Anyone who has studied philosophy, psychology, mysticism, knows that the human being is not one person – if we were one, we would be “schizophrenic,” driven in opposite directions – in philosophical terms, this has been called mind and body, in psychological terms, a whole host, like Freud’s id, ego, etc. etc. but the truth is, only Jewish mysticism really – coming from the Creator of this dichotomy, explains it clearly, fully, unconditionally and obviously, hence a necessity for navigating the greatest challenge we face, namely, our internal conflict!

To begin with, as opposed to both Freudian psychology, Christian theology and pantheist philosophy, we are Divine – heck, there is only God, so everything is an offshoot.

Now a good line which describes this well is the Chassidic saying, “Freud dug in the dirt and found worms, had he dug deeper he would have found water.”

In fact, the human being is called a microcosm of the macrocosm universe; so by looking at the macrocosm, we in a sense have a beautiful visual of the microcosm.

Let’s begin at the center of our reality – the inner core – our globe is mainly fire (which of course comes out in lava) our inner core too is God, a Soul, Divine, idealistic, passionate, nothing but true goodness and kindness, compassion, love, identification, self-sacrifice and infinite positive adjectives.

Covering this layer is a granite crust – similarly, this fire comes into a physical body which has its own desire that alters a person in an entirely different direction.

Now above the crust is water, we humans of course live above the fire; above the mantle of rock; above the water (in fact, wherever you dig anywhere in the world, you will eventually hit water) above the dirt, on dry land.

Similarly, there are layers of reality which we are unaware of and only by going deeper into ourselves, can we access them.

On one level, though our essence is Divine, we have been put onto dry land; we see ourselves firstly, primarily in our animal identity (hence the ridiculous though appealing theory that we stem from apes, which of course rationalizes the acceptability of acting like one) hence our primary identity is our individuality, coupled with our instincts; we can truly live an impulsive animalistic type life, seeking what instinctually produces pleasure chemicals and of course fearing, shying away from pain (as all animal live, yet with drugs we can increase the speed of pleasure and kill ourselves in the process, as millions upon millions of people do.)

But what makes us unique from an animal; is our prefrontal lobes; we have an objective mind and this is why people are so conflicted, for though their animal may be who they think they are, yet the mind rationally tells them – “Hey buddy, if you keep on taking drugs, you’ll die” – Now an animal doesn’t have a conflict in their mind, they will take drugs until they die (as studies on giving cows heroin proves, for they are completely instinctual and the highest pleasure is their only aim) but of course, as well known, we have been gifted with freedom of choice – only in heaven do Beings listen to their rational side – on earth we have the ability to listen, to change, but as dieting shows, we have to really really really want to, before we will.

So we have now discussed three primary elements in us – a. our essential essence, which we are unaware of called God – our primary identity, which we are very much aware of, called animal – and our unique ability to control our behavior if we really really really want to, called mind.

To do justice to this subject, I will mention numerous other factors, though the above is a pretty great place to begin changing ourselves:

1. We have a demon – this is not us, rather an implanted desire in us, which we usually, as we do to all our desires, assume to be us – called ego – The ego desires supremacy, it is what causes us to go crazy for money and power; likewise, it is what causes us to get angry at those who insult it; jealous at those who have what we feel entitled to (jealousy is perhaps the worst of human traits, for it not only harms someone who harmed you, but as we see in antisemitism, bullying, terrorism, it’s directed even at people who help you, for it is the ego’s desire to remove the good another has, which you feel entitled to.)
2. O.k. you may not like this one, but hey I don’t get paid for what I do, which is pretty cool, so I get to write truth – ego is very funny, for it causes us to seek honor, hence (there are many reasons, but this is a primary reason) the reason women seek men, is they think it is an upgrade in their status – conversely, the reason men desire sex, is because they have a jealousy of women (not going into all the gory psychology) and subconsciously, they think that sex is a way of demeaning a woman (which is why pornography, which is so rife, indicating a pleasure men get from it, is only about debasement, never about love) If you want the healthy attitude to sex, please see Kabbalah on Marital Intimacy