نهجُ النهج | דֶּרֶךְ הַדֶּרֶךְ

agnostic ground, mystic skies

haChayim do not begin with assumptions of faith that trap us into expectation without nuance

instead, we begin with the same phenomenology and empiricism that secular studies build themselves off of, looking at scripture with a euhemerism approach.

Beyond such pragmatic studies, haChayim believe that it's the experience of discovering God for ourselves that makes it real, not state approval.

ahavat haChayim

For parenting and community guidance, we embody ahavat haChayim (אהבת החיים, the love of the living).

No living thing can survive unless it's free, so we mustn't kill our seedlings trying to save them. True growth demands risk, choice, and the possibility of error.

So we trust in felix culpa—the blessed mistake—and in the ancient rhythm of every dark night making way for a new sun.

Through patience, freedom, and compassionate guidance, we allow life to unfold as God intended: imperfect, resilient, and always capable of realignment.

a practice of presence

Though there is nuance depending on the cultural source of the Word, haChayim associate God with the eternal Now.

The present moment has its own essence, and that essence is God.

Derekh ha-Derekh refers to a plurality of practices of uniting with that essence.

uniting truth & life

haChayim think the divide between empiricism and phenomenology is absurd.

What we experience should reflect what is real, and vice versa.

haChayim values neither over the other, understanding that if you can't know any part without knowing the whole.

where we are

We find ourselves between static appearances and eternally emergent reality

We’re always here:

• the experienced phenomenon of human consciousness

• the location of each of our sparks in our spiritual ascents

• the physical environment we find ourselves in

But we’re also always Going:

• abstraction → presence

• narrative → actuality

• inherited belief → direct encounter

chariot of sparks

Merkévet Nitzotzot (מֶרְכֶּבֶת נִיצוֹצוֹת) is the universal vehicle carrying all souls through their self-actualization.

It is both communal and individual, collective yet unique—exactly like a constellation: made of many stars, yet functioning as one pattern.

Only this constellation has carried us across the cultural cosmos:

• Sufism (fanā’ → tawḥīd → baqā’)

• Kabbalah (bitul → yichud → deveikut)

• Christianity (kenosis → union → abiding)

• Buddhism (anatta → realization → bodhisattva)

one place, one spark

All nitzotzot share the same origin, the same Chariot, the same Light —
but no two ever occupy the same place, mirror the same path, or reflect the same configuration of emergence.

Their unity is real, but their sameness is impossible.

• Each spark has its own configuration of mirrors (Mar’ot Da’at).

• Each spark has its own place within emergence.

• Each spark interprets Nehirat haOr from a unique angle.

• Even shared revelations never produce identical consciousness-states.

• Collective consciousness (Medurah) is built from distinct sparks, not merged ones.

equality in difference

Every spark is irreducibly unique.
No two sparks occupy the same place in Chidat Mar’ah or emergence.

Yet all sparks are equal in essence.
Each arises from the same Elohim–Adamah interaction.

Their differences are required for the Medurah.
If sparks were identical, the collective fire could not exist.
Diversity is the engine of consciousness.

Equality is realized only when difference is honored.
You cannot collapse uniqueness without collapsing truth.

there is only Now

YHWH = Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh = “I will be what I will be.”

Not a static being, but dynamic becoming — the Divine as presence unfolding:

• YHWH only exists in the immediate experience of awareness

• it is the Divine produced where Elohim (awareness) meets Adamah (embodiment)

• this union happens only in the Now

• therefore Where there is Now, there is YHWH

• and Where Now is absent (memory, fantasy, ego loops), YHWH is obscured