The Truth We Seek

The month of Virgo leads up to Rosh Hashanah, which we know from a kabbalistic standpoint is not a religious holiday, but rather the day that marks the birth of the humanity—a cosmic opening that provides each one of us with a clean slate for the year to come.

Indeed, the traits of a person born under the sign of Virgo support this energy of cleansing. Moreover, aside from their love for physical tidiness and order, Virgos also enjoy focusing on the small details, and they have an amazing ability to point out what can often go unnoticed, especially those things that are out of place.

Natural servants of the universe, Virgos are governed by one of the most demanding and hardworking signs of the zodiac. For all of us, however, Virgo or not, this energy grants the perseverance and dedication necessary for us to push forward with our spiritual work. And we will need every ounce of it because the real work of spiritual growth is difficult.

The reason for this is because, according to Kabbalah, the only way we can find the answers for the truth we seek is through our individual ability to accept personal responsibility for our lives.

Spiritual growth begins with an active awareness of the role we ourselves play in what is happening to us at any given moment, an awareness that leads us to change our usual complacent actions, which in turn brings us to higher levels of consciousness.

The reality, however, is that many people are not really interested in achieving true spiritual growth. For most, the end goal is to feel good, not necessarily to know truth. For this reason, many seekers generally prefer to follow “spiritual paths” of tranquility and comfort, paths that don’t require action on their part to make a change.

Many people, for example, like to go to places where they can chant, hear music, hug each other, and feel good. Indeed, hugging and chanting really do “feel good,” but those warm and fuzzy feelings are feelings based upon emotion. God knows, emotions can be wonderful when they move us to share and connect with the Light, but emotions are not in and of themselves spiritual. When we talk about truth, we are not discussing feelings or conditions that are present only for the moment. We are speaking about growth that is permanent and eternal.

Now you may well ask, “OK, so if all of this is true, then what are some of the ways I can manifest my desire for true spiritual growth?”

One starting point is to try to identify your faults. Yes, this is very difficult because most of us either deny or downright refuse to accept the fact that we have consistent imperfections in our personality. But these flaws are the expressions of our spiritual growth: They show us where we are right now. These flaws are the source of the veils through which we cannot see, but they can also furnish the opportunities to remove those veils.

Anger, hatred, envy—most of us know if we possess these traits. We know if we are angry, if we blow up, if we hurt others unintentionally by our inability to restrict our emotions.

But what about our more subtle character flaws? Do we really understand and recognize them? Do we have the ability to see how, in our conversations with people, details about someone else’s life or our opinion of others subtly makes it into the exchange? This may not quite be at the level of lashon hara, the “evil tongue,” but if we really listen to ourselves, we will discover that we are being judgmental.

Perhaps we feel that others are too snobby, too loud, and too impatient in their dealings with us. These hypercritical thoughts in and of themselves keep us from our spiritual growth, but worse yet, they are negatively compounded when we express them to others and when we disparage someone who is not even present.

In the month of Elul, the spiritual door is slightly more ajar than at any other time of the year. It is ajar so we can connect with the Light. Yet because there is always equal potential for darkness as well as Light, the door is also ajar for the negative side to enter. Therefore, we must be careful and conscious in the small daily interactions of our lives.

At the same time, we have to acknowledge that we ourselves are responsible for our negative actions. Only then can we start to correct them and advance on our spiritual journey because if we want to come closer to the warmth of the sun, we’d better start to remove the veils first.