Knowing Yourself, Inside and Out

all right let's talk about who we are for the longest time maybe most of history human beings who were thoughtful and uh responsible and mature understood that they have an option they have free choice you can be good or you can be bad you can be beautiful and you can be ugly you can be high idealistic or you can be low greedy and selfish those were the options and in judaism that was known as the yate sahara and the yates atov good inclination and the evil inclination one side of me wants to be good and the other side wants to be bad so what were the choices good bad ugly or beautiful high or low constructive or destructive so good people intelligent people chose to do things that are constructive that are helpful that make your life better that make your relationships better productive and people who were not so good did things that were not so productive more destructive and caused lots of problems for themselves and for others the result was that we lived our lives based on reward and punishment if i do this will it reward me will it make me smarter stronger more popular more lovable that's the reward and then there's the punishment if i do bad things ugly things lowly things the punishment is going to be i'm going to be less popular i'm going to be less lovable i'm going to be less respected that's it that's life that's all of life and even when we discovered psychology and we found out the deeper layers of who we are we only discovered that we care about these things a lot more than we thought and if you're not popular it may bother you a little bit in your mind but it bothers you a lot subconsciously but the issue was the same came along and said that's not really what you should be worried about and that's not really who you are there's something much prettier much more elegant much more worthy of life and that is that you have actually two souls that's who you are it's not you could be good you could be bad that that has more to do with your behavior sure you can behave well or you can behave badly that doesn't tell you who you are in other words to tell a person you are the option of right or wrong good or bad you can be good you can be bad that's it that's who i am being bad is part of who i am so i'm half good and half bad i'm half beautiful and half ugly that can't be that can't be a description of me i'm capable of being good and i'm capable of being bad but who am i so chasidus came beginning with the altar about 200 years ago and he said you know this is not a good definition and it's not really the primary struggle in life to be good or to be bad you know you tell your children when they're very young bad is bad don't be bad be good that should be enough for the rest of their lives to spend your entire life trying to not be bad first of all that's a little depressing at every moment i could be bad and i have to be careful not to be bad that makes me pretty bad if that's my definition it's discouraging and it's confusing because you know you can be bad one minute and good the next minute now who am i really seems a little schizophrenic who's the real me and if the real me is bad that's really wow that's that's seriously depressing because it's not true you can do bad that's how talented you are but who are you you're not half good and half bad that's way too negative another thing good and bad if it matters to you where does it affect you you say to a child you're a bad boy where's where is the effect on the child on his emotions good and bad is kind of an emotional issue because bad is a little scary and good is a little comforting it's an emotional issue ugly and beautiful that's an emotional issue if i'm ugly i'm depressed and sad and if i'm beautiful i'm optimistic and i'm and i'm proud reward and punishment is certainly an emotional thing when you tell somebody you're going to get punished where does it touch the person in his emotions so all of life the way it was before the altar all of life was lived on an emotional level what appeals to your emotions or what scares your emotions the alternative lifted us into a much more beautiful identity the alternative says you have two souls what is a soul [Music] a soul is an energy and an excitement when you have two souls you have two excitements two kinds of excitement and what is excited if you understand human human beings what's excited is either your pleasure or your will you're excited in that you want something or your intelligence you understand something and it's exciting or your feelings you love something and that's exciting or you hate something that's exciting too takes a lot of energy and then there's your behavior so you can be excited to do something you can be excited to say something and you can be excited to think something so now what is a soul a soul is that energy that excites either your pleasure or your will or your mind or your heart or your behavior or all of the above if we say that we have two souls i mean this is really amazing two souls means i have two energies that excite my pleasure and my will and my intelligence and my emotions and my behavior one of the souls is godly which means it gets excited to godly pleasure godly will godly wisdom godly emotions and godly behavior that's a totally godly person because with those with those aspects of your of your of your soul you're a complete person so the godly soul is a complete person and then there's the human soul human soul is an excitement also pleasure will wisdom emotions and behavior but in the human soul it's all human pleasure human will human intelligence human emotions and human behavior so now who are you you are a being that can choose between being human or being godly of course you're capable of of being bad you're capable of sinning that's not who you are that's one of the capabilities but who are you you are on the on the crossroad on the on the on the choice you're standing always on the choice between human and godly not between good and bad bad is not part of who you are you are either human or godly there's the human part of you there's the godly part of you to put it in simple words what is the difference between my human part and my godly part my human part is selfish it's always about me i gotta be me what's best for me how do i protect myself all about me the godly soul is all about a mission what am i here for what am i supposed to accomplish who am i supposed to help who created me and why that's the godly soul so for example the human soul takes great pleasure in doing a good job and earning a big check did well you're a mensch you're a successful human being the godly soul gets pleasure when he can give that money away to someone who needs it more so in simple language the human soul is about yourself and your godly soul is about who you can help and how you can make the world better by by serving the purpose for which you exist so the level says you really should put all your energy into your godly soul because if you put all your energy into your human soul you will become a really decent human being a fantastic human being an impressive human being but when you become a really fantastic impressive human being you will suddenly ask yourself what was that all for yes i worked hard and i succeeded people think highly of me i get respect people like me i'm great but what for what for what i do all this for so it sounds something like this i i am born i have to grow up i have to accomplish something i have to help myself i gotta develop myself i've got to become something and i've got to protect myself a lot and i do all of that successfully so i've protected myself and i've gotten everything i need and i lived up to my human potential wonderful but then you have this question what was that for so what it's like you're born a human being you work hard at being a human being you're successful as a human being and then then what seems like a dead end i tell you a little story her illustration this guy says to god you know i worked hard all my life i'm trying my best i'm struggling i'm doing everything and and i have no life i i have twenty dollars in my pocket and that's all i have no life give me a life so god says you have twenty dollars yeah give me the twenty dollars and i'll give you a life so the man says okay well but if i give you the twenty dollars i won't have money to put gas in my car god says you have a car give me the car and give me the twenty dollars and i'll give you a life the man says okay but but if i give you my car how am i gonna get to work god says oh you have a job give me the job give me the car give me the twenty dollars and i'll give you a life so the man says okay but wait if i give you my job how am i gonna be able to pay the mortgage god says you have a house give me the house give me the job give me the car give me the twenty dollars and i'll give you a life so the man says all right but well if i give you the house where will my family live and god says you have a family give me the family give me the house give me the job give me the car give me the twenty dollars and i'll give you a life the guy says okay gives it all to god then god says here here's twenty dollars here's a car here's a job here's a house here's a family now you have a life so what happened here a guy is complaining i have no life it turns out that he does have a life so what was he complaining about he didn't realize that he has a life how does that happen how can a person who has a life feel like he doesn't have a life so instead of going through that whole that whole spiel with the twenty dollars in the car and god should have said i'll heal your brain and you'll realize that you have a life person who has a life still needs to know what that life is for what's the point what's the purpose i have a family i have a job a house i have a job i have a car and i have cash and then so what what is it all for that's your godly soul asking so your human soul is content the man knows that he's a mensch but he doesn't understand what the whole thing was for what is the purpose let's put it in different words we all know what works and what doesn't work we know what makes us healthy what makes us sick we know what makes us happy and what makes us miserable we know what works we know what gives us pleasure what gives us pain we know that if you live a life absolutely perfect which means you always do what gives you pleasure you never do anything that gives you pain you always do what makes you more successful never what makes you a failure you always do what works never what doesn't work you would be a perfect human being but you're living on a totally emotional level what works means what feels right so your whole life is feelings this feels good this feels bad this feels important this feels unimportant it's all feeling a human being who is intelligent is never happy with that because the intelligence is asking for something different never mind what works tell me why even if it works why do why do i have to do it why do i have to make my life work because it could also fail well i don't understand the whole point so god makes you a human being and says you can either succeed or fail i don't like that what's the point i succeed in order not to fail i'm living my life out of fear fear of failure of rejection of disease of punishment it's too emotional i need some intelligence that explains why i'm here what's the point where what am i accomplishing by being a successful human being so this is who we really are we are created human but we can also become godly let's put it in different words when a kid is in a bad mood and you ask him to do something it has become very common for a kid to say leave me alone i didn't ask to be born clean up your room i didn't ask to be born get dressed in time for the bus and get to school on time i didn't ask to be born what is that reaction i didn't ask to be born he's not he's not necessarily depressed he's just stating a a simple fact i didn't ask to be born actually nobody asks to be born so if your kid ever says to you i didn't ask to be born you should say neither did i i didn't ask to be born either so then let's sit down together and figure out how this mess happened we didn't ask to be born but we are born so what's going on see it doesn't make sense if i didn't ask to be born it means i never promised to do anything i never signed any contract i never made any kind of an agreement so why do i have to get up and go to school why do i have to clean up the room i didn't ask to be born how did i suddenly become responsible for things it's a very good question and religiously the question is god creates me without asking me and i didn't ask to be born and i don't want to be born and i don't need to be born but god puts me into this world and says if you don't behave yourself i'm gonna punish you hey hey what kind of deal is that what kind of deal is that it's like somebody invites you to a very expensive restaurant and orders the most expensive food and then tells you to pay for it and if you don't pay for it you're going to jail so whoa what happened here so imagine you're invited to this very expensive restaurant and while you're there at the restaurant you are a perfect human being you eat like a mensch you sit like a mensch you talk like a mensch you do everything right you're such an impressive person and then they say okay you paid a bill all of a sudden being an impressive human being is beside the point so what if you're a good person so what if you sat like a mench and ate like a mensch you even made abraha before and you benched after so what why do i have to pay the bill that's your godly soul your human soul tells you to sit like a mensch and eat like a man to talk like a man but your godly soul says i didn't ask for any of this so why do i have to pay the bill in simple language being a successful human being is not enough so we spend all the years every waking moment worrying am i a mention am i good am i beautiful am i successful am i popular and what if the answer is yes to all of the above then then then you're okay good enough it's not good enough usually people realize this when they retire when they're old today children are realizing this at 10 or 11 years old they're already saying i didn't ask to be born which is a very very good question so fine i'll clean up my room i still don't know why i was born so i'll go to school and i'll get good grades i'll get a good report card and i'll even get into the best college i still don't understand why i was born so the only the only source of knowledge that can answer the question why am i here why was i born the only place to get an answer to that is in your godly soul because your godly soul just wants to do whatever it whatever the reason for its existence in this world whatever mission the soul is supposed to accomplish by being born that's all the godly soul ever thinks about there's one other way of thinking about it the human soul chooses what works the godly soul wants to know what's true i know what's good but that's not the same as true it's good to be healthy it's good to be successful it's good to be rich it is it's good and it's good to be kind and decent and honest all good but is that true what's true when we ask for example which is the true religion there are so many religions and they all say they're true but which one is true so let's say just hypothetically if you follow any religion you're going to be a good person unless the religion teaches you to hate but again hypothetically any religion is going to tell you to be moral to be good to be smart to be so now you want to know which is the true religion why do you care what difference does it make whether something is true as long as it works what else do you need as long as it works your human soul will be content but your godly soul is still going to ask but what's the truth the purpose for which we exist that's the truth behind everything if there is no purpose if we were not created for any particular reason then there is no truth it's whatever works you know we're trying to evolve we're part of the evolution process so you try to evolve as successfully as possible survival of the fittest what's true nothing's true they're just things that work and things that don't work the godly soul is not content with what works i worked very hard and i succeeded i don't know why i went through that whole thing i don't know why i was born i don't know why i had to work and i don't know what to do with my success so now what that's why rich people get depressed more than poor people because a rich person already accomplished what works now what the poor person is still very busy trying to find what works so do you want to know yourself here is who you really are you can be practical and successful as a human being or you can be idealistic and find the truth of why you exist in the first place and that's called serving the purpose fulfilling the purpose for which you exist that's serving your creator your creator has a reason for you to exist so if you fulfill that reason you are serving him you are becoming godly and you are fulfilling the purpose for which you exist but here's the final clincher the difference between the human soul and the godly soul the human soul always feels needy i need this i need that i have to have some of those i have to have some of these i need to get here i need to go there i need to see this and i need to see that it's so needy i need friends and i need approval and i need therapy and i need pills and i need any drugs i just need and need a need endlessly that's the human condition the godly condition is i am needed by my family i am needed by my community i am needed by my creator i am needed by the universe because without me the universe won't be complete and so i'm always busy serving doing what i am needed for so the human soul is needy the godly soul knows that it is needed that's our choice in life good and bad shouldn't be a daily choice once in a while you'll be tempted to be bad but that's the exception that's the embarrassing part i'm not always on the verge of sinning the choice every day is am i going to act needy like a human being or am i going to fulfill what i am needed for and serve a greater purpose those are your two souls and that's who you are it's a much nicer picture much much more complementary you

Channel: Rabbi Manis Friedman

Views: 22,294

Keywords: education, educational, training, torah, judaism, chabad, advice, religion, how to, which religion in china, judaism beliefs, judaism definition, manis friedman, rabbi manis friedman, life

Id: 0Jnv_WrrDdc

Length: 35min 50sec (2150 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020