Connect your mind to your heart

[Music] gentleman welcome to practical spirituality here in Asia tour in the old city of Jerusalem overlooking the Western Wall today we're discussing integration integration is to make sure you're not a talking head to make sure you're not just ideas floating around but how to actually integrate those ideas so if you look at the word integrity integrity is the actual character trait of someone who integrates integrity let's define it with the word integrity integrity means integrating what you know with who you are integrity integrating what you know with who you are see a lot of us have kind of a nebulous definition of integrity because we we you know we just think of it as like integrity is like part of being good you know it's like it's not a real clear definition but when integrity is is that you've had you you've taken all your ideas and now they know you live them you're you're fully integrated inside of those ideas so like an example would be lets see you teach a shoplifter not to steal anymore until she can explain to you exactly why shoplifting is wrong like till she really gets it and then and so now you're watching the cameras in a shop to see what happens when she shoplifts it again at which point what does she lack what does that woman lack she lacks integrity because she knows it's wrong to steal but she has not integral you mind sitting in line with them like maybe down the middle or something so so what she lacks is integrity and and what does that mean she lacks in hey she did not integrate it she knows it's wrong to steal but she has an intricate as smokers smokers have not integrated the you know that it's forbidden to smoke and sadly many of them are wearing yarmulkes how do you smoke wearing a yarmulke like that that's just a total lack of integrity you know because if you recognize that the you know I understand if you're a nihilist atheist materialist thinking the whole world is meaningless and you want to smoke cigarettes so go ahead you know like your your organisms anyway gonna be wiped out at the end so why not do it earlier but the second someone realizes that they are created in God's image and that their bodies nothing but a temple for their soul so then you can't harm your body you know if I can't figure out exactly what food to eat I just don't eat today was one of those days I mean it's also Sunday Sunday our family cleanses from Shabbos but but still I mean avenge I was like I better eat something nothing came to mind and so in some money I'm not even gonna eat out of a you know just pure survival because if nothing comes to mind is what would be the right medicine for the body for this day so just go with that let the body work itself out you know I'll eat a little later and actually grab one of my wife's gluten-free Oh muffins yeah which I normally just reserved for her cuz I don't want to take it here you never want to touch a gluten freeze person's stuff you know it's uh but anyway I was leaving the house on my way here and I said I think that I better put something in there so I figured there can't be anything more benign than a gluten-free muffin of oat muffin so that's what I did anyway B it was interesting they were discussing food at all because the food does integrate hopefully eat the right foods it integrates becomes you so what about ideas can ideas become you and you know it's very interesting when you bring up Judaism on this subject because most of Judaism's daily living daily living is is your body moving in in action you know there are plenty of things that are going on purely intellectually but a lot of our Jewish life is spent doing so there are these actions going on so for example for men men women but for men specifically we worked filling so what's too all about fillings all about the recognition that there's a God okay so for women recognizing this God is maybe more easily integrated for men it's not so easily integrated and so what do we do we tie one box with the oneness of God written inside of it on the arm representing our strength and our you know our ego and being able to being able to you know you know and the other is on our heads which we have to put it above the hairline over the pineal not pineal the fontanel which is the little space between all your your three lobes of the skull because that's the aperture through which the cerebral cortex gets reached by the filling which is again the oneness of God so we need to like impress that upon us but we do it with this action and what are we using we're using leather straps so we're strapping ourselves down with leather you know which is it which is tape taking this this otherwise wild donkey of a man and and getting him under control but all of this is is about taking ideas and moving them into the body through actions now by the way the same thing occurs when you kiss and mezuzah when you walk through a door that has the the you know the doorpost sign on it the mezuzah with the it has the same partial with Shama in it so women can pull this off too and why is it on your door it's on your door because your home can be a godly place but who says out there on the streets it's gonna be so holy so you fill up on your fill up at your door you mmm-hmm and then head out to town and keep the oneness of God with you wherever you go the very similar story is that's Phillip now another thing that men do because men have harder time integrating is is we grow beards beards are very important part of the man's face and actually tubular hair the hair on the top of that is flat and the beard here is tubular and the Kabbalists teach us that every follicle of a man's beard is is a pipe that pipes the thought to the emotion and then obviously to action because when you have strong desire desire towards something you are a lot more likely to run for it just why the word for desire in Hebrew is has the root as the root ratio Sadiq so rich Sadiq it's one of these two letter roots aren't too many two letter roots in Hebrew compared to three letter roots but raesha Sadiq is the root of desire which is the word wrote say and what is it also the root of run that's right because you only run when you want something bad enough you know like this you know you see young people teenagers since young twenty is that they're kind of like they've got that kyboots walk you know back to the potato patch you know then just they're not running and and then you get people later in life even that have a hard time motivating getting running because they never figured out what they want and it's hard to figure out what you want when you got parents telling you what you should want you got school systems telling you what you want you want and you got you know whatever you got a lot of it there's a lot of voices in your head of what you should want and who says that's what you want you know I mean there's certain things that are generic that we all want we all want to be close to God even if you're an atheist you're just living your whole life in disappointment and we all want to be close to God we all want to do the right things we all want to find out what the right things are to do and it's things that are generic that we all want and that and then there's but then there's like what do you want to do for a living and how would you like to contribute in this world a lot of people don't know now one of the reasons why they go so slowly even when they've finally said okay I'm gonna do this and they still have you have a raise your hand if you've ever said finally that you are gonna go do something and then you found yourself unmotivated and we've had that happen yeah you know why it's because okay I'm gonna go do this so you're like you're going down that highway yeah what's the problem with going to or down that Boulevard what's the problem going down that Boulevard to get to you know let's say this corner here where you decided okay fine I'll go for that what why is it that on that Boulevard as you're moving towards your goal why do you start going slower and slower and it's almost like it's getting farther away as you get towards it meaning you're losing motivation why because if what you really want in life is here if this is what you really wanted over here then the further you go the farther you're getting from it so you're you're like unconsciously realizing that you're going away from it you ever thought about that did you get that I'm going for this because you know eventually I just got enough pressure that I got to choose something to go forward so I'm going for this so I get myself and rolled in some training or a degree program or something to go for that or I'm sure I'm doing vocational training or I'm getting you know whatever to get that and what happens you start going slower and slower and slower and slower because how fast can you go in a direction if you know potentially you're going in the wrong direction meaning you're going away from what you want it'd be like schmoozing with a friend on a Boulevard and you've been carefully watching the signs let's say this before GPS you've been carefully watching the signs button but you guys started getting heated in the discussion and you started you realize you missed a sign now you've been going it's a 35 mile-per-hour Boulevard you've been going 50 it's 10:00 at night you're going to a party and there's no no cars on the roads you're doing 50 but you realize one of the signs you didn't look at because you looked at your friend saying what are you an idiot and then you but now you're driving and deep down you realize you didn't look at that time you still own 50 Necco 50 you want to be gone 15 miles per hour in the wrong direction now by the way you may still not turn around but you're not gonna go 50 you're gonna be going like 34 like the next 10 minutes till you're finally say to your friend you know I think we missed it and then turn around and backtrack painful yeah sure yeah fear success is an interesting one it's there are people actually feel highly capable they're hard to find but you may be one of them that they know they're highly capable it's just that they don't they have their fear of successfully being consistent once they achieve and it's a double fear too because it's not only failure to be consistent but it's also rejection because everyone gets to know you as being someone who's good at that and now you've got to hold up what they feel about you meaning that your your image in their eyes and you've got your own dealing with the fact that you like how can I keep doing this for 20 years and so that's called fear of success it's a pretty complicated issue but easily beatable easily beautiful it's complicated in understanding it but once you got it okay it's not hard to beat that yeah so the more you change that could also that could also hold us back is the is the self-image shifting could be scary for the ego yeah a lot of self-image shift I was actually speaking my daughter today and asked her if it was strange for her to change last names she said no I think she kind of has been thinking for less many years that her last name was not permanent like meaning I think all nineteen years of her life she's been thinking that way so there was no big deal okay anyway but let's get back to running and desire and integration so so there so the word in Hebrew as usual Hebrew just nails this stuff is that you only run when you know what you want you only run when you know what you want and and for that reason all of us have to take this lesson seriously and what is that lesson we have to take the lesson seriously that that it's better to figure out what you want and then to go kind of try random stuff I mean there is a time to try round this up but better to figure it out and and it's funny our institutions that we have here in Israel we call them yeshivas which is interesting because there's word sit which is total opposite of run the total Hobson run but but it's better to sit and figure it out then run around I mean you can think about it in as being lost in the wilderness you know if you're less in the wilderness and at one point you may want to try running in different directions and see how far you can go but who knows how deep this place is and and maybe people are looking for you and you're running exactly away from where they suspected you to be based on when you had left and you know all those coordinates like often it's better to stay put you know given the size obviously if it's not that big a forest so then you're good start moving but if it's really big you know days big maybe better off just building a little Hut in a tent and you know just staying there for a while until you've got your gather your wits about you and figure out what it is you're gonna do you know rather than just start running around and losing your energy and then not having a fire when the dark hits and not having anything to eat because you know any time to gather anything and now it's dark so it might be better just to stay where you are anyway yeshiva is a great time to to figure it out figuring out what you want and I can tell you years ago all those guys that set with me years ago really figured out what they wanted something had to sit longer than others I could but once they figured out what they wanted they just flew in they just hit the ground running you know having the time to work it out yeah it's amazing how the Jewish world will tolerate a person in yeshiva you know I think he'll do you Ben see that's it you're tolerated all over the world but if you were 31 now they tolerate 21 year olds who don't know what the hell they're doing but a 31 year old there's zero tolerance for that like ain't nobody got time for that why yeah what misses you guys up you have no pressure no no no pressure to be anywhere do anything you have ultimate tolerance from society and it's and yeah it's a it's a whole racket being run and the weirdest part about it is these are important trajectory trajectory years you know like I'm sure if I mean I am check this out but I'm sure if we found the most highly successful people throughout all the ages of history meaning all the centuries that I promise you I mean I don't know I didn't check it out but I can almost promise you that between 18 and 22 they were busy like those were important years those weren't years just drunken stoned at college parties you know those were really important years and and society was not Tyler of anyone over 14 until the last till the Industrial Revolution they even after that until I don't know how long our education system along the education and the Jewish education systems 200 years old meaning post 13 when did the rest of your world start junior high in high school I think it was this century there's 1900 that door that Western civilization started with schools I think it was holding kids well training camps for the industrial complex yeah so these are kind of new things and certainly there was I don't think there was any tolerance for a 14-year old you know they not busy working Yeah right yeah yeah we're definitely into desire and then and then achieve that desire and that and it shows up so much we have more words for desire then Eskimos have for snow you understand there's like a lot of words for desire lots and lots and lots of them and each one has a different nuance to it and because that's where it's all that I mean I mean what did God create the world out of his desire to make a world so like you know before there's even anything there's only desire right the whole world's made of his desire what's the Brooklyn Bridge mater designer people in Brooklyn to get the minute and quicker you know what a car is made out of the desire of human beings to get places quicker and airplanes are made of the same stuff your clothing is made of the desired designers to to like make them early with their or make a living with their creativity and the desires of seamstress and seamstresses to feed their families and run sewing machines and everything's me your skin's made of the desire of your parents for one another everything's made of desire there ain't nothing but desire this building's the desire of rapping north weinberg to have a center across from the western wall alike and the desire the donors to feel good about themselves that they you know actually made a dent in assimilation you know everything you can never look at anything with it that doesn't have desire in it what about enlightenment yeah you've gone beyond us we don't know what you're talking about or maybe just I don't Oh enlightenment like Buddhist enlightenment to reach a place of no desire okay but once you're there you have no desire so so the Jewish definition of desire it shares the Buddhist definition only as far as selflessness but not as far as desire not as far as I owe ya when you get to that spot your flame for for God you know flames burn upward your flame for God just like you know cuz think about it your selfless now all you want is reattached you know like if you died saying schemata I'd be perfect you know but you didn't die so then you're just desire for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing like how can I serve God with all of my desires you know you know could I don't have that much desire for Maserati you know I'm not that desirous of a steak sandwich you know I'm enlightened now meaning I'm I'm without self so like now my desires just totally focused as opposed to maybe a side point you know my desire for God no longer a side point but that's all I've got left by the way one of the places that lends itself to is is helping humanity why what does God's main job gossiping job is to bestow is - yeah it's an unfolding of giving from infinite to finite that's the flow so like a guy who's gone totally selfless and desires only to connect to God in his in in India yeah so he's just gonna meditate full-time fasting speech fans like just being the desire for the Almighty for the one but in Judaism yeah you'll do your meditations for sure you'll be involved in all that but you will you will probably run a soup kitchen and people just won't be able to figure out how you keep going with that volume of work and you don't seem to ever get tired and they don't realize that you're not even doing anything but playing God right now you're just in full emulation just making sure everyone's eaten did you get a soup good you want another you know and it's like I know people like this they're pretty interesting people but they're just there that's where they're at now they just do nothing but they're just clearinghouses forgiving because that's what God does and they just want to emulate that and there's nothing left of them they've burned out every last sense of ego and so now they serve the public tirelessly Nick and it look really gruff and kind of not spiritual because they're just like hauling pots like now they have a staff of people hauling pots and now they're on the phones trying to fundraise to get the next you know thousand people fed this week and it's funny when you're talking to them because you can't say no it's the weirdest thing you can't say no to these guys cuz they're there already so they're radiating that you're gonna help them continue this crusade of theirs to feed people and then you're thinking like I mean it's a cute contribution but like not the most spiritual guy I ever met meanwhile you have no idea that he's already way up the ladder way up Jacob's Ladder and it's dedicated his life to just make sure people have soup you know that's weird this guy I always try to avoid them too because it's like how many causes can I possibly send what saps about until people just stop looking at my what's that so I got to choose wisely and the second one of those guys gets in your face you can't say no you know I just had another one I couldn't help it man he was he got in there so I'm just kind of gathering the right timings like shooting his stuff across the world you know this guy this guy's 1,200 1,200 psychologically handicapped people living in his institution 1231 32 married units meaning they do all this genetic testing to see if they're good to have kids and then they they actually help them get married and have 32 units I mean imagine supplying 32 family homes people were not able to make a living they're handicapped people but enough they have enough to have a relationship and so why not why not why shouldn't they be married let's let's be behind them to marry and and then be with their kids who they're not gonna be able to raise properly but let's raise their kids with them and help them do that maybe there's people like this it's that's the latest one that I'm like waiting to press forward on you know by this this guy who's flying to Toronto today hoping I'm gonna get him a few numbers in Toronto and he's like he's like I almost never fly because I don't have time dealing with these 1,200 kids you know and adults many more downs and like you know not not me there there were families that had them aren't able to handle them you know it's 1,200 people it's a couple hundred or hardcore downs people say he barely has time to fly yeah so I was saying about integrations the beard is tubular because the Kabbalists say it's drawing the worlds down but it's also drawing the mind to the heart to integrate strong heart mind to heart but I want to make one point about what Benson was saying earlier how Western society has you run you know it's like Jacobs dwelling in tents focusing desire and a subs running but I'll just I'm gonna have to finish it I realize it's 4:10 that that Jake the famous one is what Ben Tzion was saying sorry I didn't do more an integration is that the Western thing is you'll run run and run and run and run and then eventually say you desired it so there was once an archer walking with it there was once a king walking with all his archers training in the forest and they found that every few feet they found a tree with a arrow going right through the bull's eye and so they he sent his men all throughout that forest to find who is this great Archer who was the one who can get the bullseye every time they finally find the archer they bring him to the king and the King asked what's your secret he says well I aim my arrow at a tree I released the arrow it hits the tree and then I take my paintbrush and I paint a target around the arrow that's the way Western people date that's the way Western people find a profession that's the way Westerners find their contribution not in Judaism Judaism we start with desire Shalom if you enjoyed watching this well watch some more send it click it forward it join it subscribe to it you know keep coming on in joining me in this amazing movement to make a big difference in the world and the 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