“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
--Matthew 5:3 (King James Version)
“Ripe are those who dissolve their small selves within breath,
they live in the shimmering “I can” of nature and the cosmos.”
--Matthew 5:3, English translation of the original Aramaic
Each Beatitude begins with the Aramaic word “tubwayhum,” which Aramaic scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz says is usually translated as “blessed are.” This blessed and happy state is really referring to “being ripe.” Ripeness means “being in tune and in rhythm with the melody of life, the Ever-Living” Reality. Aramaic calls this “the essence of goodness.” When we are ripe, full of Reality, we are good.
It took some time for me to figure out what it meant to be full of Reality, full of the Fullness of Life, especially as I still work to keep my blood cancer in check. How could I continue to experience the energy that filled me with joy and zest? The Aramaic Jesus, Yeshua, said that it all has to do with connecting with the energy of our highest breath, the Holy Breath, (“ruha”), which is always creating and manifesting beauty and joy throughout the world. Later Christian theologians called this life of reality the Holy Spirit, because the Greek word, “pneuma” just like “ruha” in Aramaic, and “spiritus” in Latin, and “prana” in Sanskrit, means not only “spirit” but also “breath” or “energy.”
Being filled with life boils down to breathing. We are “ripe” when we are filled with the Breath of Life. We are “good” when we are breathing fully while consciously aware of the Universal Breath, the Holy Breath.
When we consciously breathe with the full awareness that our breath is connected to that Universal Source of Life, we are “ripening”. We are joining with the life of the whole Universe. The entire universe is alive with that energetic pulsation of Life. The entire universe is alive with the flow of the Divine.
Yoga teaches us how to stay connected with that breath through its pranayama practices and its meditation breathing techniques. Would that the entire human family practiced these methods. The world would really be “ripe,” would really be “blessed.” We would be experiencing the “kingdom of heaven.”
I bow to the divinity within
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