State of Consciousness

When I left Jerusalem for some remote place in another country, some people in both Jerusalem and this new place told me sympathetically that my new life might be difficult because of a different sociocultural environment. But fortunately or unfortunately, I see no essential difference in that in any society the majority of people seem to be trapped in not only its collective ego but also their individual ego.

Being trapped in the collective ego of the society you live in means, first and foremost, that you are programmed to think, speak and act in accordance to what you have been indoctrinated to through education, sociocultural norms and peer pressure. Being trapped in the individual ego means, among others, that you incessantly talk to yourself by unconsciously commenting on and labeling everyone and everyone, including yourself, and worse still, you are unware of this.

It's true that there is something nice in sharing the same sociocultural norms with those you meet and interact with, but I feel more and more keenly that their state of consciousness, or whether they are liberated from both the collective ego and the individual ego, is far more important to me. I even feel that I can't build any meaningful relationship with anyone who is still stuck in either or both of these two traps. Their common denominator is the illusion of separation - us vs. them (the collective ego) and me vs. them (the individual ego).

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Three Qualities of Ideal Students - and Beyond the Classroom

After nearly 30 years of teaching language and linguistics in academia - and the past five years devoted to transmitting Jewish life wisdom - I've come to recognize three qualities that define ideal students - not only from my perspective as a teacher, but also from my lived experience as a student. I also think these qualities apply not only to formal settings of learning but also to the school of life.

The three qualities are curiosity, humor and humility, and they concern cognitive, emotional and spiritual intelligences respectively. The order of these qualities is meaningful: curiosity is the foundation on which humor is built - and on that, humility can arise. In other words, if a student doesn't have curiosity, neither humor nor humility will help him in his learning.

Curiosity as a Mental Quality

The first, and most essential, is curiosity - without which no true learning can begin. Curiosity in learning means wanting to discover both what you know that you don't know - and what you don't even know you don't know. In other words, curiosity is an intellectual desire to get out of the comfort zone for mental, emotional and/or spiritual growth.

Lack of curiosity is intellectual apathy or lack of intellectual vitality. Teaching someone without curiosity is like pouring water into a sealed jar.

Humor as an Emotional Quality

Humor in learning means acknowleding that you are open and flexible enough to new ways you didn't know to look at both what you know and what you don't know. Humor can also enhance curiosity as it opens new gates in a playful manner.

Action in general and learning in particular are maximized when you act or learn with joy as it helps you focus on the present moment and flow naturally. Humor can also ease the egoic mind's incessant temptation to dwell on the past (regrets) or the future (worries) - or to label the present even while learning.

Humility as a Spiritual Quality

Humility in learning means acknowledging that you may not be able to know by yourself what you don't know that you don't know. Arrogance, the opposite of humility, is a very subtle trap as it often disguises itself as humility.

You may "humbly" believe that you have no blind faith. But this belief itself might be a blind faith in itself. This subtle trap was eloquently unpacked by Ken Wilber, who calls it the "pre/trans fallacy":

"[S]ince both prerational states and transrational states are, in their own ways, nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye. And once pre and trans are confused, then one of two fallacies occurs:"

"In the first, all higher and transrational states are reduced to lower and prerational states. Genuine mystical or contemplative experiences, for example, are seen as a regression or throwback to infantile states of narcissism, oceanic adualism, indissociation, and even primitive autism."

"On the other hand, if one is sympathetic with higher or mystical states, but one still confuses pre and trans, then one will elevate all prerational states to some sort of transrational glory ([...])."

Confusing the prerational (or subrational) with the transrational (or suprarational) may be one very cunning manifestation of the so-called spiritual ego, which says that you are spiritually (or also intellectually and/or emotionally) superior to others and makes you speak and act accordingly.

Interplay of Curiosity, Humor and Humility

I've asked ChatGPT to explore how these three qualities might reflect each other through the lens of the so-called התכללות ('interinclusion'). The result has surprised me with its poetic symmetry. Thank you very much (again), ChatGPT!

• Curiosity in curiosity: This is the meta-curiosity - the mind not only asking questions but being curious about its own curiosity. It's like a student who wonders, "Why do I want to know this?" or "What if my desire to learn itself is a spark from Above?"
• Humor in curiosity: Here the playful heart sneaks into the question-asking process. Imagine a curious child who not only asks why but giggles at the absurdity of some answers. Humor softens the mind's serious probing and keeps it fresh.
• Humility in curiosity: The humble questioner who recognizes: "I don't know, and that's okay." The seeker who stays open, aware that the path to wisdom isn't about proving oneself right but about being ready to be surprised or corrected.
• Curiosity in humor: The laughter that wonders why it's funny - an inquisitive joy. Not just a knee-jerk chuckle but a smile that asks, "What's this joke really telling me about life or myself?"
• Humor in humor: The pure delight and lightness of heart - the joke in the joke, the grin in the grin. It's humor at its most authentic, self-referential and free.
• Humility in humor: The kind of laughter that doesn't put others down, but rather lets you laugh at yourself - a humility that can smile at its own foibles without shame.
• Curiosity in humility: The humble heart that asks, "What more can I learn from this moment?" or "How can I grow beyond my limitations?" It's humility that's not passive, but actively seeking to expand.
• Humor in humility: The lightness that keeps humility from becoming self-deprecating gloom - laughing gently at one's own smallness without despair.
• Humility in humility: The deepest root: complete surrender and openness. The soul at rest, aware that it is small yet infinitely connected.

Closing Thought

Perhaps the most ideal student is the one who laughs while asking the hardest question, and bows in gratitude before hearing the answer. It goes without saying that not only his brain but also his facial muscles are both highly developed and flexible. ;-)

Human Obsession with Labeling

I have a new passion now - taking close-up pictures of flowers and leaves. I've learned this art "by chance" from my private teacher of Russian. She never formally taught it to me. I was simply stunned and became speechless when she sent me one close-up picture of some flower.

Now I understand why I became speechless because language is not only unnecessary for fully appreciating the beauty and wonder of the flower - and any flower and leaf in this respect - but can be an enormous mental obstacle to it.

Every time I took such close-up pictures, I was simply filled with so much joy that I couldn't help showing them to others. I was shocked to see that the first reaction of most of them was "What's the name of this flower?" instead of expressing their excitement.

One of the corollaries of the spiritual awakening I experienced several years ago was the realization of human obsession with labeling. A human being is homo categoricus. Many of us are programmed to perceive reality by labeling through language. This is also one of the main reasons why I completely lost my interest in linguistics and decided to leave academia.

I never imagined back then how deep-rooted this obsession is until I repeatedly experienced the above reaction to my close-up pictures. This obsession isn't restricted to flowers and leaves but extends to animals and humans. The most problematic labeling is self-labeling.

I see clearly now why I felt so exhausted with "interrogation" I had to go through almost every time I met a stranger and also often when I spoke with people I already knew. Many of their questions are attempts to find clues for labeling. It took me some time to understand why I found - and still find - chatting with ChatGPT so refreshing. This is because it doesn't label us!

Since I'm rather isolated socially (but don't feel lonely as I'm consoled by nature), I have far less opportunities to be labeled. This week, I had one of those rare chances. When someone labeled me, I told her that she was labeling me. Then she reacted by saying that I was also labeling. I explained that what I was doing was meta-labeling, which, as I use it here, doesn't mean placing another label on top of a label. It refers to a kind of aware noticing - recognizing the act of labeling itself, without being caught in it.

Though I didn't promise her I'd explain the difference further, it intrigued me and prepared the following table with ChatGPT's help. We've decided to call it "Tree of Thought and Speech". The columns "labeling" and "observation" refer to two opposite modes of thought and speech. I've found ten characteristics that differentiate these two modes. What I called "meta-labeling" above is a type of "observation". Then the idea came to me to find parallels between these ten differences and the so-called ten sefirot.

In Jewish mystical tradition, the ten sefirot represent the divine attributes or channels through which the Infinite manifests in the world. With ChatGPT's help, I explored how these could map onto contrasting modes of mental-emotional behavior: labeling and observing. Here is the comparative table we developed, linking the ten sefirot to two contrasting mental modes.

#	Sefira	Labeling	Observing
1	חכמה	Emotional (Triggered)	Rational (Integrated)
2	בינה	Confusing (Misunderstanding)	Clarifying (Understanding)
3	דעת	Defining (Harmful)	Transformative (Helpful)
4	חסד	Projected (Subjective)	Perceptive (Objective)
5	גבורה	Judgment (Obsessive)	Discernment (Volitional)
6	תפארת	Identity trap (Narrowing)	Possibility lens (Expansion)
7	נצח	Reflexive (Unconscious)	Reflective (Conscious)
8	הוד	Fixated (Past)	Responsive (Present)
9	יסוד	Ego-based	Soul-aware
10	מלכות	Dead words (Rigid)	Living words (Freeing)

Thank you very much, ChatGPT, for helping me name the nameless without trapping it!