How To Find Inner Peace And Happiness - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] to good morning everybody my name is Al we should dedicate the forever need should have and whoever needsa should havea and and whoever needs to marry their kids or marry themselves should find a very fast the [Music] right we should all Merit to see the coming of mashiach very soon so I want to talk about something today that everybody has a problem with and everybody's missing something and that's inner peace and inner happiness and unfortunately nobody in our generation can really say I'm very truly happy because the reality is that each and every one of us has something that bothers us but something serious that bothers us and we always look at other people and we think that their life is much better than mine because they have what I don't have we don't realize that they might have something I don't have but they're missing something that might maybe I have and even if some somebody does have everything so what the point is that each and every one of us has a hole in the heart because we're lacking something one person doesn't havea another person has shom doesn't have peace in the house another person Shalom is sick another person the child goes wonders off does those sorts of troubling things each person has something in their life unfortunately some people have a few things in their life but each person has something in their life that's that is really bothering bothering them the reason why we have something in our life that is bothering us is only because theh wants us now to scream for mashia to come so he's putting everybody in a corner pushes everybody to to the wall so each person will have some pressure in some sort of a way that he will try all the solutions that's not going to work okay so who do I turn to I turn to the Kosh but regardless to that one of our problems in our life it comes comes from one little thing that stops and bothers all of us and that's our own ego each and every one of us has an ego something that causes me to think that I'm so special and I'm so right and I deserve everything and everything has to come to me because I did like this and like this and like this and the only thing that really stops Us in life for being happy is our own ego now the reality is that a lot of you are looking at me like he's not talking to me he doesn't refer to me I don't have an ego he's wrong but the reality is that we all have an ego an ego is an American word the Torah calls it yes that yes means come from the word yes I'm something now the more that I pump my ego up the more that I segregate myself from the world the more it's harder for me to to relate to the world because everything that somebody anything that somebody will tell me will annoy me because I'm I'm the right opinion anything that somebody will do against me then it hurts me then we all our our our spiritual structure is all built the same way I mean we're looking at ourselves we look in a mirror we look we see a body but inside there's a soul and each and every one of us has a soul inside and the Soul also has the same way that our body has a look and organs then our soul also has so to say organs and a and a shape and what structures the soul is many different components and one of the components of the soul is called character traits and each and every one of us is born with certain character traits one person is very generous one person is very loving one person is very giving one person is very forgiving each person has good character traits and bad character traits some people their character traits the good ones are are too much sometimes they're a little bit too little but the problem is that we come here to the world with a lot of bad character traits people get upset like that no patience no understanding all sorts of different things that we have to work on that's why we came to the world we came to the world to refine our soul Like a Knife that you sharpen like a diamond you ever saw how a diamond looks when you take it out of the mine it's a black rock and then you know you look at it looks literally like a black rock now you start chiseling it start shining it then polishing it and then you get a beautiful shining diamond so each every one of us comes down to the world like a like a rock and that's all our bad character traits and I have to start refining them slowly slowly shining them and refining them and theh is going to make sure that he puts in front of me all the right people to make sure that I can start refining myself so if I have problems with being patient Hashem is going to put around me the most annoying husband and the most annoying kids why so I can constantly work on my patience and not go out of my my comfort and if I have a a problem with anger hasm is going to put an husband that all day long makes me angry underwear on the floor the toothbrushes thrown here so knows how to put in front of each and every one of us the the exact characters so I can look and each and everyone and know that every person in my life is mirror there's not an enemy or somebody to annoy me it's a mirror because if I look at the mirror I can see oh my hair is you can go the entire day without noticing you have something stuck in your tooth and everybody looks nobody will tell you if you would say the whole day that's how I looked or the hair is sticking out like that so you go to the mirror all the time do I look normal how do I look so the Kosh says I'll put mirrors in front of you and all day long you're going to look at the mirrors and is going to tell you that's how you look so the same way that you go to the mirror to look how your makeup looks how the hair looks how the dress looks so says okay I'm going to put these mirrors and each individual in your life is going to tell you how you look so if your husband annoys you so hasm is telling you in other words calm down be more patient be more understanding and so forth so the point is that we have to point on our bad character traits and once I recognize my bad character traits then that's what wants for me to start fixing now the problem is that here comes already the ego and says whoa whoa whoa he's wrong I'm right what stops us in our life is only our ego because if I wouldn't have an ego then I would accept every person I would for give to people I would get upset I would see the situation how it is and not get out of my my I got completely into anger the opposite of ego is when a person is humble where does the ego come from it comes from the character from the attribute that is called Gava pride and the more your person has Gava has Pride then the ego goes up with it and then the level of of goes down and then ifom somebody tells me something I get right away upset how dare he tell me me how dare he tell that to me so the problem is that each and every one of us with the good character traits that we have CU everybody has good character traits K gave every human being a talent at least one and that Talent has to be used for serving God so if you're an unbelievable singer it has to be to serve God and if you're amazing dancer or you love dancing it's to do mitv and to make people happy with that and if you have patience you like kids it's everything the talents that the gave you is to utilize it for and then hasm gave us good character traits so if Hashem gave me a certain character trait and I know it's good this is really not g this is not Pride to know what I'm good at I know what I'm good at you have to know what you're good at you have to recognize what you're good at and apply it and to use it in a positive way Shalom to use it in the negative way like some people they're very very smart so they use it to be very sneaky in business or to manipulate situation no if you hasem gave you wisdom then you use it to to bring people closer to to the you use whatever good things hem gave you to serve God and to get people closer to God and yourself got closer to God but that's the easy part the harder part is to recognize what you're not good at and all your bad character traits and then to start working on that now if you don't do that ultimately you'll never be happy you can have everything physical and material in the world but if deep down in your heart something is pinching your heart you're not going to be happy the problem is that we try to put point a finger on every everything around me why I'm not happy and every person deep down inside is missing something and if you're looking at me and saying this guy doesn't know what he's talking about then the problem is even worse the reality is you wake up in the morning you have to be true to yourself I mean you can lie to anybody it's not a good thing to lie it's actually a very big sin to lie but you can lie to everybody around you but you can not not lie to the K and you cannot lie to yourself and if you lie to yourself you're going to have at some point in your life you're going to face a serious problem because lies create more lies there's no such thing as one lie that's a problem with a lie and L people say okay it's just a white lie I don't want to now get into an argument just a little white lie there's no such thing as a white lie a lie is a lie and the first lie will create the second one and the second one already has to create the third one because it doesn't match already The Thirst and before you know it you're running onto one generation after the other generation and you have a whole mess of Lies now go remember what you said you lie to somebody after you're down the line you meet her on the street oh no what did I tell her then she tells you but you said like this and like that oh no no so lying is the worst Pit you can you can dig to yourself because you don't know how to get out of it at some point and you know the ly only works in this world in the world above there's no such a thing as lying in the world above there only a met if a person gets used to lying he's going to have a problem when he goes upstairs because he's not going to know how to deal with the reality if a person is constantly knowing to be honest even though it's not nice to hear and even though it's might make a fight even though it's going to be annoying right now or embarrassing our sages say constantly be honest why first of all it's a sin to life more than that when you're your soul is going to go to sh it's only going to know how to say the truth so 50% of the problems yeah I'm sorry I did it it's embarrassing to say right now you're right I'm sorry I couldn't help myself but at least you ended it there you don't have to start going now into a whole backwards and forth argument so you can lie to any person in the in the world but you cannot lie to the Kosh and you for sure cannot lie to yourself if you lie to yourself you're doing yourself the biggest damage ever so at least be honest with yourself when you look in the mirror in the morning and you're saying okay let's be let's be honest here between me and myself don't lie to yourself and when you get to the point that you're 100% honest with yourself say say okay what am I really bad at what am I really really bad at I have a problem with anger I get angry like that okay I write one down I have no patient somebody will spill something on the table on the floor you blow up so what a little bit of water spilled okay I have a problem with anger the problem is that we don't want to look at ourselves and says oh I have a problem now this is internal things I mean some people deal with external things like alcohol gambling drugs all these things you come and tell them you have a problem with drinking no I don't I don't it's only it's only a couple shots a day it's not a problem people are very hard for them to admit their faults but this is external things when it comes to external things that's a whole different things I'm not talking your own private life and your own inside that it's very hard for people to to to face the reality yes I'm not good here yes I'm failing here yes I can't stand that but that's the way to repair the problem so when at the end of the day when you're going to sleep and you want to cover yourself with the blankets cuz you didn't have a good day cuz that person said something bad about me and it hurt me and this person did something wrong to me and it hurt me and my child doesn't listen to me and this guy is suing me and everybody's having all sorts of issues all day long at the end of the day all you want to do is just cover your head and say I want I need a vacation I need to go somewhere I can't take can't take it the problem is not to run away from the reality that's the problem what most people do is they run away from the reality this is the worst thing to do is to run away from the reality in our day of age it's the easiest thing you go you go and you the doctor tells you here take this pill relax don't worry forget your problems right now the problem is that when it's deep down inside of me if I don't deal with it then it becomes worse and worse and it all comes from one thing my ego why do I get hurt from somebody cuz he said something bad about me why do I get disappointed because they didn't do what I wanted not what they they wanted why did I get upset why did I get gam all these things it's because somebody did something not according to what I want that's my ego but if you lower your expectations and lower everything then you're never going to get upset because you're like okay that person it didn't mean to hurt me now again don't take the words out of context there are situation that somebody will deliberately come to say something bad about you you have all the rights in the world to be upset but that what's going to help you if you get upset sometimes you're 100% right certain situations you are 100% right but what is it going to help you if you're going to prove that you're right it's not going to help you I have a student now they have a business somebody somebody did some not nice thing they they they they Lo lost 180 ,000 somebody tricked him a a partner so he tells he comes to me all upset and he's all hyped up and I tell him first of all why you upset K sent him it's so test why you getting upset so next the next thing he says I want to sue him so I tell him what what is going to help you you're going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the lawsuit on lawyers nights you're not going to sleep and what if you lose you might not have a good case what if you lose so you lost money he tricked you for the money and now for 3 4 months you're going to carry anger with you what is it going to help you that you're going on a on a Vengeance to prove that you're right you're right so what if you're right a the sent this test right now maybe you don't deserve it maybe you did something and and and and the kadosh is taking the money right now away maybe 10 years ago you stole some money from somebody maybe you you you lied in in a deal maybe you did gazel is taking something that doesn't belong to you how do you know now is payback time 10 10 years later people think that if you do you know you nothing came oh forgot no it can come back to you 20 years later person can now cheat in business and think that oh nobody noticed didn't notice 20 years later something comes and then you don't understand where it's coming from so if anything that happens to is because the Kosh sent that situation person annoys you in your life is because the kadhu sent that person to your life to annoy you there's a reason for that anything that happens to you in this world did not happened by chance it happened because the kadhu sent that situation either to test to test you to see if you'll get upset if you'll get angry if you'll get if you'll curse if you'll Revenge whatever if if you're going to say no from the K I'm not going to get upset the point is that that our stumbling block whatever makes me fail my entire life is my own ego G and if you don't have that 90% of your problems are solved what's the opposite of of of G of Pride so we learned from our teacher from our Master MOS it says that he was the most humblest man ever now when you're thinking about it he was a king mosu was a king don't imagine somebody with a long beard and a cane walking like that Moshe was a king he got the Torah can you imagine the man the only man in the world that saw the Kos and got the Tor can you imagine what type of a ego he should have look in the Tor we read it a few weeks ago comes to him Kor just that you understand who korak was korak wasn't some guy from the street korak was a billionaire if you're looking at the terminology try to compare 3,300 years ago to what we have now it was all the same some people had money some people don't have money some people were smarter some people were less smarter it was all the exact same thing just that they didn't have iPhones that's the only difference and instead of a Mercedes they had a camel so korak was a billionaire if you're looking at the at our terminology was like a Bill Gates he was a very very wealthy man not only that he was a very respected man in the religious community he came with him with 250 rash this is like a rash of a Jewish court is a son hedin he was a very it's like you come now and say one of the biggest rabbis of Our Generation so kak was not some guy from the street he was a serious guy and this this guy comes to Moshe raenu the king and he starts rebuking him and telling him who do you think you are how dare you give you you made yourself King you give your brother to be the Coen G the high priest you give your nephew to be another Coen you give your your brother-in-law this you give everybody jobs what is this an inside job who let you do that and he starts rebuking him and he starts telling them you're tricking all the people and more more and more and more he's just rebuking him now you would think that mosenu will say whoa back off who do you think you are who do you think you are talking to me I'm the king I'm mosu you know who I am I went up on the mountain and got the Torah I split the ocean I got the Jews out of M how dare you talk to me that's what you would think mosu would answer but mosu does the complete opposite it the Tor tells us he fell on his face and started crying and you know what he said to himself wow maybe he's right maybe this guy is right maybe I did something wrong maybe I maybe I did something maybe I maybe I did a mistake so he started looking at himself maybe he was wrong this is mid then instead of right away the ego gets all exploded how dare you talk to me right away he moved back and said wait a minute if that person comes and tells me something maybe he's right maybe not like maybe he's right and this is the mid that I don't right away push something away no no wait a minute let me see if somebody comes and tells me something if my wife comes and tells me anything that bothers her a normal husband will tell her I know you're exaggerating you're not right it's not true the right husband will say what did you say you said I don't give you enough attention maybe you're right maybe I don't give you enough attention and this is not only in marriage it's in anything it's between the kids business anything somebody comes and complains to you don't let your ego right away fight no no wait a minute if somebody told me something maybe they're right so whatever stops me in this world from moving one step forward is only my ego and if I move this aside I'm not exaggerating 80 90% of my problems will be solved because I'll be able to see things in the right eye and I'll able to understand that the person in front of me also has feelings also has an opinion and it's the hardest thing to do because most of you probably in your heart are now saying what's he talking about that person stole from me that person said about me that person did not listen to me but that's the ego so what if he didn't listen to me somebody owes me something nobody owes me anything the same way that how I judge other people it's exactly how I behave in front of the Kosh and the Kosh come can come and say the exact same thing about me so if I'm 100% good with the Kosh and the Kos does have nothing to say about me that's a level that I will probably get that I have that people will have nothing to say about me so if I don't do exactly what the Kosh tells me I have no right to go into to complain on anybody else so if I lie or I cheat or I gossip or I look the wrong way or I steal or I whatever then it's all going to come right back at me in any many different ways and then I have the to come and get upset so the bottom line is that we all are facing all sorts of things that bothers us all day long people call me my kid is going out with a go my partner is stealing from me this is not working out parasa is hard this is like that here's this guy suing me all day long we running into all sorts of problems all day long everybody has it nobody can come and tell me now no no no no um everything's good 50% of that it's because how I how I conduct myself whatever I throw out to the world will come right back at me don't think that if you're going to behave a certain way it's going to be evaporating into the world you mean to somebody somebody else will be mean to you youan to somebody somebody will Bean to you that's how it works you throw something negative into the world that thing will bounce right back at you you throw something positive into the world it will bounce at you people sometimes says that is punishing me why do I deserve it why is AEM punishing me Shem doesn't punish you Shem does not sit in sham with a note saying how am I going to punish her right now people think the Kosh sits in sham with a long beard they're pitching like this man sitting on a big chair and giving orders go get do this no K is the ultimate good it's the source of life doesn't have a face or a beard and people think theh is punishing them because they did something K does not punish anyone in this world you do an action and right away you get a reaction that's it if you now bang your head at the wall your action is to bang the head at the wall you know what's going to be the reaction you're you're going to have a headache it's not the Wall's fault it's not your head's fault it's not everybody's fault it's your fault you bang the head of the wall if I now come and take a rock and I throw it at this window and smash the window the only one that fault here is me not the rock not the window nobody else and the owner of the house is not punishing me she just tells me listen you broke the window pay for it not asking you to do anything just clean the mess and pay for it so I throw something out to the world it right away will bounce back at me if I do good good will come back at me that's it hasm is not punishing me so if something bad happened to me 50% of it most likely is because I created that energy threw it to the world now it's coming back at me and it doesn't always come back right on the same day and come a year later depending how how far you threw it into the world I do something good it will come back at me that's how this world works that's 50% of the problems that happen to us the rest of it can happen either because I did something in a previous life some people something happens to them in the middle middle of their life and they understand why that might be a tun something that they have to fix from a previous life we're all go we're all reincarnated we all came here a few times already it could very much be that a thousand years ago I lived somewhere in a different body and I did something and I came back you know to repair it so when something bad happens to me after I did my analogy where it can come from and I can't can find out or trace it where he came from I can say okay maybe it's a maybe it's something that I have to go through and accept that it's coming from the which is the ultimate M that I'm accepting that it's coming from the and I'm not looking who to blame anything bad that happens to me right away my finger starts looking who to blame oh she did it oh it's her fault and the rest of the part of bad things that happens to us is because I I cook something and then I'm not willing to accept the consequences just today I met somebody and he comes and complains a whole half an hour that his son is going out with a with a non-jewish girl and I told him did you send him to Yesa when he was a little bo boy no did you have a Shabbat meal every Friday to teach him what Shabbat no did you celebrate the holidays no I told him your son doesn't know he's Jewish of course he's going to go and date a non-jewish girl he doesn't know what it means to be Jewish what do you want from him it's your fault it's not him he's a normal human being you didn't teach him that on Shabbat we have a meal at home we go to the synagogue on P we make a you didn't teach him the value of being Jewish so what do you want from him he's a normal human being and he doesn't understand done what you want from him so you can't come and complain told him at this point in your life you can't complain you're not happy with what he's where he is now then try to figure out now how to fix it but you cannot be angry at your kid it's your problem I told him I know you're not happy about it but you did an action now there's a reaction and I'm not blaming you I'm not saying anything wrong I'm just saying don't come to complain so I do certain actions in my life not not too long ago I was trying to to help a couple and the husband was complaining something about the wife and then we find out that all his life he's lying to her so I told him what do you want 20 years you lying to your wife what what what do you think you don't think it's going to backlash at you at some point so a person has to take responsibility to my actions and this is where my ego is going to come in and say no I'm right no you might not be right you have to get to bring yourself to the point that you're saying let be honest with myself maybe I'm not right maybe I'm not so perfect so the point is that anything that I deal with in my life is I have to make order and try to analyze where it's coming from and the first reaction that I'm going to get is going to get upset the anger if you're looking at the at the hierarchy first of all is ego that's the highest ego right after that will birth two character traits anger and sadness right away if you have anger it's because of your ego if you have sadness it's ego why why do you get sad because somebody did something to me she said something how about me makes me sad why that's your ego ego will birth sadness and anger so if you have anger again the anger will tell you no no no I'm right going back to the same place so you can be very narrow-minded and right away find the the the the the cause or the reason why I'm angry or you can be smart and saying okay why am I getting angry why am I getting upset why am I getting disappointed maybe something's wrong with me so the key to success and happiness is three things a you have to accept that everything comes from the K first of all you have to be humble in front of the being humble is two ways between me and the K that whatever hasm does for me I have to humble myself and say okay you did it there's a reason second of all he being humbl between me and another person that's the ultimate mid that I look at any other person and I don't judge them wrong maybe they had a bad day maybe the person that now said something bad at me is going through a very hard period and I'm the one who stood in front of that person at the wrong moment they threw a not nice word more than that being humble in front of another person is that I don't think that I'm better than anybody that's really being humble is seeing the good in every other person and saying okay maybe I'm good here but that person is good here so first of all you have to accept that everything comes from the K second of all you have to accept that half of the things that you do comes from me have to take responsibility like an adult kids don't like taking responsibilities adults also don't like taking responsibility but something sometimes it's me and more than that is to understand that can we talk a little bit life after death you experience a bit the life after death that's hard to say a little bit but before that at least that you can take something out of today is to understand that my entire life is just to make me better K puts all these mirrors in front of me to make me better so instead next time instead of getting upset be smart instead of getting hurt be smart and understand that the key to my happiness is me humbling myself and accepting things and and dealing with it the right way if you start going through these things if you'll get to the point that you start anuling all sorts of problems you're removing problems from your life cuz you start accepting it the right way you accept other people you respect other people slowly slowly you'll see that you start dealing with things in a totally different way you should have the the comprehension and the knowledge to know that there are many people around you and we have to work as a team and to accept everybody around me and to accept that everything comes from the K and see how am I fixing things not how am I fighting with them [Music] n a [Music]