The plight of the SOUL | Tanya & Meditation Part 6

okay this is our weekly Tanya class we've been going through meditations of Tanya primarily in chapters 41- 50 last week we did a med a meditation from chapter 44 there was another meditation from chapter 44 but I kind of mentioned it already and I'm not going to go back to it but you can rewatch that class if you so desire we're going to do what a class yeah it was it was yeah yeah okay chapter 45 is one of the shorter chapters of Tanya and I think what I'm going to do is just read straight through it I mean read it and translate it and with minimal explanation and then go back and do the meditation okay all right and before we begin okay so just a little review the purpose of what we call heos which We're translating here as meditation well first of all let me let me back up even before that he's buness is an activity that you do in your own head we're calling it meditation what is the goal the desired Target outcome of the hbos producing emotion producing an emotion great what are our two categories of emotions main love and great okay and then various grades and shoots and levels and it gets pretty uh detailed from there but the two main emotions are love and all love is the emotion that drives me to approach and get closer to my beloved or is the emotion that drives me back to shrink in a feeling of reverence or overwhelm today's meditation is a love meditation it is meant to produce love however it's a little bit tricky before we start so you may know spherically that love and a are right and left the right and left axes in the Sphero that is and okay but you're probably also familiar with the idea of the center AIS and that emotionally on the emotional plain when you have hassid which is kindness and is the source of love you have G which is severity which is the source of awe and those are the two extreme axes in the middle the emotional Center Point which is a blend or a harmonization of the two extremes is called T tius and tetus means Beauty and why is it beautiful because Harmony is beautiful it is the harmonization of these two extremes emotionally is compassion or pity why is compassion or pity a blend or harmonization of both extremes of love and awe love says give give indiscriminately give just to give so you're walking down the street and you're handing out $100 bills to anybody who walks past gur or self-restraint or self-containment says don't give in fact that's why it's also sometimes called din which means judgment meaning to make a judgment and to say I don't know if this guy's worthy no I'm not going to give I don't know show me your tax forms I don't know tiis is the blend of both of those I'm making a judgment I'm making a judgment so therefore it's similar to gura I'm making a judgment this person really needs some compassion right now this person's situation is pitiful this guy really needs the $100 in fact instead of walking down the street and handing out 100 hundreds to just whatever random hundred people walk by I'm going to take all hundred hundreds with at $10,000 and I'm going to give it to the one guy who really needs it because he's about to get evicted so that's why compassion is a blend or a harmonization of both love and a of and G so are we defining as love Yeah is synonymous with love G is synonymous with awe or respect or withholding or judgment and then t Fus is synonymous with Compassion or pity okay this chapter speaks a lot about compassion so much so that you might get confused and think that that's the subject of the chapter and it's not it's using compassion as a tool to access love and it makes it very clear at the end of the chapter but I'm giving you a heads up at the beginning the point of this meditation is to create an emotion yes that's the point of every his is to create an emotion it is not to create ra it is to use raim to create you follow so we're going to talk a lot about Rah about compassion so much so that you might think that that was what we were trying to do that we were that was our goal is to produce that Rim it's not Rahim is a tool here is of no R is not an offsh of it from the balance of the two right Rim is just as much an offsh of as it is of of of of Tsum and gur and din as we were explaining don't associate it more with AA no it happens to be okay so I'm going to tell you everything there there's going to be no surprises here but it happens to be that sometimes when AA when your love is inaccessible you can access it through compassion sometimes it's easier to get yourself to pity someone than to love them but by pitying them you can bring yourself to love them what does it mean to pity someone what's compassion and what's okay compassion and pity are synonymous in this context and it they both mean in really simple terms hm you're in a bad situation I recognize that I feel bad for you that's all it means I have compassion on your plight I recognize you're in a tough situation that's what it means and that's what ti is and that is tiis because as we said is indiscriminate giving giving to everybody whether they're worthy or not whe the guy's rich and you're still giving him because you're just giving everybody gur is the opposite I'm giving no one nobody's Worthy tiis is I'm making a judgment a decision I'm giving with uh I'm giving judiciously but I'm giving so there's the Judgment which is like gura but there's the giving which is like CID yeah but what's the point there's there's also G in Def not necessarily include love but it's made from a balance of love and tetus is not a mixture of love and awe it's not like you take a little bit of uh iced tea and a little bit of lemonade and you mix them together and you get the what's it called Arnold Palmer Arnold Palmer very good thank the FIS is not the Arnold Palmer of Sphero it's its own thing it's its own thing it just happens to have qualities that are similar to two different opposites but don't think of it as like you're mushing together these two opposites and this is what you end up with I don't think of it as compassion pity feeling bad because that can Le someone to I think of as more judgment more sensible well depends how you look at it it's got both it's got both it just I guess right it's like those optical illusions what do you see is it uh the gold the black right the gold of the black okay let's not start that okay all right let's just jump in pedig chapter 45 there's another way to do mitzvah for their own sake meaning to have the proper motivation to tap into the right the right motivation the right emotions and that is by pursuing the path of yank who is raim we have the three o the three Patriarchs Abraham Isaac Jacob Abraham is the right side Isaac is the left side Jacob is the center okay and how are we going to do it and remember I told you the goal here is not to reach this emotion of Rim the process is to use to arouse abundant Mercy before God so really we're trying to get Hashem to Have Mercy Mercy on what The Godly spark that is enlivening your soul why does it evoke compassion Mercy pity okay okay so here's what we're going to do we're going to explain the plight of this Godly spark otherwise known as your Godly Soul which has come down here into embodiment which is invested within your body and it's a bag within a bag double bagged it is also invested within the animal Soul if you remember basic Tanya we learned about Godly Soul the animal Soul so they're not just like two guys on an even playing field but rather the The Godly soul is invested within the animal Soul which in turn is invested within the body okay we're going to describe now the plight of this poor little Godly soul and this is what we're going to be envisioning but I like I said I'm going to try to go quickly through the chapter and then we'll go back and we'll try to Envision this at length all right so we have this Godly spark that came down from its source what's its source the life of all lives the Blessed infinite one so where did The Godly spark come from yeah high place source of all life and it says about God he is filling all worlds and he transcends all worlds in other words he cannot be contained by reality but all reality is contained within him V and nothing is significant before him because he is infinite true true Infinity Vish and it comes down into the Serpent's hide the snake's skin the this is a term from Z that's why it's Aramaic it means the body the body is called the snake skin you know a traumatic core memory of mine I was on a nature walk when I was like four years old old and I saw a snake in a tree and then you know what I found out what it was a snake skin in a tree that's that's how they shed their skins they like go up in the tree and they wind around the branch and then they ditch their old skin but it looks like a whole snake ever seen that yeah yeah I mean they shed their skin and sometimes they shed like the whole skin all at once where was it in Chicago you think I grew up in like Tucson Arizona or something no then I would have been used to snakes now this was the scari I have two snake memories well that was one of them and the other one was when when we moved to the house that we moved to when I was three there was a a snake on our back porch and I was terrified and I pinned it down with a broom and I screamed until my mother came out and chased it away why do you have what snakes in Chicago snakes here just two snakes stories from my childhood maybe it was the same snake a year later maybe it was the same snake that is possible but it was Miles Away they were getting back at you that was their retribution okay so the body is called the snake skin the the imagery is supposed to evoke some type of disdain um sort of loathing like if you think about about the the soul and what a lofty entity it is and then it sort of Trapped in this meat suit it's it's supposed to evoke a certain it's supposed to be offputting that's that's the point okay and it's ultimately distanced from the light of the face of the king in other words it's down here in the physical world where godliness is super concealed because this world the physical world is the ultimate and in course Clippers clip is a term we learned more at length in chapter six if you remember clippa literally means the shell or the hide or the husk and it means that which conceals The Godly core that's in everything so the physical world is a world of consumate concealment the physical world is a is a plane of reality where we see creation rather than Creator as opposed to the spiritual Realms where you do see creation but the creation is transparent to Creator so you don't have that coarse clippa that opaque shell so to speak you understand the difference between an opaque shell and like a translucent shell or even a transparent shell NOA very good well a kipus NOA is called the shiny shell and it's shining because it's translucent it lets The Godly spark shine through it but something that is CPUs gsis which he calls here which means coarse thick Clipper that means it's opaque it just you look at the world and it really takes a lot of imagination and sensitivity to discern The Godly spark that's animated it okay so think about where the soul came from and now where it's gone to pretty big contrast okay and then especially now he's going to aggravate the situation so just the fact that the soul came from where she came from which we call the source of all lives the the the Blessed infinite one and it came down to where it came down to which we call the physical world which is full of opaque hides and husks which are concealing godliness and then it gets even aggravated even more exacerbated even more especially if you start reflecting on all of I don't make you I don't want to make you cringe but it's part of the meditation all of your action and speech and thoughts since the day that you were born which were not good now this is not sir we're not here to make you feel bad about yourself that's not the point it's not the point it's a meditation about God it's going to bring you to more love of God but there's a little part of the meditation which some of you may find triggering but I think you'll find it rewarding also if you give into it and you understand what it's for but please don't get distracted and spiral and come back to me after class and be like since that moment you said think about all of your bad thought speech and action from your entire life I couldn't stop thinking about that the whole time and now I'm depressed that's not the point the point is you're laughing but someone who's doing it right now is it you who's doing it who's doing you're not doing it I'm so grounded you're grounded my thoughts are not spiral okay what's the point remember the point let's always remember the point we're trying to arouse love for hem uh how are we going to do that I said we're taking a little detour through r okay right now the r who is the subject of our Rim who's the who's in a pitiful situation the Nisha very good okay and what's the pitiful situation it left it left yeah the source it came Tob it came to embodiment okay and now we're adding to that we're saying not only did it come down to a tough situation where all of its spiritual sensitivities are being covered up let's say overwhelmed by all the physical stimuli that's sort of just drowning out the spiritual stimuli but also think about the exacerbating Factor here that while you're in a body maybe you did stuff that wasn't really very Godly and it's think about the experience of the Soul how's the soul feeling during that not very good well what but the point here is not about cha that's not the point no no no no the point here is I want you to feel bad for this little Nama what mean to feel bad for the soul feel bad for the soul yeah yes that's the point she came from such a glorious place she came down to such a rough place and then to top it all off she got dragged along for some unpleasant activities which she felt was very violating okay that's that's all we're asking just feel passion on the plight of the Soul okay now everyone's okay okay no typically we're celebrating this descent because it's the holy yeah but that's not the point right now I'm saying that's yeah but just yeah well we don't blow the sh far on por what everything has its context just because something you're saying is true doesn't mean that that's always what we're thinking about all the time right now we have a we have a we're we're doing there's a process we're engaged in and in order to engage in that process we have to think about a very specific subject and we're thinking about how painful it is for the soul to come down here now you're going to come and tell me all the things you know fromus about how awesome embodiment is and that really wants it this is where he wants to be at home and being in the body is is worth it you're right but that's not the point right now and in fact it's very insensitive because right now we're trying to feel compassion for this soul and this is like somebody coming in be like hold on a second you trying to make me feel bad for this little soul let me tell you why it's all worth it it's all the whole experience was really was really for a greater good and she's like hold on a second I thought do I get a little compassion for even a second here like so let's let's let's just yeah let's just give space right now for compassion for the soul okay now we're going to up the ante watch this the king is bound in the gutters m is a an expression from I think it's from Mish from but the way the Z explains it is is the flowing of the Mind the stream of Consciousness is how I would translate it for the 20th century I know this is the 21st century but still back there yeah well it's where I'm influenced from yeah my influences are very 20th century um is the flowing of the Mind in other words the king is bound or captured in the flowing in the gutter it's a gutter it's a flowing gutter it's not like a picture yourself by a Pleasant Brook Babbling Brook through the through the woods no it's a it's a flowing SE open sewage gutter yeah it's nasty it's nasty and yeah yeah yeah it is it's nasty and the king is being held down in this gutter the kings in the gutter the kings in the gutter that's this is different okay so who's the king what's what what's the translation FedEd by the Tresses feted by the Tresses you by the impetuous thoughts of the by the impetuous thoughts of the brain that's the official translation okay who's the king Hashem hold on a second you told me the soul is being tortured through its embodiment connected say because Jacob which is the name of the Jewish people is the Rope of his of God's inheritance in other words Hashem is connected to these Souls like a rope metaphorically so what's happening here is it's not just the soul is being wow tortured but the King by extension by association is being tortured as well and the visualization is the king is being held down in The Gutter The Gutter is is the flowing thoughts of the Mind the stream of Consciousness where the mind is just going to all types of nonproductive places and the king is forced to come along for the ride wait wait wait wait wait what happened to behavioral Perfection versus thoughts in the mind just our thoughts can bring him to the G okay so first of all it's a wonderful question which proves that you actually learn T and that's very satisfying as the person who spent a year and a half learning t with you I'm very happy that you say that okay all right so secondly as you remember is one of the it's not just physical action it's not even just oral speech but even thought that is willful AC of thought in other words we made a distinction between the impulse for thought like something just pops up on the screen and you're really not able to control the fact that it you know the intrusive thought that just pops up as opposed to a willful train of thought where you're like okay I'm going to go with this and that is a behavior it's something that you do choose to do you do exercise free choice and that's what we're talking about we're talking about that when you allow yourself to delve into again the operative word is you allow yourself there's free choice here you allow yourself to delve into some type of Unholy aspect of of thought so not only is the soul being dragged along for this not fun experience but God is too right like the metaphor of somebody who pulls on a rope oh what does this do well it's connected to the king so you're pulling the king down okay we're halfway through the chapter it's a short chapter and this is the mystical concept of G what does it mean that hashem's presence is in Gus is in Exile it means that Hashem invests himself into you and you are in exile meaning you're in a spiritually not healthy situation so he by extension is also in that situation and regarding this it says return to and he will have compassion on you what does that mean to arouse abundant mercy upon the name of hem which is dwelling within us like it says Hashem dwells with the Jewish people even in their state of impurity and this is what it means Yan kissed and lifted his voice and cried everyone knows this story Yan meets his cousin for the first time at the well and Yaniv kisses her he lifts his voice and he cries there are many explanations what was going on there it's a funny story if you want to know the simple meaning of the story you can go learn Rashi and the other maam but cabalistic what is going on there Yan is in you know because we said it at the beginning of the chapter TI very good right because you have three a you have which is he is the embodiment of divine compassion Ro is malos malus is the feminine SP or one of the feminine actually Leia and RA are the higher hay and the lower hay that's what it means the theana and the g the small hay and the big hay the higher hay and the lower Le isina and Mal but at any rate malus is also considered to be the bank or repository of theas so means the congregation of Israel which means the place where the souls hang out before they come down here mocker the source of all the souls his spiritual attribute is hashem's attribute of in the highest world the world of he arouses abundant compassion upon her so he is hashem's Mercy she is the source of the Jewish souls he arouses compassion upon her he lifted up his voice that means to reach the source of superal compassion which is called the merciful father or the father of compassion meaning it's even higher than he cries in order to draw down compassion upon the souls to lift them up from their Exile and to put them into a state of reunification and Oneness with Hashem in a manner that is described cabalistic as kisses which is the cleaving of breath to breath let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth MTH that is in and he's describing our desire for Hashem to kiss us with the kisses of his mouth which means it means mouth to mouth means that hashem's words hashem's speech meaning T should be on my mouth or in my mouth so when I am speaking words of to it is a connection of breath to breath of mouth to mouth to Hashem and not only connecting mouth to mouth but also connecting thought to thought thinking the thoughts that Hashem would have me think and also my behaviors my actions to his actions which means the actions of the mitzvas especially actions that are acts of Charity and kindness in other words The Compassion the crying that yankev engages in lifts up ra meaning the source of the souls out of her state of Exile and disconnection back to a state of intimate Union with her source with Hashem which is described as kissing which in Practical terms means when we're engaged in speaking words of toyra that's like we put our mouth on hashem's mouth so to speak and I don't I don't think this group needs a lot of disclaimers about anthropomorphisms in Torah right can we or we can move on okay great um so that's the that's the story that here's this sad plight of this soul that came from such a glorious place of Godly Revelation came down to such a nasty place called the physical world that situation was further exacerbated by all the poor choices that we're making don't get triggered and then there's this oh no what a pitiful story this is terrible and that triggers The Compassion of the AAR the compassionate father mother and she's lifted up out of her plight and brought into a wondrous state of intimate reunion with God and why specifically our acts of kindness that which brings us reunion with God is the right arm and that's the hug quoted before saying he should kiss me with the kisses of his mouth and it continues and his right hand should embrace me why the right hand why not the left hand the right hand is hassid so when I do when I use my body to do acts of kindness It's like my right hand is matching so to speak or mirroring so to speak hashem's right hand so to speak and that's it's the hog yeah does that correspond to the right ventricle also probably in some way but yeah what chapter is that early you're right yeah okay maybe three um I think the first place it comes up is in chapter one wow I said early yeah you were right yeah early okay now we're describing the Reunion where you're learning a lot of and you're speaking it with your mouth and you're thinking about it deeply in your mind that's the kisses again okay now here's the punch line through this through this so what do we just do we just did this whole story about compassion Vala through this we can reach a level of abundant love in a revealed way how so because it says Yan who redeemed aam you're looking in the English where's thek from look at the footnote yeah it's AOS from yesah are you sure I know which which which chapter verse chapter 29 verse 22 292 yesah 29:22 anyways there's this expression in the Novi yank Jacob who redeemed who who redeemed Abraham there's no actual story about Jacob redeeming Abraham that's not what it's saying it's saying Jacob who represents Rahim redeemed released from an inaccessibility of who represents love that sometimes when you can't directly access the love you can take a detour and use the compassion to get you back in touch with the love like it's explained elsewhere that's the end of the chapter so let me fill it in because he says it very quickly at the end the the result of the meditation is love the process of the meditation is Rim is compassion that through arousing compassion on the plight of my soul and by extension on hasem himself who is connected to this whole situation I come to experience love of Hashem so the end result the end goal is it should put me in touch with more love of Hashem even though he's the one that created this situation yes that's true that's true and we could talk about that and it's a worthy discussion but in this context where we've already decided we it's like we're coming to the gym and the trainer is like okay here's where I want you to work out I want you to do 20 reps on this machine and we could discuss why we're even in a situation why we're at the gym and should we even be here and we could have that discussion but you know it's probably just better if the trainer says this is this is the workout we're doing so this is the workout and it's going to have certain results and that's that's really what we're here for to get those results so the results are that it's going to create more love of hasem yeah yes of course we could answer it of course we can answer also like in that chapter like and we can't explain that but but here's why I I don't want to get into that not only because an interest of time and also because I don't want to confuse people but why I don't why I don't want to talk about that is the same reason that you know when you said well how terrible is it for the soul to come down here and the end of the at the end of the day that's its whole purpose and it's like yeah you're right but hold on a second that's not the point right now and so when you bring in this concept here of well you know is has doing a bad thing to us really no it's it's you read AIA it's a descent for the sake of subsequent greater Ascent it's really a beautiful thing well I know it's a beautiful thing but now you just sort of undercut the ability to do this compassion exercise so yeah when we learned about chapter 45 the emphasis was on Pathos and tragedy so why weren't we spinning it differently that's a same thing the the pity of the soul is a pathetic situation it's a tragedy it's a tragedy yeah meaning it comes from a high place and takes a great fall okay at any rate so that's the chapter so yeah yeah yeah does the compassion turn to love you said you said that the comp like it ends with love but when did you do that like you were talking about compassion and feeling for the soul but in my mind I don't now I don't feel love all of a sudden well because you didn't do the meditation so you have like I'm saying it doesn't happen organically it does happen organically it happens organically you just didn't do it you learned it so that's why I said let's go through the chapter quickly and then let's actually do it okay because at the end you'll tell me whether it evokes any love in you okay so here's what we're going to do we're going to think about the soul I'm going to do this kind of quickly so we're going to take some shortcuts here when you think about the soul look it's very hard to think about ass soul but just think about an entity which has pure God Consciousness it knows nothing but the reality and truth that God is real God is everything it's not in any way troubled by any type of philosophical questions it has a very very clear understanding of reality and that reality is is just pure godliness and that situation is profoundly pleasurable as well and it's hanging out in this state which is timeless because it's in the spiritual Realms and it's very comfortable obviously it's like a fish being in water for a soul to be in heaven for a soul to bask in the Rays of Godly Revelation is the most natural thing the most comfortable thing and one day it gets a tap on the shoulder and they say put on a parachute you're jumping and it comes down to a body and immediately it feels incredibly stifled it feels like it's being constricted both the input and the output it can't see what it used to see anymore it's all covered up all of its spiritual sensitivity is being drowned out by you know imagine you're trying to hear a very very very important conversation life-changing information but it's being spoken in a whisper in the Next Room and in the meantime in the room that you're sitting in there are a 100 radios playing different channels at full blast think about that pain if you have sensory issues like me you know I didn't it doesn't even have to be 100 radios it could just be being in a public place yeah see the sacrifice that I undergo just coming out here but you guys are pretty good about being calm so I appreciate it um so but by the way the little soul is dealing with like real sensory issues because she's plunged into this world of this over stimulation all the the physical stimuli the sights and the sounds and the smells and everything and it's not what she wants she just wants to be purely connected to unmitigated God Consciousness the way she was for eternity and now that's all being covered up and it's very frustrating it's very frustrating okay so we're feeling the feeling we should be feeling now is compassion it's a very frustrating situation for this poor little Nish and maybe even in this physical world she sees things that are scary like people who do things that go against hashem's plan for this world and that's very frightening and now okay get ready you can handle it the host body that this soul is trapped in starts doing stuff that the Soul's very uncomfortable with whether it's actions or speech or even just thought in some ways thought can be the greatest torture for the soul because thought is the most intimate and action is the most extraneous is the most external but thoughts going on inside of you and that's where the soul is it's inside of you so she's being exposed to this movie and she doesn't want to be there and she can't close her eyes it's not comfortable for her okay so we're feeling compassion for this beautiful spiritual entity that's being subjected to this really painful scary experience all right and now we're going to up the ante we're going to reflect on the fact that this Soul even down here is Tethered Is Anchored In God himself and as it were by extension he is experiencing everything thing that the soul is experiencing he is undergoing this pain and this is called gas the Exile of God's presence he is experiencing the frustration and the the the the distraction and the the Fright of being in such a a world where godliness is not obvious and clear and this is a very painful very painful situation and our natural response should be that of compassion this is pitiful okay and now we think about that there is a there's a way out there is a way out there is a way to relieve the the pain and to bring the soul back to Oneness with its source and that is what we call the kisses and the Hogs which is Torah and Mitzvah the kisses is the mouth to mouth speaking hashem's words that's Torah the hug is the body to body being hashem's body being using your body to do his actions his hand becomes your hand when you give Saka when you engage in kindness and we're thinking about this feeling of reunion and the possibility of reunion and the accessibility of it that it's really accessible that there's nothing really preventing us as as awful as the situation is that we were just describing it and yet nothing can really stop us it's not like you know go become rich well I don't have control over that go become tall I I don't I don't have control over that but learn Torah do Mitzvah you can do that anytime anywhere even under the worst conditions nobody can stop you from that so we have this ability now to remove this whole terrible situation that was so tragic and we can make it all go away we can heal the whole situation by returning to Hashem through Torah and Mitzvah now the feeling that you should be feeling right now even though you may disagree with this categorization is love and you're going to say I'm not sure it's love well I can't promise you what you're feeling right now but let me tell you what it might and let me tell you why if that's what you're feeling it's actually love and maybe this is a better definition of love than what we're used to if you're feeling right now A motivation to be closer to Hashem if you're feeling like you know what there's a problem it needs a solution wow I I have that solution I want to go and engage in that Solution that's called motivation it's pushing you it's compelling you in a Direction that's that's what an emotion does an emotion is a an engine that pushes us in a direction well think about it it's not to go away from Hashem and by going away from hm I don't mean God forbid in Rebellion I mean sometimes in reverence we shrink away from Hashem in in awe we make ourselves smaller but this isn't backing away in reverence this is getting closer I mean it's described literally as kissing and hugging so it's real closeness here well what do you think Love Is Love is a feeling of motivation to seek out closeness so how did we come to that place of feeling motivation to seek out closeness we came to it through a side door called compassion we told the story of the plight of the Soul which by extension ultimately is the plight of Hashem himself and then we arrived at the feeling of the possibility of closeness that's that's the love