To remain present to the Presence every moment is a continual challenge. We keep slipping back inside the prison of our fears, anxieties, disappointments, anger, pride, desire. Once back behind the bars of our self, how do we escape? There are times when a liberator comes to us from outside, saying just the right word, hitting just the right note, performing just the right action that bumps us out of our narrow vision to see ourselves and the world anew. This agent of liberation could be a teacher, a friend, a stranger on the street, a book, a piece of music, a wonder of nature, an illness, a trauma, a crisis, a gift—anything. But what of the times when no agent appears? When we are left inside, alone, and our faith, once a strong flame, flickers in the winds howling around and inside us? When we feel abandoned, desperate?
Cry out to God. Literally. Practice the kind of prayer that Hasids call hitbodedut. Seclude yourself and begin talking out loud to God. Scream. Cry. Complain. Lament. Accuse. Give voice to the depths of your feeling, the not so flattering ones included. Don’t be afraid to expose the worst of your personality. Forget your image of yourself as a spiritual or pious or loving person and just speak from your heart—all of it.
What kind of spiritual counsel and practice is this? Isn’t it wrong to complain? Are we not supposed to bless and thank God for all that happens, the sorrows as well as the joys, evil as well as good? Isn’t it blasphemous to speak to God this way? Are we not to praise God’s name and stand in awe before the Presence? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
And yet hitbodedut is a practice that can break you free of your little self so you can stand in the Presence in awe, praise, and thanksgiving. Here’s how it works. You express all that is in your heart in the language of your heart, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav teaches, talking in whatever way will lead you to “experience true heartbreak.” (Likutey Moharan B 25; in Aryeh Kaplan, The Light Beyond, 226) He doesn’t mean only until you feel the full force of the pain or sorrow or fury you are carrying; he means until your heart breaks open. You cry out, giving full vent to the depths of your heart. As you talk to God, you begin to hear the words you are saying. You hear how silly or petty or angry or unhappy or blaming or lost you are. You begin to “see” yourself from a distance, as if from a larger field of vision. You and your experience and feelings and personality are put in perspective and so become fundamentally altered. Perhaps, seeing yourself from this perspective, you begin to have compassion on that little self daring to speak so boldly about its little concerns to the One. It may take minutes, hours, or days, but if you are sincere in crying out to God in this way, you will be bumped out of your self-concern into a larger space where you can breathe spirit freely and calmly.
Complaining is a dangerous habit. It quickly becomes a trap. But a sincere complaint, spoken from the heart directly to God ,is one way to draw closer to the Presence. The Psalmist knew this. Why have you abandoned me? How long must I wait? My enemies surround me. The prophets, too. You have ringed me about with walls, set obstacles in my path, sent lions to devour me. And Job, that troubled friend of God. I cry out to You, but you do not answer me…You have become cruel to me; with your powerful hand you harass me.
Hitbodedut is also a sign of trust in God. The Psalmists, prophets, Hasids, and others who shout out to God are not afraid to show themselves in all their humanness to God; for they trust that the All Merciful will not judge them for what they do not yet see or accept but will accompany them on their journey to full communion with the One. Like a child raining puny fists on the chest of its father, or a lover crying out to his or her beloved, “Be with me as you were in the youth of our love!”, they know they are loved. They trust that the One who loves them wholly and unconditionally will never abandon them, but will wait them out and guide them as they journey closer. If they did not, they would not be locked in this embrace with God, crying out with such passion. Being held in this loving embrace while they cry out is what brings them the calm they need to realize they are not little selves straining against prison bars but the friends of God.
The practice of hitbodedut also sets a liberating limit to the troublings of the heart, whether they take the form of complaint or railing or tears. Practice this conversation with God one hour a day, the Hasidic masters say, and then leave it behind and move through the remainder of the day in joy, free to serve.
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