For anyone who has perused psychology, philosophy, mysticism etc. all agree on one thing, man is a conflicted being – as the Alter Rebbe, the author of the Bible of Jewish mysticism, the Tanya says – we are confused, as we think we are one person hence cannot understand how one moment we are loving, the next cruel; one moment Godly, the next animalistic; but we are not one but two!

This simple understanding that we are like a computer screen with different players all trying to get control of our screen to play their game is all you need to know.

The first player (truly sequentially) is our ego – this is the desire to get our way.

The second player is our instincts (fear and love, in other words, the desire for security and the desire for pleasure/joy/happiness – now interestingly these two monkeys, the ego and the instincts become intertwined, for the former assumes the identity of the latter – in other words, we desire to fulfill our instinctual desires not so much because they are rational, but the very fact that say “I like chocolate” creates an exceptional desire for it.)

The third player is the rational mind (that also houses the supernatural Divine soul – compassion, moral virtues etc.)

Now the mind is the only hope we have – for our mind is the ability to talk some sense into ourselves.

As we know, very few of us actually use our minds – most of us, the mind simply becomes a tool of the first two players (in other words, the mind is simply used to try to attain what the ego/instincts want.)

But here is a simple excersize (a bit grousome but highly effective) imagine for a moment how worms will eat your flesh – sorry, but that’s exactly what happens to all bodies