most important post iv'e ever written, by the grace of God
REAL POST: VERY IMPORTANT/very very interesting (from the objective viewpoint):
I will try to be brief for all our sake.
God has given me unmeasured kindnesses these last three days, and maybe telling it can help another. It contains such important things for recovery.
Brief;
1) I have never chosen to be attracted to kabbalah or mekubalim. Yet, as one of the tzadikim in EY told me (a best friend of R' Gamliel, R' Shraga S.) my neshama is mushrash in sod, and in my previous gilgul i was learned in kabala. Very nice. So what? It means that this is the language of my soul through which God speaks to me directly. If i hear s/thing from the Ari, or R elya lopian, R lopian just doesnt penetrate, and the Arizal does. This is a spiritual reality. Established fact in my spiritaul genetic makeup. It has nothing to do with R lopian, and yes, i read his biography.
For whatever reason related to the above, God has sent me many messages through these pipelines, from tzadikim or unfortunately sometimes mekubalim from the side of tumah. Yes, i read faith and folly, and i learned almost the hard way what R hillel really means in that book. I know people in my extended family whose lives were ruined from one such person who lives in Ey, who happens to be a wonderful person on the outside.
2) due to my background of abuse, etc. , I had many issues to repair, among them was an identity crisis. Additionally, in the begining of this thread, you can read how i suffered a bout of depression of loneliness, since i live in a neighborhood with no friends, or people my age mamesh.
To fix this the wrong way, i decided to "make friends" by learning various torah and then joining the group of that genre. ie. I learned R nachman's sefarim and then davened by breslov, etc. This was a mistake because i learned the hard way that im not breslov, litvish, chasidish, etc.-i am only myself, and i had to learn that the hard way. Thank God, GYE solved my identity crisis, how is not for now.
So one of my costumes was that i learned kabalah and joined the mekubalim. Because of my outward good middos and an extraordinary set of events, my plan worked, until reaching a cresendo, and then i fell from very high and got extremely damaged. Part of God's plan, or the sitra a's plan that God allowed, was that i was led deeper and deeper into this kabalah until it almost killed me.
How did my plan 'work'?
Simply, my own rebbi unexpectedly told me to learn shomer emunim hakadmon, and i wrongly took this as a liscence to learn anything in kabalah.
then, i went further because i saw an enticing sign which invited anyone to an introductory class for kabalah terms. cool. It was not run by chrxtians but by someone who said he was in shar hashamayim, R shmuel Auerbach's yeshiva. That was seemingly for sure a liscence, since it was for me from the gadol hador's own yeshiva, right?
I met the rav, and was accepted in the shiur. It turned out to be a shiur on kisvei ari, otzros chaim and shaar hakavanos. I learned almost entire otzros chaim, plus bought and learned parts of ramchal, leshem, sharei orah, da'as tvunos, and more.
In addition, another mekubal with well known sefarim also encouraged me to keep trucking in pardes. Also, a talmid of the mekubalim of Yeshivat Hashalom agreed to chazer otzros chaim with me on shabbos, and we did.
Cruising full speed, i was reaching real incredible heights. I did not even look at women for a year. My aura was clean. I began to see tzelem-aura fields. R abuchatzeera read my partzuf and said i was doing great. My rebbi said i had reached such a good madrega that he can tell i was kadosh for a year. Plus, he said i thought about Hashem more than almost anyone in Ey, and Hashem loved me for that too.
I began to see blue shcheenatic visions, and got hasaga during tefillah. I would mamesh be zocheh to see visions and images of tzaddikim in gan eden, etc, and shchinah. O rosh hashana during shmoneh esray, i saw tha avos and neshamos from the holocaust, and more.
To approve all this, my rebbi, who is not from the evil side, rather he is of the known tzaddikim of meah shearim, said and knew all that i had seen and felt, and he said it was all real (at that point) from the side of kedushah. Each time i reached a new madreigah, my rebbi would guide me. During this time as well, Hashem introduced me to several unknown hidden of sorts tzaddikim of yerushalayim, all men who are the type to save klal yisrael from possible natural disasters, etc., that we are not even aware of, all whom give secret messages to r elyashiv, etc.
3) And then, i fell hard. Hardest of my life.
Why?
Well, this is what my symptoms were-i fell into a mega depression. I fell deeply into lust and even prosecutable actions in that area. I began to get such RID that i had ocd of the mind, with recurring thoughts. I stopped davening most of tefillah and some days i waited till the last moments to put on tefillin, i just couldnt do it. My anger rose. My self esteem dropped. I became despicable in my own eyes. My torah learning began to meet unexplained dysmal failure, i couldnt concentrate. i could not even learn at all at times, or it would just give me RID and drive me into my addictions. My addictions were primarily lust and spending money. then, alchohol and doubling dosages on anxiety pills came too as cross addictions.
My life torn. My friends confused. My wife in such agony, not understanding why i was irate or what i am doing. Yes, i am a 'nice guy', so even then i did not let my marriage get anywhere near divorce chas vishalom-nonetheless, my wife was so confused and just anging in there like a tzaddeikes.
4) I began desperately my own therapy, called regression. I did major chilling out and very slowly nurtured myself an inch at a time, sometimes an inch over a whole month. I was shown GYE by a fellow GYE. I did not think i needed it till i fell again into depression in the first post in this thread. Even then, i needed the friends here, but didnt think i had lust addiction at all.
I stopped all chumras, did everything bi'dieved, and skipped 75% of the davening every day.
Although I healed my body, my neshama was flailing, without needed doses of torah and mitzvos to nurish it. Plus, from being in gan eden haelyon and then falling to sheol tachtis, i couldnt handle not being able to do the mitzvos and avodah i loved so much, and this made me worse. So for this i employed somthing from R' Nosson of breslov, to do a tzimtzum to my seichel ,as if i had never done any mitzvos in my life and knew nothing of any holy levels. This worked.
5) GYE became my lifeline mamesh. At the same time, i severed all connections from the tzaddikim and mekubalim, even my own rebbi. I was afraid to be confused from them again, and instaed of following messages sent to me rom heaven through these tzaddikim, i decided there was one secure path of recovery left to me-the regular, "work hard and therapy" way.
6) I get more aware by the day, posted about my every self insight as they came from God. My inches grew into feet.
7) Moving faster and faster in recovery by the grace of God, i found SA. The SA meetings, 12 steps, sponsor, and fellowship helped me reach such repair that i almost do not have those previous dreaded symptoms. I learned all the seeds for my so far success in SA from months of GYE. Without gyeand the forum wisdom, the moderators, bards, and friends, i would be in the dark. But all that helped me jump into the program and SA on the right foot.
I learned to surrender my lust, my knowledge, my ego, my recurring thoughts till they left me, my anger, my need for self control, my fears. I bacame more religious in a way vaguely reminding myslef of the sincerity i once had, if i ever did have it. God concoiusness is again becoming part of me, now in a more stable healthier way. My depression and friends and usefulness, and so much-it is healing me so much in ways i was always lacking.
I was originally like the nasa ship that fly heaven bound with all the needed circuitrly, piloting, and more. And i did reach heights of tzaddikim, at the age of 25. I did. And then, my nasa ship exploded (appolo 11?) because of one minor problem-the little rubber 'O' rings were frozen, or in my case, i was not emotionally healthy, nor spiritually healthy to learn kabalah, which is reserved only for men of great GENUINE and LASTING levels.
I WAS nice. I DID have emunah and all the nice things you need to be mitayel in pardes-except for the deepest things possible within me. Those i did not have. Most people who are regular have them . I was not regualr and did not.
8) Now, i say to you, thank you. I no longer need SA or GYE. just kidding. I probably got your heart to skip a beat. My bad. I meant to say the exact opposite. Now, i say to you, thank you. Because now i know i have weaknesses and that i have a big ego and it is ruining my life and the life of others. Now, on this horizon, Godhas shown me incredible things the last three days, and i must share them because someone can gain and survive from it. It is not only my desire to share these discoveries, it is a responsibility.
9) The concepts of ego, and assering self will and acting like God to run my life, thay are all knew to me. Sure, i read these things in Torah, but this is the forst time in my life that the seeds are planted to have real actualized humility, not just reading th igeres haramban, feeling and acting the part. 0.0001%, but it is there by the grace of God.
By reading the big book and 12 and 12 and white book, and SA, and by seeing non-jews of other faiths more devout and religious and humble then myself, this has planted those seeds. And tidbits from my friends on GYE, and the razor sharp posts of Dov (and RAGE and me3), every one of them. And phone calls and emails. All of that.
So i am on the very edge of the threshhold of a new world called humility.
10) so in friday i saw a lashon in the SA lit. which said 'surrender your ego". This lashon impressed me so much, i began to say it that day, till i said it about a hundred times over the day, and it made further inroads on my ego.
Remember, i am about to throw you deeply into the supernatural and kabbalah again, so let me remind you some necessary facts to appreciate the following stories and discoveries.
a) for months i took the regular work hard track, received no instructions from tzaddikim etc.
b) I got tools from GYE, SA, and not at all from kaballah. i didnt even touch it. I worked with Roy K., Billy W., my catholic sponsor who is a priest, and acted 'regular'.
11) Then........
this shabbos God had me go to a bar mitzvah of a cousin who learns kabalah by R Itchie meir morgenstern. Cousin is chabad. okay. So what.
By shalosh seudos there were tow massive mekubalim there, mamesh hidden tzaddikim, to whom everyone is like an open book to them. I kid you not. There was also a phsychic there who reads aura's and is famous in israeli secular culture, and he is chabad ba'al tshuva so he wound up at this meal too.
But, being cautious, i knew i would not talk to them. I had my tools from SA, they were working. If it aint broke, dont fix it. I even wrote a post reflecting this just before shvi'i shel pesach. eyin sham. you can see there how much i mean i am cautious.
12) Using healthy logic, and seeing this idea in a post of dov's, i said that it just so happens that by doing all this SA stuff, it was working, but i was confused. So i will ask advice from a friend at the shalosh seudos meal for advice on how to reintegrate my head back into Torah with all the SA tools.
Asking this friend, he began to spew wisdom that was almost clear as day siyata dishmaya, advice form the high Lord, Hashem. Taking this grace of God as a cue of God's hashgacha and love for me, i healthily decided, al pi dov' post, and myself, that i can ask the mekubal there, R' D. for ADVICE, not to read my tzelem. Just advice from a gadol. And i knew tha no matter what they said, it cant knock my SA, because those SA tools were really working. So i would just view the tzaddik as a resource, a tool. If it helps you recover in same direction, great. If not, just drop what he said.
13) I sat next to the tzaddik, and said "who am i, and what should i do to recover?"
and this is what he said......
he asked my name, held my chin in his hand, got hasaga in front of me (i can spot what this sight looks like now), and said (he never saw me in his life, nor did i see him):
"avi, don't get upset at me, but you used to think that you were the melech haolam, king of the universe. Now, you think this a little less (thank you SA!!!), but this is your main problem. All your problems of anger, anxiety and lust come throught this. Therefore, by working on this, you will then reach that that you possibly can and do God's plan for you. It is ONLY through this that you can succeed.
There is a story with the Baal Hatanya, that there was a masmid in tzfas in those times who learned 18 hours a day. He met to talmidim of the baal hatanya and was so inspired that he packed up his family and moved to Europe, by the ba'al hatanya. Month later, these chassidim returned from EY, saw this man from tzfas had moved there, and they inquired about him from others. They found out that he still learns 18 hours a day, and has had almost no contact with chassidim or the rebbe.
So they went over to him and said 'we dont get it. In tzfas you learned 18 hours a day, and here too. nothing in what you do in your day changed at all. So why dont you move back to EY?
the man repied 'in EY i learned so much that i had a question. How does Hashem have enough reward to give me, i learn so much torah? The answer, i concluded, was that it can only be because Hashem is the kol yachol, he can do anything.
When i moved here by the rebbi, the answer remained the same, but the question changed. The question became 'how can Hashem stand to be with and see someone as disgusing and egotistical as me? and the answer must be, because he is the kol yachol, he has no boundries to his power.'
(the mukubal concludes to me) you, avi, are this guy. You, are a low person, an egotistical low person, a tola-at. a worm. work on this. Hatzlocha."
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This, concluded stage one of the hashgacha pratis of God's grace upon me to help me with recovery. I was told by a tzaddik that i am low, and a worm.
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14) At the formal weekday bar mitzvah last night at a hall, stage two came from God upon me.
Two GYE's called and wanted to meet me and hang out. sure i said. just come to this bar mitzvah and i'll come outside.
The Gye's came. Both were real heavy hitters of this forum. I mean it. Real GYE's, through and through, thick and thin.
We went to a park and one GYE asked if we could do an impromptu SA meeig on the grass. Following and saying by heart the traditions, we went around, all three, introduced and said our mo's and a share about our mo's. Then, we had a meditation type SA meeting. After meditating for three minutes, we each had a 2 and half minute share, with a timekeeper, about any thought that we can share related to why we all came to this park grass meeting. The shares were incredible. This GYE SA meeting was holy of holies. The mutual vulnerability and rigorous honesty, the desire for God to make us whole and not anything else, the emess, it was so real. It was so powerful.
Thank you guys. You two know who you are. And you, the second GYE, it was a pleasure to meet you. There are not enough good people like you in our world, and i mean it.
so this was unprecedented, but it drove even more home the ideas of humility, gratitude, and God. I am only on the threshhold of humility, i want so much to come in. I know it can take time a long time, i must be patient.
But Thank you God, that GYE SA meetig was the most powerful i ever had, and you took my hand and led me another inch closer to you. Thank you, i have such gratitude. That was hashgacha pratis #2 if these days.
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15) further, a moderator told me through a messenger that i have weaknesses and that i must accept them.
This was revolutionary. I knew to surrender. i knew about my ego.
I thought and took several roads that surround and dance around the word ego.
But the middle road, that I have weaknesses and must accept them, that torpedoed my heart. direct hit. chain reaction, boom, boom, boom.
Thank you 7up. You are a sniper. A ruthless mighty warrior, slaying ego by the hundreds and RID anxiety by the thousands. Your hand always on the trigger, you shoot every time with the precision of an olympic marksman. You fearlessly humble and subdue your enemies, crushing them into oblivion. Your mighty sword fillettes your opponents, like fish in a blender. Never to be heard of again, you mark yet another victory to the ranks of God's armies. With sublime reverse psychology and innocent looking comments, you slam haughty ones into the ground, never to rise again with their heads held as high. My head pounds and twists from your help, and i can never repay you. May God repay you seven fold, like your essence and namesake of sheva yipol tzaddik vi'kum. words do not suffice. Each single word you send in this direction turns into hours of gained time in recovery, healing, and God conciousness. Praised is your lot.
this was hashgacha pratis three.
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16) At the bar mitzvah last night, after my GYE SA meeting, i went to the other tzaddik mekubal in residence, R' B., and told him that although i used to ask his help in helping me heal, i now am in SA, and it is moving me solidly forward.
and he asked my name again, said his yichud from sha'ak, ch' 4, and his body looked in that upwards way of hasaga receiving, and then his head sharply shook, and then he said to me, "i see your personal sefiros, and this is what i say....
you had gotten so angry because of your ego, that you had been pogeim your kesser; because kesser is ain, and you asserted yourself as ani, the same letters. since kesser feeds the kav emtza-ee, your tiferess died, and you could no longer gain tools from the torah (GYE-'why doesnt the torah work for me'-this is the answer, at least in my case-that my kli of Ta"t died!!! tell reb O and his posse, tell the world my story). furthermore, down the kav, your da'as became pogeim too as a result so whatever torah you already had studied could not help you since you lacked your own kli of da-as application. further down the kav, your yesod as a result became destroyed, and you fell deep into your old lust addiction to freightening levels.
when i saw you first, i said nothing because i thought you were beyond help, hopeless. The 12 steps, which is not Torah/tiferess, helped you lower your ego. As a result, your yesod improved and your now sober again, your da'as improved, your tiferess improved, and then your kesser.
You are not any longer on the front lines of the cheetzonim where your neshama was previously, but you are still in their range, you still tread to dangerously near them and you are in range of their snipers. You cannot have false security. You must keep on doing this ego lowering and exposing until you leave their range. Even then, you may not even touch any kabalah for ten years from this day. You are not ra-uy, you cant.It will kill you.
Plus, i must tell you something that you never knew. You learned kabalah because of your identity crisis. You moved deeply in until the chitzonim were ready to jump and kill you. If you had never done this during your identity crisis, you never would have had any of all the problems in these last two years. You ruined all of it. The word kabalah is bigimatria niuf, and mamon. One who is not ra-uy becomes ani, drives away the ain, attracts lilis, cohabits with her, and becomes tamei, gevurah turns into gevuros disitra achra, and he falls into lust, with his tiferess and daas and yesod destroyed. You would never know this. But in the real world of Hashem, this is simply what happened. Had you not treaded here, your problems would have been fixed another way. a better way. you made yourself get 5000 km off your path.
From now on, you must humble your ego, erase your anger. Only read books that are simple from the big mekubalim. like nesivos shalom, pele yoetz, sefer hamiddos......each simple word of these books were written by the greatest mekubalim ,and each word contains so much of kabalh and secrets-people would never realize.
One day you can be zoche to learn kabalah, but there are no kitzurey derech in avodas Hashem. The rav that encouraged you to learn kabalah, and others like him, they are dangerous. They ruin lives. Stay as far away from them as you can.".....
the tzaddik rav said more, no time to say, didnt understand it when he said s/thing else, it was showing me through letters, gematrias, my neshama, all my mistake in ego, the word skin/ohr is oseeyos rah with a vav, vav can represent the nachash,..... .
Then he said that the real essence of us is our God connection (bilvavi 101). He said he can read thoughts and most people that meditate quietly and are told to think of nothing just think about themselves, because they made their ego the deepest pary of themselves. And a healthy person should really be able to think about God, the deepest part of himself. And he said in recovery i cannot anymore assertively use the word "I", because it justs further makes me feel my deepest essence is my ego, and not God. He knew that on the forum the last few days i posted like this, and no, he's not on the forum.
17) and after all this, i come home. i was awed. humbled. i thought i acted nice and happy, patient to my wife. And yet, in a cmpletely unnatural way, she accused me of something i did not do, and critisized me and insulted me for half an hour. It was no non-sensical, i knew, i just knew it was from hashem to humble and lower me even more. I tried partially successful to navigate her words and just sit there and kindly answer her questions. It was supernatural. That was the experience. Then, she suddenly apologized. ? .
18) Hashem has given me these experiences, so much in these three days, that he is here. I sense him so much. I had forgotten him for so long.
I know, feel, experience he is here so much, guiding me from my depths, giving me tools that are compatible with whatever sefiros i have left inside of me, tailored for the last vestiges of spiritual power and connection within me.
I experienced the divine. I see that God's hand is outstretched to receive shavim. He still gives. He still watches. He still tenderly guides and nurtures, even in the lowest depths.
He orchestrated all this, mekubalim, GYE, SA, a chabad bar mitzvah, more, all to help me. His honor has risen. He, so great, still looks at me.
19) i must go. Help me, everyone, dont let me fall back into the grips of my ego., please. i dont ever want to go there again. help me go to ain.
When i used the word "I", even when lowering my ego, it just stifled me. Until 7up and the tzaddikim said that the "I" that i posess is low and has weaknesses, and is no honor to use.
20) God, you give me when i dont desetve, from kesser. For the things which are no good for me, you use the hanhagas hamishpat of the vav kitzvos, ze'er anpin. yet, to save my skin you give me from kesser, erech anpin, vichanosee ess asher achon, af al pi sheaino hagon, vireechamti ess asher aracheim, af al pi she-ainp hagon. Doesnt that describe our God's ways more better than anything else.
avi, who is who he is.