and websites relevant to what she had in mind to help me understand differently in regards to life as I thought I knew it. l Pulling ideas apart to rebuild or dump them was often the starting point of our varied and challenging chains of emails. Daring me to activate critical thinking in regards to matters of conscious evolution, religious bias and cultural shortcomings, Yudit would explain the strengths and point out the flaws in the presenters’ content. l As an aside, though it is used quite often these days, the term conscious evolution is hardly a modern one. Mary Parker Follett, a political theorist and philosopher, coined it in 1918. “Conscious evolution,” she said, “means giving less and less place to herd instinct and more to the group imperative.” By the term ‘group imperative’, Mary Parker Follet presumably meant behaving/responding in a manner that works ‘for the greater good of all.’ “We are emerging from our gregarious condition,” she wrote in The New State, “and are now to enter on the rational way of living by scanning our relations to one another, instead of bluntly feeling them, and so adjusting them that unimpeded progress on this higher plane is secured.” l Mary Parker Follett may well have been an enthusiastic optimist considering that, one hundred years later, we are still struggling to muster a degree of the awareness required to meet her imperative and break away from a herd mentality, the first specific mindset that, very early on, Yudit had urged me to sidestep. If one could integrate best practices simply by observing them enacted by one as humble and as dedicated as Yudit, I would have a twinkle and not just in my eyes. I would have been in the flow long ago. Kind thoughts,