Maamar Ohr lArba 1940 #13- Transitioning from Mind to Heart requires Astonishment - Meditation

okay we're on page um 165 in the mime earlier and the rep is explaining a beautiful idea over here about the way the process in which seiko comes from the mind to the heart and it goes through what we call the matrim the straits of the of the neck and he explained this he began explaining it then today we'll learn more about it that it takes a a a a garan a a spiritual uh position of limitation and restriction to make the flow from the single to the middles be proper and if you don't have that you have you have a mess you have a bit of messed up situation either too much or too little so let's now go to page 165 and let's learn inside with it up it says and this is uh it's about seven lines from the top actually the last word kamai on the seventh line i believe from the top come on as we see in a very actual and tangible way in other words it's not here philosophical but very practical what do we see regard when it come with regarding the service of the heart in the select when a person reflects meditates contemplates on a godly concept um [Music] the result of this is that there is an arousal an awakening and a and a movement of the heart in the sense of a spy loot in other words the heart is moved emotionally when you understand something very well it's not just appear it it starts making your heart feel and either gravitate towards it or distance yourself from it says that it doesn't come directly from the moah to the left from the mind to the heart ki him rather hillary 65 10 lines in the answer yes his almut there in the middle there is a concealment hisalma from the word helen ki-ilou as though yes there's nothing there in other words there is a moment a minute there is a time in which the idea as it found itself in the mind is lost but i know and he explains let's see how he says it the hainu to us a note at that moment it isn't leibniz you cannot say that it is comprehensible neither is it beloy but princesses piles of meat is neither is it emotionally felt in the in the emotions the salmon souls and this concealment who he he it specifically it that is the point of transition from the mind to the heart hello what is this in psychological terms i i gotta i gotta get uh into it i'm uh i'm just trying to catch up okay i'll be back okay so what what he's saying let's let's talk about this for a moment you're innocent what he's saying is that the idea as you know it in your mind right you understand it you're thinking about it it's very much there it's very much alive when the idea comes into the heart and you start feeling feeling it it's very much alive it says that ever there's a point and and what was our original question yesterday how is it that something that's intellectual becomes emotional the transition is that was our question is it right that's the question something that is say ho all of a sudden now it's me this how does that happen that's what we're we're struggling to struggling we're looking to to answer in this in the section that we're learning now so whatever says here it takes the straits of the goron in hebrew we call this mesa just like in the physical body there's the head and there's the body and there's the the neck the neck is considered narrow it's narrow compared to the white head and the my body and all that so what's that mean on on a spiritual level or on a psychological level it means that there's a point in which the sacral with its potency and purity needs to for a moment be lost be forgotten and at that moment it gives room for transition for feelings and i think that this is i will see a few i think that this is very different than the way uh psychology looks at this issue but let's well i mean here again if i understand it correctly he's saying that the you know what let me let me read another two three four lines and then go back to the household question okay just as in the mind itself yes there's a concept called history how do you guys translate the words from the last time we did this mimer i have it astonishment astonishment okay the casual of them yo there is a scholar when a person has a concept and knows the concept um and the person exerts diligence to delve deeply into the idea to to work intellectually to understand it and exerts mental energy how you give after the exertion and the death mishtaymen legamine is entirely astonished meaning but in the sense that the hainu let's go what shallow yes at the point of astonishment there is no um light of sacrament there is no illumination of seiko because initially he thought and delved deeply into the idea of shamanic body that he delved into at that time he had enlightenment right the idea was shining into him and illuminating him and inspiring him intellectually but the next stage of israel lo [Applause] that's when the new idea enters the mind and he has something deeper and better so what he's saying is that through the process of ishtay mush which means the moment where you kind of aren't um illuminated with seiko but rather allow your cycle to be submerged into something higher and unknown it's then that it gives birth to a new idea and he's you so the this is all within the mind that ebb is saying so too and a moment is going to tell us so too isn't the transition from the mind to the heart that only when the mind is illuminated and then takes a back seat can there be give can there be a feeling that's developed because if the mind listens to his argument if the mind is present then you the you can't have a feeling if sacral is active it doesn't it it demands intellect it demands cycle it's not a time it doesn't it's against feeling pure cycles against feeling yeah that's why you have some people who are really really intellectuals they're they're like stones when it comes to emotions why because they are seiko sekel is what drives them and who they are and if if there's no cycle there it means nothing to them you could jump you could cry you could laugh it could be outrageous but if they don't understand it it doesn't talk to them and the same is true the other way around if someone is totally emotional and has no um relationship with seiko all that person relates to is emotions when it comes to something that's sickly it doesn't talk to him either here what are we saying we're saying that the right transition is the proper transition the healthy transition is when seiko does communicate with me those but and how but how's that possible you say whole is the opposite of needles the answer is there's a point within seiko will say who takes a back seat and what and what we're left with is and is astonishment is the point in which the the the the feeling is the the the uh the kuda the the germ of the feeling the is formed in the brain and only then can a feeling be formed in the heart if you don't form a feeling in the brain an intellectual fear if cycle in the brain doesn't give any place to the idea of an emotion emotions can't can't be formed so the rebbe says here that therefore there is a place in the brain where seiko gives room for the existence the future existence of a meda of an emotion and where is that in the mode called histamines why because astonishment its astonishment of the brain but what does it consist of you're astonished that's a meter it's not a meat of the heart it's a meat of the brain the notion of astonishment histaminos is an emotional notion and the brain excuse me after it understands something it kind of sits back in its own place and it now a lot allows itself to be submerged in the unknown you have to try this to experience it and it could be done this is part of chabad meditation the system of chabad meditation is what we're talking about here where you learn something very well for that you don't need to be a habanero for that every and to learn you need to simple learning needs to learn well then to think meditate reflect on that very strongly without disruptions under your towers close your eyes go into a room whatever it takes not to be disturbed by anything and anything about anything and anyone okay so the so the environment and venue is very helpful and very important again some very big intellectuals can do it in front of everyone because they can go like this and just phase out they're not there but most people can't when the phone rings and the kids nag you and and your cell phone is in front of you and your rabbi is giving to russia you can't meditate you can't reflect yes yes yeah that's one of the reasons you were waving hear me you see you see yesterday you talk about disability there is a milo coming from your disability that's what i do i turn my hearing aids up and okay but uh those of us who don't yet have hearing aids that we should never have hearing aids you need to find a a way of of of of making the his oneness experience possible but that's not what we're talking about yet so that's just a technicality i say just it's a very important technicality because much of the time the disruptions uh uh impact the clarity of of of the his abundance and that's why we're not we're not successful people ask i i meditated that i'm still not moved the truth is you didn't meditate why because you thought you meditated thinking about an idea it's not meditation that's not meditating not not for sure not meditation and even other meditation if you look into harry kaplan's books on judaism meditation and other thing it's a different type see it's not just thinking myself is common to learning tata everyone has to have machiavelli talking about his bonus so okay so say you you are under your tallis or you turn your your hearing aid off or you're by yourself in the room with no telephone no phones and you tell your wife please don't nudge me unless it's an emergency emergency not urgent emergency you know how when you go to the hotel they have that sign on the door do not disturb you put the do not disturb on outside for your wife and kids anyway so then you start thinking about the idea and you're really focusing on the idea fine then there's a place where you just sit back you you you your mind strips itself from understanding the idea of being proactive and letting the idea absorb you that process of the idea absorbing you i believe is what we call here histamines so i don't know if the english word is the right word astonishment even though we used it in the past but in other words it's it's it's like an overwhelming an overwhelming sensation intellectual sensation that and all and and i'm telling you it's i i've had it a few times in my life you know not not often but where all of a sudden something kind of pops into your head and you have no idea where did it come from i wasn't thinking about it i'll give you an example i was once reflecting being misbended on on chapter 41 and tanya and i i think i've told you that since i was a booker in maharashton the yeshiva that bailed out even before that encouraged us to memorize the first 12 lines hashem i've done it you know for most of my life okay right so but you know it gets routine the same words the same ideas over and over and over and over and over and i remember once i forget it was probably the last 10-15 years i had somehow was able to be maracas there's a hebrew word rikuz focus of the mind mirakes with the man right mafia in hebrew grammar mafia miraculous i was able to be miraculous my mother i was able to make my thought focus very narrow on the idea and all of a sudden as i'm and i'm thinking the words of chapter 41 that i've done thousands of times right i could say it in my in my in my sleep right and all of a sudden idea came to me that i never that i'd never thought of all these thousands of times and it was a very very insightful idea with it within the context not id other ideas in what i was thinking thinking about and meditating on and reflecting on a new r that's what he says here haska dasha a new idea entered my cup my mind where did it come from it didn't come yesterday it didn't come last year why did it come now when i became smart all of a sudden i'm not learning now as much as i learned in yeshiva so we can't say that's the answer and it didn't come from from you know from the things i'm doing now which are good things but still the answer is seemingly that at when you succeed in getting to the histamines point then can come in a new idea not a new feeling a new idea this is what that ever says here now this is all in the mind let's continue just a second he says now he need cain who so too should be his psalmist mate said when there is the concealment caused by the straits of the neck inaudible that's when you can have the transition from the mind to the heart says they'll be called salmons now he goes the other way you know he plays like devil's advocate since you're telling me that the only time that the transition is successful is when there is this concealment of intellect at in the position of mitsura then there can come about the three ministers of paris connection freedom the esophagus windpipe food pipe and the vein shepherd sober oh hey hey you got we got three things up here and if they don't go down the right tubes we choke god forbid in other words the virtue there's a virtue of the salmon position but there's a risk also hillel and the risk is that what can creep in is something very unhealthy let's see how he says it his it's at that time that you can become very corporeal with material matter but food drinking and anger the the boiling of the blood they proven that the transition shouldn't be fine so this is very interesting and there's not a lot of elaboration here but this is something that we need people like hillary and others who have the background to elaborate and explain in in in psychological terms what this means that on one hand the place where the transition is successful is when you let go of the intellect and you allow the intellect to to overwhelm you meaning that that time you could form an emotion or the beginning of an emotion and at the very same time be cognizant that if that in other words when there's no light what does it say what does it say by yosef but how boring came by mine the pit was empty there was no water it says [Applause] yesterday there was scorpions what does that mean not that you brought new snakes and scorpions into the pit by the fact that there was no water automatically there were scorpions the fact that you're now in a position of islamic of the mind being on hold on pause automatically it's room for for for issues that can really uh hurt you in a bad way i.e over eating over drinking and anger hila what you want to say nothing okay i thought you wanted it okay and let's see how he develops the gum shimmers although he meditates and understands very well the idea of the result is it doesn't come into the heart and he's not emotionally touched he can be the biggest he can adapt the daffodil me and he'll see this in everything and when it comes to a feeling of the heart is like a stone marshal says now i am sure he's born it's much easier for most people to meditate and reflect intellectually than to feel emotionally and i don't know if this sir you're on but this touches this is this touches what is said yesterday this is this is exactly what issa was saying i think what he was saying yesterday you can understand someone's pain but you don't feel it that's what that ever just said now you hear that you can understand but it's was saying hillary as he was saying yesterday but he doesn't feel the pain that's never sensitive why because understanding i understand you i really do can you say i i feel you i feel it no you don't feel it because you feel it you won't be able to sleep at night if you feel it you do something if you if it's you you know god forbid if you have a headache a footage a hand they can not worship show them i i know myself you know when i have a cold and there i it a mice match me saying you this ice mensch you know i'm not i'm not a human i can't function normally just from a little little cold a little right no no asked ask ourselves the question are we ice mensed when we hear uranus has said never there was this terrible shooting in budapec yesterday you know it's that's what we're talking about we're talking about where you you know it's like i can't sleep i can't eat i can't think i i'm all another hebrew this word i'm all disturbed i'm i'm just disturbed i can't think clear and and and this side didn't end it ever says so why it's easier to meditate to reflect to understand than it is to feel and that's the answer for a large part of avoidance hashem is that feeling hashem feeling god really feeling the ava it's a big avoider that's the whole tanya dalton is to develop a feeling of abuse it's not a book of moosa musa tells you be clean and come on time and fine see this and alternate see this is about the aventier are you inspired with loving god and fearing god and really in your bones you don't need someone to tell you don't do this you yourselves are so vilified by what's wrong that it's disgusting right you don't need a rabbi to tell you you don't need your wife to tell you you don't need the community to tell you you know this is evil this is wrong this is what hashem says and that's an avoider it's a big avenger it it it takes a lot of work and it takes a lifetime and and like we said yesterday as long as you're on that path it's fine let's continue and although you know what we're going to stop here because uh we'll finish this paragraph and next week or the last week of learning will be next week commit to sham right so uh we will finish the my redemption any questions hillary you missed a very heavy discussion yesterday about suicide and we really needed your input so when and if you i don't hear you hillel you're mute i i wanted to say that i i listened to the um to the uh youtube uh uh sheer last night so i i was that conversation stayed with me motion i continued it this morning in the midfield well so yeah oh it was a great great share well it really uh and and if at any point you have you have something to add i'm sure we would all appreciate it because it's well i just you know i mean uh in my career i've had several i had to live through several suicides and one in particular um you know to go to the point of you can't always tell that that people emphasized that i was once um running a supervision group for therapists so these are you know seasoned mental health professionals and one lady in the group says well i'm not going to be here next month i'm going to paris so everybody says oh la la you're going to paris and you know and she bantered back and forth to know and and it was a suicide trip that was her plan it was it was that elaborately staged that she could sort of really cover for for it and and none of us got it you know i i i went with a fine-tooth comb over every interaction i'd had with this lady for for years afterwards because uh because um uh it was just astonishing to me that that that's that that could be so deeply developed and and i and none of us and i didn't get it and so uh so i think it's just a very powerful thing to meditate on that anybody we're in front of has some hidden pain that we're not likely to see yeah i often can't see yeah yeah my show i can see that you're really yeah go ahead yes sir yeah if i could tell you a story very quickly yeah that's i think very directly related to today's lesson and i was told this story by i think it was sweet motion was the motion of the father but in boston the the minute was the rig would take a buck or 16 i'm sorry 17 18 years old and he would be a hoist walker for the rabbit and after a year after he was close to the red and learned him and hug him and and and really got to see the rebels the vote up close he would often go into shidduchim so the first day on the job as hoist i believe it would be maybe at the time the resident had was sick they essentially set up like a hospital room in the house they had private mignon in the house he had a hospital bed and a shower and a commode there but he was told okay don't put any phone calls through until later on when we tell you and somebody kept calling and calling and calling and he kept telling the person please call back later please call back later finally the rabbit told him put him through so he put this the speaker phone on and this fellow told the rabbit his tsaris what was going on and the rebbe gave him aces what to do he was very um positive the the the the amish is all helpful and everything will be okay it'll be fine and the rabbit hung up the phone and then he just burst out crying now see the first day on the job 18 year old bucker in front of his rebbe and his rebbe is sapping his eyes out and he doesn't know what to do he said i was so uncomfortable like what do i say so i asked him and i asked the rabbit how long has there ever known this person who called whoever says i never met him in my life i have no idea who he is and he said that's when i realized why he was a rebel because he could feel that but the first was the intellectual this is the ether this is what you should do it's all going to be okay and then afterwards he let the pain come through i hear thank you for sharing yeah maisha i i i see that you're you're still in pain from this i could see it on your face so i i i i you know i feel your pain i i that's what just it seems to me that you're you're still very uh disturbed and and i can understand i can understand i can't see i don't feel it because never we had uh here in barrow park a girl jumped off the 13th and 47th right here the hotel uh three four years ago took her life it's it's um mental illness it's um it's we need that we need to ask kakodo to to to lessen mental illness and i'm telling you i i i'm telling you i mean we all know this it's it's crept in to our it's what i mean it's ominosha mayan but it's just now part of the fabric it's i i'm dealing with you it's like i can't get a normal [Music] someone without baggage i'm not just i don't cares about schumer ffb but just everyone has some baggage but like you know but you have to start worrying about you know mental mental health that's it's very scary it's very scary and uh you need you need you need hashem you need you push it need the hashem when you marry off your kids your grandkids you know that that people be be healthy mentally just basic health not not not talking about anything more basic health you know the religiosity and everything else will fall into place a little better a little work you know and that's and that's something that um it's really really uh a trying time for for us for the world and for us in particular in in in this area and um that's why uh mashiach who is around the corner needs to come to to also help us this way there is the mashiach for the enlightenment for the or for the guillory for the govaldige torah and the messianic areas that says and then there's mashiach to solve the pain and and problems uh that that the world um has currently um you know it's it's it's a it's it's you know we're all a little older you know you look back like did you did you see this in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s you know every one of us has a different coming from different background you know i think it was there but it wasn't it wasn't as open it wasn't spoken about i understand this i understand i understand i know that i know that i know that but somehow that not openness again may maybe we're a blip we were oblivious you know or we put it hit it under the rug but i i'm saying i don't think it things were were working we're going so the our counter argument is yeah but it it now now we see the results of of that hiding the facts and not dealing with it you know it's it's complicated you know it's it's you have to also you know the titan if you look in the tailor's perspective time talks about homosexuality that's in the title so so that's thousands of years that's divine now so what is hashem saying is he just talking to uh in in other words it's it it seems like the abuse is acknowledging that this issue will be part of your community and therefore i'm i'm saying i'm saying is that so and so but by the fact that he's saying that don't do this and don't do that and this is prohibited means that we're going to confront it i don't know yes moshe you know i got a lot of um comfort in the home i listened finally yesterday yesterday at some point i listened to the interview uh rabbit bomb that you did with rabbit label wolf oh yes and i just hadn't had a chance to listen to it i'm i'm a big fan of rabbi label wolf um i i've been intrigued by his style his his way uh if anybody didn't listen to it you should listen to it it's an excellent interview but he said something i thought was so profound so profound which touches i think on every single aspect of what we've been speaking about on our lives and across generations he said we they we society has been very good about making classes classes that teach people how to speak right how to speak to an audience how to give over ideas he said but but but society does not give and maybe and should give classes on how to listen and i and i heard that and i was like that's exact it's such a uh such an essential component about just being i mean being being a jew being a being a we all know the art of being a good listener right right such a it's it's it's such a fundamental uh component and and as as time i feel the timing we spoke about you just asked what was different you know i mean i you know let's say i'm you know i grew up let's say in the 70s the 80s right but the aspect of listening i think is something which unfortunately in many many elements of society level society has been something which is um often much it's like it's like it's like going to the side yeah with many different effects uh it's such a mental right right the the uh the interview that i'm that that's going on tonight uh with is also with some from australia and there's a story there with the optional rebbe he and i about listening and i encourage you when you have time to see it also it should be a phenomenal i hear his his his where he's coming from and uh this is it's on the line the option of a rabbit told um you know we went to see him and and we we both were blown away just from how he conducted himself and then he said to the ambassador as we're standing face to face about to go down the steps at a quarter to seven in the morning and buy it for god i'll never forget that day and he called himself a taxi for us and he walked down he walked us down the steps but before that my friend said to them thank you rebbe for teaching me the virtue of the art of listening and he cried [Music] you know so what you're saying it's it's it's an art and it's a lost art it's a lost art but it's good to talk about it and to bring it back we'll see everyone tomorrow have a great day zeitgeist