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Dreams and Spiritual Consciousness III

When space, joy, quiet and blessings become a part of our life, it should begin to influence our actions.

There is a beautiful legend about the ancient king of the Khazars, who ruled over an empire in the Ukraine and Russia. His spiritual awakening caused him eventually to convert to Judaism, and to convert his subjects too. The medieval Spanish Rabbi, poet and philosopher Judah Halevi enlarged upon this legend in his Book of the Kuzari.

The King of Khazars had a dream, and in this dream an angel spoke to him. "Your way of thinking is good, but your way of acting is not good!" The King woke up touched to his marrow. "How is my way of acting not good?" He examined his beliefs and found no fault. But the next night, and the night after, and every night after that the dream returned, and in this dream he heard the voice of an angel say "Your way of thinking is good, but not your way of acting!"

So from his dream, the King of Khazars began a process of self-transformation. Of course, he was on a very high level to begin with. In his dreams, God communicated with him through an angel, and the King recognized this. Despite his power and wealth, or because of his power and wealth, he lived in a state of thankfulness. Prophetic insights come only in a state of clarity and joy.

There are several lessons we can learn from this story. In order for us to get prophetic insights, we have to cultivate this state of thankfulness and this comes through meditation and contemplation and a proper dream life. There is another lesson too-- our intentions may be good, even excellent, but our actions must be equally good and excellent too. The time has come for us to bring the fruits of our meditations into action.

If we have learned to wish someone well, if we have widened our hearts, we can now try at least once a week to do some kindness for another person, someone outside our family circle. Maybe we can go to the local hospital and visit one lonely, ailing person. Maybe there is an orphanage, and a child we can connect to. Maybe there is a charity we can give to once a week, either from hard won money or from our precious time. Once a week we make it a habit to actually try to bring light into someone's life.

One of the miseries of modern life, is we are self-indulgent and self- absorbed. Did you ever notice that the mentally ill only think about themselves? The word "I" and "me" sounds again and again from their mouths!

In our post-modern world we are all a bit mentally ill. We are all autistic. But we can heal ourselves and bring comfort to others too.