Waging a spiritual war on the evil inclination.

episode, whatever you want to call it, but it feels to me like a mission to do this, to come stand in front of the camera, open the camera, and just talk to you guys. If you listen or you don't listen, if it can help you or not, but if it could help one person, it did its job. So in continuation to yesterday, we spoke about Yesterday we spoke about something very amazing, that the enemy that we have inside of us, the ego, the Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination that we have, it's actually darkness. And darkness could be easily removed. By turning on the light, you know, just like physical darkness. When we want to remove physical darkness, we come and we light up, turn on the light. So what does that mean, turning on the light? You know, it's easier said than done. It's easier said than done. I mean, it's easy to diminish the ego. And evil inclination, because once darkness is shining, I mean, once there is light, hold on, I'm just going to put this on to not disturb, so we don't have any disturbance while I'm doing this, okay? So anyways, the Elter Rebbe, The Balatania, who wrote the Book of Britannia, he is talking about a war. He's talking about a war. And the reason why he's talking about a war, because he says that the body that we have, which is the physical body, needs a lot of motivation, needs a lot of work to be able to get out there and do all the things we were supposed to do, to do our missions, to go and be productive and, you know, do all the things that we want to do. So when we— so we need to understand that we have to reach a point that turning on the light and removing this darkness means that we have to fight with our body an enormous war. It's a war that it's— what can I tell you? It's probably the most important war that we have. To get out of our comfort zone and to do the things we're supposed to do, to meditate, to be grateful, to count our blessings, to be givers, to think about other people, to see, you know, to ask ourselves constantly, where, you know, what can I do, who needs me? I mean, if there is anything that I can fulfill, if there is any You know, each day at a time, but each day has its unique characteristics, and each day has in it a power to really do something. There is a purpose to each day, there is a purpose to each hour, there is a purpose to each moment. And every time we are, you know, we are you know, being lazy and being in our comfort zone and letting the evil inclination take over or the ego take over, then what happened? We put ourselves in the center, we become the most important thing. That means that we can't really help anybody now at this point. And this is not where we want to be because this is what actually leads a lot of people to eventually be in a very bad situation. Okay, so for us to really live more, we have to understand that there is a war and there is a great value for us waging war against this, you know, all those attributes that we have that are Putting us in place and like preventing us from like moving, like literally, like you can see some people that are just sitting there and just they don't move. They don't move, you know, it's not even healthy to stay at the same place at the same time, you know, every hour you at least need to get up and stretch and move your legs and shake your body and let the juices flow. You can't just stay in the same place. And nevertheless, to actually go out there and, you know, think about how you can really use the time in the right way, you know, study, open something, read something, learn something. You know, even if you like the internet, you like YouTube, there is so much good stuff on YouTube that you can listen to and grow. From listening to it. There is amazing people, there is amazing subject. You know, it doesn't always have to be just like entertainment and wasting time. It could actually be a time that you spend enriching yourself, gaining knowledge, improving your skills. So when you're done watching, you can actually go and do something about it. So the Alter Rebbe is talking about that the desire, the corrupt desire that we have, that when you wage war against it, it should be like the flame of a fire, and it should be diminished from the understanding that there is a godly part in us, there is a godly soul, that it's an actual part of the Creator. The Creator, the Creator of this whole universe, and we should have some kind of awe to this part, because the war is— what is that war? The war we are fighting for our godliness, we are fighting for our godly part, for our soul. So our soul is actually a part of God. So what does that mean? It means that it has the same characteristics. It's infinite. It's, you know, I mean, there's tons of information about what does that, what the Soul is, but let's just put it in simple words. It's the Godly, infinite, unlimited, part in us that has zero luck, it has pretty much everything that it needs. That part is just here to help our body reach its full potential. And our body is something physical that needs a lot of encouragement and there is a lot of war, there's a war that needs to wage against this corrupt desires that just, you know, corrupt attributes. He just wants us to sit down, sit down, don't worry, everything is okay. So, so, so everything that we do— so he's saying that everything that we do, let's just say you're learning, you should learn even more than you usually learn, you know, try to break the pattern of the lazy body and give it a war. So if you— let's just say you are doing intermediate fasting, or you are trying to eat better, then, then if you usually eat in the morning, let's just say at 9 PM— I mean, at 9 AM or 10 AM— try to eat 2 hours later. You know, I know, yeah, it's a little bit— you stretching it. It's maybe not gonna be as comfortable, but it's part of the war you're waging against your animal part, against your evil inclination. And what you're doing, you are turning your godliness into the more dominant part in your life. You're letting your godly soul dominate your life and dominate your body and dominate your thoughts, speech, and action, which are the garments of your soul. So he continues here and he says, you know, that if we don't really wage war and we are just like, you know, just leave it like that, we're just like, oh, whatever, I don't need to fight, I don't need to be better, whatever. Some people just don't care. It's really sad, it's unfortunate. But it says that when you let your evil inclination dominate, what happens? You become dominated by evil. It's really sad, and you become that. You become somebody whose desire that he has is for himself alone. That means that he's in the center of everything. It's all about him. So when you're in the center, this is when you, you know, you're gonna— people that constantly put themselves in the center, they usually have a lot of mental issues, a lot of mental issues that they can't get over, you know, depression, anger, jealousy, all those negative emotions. They will attack, they will attack you. You know, there is a wisdom about this. That it's not, it's not here in the Tanya, but it's something, it's like, you know, it's like having a pit, you know. When you have a pit and you don't clean the pit and you don't add water to it and you don't take care of the pit, what you gonna have there? You gonna have spiders, snakes, and all those negative animals are taking over. So it's the same thing with the animal soul, with evil inclination. If you don't take care of it, if you don't try to diminish it, and you don't instead put some godliness into your body, into your life, eventually all those negative emotions will take over, take over. La Aleinu, I mean, you know, may not happen to any of us and to any of the listeners because this is not The reason why we're here and the reason why, you know, I'm doing this, I'm recording this and you're listening to this, is that we give it a real fight. We'll give it a war. We're not gonna let this thing take the best of us. Remember last video that I made, we spoke about how the Alter Rebbe is talking about getting angry. You gotta get angry at this thing because what is this thing doing is trying to keep you Not doing, trying to keep your, all your negative emotion to take over you, and your evil inclination to dominate your life, your thought, speech, and action. And you can't let that happen, under any circumstances, you have to give it a fight, and you have to make your Godly Soul the dominant part in your life. So it talks about, you know, how do you— part of doing it is also doing good deeds, you know, doing good deeds, giving money to charity, volunteering somewhere. And this idea to remove yourself from doing evil things, you know, like, for example, you know, you are trying to chase a desire, a corrupt desire, or try to chase something, just let it go. Just don't do it. You know, sometimes it's just good just to sit and not do. And it's also when you don't do something that it's actually going to have bad consequences in your life, when you just sit there and you don't do it, that's also something that's also considered like almost like a good deed. You just didn't do something bad, it's like a good deed almost, it's considered. And you have to really, really like think about it and contemplate about it and meditate about it. The understanding that there is an enemy, that there is something you need to fight. I remember when COVID started, President Trump used to call COVID the invisible enemy. We have a new invisible enemy, it's called COVID-19. Anyway, I don't want to get into what I think about this whole thing, but this is the real true invisible enemy. You know, the evil inclination is the true invisible enemy. It's a force of nature trying to really put us in a bad spot, you know, and we have to acknowledge it, and we have to fight it, we have to get mad at it, and And we have to, you know, fight and really take our body and make it move and make it do things that maybe the body doesn't want to do. The body obviously does not want to go to the gym and work out for an hour and a half every day. Okay? Not to mention for 7 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. But whatever it is, you have to get up and you have to do some kind of physical activity. You have to, otherwise you, you are putting yourself at risk. And, and the body doesn't want to get up and do any physical activity, but you have to fight with it. You have to make it get up and do it. You go to the gym, this is not a social club. It's a place for you to work and to work hard. You know, there is a t-shirts, it's called dry fit. So when you go to the gym, you have to make the dry fit t-shirt, which is supposed to keep you dry even if you sweat, look like false advertising. It means you're gonna work out so hard that even the dry fit shirt that's supposed to stay dry will get wet. This is when you know you're really doing a good job at the gym. So it continues. So also it talks about, like, for example, sometimes we have a tendency to talk about people. You know, talking about people is a bad, bad thing. You know, like, even if it's true, like, if you know somebody that did something negative, whatever it is, Stop yourself from talking about anybody. Just like, even when you do that, you are making your godly soul more dominant in your life, in your body. You know, something like that. Like, even if it's a simple thing, you know, especially, you know, when you are You know, when you talk about people and you talk about their negativity, you basically are mirroring, you know, it's a reflection of some kind of attribute that you have inside of you that you just need to work on. So instead of like seeing it in somebody else, which is a mirror of you, and talking about that person and like saying, pretty much saying that you have negativity inside of you. You know, you need to just stop right there. Don't talk about another person. Don't talk about their negativity. Just, you know, talk about ideas, talk about things that are actually helping you and the person you talk to grow and move forward. Talking about people keeps everybody in a very, you know, low state of mind. And also, you know, even things that are— that you're allowed to do. For example, you know, you're allowed to eat, right? You're allowed to eat. But, you know, when you indulge too much, it's already pretty much letting your animal soul kind of become a little bit stronger. So even when you eat, which is okay, you're eating, try to, you know, also have that in mind that, you know, I want my Godly soul to dominate. My Godly soul probably doesn't need to eat that much food, or maybe it needs to eat healthier food, no, you know, not too much sugar, etc., etc. But you're getting the point. It's, you know, the war that he's talking about, it's not like, oh, I'm going to get a sword and I'm going to start fighting. It's with the simple things, you know, from eating, drinking, talking, having a conversation with someone. You know, when you have that right mindset, you're going to always try to keep your, uh, your godly part in control and dominating your animal part, uh, which is this, which is, which is what he wants us to do. Because when we do that, we're literally changing the world because we are changing ourselves. So now we have the godliness, you know, enclosed in us, and, and we are entering a godly realm. You know, even though it doesn't seem like, "Oh, you know what, I stopped myself from talking, you know, evil tongue about someone. How is that godly?" It's very godly. It's very godly, and you made a big favor to the world by doing that, literally. So, this is pretty much for today. You know, I— it continues a little bit more. But the idea here is clear. The idea here is clear. We have to really, with every moment and every thought and every action and every word we say, we have to always make sure that it's being said by our Godly spark, by our Godly part, by our soul. And not by our animal part or by evil inclination. And there is a war, and there is a war, and we have to, again, like I said yesterday, get mad at this thing and wage the war every moment of your life with everything that you do. It starts with the little things, but those little things are huge. Thank you for listening. Looking forward to see you next time. Please subscribe, share, and like this video so these videos could reach people that could use this information. It is information that could help people really take control over their life and their emotions and feel better and live more. See you next time.