Getting to Know Your Self - 003 Part Two Introduction

Introduction (Specially written by the author for the English edition)

Each of us must reach the innermost point of his soul and as a result, reach his Creator.  But as long as a person is impulsive and anxious, he is emotionally imbalanced and cannot reach his inner essence.  Balance allows a person to attain inner quiet, and through that quiet, to enter further and further inward until reaching the innermost point of his soul. 

This book is divided into two parts.  The first part dealt with removing the “garments” of the soul.  It taught how to break through them and reach the innermost point of the soul, which is totally good.  The outer layers of the soul have a mixture of good and evil, but the innermost point is totally good.  That part of the book served to teach a person how to reach the innermost, totally good element of the soul.  In contrast, the second part of the book (which actually appears first in the Hebrew edition of this book), teaches a person how to be free of impulsiveness and anxiety in order to reach inner balance and emotional peace. 

Which of these should come first in our personal avodah?  As long as person is not balanced, it is difficult to break through to the inner point.  If so, it might have been appropriate to place this second part before the first, so that one would balance the soul before working to recognize the inner self that is totally good.  On the other hand, many people would find it most difficult to attain balance as long as they sense that they are evil, or partially evil.  Only by reaching the inner point of the soul that is totally good can they attain balance with relative ease. Therefore, each person must understand himself to some extent in order to assess if it is most appropriate to balance the soul before striving to reach the innermost point, or to take the opposite approach. 

May Hashem enable us all to attain inner balance, clear thinking, peace of mind, familiarity with the innermost self, and awareness of He Who spoke and created the world.

Besides familiarity with the innermost part of the soul, one must attain familiarity with the roots and branches of the other faculties in the soul.  With Hashem’s help, this will be explained in a forthcoming book entitled  “Getting To Know Your Soul.” »