Perspective and State Affect Reality - Rabbi Yaakov Altman

[Music] we have said many times before that you do not see the world as it is you see the world as you are you see the world as you are we talk about as many times as the famous phrase to the person who has a hammer every problem is a nail right I told you once I'm standing talking to a friend of mine a man walks up to us someone we recognize but not necessarily close friends and he said to us you have the same mouth same exact mouth strange thing to say to people right same mouth how's that so what was this profession what do you do for a living dentist spends his day looking at people's mouths so he sees people based on their mouths make sense now here's the thing when you want to be successful in any situation it is critically important to be able to get a good take an accurate picture of what's happening in that situations that make sense if it's not an accurate picture you can't respond you can't plan you can't envision because you don't know what's actually happening make sense you're a plan for yesterday want to plan for today or for tomorrow make sense if you get a picture what tomorrow is gonna look like what is today look like if your vision is skewed because your glasses are fogged up but because whatever reason you're in a bad emotional state then you see the world in a non accurate way in other words you don't just see the world as you are and generally see the world as you are and in the state that you're in the emotional state the last two times we spoke here we spoke about how to change your emotional state what I want to talk about now is I want to give you a bunch of proofs and examples about how people's perceptions were totally changed based on their emotional state okay there's a bunch of examples here I want to give you one example there's many examples of this we're gonna go through one at a time they're not necessarily connected the only connection really is that someone's emotional state radically changed what they saw and what they perceived okay so there's a famous verse that talks about it's most it's the second of the five books of the Torah it says that Moshe a banal Moses wanted to go into the tenth of meeting there was a special place where God manifested his presence of course it's presents everywhere but in a certain place it makes it more felt certain places called the oil moy the tenth of meeting so the verse says ve'lo Yahweh Allah a loyal Moya motion could not come into this tent of meeting key chiffon I love Helen because the cloud was resting on top of this tent of meeting the cloud usually represents the cloud clouds of glory some type of physical representation of God's presence you with me so far okay so now he couldn't go in there because God was so to speak there was too much holiness in one place too much kedusha and as a result he couldn't go in that's the simple meaning but you can also understand it in a different way concept of joy of simcha of happiness of a feeling of wholeness comes from when you have everything that you need when you're fulfilled not just physically but emotionally if you're hungry it's harder to feel that sense of happiness if you colle tired if you're scared worried nervous concerned overburdened any of those areas it's hard to feel the sense of simcha of joy when you have those emotions right what happens when you're worried maybe something's going to happen but if someone can reassure you because they can give you physical protection financial reassurance emotional reassurance what happens the worry disappears you feel the sense of simcha returns so simple comes from joy comes from Seamus being whole if God is the ultimate in Seamus the ultimate completion the ultimate perfection then all the joy in the world is rooted in God in Seamus his hole is perfect now God says I'd love people to enjoy my perfection not perfection in this sense the impression then a perfection means balance and means beauty means the ability to give I'd love people to appreciate that but if they're in a bad emotional state I'm all about simcha and joy they can't appreciate me they're not gonna see they can't be near me the closeness is impossible it's impossible if you're in a bad emotional state which is better to be in a great mood in a lousy restaurant someplace with some of your best friends or to be or to be in a beautiful place on the beach someplace blue waters tropical waters now you can see the bottom the sands with a beautiful right but you're in a bad mood I'd say good wouldn't a bad bad wrestle right now you can say right a good mood in a bad restaurant right UK if you're in a terrible mood it doesn't make a difference help you to fill this valley so you don't see it you're not really there does that make sense sometimes you have the best time with your friends waiting for the plane that they go off right you're sitting there waiting for the plane you have two hours to kill great time to spend beautiful because you're in a good emotional state all the times you get everything you want just doesn't count good now here's what happened it says Moshe or Boehner couldn't Moses couldn't go into the tent key shock on a loved one because there was dwelling on him or it a cloud one way is the cloud was on the tent but the other way is that the clad was on him it was on Moses he had some time whatever reason is was not our topic right now he had something emotional block he felt that because he felt bad he couldn't go into the place where there was a manifestation of God he said I can't connect to God now I feel terrible now you can't feel you can't connect of course even when you feel terrible but a high level of connection is gonna be limited you can go as please give me something I need but you can't relate in a positive way if you're in a bad emotional state that's one example now another example this is very much an example when the Jewish people were going into the Land of Israel to Eretz cannot land in Israel before they before they took over so they sent spies and the spies were meant to check the place out and see what's the best way to approach etc etc the spies came back and had a very negative report of the land it was an it was a non accurate negative report but they were negative report one of the things they said is the people there were giants and that was true objectively speaking the people who were actually physically much bigger than the Jewish people at that point there were there were actually Giants there it's not a normal situation they have these days you don't have that the reality is radically changed many ways to changed but that's one of the ways so listen to this the verse describes their report it says the following Beshara NOS on the feeling we saw these giants et cetera etc etc right Vanna Heba and Nanoka hug of him we were tiny in their eyes methane high you know bein they have I'm sorry we were tiny in our eyes and so too were small in their eyes we were tiny in our eyes and we were tiny in their eyes exactly the way you view yourself at the way other people view you if you walk in and say hi I'm Robert Altman and today I wanted to talk about on changing your state and really being successful and in the next five hours and the five days that we talked about in the seminar we're gonna be really excited it's gonna give you tools to keep you at your maximum so that's not gonna help anybody right if you see yourselves I just can't do it you now you can't make up potential but if you want to maximize your potential you have to be in a state where you believe that you can achieve it you cannot achieve beyond what you believe if you don't believe it you can't do it there's a cap it's called the law of the lid you cannot achieve beyond what you believe you can it's always like that sometimes it's the other way around they can because they think they can now if I believe that I can fly across that Valley it's not gonna happen but if I want to maximize what I can do I should believe that I can't think feel that I can okay that's the case here and they were faulted for this they said you were small compared to them that's true but there are miraculous situations that go on that can prevent you from being small in their eyes some small people are very powerful some people very powerful and make themselves small and make themselves weak fine furthermore another example it's an amazing example it's very simple at a certain point hog gar and you smile Hagar and Ishmael I don't know Ishmael Hagar and Ishmael hug AR and you smile they had they were wandering around a mother and son son was 13 years old he was sick they were wandering in the desert they were afraid they were gonna die a sick person usually depends on this particular sickness he drank tons of liquid so they ran out of water and now Hager was afraid that her son your smell was gonna die so she couldn't take it she puts her son off in a distance underneath the tree so that let me not see him dies about to die right now I can't take it I just can't think right and she sits down she cries and she prays now you smile was also crying and praying at that point cuz he wanted to survive the verses describe what happens again this is miraculous this is not the normal state of affairs but this is a miraculous event what happens God shows up - again I'm picking the miraculous ones right obvious right God shows up in this situation and says hey look there's a spring of water for you to drink now the way it's described is interesting way it's described it's described as God uncovered her eyes and she saw a spring that means that the spring was all that was there all the time she just didn't see it now we've talked about this again many times before but just the supplies again sometimes when you were convinced that something's not gonna happen it doesn't happen I'll give you another example come back to this in a minute right Joseph Joseph and his brothers a whole discussion what happened over there but a certain point his brothers decided that Joseph Joseph is trying to take over and throw us all out so they had to take drastic measures and they decided to sell him to be an avid asleep many years go by they don't see him in the meantime Joseph who had sold to be a slave becomes the king second-in-command of Egypt he's standing before them many years later in regal robes garments extremely powerful man running the country effectively now the brothers come before him and they don't recognize him now there's a lot of indications that he's actually Joseph he's the brother but they doesn't even occur to them Dennis Yosef because they believe that Yosef is a slave someplace if he's even alive he's in the dungeon or he's serving somebody he's not the king of Egypt so when they looked right at him they didn't see it does that make sense I told you the story many times I applied for transfer from one University to another University as I did not want to go to the second one the one place I decided I wanted to apply to I didn't really want to go there it was Yale University so I applied to Yale University and when you go to play to any university they send you either a jet letter or an acceptance letter so I got finally got the rejection letter from Yale University was a tiny little letter it was folded up about that size right okay great there's like take it out of the mailbox as many years ago and I put it without opening it into the garbage can my mother is witnessing this scene and she says to me you know you applied you put all the effort in why don't you open up and read it I said mom come on they don't send you it's a rejection letter they don't send you an acceptance letter a tiny little envelope like this they send you a whole packet everybody knows that they still do that so what's going on it's just do we've ever opened up okay open I'll open up read it okay I'll read it dear mr. Altman we're happy to tell you been accepted to Yale University so I said you see I got rejected and I threw it in the garbage exactly now the problem here is this I was smart enough to apply I was far enough to get in but I wasn't smart enough to read the words because you see the world as you are not as it is I decided I'm not in so I read the words that you're accepted as you reject it I read the words you accepted I still didn't register in your mind your mind doesn't want to make you a liar no thankfully it's a great place but it wasn't for me yes I want someplace else University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia now here we go next thing so here's what happens here Hogg are the mother of you smile she was in such a depressed state she put her son far away from her says you shouldn't see her son die she was feeling very very terrible lack of hope as a result of that even though there was a spring there was a possibility of solving the problems she couldn't see it she was incapable of singing does that make sense that's the same thing with us when we're the situations in life so many times there's so many possibilities open to us but because we're in a bad emotional state we don't see them so one of the things we have to do in general besides use the tools we talked about earlier is to ask ourselves the following question it's a very practical thing is it possible not as it probable not is it likely not is it definitely gonna happen is it possible there's a solution here is it possible I could be successful is it possible I can learn this overcome this problem make enough money fix this relationship help this child whatever it is get the job whatever it is are we trying to do find the right person whatever you trying to do if you don't ask if they say well often it is possible once you say that it's possible then the possibilities when they come up will be visible to you if you don't say that it's possible then they come and they go and you are blind to them you don't see them so many times that happens I know two different couples are happily married for about 30 years 30 years both of them many couples but these two particular couples both of them were looking to get married looking for the right one looking the right one and they both knew of each other I mean be each of the husband wife knew of each other but they said no not him no not her both of them said not him met her yeah after several years if not him I heard some said well maybe it is him maybe it is her and they got married lived happily ever after yeah but they said no not him not her can't be because you don't good now another example there's a verse that describes the Jewish people traveling through the the wilderness and it says that they were very thirsty were lacking water finally got to a certain place the place is called mahram the word Marya means bitterness why is it called bitterness because there were waters there and they couldn't drink the waters it says kimahri I'm Hema because the waters were bitter Mari named they were bitter now in Hebrew when you describe an object you described an object in masculine and feminine just like French and Spanish things I said yes Massa no felon so you say they were bitter so they were bitter could mean the waters were bitter because the word water is a plural word waters were bitter or it could mean that the people themselves were bitter when you're bitter and you taste something sweet doesn't taste good if you're bitter and you taste bitter that it tastes sweet makes sense right is there something selves that cancels out that's right I know someone actually whose father was uncle's very sick and they could only eat food that was very very badly burnt because he was yeah because he was very badly he had to had a bitterness as I hid a sickness the sickness was very bad for him and he couldn't pay his taste was thrown off if the food was burnt he could eat it if it wasn't burning couldn't eat it now yeah I think if I used to be fine in the end though I think yeah now watch this what was the what was the solution in this case Moses took a tree and threw it motion took a tree and threw it into the waters now tree is not the sweetest thing in the world that's a cinnamon tree right never take a bite at a piece of bark you know why you don't have bark tea because it's it that's why that's a technical word it's disgusting it's it's bitter but if you put something bitter in something that's sweet it makes it bitter and if you're as bitter and it's bitter then you can get something sweet out of it the problem here is that they themselves were bitter now I want to tell you something these words kimahri mhmm right what does mean they were bitter so this is very interesting these words kimahri a name which means they were bitter equals ha Kosh him those that think the thinkers the reason they were bitter is because of their mindset of how they looked at the world we talked about this earlier of the meaning they gave the situation that's why they were bitter how host fame the fingers it's the same exact this is this is new numerically the same I'm not gonna do the hold America value each letter in Hebrew has a numerical value this is 20 this is 10 this is 40 this is 200 this is 10 this is throw at 40 we're not gonna do the whole calculation but it's the same exact thing I coached him the thinkers the thinkers the reason they were bitter is because of their thoughts of how they were looking at the world didn't have to be the Michelin Kirk Elvis it says in the Talmud that a person who's rich is a person who is who rejoices with what he has is this what I have I mean let me find something good in it let me see what's good about this we talked about that last time what are the questions you can ask yourself it also means it's the same numerical value hacer min car remove from yourself if you have this bitterness cuz are they're bitter they're bitter you keep saying that has to be removed from you yes Sookie Miriam hey means because that's because they were bitter because they were bitter that's this this huh Folsom is the thinker's means they thought and this house mmm car is remove from yourself there are certain things that essentially should be removed from your way of looking at the world that is walking around staying kimahri mhain these things are negative this is bitter it's bitter everything's bitter you see you make the world the way it is good now further see that you see the world the way you are and you actually make the world the way you want I said they say that with all this is right you see the world as you are that's right now a few other things it's very interesting here soon after this they travelled this it had been in that much water soon after they traveled a place called a Lehman alien is a place that had 70 date-palms seventy trees now we're talk about several million people traveling when they got the alien they were very happy why Wow date trees we have free dates now dates are yummy but how many dates can well several million people eat how many dates can be produced by 70 trees it's not that much why were they so happy when they got there that's exactly right because the emotional state changed so well now they got to a new situation even though it was small it wasn't a big deal they felt happy about it they saw the good in the situation they saw that as an encouragement it wasn't a big deal but the encouragement was a big deal all God's with us he's giving us some kind of little cherry on top now if you hungry a cherry on top not enough but if it shows that at least someone's paying attention to me I'm not alone I'm not out there that's a different story now there's two reasons that you want to do this you want to be able to master your emotional state one reason is because you'll be a happier person simply speaking right but the more I think the more important person more important reason is that you'll be more effective obviously right if you're a bad emotional state you can't see the possibilities you don't use your own creativity you don't use your own ability you're functioning at ten percent of what you can do so when you want to make a decision the first thing you have to say is how I put myself in a good emotional state so I can decide properly a terrible example this is a Civ translated as Esau there's a certain day in his life where he decided to sell his right to be the firstborn what day was that that's same true why was his brother making soup for his father because that was a meal of mourning of a valence of mourning because their grandfather albariño Abraham had just died now Asaph was very close to his grandfather among other reasons he's his grandfather yeah and people had relationships then they were much closer than they are these days much closer yeah much more deep but that's another story when his grandfather died he was completely bowled over he was in very bad emotional state when you're in a bad emotional state don't make big decisions he decided to sell the right to be the firstborn on that day you should have said listen I am not capable of making any decisions now I'm emotionally drunk I can't do it I'm too upset let me calm down for a week and then we'll talk about it yeah his brother was thinking very straight his brother said this is an opportunity to prevent a lot of problems in the future by having a person who's not trying to become better use the power of being the firstborn I don't want to abuse that place abusing his power so as brother you grab the opportunity and the years to say cop the ride grabbed right in that's a whole discussion why that happened that was divinely guided he didn't want to do it if you see the language that he used he says the word maybe my father's gonna find me there's two words in Hebrew to say it say the word maybe one of them is pen which means I don't want it to happen and when the other word is lie I do want it to happen he kept saying the words a lie maybe my father's gonna find me I so badly don't want to deceive my father I want him to figure out that it's me and not the right not the other one he very much didn't want to do it it's clear for so many things he didn't want to do it okay now let's keep going great question here's an interesting thing there's a famous famous old Yiddish story a man says rabbi rabbi I have a problem once that a rabbi well it's the promises my son broke his leg isn't that terrible so the rabbi says maybe it is and maybe it isn't man walks out of there like what's my son broke his leg it's terrible he's in pain right fine illiterate later on the man comes back and he says rabbi rabbi it's so great that my son broke his leg because the government came and rounded up a bunch of young boys to take them and put them and list them in the army to be in the Army for the next 20 years forced them to go into the army isn't it great it broke his leg so the rabbi says maybe it is and maybe it isn't the story goes on like this for a long time right you can't tell the time when something's good and when something's bad but what you can do is you can decide something beneficials going to come out of this why you can use it for something good or you can say it doesn't matter if it's good or bad if I believe that it's good it puts me in a better emotional state to use all the resources I can to make the situation better does that make sense if I'm depressed if I'm thrown over if I'm bowled over by my fear then I can't function it's ok to be afraid but to allow fear to grab you by the tail and swing you around oh that's not okay make sense now watch this the word one of the words for pleasure and loss and the Kaddish in Hebrew is this word Oh Nick Wow a knowning what's Oneg only displeasure all next job is the same idea right yeah so he said yeah oh pleasure this word owning now the word Oneg is usually spelled without a without above so let's just call it this way onek that's how it's built now the word no neg means pleasure what determines if you're having pleasure from something the emotional meaning that you're giving it the meaning that you're giving it sometimes if you know that something tastes good but it's about to be bad then you don't have any pleasure from it right if your mommy says to you I'll give you I'll give you a yummy drink and then we're going to the dentist you'd rather skip the drink and skip the dentist no problem because that pleasure is gonna lead to pain the meaning that you give it right all the times it's a little bit painful but you're happy if you sit there quietly and don't make anything don't complain I'm gonna give you a piece of cake great you travel very far to get to a nice vacation spot it could be a big hassle to travel very often it is but you know the pain at the beginning is leading to pleasure in the answer you're happy about the pain sometimes you pay the dentist to relieve you of your problem even though it hurts you know what's the best thing okay now what's the difference between the word Oneg and the word Nega the word Nega is the same exact letters Nega is known gimel I am the word Nega means the superordinate means pleasure and a Nega means I don't have a good word for this if you guys can help me out that'd be wonderful a Nega is a boo-boo it's a boo-boo it's a wound it's a wound but it's not exactly a worn they could be a negative B because of a skin condition it's not a wound it's some type of some kind of inflammation of the skin of the body and that guy's like I hit sometimes I'm not sure there's a word for that I don't the word is for well let's just call it a boo-boo okay you with me a boo-boo maybe it's boo boo boo - boo I don't I spell it anyway whatever it is here's how it works this is same exact letters that there was between an O neg pleasure and a boo boo is what is where you put the I in the word I in means I this letter I on is what changes it moves the letter iron also says means I the way to say I is iron if you put if you change how you look at the pleasure it can become pain if you change how you look at the pain it becomes pleasure now it sounds cute but it's not cute there's a lot of examples this is built into the fabric of reality God made the language of Hebrew first the blush in the clay dish the holy tongue and then made the world with that with those words Onegin and Nega are very close a lot of things in life situations are very very close a slight change of perspective could make it terrible or could make it wonderful now I want to give an example that there was a king very famous King now this King had a little issue his his name was Uzi oh he whole issue he got what's called Saros which is spiritual leprosy if a person gets spiritual I start an outbreak on the skin it's not because of a physical thing it's because of a spiritual problem he spoke loshon Hara somehow something spoke loshon Hara which is he was slander to somebody else and as a result in those days certain people if they would speak loshon how they speak negatively about other people they would have this outbreak on the skin whoever had that had to be removed from society they had to leave from this thermal where people work they go out into the into the wilderness and being by themselves now for a king to have to do that it's extremely embarrassing when are you allowed to come back when it goes away when it goes away to a certain extent you'll have to come back how long will that take it could take a short amount of time could take a long time they didn't know how long it's gonna take it's indefinite it could take a week could take two weeks you don't know now when Lucia was away his son yessum became the acting king he wasn't actually King became the acting king now listen to this put him on the side there for a second when come back the story in a minute the Talmud says that there was one man that was so great so high spiritually so good that with his merit alone he could exempt everyone in his generation from any type of punishment for anything they have ever done wrong no his name was rebbi shimon bar yohai he wrote the Tsar a very very big man they said about him that if you add the merit of his son Eliezer who was also incredibly good that the two of them could exempt every human being from the beginning of time till till that moment from any punishment whatsoever that's how great they were wait a second and if you add a third person yo some been Lucia this prince this man was taking over for his father then they can exempt everyone from the beginning of time till the end of time from any part of it they didn't do that for various reason they weren't able to but that's how great their merit was it's just telling you how great they were now that means that your son been Lucia this prince was of stellar proportions in the spiritual world he was this tremendous person do you know anybody's called yo-yo Tom yo tom it happens there are a few people but it's not a super common name it's less known why in the world was this man so great so listen to this his father developed a Nega a boo-boo of teres his father developed this appearance of Taurus on his skin and his father had to leave and he sat in place of his father for 40 years but he never sat on the throne now it doesn't sound a big deal but the older person gets the more they want power and honor especially men women have it less they have a different type of things slightly different but especially power and honor the older they get they're not looking for physical drives they're not looking for other things they want power and honor to be able to sit on the throne of the king and to be the king that's a lot of power a lot of honor it was an incredible test for yo some to say I'm not the I'm just the acting king um so all the decrees he made for 40 years were made in his father's name he never sat on a throne he said signed by my father everything in his father's name he never took credit himself that was an incredible test that lasted for 40 years because of that test he reached such a spiritual level that he joined these other two great men and was able to exempt everybody from all of time from any type of punishment whatsoever that's how great he was but here's the thing it only came it only came by means of the nega of the pain of his father the booboo his father had there not been that embarrassment in that physical pain in that that separation for 40 years the son yo'ii some could never have reached that sterile stellar level could never gone to such level so the pain was cause for joy if you looked at it after the fact the nega became one of the greatest own eggs pleasure that there ever was my son reached such a high level because I had this pain he said now you could either realize that at the beginning or realize it at the end everything is being orchestrated interesting thing this is not this is something that is that it's hard to see sometimes in short term in long term the older you get the more you see that things that seem to be terrible in the past were actually beneficial sometimes you don't see it for many many years that's another story I want to give you an extreme example of many years now this is extreme most cases you don't see this ok there's an extreme example at the beginning of time there were there were a couple yeah Ottoman cava Adam and Eve they had two children simply speaking kind and have of Cain and Abel Cain killed Abel according to the source that we have that happened at the age of 50 days old now they were not babies again reality was different they were they matured physically very quickly they were not they were like men but 50 days old they hadn't yet they hadn't yet gotten married had children yet it's a whole story there are other people but there are other people also let's say there's possibilities other people it's not our topic right now how that was possible also but let's say that at some point there were other people that were there wasn't their mother Rizzoli who also let's say whatever the case is right now so the mother Hoffa Eve sees two children one kills the other one she does not to do their self who knows what the pain is like then she looks for they lived a long time those days generations go by they're still alive and they see many people being the or earth was repopulated right and was being popularly the first time and her song meantime just gets lost in history because her son Hevel Abel was killed he never continued everyone else's continued in the world's going on but her son died it was terrible tragic right not only that the death was a terrible death since it was the first person who died in the world when Cain killed Abel he wasn't sure exactly where the soul is gonna leave the body so he hit him so many times 300 times some say was through the rock some say was a sharp rock or blunt rock whatever was it was a horrible death a psychopath but it's a long story but it's definitely a terrible thing to do definitely definitely evil now listen to this would you ask kava ask the mother would you like your child son to die this way of course we wanted to die at all of course not certainly not in a horrific way listen to this we don't look for these things but when a person has a difficulty in their lives that purifies their neshama Pyrrha Faiz their soul it makes them better than they were before twenty five generations went by and the soul of that boy of Abell of Hevel came back as a great man one of the greatest men who ever lived his name was Moshe obey no Moses the sources that we have say had that soul not gone through such intense suffering and purification from a terrible death it would never have been able to reach the incredible levels it reached and would never be able to become the who we call motion revena the person who brought down the Taira and was the conduit of divine wisdom into the world someone saying so after the fact you see even though you'd never choose this that that terrible Nega that terrible pain that was from twenty-five generations before became a tremendous onek all of the wisdom that we have today from Tara is all through that one moment in that one soul that's a very big deal okay all the best ladies filled you