Saga Of The Lost Tribes Of Israel

"And it shall come to pass on that day, that the Lord will set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, that shall remain from Assyria, and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Kush and from Eklam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations and will assemble the dispersed of Israel and gather together the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the Earth." 

Isaiah 11:11

"THE SAGA OF THE LOST TRIBES

Descendants alive today, filmmaker says . . .
Lila Sarick, The Globe and Mail

The search for the lost tribes of Israel, dispersed nearly 3,000 years ago, is a romantic quest that has mesmerized explorers and adventurers for hundreds of years. The stakes are tantalizing. Not only is there the thrill of finding people alive today who are the descendants of those who apparently disappeared without a trace, but according to biblical prophecy, their reappearance signals the approach of a Messianic time.

The latest bid to separate the fact from the myth comes from award winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici in Quest for the Lost Tribes of Israel. . . .

Quest documents his travels to Tunisia, Afghanistan, Burma and Uzbekistan. In every place, he found evidence that not only had the Jews been there thousands of years ago but that people still had Israelites names, practices and an Israel consciousness.

"I didn’t approach this differently than any other story. I was quite prepared to report there ain’t nothing here," Mr. Jacobovici said in an interview. "If I land in Afghanistan and the Pathans say they’re Israelites, it’s my job to report it honestly."

The quest for the lost tribes was one of the three great mysteries pursued by Western adventurers through the ages, along with the search for the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant.

Of the three, the story of the tribes is the most clearly detailed in the historical narratives of the Bible and other texts.

During the time of King Solomon, 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel lived in an area north of Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Israel, while the tribes of Judah and Benjamin inhabited the southern Kingdom of Judah.

With the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 721 BC, the 10 tribes were captured, enslaved and deported. They vanished. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin were captured and exiled to Babylon in 586 BC. They were freed 50 years later and allowed to return to Israel.

Historians assume the 10 tribes were not truly lost but assimilated into the larger society. . .

His quest began inadvertently when he made a film about the Ethiopian Jews. Before they were airlifted to safety in the mid-1980s, Israeli chief rabbi declared they were descendants of the tribe of Dan.

Several years later, Mr. Jacobovici heard about an Israel rabbi claiming to have discovered Jews on the Burmese-Indian border. These people, who called themselves Menmasseh, had ancient songs about crossing the sea with the water parting before them and following a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day, stories strikingly similar to the biblical account of the exodus from Egypt. . . .

"If the chief rabbis are right and the Ethiopians are Dan, and if this rabbi is right and these people are Menashe, could this be happening?" Mr. Jacobovici recalled thinking. "If this prophecy were to unfold, what do you think it would look like? Would the tribes come on camel back from heaven? . . . Or do they get on boats and airplanes, just regular people buying tickets going to their travel agent and suddenly prophecy can unfold on the nightly news and we don’t even know it?"

His quixotic trek took him to Afghanistan, where he found hill-dwelling people who belonged to the tribes of Shinwari, Efredi, Reuveni and Gadun, corruptions, he believes, of the tribal names of Simeon, Ephraim, Reuven and Gad.

They also call themselves children of Isaac, an odd appellation for Muslims who would more likely to follow the tradition of Ishmael, the father of the Arab nation, not his Jewish half-brother Isaac. . .

In Central Asia, where Mr. Jacobovici found treasure troves of objects with Hebrew and Aramaic writing hidden away in museum basements, there was, he believes a deliberate effort by the former Soviet Union to suppress the history of the tribes.

In other instances, Western myopia means that dangerous and inaccessible places have simply fallen off our radar. Volumes are written about the Jewish communities of Poland, but next to nothing is documented about the Afghani communities, which are hundreds, if not thousands, of years older.

Citing his journalist’s objectivity, Mr. Jacobovici declines to speculate on the biblical prophecy that the discovery of the tribes is the first step toward the end of days.

"All I know is, I went out to look for a story and I came home with the goods," he said.

But for believers, the idea "we may be living in times of ultimate reunification of families is mind-blowing in a very positive way," he said. "The idea that biblical prophecy is unfolding in the nightly news is wow for people." "

The Globe and Mail, Friday, November 20, 1998

To Moses We did give Nine Clear Signs: 
As the Children of Israel: when he came to them, Pharaoh said to him:
"O Moses! I consider thee, indeed, to have been worked upon by sorcery!
Moses said, 
"Thou knowest well that these things have been sent down by none,
But the Lord of the heavens and the earth as eye-opening evidence:
And I consider thee indeed, O Pharaoh, to be one doomed to destruction!"
So he resolved to remove them from the face of the earth: 
But We did drown him and all who were with him.
And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, 
"Dwell securely in the land (of promise)":
But when the second of the warnings came to pass, 
We gather you together in a mingled crowd. (2314)

surah 17:101 -104 Al Isra’ (The Night Journey)

"2314. Some commentators understand the second warning to be the Day of Judgment, the Promise of the Hereafter."

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an
(Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an, p. 703.)

The connections between various spiritual traditions and Judaism are vast. Not only that, the experience that Shri Mataji can bring to Jews, or anybody else for that matter, goes far beyond the expectations that any Jew (with the exception of the Jewish mystics, known as Kabbalists) has ever entertained.

It is interesting to note that the Messiah is expected to be a mortal person who, through charisma, background and power, proves himself to be the actual redeemer. By experiencing the Ruach, a Jew can finally experience Judaism as a living force that nourishes, heals and gives evidence of His Spirit during the End Times:

Ruach, the breath of God experienced daily as cool breeze/wind 1
Ruach, the breath of God experienced daily as cool breeze/wind 2
All-Pervading Power (cool breeze, divine vibrations, God's breath)
Divine flowing out of those born of the Spirit within

This experience of the direct perception and sensation of Ruach has become commonplace with those meditating on the Messiah. Hundreds of thousands and even perhaps millions of people from every corner of the Earth are feeling for the first time the existence of God on their central nervous systems. This experience transcends all religious and cultural boundaries. Shri Mataji shows its practitioners the universality of all the religions of the world. This experience is described in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity, Greek Mythology, as well as most other spiritual paths. This experience is also perfectly described in Judaism. So we can say that Sahaja Yoga is not a religion, but a tool to shed light on religion. And when we bring the Light of Truth into Judaism, we can see how fantastic it is.

The basic experience of the universal pure religion (as described by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi) is a very simple, yet powerful evolutionary process that initially takes place on the central nervous system. Through pure desire and the Divine Compassion of God, the dormant spiritual energy in a person is awakened, creating an enlightened personality. The Torah clearly describes this in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 11, verses 16-17 and 25:

-- 16: And the Lord said unto Moses: "Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with thee.
-- 17: And I will come down and speak with thee there; and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.
-- 25: And the Lord came down to the tent in the cloud; and spoke unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and put it upon the seventy elders; and when it came to pass, that, when the spirit came upon them, they prophesied."

This spirit which is described is a reflection of the pure desire of God in a human being. It is an innate energy which lies in the sacrum bone, or the triangular shaped bone at the base of the spinal column. The word sacrum comes from the word sacred, because the ancient Greeks, of whose language so much English is based, knew that the sacrum bone was a sacred bone, and that it housed this sacred energy. The spirit spoken of is actually the Shechina, or the Divine Presence that protects a human being from evil. The word spirit means wind. It is important to note that this energy is described as a wind, for when it is flowing, it feels like a cool breeze emitting from the body. The word Shechina comes from the Hebrew word shochem, which means to reside. The Shechina is the One who resides in the sacrum bone.

In Her upward journey, the Shechina (or Kundalini) passes through a number of centers which are expressed in the human anatomy as the nerve plexuses of the central nervous system. In Sahaja Yoga, these centers have been called chakras for thousands of years. There are numerous ancient drawings that exhibit these chakras, and they are rendered with complete anatomical accuracy. This was all done without any knowledge of human physiology, so it is quite obvious that the source of this knowledge must be spiritual in nature. The word chakra means wheel in Sanskrit, and indeed, they spin like wheels. They contain the pure qualities as designed by God that every being possesses. The chakras and their Divine energy were envisioned by the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, in Chapter 1, Verses 19-21:

-- 19: And when the living creatures went, the wheels went hard by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the bottom, the wheels were lifted up.
-- 20: Whither so ever the spirit was to go, as spirit was to go thither, so they went; and the wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
-- 21: When those went, these went; and when those stood, and these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

In Judaism we find the same knowledge of Sahaja Yoga was found through spiritual pursuit and serves the same purpose. The Kabbalah, which is the core of the Law as taught by Moses, describes the Sefirot. The Sefirot are the centers of divine qualities in the spiritual body of a person. They are ten in number, and they correspond perfectly to the chakras in their location and their qualities. When one considers the discrepancy in the number of chakras and sefirot, one finds that it is merely an instance of two slightly different interpretations of the same system. A few sefirot are viewed in there different aspects as separate sefirot, where as the chakra model establishes a connection, and therefore views them as one. Furthermore, while the Sefirot are numbered as ten, they are described as residing on seven different levels.

But the result is the same. When the Shechina is awakened, it nourishes these centers which are the milestones of our evolution. In doing so, we begin to feel and emit the true qualities that every human being possesses. The joy and peace of this experience is a deeply profound one, and one that can carry the practitioner to an entirely new and ascendant level of consciousness, the consciousness of the Spirit.

This is clearly expressed in many areas of the Torah, but especially in Solomon's Proverbs, Chapter 3, Verses 13-18:

-- 13: Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that obtaineth understanding.
-- 14: For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
-- 15: She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire cannot be compared unto Her.
-- 16: Length of Days are in Her right hand; in Her left hand are riches and honour.
-- 17: Her ways are ways of pleasantness; and all Her paths are peace.
-- 18: She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon Her, and happy is everyone that holdeth Her fast.

That tree is the Shechina. That tree is the Kundalini. And that tree is growing in humanity now. As a Jew is "the One who knows', so is a Sahaja Yogi "the one who has become". Truly, they are meant to be one and the same.