The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (LIV) Isaiah

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying: 'This is the way, go ye in it, when ye turn to the right, and when ye turn to the left'.” (Isaiah 30:21)

God constantly reminds us that He gave us intellect and discernment in order to exercise our free will. These are the voices we hear before we make decisions, positive or negative, as we either turn to the right or to the left. We have said that intellect and discernment are the highest levels in human consciousness, hence closer to understand and assimilate our permanent bond with the Creator. This bond speaks to us with a clear word to make us fully aware of our Essence and true identity. In this awareness we make goodness the obvious choice in order to make goodness prevail.

“And ye shall defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images covered with gold; you shall scatter them as a sickening thing, 'Go out', you shall say to it.” (30:22)

As we become aware of God's Love as “the word behind us” that speaks high in our consciousness, He dissipates fantasies and illusions we have engraved and molten as the gold and silver idols that defiled the goodness in who we are, have and do. In the total awareness of goodness we realize that there is no room for ego's fantasies and illusions in the realm of Love's ways and attributes. Love is our strength to remove all that is against or opposite to goodness.

“And He will give the rain for your seed, wherewith you sowed the ground, and bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous; in that day shall your cattle feed in large pastures.” (30:23)

As we allow our Love and God's Love to be together, He provides the goodness He wants us to enjoy in the material world. Let's remind ourselves that the foundation of our Jewish identity is our eternal bond with God, as we proclaim it at least twice a day, every day: “Hear [understand] Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”. This statement is preceded (“Blessed are You Lord, who chooses His people Israel with Love”), and followed (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might”) by a declaration of mutual Love between God and Israel, in order to secure the goodness He wants us to make prevail in life.

This goodness as the rain He gives us, and also as our seed we plant in the field of life, as well as the bread of the increase in life, fat and abundant. “In that day” is the moment when our awareness fully realize our Essence and true identity, as the expanded pasture where goodness feeds itself also with goodness. In addition, “the cattle” as the positive creative potentials we can manifest when goodness is the cause, and goodness the effect.

“The oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savory provender, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hill streams and watercourses, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.” (30:24-25)

Ego as a vital force and will as a driving force are represented by the ox and the donkey that prepare the field of life. Both feeding with the same goodness the field will produce. This allegory of the Messianic Era is manifest when we allow goodness itself to remove all negative and destructive traits and trends in human consciousness, as the towers that fall to give way to Love's ways and attributes and nothing else.

“Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of the seven days, in the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people, and heals the stroke of their wound.” (30:26)

We will see God's Love revealed in His Creation, as the moon turned into a sun, and the sun even brighter than we can ever imagine. This clarity will be the material reflection of how clear we can see God's Love in our consciousness. Thus the bruises and wounds we have inflicted in ourselves by ego's illusions and negative trends will be all healed.

“Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from far, with His anger burning, and in thick uplifting of smoke; His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is as a devouring fire. And His breath is as an overflowing stream, that divides even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that causes to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.” (30:27-28)

These verses are metaphors of the constant calling of goodness to dwell in all levels and dimensions of consciousness. The repeated calling to remove “the nations” that pursue the destruction of goodness as our Essence and true identity. The nations -- as the negative traits and trends that make us err and fall -- will be removed by the breath of God's Love, as a devouring fire.

“Singing is to you as in a night sanctified for a festival, and joy of heart as he who is going with a pipe, to go in to the mountain of the Lord, unto the Rock of Israel.” (30:29)

God's Love will redeem us again, as He did to our ancestors in Egypt. This time our celebration will be eternal, for it takes place in the mountain of God that is the total awareness of our permanent connection with Him.

“And the Lord will cause His glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of His arm, with furious anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a bursting of clouds, and a storm of rain, and hailstones.” (30:30)

The chapter ends with allegories of destruction related to neighboring nations that disappear by the fire that will give way to our Final Redemption and the Messianic Era.

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (LIII) Isaiah

God continues calling our attention to the choices we make, and their consequences. As we choose to live ego's fantasies and illusions, our discernment, intellect and common sense also follows the same predicament.

“For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that refuse to hear the teaching of the Lord; that say to the seers: 'See not,' and to the prophets: 'Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy delusions; get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us'.” (Isaiah 30:9-11)

Discernment, intellect and common sense are “the seers” and “the prophets” we force to partake in “smooth things” (vanities) and “delusions” (ego's fantasies and illusions) that deviate our true purpose by denying and rejecting righteousness (the “right things” to do) as the path in which we are supposed to walk. These delusions cause our separation from the holiness God wants us to be, for He is our God who is Holy.

“Wherefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: 'Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon; therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, which breaking comes suddenly at an instant.” (30:12-13)

Our ways and means to fulfill materialistic fantasies and illusions become the oppression and perverseness where we remain, until we choose to wake up from them and return to the goodness of Love's ways and attributes. We have said many times in this blog that eternal vigilance is the key to remain in the goodness we are and are destined to manifest. Some compare it to walking through a straight and narrow path, where goodness is the path itself as well as its destination. Thus we realize in a sudden instant that we can lose track, once we change the object of our attention. Ego's fantasies and illusions become the wall that fall onto us, as heavy and as high as we build them up.

“And He shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it into pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a shard to take fire from the burning, and to take water out of the cistern.” (30:14)

In an eloquent metaphor the Prophet evokes the change that God promises for our consciousness in His Final Redemption. The vessel represent the old and outdated negative ways and means to approach life and the material world. He will break it to make sure it will never be the container either for fire or for water. He will make us aware that the wrong perception and approach must change in order to give way to goodness as the cause and effect of God's Creation. This positive approach is the foundation of the Messianic Consciousness.

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in tranquility and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye have not been willing'.” (30:15)

Here the Prophet evokes the confidence in the security we find by returning to our Creator, stillness and tranquility as our strongholds. These are opposite qualities to agitation, unrest, and unsettledness, that lead us to weakness from which we can't return to our Essence and true identity. In this sense we understand peace as a quality inherent to Love's ways and attributes. It is not about a stagnating stillness, but the certainty and confidence in who we really are and have as the inheritance of God's Love. Yet we are not willing to make the right choices.

“And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have compassion upon you; for the Lord is a God of justice, happy are all they that wait for Him.” (30:18)

We are reminded again that God stands by His Love to grant us free will. Hence He is patient with us, and waits for our return to His ways and attributes. Thus we understand that He is gracious to us because He loves us. In this awareness we honor and exalt Him, for He is compassionate with us. The Prophet teaches us a great lesson when he tells us that happy are those that wait for God. In this context, waiting implies our willingness to return to Him. This is not about waiting with crossed arms and legs until He has compassion for us.

As long as we take the step towards Him, He will be will us: “Therefore tell [the people of Israel] them: Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Return to Me', says the Lord of hosts, 'and I will return to you', says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 1:3). Hence the choice is ours. As we have mentioned frequently, God declared His Redemption after He took us out of Egypt from the house of slavery. Still, He waits for us to embrace His Redemption.

We realize that His waiting and our waiting meet in one place that is our permanent connection with Him. This place is Zion at Jerusalem, for those who dwell it and wait in it. In our permanent bond with God, He hears and He answers. Zion at Jerusalem is this bond where our Love and God's Love dwell together. Thus we realize that as we begin to enthrone Love's ways and attributes to lead all levels and dimensions of life, God's Love is also manifest.

“For, O people that dwells in Zion at Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious unto you at the voice of your cry. When He shall hear, He will answer you.” (Isaiah 30:19)

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (LII) Isaiah

The fundamental premise to approach our Creator is that we come from Him. All we are, have and do come from Him, even if their outcome is positive or negative. God planted in our consciousness free will within the frame of discernment. We have said many times that is useless to have free will if we lack knowledge out of discernment. He created darkness and Light, negative and positive, for us to exercise free will. The lesson we learn by being aware that we come from God is to also realize that we are good because He is good, and act accordingly.

“Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, that take counsel but not of Me; and that form projects, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” (Isaiah 30:1)

We rebel from our Creator by following ego's fantasies and illusions, and not His ways and attributes which define our Essence and true identity. We take counsel from the idols we create, either be ideologies, beliefs, customs, habits, addictions or attachments, with which we conceive and project the ways we approach life and the material world. We rather follow our own inventions than the Spirit of God, from which we come. Hence illusions engender more illusions that lead us to transgress against the goodness of Love's ways and attributes, as the material manifestation of God's Love.

“That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at My mouth; to take refuge in the stronghold of Pharaoh, and to take shelter in the shadow of Egypt!” (30:2)

God speaks to us making reference to Pharaoh and Egypt as the symbols of the egocentric mentality. Indeed we descend to the negative traits and lower trends in consciousness when we follow ego's fantasies and illusions, rather than being attached to our Creator, His ways and attributes. We shelter our entire existence under the shadow of negative trends.

“Therefore shall the stronghold of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your confusion. For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes.” (30:3-4)

We are fully aware that our chains and prisons are the false beliefs by which we live. These become more evident as we attach ourselves to them, to the point that we are not able to discern what is our real freedom. We become unable to get away from the idols we have become. Zoan and Hanes are allegorical places referring to negative traits and qualities that speak from us as princes and emissaries of what we have become.

“They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.” (30:5)

We are warned and admonished about our own negative fantasies and illusions, from which we can't get anything positive for our lives. We can't make gains from negative, but the opposite. We lose when we don't live in goodness as the truth for which we have to live in order to be aware of our Essence and true identity. Sooner or later we realize that envy, coveting, lust, wrath, haughtiness, indolence and indifference are our shame. These eventually lead our common sense and discernment to reproach our evil ways, and bring us back to the goodness we belong.

“The burden of the beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.” (30:6)

The negative trends in consciousness are the beasts that become our burden. These are the land of trouble and anguish from where we are attacked and devoured. In ego's fantasies and illusions they seem to carry riches and treasures from which we don't gain or profit. 

“For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore have I called her arrogance that sits still.” (30:7)

Again God refers to Egypt as arrogance and haughtiness. These are the illusions we create to make us believe we are gods, but they are only vanity with no purpose. They are idols that make us still and unable to move forward, for we are trapped in the illusion of grandeur that make us feel above others.

“Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever. For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that refuse to hear the instruction [the Torah] of the Lord.” (30:8-9)

God reminds us time and again that we are the ones who separate from Him by letting ego's fantasies and illusions lead our ways. We can live our entire life in our own inventions, turning them into and endless sleep from which we may never wake up. God tells us that our awakening from ego's fantasies and illusions lies on hearing (understanding) His Torah that teaches us His ways and attributes. These are our real freedom.

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (LI) Isaiah

Everything we experience with a negative approach to life eventually compels us to pursue the goodness inherent to life. It's called empiricism: learning by experience. We don't need to believe in God in order to realize that we live within the frame of cause and effect, from which we learn to value goodness as what really matters in life. In this sense we mustn't take goodness and Love's ways and attributes for granted, but something we have come a long way to get.

As we experience negative conceptions and situations as the common predicament we face every day in the world, we learn that goodness -- as the positive approach to life -- is something we have to strive for. Goodness doesn't seem to be available wherever we are, hence we have to look for it. We do it by removing the opposite of what goodness is.

In this context we understand goodness as the common denominator of Love's ways and attributes. Thus we understand that living in the darkness of negative conceptions, prejudices, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts sooner or later will lead us to pursue the goodness in every level and dimension of consciousness.

“Act stupid! Be astonished! Act blind, and be blind! Be drunk, but not from wine; stagger around, but not from liquor. For the Lord has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and He has closed your eyes; the prophets and your rulers, the seers [their eyes] has He covered.” (Isaiah 29:9-10)

God summons us to live in the predicament of ego's fantasies and illusions, out of the nothingness from where they come. Thus we act stupid, blind and stagger, as if God closed our eyes and understanding. Even discernment, common sense and judgment as our seers, Prophets and rulers lose the ability to guide us in the path of truth, righteousness and goodness. God claims credit as the One who covers our eyes, but we perfectly know that we are the ones who blind ourselves as we enter the realm of our own materialistic fantasies and illusions.

“And this entire vision has become for you like the words of a sealed book. When people give it to someone who can read, and say, 'Read this, please', he answers, 'I cannot, because it is sealed'. And the writing is delivered to him that is not learned, saying: 'Read this, I pray you', and he says: 'I am not learned'.” (29:11-12)

The truth is in front of our eyes, yet we seem unable to grasp it. Either way, even if we are able to see it, we rather don't have it; or if we don't know it, ignorance is our excuse. This same syndrome occurs with our obsessions, addictions, attachments, beliefs and habits, from which we can't get away. God tells us in these past four verses that He is taking away our free will, but we know that we renounce our freedom as we become attached to haughtiness, greed, envy, lust, indifference and indolence, as well as to depression, isolation and frustration.

“And the Lord said: For as much as this people draw near, and with their mouth and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their reverence of Me is a commandment of men learned by routine. Therefore, behold, I will again do wonders against this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their wise men shall be concealed.” (29:13-14)

God refers to the heart symbolizing Love as our true connection to Him, for words and routine reverence without a heart are meaningless. As we embrace ego's agenda, we renounce our wisdom and understanding. Hence we ourselves conceal the ways and means to return to our Essence and true identity.

“Woe unto them that seek deep to conceal their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in darkness; and they say: 'Who sees us, and who knows of us'? O your perversity! Should the potter be thought to be like clay? That the thing made should say about him who made it, 'He didn't make me'; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, 'He has no understanding'?” (29:15-16)

How can we hide from our Creator and ignore His words that define our Essence and true identity, even if we hide in the darkness of fantasies and illusions? Can we even dare to consider the Creator just as one of us, and despise where we come? Only the egocentric mind can conceive such perversion.

“The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the neediest among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. For the ruthless will cease to be, and the scorner will be finished, and all who look for ways to do evil will come to an end.” (29:19-20)

Once again we are reminded that humbleness is the key to return to our Creator. Our return to Him through His ways and attributes is our increased joy. God is our greatest need, and our greatest fulfillment. In the goodness from which He created us there is no ruthlessness, nor scorn, nor evil. Thus we realize that our Final Redemption begins when we embrace only goodness, and enthrone Love's ways and attributes as the rulers and conductors of every facet and dimension of life. God again reiterates His Redemption by making us aware of goodness as the destined purpose of His Creation.

“Therefore thus says the Lord who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. When he sees his children, the work of My hands, in the midst of him sanctifying My Name; yea, they [the nations] shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall revere the God of Israel.” (29:22-23)

In these verses Abraham is Israel redeemed, for Abraham, Isaac and Israel are guarantors of their mutual Covenant with God. He reaffirms Israel as the work of His hands, the people who consecrate His Name, that is also His glory, His majesty, and His Love. As we have said frequently, Israel represents all the positive creative potentials in our consciousness that proclaim and consecrate God's ways and attributes. The nations are destined to follow Israel's legacy by also sanctifying and revering the Creator of all. Thus shall they rectify their actions and learn to be part of the Final Redemption.

“They also that err in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmur shall learn instruction.” (29:24)