Welcome to a guided meditation on the Kabbalistic Sfira of Chesed.
We do these meditations because we learn about these Sfirot,
These divine aspects,
Through embodied states of consciousness as opposed to the intellectual mind.
So when we are in a meditation state,
Insight and wisdom and the experience of the Sfira are more available to us.
And that is how the teachings,
The spiritual wisdom,
Has been taught from generation to generation.
So go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit and gently close the eyes.
And start by just feeling the breath.
The breath invites us to slow down,
To feel the present moment.
It grounds us in the here now.
And from here,
We invite the wisdom of Chesed to appear to us.
Chesed is often translated as love,
Compassion,
Grace,
Abundance.
It is the divine flow of loving kindness.
Chesed is the first Sfira that begins the lower seven Sfirot.
So in the Tree of Life,
We have the upper three,
Keter,
Chochma and Bina,
And the lower seven.
And the lower seven are the manifestation of God in this material world.
So Chesed begins that creative process.
And this is important because we remember that the world was created through love.
There is a deep relationship between creation and love.
And we find that actually everything that's been created,
Whether it's a newborn baby or an art project,
Or whatever it may be,
Actually came from this flow of Chesed,
This love.
Because love is a powerful force that gives us the motivation,
The drive for creation.
Without it,
We actually wouldn't have the strength to create.
And you can reflect on that,
Where that feels true for you.
What have you created that has come from a place of love?
Chesed is associated with Abraham and Sarah in the Torah.
They embody Chesed because they had their open tent that did not have any walls.
Any visitor or stranger could wander in.
They were unafraid of who might come in because they were grounded in the teachings of love.
And when we are in the presence of love,
We become fearless in our vulnerability.
Our vulnerability becomes our strength.
Love gives us the support that we need to open into this space of expansion where there's no walls.
In Abraham and Sarah,
They're archetypes for our internal states.
Where do we feel that openness to the world?
The place where there's no boundaries,
No walls.
The space of abundant,
Overflowing,
Overfilling love and compassion.
And love is truly beyond any categorization.
It's beyond boundaries,
Beyond any delineation we might give it.
And that is where that quality of overflowing comes from.
In Judaism,
We have a text that says,
My cup overflows.
So the love,
This quality that sometimes is known as water,
It overflows our containers.
You can think of the rivers,
The lakes,
The oceans.
This expansive water that knows no bounds.
Whatever container you put water in,
It will fill up.
There's no way to separate out this water equality because it's this representation of love.
Take another moment here and feel where that connection to that life force of divine love lives in you.
Whether it's something that you've already cultivated in yourself or something you want to receive.
This presence of love is actually all around us.
And you can imagine yourself being bathed by this water.
It's like coming like a waterfall and washing away all the categorizations,
All the mental processes,
All the muck that lives in us.
The water clears it and transforms it through this power of love.
Just imagine this overflowing water quality that's coming from top to bottom,
That is washing all parts of you,
That is cleansing,
Returning your soul to this place of divine flow where creation comes from.
Just take one more moment here to really bathe in the nourishment of love.
Knowing that whenever we are stuck in life,
We can always come back to this divine love.
We can always find it.
It's available to us.
And gently return to the breath.
Open the eyes.
And come into this space of the here now,
Reflecting on how this meditation on chesed has perhaps shifted something in you.
