SATSANG
WITH
GITEN:
THE ART OF DYING
– HASSIDISM, KABBALAH AND JEWISH MYSTICISM
Satsang with Giten, August 11, 2016
“I was totally shaken when I came home after satsang with Giten.”
– Toshen, participant in satsang, August 18, 2016
We will be talking about Hassidism, but first a few basic remarks as an introduction.
One has to come in immediate contact with truth, heart to heart. Nothing should be allowed between the two: your heart and reality.
Once you understand who you are, once you go deep into your emptiness, and you are not scared, once you accept the inner death, you have arrived at what Buddha calls “nirvana”.
When you enter within yourself, you will feel like you are entering into a space where you are going to be lost – just as a drop of water entering the ocean is lost.
You will be lost; that is the fear.
That is why you become afraid of death.
Entry into your being is always like death.
It is a crucifixion, it is a cross.
Only very rare and courageous souls, who can take the risk of being lost, arrive.
You have to lose yourself to gain.
Once you are ready to enter into the emptiness, suddenly the fear disappears.
The same energy becomes joy and celebration.
You can dance because that which appeared as emptiness was just an interpretation of the mind.
It was not empty.
Once you enter into your inner being, the mind cannot understand.
If you move withinwards and you come across the inner emptiness,you will die.
That is the meaning of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection.
He is resurrected to a new life.
About Hassidism: The word “hasid” comes from the Hebrew word, which means “pure” or grace.
The whole standpoint of Hassidism is based on grace. It is not that “you” do someting – life is already happening, you just be silent, passive, alert, receiving.
God comes through his grace, not through your effort.
Hassidism believes in life, in joy.
Hassidism is one of the religions in the world, which is life-affirmative.
It has no reunciation in it.
Rather, you have to celebrate life.
The founder of Hassidism, Baal-Shem, is reported to have said: “I have come to teach a new way. It is not fasting and penenace, but a joy in God.”
Hassidism is the heart of Judaism. Hassidism is the mystical tradition of Judaism.
The Hasids loves life, tries to experience life.
That very experience start giving you a balance. And in that balance, some day, when you are really balanced, neither leaning on this side nor leaning on that side, when you are exactly in the middle, you transcend.
The middle is the beyond. If you really want to know what existence is, it is neither in life nor in death. Life is one extreme, death is another extreme. It is just exactly in the middle, where neither life is nor death is, where one is simply unborn, deathless.
In that moment of balance, grace descends.
Hassidism is to find the true joy of life. Hassidism is not a path of meditation, it is a path of love, joy and prayer.
The whole approach of Hassidism is not to choose any extreme, just to remain in the middle, not getting identified with either – just remaining free and joyously enjoying both.
If life comes, enjoy life, if death comes, enjoy death.
Hassidism teaches life in community.
It says that man is not an island, man is not an ego.
Man should live in a community.
Life is in love, life is in flow, in giving, taking and sharing you grow.
To live in a community is to live in love, to live in a community is to live in love, to live in a community is to live in a committment, caring for others.
Love more and you will be more.
There are many religions which are very self-centered, they only think of the self. They only think about how I should become liberated.
Hassdism says that the best way to drop the ego is to live in a community.
It is live with people, to be concerned with people, with their joy, with their sadness, with their happiness, with their life, and with their death.
Create a concern for others, be involved.
Hassidism uses community life as a device.
Hassidism celebrates the small things of life – eating, drinking – and then everything takes the quality of prayer.
The ordinaries of life is no longer ordinary. It is suffused with divine grace.
– Swami Dhyan Giten
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