Your True Self
by Margaret Jang

Within the sanctity of your inner being,
is your true self, a part that remains unseen.
A quietness, surrounded by joy and peace,
filled with calmness, hidden until you seek.


It's uncluttered by your future or your past,
only the "now", the "present", is what lasts.
Your true self is eternal and must grow
to new heights, your soul already knows.


For you to reach this sacred state of mind,
release ego and the poisons that it finds.
Then surrender; trust in what you truly feel,
but be aware to what is and isn't real.


Integrity will guide you on your quest,
let truth prevail to help you act your best.
If you can overcome the need to prove or win,
then you will find your true self deep within.


And when united with your inner self,
you will find there is no greater wealth.
Eternity is real and so very divine,
once your true self reveals itself to shine!

sometimes,after losing a batte,I feel this way.

Sacred Scars

by Elizabeth Manuel

The darkness claws at my hope
pierces my joy

Light appears in flashes
then quickly disappears.

My soul bleeds from the
battle

leaving only scars,
sacred scars.

The Trouble Tree 


Author Unknown 


The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

"Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied." I know I can't help having troubles on the job, but one thing's for sure, troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again."

He paused. "Funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning to pick 'em up, there ain't nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."

Beautiful 

Yechida,
the poem you posted in theone's thread, really spoke to me . thanks!

Thank You TrYing

may you be happy , healthy , and well

and may you have very little to hang on that trouble tree

Tanya 26 - part 7

Another illustration why the hidden world is darkness when it comes into our revealed world.

A brilliant teacher and his student.

The teacher is too brilliant. He is a genius. The only way for the student to understand, the brilliant teacher has to contract his wisdom, limit it, give parables and metaphors, so that the student can understand.

For years and years, the brilliant teacher teaches his student this way.

And the student understands everything.

Then comes a time, that the teacher, because he loves his student  so much, wants to reveal his essence to his beloved student, the deepest part of himself.

So the teacher removes the limits, the metaphors, the contractions,and delivers a brilliant lecture, coming from his deepest self, all his sheer brilliance coming forth, the most profound secrets, the greatest intimate wisdom. All this he pours out to his beloved student.

After the lecture, the student exclaims:

I DID NOT UNDERSTAND A WORD!!

Of course not.

Because the teacher gave of himself his deepest transcendental self, so to the student this appeared as BAD, destructive, it mixed him up, he cannot understand that world because the student is from a much lower world. like one of us attending a lecture from the Arizal. We know we would treasure the experience. But we would not understand a thing.

So how could you accept this incomprehensible dark world with Simcha?

Practically impossible.

Unless, we speak of a human being to whom NEARNESS TO HASHEM IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD. and the nearness to Hashem is infinitely greater in the hidden worlds than in this revealed worlds. And being near to Hashem is so dear to him that he rejoices that he has a deep relationship with Hashem within these hidden worlds. though it appears to him dark.

We clearly are not on this level. We are not expected to be like Reb Zusha who was astonished that the Maggid sent a Yid to him to learn how to be happy amidst suffering. Reb Zusha was astonished. I cannot understand why the Maggid sent you to me. I have never experienced suffering. This is a Yid who was sick, poor, walls and roof caving in, arely anything to eat and he was happy. Me? I have never suffered.

We are not Reb Zusha.

The Tanya recognizes this.

We do not and probably cannot see the world like Reb Zusha did.

This is Good

This is Bad.

We cannot fake it and pretend that what we see as bad is not bad.

But we are taught that we can still accept that bad with joy.

Pain is lonely.

Very very lonely,

Why?

Because it comes from a very lonely place.

Yoshev B’sayser Elyon.

It is sad, It is negative. No one is saying that it is not so.

But no one at all has such a deep personal relationship with Hashem as someone in pain.

And that is something to rejoice about.

That deep personal relationship.

Before the fact, we would rather have told Hashem “NO,THANK YOU-I’LL PASS ON THAT DEEPER RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU THAT COMES FROM THAT LONELY HIDDEN PLACE”-Please let me love You from the standpoint of the revealed world, with revealed good, shining upon me in a open revealed good way.because the infinitely deeper connection appears dark to me.

But after the fact, you now know that you are alone with Hashem

And that is why you rejoice.

yechida wrote on 29 Dec 2009 16:02:

Dear Yechida - I love this piece so much because, to me, Hashem is the Teacher and He is gifting us with the galui, the nistar, and the totally ne'elam, constantly. The Maor vaShemesh calls "sisrei Torah" the stuff that you cannot even teach to one student who is hagun, because it's stuck inside you and you can't express it al all. It's the real deal, because while He gives us through the partzufim and olamos, He is still totally beyond. And we have our truest  relationship with Him because He is totally ne'elam and yet still here. Period. Atzmuso Yisborach, Whom we speak to.
And perhaps no one knows that pain of seperation in togetherness the way that an addict does. ("We so much want to be a part of, yet we are forever apart from" - Chuck C.)
Oy! Ashreinu! Ashreinu!

dov-"pain of separation in togetherness"-so hard to explain in words

and here is a small portion of a radio transcript from www.meaningfullife.com (a short lived radio show back in 2000,hosted by R Jacobson,the brother of the one who gave the Tanya shiur)

So let’s go to Joe, on the air.

Caller: You know, you said to make yourself feel happy you should take care of your insides. What do you do about the Holocaust?

Jacobson: Well, what do you do?

Caller: I asked you the question. I tell you why I asked. During the War, I was in France. You know in 1944, the French were ambivalent, they weren’t like the other people. Some were turning the Jews in and some were hiding them. They hid a bunch of Jews, and there was a German battalion in the area. We were in the area and I happened to be investigating, doing “point,” and I heard noises. I thought they were Nazis so I slammed open the door and I was ready to shoot, and I found about 20 people there.

Now, the captain said to me, “Leave them there.”

I said, “No, I have to take them. Give me a break. Let me take them to the rear.

He didn’t want to let me take them to the rear. And this bothers me to this day.

Jacobson: So you did leave them there?

Caller: No. The captain walked away and there was a back road there—there were a lot of roads there—and I took them about 2-3 miles away from the front and told them which way to go and they would find either a Jewish organization or the French underground, they would find somebody who would save them. I wouldn’t leave them there. I was fighting for America but I certainly wasn’t going to turn my back on Jews.

Jacobson: Well, Joe, you’re a hero.

Caller: I’m not a hero. Any Jewish guy would have done that. And I think the captain knew I did it. He had to give me orders to stay because we were in line, we were very close to the Germans, we were exchanging fire, we were having gunfights. He had to do what he had to do, and I had to do what I had to do.

But you still didn’t answer my question.

Jacobson: I appreciate your telling me the details. First of all, your call brings me joy. Because anyone like you who’s alive and thank G-d who’s healthy and who behaved in that fashion as you just described, has to lift our spirits. Because despite the entire darkness of the Holocaust … you know, I remember once hearing from an atheist who was debating a Holocaust survivor, and he was saying, “How could you still have faith after the Holocaust?” Can you imagine, this guy had the nerve—he didn’t even live through the Holocaust—and in his own philosophical mind he was challenging a Holocaust survivor?

And the Holocaust survivor turned to him and looked him straight in the eye and said, “You know, I’ll tell you what the Holocaust taught me. I lost my faith in man and I regained my faith in G-d. I realized I cannot depend on men and human beings.”

Joe, what you just described, yes it’s true, the Holocaust is a source of sadness that is a bottomless pit, and as much as we could talk about it, there’s no way that I’m going to explain the Holocaust here, and I’m not even interested in justifying it. It’s a source of deep sadness, not just for Jews but for the entire human race that allowed such a blemish and allowed such an atrocity to occur—it’s human beings at their worst.

However, when you hear a story like your own, Joe, and how you behaved, and I’m sure it’s consistent with your life following the war as well, that’s a source of joy that means that there is hope—even in a jungle, there is hope. I have no other words to say. The only other thing that I can say about the Holocaust in general is, we do not understand the mysterious ways of life and death. I have no answer for the Holocaust, yet we have two options, as I once heard a person who really suffered serious trauma (he lost his wife and was left with many little children), say, “I could either sink, go under, or dig deeper, and I decided to dig deeper.” So we have two options.

The Holocaust can be a source of an unbelievable pain if we dwell on it. That such a thing could have happened is simply unbelievable. It can’t get worse than that.

However, to dwell on it in that way is actually bringing upon ourselves a second Holocaust, creating an unproductive life where we’re only dwelling upon the negative.”

I’d love to be able to share with my children, and share on the air here, a story like yours, Joe. A story of thousands of others who came out of the Holocaust with renewed faith and who rebuilt their lives. Even though the scar will always remain a prominent one—particularly for Jews, but for all people—at the same, it’s not a contradiction.

You know, Rashi, a commentator on the Torah, says an interesting thing: you can mourn and grieve, and at the same time, as time passes, you celebrate. That doesn’t mean that you forget the loss, it just means that there’s a certain resilience, a certain power, that faith has that allows us to grow, and in a way, pain and grief can be transformed into a catalyst for growth.

If we in any way can sanctify the memory of the Holocaust victims, the way to do it is not to bring upon ourselves a Holocaust and say, “Look how terrible life is.” If we can, in their memory and in their spirit, we should be inspired to be a better people and inspired to never allow such a thing to ever happen again. To cry out at injustices as they happen today, as you, Joe, did. To save people who are in situations of a mini-Holocaust. (There are children living today whose homes are almost a Holocaust environment.)

If that memory inspires us, then what we’ve done is transformed tears and sadness into joy. So joy isn’t a type of na?ve, glassy-eyed blindness to the realities of life. There are many causes and reasons for being in pain and sadness. At the same time, there’s a firm belief and faith that there’s a G-d, and a human being has a soul, and the spirit will rise.

And stories like yours, Joe, will inspire us that way. I don’t know if it’s a complete answer to your question; however, it’s as much as I can say without getting into the whole discussion of why a good G-d would allow bad things to happen. So again, I thank you for your call.

Start With Yourself 
Author Unknown 


When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But, it too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed my self first, then by example I would have changed my family.

Anger  by Joe Fazio

 

  Anger, a spark, within all of us.
There, anger is lurking, waiting to
ignite the dynamite, that will
cause an explosion of words,
and actions, that can not be taken back.

Anger, is the roadblock, to anything
and everything, worthwhile in life.

Anger, seemingly an involuntary reaction,
to rejection of thought or action.

Anger, an interpretation, of unacceptable behavior.

Anger, almost always followed by regret.

Anger, an emotion. who's children are,
anxiety, fear, frustration, animosity, passion,
outrage and a thousands of other, emotionally
affecting articulations.

Anger, the replacement of reason.

What is the enemy of anger? The
enemy of anger, is, patience, understanding
and love.

Anger, the emotion, the world would be
far better off, without.

Love & Pain...Are You  by Joe Fazio

 
 
  You are the Pain and the joy,
on the stage of life.

You are the pain, when your are distant
from me and you are the joy in my
memories of you.

You are the pain, when your touch I
can not feel and you are the joy,
as I hold you near.

You are the pain, when tears you
have caused and you are the joy, for the
laughter in my life.

You are the pain, when indifference enters
our life and you are the joy, when you
place me before others.

You are the pain, when you busy life, has
little time for me and you are the joy,
when there is just us.

You are the pain, as you seek that which
glitters in life and you are the joy,
as you are immersed, in the makings of God.

You are the pain, when angered and abrupt
and you are the joy when seeking
to make amends.

You are the pain, when anger is your
roadblock to reason and you are the
joy, when you step back and seek
a solution.

You are the pain, in your compulsives and singleness
of purpose, to be successful...and you are
a joy, when you blanket those you
care for, with love.

You are the pain, when impatience leads you down
an uncertain path and you are the joy, as you
carefully plot a pragmatic course.

You are the pain, when you listen...but
do not hear and you the joy, when
patient and understanding.

You are the pain, when other matters,
substitute our love, and you are the joy,
when we are fused together as one.

You the a pain, in our spirited
disagreements, and you are
the joy, as you say, I love you.

The lesson we know well, that in
this life, there is no joy, unless
there is pain.

Show Me Proof  by Joe Fazio

 


  There are those that would say, 'show
me proof of this God you speak, for I
can not see Him. And I say to you;
Can you see the air that fills your lungs?
Can you see the perfumed scent of flowers,
that pleasures you so? Can you see the love
you feel for another? Can you see the
wonderment within you, as you hold your
newborn child? And what of the joy that
fills your heart, or the sorrow you feel but
can not see? Now do you say, they are not,
for I can not see them?

God is revealed unto us in all that is good.
He is love, compassion, forgiveness and
understanding. It is In these gifts from Him,
that we were born unto His likeness. It is by
using those gifts that we shall be
returned to Him.

What Is True Love? 

by Joe Fazio
 
 

  True love, is when one wants more for those they love,
then they would want for themselves.

Love, in its purest form, means, that you want
more for those you love, then you do for
yourself. That you care for those you love,
more than you care for yourself.

Can anyone truly love another without
feeling this way? I think not.
When one loves another, there is not the least hesitation
in putting that person first. With little regard for ones
personal feelings, or desires, love compels you
to put the one who is loved...first.

Human frailties become an integral part of love. I
like so many others, at times, are blinded by
'what we want' as opposed to what our loved
ones need from us. Occasionally, if this happens,
on an infrequent basis, it is not really selfish, self indulgent
or uncaring, it's simply being what we are. Human.

They have been times when one finds themselves doing
just that, and then in reflection, one shall always regret
it. One must try, as much as humanly possible, to put those you
love, before the trivial wants of yourself. After all, when
one truly reflects on most of their wants, are they not
really just that? Trivial.

Love keeps the sprit and soul alive and without ones
love ones, their being, their sprit, their soul, would surely
perished, in relationship to any true existence.

One must find the power to harness any moments of
anger and remember that anger is the roadblock
to all that is worthwhile and meaningful in life.

Seek the ability, to sprinkle the goodness
within you and to make your loves ones life
better...because you are. Have the wisdom
to know, that if your want to change the world for the better,
it starts with all of us, by our being better.

May you have patience and understanding. The more
fortunate among us, have the kind of love, that fills the
empty spaces and solitary moments of life.

May He watch over and bless you and yours.

Tanya 26-part 8

Rav Jacobson related this story.

He had a friend who lost his wife at a very young age.

Left 11 children

Youngest was 3 months old

Oldest was 14 years old

This was in 1986

In the late 90’s,this Yid spoke by a Sheva Berachos of one of the children which was also the day before his wife’s Yahrziet.

(again , remember what we learned in a previous post. A professor cannot speak this way in a detached lecture. but this Yid paid a dear price. He lost his beloved wife at a very young age. He can speak and he we could listen to. He is not talking down to us. He is talking from personal experience)

This is what he said.

When tragedy striked,and I lost my wife ,leaving me with our 11 children behind,there were 2 choices.

1-you can tell Hashem the following

“YOU BUSTED ME,I’LL BUST YOU.YOU PLAYED WITH ME,I’LL PLAY WITH YOU.GOODBYE.GOODBYE GOD,GOODBYE WORLD,GOODBYE TRUST”

And you leave, and no one can blame you for doing this. you paid a price. you can do this.

But it’s not the real thing.

We are taught all along that Hashem is a true friend to us.
He is good to us, He loves us, He is our ally.
So as long as life is good , no problem.
OK , a fever here, an ache here, once in a while the care doesn’t start, no problem.
But then your best friend BUSTS you.

You are in shock.
I THOUGHT  you were my friend.
And you SCREWED me.
It’s over.
And your heart turns into stone.

Or you can dig deeper.
A human being freind can betray you
God cannot betray you.
Never.
So you dig deeper.
You create a relationship with Hashem on a deeper level.
Discover his friendship here.
And this requires a lot of work.
In the beginning it takes almost superhuman effort.
But you are loyal to yourself.
You do not allow this to become a cover-up.

And this is what the father said.

You cannot help a person in pain unless you are emotionally there-not just intellectually there.

Words alone will not help at all.
Because words are a product of the revealed world,not the hidden world.
You can talk and talk and talk and talk-it’s just plain insensitive .
You cannot touch or help your friend in pain with mere words.
He is in his personal Holy of Holies with Hashem.
You cannot go in.
Unless you feel that hidden world yourself.
Only then can you comfort,
Only then can you help him heal.

So my friends, who feel trapped in a terrible darkness, that sometimes is so deep that you can scream and yell and fight and rail and cry and smash you head into walls,why did You put me in this place, or even more brutally honest, why did you let ME put ME into this place, where I feel trapped day in and day out, night in and night out, a world of endless pain,where I see no escape,no door to light and warmth and true joy.?

Dig deeper.

Create a freindship with Hashem there 

.And you will see you are no longer “there”

You are with Him now.

There is nothing more deep or more precious than that.

The Mendicant 
Anthony De Mello 


When I think how long I have lived
I am struck by life's injustice:
others have lived much less
(I think of some I have known),
some have been given less than an hour of life.

I recall my childhood
and the various stages of my growth.
I have been blessed, indeed, beyond anything
I expected or deserved!

I think of the experiences that life has given me
- happy ones that filled my heart,
painful ones that helped me grow -

Of the discoveries I have made...

Of the persons I was privileged to meet...

And of my talents and abilities,
of sight
and hearing,
smell and taste and touch
and mind and will and memory
and the limbs and organs of my body.

If I were to die today
I should certainly have had more than my fair share
of life's blessings.
Whatever else life has in store for me is an added gift
quite undeserved.

Having accepted this, I make myself aware of the fact
that I have another day of life to live and relish.
I see myself go through the morning,
the afternoon,
and evening,
and accept my good luck gratefully.

I think of the person who to me is the dearest
of all who are alive today,
of how he or she has enriched my life.

Tomorrow I may lose her...
such is life's fragility.

And if I did, I should have no cause for complaint.
I have had her for so long,
God knows I had no right to her for a single hour.
Life has been unjust:
I think of those who never had
the riches she has brought me.
I tell her this in fantasy
and see what happens.

I now become aware
that she is here for yet another day
and I am grateful.