Reaching Your Essence - 008 Awareness & Experiencing Reality

The Surrounding Lights – The Chayah and The Yechidah

We have so far tried to learn about what our inner point is, our Yechidah. It is an attempt to try to learn about the truth inside us, about the innermost point havayah (existence) that is in us.

We have given a few angles to reflect about which can help us recognize and feel what the inner essence of the soul is. Now we will add another on angle to the discussion.

As is known, there are five layers to the soul, as we mentioned. The outer three layers – Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshamah  -- are found inside the body. The Nefesh is in the liver, the Ruach is in the heart, and the Neshamah  is in the brain, while the deeper two layers, Chayah and Yechidah, are outside the body and surround it.

The Arizal explained that the way the Chayah surrounds a person is not in the same way that the Yechidah surrounds a person. The Chayah surrounds a person either through his prism of the Nefesh or the Ruach or the Neshamah , but it is not powerful enough to surround all of them at once. It surrounds either the Nefesh, or the Ruach, or the Neshamah , depending on the level that a person has uncovered (whether he is at the level of his Nefesh, Ruach or Neshamah ). So the Chayah is either used to view your Nefesh, your Ruach, or your Neshamah , but it cannot view all of them at once. The Yechidah’s light, however is more powerful and it can surround them all at once. [We will explain the view from the Yechidah later, and for now we will explain the view from the Chayah].

We will try here to explain what this is and recognize it somewhat in ourselves. This is not about intellectual understanding, and it is rather so we can learn how to recognize how our soul works.

The Chayah: Viewing Yourself From ‘Above’ Yourself

The Nefesh is identified as our actions, the Ruach is our feelings, and the Neshamah  is our thoughts. Why do they need to be surrounded by the Chayah and the Yechidah? Why are our actions, feelings, and thoughts ‘surrounded’ by another force? What is all this ‘surrounding’ about?

The concept of being ‘surrounded’ by the light of the Chayah and the Yechidah is, essentially, that a person can view himself from above the body’s viewpoint. Chayah and Yechidah are essentially ways to see oneself. Through the view from these deeper parts of our soul, we can see our actions, feelings and thoughts from outside of our self, so to speak.

This is because it is not enough to “know” about our actions, feelings and thoughts; we need to become aware of them. In modern-day language, it is called “self-awareness” (in Hebrew, “mu-da-ut  atzmis”).

In order to become aware of our actions, feelings, and thoughts, we need to view them from above. That gives us a better view of what’s going on in them. We can’t be aware of our actions from just the prism of our actions. We can’t view our feelings accurately when we view them just through the prism of the feelings. And we can’t really view our thoughts from within our thoughts. We need to step outside of them, so that we can view the actions\feelings\thoughts from above, and that view will give us a better view of what they are.

This does not mean to imply that you should cease from all your actions and feelings and thoughts and attempt to view them from the outside. This would hamper your focus and it is detrimental.

Rather, it means that as you’re performing an action, you can have a view from above yourself and watch your action unfolding; when you’re experiencing a feeling, you are able to step out of the feeling at the same time you’re experiencing it, and view it from above; and when you’re thinking of something, you can step outside of it, even as you’re in middle of the thought, and view the thought from above it, which will give you a deeper understanding into the thought.

To illustrate this concept, there are some people who have experienced a temporary departure of their souls from their body. There are many reports in which people remember that they were floating on top of their body and seeing it below. [This is called “N.D.E.” – Near Death Experience]. This illustrates what we are describing here: a view from above the body!

Chazal say, “Die before you die.” The depth of this is that you can leave your body even as you’re alive – you can leave the body’s viewpoint [at times]. Even as you’re alive and your soul is still inside your body, part of your soul is outside of you, and this does not just mean that part of your soul is simply “outside” of you. It refers to something deeper: that you can have a deeper view of yourself, when you view yourself from the parts of the soul that are outside the body.

If a person lives through the prism of his Nefesh, he lives the actions that he does. If he lives through his Ruach, he lives his feelings, and if he lives through his Neshamah , he lives his thoughts. But when a person lives through his Chayah, he is seeing [either] his actions, feelings and thoughts from a higher view. He is viewing himself from outside of himself.

There is also a way to view oneself from inside himself, and this is the more elementary level of self-awareness towards our actions, feelings, and thoughts. But the view from the outside the self is a deeper kind of view than the basic level of self-awareness viewed from the inside. The deeper awareness towards one’s actions, feelings, and thoughts, the view from the Chayah, is a view from outside and above oneself.

If a person never reaches his Chayah, he will only be aware of his actions after he has done them. He will only become aware of his feelings after he feels them, whereupon he looks back at them later and reflects. He becomes aware of his thoughts only after he has had the thoughts. All he can do is look back at the past.

But if a person reaches the view from his Chayah, he can be aware of what he’s doing\feeling\thinking even at the very same moment that he is actually doing\feeling\thinking something – he is able to listen to himself as he is doing\feeling\thinking.

A person is able to step outside of himself and see himself, and make himself into an onlooker, as if he is another person looking into himself. Understandably, most people do not use this ability, because most people are self-absorbed and stuck inside themselves. They don’t know how to view themselves as if they would be an outsider. That is why most people do not have proper self-awareness.

But there is a deeper problem as well that results from this lack of self-awareness: if we only view ourselves from inside ourselves, then we limit our soul to our body, and we never access the higher roots of the soul, which are outside of the body. When you listen to yourself, you are using the higher part of your soul, which enables you to connect higher, past the body’s perspective and higher into the soul. Without revealing the Chayah, a person is stuck inside his body’s viewpoint, even if he does actions that are spiritual and he does all the mitzvos.

Chazal say, “I have seen those who ascend, but they are few.” The Baal Shem Tov said, those who “ascend” are those who reside above, like in the attic of a house, and they come down sometimes to take care of something. Some people live below, on the “first floor” of the house, and sometimes go above to their “attic”, but they mainly consider live on the first floor, and they do not reside in the attic. Some people live “above”, in their “attic” – and they sometimes come down to the “first floor” when they have to get things done. The truly spiritually aspiring person, the ben aliyah, is someone who resides “above” himself. Someone who lives mainly “below” the above point is someone who lives entirely within either his actions or feelings or thoughts, and he has no higher source that he is connected to.

Someone who lives “above” is someone who is always looking at the below from the above. For example, he does an action and sees himself doing it. He has a feeling and sees himself having the feeling. He has a thought and sees the thought; with thoughts, it is two thoughts at once – he is having a thought, and he is having another thought at the same time: he sees himself thinking.

Changing Our Orientations

If someone has never felt this concept, it sounds absurd. After all, how can a person have two thoughts at once? Isn’t this impossible?

But let’s analyze the following. We see that a person can talk and think at the same time. He’s thinking about what he’s saying. If he would be too absorbed in his thoughts, he wouldn’t be able to talk. When people think as they are talking, their thoughts are flying around from one to another, in the blink of an eye. The truth is that the thought process happens very quickly; one thought comes after another very quickly.

We all do this, and this is not a novel concept. We can all have a thought and then quickly think of another thought, just, we don’t process that it is taking place. It is a very simple act that all of us do. But it is really a spiritual power being used for a lower purpose. When people multi-task, they are doing one thing and thinking about another thing; they are using the ability to have two thoughts at once, but they are not aware of it. People are doing actions and having other thoughts at the same time, thus, this spiritual power of being able to think two thoughts at once is often being used solely in the realm of action, and it’s a kind of disconnection. It is a lack of focus.

What we need to do is try to focus our thoughts on what we do, at least on a minimal level, and this will open us up to using the power of the Chayah to become aware of our actions\feelings\thoughts even as we are experiencing them. This takes our ability of thinking two thoughts at once and channels it in the right direction which we need to use it for, and it gives inner order to our thoughts.

Thus, all of our actions have two factors to them – the action, and the thought. We experience part of our actions in our brain, because we need to think about what we have to do in order to get something done; and part of the action we do can be experienced outside our brain. Don’t try to think two thoughts at once in order to achieve this; the aim here is not to learn how to think two thoughts at once. All that would do is ruin your focus.  Most people would like to achieve that, but it is not what we need to achieve.

Instead, the way to access your thoughts from the outside [of the Chayah] is, that as you are thinking a thought, some if it need to be experienced from inside your body, which is when you simply think [either about the thought you are having or about the action you need to get done], and some of the thought needs to be left outside of the body. In other words: a part your thinking should be used to simply focus on whatever you are doing\feeling\thinking, and the other part of the thoughts should be used as your awareness to what you are doing\feeling\thinking.

Example: Speech

If many people would pay attention to what they are saying as they have a conversation, they would cut out a lot of words. People often contradict themselves in the very same conversations. This happens because a person was talking and was thinking of something else as he spoke the words, therefore, it never registered in his mind that he spoke those words. Later in the conversation he will say something else, and he is not aware that he contradicted his previous words. This goes on every day.

“Daas ganuz b’pumei” - “The daas (mind) is contained in the mouth.” A person’s words reveal what is really going on his mind. A person might be aware of himself talking as he is talking, but he can be thinking of something else as he’s talking, so he isn’t focused on what he is saying. Even as I’m talking now, I’m also thinking of other things as I’m talking – all the time, and not just sometimes. We all live like this.

The question is how to channel this ability in the right direction, where it can be turned from a lack of self-awareness into a deep ability.

Sifting Out Your Thought Process As You Think

There are two kinds of thoughts we are experiencing all the time; we are basically focused in our thoughts, and we are also thinking about something else at the same time.  These two thoughts are often mixed together, alternating between each other very quickly, and it is because initially, we have not yet learned how to separate them and isolate them. Our thought process needs to become sorted out.

We need to identify thoughts that are needed in order to simply perform an act\feeling\thought, and we need to identify another kind of thought that takes place at the same time – the power to be aware of the act\feeling\thought, which is a thought that comes from our Chayah.  We need to identify them as they occur, or else they remain mixed together in a jumble and we will never be able to have them both simultaneously without losing focus.

If we identify the two different kinds of thoughts as we are in middle of experiencing a thought, then we can begin to separate them from each other and identify them as being two distinct kinds of thoughts, and that will give us the true self-awareness, which is the view from our Chayah.

In this way, we can have practical focus on our actions\feelings\thoughts as they happen, and at the same time have an awareness towards them going on in the background, two thoughts at once which don’t impede on each other and do not fracture our focus.

One kind of thought takes place inside us [experienced by our brain] and the other kind of thought is the view from the outside [a thought coming from the Chayah]. To better understand it, imagine someone who is standing and looking into something from outside of it. What we need to understand is that we can do that within ourselves – we have the power to step outside of ourselves, at the very same time that we are looking from inside ourselves, and view ourselves as if we are looking at ourselves from the outside, like an outsider.

The basic power of thought in a person is rooted in the Neshamah , which is inside the brain. These are the thoughts we use for basic focus on what we do\feel\think. Part of the Neshamah  are thoughts are that outside the brain, and they are not viewed by our regular thinking process. They are viewed from the Chayah which is above the Neshamah ’s thoughts and sees into them.

The first part of our job here is that we need to first have thought in what we do. The second part of our job is to reveal a deeper kind of thought, which is a kind of thought in which we think from the outside of ourselves. This is the power of thought that is rooted in our Chayah. It is the ability in a person to see himself from the side and watch himself like an onlooker.

We need to make use of both kinds of thoughts – the basic thoughts, and the deeper thoughts.

Catching Yourself

To give an example of how to do this, a person gets angry; this is an everyday occurrence in our life. A person might not even be aware of his anger even as he is angry. The next day, when he calms down, he remembers that he got angry yesterday. Yesterday, when he was actually angry, what was going through his mind? Did he not know he was angry? He was busy thinking of how he has been wronged. He was too busy raging to even register that he is experiencing what is called anger.

Such a person, even if he tries to get advice on how to fix the trait of anger, will not be able to fix the anger. He is missing preliminary state of getting rid of anger, because he’s not even aware when he gets angry! He’s busy with who he’s angry at, and he’s totally unaware that he is experiencing anger. If he’s not aware of his anger while he’s angry, he will not be able to implement any advice on stopping his anger, because he is not even aware of it at all when it was happening.

What should he do? The next time he gets angry, if he has revealed his Chayah, then he can become aware that he is angry. He can catch himself in the act. This doesn’t mean he will attain total self-control over his anger. It means that he will become aware of his anger, and now he has the key to fixing his anger, because he has become aware, and now he can embark on ways on how to weaken it as he’s angry.

The Sages state, “The mind controls the heart”. When the mind is involved with the heart even as the heart’s emotions are dominant, such as when a person is raging in anger, he has the mind involved which he can use to control himself!

A person who accesses his Chayah is aware of his emotions as he’s actually experiencing them, and not because he remembers about the experience later. He is aware of his anger as he’s angry. He is aware of love as he is feeling loving towards another. He is connected to his happiness when he experiences happiness.

There are people who dance at a wedding and are joyous, but they aren’t aware that they are experiencing the emotion of joy. They wish a “Mazal Tov” and never pay attention to the reality of the joy at hand. They are unaware of the happiness they are feeling as they dance. There is a higher level in which a person can be above his own consciousness, but we are not speaking of this level. We are speaking of a more basic level, in which a person can consciously be happy, and he can be aware that he’s happy at the very same time.

This applies to thoughts as well – you can have a thought, and be aware of the thought at the same time, seeing it from the outside of the thought. This is the view from your Chayah, the view from the outside, which sees the thoughts of the Neshamah  from outside of the Neshamah . You can use the view from your Chayah to surround the thoughts of the Neshamah  of the brain and see it from the outside.

The Power To Experience

There is a very deep point we will now discuss. We need it to get to our Yechidah, but we will start to explain how we reach the Chayah, which we first need to get to.

All people are looking for exciting experiences. Who doesn’t? We all want to “experience”. The truth is that we are always having experiences. We are always experiencing either pain or joy. But most people are not aware of what they are feeling, thus, they don’t experience what they are experiencing!

A person gets up in the morning and goes about his day, going off to his job, and he feels no vitality from what he does. He will feel vitality hearing words of Torah over the phone, but not from what he does during the day. Why? It is because people do not know how to really experience anything. People are doing, feeling, and thinking, but they aren’t experiencing it!

There are people who are “pathological liars”. They have the bad habit of lying all the time. They really have a deeper problem. They lie all the time because they have no self-awareness. They aren’t paying attention to the words coming out of their mouth.

For example, a person tells a customer that the order will be ready in two days, and the customer comes back in two days and it’s not ready. The problem here is not the owner is dishonest. The root behind this behavior is because owner wasn’t even aware as he was talking – that is why he didn’t keep to his word. He said words, words of conviction, but it never registered in his head that he is taking upon himself a responsibility, because he was thinking of something else as he was saying those words.

The root of all our problems is a lack of self-awareness - when we are not aware of our actions, feelings, and thoughts. The root of our problems is not that we lie to ourselves. The problem is that we have no inner experiences. We feel what we feel, but we don’t experience what we feel, and we think that we have experienced it. 

Here is a simple example. A person is eating and enjoying his food. Most people are not even fully tasting their food, because their mind is preoccupied as they eat. Taste is actually a power that is developed in your soul. In order to really experience taste, you have to know what taste in the soul is, which is to remain focused on a taste as you taste it. Most people are not focused as they eat and are thinking about other things as they eat, and they think that they are experiencing the taste of what they eat, while in reality, they are not really experiencing it!

A Lack of Experience Creates A Lack of Vitality

Because most people are not really experiencing their own experiences, what this results in is a lack of real vitality (chiyus) in life. People are missing vitality.

Almost no one has any real vitality in their life. This world is like one big graveyard.

A Jew can do all the mitzvos – he wears tefillin and tzitizis, lights the menorah, he learns Torah – but still does not feel alive from any of this! He can be like a rock with no life in himself, even though he does all the mitzvos! He tries to feel the vitality in lighting the menorah yet he doesn’t feel anything special going on. Why? It is because his feelings are already deadened! Why are his feelings deadened? Because he has made himself already into a robot!

 If a person isn’t aware of his experiences as he goes through them, he doesn’t know how to experience. Chavah desired the fruit of the Eitz HaDaas and “saw that it was good”. A taavah – a desire - can either be a totally sensual experience, which is evil, or it can be used for good: the power to fully experience something good.

It is written, “My soul leaves when I speak.” Do we feel our soul leaving us as we talk? If we would experience our talking, we would feel our soul leaving us as we talk! There are people who talk and talk; do they feel their souls leaving them as they talk? Who feels this? You go onto a plane and people are talking and talking (especially women) on no end, yet they don’t feel their energy getting used up from this; why not? It is because they are not experiencing their speech. The Chazon Ish said that speaking makes him feel exhausted afterwards. He experienced what he was saying, therefore, it took more energy out of him – “My soul leaves when I speak.” When you live and experience what you do or say, it takes up more energy.

We go through countless thoughts each day. If a person isn’t aware what he does, when he isn’t aware of what he feels or what he thinks, he is missing the revelation of his Chayah, and that is why he derives no vitality from anything he does.

For example, a person buys things in the supermarket for his family. Does he experience this? Why is he doing it? He is doing it because he loves his family. But he doesn’t feel that love as he goes shopping for them. Rather, he feels forced, as if he must do it. He never experiences the real reason why he goes shopping for them, which is love. So he never derives vitality from shopping for his family, because his not really experiencing what he’s really doing when he goes shopping for them.

If a person never sees himself from the outside, he has no Chayah, and then he has no chaim (life), because chayah comes from the word chiyus (vitality in life). Without revealing the Chayah, a person is devoid of vitality.

We are not speaking about ideas. We are speaking about the soul, which is called a nishmas chayim, a soul of life. It is what we all yearn for. You can hear a million shiurim and read a million sefarim, but none of it will help you, because without the basis, nothing will be developed. It’s like trying to go around collecting money and having no feet to walk around with.

We are all amazed when we meet someone who seems alive, who looks like he is experiencing life. But how do we get to that? The way is: to be able to see yourself from outside of yourself. How do you do it? You can practically work on this by getting used to being an onlooker. It’s very simple.

We are already used to observing all the time. In the house, the kids are playing. Take a few minutes and observe the house as if you are an outsider. You can do this with yourself as well. Take a pen and write down what you are saying. This will open you up to listening to yourself.

A good example of this is to watch a video of your Bar Mitzvah. This is how you can see yourself from outside of yourself. The point is not to watch your Bar Mitzvah. The point is to focus on seeing yourself act from outside of yourself. It gets you used to the concept of observing yourself.

The more a person sees himself, the more he will feel himself, and the more he will live himself. He will then be able to experience his life. After that, he is able to properly engage in self-improvement. When he does self-accounting on his actions, words, feelings and thoughts. He will experience what he does. He can be aware to himself as he is acting.

It is hard to express this anymore with my mouth. But these words are life itself. They are about our very life! The Chayah is about what our life is! So we need to get used to observing ourselves from outside of ourselves.

Yechidah: The Power To Constantly Experience

What we have described until now is how to view ourselves from our Chayah, which surrounds the Nefesh, Ruach, or Neshamah , depending on the situation. It is the power to see either our actions, feelings, or thoughts.

After we have passed this stage – and I stress “after” because it can take months to acquire, for it is a very deep avodah – only after that, should a person progress to the next stage, which is to try to get the inner point, the Yechidah.

The Yechidah is the truly inner experience. It is the way to very experience your Chayah – the experience within the experience. It is a constant experience. We are always either acting or feeling or thinking, and we cannot disconnect from them. When we begin to experience all the time, we have the true experience (chavayah). It is one of the most precious things we can acquire. We have actions, feelings, and thoughts. But the root of all of them all is the power to constantly experience. It is a way to experience either your actions or feelings or thoughts, but it’s all the same power to experience.

The actions, feelings and thoughts are the garments of the soul. The Chayah experiences only the garments of the soul, so it can only experience the actions, feelings, or thoughts. After you have revealed it, don’t just use it to experience the garments. Now is the time to deepen your power of inner experiences – now you can experience an even deeper reality. You can experience the very purity of your soul! 

The power in the soul to experience can be used to experience either your actions, words or thoughts; you see them from above and experience them and that is how you become aware of them. But that’s all seeing the garments. You can use it to experience your “I” – the Yechidah.

If a person hasn’t acquired the power to have constant experience, he will not be able to experience the Yechidah.

We explained that the first four layers of the soul are parts of the soul, while the Yechidah has the perspective that it is all-inclusive. The partial view, which comes from the first four layers of the soul, is sometimes active, and sometimes not active. Sometimes you are aware of the actions feelings and thoughts, and sometimes you are not. But the view from your Yechidah, once accessed, is always experiencing. The Yechidah is above the Chayah - which means that it is above our life itself. It is the point connected to the above. It is the tool to get to the Ein Sof of Hashem.

Our desire is to feel Hashem all the time. All we live for is this. The purpose of life is to always feel Hashem. Feeling Hashem is like a constant fire that burns on the Altar. How do we reach this? By reaching our Yechidah, we have the power to constantly experience. We need to reveal it within ourselves.

Most people only experience by weddings, trips, and food. Once you attain the power of constant experience, you won’t even get pleasure from the outside. The Rambam says that all pleasure is found in the soul. It is a constant experience of Hashem, Who is eternal.

So first we need to reveal the power to experience, and then we need to reveal the power to constantly experience. First we need to view our actions, feelings, and thoughts from the outside, which leads to experiencing them.

To illustrate, a child is happy when he walks, but we observe him from the outside and have a deeper kind of joy when we watch him. We experience the child as we watch him from the outside and rejoice in his walking. After we experience our actions feelings and thoughts, we can then enter more inward, into the “I”, and after that, to feel the Creator.

Feeling Reality

These are not words or definitions. It is reality. A table is not just a definition. It is a reality.

The power to experience life and to penetrate deep within ourselves is not intellect, it is not philosophy, it is not inspiration, and it is not even about feelings. It is about grasping reality as it is.

Who feels reality? Man is called adam from the word dimayon, imagination, because man is drawn after his imagination. Nine out of every ten people feel imagination, not reality. Imagination is fleeting. Thoughts, feelings and actions are always fleeting. The past is always gone. People are feeling their imagination all the time, not reality itself.

We need to feel reality. What is reality? There is only one absolute reality: the reality of Hashem. This is the deepest experience – the ever-constant reality of Hashem’s Presence. It is not an experience that is fleeting; it is to feel a constant reality. When a person learns how to constantly experience, he can feel that reality. He can then reveal what reality is. The fact that there is a Creator – it’s in our brain. But 99% of people do not feel that reality.

Who feels reality? Only one who feels the reality of Hashem. Everything else is imagination. All other experiences are a tool to get us to the innermost experience – reality itself, which is Hashem’s existence.

It is very rare to find a person who constantly experiences. The Gemara says that the world stands on 36 tzaddikim who greet the Shechinah each day. These people feel the reality. If they wouldn’t recognize reality, the world cannot exist.

Our avodah – all of us without exception – is to realize Hashem’s existence. In the future all will point their finger at Hashem and say “This is my G-d that I hoped for.” Only someone who really recognized the reality of Hashem on this world will be able to realize, with conviction – “This is my G-d, that I hoped for.”

The avodah of life is to feel the reality itself, the reality of Hashem – first to experience, then to experience constantly, and then to experience the truth of reality, which is the Creator.