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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious experience > Mysticism
Menahem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and
seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Marked by
conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical messianic
visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda, a reclusive
contemplative who built a hasidic sect into an international
movement, and a man dedicated to the exposition of mysteries who
nevertheless harbored many secrets. Schneerson astutely masked
views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy
while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert
traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between
permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division
between Jew and Gentile.
While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he
identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Wolfson, a leading
scholar of Jewish mysticism and the phenomenology of religious
experience, concentrates instead on Schneerson's apocalyptic
sensibility and his promotion of a mystical consciousness that
undermines all discrimination. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy
is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. To be
enlightened messianically is to be delivered from all conceptual
limitations, even the very notion of becoming emancipated from
limitation. The ultimate liberation, or true and complete
redemption, fuses the believer into an infinite essence beyond all
duality, even the duality of being emancipated and not
emancipated--an emancipation, in other words, that emancipates one
from the bind of emancipation.
At its deepest level, Schneerson's eschatological orientation
discerned that a spiritual master, if he be true, must dispose of
the mask of mastery. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution
of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and
Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology
and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic
embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation,
nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.
This compilation of the mystical writings of Hadewijch of Antwerp is best described, in Andrew Harvey's words, as a "heroic song" of love. The book presents an honest picture of love from every angle, stripped of sentimentality, not disguising the high price love demands if it is to be taken or given seriously.
In a world torn by division, indifference and chaos, to read Love is Everything is to be awakened to the full potential and dignity of being human, and to be changed. Hadewijch of Antwerp was one of Christianity's greatest Christian mystics, a Beguine who lived in the 13th century.
Andrew Harvey is a world-renowned poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, spiritual teacher, and the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism. He saw in Hadewijch's writings a promise and hope for a broken world and felt called to make it accessible to more people by presenting it in daily-reading format.
Over the course of little more than 50 years--what in terms of
human history might even be called a "nanosecond"--computers have
shrunk from the size of a building to the size of a billfold, and
entire libraries of books, music, and more can fit on a tiny chip.
All of this complexity can be utilized and reconfigured more
quickly and effectively than ever. That less physicality can
produce more power is something that kabbalists have taught
throughout the ages.
According to Kabbalah, the more we are able to reduce the physical
space that separates us from each other and from the world around
us, the more evolved we can become. When the space that keeps us
apart grows smaller, the essence of Kabbalah, which is "Love thy
neighbor as thyself," takes on its true meaning: One's neighbor is
one's self. As the Rav reveals and so beautifully expresses in this
book, the secret to personal and global transformation lies in
nanotechnology for the soul.
What once seemed "out of this world" turns out to be not only
possible but inevitable. Nanotechnology, the control and
manipulation of matter on the atomic
or molecular level, is inevitable through spiritual connection and
higher consciousness.
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