Description

Everything we choose, everything we do is a result of one fundamental calculation.

Transcript

Kabbalah Revealed

The Ego's Grip on our Choices

We really underestimate the effect of our created nature, of our will to receive. It is so powerful in terms of how we respond to things that we act really like a robot in every situation as long as we are functioning according to that program. Because we may think that we are choosing to do certain things but we can't choose outside of those parameters of going towards pleasure and avoiding pain.

Everything that we do is done for an egoistic reason, and it does not matter how it looks on the outside. The degree to which our egoism controls the events in our lives is... Well, it's evident. Just look at the world and you see the kind of relationships that people have with each other. They look very nice on the outside but what's really happening is that any kind of giving, anything that appears to be an altruistic act is really always a calculation for self-satisfaction. So even giving a great amount of money or expenditure of personal effort to help the poor or to heal the sick - there is a calculation there that pleasure is going to be gotten by the person as long as they are working within the will to receive. Either it will be in the form of honor from others or it will be in the form of a pleasure from thinking that I am superior to others, even if I don't tell them about it. It's always a calculation sought out to receive pleasure into the will to receive.

It governs everything and as long as we function within that, it is a constant pressure that allows us to easily be guided from one situation to another according to an inner pressure.