Hisboddedus Preparation - 003 Calming The Senses

Our Goal

Let us continue what we have begun to discuss. We will state again that the goal is to calm ourselves down – both externally as well as internally. First we need to calm ourselves physically, and then calm ourselves internally.

We all have five senses, and we must calm them all down. Let us start with the lowest of the senses, the sense of touch.

Calming Your Sense of Touch

Choose the right setting where you will be comfortable. Each person has a different way of getting comfortable; some people like to be able to move around in their chair, while some would prefer to be totally still. The point is to get comfortable.

Calming Your Sense of Taste

Next is our sense of taste. You can calm down your sense of taste by pacifying it with giving in a little to your need to taste things. For this, take a light food or drink with you into the room. In this way, you give yourself some outlet to your need to taste things without getting too caught up in what you’re eating. This will only be constructive if you take something light to eat or drink.

Calming Your Sense of Smell

Next comes our sense of smell – we need to calm this too. For this, take something into the room you enjoy smelling. The best thing to use for this is to smell something holy, such as an esrog, or besamim. Don’t take something which has too strong of a smell, because the stronger or spicier it smells, the gruffness of the smell awakens our physicality. So it should be something which is either a holy item to smell, or something light-scented.

Refining our sense of smell is a very subtle avodah. Smell is not such a simple matter; it can help us reach our soul, when we inhale a scent deeply. This is only true when we smell something slowly and deeply – through the sense of smell, we can actually enter deeper and deeper into our soul.

Alternative Method: Breathing Deeply

Either we can take deep breaths without smelling something deeply, or we can smell something deeply without taking deep breaths. The common denominator between either avodah is that it helps us reach a deeper place in ourselves.

We need to keep deepening our sense of smell in this way more and more until we feel ourselves entering a deeper place in ourselves. By getting used to this more and more, we will uncover a great inner calm – and it is a very deep feeling.

The truth is that deep smell can only be reached after we calm down the rest of our senses. When we start out hisbodedus, we cannot jump to this higher stage, and we have to just get used to breathing or smelling deeply. Only later can we begin to deepen our sense of smell as a way to access our inner self.

Three Ways To Deepen Our Breathing

Air is avir in Hebrew, which has in it the words ohr (spiritual light) and the letter yud. This hints to an avodah in which one can imagine in front him the letters ohr and yud in the air in front of him, and then breathe it in. That is one way to breathe in air: as you breathe, imagine that you are breathing in ohr contained in the air – a spiritual light.

A second way to breathe in air is to breathe in clear, natural air.

A third way is for one to image a possuk in the air and then breathe it in – by thinking about this and saying this verbally, we purify the air that enters us.

In today’s times, there are all kinds of breathing exercises. The basic idea between all these methods is that the person imagines that he is inhaling something pure into himself so he can purify himself, and he is exhaling something impure from himself so he can expel his impurity. We cannot say that these methods are incorrect, but they are not brought in our holy sefarim, The methods which we brought, though, have been written in our holy sefarim, such as in the sefarim of Rav Abulefia and the sefer Yesod Tzaddik, written by Reb Shlomo of Zhevil.

The avodah of breathing is a discussion to itself.  (Click here to see a previous class: Rosh Chodesh Avodah 008 MarChesvan - Breathing »)
But let us return to our main point.

Calming Your Sense of Hearing

Next comes our sense of hearing. We need to calm our sense of hearing by listening to calming songs, such as a stirring niggun. The power of a deep, calm niggun can help us go deeper into our soul. This greatly helps us calm down the noise we are coming from. Listen to a song which you know calms you down.

Our sense of hearing must eventually become deepened, just as we said with regards to our sense of smell. In the beginning stage, we need to simply calm down our hearing by listening to calm and quiet tunes, but eventually we have to deepen our hearing so much that we can use it to help us reach our inner self. Don’t work on this right away; this will be the later stage. The basic step is to get used to listening to calm music.

Some people calm themselves down when listening to a tzaddik or someone they enjoy listening to speak. However, there is a disadvantage to using this way to calm yourself down, because often you think deeply into the words that the person is saying, and this can take you out of your calmness. So it’s better to stick with music if we want to calm down our sense of hearing.

Calming Your Sense of Sight

The last sense we need to calm down is our sense of sight. In this, there are two parts – our external power of sight, and our internal power of sight.

We calm the external part by sitting in a place where you can see calming sights, such as a place in your house where you can see the clear blue sky. It should preferably be a place where you can see something pleasant, such as nice paintings; and it should also be a place where you can see a wide view of something calm and pleasing to look at, such as the sky, or the water.

If you can’t find such a place, at least be in a room with nice paintings of such places – such as a picture of the sky or of the ocean. However, it should be a real picture – and not on an electronic device, such as on a computer screen. Electronic devices do not allow for peace of mind.

The goal here is to use our sense of sight to calm ourselves down, by seeing something pleasant. Some people enjoy looking at a candle, and this calms them down; others get calmed by looking at pictures of tzaddikim and Gedolim (but there are some people who get anxious when they look at such pictures, because it makes them upset at themselves that they’re not on the level of the tzaddik in the picture. Such people should not look at these pictures, and instead use the other methods to calm down).

Utilizing Your Power of Imagination

Most people only know of the external uses of the senses, but there are inner uses of our senses as well. Our sense of sight has an inner way of how it can be used – and this is known as the power of imagination.

Imagination is a broad subject, and it needs a whole series of classes of its own.[1] It is very important to bear in mind, however, that not all people should make use of their imagination. Imagination can be useful, but there are some people who harm themselves when they try to use their imagination, even for holy purposes. Imagination can only be constructive for someone who is very calm, not by someone who gets anxious easily.

Let us learn how we can use our imagination for constructive purposes.

Before we go into our calm atmosphere for hisbodedus, a person should sit with himself and imagine an event in his\her life that is greatly calming to think about. Think into your past and try to remember a time in your life in which you felt completely calm and happy – a quiet and deeper kind of happiness, not a loud kind of happiness like when you were at a wedding. If you can remember such a time in your life, you now have a tool to always remind yourself of in which you can calm yourself down, by always revisiting the past experience that was calming to you.

Be very clear in the details of that past calming experience. If the details of what you went through aren’t clear to you, then it might be detrimental later on when you think about it again, because there might be some unpleasant memories that will suddenly come up, taking away your calmness. So it has to be an event in your life in which you are totally sure that it was a truly happy experience for you.

There is another method in using the imagination for positive purposes, and that is for one to imagine a future event which you would like to happen for you that will greatly calm you. However, it is not advised to use this kind of imagination. First of all, there is a danger of imagining things that will never happen. Secondly, if it never happened yet, your soul can’t fully connect to such an episode. Your soul can connect very well, however, to something which actually happened in your life that was pleasant. Recall that past experience and relive it in full detail.

In general, using the imagination can be dangerous, and therefore as we said, we have to be very clear in the details of our past calming experiences if we want to relive them again, or else we will end up going too far with our imagination.

In Conclusion

We have explained how to calm down our senses, but not every person needs to go in the order we have given. Every person is different – some people get calmed better by first listening to light music, while others need to calm a different sense first in order to get calm. How much you need to calm yourself down depends on each person – and we cannot give concrete rules. We all need Heavenly assistance, though, to help ourselves figure out how much we need to do to get ourselves to be calm.

We have spent much time discussing how to calm ourselves down. You are probably wondering: What about getting closer to Hashem through all of this? When will we finally start talking about reaching our goal, which is to get closer to Hashem?

However, we must realize that there is a ladder of growth here we have to climb – if we want to reach for the sky. Before anything, we need to make sure that the ladder we are using to get there is firmly footed in the ground. By learning how we can calm ourselves down, we are building for ourselves a firm ladder to climb upon.

Whatever we have discussed until now is how to prepare ourselves for hisbodedus; we have not yet explained how to actually practice our hisbodedus. All that we have said so far is the necessary prelude to hisbodedus: that we must make sure that we are first physically calm, and that is why we first have to calm our five senses.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q: Is there a tefillah we can say before we start hisbodedus?

A: Before hisbodedus, daven to Hashem in the way you are comfortable with; each person has his own unique way how he talks to Hashem.

Q: When we try to relive our past experiences that were pleasant, what happens if bad memories come up with that?

A: If any bad memories are coming up from that experience, don’t think of it.

Q: If we are doing hisbodedus at night, how will it help to look at pictures, if everything anyways is dark?

A: Very good question. It is better for a person to first start by calming down his sense of sight, such as by looking at calming sights. Only light can help you begin to open up your soul more. After this comes the later stage – which is to get used to sitting in the dark. In Sefer HaMaspik L’Ovdei Hashem, it is brought that hisbodedus should be done in the dark; but this should only be a later stage in hisbodedus.

Q: When trying to calm ourselves down, does it have to be music, or can it be a sound machine that plays calming sounds (such as the ocean waves)?

A: If it calms you, use it, but it’s better to calm ourselves with holiness, such as listening to a deep, stirring Jewish niggun.

Q: Why is a niggun holier than the sounds of the ocean waves or the chirping of a bird? Hashem made it, so it is holy also!

A: What is holier – the sound of a bird chirping, or a niggun composed by a tzaddik? A niggun composed by a tzaddik has holiness infused in it by the tzaddik, while the chirping of bird does not contain a holiness added to it.

You don’t have to use a niggun to calm yourself, though; you can use a sound machine of calming sounds – it’s totally permissible l’chatchilah!

Q: What is considered a good niggun to listen to?

A: Any niggun that was composed by a tzaddik from generations ago. Even if it is sung by someone from today, as long as it was composed by a tzaddik, it’s better to listen to. Even better than this is to listen to a tzaddik singing a song; it’s hard to find such a tape, but it is available.

Q: How is this month’s Avodah different than what we spoke about at the end of last month’s Avodah, which also discussed how to calm down our physical surroundings?

A: Yes, there is a very big difference between last month’s Avodah and this month’s Avodah. This month’s Avodah is for each person to figure out what works for him the best – which one of the five senses calms you down the most.

Q: I live in a crowded place in which it is hard to find a quiet place. There is a nice, quiet place that is 30 minutes away – should I travel there every day so I can have quiet?

A: Practically speaking, women need to be more indoors anyway, so hisbodedus for women mainly needs to be done indoors. It is only recommended to go occasionally to quiet places that are outside your house.

Don’t ever go to places which are dark and are deserted from people, though.

Q: What is more preferable for this – indoors or outdoors?

A: Again, as we just said, women need to be in the house more, so we are not trying to send women outdoors over here. For women, the best thing that works is indoors – and only occasionally should women go outdoors for hisbodedus.

Q: Should we look at pesukim and concentrate on the letters of the Aleph Beis when we prepare ourselves for hisbodedus?

A: The problem with this is that it can cause your thoughts to become anxious, and this takes us away from our goal over here, which is to come to a complete calmness.

Q: If I feel calm, now what?

A: Then you have reached the goal of the avodah of this month. This month’s avodah is to get to being totally calm and being able to hold onto that calmness.

Q: But when I finally get calm, what should I do?

A: You do nothing. That’s the point – being able to do nothing, because you are totally calm. Last month’s Avodah was to do things that calm ourselves down, while this month’s Avodah is to calm our senses, stay calm and be able to hold onto that calmness.

Q: If we are having emotions and thoughts going on, does that mean we are still doing something, and thus we aren’t totally calm yet?

A:  Very good question. It is a very deep matter to be able to calm our feelings and thoughts, and this is a much higher avodah. If one is able to calm even his feelings and thoughts, that is wonderful, but that is not our focus right now. We have focused here only the basic level which can be worked on by all people, at any level they are at.