Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 131): See it as Poison - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning and welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning our weekly study of the ramchar of moshe lutzatto's monumental brilliant life changing and transforming work music offering a formula and a guide to how to live our best lives how to become our best selves how to achieve the most in our lives i want to thank our generous sponsors for the year honey lenny grimstein memory of khan's beloved father mysterion tambor aron ben yitzhak also this morning's shir is sponsored by eric and lisa pincus and family in commemoration of the tenth year inside of eric's mother barbara pincus the chronological and the shamash through the wonderful wonderful work and the chaser and the leadership of the pinkista show on a regular basis we are up to chapter 17 parakeet zion of messily sasharam we have been going through steadily and incrementally and slowly in growing in the different areas that called this formula that he has embraced and that he has taught us of how to be our best selves beginning with zehiro's mindfulness how to be present in every thought and every decision and every word that we say and everything that we do is reasons alacrity zeal enthusiasm don't be apathetic and don't be lazy and don't be complacent but set goals and make resolutions and then run to pursue in order to achieve them then we moved over to nikeis how to get rid of those voices of temptation how to try to purge the negative voice of self-sabotage and then we moved over to precious how to live a life of discipline and dignity and now tahara how to not only do the right things but do them for the right reasons tahara to purify our heart and to purify our mind and to purify our soul and to live a more pure existence a more pure life so we're up to day to acquire purity how do we grow and how do we live that way how do we achieve that how do we purify our own minds and our own souls so that our attitude our approach our conversations our interactions in life come from a place of purity nathan enjoys st louis return safely we begin with this last week says that acquiring this virtue of living with purity of purifying ourselves you know it's a very noble ambition in our time in the world we're living in it's not considered a goal at all the goal is happiness not holiness the world we live in says be happy and do whatever it takes to make you happy and as long as you don't hurt or injure another party your happiness is what matters most but we come from a people we come from a tradition that says happiness that's not our goal holiness to live for holiness to live for a tahara for purity to be a pure person and a pure soul to be pure and to be trustworthy and faithful in our relationships and our interactions in our actions and our conversations not only externally in our deeds but internally in our mind and our emotions in our soul we don't live for happiness we live for holiness and here is the thing when you achieve holiness when you live and you strive and you pursue holiness you find happiness you're a happier person when you are realizing the reason that we're here when our soul is on fire when we are nourishing our soul and when we are in contact with our soul we not only are able to live holier lives but that leads and generates to happier lives and the way to do that is yes bonin a person should be contemplative mindful thoughtful of just how repulsive the pleasures of this world are if you think about for a moment whatever is your vice and whatever is the thing that is your kryptonite potato chips corn chips chocolate popcorn whatever it is looking at the wrong things on the internet listening to the wrong things repeating the wrong things whatever is your advice if you just think about it for a moment if you let it settle in if you would contemplate and if you would meditate and if you'd ask yourself is it worth it is what i am is what i'm absorbing or what am i putting into my body or my soul will it create a lasting pleasure or is it something that is going to sabotage and compromise and corrupt who i am in my pleasure will it leave me feeling happy or guilty will leave me feeling proud or shamed ashamed what will its impact be on me and when you think for a moment and you look at it and you see it's poison it's kryptonite it's in the way of my happiness and holiness it's in the way of living my best self then you will be able to recoil and withdraw from it we should find them repulsive and see them as ills and defects of a corporeal obscure and crude nature in other words look at it as poison look at it as the obstacle if you saw something or someone if there was a threat or a danger that sought to undermine your health in this world your longevity in this world your ability to be with your children and your grandchildren in this world would you not avoid at all costs would you not confront would you not take down would you not identify the threat and try to respond to it well these negative influences be they physical or spiritual are threats make no mistake they seek to compromise they seek to shorten our life they seek to take away from the meaning and the purpose of our life and equally we need to identify be aware of and we need to neutralize those threats we have to identify them as a threat we have to see them as the danger they are before we're going to neutralize before we're going to react before we're going to create boundaries before we're going to improve our defense to them you first have to identify and recognize they are a threat they are seeking to undermine the more time that we think about that we study the more time that we shift our mindset to recognize that that momentary pleasure in fact for the long term is an enormously dangerous threat then yoseriya naka lolata makshavos of alibibo lift us or club then the more we can purify our thoughts the more we can avoid being tempted nobody's tempted to consume poison if you ever ate something and you had a bad reaction you ever ate something and it left you feeling violently sick then next time you see it you recoil whoa that's poison that's dangerous i don't ever want to go there again you're not tempted you don't have to struggle you have to overcome the urge you simply look at it and say not going there again never ever want that reaction we should look at all the poisons spiritual and physical all the poisons that come through our eyes our ears our mouth with our hands all those poisons they threaten us they are a danger to us and the more that we recognize the more we live with that then the more tahur the more pure we will be in our thoughts and our attitude and our approach the less of a struggle it will be eli yeah in our actions in relation to the physical temporary corporeal always behave like one who is being coerced that really want to avoid it we don't want it in the same manner that we divided when we defined purity we spoke about it in two different categories our attitude towards our eating and our sleeping and our physical pleasure and our conversations the physical external material world in our spiritual pursuit in the spiritual service in trying to nourish our neshama our soul canada like so just like when we defined purity this purity in what i do in the physical world and this purity in my attitude and my ambition my aspiration in the spiritual world so too in the definition of acquiring in the recommendations and the suggestions in the formula for what we need to do to acquire purity we need to address them separately in order to purify one's thought in the domain of the temporary physical world you're tempted you're tempted to look to say to speak to do to go in the physical world to eat just think about the consequence just think about the result just read or study about people who did not overcome the urge or the instinct who gave into the impulse and how it ruined their lives how it ruins our health how it compromises our emotional health our mental health our relationships and that should hopefully generate this feeling of recoiling of resisting of the recognition that that impure contaminant that poison that image that icon that idea that activity that action that food it's poison it's a contaminant it will destroy me who pursues poison who eats or doubles down or goes back again for more poison so the problem is we don't see it as poison because in that moment it just looks good it looks delicious it sounds pleasurable we crave it we have an appetite for it we're tempted by it we desperately want it in that moment but we have to stop and pause and we have to recognize and reflect and say yes there'll be a pleasure for the moment but what will i give up in the long term what will the impact be how will i feel after will it contribute to happiness or holiness it won't contribute to happiness it will contribute at most to the pursuit of happiness but not even to really achieving it so that's in the world of the physical be contemplative be thoughtful consider for a moment the way that we behave the lifestyle that we live what will it create what will it lead to what will the end look like be roasted no lud fast forward the script and say a lifetime of eating that way a lifetime of behaving that way a lifetime of speaking that way a lifetime of looking at those things a lifetime of what will it result in will my relationships be enriched and enhanced and elevated or will they struggle will they struggle because that's what i look at that's who i speak to that's how i behave what will my health look like in the long term what will my lab reports look like what will my longevity look like in each of these areas to to not just give in to the urge or impulse of the moment but to stop and be thoughtful and contemplative to see ahead and to recognize those cape cod kettle cooked once in a while nothing wrong special treat but if they're part of a regular diet what will it look like and what will the consequence be 8 45 living with emunah join us tonight at nine o'clock we're going behind the bhima congressman richard torres of the bronx new york who has been a tremendous self-described progressive democrat tremendous friend of israel and has withstood enormous pressure and hate because of it we'll be speaking to him as well we'll have joseph borgen who was beat up who was terribly beat up and maced in manhattan last week simply for being a jew both of them are guests tonight behind the beam at 9pm until next time and hopefully i'll see you back in 15 minutes for behind for living with the muna but until next time stay happy stay healthy and