Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #46

okay weekly Tanya we started over a year ago and today we are in chapter 29 very good how many chapters total in Tanya 53. so we're over halfway through the book yeah we've done remarkably well yes I I think so yeah all right and we're in the middle of a string of chapters that deal with the theme of emotional Wellness what we call simcha or joy and the purpose of joy is to enable us to serve Hashem more effectively anything we do joyfully we do better and the whole point of this book is Emmanuel to serving Hashem so basically chapters 26 through 34 are dealing with that theme how do you remain emotionally balanced and how do you maintain a positive outlook and stay uh enthusiastic so that you can service him properly and we've spoken about various in each chapter basically we've spoken about one or sometimes more than one source for negativity and we've given specific advice how to overcome that particular cause for negativity and I'm not going to go through it I'm not going to I mean all of this is recorded and you can go online you can watch chapter 26 27 28. and get caught up if you haven't or if you have watched already you could review but I'm so I'm not going to review review here I'm just going to say that very general background that since chapter 26 began we've been addressing different causes that a person could feel down and how to deal with each of those causes yeah suggesting that being in a constant state of Joy means emotional balance it is our goal our goal is to remain in a constant state of joy and we understand that there are many things in real life that are going to make that difficult that are going to require a deliberate effort to maintain that Joy but that that's our goal that's our goal um and again the reason why it's our goal is because we are trying to serve Hashem as best we can and we understand the remaining positive is really crucial to that goal so yeah I mean yeah that's our goal and a lot of things in Tanya by the way are goals they are aspirational I know a lot of times people get put off by this book and they say that the for instance the behavioral standards that the alteraba describes as the Hallmark of the Beanie they said well it's it's perfectionism it's it's unattainable so look at that as uh as an aspiration there's no judgment here except for your own judgment nobody's coming over to you and and uh casting aspersions on how hard you're working this is only between you and Hashem okay so today we're gonna deal with a different type of emotional negativity a different brand of emotional negativity till now we've been dealing with different flavors of what we call in the Holy tongue it's called atvos and you could translate as depression although I I try to avoid translating at his depression because the word depression at least certainly in the past decade has come to almost automatically be synonymous with a clinical term and I'm I'd rather just avoid anything like that because uh we're not trying to offer modalities of of therapy here where we're giving you sort of folk remedies for regular emotional challenges that people go through in life so I try to avoid using the word depression but let's say sadness I know it's not it's not an impressive term sadness but that's that's really what it is until now we've been dealing with sadness now in chapter 29 we're going to deal with a new negative emotion that's not sadness but in some ways the Tanya says is worse than sadness more dangerous I should say more dangerous than sadness and that is for want of a better word one word in English I I'll call it apathy you want uh I mean apathy that resonate with people I could use a you want to use a Germanic word instead of a Latin one I could say numbness emotional numbness emotional though that's Latin okay let's let's take a look Paddock cloth test Chapter 29. there's another piece of advice that the main and them need and I'm not going to go through a whole definition again of the benign but suffice to say that's the audience that this book is speaking to and we include ourselves in that audience here's another piece of advice that my audience May need to hear I shall upon him that sometimes in fact rather frequently he says yes they have a plugging up a congestion a blockage of the heart shenasica Evan where it becomes stone-like and they can't get their heart open for the service of the heart otherwise known as prayer prayer is not just saying words prayer primarily as the talmud refers to it is Aveda Shiba live is the service of the heart it's emotional and sometimes the person is in a situation where he can't get his heart open to feel those emotions he doesn't know what to do he further describes the problem the condition the pathology so to speak although I said I'm trying to avoid clinical terms another symptom is he doesn't find the emotional wherewithal within him to battle to sanctify himself in permissible matters why again because his heart is heavy so two symptoms of this condition which he which he referred to as Tim tamalev and also covetis halev blockage of the heart heaviness of the heart two symptoms one is he can't get himself going emotionally going when he's domining another symptom is that he doesn't have the doesn't have it within him emotionally to care about sanctifying himself in permissible matters which we spoke about at the end of chapter 27 if you recall basically making choices where there's not something that's prohibited on the line it's totally permissible it's neutral but I just choose to exhibit self-control um and to do things in a more uh in a more holy manner just by just by not immediately bowing to my my my animalistic whims even if they're of a permissible nature so this person we're describing in the beginning of this chapter is having a hard time with that because it requires emotional energy and he he's lacking that emotional energy actually let's be more precise he's not saying he's he's lacking the energy he's he's saying there's a blockage I guess the energy is not moving through where it needs to move through okay so we've described the problem he's described what its cause is and he's described a couple of the the symptoms that it gives rise to are we clear on this okay so what's the the problem is called Tim to Malave or covedus halev blockage of the heart heaviness of the heart he describes it as the emotions not being able to flow properly through the heart calls it the heart being closed up and he says that this is causing a problem in a couple of areas namely you can't feel what he needs to feel in order to pray and he can't get himself to care enough to exhibit self-control in person in permissible matters now you're going to say what about forbidden matters you know he's still good with that because because that's that's that's black and white you're not allowed to do it you're not allowed to do it so he can force himself for that he'll force himself that's not the issue we're not saying the person is doing anything that's a transgression at this point it's just really hard to do anything extra it's really hard to do anything that's it requires caring a whole lot because he just he can't get himself to to feel that yeah so the Elder Revy wouldn't be a proponent for the Vanoni of fake it till you make it well that's a wonderful question what about the what about fake it till you make it does this imply that is saying that's not a course of action and well I'll answer you based on something we've already studied the end of chapter 27 he does say explicitly fake it till you make it doesn't use those words but he says remember at the end of chapter 27 he says that even if you don't yet feel so holy you could act holy meaning exhibit self-control and permissible matters and it will actually have an effect on your personality so your behaviors could you could reverse engineer behaviors to affect your your actual uh emotions so he does say fake it to you make it in in that context um and this doesn't necessarily preclude that advice this may be additional advice remember one of the things I tell you guys all the time is don't think rigidly this is this is like quantum physics so don't think that two things can't be this in the same place or one thing can't be in two places when you learn a concept in Tanya sometimes there can be two different things they're not they're not mutually exclusive I mean it's that's like that's how real life is real life is complex and we have a variety of different tools that we use for living so this is uh no it does not does not preclude fake it till you make it but he's going to give different advice it's not that's not the advice he's going to say here um you're right because he couldn't just say don't worry about it just keep going and uh you know eventually something will click and uh don't don't worry about it but that's not what he says actually to tell you the truth it seems pretty clearly the octave is concerned about this condition much more than he was about the various different types of sadness we spoke about in other words he feels like it's more of an emergency to deal with this this numbness than it is even to respond to the sadness that we were describing in the previous chapters well let's continue inside the the text Versace here is the advice that's given in the Holy zayar the armor the head of the Torah Academy in Paradise to some type of an angelic figure who administers over the uh lishiva there the masipta in Ghanaian in Paradise what so he said over there uh uh wood that's Aramaic Olive iron Olive it's like eights in Russian akadish uh uh foreign would that the fire will not catch will not take hold upon won't ignite smash it if you have a big chunk of wood like a log and it won't catch fire so the problem often is that it's too coarse it can't catch fire that's what we have kindling for you have little pieces of scraps of wood or even paper or things that are smaller but another way to deal with it is you take an ax and you smash the big piece of wood and the splinters will will catch a flame much more easily I actually demonstrated this like literally with wood and an ax and Fire um in the video that is on where can you see it if you're watching right now on YouTube I don't think this video is on YouTube I'm not sure it's on soulwords for sure yeah so you go to soulwords s-o-u-l-w-o-r-d-s Soul words dot Org the truth is solars.com will also redirect now to soulwords.org but the official name is soulwords.org and you go to the Tanya class on soulwords.org and go to chapter 29. and you go to the end of the video go to the just use that scrubber thing go to the end and there's a video of me literally taking a piece of wood like a piece a log and an ax and smashing it up well first trying to burn the log in it's intact State and won't burn and smashing it with an ax and then burning it and then it catches fire so you could actually see this metaphor literally um act it out if if you so desire I'm not going to do it here I did it I felt like I wanted to do it once and I did it and it's on video actually I'd done it more than once in the past but it was never on video I wanted to get it on video once and I did a couple of years ago and it's on video now so unless someday we'll get like some real professional uh broadcast quality uh like uh the people who do very you know like people who who do the video for like the NFL if they want to come down and get that quality then I would reproduce it I would do it again okay all right so the head of the Heavenly Academy says that look a piece of wood that's too coarse and it won't catch won't catch fire you smash it and turn it into splinters and then it'll catch fire goofah this is still part of his statement goofan that's why it's an Aramaic because it's a quote from desire Desires in Aramaic gulfaz Aramaic for goof goof means the nishmasa a body that won't catch a flame with the fire of the Soul meaning the body won't get enthused with spiritual excitement inspired it won't get inspired so too you follow the same course of action you smash it you smash it okay that's what he says smash it all right um whose day oh people yeah so you're saying me up oh great smash yourself I know how to do that I've been doing that okay well let's find out if the way we've been smashing ourselves is different than the way to tactically smash ourselves okay hirosh IMA so what does it mean the light or the flame of the Soul the light of the nashama and the intellect are not sufficiently shining in this person to rule over the coarseness of his body there's a certain opacity let's call it the body is blocking the soul from expressing itself through the body if it's been busy Hashem now listen he says even though he is sufficiently meditating on the greatness of God because here's the first thing a guy comes in and he says can't get excited don't feel like diving I don't feel like sanctifying myself in permissible matters first thing you say well are you even meditating no oh well go meditate and get back to me but in this case he describes the guy is meditating and if you're meditating remember what meditation does meditation not relaxation meditation in Tanya is we learned about it back way back in chapter three we said what happens when you put coffee together through Das you put the father and the mother together through Focus say it loud that arouses emotions he says even it gives birth to emotions he really uses that father mother metaphor the emotions of the children of the intellect so if you meditate it's supposed to create emotions and emotions chiefly for the sake of simplification are love and awe so if you're doing your meditation it should be engendering some degree of love of God and awe of God he says I'm doing my meditations but it's just not catching my brain enough for me to overcome the coarseness of my heart because of their coarseness so I'm meditating but it's just not giving me enough power over here Okay so we've described now the situation it's back up he's experiencing numbness or apathy which is expressing itself perhaps in many ways but two ways that we pinpointed you can't get excited to pray which is really an emotional uh connection it can't get can't find the emotions for that and he can't get himself motivated to sanctify himself in permissible matters he is meditating so that should be in theory giving him enough of that emotional Surplus to draw upon but it's not so therefore we apply the advice of the head of the academy in paradise Who says if you have wood It's not catching Flames so smash it up you have a body that's not being inspired by the by the soul smash it up okay so far so good following all right and the cause he's going to get into analyzing a little bit more closely the the nature of this condition if we all understand yeah yeah yeah and the cause yeah he'll he'll explain it at length yeah in great detail yeah someone's depressed or not well remember remember there are many remember what I said earlier one truth does not preclude other truths so just because one thing is true doesn't mean other things aren't also true in other words you may need to follow the advice in chapter 29. and you may need to change your diet get more exercise and ask your doctor about meds it's not mutually exclusive okay so it's not either or I know it's very simple to to view it that way but I don't think it's helpful okay the Hasiba and the cause he's getting down to the mechanics of this dysfunction he gases is the coarseness of the clip of the clip of the shell the negativity which is lifting itself up in a hearty manner over the Holiness of The Godly soul um and it is blocking and obscuring its light so he says the animal soul and animals of Godly Souls like the primary theme of this whole book he's saying the animal soul in a hearty manner and that's key here in a haughty manner he describes it Asma it's lifting itself up we had that language earlier the end of chapter 27 we it's a it's a phrase we borrowed from the prophet ivadia where he describes adelaim and our internal Edomite the Sahara as as lifting itself in a haughty manner so this is key here to understand this animalistic impulse is in a very smug self-satisfied way it is blocking the light of the Soul because it feels complacent and that's very important to understand that the real source of this problem is complacency the animal Soul feels I'm okay I'm good I don't have a problem why should I do anything differently so accordingly we need to smash it and we need to drive it down to the dirt so before I proceed I just want to say that this is a very um Dangerous Method and it should not be taken lightly it could cause you more problems than you started with and I would highly highly recommend not to try to do it without real experience and especially without a guide somebody to spot you it's like walking into the gym and just say show me the heaviest weights no I don't have a spotter what we're about to describe is brutal and I literally I mean brutal it's self-inflicted it's not God forbid somebody else coming over to you and smashing you apart so you are in control of it and you could stop at any point but it is brutal it's it's smashing and we understand the reason for the Smashing and we understand what it's supposed to accomplish but it's still smashing and for that reason um it may it may just be too risky to engage in especially for beginners so I want to make sure everyone understands that um this is not something to take lightly and even for experts this is only an emergency measure meaning to say this smashing is only prescribed for someone who's caught in this apathy rut you would never do this in any normal situation and I'm saying even in the emergency situation I'm not so sure everyone for sure in our generation where we're much more sensitive I'm not so sure in fact I'm sure that they shouldn't run to apply this because you may just end up causing yourself to be even more demotivated than than how you started I I often grapple with whether I should even teach this chapter of Tanya but I think it has important implications um which I can share with you I also think it's important to study the entirety of the Tanya if that's what we're trying to do and that's what we've been doing but I do want to warn you this is not like anything else we've learned where if you told me oh you know that thing that we learned last week I started doing it and yeah I had varying success with it and I'll be like cool that's great anything we learned just go ahead and try it this I'm saying don't try it like really don't try it yeah it's only self-inflicted yes wouldn't that suggest that there is some emotion and desire and some fire there okay that's that's a wonderful question like okay if I'm totally demotivated then how will I even do the Smashing okay okay why am I even reading this chapter if I'm totally demotivated I'm not even here okay so again things are not black and white they're not either or it's not like I'm interested or I'm completely disinterested their levels and there are different ways of being engaged this person is committed to serving Hashem after all remember in his problem that he describes he's very good he's not transgressing he's not transgressive so it's not like he's totally gone to to pot that's the old people say it's the old expression this neighborhood's gone to pot when I was president of the homeowners association you wouldn't get away with that kind of stuff [Laughter] always assume animal Soul pet feelings yeah for sure for sure yeah he's wait wait so um he obviously has he's still in the game but areas that require extra emotional energy and he gave two really good examples of things that require extra emotional energy davening requires extra emotional energy and controlling yourself in matters that are totally permissible requires extra emotional energy so those are two areas where he's pinpointed that he's lacking extra emotional energy so it's like yeah I can do the basics yeah I can still Coast but I'm just not feeling inspired so a person who's in this situation it's not like when he sees the engine light come on in his car he's like I don't even care to get it checked no he does care in fact it bothers him it bothers him and bothers him that it doesn't bother him right but uh the the description here of and and all of us can try to relate to this in our own way is of somebody who he's not in a crisis in fact that's really kind of part of maybe I would even say that is the essence of the problem there is no crisis and perhaps I could even say in fact I think I will say right now part of what the Alta rabbit does in this chapter is he tacked like tactically deliberately surgically almost foments a crisis a contained crisis because the problem here is we said earlier complacency I'm fine I'm good so that coarseness refuses to be inspired you have nothing to tell me you have nothing to sell me and so it's like when I go around speaking to different crowds okay so here this is a pretty self-selecting crowd people in the middle of the day who want to study Tanya okay this is a this is self-selecting there's a certain do you know that that I could I could profile you just from the fact that you come here yeah you're probably a spiritual Seeker a little more sensitive yeah you're you're uh you've been through some stuff in life you're trying to improve you take your your personal growth seriously a little more intellectual so like anyone who's here but well if it's your first time maybe not but if you show up a second time then you're profiled that's it your profile but let's say you go to a place they bring you out to speak and you you're speaking to a a group of people and you realize that they're they're unsure they're in a Jewish place but it's for them it's a country club it's a social situation they're really not interested in anything too intense and in fact not only they're not interested in it they kind of resent anything that's too intense and basically all you can do is tell them a bunch of jokes and some modeling stories you can't get serious but you can do a little you can do some modeling tear-jerker stories and that's about it that's what they that's what they can handle okay so that's what the animal soul is like in this case he's like look I Don't Want to Be Inspired I don't want to hear anything intense I don't want to hear anyone oh let's change our lives let's I'm not looking to change my life right now I'm comfortable everything's fine okay so part of what the outlet is going to do here is to convince that voice the animal Soul no everything is not fine it's not fine in fact we're in a crisis right now the Smashing and we haven't even described the actual method for the Smashing but the Smashing is supposed to foment the feeling of urgent spiritual crisis my life is not okay so that's why I'm saying that's why I was saying earlier be very careful and probably like think a hundred times before you apply this because the express intent of this method in chapter 29 is to foment the feeling of spiritual crisis or maybe you could call it a bottoming out experience a free fall my life is unmanageable and all I can do is just surrender to God it's it's like really intense stuff yeah it is yes it's for a person who wants to want yes and that's why we're not doing this to anybody we're not saying hey buddy come here want to see something cool and then mavachi and I say we don't do that yeah I think in the beginning chapter the fact that it was meant to myself so it's you know meant like at the second part but you know you know yeah the the breakdown is not intellectual it's emotional he knows what he's supposed to know and he doesn't care or just do it to me maybe because it's personal it's just the days the cycle of life but you know sometimes you get trapped in the schedule right yeah um you're saying you're just getting a rut and Things become sort of autopilot yeah I think he's talking about a more serious issue but it still turns to my life like if if you're in a rut just because of the routine so then like I don't know go away for a Shabbos you know like change your routine he's talking about something much more serious where his his animal Soul really feels fine like I'll give you a metaphor but like somebody asked me recently but actually someone I've been asked this question hundreds of times you wrote a book about the 12 steps and you show how really that all that stuff is in Yiddish kite so why don't you just like teach that to everybody and the answer is because only somebody who feels their life is completely falling apart is going to actually listen to that so go try to talk to a normal person about that level of surrender when they feel they have the luxury to not surrender it's just it's not going to happen it's not going to happen so without that I was saying this is this is a situation where the animal Soul feels very secure in what it's doing and comfortable comfortable comfortable yeah and therefore this method is to induce discomfort which is why again I'm saying for like the fourth fifth time today it's risky and it should only be done under supervision and you may not want to do it at all but we haven't described the method yet yeah The Godly soul is doing everything right The Godly soul is shining its light the problem is that there's a big thick curtain on the window and even though it's shining it's bright outside the light's not getting into the room that's interesting saying if the animal's also complacent you should be easily overcome The Godly soul will get in there oh you're not even resisting me but that's what that's precisely what he's saying though the worst resistance is apathy like give me a good fight work with me Judo give me some energy to work I'm not going to say who but we do have someone in this room who was once a judo Champion that's not a joke that is true yes yes and I was in and I'm only mentioning that for selfish reasons to vindicate my own uh use of the term last week when I said that it's like a judo move and I was told I was correct it is a judo move at any rate so yeah come at me throw some energy at me I'll work with that here is a situation it's much worse you're dealing with an opponent that's just recalcitrant yeah I I the way I'm kind of thinking about what you're saying is what you're saying but a little bit more it's not so much falling inside blood of everyday living but sometimes I feel like when we're just busy with like everyday living which is just very physical like the physical absence of our life I think that's what you mean like making sure we're comfortable we have money we're and everything is going well it is hard to feel spiritual it is hard to feel the so I I want to clarify this is not talking about your regular affluent first world problems comfortable um like 2022 type of person who because you never had to pluck a chicken your life's just way too easy and uh that's not what we're talking about we're not talking about the fact when we describe the the material coarseness of the animals on the body we're not describing somebody who just has too many Creature Comforts and they've become they become uh spoiled and they become coarse what we're actually describing is that there's a there's a person who's a who's a spiritual Seeker they are concerned with their relationship with Hashem and they've come to a point where they feel that their their way of serving is good enough it works so I'm not talking about somebody who's duped into a a false sense of comfort because life is good because they have Creature Comforts I'm talking about somebody who's who who's the the Allure of spiritual self-satisfaction that I'm a good Jew I I go to shul and I dive in I go to my classes and I do what I'm supposed to be doing I'm good and I give to DACA like what do you want yeah not a growing person yeah I'm good it's not an or yeah he comes to a sheer of course and then he meditates on this year yeah I'm confused yeah who is doing this self-diagnosis and whether I should just ignore it or break something to Smithereens and etc etc if I am not in the proper place to begin with uh how do you trust your own diagnosis well we are trusting our diagnosis actually over here um and it's a very simple WebMD questions to ask yourself like in the previous chapters are you feeling sad okay so then we'll deal with that here's are you set no not particularly but it's a very nuanced complex idea and like we're trying to fit in a box but a person who's apathetic there's so many other factors yes so there's so many other factors that are contributing to the apathy so it's not going to be clear and it's going to look different for each person agreed yeah it's very rarely one thing and there could be a thousand different people to whom this chapter applies and they all look a little different okay but to whatever extent we can relate to this he's describing the archetype okay so if you find yourself in it great if not then that's fine too yeah so okay okay fair fair game when I when Hashem smashes us I mean we have many different explanations for why that happens um he doesn't say that he doesn't say that if you try to smash yourself and it doesn't work then Hashem will come and smash you um no you know he never says that to my knowledge Hashem does smash us sometimes yeah and sometimes it is to uh foment spiritual growth is to destabilize us so that we start growing it that's true but he's not describing that if you want to know why Hashem destabilizes my life go back to the first half of chapter 26. remember the first chapter the first half first half of chapter 26 we spoke about when we have hard times in life okay so that's where it talks about it there but here it's talking about spiritual complacency I like what you said the person's not growing that's great person who's not growing that's what he is okay yeah it is the animal soul I'm telling you see here's the thing that's so hard for people to understand the animal soul is from you think animal Soul only means the it's ahata that wants to do aveda's the animal's soul is from he goes to surely davins he learns Toyota he meditates on godliness it's a very from animal soul and he's comfortable this is the animal soul this is completely the animal Soul this is an animal soul it feels satisfied with his spiritual level this always goes up Godly soul is is a nut he's completely obsessed with getting closer to his Chef yeah something is missing is a lack of meaning and that's what prompts the animal's soul to go a little further and to start searching because even though it's very comfortable feeling empty I'm not even sure that's what it is I I think no I think the animal soul is actually saying CD for my part I'm fine yeah leave me alone I'm just recognizing that there are some I mean this check engine light came on personally the car is driving fine but the light came on so I want to get it checked out the motivation is he notices that davening is not exciting he notices that he doesn't feel like he can be bothered to act in a holy way around things that are totally permissible and he notices that there's clearly a lack of motivation in those areas he's not sinning he's not doing any transgressions but he's like hmm I want I wonder why I can't get I can't muster the the energy to do these things they should feel emptiness the truth is if he felt some type of existential angst he wouldn't be in this plight to begin with so how does he get how does he get now to the place what motivates him to get like I said he's just being he's just being diligent he's just saying listen I might have I don't know this light came on and it says I'm supposed to go to the mechanic personally it's driving fine but well you're 100 right and that's why implies here and and more so in other sources that it's incredibly dangerous and that you're feeling totally fine one day and that until you're not all right until you're not and then it's too late so it is an emergency situation but it doesn't but here's the irony it's an emergent situation but my definition it does not feel like an emergency and the emergency is the fact that it doesn't feel like an emergency if the guy came in and said I don't know what's wrong with me I don't I don't I I don't feel anything and and I'm up at night crying about the fact that I'm I I'm not feeling close to Hashem that's not apathy that that's profound sensitivity this guy is like I don't know but we described this we describe the mechanics of it we said he's not disconnected we described what it is what is it I told you there are two symptoms that call his attention to this that he can't govern properly meaning the emotional component of the Avenue which is the primary component of dominating and when it comes to the extra credit stuff of sanctifying yourself in in permissible areas he's like nah knows that there's an issue it's candy from can animal Soul also be glad yeah yeah yeah it could be like yeah yeah that's this guy's situation he's totally from he's doing everything properly he's even meditating no no no he's not joyful maybe that's what the tip off like what tips him off well tipped him off is the the two areas that we mentioned where he's having issues so the second area is the first is he he doesn't feel like he has extra energy to do things that are not required by if it's black on white I'll do it of course I'll do it but if it's an extra thing and it requires extra feeling I just don't have the emotion I don't have it okay assistant why did you bring the quote from the wrath of my sister because that's the method that he's going to use to to fix the problem okay so let's go a few more lines here he says you gotta smash it how do you smash it how is that done and we're not going to cover the whole description but we'll get started the high no namely that means you should set times make an appointment to lower yourself to make yourself despicable and disgusting in your own eyes kakosov like it says a broken heart a broken spirit foreign that is synonymous with the other side the Unholy side which is the person himself in the beginning those words need a lot of unpacking he just said you need to break down the complacency of the Clipper or the sitaracha these are technical terms that we've been learning since early on in Tanya because its complacency is blocking the light of the soul from Shining light of Soul shining but it's it's being blocked so you got to break down the complacency of the citrakhra Great Point them out to me where is he tell me where he is these words here have to really be explained in him it is the person himself in the beginning now talk about different contexts requiring different truths in this very specific context we are identifying ourselves with the animal soul and the Citra and the clipper in other contexts surely if you were to ask me who is the real you I would say the real me is my Godly soul and not just the outer expressions of my Godly Soul it's very Core Essence which is one with God himself that's the real me but that's in other contexts and in fact later on in Tanya itself it'll use that definition but right now for this context please remember everything is context context context in this context where I need to deliver a shattering blow to the forces of negativity and I have to know where it is in order to go do that so he says well you know what it is it's synonymous with your own self in other words the formulation he's about to say is smash yourself you'll be smashing the negativity because you and the negativity are one now please remember there are other contexts where we would say quite the opposite that that's not the real you that's incidental to you it's second secondary to you it's it's it's only your condition that you're in your essence is is Godly but in this context context context context we're talking about on a certain level the I when I say I like chocolate ice cream is not my Godly Soul it's my animal soul and therefore if I need to break down the animal soul I need to break down myself so the ego the ego okay now I know that I know if you really want to have a deep discussion the ego's not the real self it's a false self I get that but for practical purposes I my ego has so much domination of my conscious thought that for all intents and purposes it feels like the real me so for the purposes of this method when he says we're going to go after the Citra he's saying we're going to go after you we're going to go you're gonna smash your ego you're going to smash your ego again follow what he says here I'm just going to go a few more minutes foreign like his physical energy the the the the the energy that keeps him alive that's still at full force just like when he was born so it comes out that that's really synonymous with the person Val nephewelekish regarding your Godly Soul it says the soul that you put in with you put into me meaning who's me the animal soul and my body The Godly Soul something you put into me right now so this implies the person himself is not his pure soul that only is the exact opposite their pure Soul which is The Godly Soul them that's the self that's the self they regard their body as just their the the flesh like hello the sage said to his students when he went to go eat he used to say League I'm gonna go do a favor for this wretched Pauper who goofy his body he viewed when he went to eat he didn't look like he didn't look at it as I'm gonna eat I'm gonna feed myself no I'm doing a favor for this third party there was that like that dissociation from that body it was like a foreigner to him he said I'm doing a favor by feeding him because for hello his self was only his Godly self sorry because in his case his physical energy was only coming from his Godly soul because what happened the animalistic energy that was enlightening his body actually got converted to purely Godly energy and in the case of tadiq basically his animal Soul became a second Godly soul abubani here's where I'm going to wrap up but with a regular person is the energy that's keeping his body alive did not become transformed to Holiness so therefore this we're talking about is still synonymous with my own sense of self therefore when I go to deliver this destabilizing smashing attack to this what am I attacking essentially my own self-concept I'm delivering a destabilizing shattering blow to my own self-concept so what is what we're about to read we're going to stop here is a method for really reading yourself the Riot Act okay all right and that uplifting note we'll see you next week