Rosh Hashana Meditation Series, Part 1: Setting Intentions

HEAD/ROSH 

Rosh Hashana means the “head of the year” because the energy of the day provides vitality and life for the whole year. In order to capitalize on this great energy, we invite ourselves to turn inwards and set intentions for the upcoming year. This meditation will be focused on how we can grasp higher divine concepts and connection and bring new revelations into our everyday life. Our emotions are often influenced by our immediate environment, and we often respond with reactivity by letting anything external sweep us away and affect us. Our mind, however, is able to grasp higher wisdom and anchor to something beyond the external circumstances. So we begin our meditation at the mind’s eye, our “Da’at”, and set our intention for what we want to manifest in the upcoming year.  Mindfulness sets the practice. 

HEART /LEV 

But the intention from the mind will not enter into our lives if it doesn’t affect our heart and emotions. You can know something is good for you intellectually, but until you feel it deeply within yourself, it does not actualize. You can objectively love something or believe in something, but if it doesn’t enter into your heart, the relationship isn’t there. So, Jewish meditation is about anchoring higher wisdom and concepts, and then contemplating on them in order to arouse our emotions. One purpose of Chassidic meditation, called hitbonenut, is to unite the intellect with heart. 

The book of Tanya, the core, fundamental work on the teachings of Chabad Chassidus written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman (the Alter Rebbe), speaks of Inherent love vs Aroused love (Chapter 38-40). We all have a natural love of G-d that we inherited from our ancestors, the “pintele Yid”. This inherent love is beautiful and holy. However, an even higher level of love is not natural, but generated by our intent and mindfulness. By contemplating G-dliness around us, we generate loving feelings. Although it takes more work and time, the love that arises from meditation is more stable, lasting, and authentic than naturally based feelings. This love drawn from kavanot is far loftier. 

ROOT/MALCHUT 

However,  it is not enough for the intention to just affect our minds and emotions. It does not manifest into anything real. We also need it to affect us even deeper! So, the next step is directing our emotions to influence our lower Sephirot/Chakras and actions. The root chakra in Kabbalah is referred to as the Sephira of Malchut. This is the place we actualize those higher intentions into the most physical realm: our habits, our day to day rituals, our actions, and even our reactions. The goal of Jewish meditation is often to lead to a positive action, a mitzvah, or a real concrete change. According to Tanya (Chapters 38-40), action is the main goal, but intention elevates the action like the wings of a bird. 

PRACTICE

Start by finding a comfortable seat. Close your eyes softly, shifting your awareness to your internal world. Sweep the hands up, like the wings of a bird, reaching high above you towards the infinite sky. Here we are reaching for something higher and beyond.

Then we bring our hands together in prayer hands, arriving  at the Third Eye Center, the point between our eyebrows. Settle here and set your intention. What do we want to birth and bring into our lives this year? 

Then, exhale the hands downwards to the heart center space. Take a moment to allow the intention to influence our heart space, where our intention is infused with passion, heat, and emotion. Our mind is cold intellect but our heart brings the vitality and warmth. We dwell here for a few minutes to fuel the intention. How does it feel to breathe with it, to sit with it, it live with it?

When we’re ready, we release the hands down the length of the body, fingertips reaching toward the ground. We enter into Malchut/Kingship/Queenship, bringing our intention through the journey of the Sephirot into the physical realm. Then, we sweep the hands up like we are creating a snow angel with our arms up to the sky. Continue circling through these movements, from reaching high-->to third eye center→ to heart center→ to the lower energies. Move through these stages at your own pace, whether it be a continuous flow like a river, or weather you choose to stay present in one posture the entire time. Continue this process for 5-10 minutes. When you are ready to come out of this meditation, commit to bringing your intention to reality by saying it aloud to a friend or yourself, writing it down, or performing a small action to bring this lofty idea into the world and draw the light down into actuality.

Continue to Rosh Hashana Meditation Part 2