Parashat Behar 5784 — 05/25/2024
Beginning with Bereishit 5781 (17 October 2020) we embarked on a new format. We will be considering Rambam’s (Maimonides’) great philosophical work Moreh Nevukim (Guide for the Perplexed) in the light of the knowledge of Vedic Science as expounded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The individual essays will therefore not necessarily have anything to do with the weekly Torah portion, although certainly there will be plenty of references to the Torah, the rest of the Bible, and to the Rabbinic literature. For Bereishit we described the project. The next four parshiyyot, Noach through Chayei Sarah, laid out a foundational understanding of Vedic Science, to the degree I am capable of doing so. Beginning with Toledot we started examining Moreh Nevukim.
Vayikra 25:1-26:2
Once again, we have a pair of parshiyyot that are normally read together, but this year are read separately: Behar this week and BeChukotai next week.
Before we continue with Rambam, I’d like to say a bit more about analogies. Quite some time ago analog computers were quite popular. An analog computer was a circuit composed of voltage sources, resistors, capacitors, coils, etc., that was constructed so that the differential equations that govern the circuit are the same differential equations that govern the actual system we wish to study. The analog computer is given some initial conditions that correspond to the physical initial conditions, and the various voltages in different parts of the system are tracked. Since the laws of nature (the equations) are the same, the evolution of the system through time will be the same, allowing us, in principle, to read out the changes in the physical parameters from the voltages at various points of the analog computer.
“But wait,” you exclaim! “How can a simple system like an electronic circuit have the exact same equations as a complex natural system with all its complex feedback loops and all?” The hemming-and-hawing answer is that we can, in fact, create very complex circuits with all kinds of feedback loops that can display quite complex behavior. A more straightforward answer is that in fact natural systems are, indeed, very complex, and in many ways, they are not amenable to analysis into a fairly simple set of differential equations. Perhaps that is why analog computers are not used that much anymore.
What happens with analogies is that they always break down. The laws of the reality and the laws of the analog are never really identical, and therefore the behavior will never be exactly analogous. Some analogies are better than others, but they all break down at some point. Perhaps the system gets into a behavioral configuration where the laws of nature governing the system are different. An example might be the air over a hot plate. If the hot plate is on low, the air might shimmer a little as the heat dissipates, but when the hot plate is on high, we get full-fledged convection cells with up- and down-drafts. Now the air is the air, but the laws of nature in conditions of low heat input are different from those where the heat input is elevated. This kind of transition is very hard to model, as transitions between behavioral regimes tend to be sudden, and modeling very quick transitions is difficult. We’ve actually had more success with digital models than with analog ones, now that we have sufficient computing power to make the models complex enough.
Now not all analogies have to be digital. They can be theoretical as well. Our (current) favorite analogy is between Pure Consciousness and the Unified Field of physics. One weakness of the analogy of course is that we know far less about the Unified Field than we do about Pure Consciousness, because physics is approaching knowledge of the Unified Field through the study of the objective world and using objective means of gaining knowledge. There is a disjunction between the knower and the object of knowledge. The knowledge of Pure Consciousness on the other hand is really Self-knowledge; there is no distinction between the Knower and the Known. Therefore, the knowledge we can have of Pure Consciousness is much more intimate and certainly more direct. We are not dependent on anything outside our Self to know our Self.
These differences having been noted, we can try to evaluate the structure of the Unified Field (as we currently understand it) and compare it to what we understand about Pure Consciousness from the Vedic tradition. First note that the Unified Field is transcendental to all physical phenomena. All physical phenomena are patterns of vibration of the Unified Field, while the field itself simply is. The interactions we see between particles are actually the Unified Field acting upon itself. The patterns of vibration are made up of layers, from simple, single particles to multiple particle systems of ever-increasing complexity.
In the case of Pure Consciousness, as Maharishi has explained it, it is the ultimate basis of all existences. Everything that we see is a pattern of vibration of Pure Consciousness within itself, while it remains unchanged. These vibrations are in layers, from simple to ever-increasing complexity. The basis for all of this internal, virtual activity is the self-referral nature of Pure Consciousness. Consciousness is awareness, but Pure Consciousness has nothing outside itself to be aware of. Therefore, it can only be aware of itself. Pure Consciousness assumes the roles of both Observer and Observed. So, there is a kind of virtual polarity set up within Pure Consciousness, except that the two poles are identical to one another. Maharishi describes the basis of the vibrations of Pure Consciousness as an infinite-frequency vibration between these two virtual poles – infinite-frequency because there is no distance between them.
You can see the similarities between the two descriptions, and how the Unified Field can be an analogy for Pure Consciousness. Of course, in both physics and in the Vedic tradition, the descriptions of the modes of vibration and the mechanics by which the transcendent manifests are considerably more detailed, and in many cases, it appears that the match is quite good. If, in fact, all the different pieces line up, then the Unified Field becomes a very good analogy for Pure Consciousness. If not, the analogy may still work to give us some general insight into the nature of Pure Consciousness.
I’d like to explore briefly one other aspect of analogies. We have been describing both Pure Consciousness and the Unified Field using language. Now whatever the Unified Field is, its behavior can’t be described in English – it has to be described mathematically, because mathematics is the language of physics. Pure Consciousness also cannot be described in English, or in just about any language, because any language is finite – word define means “to make finite” – and Pure Consciousness is unbounded, infinite, transcendental. So, language itself is like an analogy. The structure of the English language sentences I have been using create a structure in the mind of you, the reader. Depending on how skillfully I’m using the language, that structure will be closer or more distant from the underlying reality. Maharishi has said that listening to an enlightened person describing the experience of higher states of consciousness can give a glimpse of the experience to the listeners. The enlightened person’s words are a very close analogy to the experience. My words, not so much.
I think this is the very point that Rambam has been making all along. Language is incapable of capturing the reality of Gd, which transcends all words, all concepts, all grammar, all syntax, all that language can do. We use anthropomorphic terms as analogues to get some sort of handle on what Gd is, but they always fall short.
There is one more analogy I want to discuss, and it, too, has to do with language. Maharishi has described the infinite-frequency vibration that is set up within Pure Consciousness due to its self-referral nature. Maharishi describes how this vibration breaks down into lower frequency vibrations; these very subtle vibrations are what Maharishi calls the “laws of nature” and they are responsible for manifesting everything we see. Now these laws of nature are actually vibrations of consciousness, just as sounds are vibrations of the air.
Maharishi asserts that the fundamental vibrations of consciousness are actually sounds of human speech, and the patterns of these sounds are the semantics, grammar and phonology of human language, specifically, Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedic Rishis were able to “hear” in their own Pure Consciousness these vibrations, and then express them as the Vedic verses. What this means is that the Vedas form a perfect analogy to Pure Consciousness. It is an analogy of structure, not an intellectual analogy, and it really can only be understood properly from someone at the state of consciousness where one can also “hear” those vibrations. On the other hand, listening to the chanting of the Vedic verses can also structure that state of consciousness in the individual, by stimulating the brain to function in a way that its vibrations also correspond to the verses. This is a particularly useful analogy, as it acts on the individual directly, and produces higher states of consciousness, where we live life without suffering or struggle.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parashat Behar
The main thing that we can learn from this parshah is to schedule regular periods of rest into our lives and schedule deeper, longer rest also regularly: just as we are to rest every seventh day and the land is to rest every seventh year.
“Behar” means “on the mountain,” literally, Mt. Sinai; symbolically, that level of our awareness when we are able to hear Gd and to express Gd’s Will in our actions in our familiar everyday world.
Also, since Rabbinic tradition derives “Sinai” from “sin-ah,” “hatred,” a reference to the hatred of other nations for the Jews who received the Word of Gd, we might see Mt. Sinai as being the mountain of Love, Invincible to hatred, above which is Gd, freeing the mountain, Moses, and through Torah given to Moses, all of us.
Hatred comes from fear which comes from restrictions and the suffering that goes with living life at a level less than we feel we need, deserve. But contact with Gd, through attunement, through rest, loosens the restrictions, opens the awareness to fuller happiness and ability, and dissolves fear and hatred. The Sabbath and the Sabbatical Year are examples of means to gain this rest and to gain the experience that brings trust and releases doubt and fear.
But even on days other than the Sabbath, we begin the day with prayers, pray afternoon and evening and conclude the day with prayers. These prayers and other spiritual practices we may do can serve as times of rest during the day.
Ideally, our continued prayers, activity, and Sabbaths become integrated and we experience a continuous state of lively rest that pervades every moment of our day: we become perfectly attuned with Gd and are restored to Full Awareness, that Gd is One, that our individual personalities are roles that Gd plays, and we are One with the One, we are All in All, the One and Only “I.”
Baruch HaShem