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One of my students brought me various sayings and proverbs of ancient Chinese wisdom, wishing to receive a response on them from the perspective of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The following are various examples:
“Always look on the bright side of things. And if there is none, polish the dark ones until they shine.”
The upper light, a constant supreme quality of love and bestowal, is behind everything in the world. Where it seems that there is darkness, we must “polish” ourselves until that phenomenon begins to shine. This is because, within every phenomenon is the upper light.
“Polishing ourselves” thus means to see that there is no darkness, but only light. If we wipe away our egoistic quality that acts contrarily to the upper light, in a direction of self-reception, then we will see that the world around us consists solely of simple upper light.
“The trick of life is to die young, but as late as possible.”
This is right, because being young means always striving forward. Youth is not about years. We can live 200 years and remain young, or be old and dried out already at the age of 20.
It depends on what we aspire for. If we long to attain the meaning of life, then we are always young. That is of utmost importance. It depends on the person and on the surrounding society, our environment. However, we should never let ourselves dry out.
My teacher, Kabbalist Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH) was nicknamed “The Runner.” Even though there was a forty-year difference between us, as he was born in 1906 and I in 1946, I seemed very old next to him. He was incredibly strong, powerful, energetic, and constantly striving forward, which is why he was actually always very young.
“The temptation to give up will be especially strong right before victory.”
Indeed, this is always the case. When we are about to reach a certain goal, strangely enough, weakness surfaces in us. We start questioning why we are striving so much and what is it all for, and we start feeling tired and cannot see the worth of what we have been pushing toward.
At that moment, we need to understand that our desire to achieve the goal undergoing a test. Accordingly, to achieve the goal, we need to add something new, an even greater aspiration, i.e., to inject more drive, passion, and importance of the goal. By doing so, we end up achieving it.
It is as if we are close to it in practice, but an illusory mountain appears before us. That is why we need to increase the importance of the goal in this present moment, to climb, and to charge up that very mountain.
How is such a drive possible when we feel as if we want to throw in the towel? It is possible by mobilizing inner strength by increasing the importance of the goal.
To our logic, it might seem that we should gain increasing strength the closer to come to the goal. But it is not the case. If we think of runners, at the last stage of a race, their strength seems to vanish, and that is when they need to activate a new reserve, a second wind. We can learn to do so, and principle to this learning is the scrutiny of what our genuine desire is. If we cross this hurdle, then we succeed.
“A friend without flaws does not exist. If you seek flaws, you will end up without a friend.”
This is spot on. We need to understand this and love a friend with their flaws. Even if these flaws are in our friend, they are actually ours.
When we look at a friend, we are actually looking at ourselves. Therefore, we need to understand that the flaws we see in them are within us.
However, as we see in life, we do precisely the opposite. We generally criticize the world around us. But in truth, we should perceive everything within ourselves. It is tough inner work, but it leads us to a much more accurate picture of reality.
Today, also, there is a phenomenon that is becoming more and more well known, that many businesses created by friends end up failing, and those who started the business as friend end up hating each other. It is due to a lack of education on this topic, which is the whole problem. Humanity is not taught how to interact optimally with one another, and by lacking such education, we cannot do anything about these situations.
By nature, we are egoists, and we continue to be raised as egoists from one generation to the next. The more egoism we have, the more we supposedly have the chance to succeed over others. But what we fail to understand is that genuine success means being in positive, harmonious, peaceful, and happy connections with others.
Our era is indicative of a state where human egoism is burning out the world. It can no longer progress egoistically. Our grand dreams of individualistic success in competition with others are fading.
The more we feel that we are evolving to a dead end, the more we will begin to value our connection with one another. Within that connection, we will discover our greater purpose, higher dimensions, and a wholly different world.
In order to preserve friendships and not fall victim to egoistic breakages, we need to understand that the bad we see in others is within us. There is nothing bad around us, only our very egoistic self. We should thus strive to correct ourselves until we bear witness to a beautiful world in everything around us. We will then find ourselves in the spiritual world, in nothing less than heaven. By turning the hell within us into heaven, we will see that you are in heaven.
However, if we fail to change the hell inside ourselves, then it will seem as if we are in hell. If we see hell in others, it is actually in us. By changing ourselves, we will see that we live in a wonderful world.
“When they speak of my virtues, they rob me. When they speak of my flaws, they teach me.”
Indeed, that is true. It is said in Kabbalah that a friend is someone through whom we discover our flaws. In such a way, they help us advance. Those who praise us do not help us at all. They weaken our path, filling us with an unnecessary sense of superiority, perfection, and grandeur.
It is among those before whom we feel our negative qualities that we truly develop. A friend is thus not someone with whom we feel comfortable, but on the contrary, a friend is one who seems to push us away, and we feel that we need to make an effort to come closer. Those who mobilize us to rise above ourselves are our true friends.
“An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.”
This is right. It is because, from the beginning, we are all connected. Everyone already exists in their own state. If, as a result of the correction of the common soul, we must somehow meet each other, that is already predetermined by our spiritual genes.
There is thus nothing accidental about our meetings or separations. Most importantly, at every stage of our development, when we meet others, we should be as kind, friendly, and welcoming as possible. We will then never make mistakes and will always move in the direction of our soul’s correction.
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