Ruled By Egoism

115.06Question: Psychologists say that people who are endowed with power have pronounced tyranny, stubbornness, and mental imbalance. Scientists have found that power changes the structure of the individual and even his brain. Do you agree with this?

Answer: Absolutely agree. The fact is that we are all arranged in such a way that we are between two forces of nature (reception and bestowal, pressure and release), which must constantly be in balance.

All nature consists of two opposite forces, and in whatever way they are revealed, they must be balanced. Only in this state can we achieve correct results. We need both forces. There is no darkness without light and no light without darkness.

We must choose the golden mean in everything. If a person loses the opportunity to hold on to it and he is given permissiveness: do what you want without a limit, then we will disfigure him. He will not grow up to be what he needs to be. He must necessarily be within a framework and feel that he is given the opportunity to act in a narrow range, in the balance of two forces.

An animal has no problems in this regard. It understands what it needs and does not overeat, overdrink, or oversleep. It does whatever its body requires. The organism in the animalistic state always requires the most normal and rational things.

This is not how it is in a person. The problem is that a person is always ruled by his egoism.

Question: How does this fit with what Baal HaSulam writes: It is necessary to give freedom to the individual?

Answer: The freedom of the individual lies precisely in the fact that we do not force him, but teach him. To the extent of this learning, he gains freedom, knows how to restrict himself correctly, how to limit himself, and how make a man out of himself.

That is, freedom is a conscious restriction of one’s egoism, when a person understands how he should educate himself, meaning to be “above himself” and from “above himself” to control his animalistic nature.
[295771]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/22/22

Related Material:
Lust For Power
How Power Is Dangerous
The Siege Upon Egoism

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