Last week I was bummed to miss my Zohar class because the topic was on words, thoughts and how they can make you sick. But it was a friend's birthday so I missed class for a karaoke dinner instead. This week's class was also about healing - just on a different level.
But first, what is the Zohar? The book of light, as it is sometimes referred to, is a channeled book from the 1300's that Kabbalists study. The class is offered weekly by the Kabbalah Centre. One one level, the Zohar offers a symbolic interpretation of the Bible that I find fascinating. For example, Moses leading the slaves out of Egypt is about the human struggle to break free of the ego. Egypt is a symbol for the Ego and we are slaves to all its tricks: materialism, laziness, doubt, unhealthy competition, etc.
I am not entirely sure how, but the Zohar also links to astrology because each week has an energy to it. As far as I can tell the energy represents a little aspect of our ego that we are provoked on, giving us a chance to "win" by doing the "right" thing. This week the energy is about reconciliation and making amends on a soul level. Yesterday we talked about relationships that have fallen victim to 'bad blood' or 'jealousy' or 'reactivity' as well as grudges and the general feeling that 'we don't like a person because...'
When we think unhappy or unfriendly thoughts about a person we send a piece of our energy there way, and that piece of energy doesn't have a nice feel to it. On an energy healing level, you could say that you're sending them bad vibes and that can have a negative impact on them as well as a karmic effect on you. From a Kabbalistic POV the idea is that a little piece of our soul/self breaks off and goes in their direction. If we do this a lot, we start to become unbalanced because we've lost too many bits of ourself.
This week is about making amends with that person. The teacher suggested that we balance out the karma by doing an act of kindness or sharing with someone. That starts to fill us up again with friendly energy. We also need to start to recognise the consequences of sending so much bad blood out into the world and how it can wreak havoc on your own health and wellbeing. Visualise a little piece of you sticking to every person that you've had a misunderstanding with. Those pieces go far and wide, you lose some of your own energy and send it out into the world.
The challenge this week, according to the Zohar, is to really Love Thy Neighbour. Standing by while our soul and/or our energy splinters is not a good thing for anyone to go through. From a healing point of view, I also think there comes a time when we have to understand we're all in this together and a reactive, angry world isn't one where anyone wants to live.
Note: "Just for today" is a reference to the Reiki principles that encourage us to live in the moment and do what is right, just for a day. I haven't had coffee "seven of the ten" today's these two weeks and it feels great! LOL