We have journeyed to outer space, we have landed on the moon, people can book tickets (seems like one way, unfortunately) to Mars; you can even (for the mere cost-effective price of $200,000 to Virgin Galactic) get a two way, return trip, for fifteen minutes of weightlessness in space…
By zevi770 · April 6, 2013
All in all, we may think we are pretty amazing!
Yet, who actually gives a hoot about the surface of the moon, the darkness of outer space, or dying on mars – the truth is, the real destiny is, to unravel our subconscious, to go within our own psyche, to understand who we are, what makes us tick, and how we can become happy!!!
As usual, to understand the soul, you need the Creator of the soul, like in any manual, its Creator understands it, better than anyone!
To do justice to this subject, many thousands of books need to be written (and have been, in Hebrew) but to provide you with an overview – a manual of you – for the amazing price of blessing God who revealed this wisdom to us (Kabbalah means received wisdom from God – first taught to Mosses and passed down secretly generation after generation until it was written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and revealed primarily through Chassidus, the Holy Baal Shem Tov, Maagid and the Lubavitcher Rebbes:)
Kabbalah teaches, three organs have dominance in us:
The Mind
The Heart and the
Liver
Let us begin first with what is most familiar to us, the mind;
Our minds have primarily three functions:
1. Chochmah, the ability to conceive:
This is not a small feat – if you take animals that lack an independent conceptual frame of reference (their minds are limited by their instincts, see heart soon) we find, none of them have progressed – the mind, capable of discerning, of imagination, of innovation, can conceive of NEW IDEAS, HITHERTO UNKOWN!
Conception of course, like Thomas Edison said, is “99 perspiration and one percent inspiration,” so to take an idea and apply it, takes a lot, a lot, a lot – did we mention a lot – of effort, consistency, hard work!
But even more remarkable than the previous two remarkable abilities, is the ability to transform a cold intellectual idea into a heartfelt emotion! for if you really desire to do what you have conceived of, then suddenly a love for the idea is born – which lead us to the second organ that has dominance in us, the heart
The heart, has many emotions, but they all spring forth from either a love towards, or a fear from, something; so love creates a desire to achieve or unite with what or whom we love, and fear creates a desire to recede, disconnect, avoid what or whom we fear!
Now animals for example only have love and fear – for example, I once was in Ado National Elephant Park and saw a lone bull looking for some “love,” he approached a herd consisting of an alpha male and a few females – every time he approached, the alpha male would flap his ears, so love caused attraction, and his fear of the alpha male caused retraction – now, once he felt safe again, he re-approached (similar to how we re-approach our fridge, thinking magically something we want to eat has reappeared, though we already opened and closed it) and then the alpha male flapped his ears again – now a few times this scene of attraction because of love and retraction because of fear happened, until finally the alpha male grunted and made a small attempt at charging and the other male realized, he aint getting no love here (like when reality sets in that there will be no magically appearing sweet food in the fridge) and he left, never to return!
Now, unlike an animal, we humans are notorious in having something else that is the cause of our greatest joy and our greatest misery, and that is called an identity.
We don’t find animals with identities; they live exclusively in the love and fear paradigm; and never ever leave it!
As Einstein says, their lives are regulated by their instincts!
We humans however, create “I,” “I am this” or “I am that,” together with the “I” goes a host of assumptions, so say I am a “Jewish Rabbi,” I will then imitate other Jewish Rabbis, say you are a teacher, you will imitate other “teachers” (this is why marriages often fail, for “I am a husband” or “wife” gets translated into “imitate your parents great spousal act : )” )
Identity if correct can be the most amazing thing, so it is my goal to get to the essence of our psyche and try with God’s help, according to Kabbalah, fix our self-image and hence act correctly!
The Rebbe never tired to say two things about our identity, number one is, that “I am God’s agent,” We are created by our creator for his desires! – hence “I am God’s agent” – How do I know what God desires of me? Well he told us, there are 613 commandments for Jews, 7 for Noahides (gentiles ) additionally ask a Chassidic Rabbi (schooled in Jewish mysticism) and God will work through him (as the Kabbalah teaches) to teach you what your mission in life is! (I have also written a helpful guide called How To Discover The Meaning Of Your Life.)
But even deeper than this, our ego, identity, “I,” is based on a premise, that “we are our body” – our body is not the real I! it is our soul! for the soul outlives the body, which in any event is entirely new cells every seven years (if a I am not mistaken; so if you are your body seven years ago today, you cannot be that body, for you literally have a different body!) so we are in essence our soul! which is, as is the essence of all things, God-himself!!!