YOUR illusion of choice | Ten Minutes of Meaning | Tanya #29

Good morning and aka welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning as we make our way through Tanya together. A huge thank you for our generous sponsors Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Thank you for this and so much else. Please help yourself in the corner this morning. We have coffee and slushies and sufanote. Help yourself to a donate donut and celebrate Kaneka with us. We are on the sixth perva. We began last time by speaking about the animal soul. We've gone into and dissected. We've analyzed the different layers of the divine soul, the godly soul, the godliness that is inside each and every one of us. Made up of the 10 different spheros, three in thought and seven in midos and made up of the three garments that we wear speech, thought and of action. And the balata theba tells us that what's true for the godly soul is equally true because every we always have balance equally and opposite true for the animal soul that's inside us. And even though we didn't think about it, the animal soul has the same architecture as the divine soul. Three intellectual, seven which are emotional, and then the three garments in which it expresses itself. The animal soul in the world of free will and in the in the world of choice. Which brings us up to the second section of the sixth per. Second section of the sixth per. Now when you use these 10 impure powers, the animal soul inside us is the lowest and most base part of who we are. If the godly soul represents our sense of intellect, our capacity of cognition, our connection to the source and to the divine, the godly soul in us represents the ability to be sovereign, disciplined, self-control, to elevate and to empower everything. Then the animal soul is the opposite. The animal soul is the place of impulse, the place of instinct. The animal doesn't have self-awareness. The animal doesn't think. The animal doesn't consider the consequence. The animal just says drive. The animal wants to eat. It doesn't say, "Do I own this? Is it the right time in the right place? Is this appropriate or proper?" The animal just dives in and eats. The animal needs to eliminate what it ate. It doesn't say, "Is this appropriate? Is it modest?" The animal finds a tree or a bush or a patch of grass and the animal does what it wants to do. And similarly with everything about the animal, the animal acts on impulse. The animal acts on instinct. The animal is driven only by base desire. And that animal soul is inside us. And we live this tension, this conflict, this battle between the two parts of who we are, these two souls. And we need to understand the architecture of the animal soul. What makes it tick its drive in order to be able to not conquer it. As we've said now several times, the is that we're not trying to sh or destroy or purge or eliminate the animal soul. We're trying to train it. We're trying to elevate it. We're trying to transform it. So when you use these 10 impure powers of the animal soul in the world of thought, speech or action, in other words, when we speak, we could speak in a way we're expressing our divine soul. We could speak Torah, we could speak fela, we could offer compliments and praise, we could reach out, we can invite and welcome others, we could use the power of speech positively or we can scream, we can yell, we could be impatient, we can malign, we can marginalize, we could criticize, we can condemn, we can use profanity. The power of speech could be reflective of the animal impulse and the animal inside us. It can go in both directions. That's true for speech. It's true even for thoughts. Our thoughts can be elevated or our thoughts can bring us down. We can indulge our thoughts [snorts] to fantasize about the wrong things. Or we can or we can instead choose to direct thoughts in a way that are going to elevate and lift. And of course, it's true in the world of action. The thought in your brain that's in your mouth or the power of action in your hands or other limbs. Just like speech, thought, and action are external. They're the lavush. On the one hand, we wear them. On the one hand, we identify with them. They're a uniform. But on the other hand, we can take them off. We can disrobe from them. That was true for the godly soul and certainly it's also equally true for the animal soul is that the speech that we're offering or the actions that we're doing or even the thoughts inside our head are external and apart from the core and the essence of who we are and we've spoken a lot about in the past that we were surprised by thought. Speech and action we can understand as external but thought we saw it was something internal and part of the essence of who we are. The batan is mad. No, even thought is not the essential part of who we are. It's a lavush. It's a garment that we wear. We wear those thoughts, but they don't define us and they are not the same as us. So here the balan makes this major paradigm shift. Miller in his commentary points out in his commentary. Every commentary highlights this and points this out. We mentioned it last week. We alluded to it. Ordinarily we think of in the world of hala for example there's mut and rashus a cheeseburger is assur it's forbidden it's bad spiritually it's eating poison doing chabas gossiping and speaking lash we have a world of iser things that we are warned and cautioned we're not to do con consequences and accountability if we violate and they're forbidden they're asser and then we have a world of mitzvah The opposite of us are sorry is not mut mitzvah. The world of mitzvah is that there's inherently a value in doing this. So we light the minor each night. We're lighting the kanaka candles. We're saying hello this morning and that's a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah that we are performing a mitzvah that we're fulfilling. And ordinarily we think at least in the world of that there's a third category. There's forbidden there's mitzvah which is elevated and there's rishus. Rishus. Is it a mitzvah or is it user to eat a sufa? Now it could depend on your glucose level, could depend on your belt size. It could depend on your cardiac health. Could depend on a lot of things. It could be a mamish. Could be a could depend on your wife. Could be nefish for you. It could be mamish. If it's bad for your health and uh it's bad for everybody's health, but I mean that one particular donut could be particularly bad for your health, then it's in the category of aer. It's forbidden. It's forbidden. Is it a mitzvah? We justify it. We rationalize it. We convince ourselves of it. But it doesn't appear in that there's a mitzvah to have on on it doesn't appear. So we think of it as a dish. You walk by Shaya corner and you'll see the multi flavors of Sufani. Some of you have a little powder on your chin right now. I see. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to make an alam. So which which flavor? Jelly. Chocolate. Chocolate. Okay. Nice. So it's a you know it's a you can you don't have to. You go to sleep. Is that a mitzvah? Is that a daser? You uh you're reading the newspaper. We have a whole category of life and lifestyle which doesn't fit neatly into it's forbidden nor is it a mitzvah. It's a rash comes along the balata and he says no there are only two sides in this world. There's the side of God and there's the sitra. There's the dark side there's the other side. Everything we do in all three realms of thought speech and action we are either expressing ego or elocus. Take you back to the shabashadrasha. Shabbashiva Dasha this past year should really write it up as an article. Shabashiva Dasha was that our lives are either ego or elocus. It's about us, our happiness, our pleasure, our need, our honor. It's ego or we're living a life of elocus. What's my mission? What's my purpose? What's my essence? Now, you can eat ana you can eat a donut out of ego or out of elocus. Let's start with the easy one. You can eat a donut out of ego. I crave it. I have an appetite for it. I want it. I'm drawn to it. The sugar rush, the smell, the flavor, the deliciousness of it. It's my ego. I I I want it. I'm hungry. I need it. I want it. That's ego. You could also, the way you ate it, eat it out of elkus. I don't really want it. And I don't need it, but I'm doing it because I want to tap into Kaneka, the simka, the yontiff, the holiday, the happiness. I want to connect to the miracle. And I want to be maf, the little sugar still on my chin. All day everybody's going to say, "Oo, you had a success out of elocus." Now, how do you know if it's ego or elocus? That's hard. That's the battle of life. But notice that took one for the team. We thank you for it. Hope you had us in mind. The the um that they can't be with others. They have to they have to do it themselves. So the batani here says there's no third category called rashus. There is no neutral. There is no par. There is no rashus. There's no elective. There's just the good the light side and the dark side. The sitra and the elocus the ego or the elocus. That's how describes it in says he writes the sitra is the cabalistic term for evil. But the words literally mean the other side. That is not the side of holiness. In other words, on the most basic level, there are two aspects to reality. Holiness and the other side. The domain of halaka contains a broad realm known as rashus, neither virtuous nor sinful that lies between divinely commanded and divinely aos. However, in the cabalistic division of reality, there is no middle ground. Nothing is neutral. Anything that does not actively relate to God is automatically of the other side. There cannot be anything that does not relate positively or negatively to God. The world of holiness is a world of unity. A world that manifests the truth that ano there is nothing but him. The concept of God as the inf does not merely imply he's infinitely great but he is the infinite being. Be being without limit and without definition being that embraces everything. So there can be nothing else. In contrast, the other side is rooted in the world of disunityity in which the light of the infinite is not manifest. So the exclusive reality of God is not recognized. Thus the essence of sitra a is that there is something else besides sim in its initial most basic form. The other side does not deny the existence of holiness nor is it hostile to it. It merely designs to define holiness confine it to a set of parameters. It's willing to accept the existence of a lofty and superior realm. What it does not accept is the exclusivity of holiness. In other words, the sra says you said hollow. You put on fillin beautiful. Sure there's holiness. Sure there's godliness. But there's also the donut. There's also your boy, there's [snorts] also your ego. That's the sitra speaking. Whereas the side of godliness says, "No, God is here. He's there. He's everywhere. God is in everything. And our mission, our task is to find it. He's in everything we eat and everything we drink. He's in every time we fall asleep. He's in everything we choose to read or watch. He's in every conversation. He's in every thought that we have. With all that we do and with everything that we are, we face a choice. There is no rish. There's no power. There's no neutral. There's no indifference. Everything neatly fits into either the the godliness or the the animal or the ego consciousness. It is these thoughts, words and actions of the animal soul that constitute all the things that are done under the sun which are empty and strain of spirit. In other words, the ego, the animal soul says, "This succ." See, the godly soul knows that all there really is is eternity and immortality. All there is is the infinite. And how can we connect and attach everything in this world to the infinite? Whereas the sitra, the other side says, "No, yes, there's also the infinite and there's also the eternal." But the here and now is pretty good, too. Enjoy a little bit of here and now. Have that thought, have that image, act out in that way, look at that thing, eat that thing, pursue that thing, express that laziness. The sitra, this other side says there's infinite and there's eternal, but the here and now is pretty good, too. And there's another side. There's a sitra and that's the battle. The sitra inside us versus the ego or elocus or godliness or godliness. Which one will will out win out? Which one will define us? Which one will be who we who we are? Just to drop more not only to actions also any ostensibly neutral spoken word or thought while not religiously forbidden are not consciously directed towards God to fulfill his will or his worship. It means that speech too. If you're talking about narish kite, if you're speaking nothingness, certainly if you're talking lash, if you're speaking gossip, then you're violating then you're in the world of is forbidden. But even if you're just speaking about nothingness, but if you're not connecting that to the infinite, if there's no godliness in it, if that speech is not connecting you and bonding you to others, it's not elevating you, it doesn't have substance to it, then it's not a locus. It's not a locus. So it's not only the world of action which fits only into two not into three. It's the world [clears throat] of speech and it's the world of thought. This is to be clear. This is an incredibly high level to live by. This is not easy. All of your waking moments all of your consciousness to be present and mindful. Am I ego or elocus? But it's an amazing excellent barometer. I'm about to post something online. I'm about to purchase something. I'm about to share something. I'm about to do something. to ask ourselves and sometimes to ask our cabinet around us who will be more honest than we are with ourselves. Why do I want to do this? Is this ego or elocus? What's driving me? Why do I want to post this? Why do I want to buy this? Why do I want to go there? Why do I want to tell everyone about this? What is driving me to do this? Is that coming from ego or is it coming from elocus? That paradigm, that model, that metric to measure what we're doing. Why am I saying this right now? Why am I doing this right now? Why am I eating this right now? To be able to stop, pause, and ask ourselves. And if it doesn't fit into elocus, we're not perfect, but at least know that it's ego. At least understand that we're battling and that this world word world room for improvement. So that's a way to live by. And the balan is going to continue with this. And hashem will pick it up from here next week. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. and Sonica.