Real Spirituality, Not Instagram Spirituality | EP 63

0:08This is just so you know is so Michael Berg's father the Rav. The Rav's teacher is Rav Brandwein and Rav Brandwein's teacher is Rav Oshlock. Rav Oshlock continues, the emanated being itself must reveal the desire to receive in it in actuality on its own accord. end quote what this means is that the vessel is not a true vessel no in a vessel that is not a true vessel the light can go in and can go out but it does not remain therefore when we say that we have to own our vessel it means that we have to make sure that our conviction and our work is internally motivated the problem we're not having this conviction is not just that one day we'll completely lose it it meaning the light that our connection but more importantly even as we are still connecting and doing the work the light cannot be with us consistently there will be ups and downs in our commitment in our excitement and our dedication because our vessel is not a true vessel light can come into a non-true vessel but it cannot stay there consistently there's a tremendous secret that explains why a person in his spiritual work has moments of up and downs it is because there is no true vessel there there are two problems with not having a true vessel.

1:26One, that it can go away completely. And two, while the externally affected vessel is still there. So externally affected vessel as opposed to internally motivated, but it's inspired by external.

1:47Even when the light is there, it's not a true vessel. Rav Alshak says that as long as a person does not truly own the commitment to do the work of transformation and is not internally motivated, then even when that person is in a good place, there will be ups and downs. An uncompleted vessel is still a vessel and to whatever limited extent that vessel has light, it cannot hold on to it all the time. So, let's unpack that a little bit. I've been studying Kabbalah almost 20 years now. But I've been on a spiritual path, you know, my own path, a lot of different modalities, let's say 22, 57, 32, 42, wow, 35 years.

2:34So I can relate to what Rav Ashlag and Michael are talking about because I've experienced it. Really what the foundational, I think what separates Kabbalah with a lot of the other spiritual path, it's what we're talking about here, that true, true internal motivation to want to transform, right? Because what does connection to the light consistently mean? That can only happen if we were studying spirituality to transform, not to just get inspired. I like to call it Instagram spirituality versus deep transformation. And believe me, I love it. I look at those quotes all the time and get inspired.

3:19But if that's the only form of our spiritual connection and we're not working on true transformation, then it's not going to last. I mean, I don't know if you guys also have ever, like, I've read every single spiritual book over these 35 years, right? I don't know if you guys experience this, but for me, I read the book, I get inspired, I get all these great ideas, right? And even make a couple changes. But then a week later, I forget. you know it's it's it's it's not like Michael saying there it's not long lasting it's not consistent it comes and it goes so that's really what we're going to talk about today and we're going to unpack that tonight and then we'll also have question and answers and we're going to do a workshop related to this topic so you guys can unpack it on your own based on whatever you're going through in your spiritual process.

4:11David? yeah who here has experienced highs and lows before so to take that into a nutshell life is not meant to be highs and lows we had this in the earlier classes we spoke about it the reason why you experience this cycle of a roller coaster we have a blessing in our lives we lose appreciation for it then we go through pain fear lack doubt uncertainty then a blessing comes into our lives it's supposed to awaken us to have appreciation again and then the cycle perpetuates with this teaching where vashlag always talks about it if we get to a place where we have blessings we have appreciation we have darkness we still have appreciation after a certain period of time life can be in this balanced flow state which with the kabbalah we ultimately want to get to that doesn't mean that the absence of fear or sadness goes away but our ability to mitigate it and handle it is what happens right so we'll have a you know a series of things happen into our lives we can harp on it for months for years at a time like a bad relationship like a you know devastation in our lives a career change this This past weekend, I was in New York City and I was talking to my father, who Jeff was mentioning a second ago.

5:11And he shared with me that the only reason why you have fear in your life, I was telling him, I have uncertainty about this and about that. Specifically with work, it's especially in a startup, you have a lot of highs and a lot of lows. And so I was just saying like, when is it gonna get to a place where I can just be certain? Like things are gonna come up, they're gonna change. He said, once you have complete appreciation for the creator. And so I said, okay, well, how does that look? He said, here's what happens. The creator gives you blessings. Let's say it's a fundraising round. Let's say it's a new customer, a new milestone and product, a new employee hire.

5:40You have appreciation for a second. Then you lose it. Then you think it's all you. Then you think you can manifest the business on your own. And then fear, meaning lack, I'm worried, oh, this is going to go wrong or that's going to go wrong, causes me to call out to the creator. And I say, creator, please help me. The creator gives me another blessing. Then the cycle happens again. I say, okay, thank you, creator. I lose appreciation. It's all about me. Then darkness happens. And so my dad said, if you can get to a place where the next time a blessing comes into your life, you immediately, and you hold onto that place where creator, if you didn't give me this blessing, I never would have manifested it.

6:10And you can actually stay in that place. Then the fear never needs to come up again. And so to me, that's like, okay, that's, you know, a business anecdote, but in life, if we look at any cycle, if it's a relationship, if it's a child, if it's a, you know, a life change or anything of blessings, it's like a new car, right? You get it for a couple months, you're happy about it. And then right away, what's next, right? Like the spiritual Instagram. It's like, okay, I got this. I'm inspired. The next day you have to look at something else but we don't want to live that way we want to be in a place where it's like i'm happy today i'm appreciative tomorrow you don't need consistent fulfillment and the only way to get there is by having appreciation in the moment one of the main reasons we go through darkness right darkness pain is to develop that appreciation as david said and that internal motivation right to want to consistently connect right because how many of us came to study kabbalah because of some pain or difficulty they have in their life.

7:02Right? So that's one of the reasons we have difficulties and pain is the people that really understand it, you know, they can choose two paths, right? They can ignore it and brush it under the carpet or they use that as internal motivation to want to connect, right? So it's a huge opportunity when we're going through difficulty to really build our desire, right? Because, let's face it, when things are going great, right, we're stuck in the physical world and we're enjoying the physical world. Who wants to change, right? So, actually, Michael talks about it all the time, right? But then what happens, right?

7:43It's either we are internally motivated to change or the universe is going to create a situation in our lives to force us to change, right? So that's why we want the consistent connection because, God forbid, we don't want to go through a serious darkness or difficulty in our life then to finally say, okay, wake up. Finally, okay, let's work on transformation. We were sitting actually here at Jeff's house on this table here with a couple of guys last week or two weeks ago, like a little guy's whatever study. And one of the teachers from the Kabbalah Center was sharing with us that the Kabbalah Center is a hot seat.

8:18So we're like, what does that mean? and if you look at the history of the Kabbalah Center, right, we're all sitting here today, meaning we're all inspired by the wisdom of Kabbalah, but there have been many people sitting in the same chairs that are no longer practicing Kabbalah or no longer studying it. So what happens, right? How can you go from being like, this is the greatest thing in the world, I'm so grateful for it in my life, it's transformed my life, it's helped me with my relationships, and then you're gone. Like, where did all that light go? Where did all that energy go? And what he was sharing with us, just like any blessing in life, you have to have continuous appreciation.

8:45And so when you're, let's use like the Kabbalah center as an example you come to the Kabbalah center your life gets better but then what happens if it gets worse is it is it the Kabbalah's fault is it you know my own personal life if we don't have consistent appreciation it's inevitable that every single one of us including Jeff and I will no longer have appreciation for Kabbalah and therefore eventually leave it right because we don't we don't appreciate it and so for myself and it's like a daily thing although like I've grown up in this wisdom there's been times where I didn't have appreciation for it I was distant from it I didn't want to study and then it took me to go through pain and darkness to come back to it.

9:16And so what I ask for every day, and I like recommend everybody here is, can I have consistent appreciation for one, the blessings that are in my life today that I see, but also when things don't go my way down the line to still have the appreciation to go back and remember, Hey, six months ago, I said to myself, I never want to lose this wisdom. And now I'm sitting in the same exact spot saying, this is not helping me. And I'm going to go try something else. Right? Because that's what we do in life. Like we're at a company, it's great. Then they don't appreciate me. They're not paying me enough.

9:40And then we go somewhere else and we go through the same validation so just to like have consistent appreciation especially for the wisdom that we're all here for today if we can think of an area in our lives where we experience fear today it can be anything it can be a relationship it can be our own personal self-doubt business whatever the case is go to that place whatever is like the lingering fear today and now think to yourself how can that transform into my appreciation how can the one thing that i'm the most afraid of if i merely appreciated it or appreciated that situation lead to blessings in my life and so like the first step if you can really get yourself like where am i the most fearful for me it can be most fearful that i'm gonna fail on my business and therefore i'm a failure that's like the first thing that comes to mind it can be i'll never amount to what i was meant to amount to meaning i'll never live up to my potential so go to that place and then if anybody wants to just share first what's the most the biggest or the lingering fear in your mind and we'll just open it up from there my uncle brought me to the center and my uncle studied started saying Kabbalah in the late 80s, way back in the beginning, and he was a big time addict.

10:41He, I mean, AA, I mean, he tried everything, and he kept relapsing. He finally came to the center, and he's been sober for 40 years, and he hasn't relapsed. And I'll tell you the reason, because I am an addict in my own way. I'm a very addictive personality, right? So in all different forms. As an addict, you know that right once you okay the problem with trying to handle it I'm not a is very powerful but I'm saying other trying to handle it let's use from the effect instead of the causes sea level is right as an addict I explored all forms right okay well if it's alcohol stuff something alcohol so then the addiction goes somewhere then I became workaholic right then it's drugs then it's sex then and you close one hole, and you bounce to another.

11:38And all addicts will say the same thing. So the beautiful thing about spirituality, and it really connects to what we're talking about, having that really internal motivation, that long-lasting connection, when you're connected to the light, you don't have a desire. You don't have those desires, because you're fulfilled. Really, at the end of the day, what's an addict? An addict is someone that has so much lack and so much unfulfillment, they just want to stuff it with drugs, with sex. That's been my experience. If you're fulfilled and connected to the light, there's nothing to stuff. The lack is fulfilled.

12:17My suggestion, this is what I did, and actually what I still do. At the end of the day, if you have addictive personality, it's not going to just go away. It's all about how you manage it. right? So every time you have that desire, I get anxiety and a desire for, to fulfill one of your addictions, double down on your desire for the light, right? So be addicted to the, I always tell myself, Jeff, be addicted to the light because that works, that fulfills you and you don't have that desire and that anxiety. So use it, remember you were just talking about, it's beautiful, use it as the internal your internal motivation to connect to the light yeah and i'll just share from my father on the fear component to it so separating from the that's great for like the actual desire itself of the addiction but the fear which can be overwhelming when i was younger i had hypochondriac so i was worried about getting sick all the time and it evolved to something else my dad said to me of course you can't figure it out yourself like you're not meant to and and that's such a relieving thought when you actually get to a place where like i'm not meant to have the answers and that's the truth like the hardest things in life we're not meant to know what to do with them that's when you say to the creator i don't have the strength to do it but please help me because i've tried everything and do it and just even having that on repeat to yourself like i've said that over and over and over again creator i cannot do this myself i've tried everything please help me just by saying those words out loud you're drawing this unbelievable energy into your life that you're getting the strength from somewhere that you don't even know and if you talk to anybody who's overcome anything great in life they've said out loud to themselves i don't have the strength to do this please help me whether it's god the universe the creator so that would be like specifically with the fear because i know what that loop feels like where it's just non-stop it's like this voice in the back of your head that doesn't stop going say to it you know what i'm not going to fight you anymore i can't surrender to it

14:14does everybody here know what the anabakach is does anybody not Yeah, it's a few verses each one of them correlates a different attribute in life whether it's overcoming doubts Uncertainty and the kabbalist teach just by scanning or saying those sentences You're bringing the light of overcoming doubts negativity challenges war into your life And so we can again we can probably reference it or bring it to the next class or ask any of the teachers at the center But meditating on that daily is is amazing. Yeah, thank you So it's it's funny It comes up all the time and I often ask the question myself too.

14:43It's like because cabal is a paradox Let's just start with that, right? I'm sure any of us that have taken a class is like one week you hear this, the next week it's the opposite. So the first thing is like to get out of like the just physical nature of how we interpret things, which is like, this is linear, that's linear. In Kabbalah, nothing is. But to this specific, right? But to this specific thing, it's in life, you have to be at 110 % capacity in every waking hour of the day. So you wake up in the morning, you're pushing with all of your might to accomplish, to manifest, whatever that thing is.

15:09At night, when you go to sleep, you say, you know what, creator, I've done all that I can. I'm going to sleep now, quite literally. and please go and manifest the rest for me. The next morning you wake up, whether it's manifest or it hasn't manifested, I'm gonna push with all of my might, I have complete certainty, but you still have the same level of certainty even if that thing doesn't manifest. And so what most of us do is we manifest, we have certainty, but then if at the end of the day we're like, wait, I had all these aspirations, but none of it manifested, then we lose hope. And then we get into this cycle of stagnation and not wanting things to manifest, not believing that they will.

15:39So 100%, it's all in our hands, we have the strength to do everything, but not to feel like our strength is diminished because the thing hasn't manifested. So when do you ask for strength? You ask for strength always. Yeah, so it's a continuous... Because you're asking for strength to do the work. Right. Right, to do the work, to do the spiritual work, to do whatever, even the 1 % work you're doing all day. We need strength to do our work, right? But at the end of the day, it's up to the creator. So then, right, and the question is why, or wait a second, if everything's up to the creator, then why should I do anything?

16:09Why should I work so hard, right? And the reason is because the Kabbalists say, we have to show desire, right? Going back to desire, we have to show the creator that we have desire, right? If there's no desire, then he has no desire to give. So we're showing desire, and that's how we show desire, by pushing, pushing, pushing, at the end of the day, then surrendering to the creator, right? And that's the hardest work. That is the work, because again, I've had my experience. I'm a type A person. You either, right, there's two sides of this. You either push, push hard in life and want to succeed and you're attached, right?

16:46It's, that's, right? And, or there's the people on the other end of the stream, you know, I don't need to do much, right? Those two are actually easier paths than pushing and surrendering at the same time, right? That's the real work. I'm appreciative for what I have now. I'm appreciative for what may come, but everything in between, I lacked appreciation for it. And so what it's changed to today for me is I'm appreciative for what I have today in my life for what I want to also manifest But I'm also appreciative for every single thing that happens in between where I am today and where the things that I want are Whether that's the darkness or that's the pain whether that's the Even just the process.

17:27I'm actually starting to enjoy it more nice. So appreciation for me in like simple terms Are you excited and happy every single day? If you're excited and you're happy you're in a state of appreciation If you don't have a state appreciation then you're depressed and you're sad Like it's impossible and i'd say this and you can challenge me on it If you have appreciation for life, you will never be sad The only times that sadness is able to even enter into our lives is Well, this thing happened to me and I wish I had that and I wish I had this But if you just focus no matter what darkness i'm sure everybody here has Darkness in their lives like I do and everybody does But if you just focus on the one or two things that drive continuous happiness into you whether it's your health Which we all take for granted whether it's family whether it's having even a friend Some people have no friends.

18:05They have no health. They have nobody to support them but we're always so focused like but i don't have my soulmate and my business hasn't taken off yet and but i have all these aspirations that i'm never going to manifest like those are great things to desire but what about everything else that god is creator has already given you today like these are unbelievable things right the fact that all of us get to sit here and like our able body to walk and sit in a chair like that's that's crazy right so reframing just like what's appreciation can be anything but not limiting to the things that we want or the things that we already have.

18:33Yeah, and for me, you know, I try to break it down into something very tangible. Because like you said, it could be a very lofty thing. But really it's about, actually Michael Berg in one of his lectures was really deep, but I'll just go to one of the core concepts. And he says that, you know, our goal should be to have 100 moments of appreciation every day. Right? I mean, think about that. so but it's tangible you just start with 10 right okay i literally i do this i wake up in the morning wow thank god for breathing you know then you know thank god for my health that i can go to work today thank god for my my boy thank god for my soulmate like every just throughout the day just look for you know even like i love nature so i look at a plant wow you know so just try to make it tangible.

19:25Then I call it, for me, I call it the appreciation muscle, right? And then you start building it, and then, you know, for me, I connect to it more, right, when it's more tangible. Tara. Just to add, if someone is going through a dark time or a difficult, stressful period in their life, what does it look like to go through appreciation for that, you know? Because I feel like it's not like inherent to appreciate a dark time in their life. Right. Yeah. The one thing that's always worked for me is to one, remind yourself that every other dark time that you previously had eventually led to light and really, really believing that because it's so fleeting.

20:05We think about darkness as it is today. We think about every other moment of darkness in your life and how every single one of those are no longer relevant and have all dissipated. It's the first thing. The second thing is to know that just like those things, which eventually led to more happiness and more fulfillment, this will too. Right. And like to really get to a place to get back to certainty like darkness is never permanent if darkness was permanent there wouldn't be a creator there wouldn't be spirituality there wouldn't be kabbalah but to know and to really get to a place like even if this has been for months for six months for a year at some point this darkness will pass and how does it pass by getting to that place of certainty so to know like you're not just a passive like rock flowing in the water like you can immediately steer the ship but it starts with certainty man it goes back to what we were talking about what I was reading from Rob Rushlock, right?

20:50Darkness happens to increase our internal motivation to connect deeper with the light of the creator. And when we're really on this path consistently, we go through darkness to get to our next level spiritually. That's the process. It's a whole class discussion itself. We won't get into it tonight, but that is the whole process, right? It's the opening for the next revelation of light in your life. You go through a challenge, you have revelation, then you have that revelation, and then, you know, whenever you're ready for the next process, there's a challenge, right? And then the challenge reveals more light.

21:29One is we learn the Kabbalah say that, you know, at the end of the day, I know it's a little bit esoteric, but as you continue to grow on your path, you will start to feel it. But for now, trust that everything in this world, in your life, is between you and the Creator. Everyone else, they're all actors in your movie. It's between you and the creator. It's irrelevant what everybody's doing in their process, because that's their process and your process is your process. You can't compare. Second, related to that, there's a saying, Karen Bird, David's grandmother, used to always tell me, you can't compare your inside with somebody's outside.

22:13right because you have no idea right what somebody's going through you know what you're going through on the inside but you don't know what other people are going through so but but at the end of the day it's between you and the creator and so i encourage you to keep thinking about that and just work on your process yeah it doesn't really matter what anybody else's process is for your process you know as a matter of fact that becomes a distraction like like you just said i mean at least for me all these years i've done it so many times yeah to just two amazing things that I was taught also by my father and mother was the first thing the creator created you he gave you life so do you think you would ever forget about you and what you need right which when you start to think about that it's like wow okay and then and then the second thing is um when you're looking at somebody else's life and wanting their blessings the question you should ask yourself is do I want their darkness and their pain and all the challenges that they'll ever go to in life and it actually says when we look at somebody else and we say I want that you don't get the blessings but you actually get all the negative things that they were supposed to experience And so to me that's again, it shouldn't be a scary thought it should be and it's like, okay, wait I see that but I don't see the 99.9 % of all the things that they experience in life and Everybody experiences darkness and it also helps us want to get appreciation But again, you shouldn't beat yourself up because we all look at everybody.

23:24That's how we were designed We're comparing against one another but to know to yourself Wait, if I'm asking for that, I'm asking for everything that they have and I mean I want that Thank you So let's start with 3d press 1d deep through your nose Exhale through the mouth. Breathe in again, nose. Breathe out.

23:52Breathe in. Breathe out.

24:02And settle in and feel the sensations in your body.

24:13Now we're going to follow our breath as our mantra, but this time not a forced breath, just your natural breathing.

24:26So every time you have a thought, come back to the breath. Right? And focus on the air going through your nostrils. Breathe out.

24:47Breathe out.

24:52Now one clarification, so I've been meditating for 35 years and people often, I did misconstrued meditation as the absence of thought or trying not to think. That's not possible. We can't control the thoughts, so we want to be the observer of our thoughts.

25:18All right, so we have the mantra of our breath to come back to the present moment, which can create some separation so we can watch our thoughts come through our stream of consciousness and leave. It's kind of like a screen of coming through and, you know, the consciousness and leaving.