Tanya Class 11- Chapter 9

Speaker 1 Hi, Reba. So actually I I'm excited today. I, I'm dedicating today's learning in honor of one of my very favorite young adults, my niece Lucy Friedman, who's getting married next week. I'm her Tashem, her weddings is coming Sunday. And I am dedicating today's learning in honor of her and her husband, Yakimoshinu, and wishing them all the blessings of a Binion Adiade. Like I said, Messi is one of wise beyond her years. I, I sit side by side with her like, like a, an adult seeing, seeing the world through the same lenses. And I'm so looking forward to celebrating with her and her family. So mazel tov Messi and Yakimasha. So I'm actually really excited about this chapter. It it brings us into the very practical Chapter 9 brings us into the very practical reality of what is happening inside of our psyche. Up until now, we've been learning about the two souls, where they come from, how they function, how they express themselves through Mashava D Burmaisa, through thoughts Future in action. And now the author of it brings us into the tension between these two souls. They have completely different perspectives, different drives, but they're inside of 1 body and they are pulling us in different directions. This is the tension that is the basic, I guess it's the the human experience. Now an important nuance before we talk about the tension is that this is not a tension between spiritual and physical. Like, you know, the body's bad and the soul is good. This is not how Hassida sees it. This is not how the Tanya outlines it. The body is the arena. Both souls are trying, are vying for influence over the body. Which soul is going to decide what we do? That's the tension here. Which soul is going to shape how we react? Which soul is going to determine how we think, how we speak, how how we be. And again, another important point to note is the godly soul is not passive. The godly soul is not like just trying to stay spiritual, trying to avoid the mess of life and and you know, it stays out of things. All we we engage with a mess. No, the godly soul wants to engage. It wants to be involved in our real physical life. It's what wants to shape it. It wants every action, every emotion, every choice to reflect something that's that's godly, something much higher, which means, again, it's not avoiding struggle. The godly soul steps into this struggle and this is this is the war, this battle that the Tanya introduces to us in Chapter 9 that there's different forces here. They both want opposite things and therefore there's going to be internal conflict. The godly soul is given a mission before it comes into this world, right? We we described it as an oath in in the earlier chapters. The the altar of it describes how he he quotes the Talmud where the the godly soul is given an oath to be at Sadiq and not to be a Russia, meaning you're here with purpose. You are here to actively choose a direction. You're here to engage in this tension. But the godly soul is not ready to arrive at a compromise. Neither soul is it wants to win completely. And so when we go into Chapter 9, we, we start to unpack what does this battle look like? Also, where it takes place in a very physical sense, where it takes place inside of our body. And then how each soul wants to lead. Each soul has a completely different direction. So we're going to, we're actually going to look a little bit inside today. Well, we'll see, I'll see, I'll, I'll see how much of it I'll, I'll read inside. Anyway, the author, but he tells us where, where each soul resides inside of our body. And now obviously, you know, we, we talk about a soul. The soul is not a physical thing, right? It's, it's spiritual and the body's physical, but the way we're going going to understand it is that the soul powers do manifest within the body, which is this is how we result in a living being. If you have a physical being on its own or you have a spiritual being on its own, you're going to either have a statue or you're going to have an Angel. But the way the soul manifests inside the body, that is what creates the human, the living human being. Different soul powers are going to manifest in different parts of the body, like, you know, the power of sight will manifest in the eye, the power of speech is going to manifest in the mouth and so on. And then there's one part of the body which acts as the actual like headquarters, where every single part of the soul is expressed and manifest in that part. So Chapter 9 begins by telling us that the animal soul resides in the left Chamber of the heart. The heart is made-up of a right chamber and of a left chamber. The left chamber is what is where the oxidized. The the I'm making up words. The, I don't know if this is the way you would call it, but the blood that has the oxygen from the lungs comes into the left chamber and then gets pumped into the whole body. So we're going to, you know, I'll read a few lines here. OK, If anybody has a Tanya, if you have a Tanya, great, go ahead and look inside Parak test Chapter 9. If you don't have a Tanya, don't worry, I'm not, I'm not reading that much and I will. I I'm using translation from from from the Tanya project on taba.org which actually I just noticed doesn't this is the last chapter that they have published so far. So I'm reading here the he name Makai mishka nephesh habamis Shami Klipa snega the place of residence of the animal soul of Klipa Snega within the heart of every within every Jew is in the heart Who believe Bhalal Hasmali in the left Chamber of the heart Shuhumali dum. Why in this left chamber? Because the left chamber is filled with the life giving blood, as it says Kiha dum Hua nephesh, it tells us that the blood, the Torah tells us that the blood is in the soul, which means that the body soul, it's chiefly embodied in the blood that life depends upon this. Again, this is this oxygenated blood from the left chamber is now pumping into the entire body, which means that the, the animal soul, as you could see as, as we see every, when we have an impulse, you sense it in your entire body and you have an impulse of fear. Your entire body freezes up. When you've had desire for something, there's a sensation of, of, of bliss and pleasure inside of us. And therefore he goes on to say, call Hathaibis Fahatifaris, Fahas Vidame and Hein believe all the animalistic, the animal soul emotions like a craving, like boasting, like anger and so on. Hein believe it's in the heart. And from the heart he miss, he miss Pashtis from the heart. It spreads into the entire body. These impulses are literally felt in the sensations of our body. And then what does it tell us? Then it just like it spreads throughout the body, become Ayla Lamar Shabaraj. It also goes up into the mind that's in our head. What is it doing there? Dear Lahashi Ulahara Bahen Ulis Hockey Band, As we learned, we study, we when we learned about how the animal soul works, it has to go from this impulse, from this emotion, and it just then it goes into conscious thought, into our mind, chattering about it, devising ways in order to fulfill these impulses. It's just like the blood oxygenated blood originates in the heart from your heart. It's present to our limbs and also rises into the brain. OK, so that that's all I'm reading for now. So here we are. We're building on what we learned a few chapters back. I'm going to do this, you know, I'll try to summarize because we, we did study this already. We said that the animal soul is primarily impulsive. It does not start with thinking, it starts with a feeling. By contrast, what do you know about the godly soul? The godly soul starts with Seiko, with understanding, and then it moves into emotion. The animal soul, again, it's the opposite. It starts with Medeis. It has an emotional reaction and has an impulse, and then the mind of the animal soul comes after. But like we discussed a few chapters back, it is not objective in the way that the mind comes. It does not step back and evaluate the feeling. It works for the feeling. It strategizes, it rationalizes, it figures out how am I now going to carry out this, carry out this impulse that I have. And this is how the Tanya describes it here in a very somatic way. It it's he, he describes here. The impulse originates in the heart. It rises up to the green and it becomes conscious. It thinks about it. There it go. It works through it. You know, it has an inner conversation and it comes up with a plan to fulfill it. So what the author Rabbit is doing in this chapter, he's really taking the idea that we, we we spoke about a few chapters back and he's showing how it plays out in the body seated in the heart. The animal soul is that's, you know, as we all know, the the heart is the center of impulse. The heart is the center of emotion, the center of desire, and only then does it move up to the brain. And, and I think this is an important point. I, I feel like I emphasized it a few chapters back, but I don't remember. So either way, I'm going to emphasize it here. It's an important point not to miss because it is easy to get confused, especially for those of us who've learned Tanya before. We hear mind versus emotion a lot in the in the language of the Tanya, we talk about Myershala leave and we assume if I'm thinking something through, that means that my mind is in control. But what we learned from here is that that's not necessarily true. If the whole process starts from an impulse, whether it's a need for safety, a need for approval, a need for validation, a need for comfort, a need for control, whatever it is that the animal soul has this impulse towards, then even if there's now a whole thought process around it, that thinking is not objective. The mind is not standing above the feeling. The mind is working for the feeling. Like I said a moment ago, it's justifies justifying it. It's rationalizing it. It's figuring out how am I going to get this impulse? I already decided I need this, now how am I going to? How am I going to get this fulfilled? So again, this should not be confused with the mind that we talk about when we say my Arshad Al Aleve, because that mind is a different starting point entirely. That mind begins with clarity, which is saiful. That is not a mind that got recruited after the fact in order to serve the emotion. So now we could contrast that. We'll contrast that that now with the the mind of the I'm sorry, with the animal souls process. We'll, we'll contrast now with the godly souls process. The godly soul is seated in the mind. Again, we talked about this in the previous chapters. The Seikal is in our mind, Khachmabina das. There's just an objective understanding. There's a bigger perspective. And then from there it moves into the heart. And as we're going to find out now, the Altriba continues to tell us on the right side of the heart specifically. Why? Because the, I mean the right side of the heart where the the blood comes in there and it moves into the lungs. The blood from the whole body gets pumped into the right side from the air, moves into the lungs to get oxygen. Why is it going from the mind into the heart? You cannot have the Nefertiti kiss only sitting in the mind. Because in order to act on something, you must have an emotional feeling about it. You can't just live in ideas, right? So the altar was telling us the godly soul also has emotion, but it the directions opposite it starts. The animal soul starts in the heart, moves up to the mind. The godly soul starts in the mind, moves into the heart. If you have a Tanya in front of you, I'll read. I'll just, I'll read one line here, one or two lines. Makka and Mishka Nepheshalli kiss the divine soul's place of residence, Hubimaiken Shiboraish is in the three regions of the brain. Umi Sham, Miss Pashettas, the Holly Bar. And from there she extends into every little limb. So let's, let's just talk about the brain for a brief moment. Again, we know the brain works very differently from the heart. The heart reacts, it feels something, it responds immediately, whether it's an attraction, a fear and excitement, the resistance, whatever it is that's going on. The brain, on the other hand, is really built to slow things down. The brain's job is to take in information, to think it through, to evaluate, to compare, to decide. The brain does not react, it does not automatically chase what feels good, and it does not automatically, automatically push away what feels uncomfortable. The brain first tries to understand what is this? What does this mean? What's the right response here? And, and the brain has the capacity to turn a process inward, to look in at myself. What's my reaction? What's my choice? Is this aligned with what I believe? Is this who I want to be? This ability to step back and not just be inside the experience, but to have awareness and to look at it with our awareness. This is the power of the brain. And that's why the godly soul is centered there, because the godly soul is not driven by instinct and it's not driven by personal comfort. And it's not, it's not driven by survival, it's driven by truth. So anything that comes from the godly soul has to go through that space of thinking, of processing, of gaining clarity. There's no, it's not like there's this burst of a reaction. The, the, the godly soul develops its emotions through understanding. Now again, this is a, a quick review of previous chapters. This happens in a process through Hamabina and Das, right? First comes Khachmat. There's this initial insight, there's this flash. There's an idea being a develops it, it breaks it down and understands it more fully. Dos is when that idea becomes real to you, when you connect to it, and that's when it starts to affect how you feel and how you act. Now, these happen to be associated with different parts of the brain. There's different parts of the brain that are connected to these processes. The right side of the brain, those of you who know about right brain, left brain ideas, the right brain is more big picture, it's more integrative. It this aligns with idea of karma. The left brain is more analytical, it's more structured. Again, you see that idea in Bina and the middle area of the brain. This is connected to dos. This is where an idea is connected to our actual experience. And, and again, the, the main point here is that this brain is a system that allows us to move through a process, take in an idea, understand it, connect to it, and then and only then it begins to shape our inner world. And that's why the godly soul has to express itself through that process. So back into the lines of the Tanya, an important detail. It goes from the brain, the Gamboli Bahala Haimani Shahi Ain Baidam. She resides in the heart as well in the right chamber, whose function is it's not necessarily the blood. The function of the right side of the brain is the oxygen that the blood is going to require. As we see there, there's a verse that says leave ha ham, the aminite, the heart of a wise one. In other words, the divine soul is the aminite is on the right side. So like I, I think I said this a moment ago, but just for our process here, the divine soul must also move into the heart because that's the goal of it, to develop the emotion that is then going to motivate action to stay in our mind with an idea, which unfortunately we often do. That's not the the end goal. The mission is to come into the body to move into our emotions and obviously from emotion into action and to God willing to transform them. And the way it does that is going to have to be by moving from the mind into the heart. Because at the end of the day, what motivates action is not the ideas that we know. It's the things that you feel you can understand something very, very clearly, but if you don't feel it, it's not going to change how you live. So the godly soul takes this understanding, develops it into an emotion, turns into something we care about, and God willing moves it into action. Now, the author of it, actually, I, I wanted to quote the inside of this because he, he elaborates in a beautiful way how this evolves the movement from Sahel into emotion. So first of all, he, he talks about what happens once the Sahel moves into the heart. And again, I'm quoting the direct words it she reveals herself, the godly soul reveals herself as love for God. The Seiko moving into the into the heart starts to to to express itself as a deep love. And he describes it as a love that bursts into flames. She rejoices in God's beauty. She she rejoices in the glory of his transcendence. How does it happen? Words of the Tanya Kasha or Amy Hahaha Mashar bareche. First you have to engage the wise person's eyes, which are in his head. We again, this is really a review of what we talked about in the past, how the Optarabat focuses on this a lot. This is a huge part of Kabat Rasidis about contemplation and and and deep thought and learning and studying about God. In this chapter he just shows how it literally works in the body. It starts in the mind, in the regions of the brain of Khachman Bina. You engage. This is, again, this is quoting directly from Natania. You engage as with them as virtual eyes to gaze upon the glory of the King and the unfathomable beauty of his greatness, A greatness without end and without definition. In other words, he's describing to us, When the mind of a person focuses on God, studies about God, contemplates on God, then this joy of the divine soul will emerge in your heart. It's like, it's like 1 + 1 = 2. When you think about these things, you're going to start feeling about them. And he continues to say this is the same. Cain, Charmides, Caduceus should believe all of the holy emotions in our heart. How do they get there? How do we start to love God when this is a question for each of us to ask because we might not be feeling this motivated love towards God or this motivated impulse to do things for God or to be in a relationship. And to the altar I was describing. It's very literal. You really need to spend time in your mind thinking about God, because once you do, they will emerge from Hamabina and Das in the brain and, and, and it will start to be experienced as emotions in your heart. So that's, that's the sum of these two operating systems. Each one of them is headquartered. It, it, he tells us in the beginning of the chapter where they're headquartered. And then he, he goes on to describe how they have totally opposite pulls, totally opposite desires. And that is going to create a lot of internal conflict and the altar of us. So, so again, after he describes where the the heart, the animal soul lives, the godly soul lives, he says, now here's the theme. They're both inside of our body. And he compares the body to a small city. And he says each one of these souls wants to be the king that is going to dominate the city. And neither soul has room for compromise. Each one wants total domination. Those of you familiar with Hasidis are going to recognize the the the pussock, the verse that the altar of it quotes here. He says the translation of that is each nation is going to struggle to overpower the other nation. You might recognize those words are from the story of Jacob and Asaf Rifka, their mother's senses the struggle inside of her womb. She feels this push and pulls steadily and she goes to get clarity what's got what's happening inside of her. And she was told that there's two nations inside of you. They're twins, but to quote the puzzle, 1 is going to be earnest and peaceful. This is Yaakov, and the other is his nemesis. This is Asaph. He's a brutish man of the field. Since Rifka was the mother of the Jewish people, her story is read as the story of our two souls. Our two souls are two kings seeking to have full rulership over our body. These are two operating forces that are vying for control of every single thought, every word, every deed. Now that's in the microcosm, in the macro. If you take our own little personal story and you project it onto the world, this is the story. This is the cosmic story of Klipa versus Kedusha. So again, what was happening in Rifka's womb? It's the story of just two twins, Yaakov and Aesop. It's the story of our two souls, the godly soul and the animal soul. It's the battle between Klipa and Kedusha, the forces that conceal God and the forces that reveal God's presence. So when we talk about the battle between the godly soul and the animal soul, first we're going to have to understand what's actually at stake because at the core of this chapter, there's very, this is the the question we're asking. This isn't a question of like, do I want to, you know, sit in and, and, and watch a movie now or do I want to go pray? This is a really, really foundational question that we have to ask ourselves. Where is the center of your life coming from? Because again, like I said, it's not a battle over behavior. It's literally a battle over our identity. It's a battle over our orientation. It's a battle over the system that is living inside of us. And, and again, there's no negotiation. It's not like the two sides can divide the day. You take the morning, I'll take the afternoon. I'll let the animal soul run things now. Later in the day, I'll be more spiritual. That's not what's happening. At any given moment. We are living from one center from the other either. We're living from the animal soul or we're living from the godly soul. When we say the animal soul, again, like I said, we're not just talking something negative. We mean a very specific orientation, self-centered either. We are living in the Orient orientation of self centeredness. And again, not necessarily just simply selfish, but in a survival sense, safety, survival, pleasure, avoiding pain, avoiding discomfort, every single thing will trace back to an impulse of the heart. What do I feel? What do I want? What protects me? What makes me comfortable again, that's why it's rooted in the heart. It doesn't mean it it, it's not like the needs I have now are a means for something higher. Even when it's doing it, it's just reaching for something meaningful. It's still within the framework of this is what I think is best for me. You know when when someone's dedicated to a certain cause, but it's coming from a self-centered place, It's because this is what I think is best. It's it's just very self referential. I'm the center. My experience is the center. Everything of the animal soul is flowing from that and everything from the animal soul is returning to that, which is why the Tanya said Kihadam Hua nephesh. The puzzle that we quoted, the blood is the soul, meaning the physical life, the felt experience. This is everything. And from when within that system, life is literally just going to feel like the need to feel safe, the need to be in control, the need to be validated, the need to be approved of, the need to manage everything, the need to hold everything together. There is from the animal souls perspective, there's this underlying fear, there's this underlying assumption that everything depends on you. And, and it's even deeper than that. There's like an A loss of awareness of where you really come from. There's a disconnection from the reality that God is actually here holding me in this moment. And again, from the animal souls perspective, that makes perfect sense. It's, it's not bad, it's survival. It's not just, oh, I'm so selfish and self absorbed. It's literally this need to feel safe, the need to be loved and, and, and to feel safe means, you know, I have to be good in order to be safe. I have to be right in order to be loved. I have to be perceived a certain way in order to get my needs met. And again, everything it builds every reaction, every pattern, every coping mechanism is designed around that. A lot of what we call our personality, think about that. Think of the way you think of yourself. What is your personality? A lot of that is really strategy. Strategies to feel safe, strategies to avoid being, strategies to make sure I I matter. The godly soul, on the other hand, comes from a completely different place. Holiness by by definition is not self-centered. Holiness begins when there's this willingness to step out of that center. Like we spoke about before. It begins with Bittle. And again, just defining Bittle. Bittle is not erasing yourself. Bittle is just, I'm no longer defined by myself. I can shift out of what do I feel, what do I need, what protects me into what is true. Because for the godly soul, the starting point isn't fear. The godly soul's starting point is not to control. It's not to self protect. The godly soul's starting point is truth. There's a grounded awareness that God is here. I'm not alone. I don't have to manufacture my own security. And again, this, this isn't theoretical. We talk when we talk about the godly souls love for God. We're talking about something very real. Is God's present in my experience right now, or am I operating from this need to be seen, to be validated, to feel secure? Because the godly soul doesn't just believe in God. Like I've pointed out before, it is literally a piece of God. So it's natural state is confidence. It's natural state is connection. And so here we have it. This is why life feels like a contrast, like attention, because we're steadily moving through these two systems, these two perspectives, 2 entirely different ways of experiencing reality, and there's literally nothing in between. At any given moment, the energy behind my thought, behind my words, behind my action is coming from either one or the other. Either I'm operating from alignment, from truth, from connection, or I'm operating from self preservation, from the need to feel safe, to be loved, to control how I'm perceived. You could literally feel the difference in your body. When the godly soul is leading, there's a sense of flow, there's presence, there's trust. We're not, we're not like, you know, gripping on so tightly when the animal soul is leaving, there's constriction. We're performing, we're controlling, we're withholding, we're managing. There's pressure, there's anxiety. There's this sense of needing to prove something. And this brings us back to what becomes obvious in the chapter here. In order for the godly soul to actually take the lead, the animal soul has to loosen its grip in the terms that of the Tanya. There's the left side of the heart is where the the all of this experience of the animal soul takes place. And we want to bring the godly soul in. We want to bring like an overflow of the sense that's sitting in the godly soul on the right side. As long as the animal soul is trying to run things right, we're holding on to control this need for safety. When we're in that framework, we can't fully operate from truth. And again, we, we've touched on this idea, again, this idea of Bittle, it's not a compromise. Bittel isn't like, OK, I'll, I'll control it a little. I'll trust a little. Bittel is like a total letting go, letting go of the need to control, letting go of the, of a belief system that's built around fear, letting go of an identity that says it, it all depends on me. And again, I've probably said this before, it literally could feel like a kind of death because those patterns, those beliefs that we rely on, they're from the animal souls perspective, the only way to stay alive. But they have to loosen control in order for something deeper to take over. And this is what the Altarab is describing here for the godly soul centered in the mind and on the right side of the heart, for that to fill the person, the left side of the heart, the place of the animal soul has to release its agenda. You know, I, I'll give you an example of something I had worked through a little bit ago, a situation that I was going through that it, it like made me come face to face with, with my own powerlessness. Now that sounds really awful, but I promise you there's a good ending. From the perspective of the animal soul, I felt powerless because the animal soul said I need to control this. Anything that set threats in my sense of control triggered anxiety. So what did I have to do in order to, to when while I'm living through the lens of the animal soul, I had to work very hard to manage every detail. I had to fix things. I had to control the outcome. I was pulling strings outside of myself, trying to get people to see things the way I saw them, trying to get people to act the way I thought they have to act just to come to feel some sense of stability, some sense of power. Because again, the opposite feels completely out of control. Like I like I might drown. That's the voice of the animal soul. It says if I can just get everything aligned the way I need it to be, then I'll be OK. But then God gave me a gift. You know, it's a kind of gift that really doesn't feel like a gift at first, but it's that sense of control completely taken away. I was shown very clearly, you actually have no control here. And that forces me to come face to face with something so much deeper. But the fact that the power that I thought I had was never real to begin with. It's an illusion, by the way. That's that Everyone here should know that about their own things that they do have control over. It's an illusion, and the moment that illusion falls apart, something else is able to take take over. Something else becomes possible. Instead of trying to grab back my control, I'm able to step into a completely different kind of power, the power of the godly soul. What is it? What does that mean? It's not about controlling, it's about becoming a Clear Channel, letting go of my need to manage everything and allow something much higher to move through me. And again, this isn't just about the situation I was working through. This shows up everywhere in our lives. This is how we relate to our kids. We try to manage, manipulate, change, shift, bend people into pretzels. This shows up in the way we manage our finances. This shows up in probably every one of our relationships, shows up in the way we work. From the animal souls perspective, we're constantly trying to create safety through control. So we make plans and we build strategies and we create agendas. And very often we, like I said before, we try to shape other people to fit into those plans. We want our spouse to act a certain way. We need our kids to behave a certain way. We want everything in our environment to cooperate so that we could feel OK, so that we can, you know, have a, a sense of safety, a sense of control. It's all coming from the same place. It's the animal soul's voice. But true power does not come from tightening the control. It comes from letting go. Because when you let go of the grip, that's when you step into something bigger. You stop operating from your own limited system and you become a channel for what? What does God want from me in this moment? And that is real power. Because again, you're not relying on your own limited strategies. As smart as you are, as clever as you are, as sophisticated as you are, we're limited. Our own calculations are limited. When we step out of that, we're tapping into something infinite. We're becoming channels for Infinity. And that's when a person becomes a real true powerhouse, not because we're controlling everything around us, but because we are aligned with something so much deeper and we're allowing that to flow through US. You know, it's, it's actually interesting. The same day I sat down on Friday morning to prepare for this class and the day before I had a conversation with someone, a woman that was going through like a challenging transition in her life for a very long time. She was very deeply driven. She was actually, she's a schlucker. She's very driven in her work. She's very motivated, passionate, building, creating, constantly pushing herself forward. But as she became more aware, she started noticing that there was this something was very uncomfortable beneath all of that. She was realizing as she was growing and doing a lot of inner work, noticing that her motivation wasn't coming from a pure place. It was coming from her animal soul, from needing validation, trying to prove herself. This need to feel seen, to feel successful, to feel like, look what I built, look what I could do now. This happens to be a very powerful drive. The Elder River describes the Yeats Arhara in this trapter. The Yeats Arhara means the, the, the inclination, the, the broken, the fragmented inclination. It's this emotional drive. The Ezahara is defined by the way the Ezahara and Ezhar Tov, they are the emotions of the animal soul and the godly soul, respectively. So this, this powerful drive is the emotional drive of the animal soul. And what it what, what it's, it's a very strong drive. But again, what is it driven by? The need for pleasure, the need for recognition, the need for, you know, a sense of self. But again, this go back to the story of this woman as she's growing, noticing that this is falling away, not because she's less capable, not because the work matters less, but because the source of her motivation was no longer satisfying her. She was no longer feeling filled by somebody else's validation. She was no longer feeling filled by so and so approving of her work. And this transition is very, very uncomfortable because on one hand, you're letting go of an old operating system, but in her case, she had not yet found, she hadn't yet accessed this new clean source of motivation. It's an in between stage. I'm sure many of you could relate to this. The old fire is gone, but the new one hasn't yet been ignited. And, and this could feel very empty and it could feel very confusing, almost like what what happened to me? Why don't I feel driven the way I used to? And we were having a conversation about this and I was sharing her about this piece in the Tanya that I was learning right here in this chapter. It literally explains exactly what is happening. The Altarba tells us this very, very powerful experience. This is the battle between the Aitzer Har and the Aitzer Tov. Again, like I said, it's the emotional expression of the animal soul versus the emotional expression of the godly soul. But it's not won by force. The godly soul does not come and beat out the the animal soul. It doesn't come and shut down the emotions of the animal soul. That's not how it works. The goal of becoming king of this city that the Altarba describes is transforming the emotion. It's taking the drive, the passion, the excitement that once belonged to the animal soul and redirecting it again. How is this done? Through contemplation, through building a real awareness of God. Again, developing into dos, developing into something internal. This creates an emotion, a love for God. It fills the right side of the heart, and then it spills into the left side where the animal soul is. The Altrover describes it. Lahpaya lesitra achra. When the love from the right side of the heart spills into the left side, what happens? Akhayela citra akhar yasite hamayim haraim shibra. It first suppresses the water element of the animal soul. What's the water? Anybody here remember from the the earlier chapters? Water are the four elements. Each one gives rise to different emotions. The element of water is the drive for pleasure. That's the core engine of the animal soul. It's passion. It's pulled towards what feels good in a very unrefined state. How does this show up again? The words of the Tanya Taiba, Shiba, Kliva Sniga. It's a craving for worldly pleasures. In the case of this woman I was speaking with, it was her need for validation, her drive for success and for approval. This was the the water element that was motivating her, her work. The next step of the altar of the disguise is, first of all, you have to, you have to go through this process she's going through to no longer act, to finally recognize and realise like, like, no, I, I don't want to be motivated by that. That's the iskafia element. But then he goes on. Then it moves into the next step, the shanaisa ullahapka. This is the Ishapka element. It transforms it and it flips that same Dr. Mita Nuge Elamhaza from a desire for worldly pleasure, La ABBA sashem, into a love for God. Now, what will make this very practical? But just explaining here in the words of the Tanya, what's this shift? We're not removing the Itzahara where our goal is not to stop having pleasure. We're transforming it. The same emotional energy, the same passion that seem need to feel alive and to feel excited and to feel driven. It becomes redirected. So instead of being fueled by what will people think of me and how will I be appreciated and will I be validated, it starts being fueled by something different. There's this deep sense of self worth from our connection with God. And once a person begins to experience that even a little, everything else starts to loosen its grip. Who needs validation from another person when you are living in a relationship with the King of all kings? I know that sounds theoretical, but we're again, we'll make it practical. Do you need your neighbor's approval when you have a straight spine and you know deeply in your bone that you are a messenger of God? This is not the ego's voice. This is a pure and humble knowing that I don't need to prove myself. When you sense, when you have a sense of self worth that is coming from something infinite, you don't need another person to acknowledge you. In this woman's experience, what was happening? It wasn't a loss of drive, it was a refinement of it. The old pleasure stops working so that this deeper, truer pleasure could take its place on a very practical level. Again, these are my thoughts, but I think that the motivation could show up, you know, rather from from coming making an event in order to, you know, to get the validation of others. There's this deep sense of like heart to heart connection. Rather than measuring success by how many people show up to my event. We measure success by I showed up to be a channel for God's light. And this is what the the author describes is bahala bafka with your whole heart. What does that mean? He says Bishneh Itzaraka with both inclinations, we are not getting rid of the left side's inclination. We absolutely want that passion and that drive. We're not shutting it down. We're transforming what it loves. We're updating it, We're growing it up, we're refining it. And this defines the author of it goes on to explain he just described about the love for God. He was talking about 1-1 emotion, but he says this is the same emotion that we're going to talk about all the godly soul emotions. Our goal is not to shut down the the worldly pleasures, but rather to transform them to godly pleasures. Every single one of our emotions. And he he elaborates our thought, our speech, our action. The goal of the godly soul, it's tribe, it's, it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's motivation in this battle is to get every thought, speech and action aligned with the will of God. The animal soul. On the other hand, he goes on to say, Ritz Sina Lahetechmanesh, she has the exact opposite desire. She wants that she alone should be the exclusive king. Now the Tanya offers us that he talks about the godly soul. Most of the chapter, most of the section, he gives us 2 lines about the animal soul. There are two lines but they are radically empowering. OK, one of the most illuminating lines that he offers us about this animal soul, This animal soul, the soul that's responsible for all of our constricted and I'll call it what it is. It's an imprisoned kind of living. What does he tell us about it? The Taibas Adam Shi escabar Allaha, the very purpose of the animal soul is with Taiba SA Adam. It's for the our own good. She is Gabar Allah that we could overpower it. It's a powerhouse and it wants us to win it over, not to erase it, not to shame it, but to take its energy, its passion, its strive, its impulse and redirect it in the service of her real voice. And the Tanya here uses the altar of it just brings it in one line. Commercial hazaina bazar. This is analogy of a seductress that was hired by the king in order to seduce the Crown Prince. The king wants to test his son's willpower. He wants to test his son's inner strength. He wants to test his capacity for rulership. Can this man be a leader? Can he be a king? Can he be a true channel of royalty? So what does he do? He hires a beautiful, skilled woman, and she knows that she has to use everyone of her finely tuned abilities in order to create a real test, in order to create an authentic challenge, a test that's going to expose the the Princess core. So she knows this, but at the same time, she also knows that her failure is the King's deepest wish. So she doesn't want to succeed. She's working for the king, but in order for it to be genuine, in order for it to accomplish its purpose, in order it for it to literally express his core, she has to perform it fully and convincingly, and she has to use her best effort. This is the sophisticated survival soul. And once we know this, this one line, there's no longer the spear. There's no longer a sense of failure. There's no longer this question of what is wrong with me? Why is everyone else evolving when I'm still stuck in my loops? Because every single time a layer peels back, every single time your core emerges stronger. What did we say last week? There's an equal and opposite force. The seductress comes back, this time more refined, more clever, more subtle in her attempt to take ownership over our thought, our speech, and our action. But as the author is telling us here, the entire aim isn't to break you. The entire aim is to strengthen your core. When you go to the gym, as soon as the wait no longer challenges you, it's time to level up. We do not grow without that resistance. Anyone here go to Pilates? I go to Pilates every. Just so you know, every Monday right after my Tanya class, I go. That's an I have my Pilates instructor. When we know about Pilates, when the coils are tight, it's very easy to find your core. The resistance does the work for you. It's fascinating. If you loosen the coils on the machine, you have to have so much more awareness, so much more intention, so much more inner focus in order to stay centered. This is the exact work of the banani. The Banani grows through resistance. The suffering happens because we push back. We have resistance to the resistance. That's where all of our stuckness happens, because it's true that the process could be painful. Growth comes with growing pains, but the suffering, again, pain. It makes sense for there to be pain in the equation. The suffering, though, that is when we get pulled into the narrative of what is wrong with me, what is wrong with him, what is wrong with us, what's wrong with him, what's wrong with God? The intensity of the suffering diminishes the moment the narrative shifts to, oh, the resistance is back. There must be a growth opportunity here. The animal's soul was designed to stay stuck in its protective mode. That's what the survival instinct does. And God designed it that way brilliantly, as resistance that invites us into growth to help us become centered in truth. That's the story of the Nefeshavamis. And so I want to actually end with a quote directly from the words of the Tanya that emphasizes this entire point. When describing the godly soul, he does he he uses the words hafta or ritzaina. The godly soul is is its will and hafta is its deep desire. Its will and deep desire is to dominate. When he describes the animal soul, he has one word, ritzaina. It's an outer desire. From the outside, it looks like she wants to dominate. He doesn't use the word hafta here, though, because it's only on the surface that she wants to dominate, but her deep desire that is that you and I should overcome it and that you and I should outsmart it. That's the, that, that's the conclusion of of chapter Chapter 9. Those are the end of my thoughts ladies. Any any questions? Speaker 2 I wanted to say first of all, thank you that like really, I don't know today, like it felt like it landed very deeply for me. The one thing like when I first started saying the sense itself, it was like a little confusing because the, the, the animal's soul has also a holy purpose, obviously, like we couldn't survive at that. It helps us survive, breathe everything, all the things. And it's not about not having a sense of self or having an inflated sense of self. It's having a healthy sense of self that is being powered through the lens of the godly soul, which is a transformation. So like that really actually clarified a lot of things for me. The other thing I wanted to say, I was just. Speaker 1 Going to say that's not a question, that's an excellent statement. So thank you you're. Speaker 2 Welcome. No, the other thing is not a question. Also, I wanted to say that I'm a speech therapist and when I worked with adults that had strokes or brain tumors, the right side of the brain, which is the big picture is actually it's memory, it's attention. It's it's all like the executive functioning and the left. The brain is speech and understanding speech and speaking speech, which is interesting. In the middle, which is the corpus callosum, actually takes the two and helps them communicate with one another, which makes sense which like an ever. Speaker 1 Amazing. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I I just did my my own little research on it, but that that's that's very helpful. Thank you. Speaker 2 Thank you. Speaker 1 Any anything else, ladies, I probably won't be able to stay on today after after we shut off. So bring bring your questions here. Very nice to see all your faces. I'm, I'm curious if anyone else has had that kind of experience where there's this, you know, that like, it feels like I, I, I literally think of, it's like, it feels like a fall. It feels like you've lost the ground underneath your feet because an old motivation tool no longer works. It's, I remember years ago seeing a saying that and, and this just pops into my mind now because it's literally this description of what was once in the left side of the heart is no longer there. And that must which feels so you feel naked, you feel exposed, you feel like what's going to motivate me? What's going to push me? But that process has to happen in order for the right side in order to to take its place. So there's always going to be transition phases really feel very ungrounding. Like the, the, the quote that I had seen was like, you walk into the fire, you burn your armor and then you have to, you walk out and have to start from scratch. When you burn your armor, the, the Nefeshabamis is in a sense, it's our armor, right? It's our protective part. It's a thing that helps us feel safe in the world. And when you strip yourself of one of those protective parts, you literally feel exposed. Like, wait a minute, what's what's going to protect me? And it's an and and so this is actually a question. I'm curious if anyone here has had an experience like that. We are an old motivation that you were able to come to realize was a left side of the heart impulse or left side of the heart need for safety, validation, whatever it is. An experience of that being stripped away before, before the new, that feeling before the new, cleaner, more pure motivation took its place. You don't have to share, even if you just raise your hand and tell me. Yeah, that resonates. Speaker 2 I feel like it happens a lot in the beginning of a year. Like take what Shoshanna and Kipper, you know, and you start thinking like, wait, everything I did last year, do I want to continue doing it? Why am I continuing it? Like I feel like that's the time of year that kind of feels like I want to re reconnected what you're saying by intention and where it's. Speaker 1 Coming I love that Liba yeah, 'cause it's interesting because I'm actually, what I was describing was something that almost unfolds on it. Suddenly it unfolds on your own, as you do your own work, as you're growing, as you mature. You know, even on a very simple level, something that motivated you when you were 18 isn't going to motivated you anymore when you're 28. You know, it's, it's that the, the natural growth process, this unfolds for us all the time. What you're saying, which I love is that like an intentional, like this intentional at the beginning of the year, whether it's your birthday or or Rosh Hashanah, to look at yourself and, and like, you know what, what am I doing that is not purely motivated? And how can I shift that? A lot of people have fear. And I've, I've met this as well with, in, with, in conversations with women. There's this sense of like, if I don't hold on to this, what's going to push me? They, they, they believe that if I don't hold on to, you know, with our kids, if I'm not afraid for them, if I'm not like hovering over them to protect and I don't do it this way, what's going to make sure that they stay safer? How am I going to make sure that I stay holically aligned if I'm not, if I don't have a fear? What we don't realize that our soul has huge power. We don't need the animal soul to motivate us. We don't need that. I, I, I've really seen this in a lot of conversations with women. There's this, there's this like, wait a minute. That's what was motivating me until now. And they're afraid to let go of that. Our godly soul is a pure source. It's literally a channel of divine like this. In my experience of powerlessness versus power, the power I was holding onto was such an animal soul perspective. It was like this narrow, this limited, but it made so much sense to me. And I'm, I'm like, I'm so smart and so sophisticated and I'm so emotionally aware that my animal soul was like it, it had developed a, a, a, a plan that just was like foolproof. It was a sophisticated, foolproof plan. And there was no way to see outside of it. So God had to do me the gift of like, just like, literally like pull the rug out from under my feet. Sometimes we hang on until we lose that illusion for control while we still have a little bit of an illusion. We hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. You know, I'll give you, I'll give you a silly example. It's not silly. It's a good example, but it's very, it's more external. I, I, I, you know, the conversations and examples I always give her like these deep internal things in the recesses of our heart. But a, a little example of a woman, you know, last year, it was right before the summer when the war in Iran started, right, The war with Iran and of, of a woman here in my community had plans to go to Israel with her family. And they hadn't been there in years and years. And so she and she's very much a spreadsheet kind of person, like minute by minute was scheduled and, and budget by budget. And this day here and this day there and where these kids were meeting her and this one family was like, I'm, I'm not even kidding when I tell you like an excel sheet of preparation, excel sheets, the whole file. Now, anyone who doesn't think the way she thinks, or probably even her own spouse is probably like, just like, like, can you just let go of the details? Like you can't control everything. Like let go, we'll figure it out. We'll be more like be flexible, right? But a person who thinks in terms of exile sheets, like they're going to think in terms of exile sheets, like they want minute to minute. Like, why leave it to last minute? Why play it by ear when we could have this managed? I, I want you as you're hearing this example, like I said, it's very much an external example, but I promise you this goes on inside your psyche 24/7. So this is what's happening for her on an external level. She, she has every minute planned, a lot of anxiety attached to it. So much planning, right? She gets an e-mail, she opens up her e-mail one day that her flights were cancelled because the war started. So could you imagine that? She says first she started to cry and then she started to laugh. She was like, God was showing me what everybody else was trying to say. You have no control. Now, again, like I said, it's an example of something happening outside of us. This goes on steadily in our psyche. But we we maintain, you know, I do have a control. I have a control how my husband's going to show up. I do have control of my older kids. They follow my rules and they go to this school and they did that and those kind of friends and this kind of, but we think we have control. We have no control. This doesn't mean we don't show up and, and, and, and do the work. We have to show up. But like I said, when we show up, the energy of I'm a Clear Channel that's only turn into a powerhouse. We think we have power wing control. We show up, we make the phone calls, we make the list. Of course you make plans. You don't show up in Israel with your entire family without any plan. But the anxiety is the energy behind those plans. Could you imagine showing up with a plan and the and the energy being God's in charge. I have a plan, I have a schedule. I know this damn here, this damn there. She could have the same excel sheet. The energy behind it is what we're talking about is the energy of I need to control every single people because if not, this is going to, you know, it's not going to be worth it. Or is the energy behind it. God is in control. And like I said, that's an example. We can all sit with that inside of our psyche and see what's what's, where's the Excel sheet here? Which relationship has an excel sheet? Which, which what my finances again, finances need an excel sheet. There's bills to pay, but can the energy behind that Excel sheet be I am a channel for God. My job is a channel for my finances to come through. It's not the source. The job is not the source. The job is the channel.