'Hevruta after Lesson 8 on the topic: Freedom of Choice
'Hevruta after Lesson 8 on the topic: Freedom of Choice
Hevruta - Freedom of Choice
Part2
Last week we clarified 2 important principles:
Two reins : pleasure and pain
We are bound to choose pleasure and reject pain. At best, we can make a calculation to accept pain for a future pleasure.
The Law of Causality
All the elements of reality are connected by a law of causality, and as part of the reality we are influenced as well by a series of causes and effects.
Baal HaSulam categorize these in 4 factors as follow:
1. The source - also known as the base (HaMatsa) or the initial state.
2. The order of cause and effect - related to the source’s own attribute.
3. The order of cause and effect - which change by contact with the environment.
4. The order of cause and effect of alien things which affect it from the outside.
Let's dig deeper into these 4 factors to understand how they affect us and how we can use them to influence our development.
Inherited Acquisitions
The first factor is the base (the source), which is its primary matter. For man is created existence from existence (Yesh mi-Yesh), and therefore exists in a certain measure, like a copy copied from book to book. That is, nearly all the matters that were accepted and attained in his father and in his forefathers come and are copied into him as well.
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For those concepts that were in his ancestors as intellectual attainments become in him merely inclinations, called qualities or habits, without his even knowing why he acts this way. These are indeed hidden forces that he inherited from his ancestors. Thus, not only the material acquisitions come to us by inheritance from our ancestors, but also the spiritual acquisitions, and all the intellectual attainments in which our ancestors engaged come to us by inheritance, from generation to generation.
The Influence of the Environment
The second factor is the order of “cause and consequence” in a direct manner, attributed to the quality of the base itself, which does not change.
In this way here as well: man, as the base, is placed within the environment, that is, within society, and he is necessarily influenced by it, like the wheat by its environment. For the base is only a raw form, and therefore, through his constant contact and interaction with the environment and society, he is affected by them in a gradual process, in an order of states one after the other, by way of cause and consequence. During this time, the inclinations included in his base are transformed.
Habit Becomes a Second Nature
The third factor is the order of cause and consequence in a direct manner, which passes over the base and is changed by them. Since the inherited inclinations have been transformed in a person, due to the environment, into intellectual discernments, they therefore operate in those directions that these intellectual discernments define.
For example, one who is stingy by nature: through the environment, the inclination of stinginess is transformed in him into an intellectual discernment, and he understands stinginess according to some intellectual boundary.
Let us assume that he justifies this conduct by the fact that through it he protects himself from needing others. Then he has attained a certain measure for stinginess, by which he can concede at a time when this fear does not exist. It follows that he has changed greatly for the better from the trait he inherited from his ancestors.
And sometimes he succeeds in completely uprooting a bad inclination from within himself, and this is by means of habit, whose power is sufficient to become a second nature.
In this, the power of man is superior to the power of the vegetative. For the wheat can change only in its particular part, as explained above, whereas man has the ability to change by the force of the “cause and consequence” of the environment even in the general parts, that is, to transform an entire inclination and uproot it from its root into its opposite.
External Factors
The fourth factor is the order of cause and consequence that passes over the base from matters that are completely foreign to it, and acts upon it from the outside.
Free Choice
However, when we examine these four causes, we find that although our strength is insufficient to stand against the first cause, which is the base, nevertheless we do have the ability and free choice to protect ourselves from the other three factors. According to these, the base changes in its particulars, and sometimes also in its general part - by habit, which acquires a second nature, as explained above.
The Environment as a Factor
And this protection means that we are always able to add in the matter of choosing our environment: the friends, the books, the teachers, and the like.
For indeed, there is no freedom in the desire itself, but it is influenced by the four aforementioned causes and is compelled to think and examine as they present to it, without any power of criticism or change, like the wheat that has already been sown in its environment.
However, there is freedom for the desire to choose, from the outset, such an environment, such books and guides, that influence him with good intellectual discernments.
Therefore, one who exerts effort during the days of his life and chooses each time a better environment is worthy of praise and reward.
The Rule of the Mind over the Body
For the imagination in man serves the mind no less than the microscope serves the eyes. Without the microscope, one sees nothing harmful due to its smallness. But after seeing the harmful creature through the microscope, a person distances himself from that harm.
Thus, the microscope brings the person to an action of distancing himself from harm, and not the sense, for the sense did not feel the harm. To this extent, certainly the mind rules over the body of man with complete dominion-to distance him from evil and bring him closer to good.
That is, in all those places where the quality of the body is too weak to recognize what is beneficial or harmful, and only the intellect is required. Moreover, since a person recognizes the mind as a faithful conclusion from life’s experiences, he is therefore capable of receiving mind and understanding from a person he trusts, and accepting it in the form of a law, even though the events of his life have not been sufficient to reveal such intellect to him.
So here from Baal HaSulam we have a couple of key points
- The choice of the environment which is how we can control our development is in our own hands. In this regard we are both the seed and the gardener. We have to place ourselves in an enviroment that will feed our desire for spirituality.
- The matter of habit
- The rule of the mind of the body - which is something we need to clarify as well.
But for let's focus on the matter of habit.
We see that Baal HaSulam is categorzing the 3rd factor (choice of the enviroment) under the title "Habit Becomes a Second Nature" - why do you think it is this way? How is habit, freedom and enviroment are connected to each other?
Let's discuss this.
Let's read from an other other article of Baal HaSulam - a short one from a book called Shamati (which we will learn more about in the future lessons)
"'Harut.” Do not read 'harut, but rather 'herut (freedom).
The meaning is as follows: it is written, “Write them upon the tablet of your heart.” Writing is done with ink, which implies blackness. Each time a person “writes” - that is, makes certain decisions about how to behave - and afterward returns to his former ways, it is because the writing has been erased. Therefore, one must write again each time. Yet it should be in the form of harut - engraved upon the heart - so that it cannot be erased.
Then one immediately merits the quality of 'herut (freedom), for this is the vessel (kli) for freedom, to the extent that it has been inscribed in his heart. According to the measure of the engraving, so is the deliverance. For the essence of the kli is the hollow. This is the meaning of “My heart is hollow within me.” Then one merits freedom from the Angel of Death, since lowness itself is the Sitra Achra (the Other Side). One must recognize it in its full measure and overcome it, until the Creator helps him.
— Baal HaSulam, Shamati, §198, “Freedom”
So now we understand better why habit is so important
Since as we develop and grow, we reveal more and more the low places in us, but at the same time we have then more opportunity to acquire strenght from the environment, from the book, from the friends who are studying with us and help us clarify the content of the books - as well as the teachers.
Now if time allows let's discuss the rule of the mind over the body.
We already discsussed many time about the role of the mind when we learned about the perception of reality and we saw that the mind of mainly at the service of our desires.
But which role does it play in our freedom. Let's read again Baal HaSulam and let's discuss how we understand the role of the mind. (4 slides above - The rule of the Mind over the Body.)
Let's read an other shamati article from Baal HaSulam
The Thought Is a Result of the Desire
A thought is a result of the desire. A person thinks of what he wants. He will not think of what he does not want. For example, a person never thinks of his day of death. On the contrary, he will always contemplate his eternity, since this is what he wants. Thus, one always thinks of what is desirable for him.
However, there is a special role to the thought: It intensifies the desire. The desire remains in its place; it does not have the strength to expand and perform its action. Yet, because one thinks and contemplates a matter, and the desire asks the thought to provide some counsel and advice to carry out the desire, the desire grows, expands, and performs work in actual practice.
It turns out that the thought serves the desire, and the desire is the “self” of the person. Now, there is a big self or a small self. A big self controls the small selves.
He who is a small self and has no control at all, the advice to magnify the self is through the persistent thought of the desire, since the thought grows to the extent that one thinks of it.
And so, “His law will he contemplate day and night,” for by persisting in it, it grows into a big self until it becomes the actual ruler.
Now we understand better - that the mind helps us grow the desires we want to have and since the biggest desire overpower the smaller desire - it therefore help us control our evolution.
And with the help of the environement and study we develop our mind to be able to better understand which desire to grow and which to try to avoid.
And combined with the right habit we can come to intensify this process that it help clarify multiple states even in one day maybe even in one moment.