A Different Formula For Happiness
A question I received: I am an egoist who feels pleasure when my neighbor’s car blows up and suffering when my neighbor buys a new car. Where can I get a different formula for attaining happiness?
My Answer: If you want to suffer from the misfortunes that befall your neighbor, and to be happy when he is happy, then you should marry his daughter – then he will be “your” family.
Do you understand now? You need a connection with him so his Kelim will become your own! If you become one family, then you will feel pleasure from all his successes and acquisitions. You only have to connect your Kelim to his. Otherwise, every new acquisition he gains will become a huge loss for you.
The fact that we perceive others’ Kelim as external allows us to ascend to a different level. This is why the breaking occurred. If I now connect the external Kelim to me, I will acquire the qualities of the Creator which I could never acquire otherwise.
The Creator divided me into two parts and gave me a sensation that one of the parts is foreign to me. But who are the people foreign to me, really, if the entire universe consists of just me and Him? So, a “foreign” person is just how the Creator appears to me. If I now attach that outsider to me, it will mean that I adopt the qualities of the Creator.
He created within me this artificial division into “myself” and “Him,” where the external part is called “clothing and castles” or “another person.” Now there are two parts inside my desire: myself and the neighbor, and I have to work in order to attach the neighbor to myself because I will thereby acquire the qualities of bestowal, love for the neighbor.
When I do this, I will begin to feel the same thing toward the Creator. He is outside of this entire sphere, but I have a means that enables me to imagine and feel Him – I can go from love for the neighbor to love for the Creator, and thus, gain a connection with Him. The opportunity we have to perceive reality as divided into two parts is a special patent and a salvation, because it enables us to make attempts to attach the external part to the inner one. Otherwise our situation would be hopeless.
Therefore, we must use this entire world as a means for our own correction, since the whole world was created for us, in order to enable us to attain the Creator.
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Is there something wrong with me?
I the read this article today and I don’t understand those types of feelings. I am happy for other people’s success always and I feel sad when they have a problem.
People have said that this is wrong with me because I cannot be so benevolent and always trying to help.
What I do feel is a great pain inside my heart when someone does something incorrect and that brings out the worse of me…. indignation and pain and that is what transforms me. Only when others demonstrate having no moral and ethics… still that doesn’t mean that if they need my help in something I wouldn’t give them my hand if it is within my possibilities. Sometimes because of this I get hurt twice.
Is this wrong? Should there be a limit to the help or love we bring other people?
-Silvia.