Obsession with Knowing

"To know another human being in their essence, you don't really need to know anything about them - their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing about with a deeper knowing that is non-conceptual. Knowing about and knowing are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with the formless. One operates through thought, the other through stillness." - Eckhart Tolle (Stillness Speaks)

In a country like Israel where many Jews (and their non-Jewish spouses) immigrate the most commonly asked first question people ask when they meet someone for the first time is "Where are you from?". What probably all of them mean by this seemingly naive question is "Where is your physical body from?"

I don't know how many of them are aware that each one of us is a soul that borrows a physical body, and actually all the souls come from (or are parts of) the same one Source.

I've noticed that most of these people start unconsciously labeling others they ask this question. The more they ask them similar questions to know about them, the less they know them in their essence as the above quote explains so succinctly.

I've also noticed that many people, not only in Israel but also probably eveywhere, are obsessed with knowing about others and things in general in order to satisfy their instinctive urge to label them unconsciously. (Some of you may think that I'm labeling them, but this is meta-labeling. ;-) )

When I told my friends and acquaintances in Jerusalem about my plan to leave the city at least for several years, I didn't tell them, except for a select few, my destination so that they might not start labeling my personal "mission" and engaging in rumors. This must have been a torture for some of them, and a few of them even told me so explicitly.

As part of the result of the first series of my awakenings I've gradually come to let go of this obsession, feeling totally fine with not knowing everything possible about everyone and everything. I've even started asking no questions when I meet someone new so that I may not start labeling him or her; I try to feel his or her presence and spiritual vibe instead.

As I continued this practice as well as daily meditation and weekly seclution in nature, during which I try not to conceptualize anything, I've come to have more moments of silence and freedom from thinking with each moment becoming longer and longer.

My present challenge is to remain calm even when surrounded by people with this obsession and bombarded with their questions to know about me and others.

Third Series of Awakenings

When I started experiencing six years ago what I can call now my first series of awakenings, I wasn't aware that I was waking up. What did I wake up form exactly? In a nutshell, I've woken up from the prison of my egoic mind.

It was by sheer divine grace that I've been liberated from what seemed a life sentence. I've been experiencing waves of awakenings since then with each wave becoming smaller and smaller.

I started experiencing my second series of awakenings in early 2022 in a different area, which I can call now a subset of the mind-made prison, or to be more precise, its mechanism. I've graducally woken up from the way the collective ego of what seems the single most destructive evil force in the world now has been using its propaganda tools to collectively brainwash us all over the world.

I first realized this mechanism, again by sheer chance, though not by divine grace this time, in a very specific context. Having identified this mechanism, I could apply my newly acquired tool to understand other, previous, propagandas retroactively.

Since about one month ago I've started experiencing my third series of awakinings. This time I'm waking up from the content of one specific propaganda. My two previous series of awakenings have helped me to identify this progaganda quite immediately when it started. I could even identify retroactively how it has been repeated again and again since many years ago.

This third series of awakenings is the least essential in nature as awakenings, but it's the most shocking one to me as it concerns me personally and may affect my future significantly. But it's still too early to decide as I've just started experiencing the first wave of this series of awakenings.

Collective Ego

I wonder how many of you are aware that ego can be not only individual but also collective. Just as individuals have ego, so do social collectives and even social systems. The former range from nations, stats and companies to communities and clubs. The latter include, for example, languages. Yes, languages also have collective ego, which is known as normative grammar.

The characteristic these two types of ego have in common is that they are meant to protect themselves, which are nothing but illusions. For this purpose of protecting their illusory self they have to keep maintaining the illusion that they are separate beings from others.

Let's take societies at the national level. Culture in the wide sense of the word is a collection of rules of collective ego. These rules are not codified, but are transmitted as sociocultural norms and common senses, first through families, then through communities, and finally through formal education, and we are brainwashed unconsciously little by little.

At least according to my own experiences, about 70 or 80 percent of the members of every social collective unconsciously follow the rules dictated by its collective ego. In other words, these people continue living by blindly following what their collective considers right. And they in tern become propaganda tools for brainwashing new members of this collective.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I experienced being ostracized as a result of my resistance to the pressure of the collective ego of the junior high school I attended. Thanks to this primordial experience in my mid-teens, I've come to instinctively reject what I perceive as collective ego. This way I've repeatedly left many of the social collectives I belonged to or was forced to belong to. The most recent resistance of mine is to quit my permanent position in academia in order to liberate myself from its collective ego.

Let me elaborate upon the main purpose of any collective ego - maintaining the continued existence of the social collective it serves. It attacks mercilessly any member or any other social collective that threatens this continued existence, which is again nothing but an illusion. One of the most typical non-physical attacks is ostracizing. But if this and other non-physical measures don't work, certain members won't hesitate to physically attack those who threaten their social collective. In rather simplistic terms, this must the ultimate cause for international and other conflicts between social collectives.

Living by following what the collective ego of any social collective we belong to or are forced to belong to have the advantage of leading a non-turbulent life and we may also enjoy the additional benefit of winning the rat race. But I seriously doubt whether such life will lead to the fulfillment of our true life purpose, which is spiritual growth.

It may not be so realistic to revolt against collective ego, but we can step aside from what it dictates to us and gradually shift to life that will contribute to our spiritual growth.

Visa and Educational Initiative

Last week I finally received a visa from the country of the destination of this personal mission of mine. It's about one month since I came here. The specific place where I'm conducting this mission is increadibly calm, which contributes to my inner calmness though I remain quite preoccupied with news and analyses about what's been happening in Israel since October 7.

Having received this long awaited visa, I can now start the public part of this hopefully temporary departure from Jerusalem in a totally new environment, whether physically and socioculturally. I'm launching a new educational initiative I've been incubating since I accepted this call for leaving my comfort zone in Jerusalem and undertaking a public mission, too, which is - sorry for my chutzpah - transforming darkness into light in this new physical and sociocultural environment where inner darkness is far thicker than in Israel according to the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, which I had the privilege of learning for three years at a special school in Jerusalem.

The Sixth Rebbe of Chabad writes ("Hayom Yom", Cheshvan 1):

Ever since G‑d told our father Avraham, "Go from your land etc." and it is then written "Avram kept travelling southward," we have the beginning of the mystery of birurim. By decree of Divine Providence man goes about his travels to the place where the "sparks" that he must purify await their redemption.

Tzadikim, who have vision, see where their birurim await them and go there deliberately. As for ordinary folk, The Cause of all causes and the Prime Mover3 brings about various reasons and circumstances that bring these people to that place where lies their obligation to perform the avoda of birurim.

When I encountered this passage in my daily study of this Chabad classic about a half month ago, I was electrified as I felt it was exactly about and for me!

I've just announced the launch of this educational initiative of mine for the possible audience in this new place. It includes the following activities:

• Courses
  • Jewish life questions
  • Jewish life wisdom
  • Introduction to Jewish classics
• Coaching
  • Jewish life coaching
• Reaching circle
  • Introduction to Chabad Chassidus

I see myself as an unofficial emissary of Chabad in this remote place where a number of pioneers are already working as official emissaries of Chabad. Unlike them I'm more or less fluent in the local language though I speak its Jewish "dialect". ;-)

I'm finally starting the practical part of my "hero's journey". This journey may not be so easy, and I can already anticipate and am ready for possible challenges. But I'm also equally convinced that these challenges will squeeze "olives" inside me and extract "olive oil" from them.