Hisboddedus Preparation - 009 Developing Inner Recognition

Summary Of Previous Lesson

With the help of Hashem, we have begun to explain the three stages of habatah (inner sight), hakarah (inner recognition) and hakshavah (inner listening).

In the last class we explained the first stage of habatah  which is a concept in which we can see new perspectives on things – via the means of thinking “into” something we see, then pausing our thoughts, and then returning to our thoughts. This refreshes our perspective on everything we come across and gives us the ability of renewal. It also provides us with the ability to be able to disconnect from something and then reconnect to that very same thing, but this time, with a refreshed outlook.

Now we will explain the next stage – hakarah(inner recognition).

Hakarah: Deepening Your Perception 

As we work to refine our ability of habatah[1] our ability of hakarah gets stronger with it as well.

Hakarah means to recognize, to understand, to get to know. When two people first meet each other, they don’t really know each other. They only have a superficial kind of recognition of each other. As time goes on, however, their recognition of each other gets stronger, as they get to know each other better. This is the idea of hakarah – to develop our power of recognition of ourselves, more and more, and to keep refining it.

Just as we have explained in the past that the power of breathing can become deepened and help us go deeper into ourselves[2], the same is true with the concept of hakarah. The more we recognize ourselves, the deeper we are able to get into ourselves.

We can compare this to the following. As a baby develops, the parents get to know their child better, through his various nuances and antics. Their connection to the child grows stronger with the better they recognize the nature of their child.

Returning To “Habatah” After Gaining “Hakarah”

The first stage,habatah, is not just to know about seeing more and more things we notice about ourselves [in a superficial manner]. It is rather about seeing our actions in a deeperway until now. In this way, our ability of hakarah/recognition towards those very same things grows deeper also.

This is an important point which we have added to our understanding now. We said in the past that habatah is not about seeing more of our actions – it is about deepening our way of seeing things, and this gives us a new perspective on things. Now we are making a new point we haven’t said before:  that when we acquire the ability ofhakarah/recognition, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of how seethings. Refining our ability ofhakarah will deepen our ability of habatah towards our actions.

To help us understand what we are describing, we can say the following: if a person looks at something when he isn’t calm, his perception is limited, due to his lack of calmness. The lack of calmness takes away from his clarity of perception. But when a person is calm and he looks at something, his perception is much clearer, and it’s a whole new kind of perception than when he wasn’t calm.

This is the gain of hakarah – it helps us come back to how we view our actions and now view them in a deeper way. [With Habatah we reflect on our actions and see them in a new perspective, and after we develop hakarah, we can then return to those actions and view them in an even deeper way than what we discovered through habatah alone].

Another illustration that can help us understand this concept is the follows. When we look for something in the house, either we look around the house a little bit for it, or we make an intense search. Or, when we want to reprimand our child, we give the child a sharp look in the eye so we can understand what the child is really up to. In the same way, we are able to have a deeper look at ourselves [which is habatah] and from that, we gain a much deeper understanding of ourselves [which is hakarah].

Just as we can understand that we can deepen our perception towards the same things we see all the time, so can also we use this power towards ourselves.

Because this is a delicate concept to understand, we gave several examples to illustrate it better.

In each person, there is a “child” aspect and “adult” aspect. A child has a superficial way of looking at things, while an adult is able to look at the same thing and see it from a whole different perspective – a much deeper perspective. In the same vein, we need to use our “adult” aspect and see things in a deeper perspective than the view from the “child” within us. Our level of perception needs to become more mature.

Examples Of Developing “Hakarah”

You can work on this concept as follows. Let’s say you did something improper when you were a child. Think to yourself: Now that I’m an adult, how would I have done that differently had I been an adult and more mature?

Another example: When a person is sad and he’s looking at a picture, his perception of the picture is different than someone who sees the picture when he’s happy. Think about the two different perspectives and compare them – the way you view something when you’re sad, as opposed to the way you view something when you’re happy.

Another example: A person who sees the ocean from sea level sees it a certain way. When a person views an ocean from atop a mountain, he sees the very same ocean, but with a whole different kind of view – a deeper kind of view, a vast kind of view.

If you try any of these exercises, you will be able to identify with this concept we are describing – hakarah – that you are able to gain a totally new perspective towards the very same thing you thought about previously. 

The concept of hakarah is to be able to see the same thing from many different angles. After refining our hakarah, we can then return to habatah – and reflect on our actions with a whole new perspective, a much deeper way to tune into those very same actions.

Progressing Through Hisbodedus: Feeling The “Alone” In Your Soul

There is a story told of the Baal Shem Tov, that once he experienced an “aliyas neshamah” – an “ascent of the soul.” He felt his soul leave his body and ascend upwards towards Heaven. As his soul was flying more and more upward, he saw other neshamos/souls as well. The higher he went, though, the less and less neshamos he saw – and he felt more and more solitude.

The lesson learned from this story pinpoints what the goal of hisbodedus is. The more we progress in hisbodedus – going deeper into ourselves – the more we each realize the uniqueness of our own soul. We can each realize that none of us is like any other Jew, because of each us is truly unique.

On the one hand, we must get along with everyone and feel connected with everyone. Chazal say, “Daato me’ureves im habriyos” – we must feel open towards others and be able to get along with every Jew. But at the same time, we must also develop in ourselves a power to be alone and secluded from the world. This will help each person discover his own uniqueness.

Hisbodedus Cures Our Loneliness

We will now speak about a point which everyone identifies with from their own life.

People love company. Everyone wants to share their life with someone. It’s painful to us when we don’t feel companionship in our life. A woman who loses her husband feels terribly lonely, missing the companionship in her life that she once had. A husband who loses his wife also feels this loneliness. Not only that, but even a couple married together will often feel that they don’t understand each other, that they don’t share the same language. They can still feel lonely, even though they live together; they can each feel like there are certain things which they just can’t get others to share in them with. Both the husband and wife will feel sometimes that a friend understands them much better than their own spouse.

But even with our closest friends, we never really feel that we have a friend who completely understands us. There is always a certain void in our life, points going on in our life which we feel totally alone in and that there is no one sharing in on what we are going through.

This is not by chance. Hashem made the world this way on purpose. Each person, no matter how much companionship he has in his life, always feels a certain degree of loneliness in his life. There are always certain areas which we feel like we aren’t able to share with others, because nobody in the world will understand us.

And the truth is: it is indeed impossible for a person to have a true companion on this world who completely understands him. Hashem designed people this way – that each of us has a “private” aspect in us which cannot be shared with and experienced with by anyone else other than our self.

The inner reason why Hashem made us this way is so that we can develop the power of hisbodedus – to feel an aspect of “alone” in our soul.

Hashem made human beings that we need to sleep. To some degree, sleep is an example of hisbodedus, because when we sleep, we are alone and disconnected from the world. It’s not a kind of hisbodedus that is productive or makes us improve; but what sleep does show us that there is a concept of being “alone”, and it is upon us to use the power of being “alone” in the right times and for constructive purposes.

The Purpose of Sleep

In addition, we sleep for several hours a night, and not just for a few minutes. This shows us that [in concept] we need several hours of our day to be spent on hisbodedus. We have a need to be alone with ourselves for a few hours at a time – not just for a few minutes.

If you look around the world, you can see that there are many lonely people. There are many people who feel totally alone on this world, feeling like no one understands them. The truth is that all this loneliness is coming from the unutilized power of hisbodedus. We need to take all this loneliness and use it constructively for proper hisbodedus, as opposed to the way it is being misused in this world.

The more we realize how much loneliness there is in the world, the more we will be able to recognize the need for hisbodedus. It shows us a very big insight into our purpose in this world – that we need to be alone with ourselves, and use the “alone” for constructive purposes, bringing us closer to our purpose of why we are here in this world.

The world is using a very sad kind of hisbodedus – people are lonely, and they are sad because of it. We can take all this being “alone” and use it to actually give ourselves deep happiness, when we utilize it for proper hisbodedus.

Hisbodedus – Reaching Your “Individual” Aspect

Hisbodedus can really make us happy, helping us become aware of who we really are inside ourselves. When a person develops the power of being “alone” in the proper way, he is then able to truly feel close with Hashem! This is the goal of hisbodedus – to reach our closeness with Hashem. By reaching our uniqueness and individuality, we can use that to feel alone with Hashem.

However, while hisbodedus is about getting to know our true self, it’s not solely about getting to know your inner self. The point of hisbodedus is not just to be secluded and alone with yourself – it is rather that through feeling secluded from others and being alone with yourself, you will be able to feel alone with Hashem.

Hisbodedus is about becoming alone with Hashem. Hisbodedus is not about being alone in the forest…

Most people are indeed afraid to be alone. That’s why hisbodedus is hard for most people to implement; it makes them uncomfortable when they hear that that it involves being alone with yourself. But if we are able to understand that we need to reach our “alone” aspect and uncover our uniqueness, we will be able to succeed with implementing our hisbodedus.

These last two points are very crucial, and it would be recommended to review them often. We must connect to ourselves in a deeper way and be able to disassociate ourselves from the world, in order to feel our inner point of being “alone” and then use that to feel alone with Hashem.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q1: How exactly do we work on these concepts of “habatah” and “hakarah” in a practical way?

A: We gave three examples. These are all ways how we can get used to the concepts. The more we get used to these exercises, we will be able to acquire these abilities. After we work to refine our abilities of habatah and hakarah, we are able to then deepen our method of breathing we spoke about in previous classes, which helps us reach deeper into ourselves (or any of the other methods we described which can help us enter deeper, [as we described in the fourth class, “Three Ways to Enter Deeper Into the Soul”].

Q2: When we work on the “hakarah” concept to renew our recognition on things and thereby come to have new perspectives on our actions we did, does this mean through our intellect, or through our intuition and not through our intellect?

A: Hakarah is called “seichel murgash” – a kind of intellectual knowledge that can be felt as an actual feeling. It is not intellect by itself and it is not an emotion by itself, but it is rather a combination of both intellect and intuition; it is a kind of intellect that can be felt. This concept is really described in sefer Chovos HaLevovos.

Q3: Are women in particular better at this ability being described?

A: With regards to intuition, women excel more than men, but with regards to the intellect aspect of this, men are better. Women excel mainly with their intuition, while men are better when it comes to the area of intellect.

Q4: The Rav has said that the goal of hisbodedus is to get in touch with our uniqueness, and that this is achieved via “habatah”, seeing ourselves from outside ourselves. It sounded like we have to forget about our ego and instead just feel part of Klal Yisrael. Now the Rav has said that the goal of hisbodedus is to get to know our self. Why isn’t this a contradiction?

A: Previously [in the seventh and eight classes] when we spoke about habatah – seeing ourselves from the outside of ourselves – we did not mean to forget our ego and instead feel like we are part of Klal Yisrael. Rather the intention was to see ourselves as if we are outside ourselves; but we did not mean that we are trying to negate our ego with this. Nullifying our ego and instead feeling integrated with Klal Yisrael will be a later stage, which we still have not gotten to yet.

Q5:  When we work on habatah – seeing ourselves from the outside – various kinds of thoughts enter our mind. For example, thoughts about how others view the situation enter our mind when we attempt to view our actions from outside of our private perspective. Is this the intended goal of habatah?

A: As long as your look at your actions in a different and deeper way than how you viewed it until now, this is using the ability ofhabatah.

Q6: When we view our actions through habatah, is this experienced through an awareness of our intellect, or as an actual feeling?

A: Hakarah means that we are able to view our previous actions not just as an intellectual knowledge, but as a feeling of the knowledge. It is not enough just to “know” of the actions we do. People “know” all kinds of things, but this doesn’t necessarily affect them. Hakarah means that we develop not only a new way of knowing our previous actions, but to feel differently towards our previous actions, as a result of gaining a new perspective on them. It has to be a kind of knowledge that you experience. For example, if someone went to Australia, not only does he know that he was there, but he remembers it because he felt it and experienced it.

Q7: When we gain a new perspective on things, is this feeling coming from within ourselves, or is it coming from Hashem?

A: It comes from within ourselves – from our neshamah. And that feeling is being allowed by Hashem. However, be aware that often we get a feeling from inside ourselves, but it isn’t always coming from our neshamah.

Q8: Since “habatah” and “hakarah” involve being able to concentrate deeply, do we also need to make use of our power of imagination in order to be able to concentrate deeply?

A: We mentioned using imagination briefly in a previous class, but we do not mean to use it that often. As for concentration, what we mean is that one can become very focused and concentrated on his actions when he reaches a very relaxed state. The intention is to relax your mind, and from that, you concentrate better. This is a very important point. Another point involved in this is that we need to look at things in a more refined way, being able to break our actions down with our mind and then analyze it better.

Q9: If Hashem wants us to be alone, doesn’t this contradict the possuk (in the beginning of Parshas Beraishis), “Lo Tov Heyos He’Adam L’vado” – “It is not good for man to be alone”?

A: This is a very good question. The answer to this is that Hashem only said “It is not good for man to be alone” because Adam felt lonely and needed companionship, but before that, he was in a more perfected state in which he didn’t need companionship. The inner point in our soul which we use for hisbodedus reflects the perfected state of Adam before he was with Chavah, in which he didn’t need any companionship.

Q10: If hisbodedus is about discovering our uniqueness, why won’t this lead to gaavah (conceit)?

A: This is a very good question. If a person feels that his uniqueness is because of himself, this is the gaavah if he feels special about himself. But if a person feels that he is special because Hashem made him special, this is not gaavah, because he is not attributing his specialness due to a feeling from his “I”, but rather because Hashem gave him his specialness.