“Chochmah is the first of the Three Mothers, the three faculties (along with rational understanding and integrative knowledge) that compose your intellect (seichel). Chochmah is not reserved for the righteous but is given freely to all, even the foolish and inhumane. The challenge is not to earn wisdom, but to access the wisdom already inside you.” From Tanya, the Masterpiece of Hasidic Wisdom
Tag: Tanya
Control your actions
“You can achieve the level of inbetweener at any moment for it does not require you to despise your passions, only to control your actions – to turn from evil and do good” in your deeds, speech and thought.” pg49
Interesting to me that deeds are first, then — speech, then thought. Our mind salivates thoughts without our control – we can work to control our attention – we can work to attend to certain thoughts, but thoughts will come and go and some we want, many we don’t. We can control our actions. We can control our speech.
You can unite your body, heart and mind to be dedicated to G-d’s Way/Will. If your deepest wish is to unit with G-d it means emanating compassion, joy, enthusiasm, truth, order, kindness. If you act out of accord with G-d’s Will, you feel it and you will be separated from G-D. The egoic shell arises from the animal self working hard to protect and “feed” itself and consequently it stays divided from Oneness through these self satisfying and selfish acts. The yetzer ha-ra justifies all actions that require hiding, lying, cheating others etc.
“Selfishness arises from a sense of fear and scarcity. Fear and scarcity arise from the egoic shell of self-isolation (kelipat nogah) And this egoic shell arises from sitra achra (state of mind), the other side of G-d, the side that sees only the many and denies the One and the very possibility of unity. ” pg 48
Tanya, the Masterpiece of Hasidic Wisdom by Rabbi Rami Shapiro