Circle the Wagons around human thinking - trade up!
Sometimes there is a subconscious payoff in clinging to ideas that we know are keeping us feeling sad, mad, bad or had. The pain of feeling it is terrible. Why don’t we let go:
Subconsciously, our lower side clings to it – I am right! If I let go how will it ever stop! I need to protect myself! - and we often find certain friends who agree with us and share ways of actualizing what might appear to be a sense of justice or setting the record straight. We gravitate to friends for comfort and support who have solutions that we feel will bring our goals to fruition - friends who agree that we need to respond, need to stand up for our selves, justify our values and more.
Do we write Hashem out the script? Do we present our situation and then draw a circle around the arrow, so that we use what is good and right in Hashem’s eyes as a justification for pursuing an argument or dispute? And if not those mistakes, does the comfort of our friends insulate us from discovering the true reason that we encountered the adversity in the first place, which is that Hashem squeezes us with challenge to see what on the inside comes out. He squeezes us so that we can see what is inside us – and with that in front of us – look at it through the eyes of Hashem to see if we like what we see. Surely we will always see empathetically and with justification why we have become angry, hurt, pained, disappointed and more. BUT will we see deeper than that? Will we see how that emotional charge is disempowering us (even though we may be experiencing intense feeling?) That emotional charge keeps us from the joy of living, of feeling close to Hashem, of experiencing love and all the blessings that ARE coming to us. Yet, we cling to it.
In the Kislev Tiferes programming, Rabbi Rietti shares tremendous insight that is crucial for every person to comprehend. The entirety of the human thought process is based on unreality! Positive thoughts, negative thoughts – unless these thoughts are thoughts from the Divine mind, they cannot, by definition, be real, no matter that they are accompanied by pain which feels real and suffering which has real effect.
Rabbi Rietti explains that Hashem created everything in the world and each day gave His hechsher that it is good. And when He created man, and finished His work, which includes the yetzer hara, death, suffering and more, Hashem gives His hecksher again. Tov m’od! VERY GOOD! Death – is very good? Suffering – is very good?
Have you ever lived with an elderly person whose emotions are intact but whose ability to think is aging? It is very revealing about the nature of feelings and how they can totally be based on no reality. It is truly eye opening.
Where do thoughts and emotions come from? And what are they for? No one can say that they are in control of the thoughts and emotions that enter the human system.
Consciousness comes from Hashem. He alone is beating our hearts. There is no other muscle in the body that continues without getting tired, never stopping. Who is flowing energy to the heart? And how? And what else is coming with that energy? We have a left and right sides to our heart, corresponding to the yetzer hara, the desire to do what is negative and against Hashem’s will, and we have the yetzer tov, the desire to do what is good and right in Hashem’s eyes. Both of these desires are pulsing through our system. But both of these desires are simply that. Desires. Emotional motivations where we visualize goals and conjure up the means of acquiring them. Is that the entire set of emotion and thoughtavailable to a person? It seems so. But Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, a talmud of Rav Dessler, in his essay on Chanukah tells us otherwise.
We can have a consciousness that is totally in sync with the Divine mind, to such an extent that we can be on a level that above-nature miracles are performed. This is the world of Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa, whose ein od milvado consciousness was so great that he saw every action as a miracle, and therefore, whether it was in nature or not made no difference to him. Because his consciousness made no distinction between miracle and what we see as natural, Hashem treated him above-nature, for the mask of nature no longer was needed to bring Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa to look at things through the eyes of Hashem and respond with the Divine mind in his thoughts and intentions. He was THERE in his mind at all times.
Circle the wagons around all human thoughts and emotions? Is it possible to corral all the wisdom, education, social interaction and more that a person acquires over a lifetime, and see that the nature of human thought is at best unreal? Are we willing to accept the possibility that opening ourselves to that idea is the opening that we need to create the possibility of redemption?
There is a line of thinking that says we have to be active in conquering the land in order for the Moshiach to come – that is how we got the settlements. Re-settle the land of Israel and the Moshiach will come. Look carefully at that. Guess what! Adom was made from the land. Adom was made from dirt. Rabbi Rietti tells us that Adom was designed from the earth with a yetzer tov and internalized the yezter hara after he ate the apple. Conquer the land and Moshiach will come.
How do we conquer the land? We have to see that the earthiness within us, the human thought process that is often focused on body (pleasure) or ego (self-interest) by definition is NOT Divine reality but something far less. A loose nut bolting a tire to a huge truck! We want to be connected to the truck, not in danger of falling off!
Circle the wagons around designer driven thinking. Consider the possibility – we can access the Divine mind! We can make ourselves into vessels where the content is provided through ein od milvado consciousness!
How do we do that, especially at challenging moments and difficulties?
We know that forgiveness was created before the world because we are human beings striving to struggle to become more Gdlike, and Hashem knew we would make many mistakes. Hashem forgives us every single year on Yom Kipur. He Himself cleans our soul, He seals our year, with exactly what is good for us for the upcoming year, to help us reach our potential.
And between people, Hashem tells us to stay away from machlokes and to forgive each other. So many times people are the source of such painful experiences with each other. But I am going to say here that they are only the apparent source. Ein Od Milvado consciousness tells us that there is only One Source, there is only One Power, and He is the cause of everything. So what is forgiveness between people for? It is so that we can realize that our troubles are not coming from that person, but sourced in Hashem. And what does He want from us? He wants us to see what is squeezed out of us, to see who we are inside that has yet to emulate His attributes. What caused the ability to see inside of us, the squeezing, is that good that He sent to us to challenge us so that we could face ourselves! Hashem's hechksher is that everything is tov m'od! Where do we go with that, now that our inner juices are parading as emotions before us? How do we find Hashem in this adversity?
We are supposed to use our time here to choose to bring out the aspect of the Divine image within us. When we are in pain, we cry out to Hashem! We speak to Him! We look at ourselves in His presence! What do we see? Do we see His attributes? And if not, what will we do with the free will that He gives us – find friends to help us pursue and actualize a solution based on our pain, or find an attribute of Hashem to emulate and bring to the situation? The Ramchal in Mesillas Yesharim tells us that when we go through adversity to touch Hashem (and emulating His attributes is touching Hashem), we perfect ourselves and experience the greatest pleasure there is.
Do we realize that when we use free will in a painful situation to bring an attribute of Hashem, sincerely, out of love and fear of Hashem, because we know with 100% certainty that all there is IS Hashem, that our choice to emulate Him fixes something throughout the soul of the Jewish people? Do we realize that it could be that only WE can do it, that it is the reason we were created, to come here to bring that “antibiotic” to the soul of the Jewish people for a refuah? Can we imagine the privilege and the confidence that Hashem has in us for giving us such a role, to truly change ourselves and in so doing to literally change the world – for our free willed choice is known to Hashem Who creates all the souls and Who vitalizes every heart on the planet.
Circle the wagons around human thinking and realize we can trade up from designer (Rabbi Rietti says the root of yotzer and yetzer, are the same, designer) thinking to bringing the Divine mind as content into our brains and hearts and making ourselves His vessels to bring His attributes. Step back from our bodies and egos – perhaps a 60th of an out of body experience – to circle the wagons and open the door to redemption. How?
We can learn this from Rachel Imeinu. Rachel Imeinu, could see that Hashem was giving Yaakov Aveinu to her sister Leah. Rachel Imeinu was at a behira point. She had a choice. She could stand by as her sister’s blood is shed in humiliation taking matters into her own hand to assure that she married Yaakov as she wished (causing pain for Leah that would be on Rachel’s cheshbon) or she could teach her sister how to respond to the questions so that she would marry Yaakov (Leah did not know that they were secret signals to prevent this occurrence.) Rachel did not know that she too would be able to marry Yaakov. She choose to do what is good and right in the eyes of Hashem – not cause her sister embarrassment – over taking Yaakov for herself apparently in conflict with Hashem’s will. To those who love Hashem, doing what is His Will and His Will alone is paramount, not our own neediness, desires and rights. This is why Rachel’s argument with Hashem “So You are right, so what? Be compassionate anyway and return my children to Yerushalayim” was heard. Rachel chose to love Hashem and His Will and gave to Leah what was necessary so that she would not be embarrassed. Gd orchestrated the events, and Gd was at the center of Rachel’s concerns. Not her passion not Leah’s neediness, not Yaakov’s disappointment, not her father’s deception. It was her concern with the mitzvah of loving and fearing Hashem, putting Hashem in the center, that makes it possible for us to await redemption, may it come speedily. Thus may any progress we make on emotions and corrupted thoughts added to Rachel’s example and be a zechus to Klal Yisrael so that Hashem finds us meritorious and brings to fruition His promise to Rachel
Forgiveness is an ideal for all humanity. But Ein Od Milvado consciousness is imperative to Jewish existence and to Klal Yisrael. It is created by each individual striving to struggle with what is out of sync with Hashem’s attributes to bring change into our internal self and internalize with choice and passion love and fear and emulation of Hashem. Forgiveness is a means, not an end, to that goal, for if we continue to blame others, we can’t see what we need to repair within ourselves. There are no shortcuts. We are not done when we forgive others. That is huge. But we have not yet taken the circumstances to where ultimately WE need for them to go. We can’t afford to run for solace into the arms of our compassionate and wise friends if they are not going to encourage us to examine ourselves in the eyes of Hashem with that as our first priority. For Hashem controls all the circumstances and can, in an instant, correct anything. But only we can affect our inner being through our free willed choice to do so. And that is the purpose of every Jew.
And may Hashem grant our effort and bring the Moshiach speedily.
For inspiration in dealing with fears and how to bring all fear to the positive fear of Hashem please see the Pirke Avos series at www.becomingdivine.com
For inspiration in comprehending the nature of human thinking, please see Rabbi Nivin’s personal development chaburas at www.newchabura.com
For inspiration in comprehending the duties of the heart, please see the video series by Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller at http://www.dutiesoftheheart.net
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