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Mind Over Matter

True, our hearts are not in our hands. But our minds are: We can think about whatever we decide to think about. And therein lies our power.

The mind rules over the heart-—not just as a rider rules over his horse, but in a much more intimate sense. For the mind is the father and the mother, the seed and the womb from which the attitudes of a person are born and then nurtured. The heart does no more than reflect the state of the mind—its turmoil, its resolution, its shallowness or its depth, its coarseness or its maturity.

This then must be the focus of the person who wishes to leave this world with more than he arrived: To engage his mind with all its intensity in thoughts that elevate and inspire, and push away with equal force any thought that drags down and holds back.

And to allow all that labor to give birth through the channel from the mind to the heart to actual deeds.


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From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman. To order Tzvi's book, "Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, click here. Rabbi Freeman is available for public speaking and workshops. Read more on his bio page.

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Posted: Aug 12, 2008
Back to Zorach
Kind of a blanket generalization there. One of the essential teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, really a reiteration of the Talmudic statement, "G_d wants the heart" (Rachmana Liba Baey). It's just that we need to spend a lot of time getting the outer heart to shush up so we can hear what that inner heart is saying. Most of us, that is.
Posted By Tzvi Freeman, Thornhill, Canada

Posted: Aug 12, 2008
The Inner Heart Perspective
Your clarification is simple, beautiful and profound. However, I have some disagreement that this is a strictly sequential, step-by-step process. I believe that if we listen, we can hear (shema) the call and receive the guidance which is constantly emanating from the inner altar. The intellect is a two-way door; it assists in gaining access to the inner heart, but it also serves as an instrument to carry out the dictates received from the inner heart. Chabad and traditional Jewish teaching rarely focus on the inner heart and thus lack providing proper perspective, instead overemphasizing the intellect and demonizing the heart, without qualifying that it is only the outer heart that is being discussed, not the inner heart.
Posted By Zorach, Decatur, GA

Posted: Aug 11, 2008
For Zorach
The outer heart is the outer altar of the Temple. The inner heart is the inner altar. First you must enter the heichal--the palace of the mind--and then you can find the inner altar of the heart.

Sometimes it is said that the inner heart is the Aron Hakodesh, and intellect is the curtain before it. The point is the same: The mind is a device to tame the outer heart and awaken its inner light.
Posted By Tzvi Freeman, Thornhill, Canada



 


Getting Past the Mind
Unexperience
Inner Torah
Supermind
The Convenient Mind
A Real Fool
Being Not That
Memory
Mind Over Matter
A Quiet Heart
Mind and Heart
Harmony
Mental Limits
Waking Up G‑d
Be a Mentsch
The Promise Inside
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