"The ONLY True Existence” | A Guided MEDITATION | Rabbi Shais Taub

[Music] we meditate all the time when we worry we are meditating when we have a resentment when we relive a past hurt and we feel that pain again that really sentiment feeling it over i've playing it over in our minds that that's that's us meditating and just like any good meditation it ends up making us feel something meditation is a cognitive exercise but it is one that if done properly culminates in an emotional take away so when you're getting yourself worked up thinking about what you don't want or reliving something painful or embarrassing or traumatic that's a meditation and will they do good meditations will you choose holy and wholesome things to meditate on it's rather like the unwanted meditations at least did the processes the mechanics are it's simply taking an idea who are thought and turning it around and around and around like holding up a gemstone into the life and observing all the different facets the word for meditation in the Holy tong in Hebrew is Sabina nose which comes from the word Pina which is the feminine sector of the intellect which is the womb of thought as it works where a germ or kernel of an idea develops and expands it's also related to the word bunny math which means to build [Music] in a building because it pentode building you're taking one idea and elaborating a product so that's what we're doing when we are explaining where we practice his bonus so we're going to build upon a thought today the thought that is encapsulated in the verse we had Idaho a mischievous Alabama how you should know today and you should place it upon your heart indeed those are two different things knowing today that is the knowledge information place it upon your heart that is the process of making it emotional what should you know today you take upon your heart Shambu Ellie Kim the Lord is God the show my mouth while our audience we talk house and in the heavens above and on the earth below ain't ID'd there is nothing else there is nothing else so that's the meditation today meditation is that there is nothing else but pantry to what you might think we're not going to be thinking you out nothing to understand how there is nothing else in fact generally in this type of meditation we don't attempt to clear the mind I know that some of us are familiar with forms of meditation that purports to read the mind of discursive thought but this form of meditation to the contrary is embracing discursive thought we want that voice that he narrates in our head the same one that narrates the worries and the relentless yes we want that voice to narrate in our heads the elaboration upon a single thought so that that thought will take on dimension become fully fleshed out and then ultimately become something that moves us on an emotional level now first we begin with our default factory settings which is that we look around us and see all types of things we see all types of created beings all different shapes and sizes to see things that are living things that are nonliving the world is full of all types of different creations very very busy place you had a microscope you'd see the world's even busier than it appears with the naked eye and if you'd had it if you had a telescope same thing and taking into account all that that's happening in this busy busy busy universe it doesn't really seem too much like there's none else it seems like there's a lot of different stuff so how are we going to get ourselves into the mode of thought where we not only know but we have taken to apart we feel that truly there's nothing but God so we begin with the notion that [Music] everything that exists at present once did not exist in fact that's sort of the definition of creation creation is something that had to be created which therefore means it has a finite starting point before which it did not exist at all Carl Sagan who claimed to be an atheist but he made a very acidic joke he once said [Music] what are the directions for baking an apple pie from scratch first create the heavens in the earth it's a very specific joke you see if you already have apples growing from trees that's not making an apple pie from scratch you're you're already provided with the raw materials from scratch the way that not created [Music] in the six days of creation was from absolute nothing or nothing as we know it which is the real something his own essence is unknowable essence from that he produced something as we know it for all something's as we know them they say there was a group of research scientists they wanted to simulate to the creation of man just as God had created man on the sixth day of creation it says in the Torah how I shall gathered earth he formed it into the shape of a man he breathed within it the breath of life so these scientists they gathered up the dirt and then he shaped it into a mound and a sort of anthropomorphic shape and they had it hooked up to some electrodes with a big machine on the other end they're about to pull a switch to run the current through the dirt and animated turn it into a walking talking man just as God had done and as they're about to pull the switch a voice booms forth from evidences not so fast get your own dirt meaning to say that even if man would animate dirt he turned it into a walking talking man that would not be creation something from nothing when God created he created the dirt and created it out of nothing in that sense human creativity as we know it is not creation at all because all manners of human creativity are actually formation not creation we take one something and we manipulate it and we change it into another something so the artist may arrange the paints on the canvas and create who call it creation create a work of art but the canvas existed and the paint's existed before he got hold of them or [Music] the baker may take the flour in the water and knead them into dough and bake the dough into bread but of course the baker was starting with flour and water Baker didn't create the flour in the water so again that's an act of formation not create [Music] the metaphor that's used in the second volume of Tanya use that of a silversmith says that a silversmith takes piece of silver and melts it and turns it into a copy and then the silversmith takes the cup places on the shelf in his workshop and takes a lunch break and leaves the workshop and no time is the cop in danger of reverting to its previous state and that's a very important point that's a very important point in fact that's the point that when we manipulate one something into another something when you merely change the form of a something generally speaking it does not revert to its previous state generally speaking it is fairly comfortable and stable in its new state so the painting doesn't up paint itself and the loaf of bread doesn't turn back into flour and water because when one something has changed into another something it generally stays that way this is the exact opposite of the nature of a something that was fashioned from nothing and the reason is that when if something is made out of another something all that has been changed is the external form when a something has been made out of nothing but has been changed is the very essence of nothing what is the essence of nothing the essence meaning the very definition the unavoidable definition this is its non-existence therefore to bring non existence into existence is not merely to impose some external change upon its form to bring that existence into existence is to override the very essence of nothingness now think about this the presence of the table in front of you right now is more miraculous than the most iconic miracle in the Bible the most iconic miracle in the Bible ask universal cities Studios tour I believe they have the splitting of the sea from the Ten Commandments Charlton Heston as Moses so the splitting of the sea that's the most iconic miracle of the Bible and what were the mechanics of the splitting of the sea it tells us that God Almighty sent a powerful east wind to blow upon the water all night in other words the wind was pushing on the water and holding the water up like a wall that's how the power describes it was standing like a wall tie to imagine that the wind is blowing on the water and it's imposing itself upon the form of the water the water generally likes to flow water likes to flow and now the wind is pushing on it and making it stand up stack up as it were and if the wind were to stop imposing itself upon the water for even a a moment the water would collapse instantly so there's a constant exertion of force required in order to keep that water standing as it did all night to allow the children of Israel to pass through and yeah that feat was accomplished merely by one something acting upon another something and changing its external form not allowing water to flow making it stand up compare that and contrast that with every something every something that exists in God's creation came from nothing and the fact that it is now in a state of somethingness is not merely exerting some type of imposition upon them the external form of the nothingness fact they I would venture to say nothingness has no form the fact that every something is a something although it is essentially nothing it was nothing for eternity until Hashem imposed somethingness upon it that lengua said is a case of overriding the very essence of nothingness so here here's a logical argument if in order for Hashem to override nearly the external form of the water which is a something by having another agent then though the wind blow upon it which is which is another something if in order to have the water stand up straight like that Hashem had to constantly cause the the air to exert its force upon the water and all that was doing was imposing itself upon the form of the water so that it should behave like a different kind of something how much more so infinitely more so must the exertion of power the imposition of power of creative creative force be applied constantly upon every single something in order that it not instantly effortlessly revert into nothing so the solidity of this table in front of us is really sort of an illusion I don't mean that it's solid in the sense that you can't pass your hand through it I mean the fact that we take for granted that it is there just because it has been there in the previous filosophy the truth is that the assets of the table like all something's is non-existence and if it weren't for the Creator constantly posing existence upon the table and everything else in the cosmos it would instantly effortlessly automatically revert to its essential state as it was for eternity non-existent so once you start to think about it in those terms [Music] now you can start to have two perspectives on reality at the same time you can start to experience the relative non-existence of all things even without having to call your perceptions alive what I mean by that is that created existence is not an illusion but the nature of created existence is subject to an illusion creative existence certainly exists but not the way that we assume it to exist we assume that it exists we take for granted that it exists independently whereas the reality is that its existence that every single second is completely and totally dependent for if the creator were to cease hosing somethingness upon every something as we said it was instantly automatically effortlessly revert to non-existence how much lag time would that take imagine stopping a massive semi-truck going 90 miles an hour down the highway and all of a sudden you see the bridge is out ahead and you have to pull the brake stop the truck it's a certain amount of momentum built up it's gonna take a while to stop that truck and imagine something as gargantuan as the universe how massive it is and yet if a sham were to stop imposing created existence upon the universe how long would it take before it were to disappear no time at all and as such even at this present instant this tiny tiny tiny little fraction of time that we call the present even though we see the something's around us and the table is in front of us so we didn't see it we can even touch it clean upon it its existence here is not in any way whatsoever independent its existence is an extension of the one and only true existence the one and only true something which always was and never came into being never needed to be created because it always was and is and will be so imagine yourself now you're going about your day and you encounter many things by things I mean objects and as well maybe a little bit more abstractly situations by situations I suppose I mean the arrangement of those things as well as how human beings and other living creatures interact with them in other words all of the circumstances of your life so you get up and you see your house you see your furniture and your appliances maybe the people that you live with the mail that came postal carrier put in the mailbox maybe there's a package that was delivered for you two at the door something they ordered yesterday it cars out the driveway right this is the world of created things and situations that were very very used to living in sort of with a blind faith that it is absolutely solid and real on its own now remember we have two perspectives and they're not mutually exclusive whatsoever the same time you go about your day and you open the refrigerator to take out your orange juice and you pour it into the glass that orange juice in that glass are only existing at each second because the Creator is imposing something 'no Sepang them at that second so do they exist yes they exist do they have their own existence now not at all they don't have their own existence in fact what you could actually say is that every something the orange juice in the glass of orange juice and the counter that the glasses lying on that each one of those somethings is actually a manifestation of divine will those are all divine will for the manifestation of divine will because without divine will [Music] none of this would exist at this present second in that case one of the implications here the position of the orange juice glass on the counter is a direct product of divine will you didn't realize God took so much interest in the details of your life and if the carton of orange juice happens to run out before you're able to fill the glass to your liking well that's not to your liking but apparently it's to God's liking because the precise amount of orange juice to the molecule and even smaller measurements is an expression at that very moment of the creator's will [Music] now as we're experiencing the orange juice in this way it occurs to us that every single thing that happens in our life is exactly as the Creator wants it to be at this moment at this moment and stress at this moment because faith is not fatalism fatalism means oh it's this way now so it's always going to be that way which is absurd but faith faith simply means a reality affirmation it is this way right now that must mean that is precisely the way the Creator wills it to be right now congrat ences of verbs the verb tense to remember which is a guide for your life is present perfect present perfect the present is always perfect so the orange juice obviously is just an easy example because your emotions are probably not that highly invested in that outcome but the truth is the very same idea that holds true for the orange juice holds true for everything that's going to happen in your day the people that you meet [Music] experiences that you have everything is being arranged down to the minutest detail and not just that God is putting things where he wants to put them at the moment but even more than that he's creating them in their places at the moment that he is creating them of course everything is exactly where it's supposed to be right now for this moment because it's being created brand-new something from absolute nothing at this moment and it's being created in the condition and the state and the place and the time that the creator wills it to be at this very moment [Music] right now we're just showing up to God's reality we're not even reacting yet you have no need to react freewill has to do with how we're going to react but we're not reacting today today we're just going to experience God's world maybe where we were reacting tomorrow nothing to react to right now does showing up an experiencing reality and without having to deny that reality exists to the contrary we affirm the reality exists and yet don't assume any longer the creation has any independent existence whatsoever we realized that the nature of created existence is absolutely completely and constantly dependent on the Creator completely that means all of it constantly that means all the time you know maybe hundreds of years ago when these meditations were described in the mystical texts it was harder for people to imagine things like this but today if I were to ask you for instance just as an analogy this is not the actual idea but it's an analogy if I were to say what would happen if you were to extract all of the atoms from the table in front of you how much table would be left over you know that joke they say don't believe atoms they make up so if the atoms will remove from the table in front how much table would be left so if God's will were removed from the present moment how much of reality as we know it would remain behind an empty shell no not even nothing in fact not only would it not exist now but retro actively it will have never existed because it will lose everything including its past including its history now if that's all we could really understand and what it means kohaku is kilo Avett of a deserter anyone who gets angry it's like you worship idols why is anger like worshipping idols [Music] anger is a reality rejection like sitting down at the restaurant and the waiter brings in your order and you say waiter that's not what I asked for take it back anger is telling God if this present moment is not what I asked for it's wrong anger is a reality rejection now you can say the present reality is painful we don't have to live that are not the lie we can be truthful about whether the moment causes us pain or pleasure but our opinion meaning whether we think it's right or wrong is really irrelevant in light of the fact that if it's happening right now it's happening exactly as the Creator is willing it to happen therefore the first thing we really need to do before we start judging or maybe instead of judging at all first thing we need to do is just show up completely show up [Music] without numbing without self distracting anger sometimes has that effect the rage is a sort of numbing agent so that we don't have to feel what we would be feeling if we were to soak it in the moment so imagine yourself going about your day and now imagine yourself in a more stressful situation something a little bit more emotionally high-stakes then pouring the glass and pour in juice imagine yourself in usually it has something to do with other people usually the high stress stuff has to do with other people because other people don't behave but remember remember that the Creator is putting that exactly where he wishes to put them - and yes there is such a thing called free will and that's one of the great paradoxes that they will be accountable for their choices and yet the way they show up in our lives is not because they willed it to be that way it is only because the Creator wills it to be that way and now imagine yourself in one of your more stressful situations you'll have to fill in the blanks [Music] imagine something that is painful and stressful I'm not trying to induce pain or stress but to the contrary now imagine yourself seeing how this situation even if it's an ongoing situation even if it's been going on for a long time see that it only exists at this second and that this present moment is the meticulously planned manifestation of divine will precisely as the creator wills that at this moment in your life [Music] and you don't have to react right now you don't have to say anything you don't have to do anything all you have to do is be present and think to yourself that this moment is being brought into existence as we know it out of absolute non-existence it is the constant exertion of creative force upon nothingness that brings this present moment into being as we understand and that this is being done with infinite wisdom and believe it in our infinite kindness tailor-made specifically for you and your growth as [Music] experiencing creation as part of creation [Music] and yet because of the mind that you've been given you're able to experience creation somewhat at least from the perspective of creator as well you're not trapped into experience in creation as just another creation among creations because of the mind you were given you're able to see into the facade and realize that there's really nothing but that nothing but the truth something of the true existence manifesting himself in various ways and every given moment so when we say that and the heavens above and on the earth below the Lord is God there is none else we really mean it there is nothing but him and there are no independent agents that have any control there are no other autonomous existences or beings nothing is hunt illogically independent that means nothing has an existence unto itself so for sure there are no powers that govern our lives other than the will of God of this very moment [Music] you