Does Everyone Have Bad Thoughts

Everything that awakens within us stems from the upper force of bestowal and love in nature that creates and sustains reality, which in Kabbalah is called “the Creator.”

However, we receive awakenings in our egos and they thus becomes revealed as the opposite form of what was sent from the upper force.

The upper force is absolute altruism, constantly bestowing pleasure and delight upon us, but we receive that influence in broken egoistic desires that wish to enjoy for self-benefit alone.

How does this work? The upper force is absolute altruism, constantly bestowing pleasure and delight upon us, but we receive that influence in broken egoistic desires that wish to enjoy for self-benefit alone.

The egoistic desires receive everything that comes from the perfect upper force, actualizing that influence in an opposite and negative manner.

That is why, unfortunately, we all have bad thoughts and bad desires, and we will continue having bad thoughts and bad desires until we correct ourselves.

What does it mean to “correct ourselves”? It means that we invert the intention upon our desires so that instead of wishing to enjoy for self-benefit alone at the expense of others and nature, we would instead wish to benefit others and nature over our own personal egoistic benefit.

What does it mean to “correct ourselves”? It means that we invert the intention upon our desires so that instead of wishing to enjoy for self-benefit alone at the expense of others and nature, we would instead wish to benefit others and nature over our own personal egoistic benefit.

When we correct ourselves, we would come to feel ourselves as existing in a single whole with everyone and everything in nature, and we would thus be happy to serve and act for the benefit of that whole as if it were our great self.

Does Love Require Constant Work to Keep It Fresh?

There is a saying in the wisdom of Kabbalah that “our whole work is to discover love among us each and every day.”

Love is the general inclusive force of nature, and it is written that reaching the love of others as ourselves “is the greatest rule of the Torah” (see Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, “Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]”).

Love is the general inclusive force of nature, and it is written that reaching the love of others as ourselves “is the greatest rule of the Torah” (see Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, “Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]”).

Today, in the age of globalization, we are discovering our global interconnectedness and interdependence. The force of love is bringing us closer together from the side of nature, but we are opposite to it, in a state of hatred toward one another. In other words, nature is an altruistic force and our nature is egoistic, a desire for self-benefit at the expense of others and nature. We are thus opposite to nature, and such an opposition is the cause of our every problem.

Our main problem is a lack of love. In love, we discover a life of eternity and perfection.

So why do we have to work for love? Doesn’t everybody already want love?

Indeed, we all have a desire to feel love, but how do we realize it not in a transient and involuntary way, which is how we generally feel love in our world, but in a way where we can grow the love? We realize it by inviting the force of love that dwells abundantly in nature into our connections. About drawing the force of love into our lives, it is written that “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice, because the light in it reforms."

The more we connect to sources that explain the foundations of nature—both human nature and the general inclusive nature—how we can attract the force of love in nature into our connections, and by doing so, achieve a happy and harmonious life the world over, then the more we attract the force of light and it works on correcting us.

The light is the force of love that can enter our lives and correct our intentions so that we genuinely want to love others as ourselves. The more we connect to sources that explain the foundations of nature—both human nature and the general inclusive nature—how we can attract the force of love in nature into our connections, and by doing so, achieve a happy and harmonious life the world over, then the more we attract the force of light and it works on correcting us.