The Mechanism

The greatest truth is, that the ultimate destination of man is not as called in Buddhism, noble-truths; for as the Alter Rebbe says, that the problem with (all the wonderful truly noble truths say in Buddhism and in the east) is that it can / does lead to arrogance!

This is the great quandary of humanity for as Benjamin Franklin said “In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

In other words, we are in a double bind – if we are good then we can become arrogant, which is worse than all the good we do, and obviously to not be good, is also not an option.

But as always, God has a perfect solution!

It’s called “The Mechanism”

The Mechanism is not about a specific goodness, rather about the mechanism of goodness

It’s really simple, and I’ve studied it from Kabbalah and it absolutely works!

The Mechanism, is how God and you merge, hence, though you are doing the goodness, because it’s God instructing you, our ego cannot expand, for much as if you were driving your boss – you wouldn’t feel accomplished, for it is your boss telling you where to go!

And quite simply The Mechanism is, as the Rebbe said, to ask your Mashpia – Chassidic spiritual mentor for advice (on chabad.org there is a team of Rabbi’s eager to advise.)

But I believe “The Mechanism” goes beyond just that; for the ego is the craftiest demon ever invented – as soon as we can take credit, as we all know experientially, we do!

There is another fundamental thing and that is called saying thank-you!

When we thank-God for our blessings, we obviously are dissociating ourselves as the master of our fate, the provider of our bread!

So quite simply, we need to internalize the core message of Judaism, which is not only following The Mechanism approach of allowing God to make your choices; but perhaps equally as important, to never stop saying thank-you, for the air we breathe, the food we eat, the money we earn etc. etc.