Showing posts with label Purify. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Purify. Show all posts

August 22, 2021

G-d Doesn't Ask Us

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "G-d Doesn't Ask Us."

Truly, in whatever situations we find ourselves in life, and the pain and suffering that we may have to endure, we really don’t have a choice of our circumstance, but only in how we choose to respond to it. In life, G-d puts us right where he wants us and in situations that are personalized and best for us, whether it feels that way at the moment or not. G-d tries us, and we have to respond with the “right” thoughts, words, and deeds—always remaining a mensch and choosing holiness and righteousness, no matter how difficult it may be. That’s our ultimate challenge, to find holiness even in the depths of despair.
Everyone is confronted with levels of pain and suffering, as I heard said that: “there aren’t enough people for all the pain in the world!” The challenge is to resist hopelessness and the loss of one’s integrity, and nevertheless to choose to do good. As we approach Rosh Hashanah, we have the opportunity to do teshuva and to try to influence G-d’s decree for us for the new year, but in the end, G-d is the ultimate Judge. He doesn’t ask us; He tells us what will be for us. Of course, we have the opportunity to answer G-d’s call to us and the responsibility to choose righteousness even in a distressed world and in trying times. In essence, the underlying test of it all is not only to survive the challenges we must face, but also to emerge from them as better people with purified souls.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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October 24, 2020

The Elections: Perfecting Our Imperfections

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "The Elections: Perfecting Our Imperfections."

Clearly, from the President on down to each and every one of us, we can be certain that none of us is perfect. However, G-d put us here, precisely, to have the opportunity to repair our imperfections. In this earthly world, our soul is tested, and we thereby have the opportunity to come out stronger and better because of it. The challenges in this world provide the "purification by fire" that our souls need to elevate themselves from past mistakes or imperfections. In essence, G-d in his ultimate benevolence — of love, kindness, and giving — bestows on us, His children, the chance to learn and grow and to realize our potential!

In short, while our elections leave us a lot to be desired in terms of the candidates for the highest office of this great land, we can see from the presidential candidates on down to the citizens of this country and to those around the world that there is both shortcomings and the potential for becoming the people that G-d knows we can really be.

(Credit Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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January 30, 2017

Seeing Your Life Flash B4 Your Eyes

So in near death experiences, it is common to see your life flash before your eyes. 

Researchers believe that what you see isn't necessarily in chronological order, rather there is no time or space, and people report that "it all happened at once."

Additionally, people feel the experiences and pain from others' points of view. 

It's like a melding of time and space in a single continuum. 

This so-called life review experience (LRE) is eye-opening. 

It's almost like a G-d's eye view of your life in the world. 

In the worst case scenario, what we see at the end is what we failed to see during life--how far wrong we went and how much we hurt others. 

If we wait until the end to open our eyes and see what's right in front of us all along, then frankly, it's too late to do anything positive about it. 

Maybe you have to come back (reincarnated) for another try to do things better and make things right. 

Hopefully, you learned something from this go around so that you are building incrementally and purifying your heart and your soul. 

If though life experience, it's ups and downs, and pains and suffering, you still learn nothing...then what you see in the end is your own blindness to the eternal lessons of the omniscient creator--all in 20-20 extra clear hindsight. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 12, 2016

Keeping Perspective

I thought this was a good photo to depict the importance of keeping perspective in life.

It is easy for any of us to "get bent out of shape" over big and little things alike. 

But if we sort of zoom out a little and see the larger perspective of things then perhaps we can realize that while our problems may be big for us, they are really small in comparison to the bigger picture or G-d's eye view. 

Yes, to us, little can be big, and big can be little, but if we could just recognize that we are part of something so much more, we can get that finer-tuned perspective on what's truly important and what's more trivial. 

It doesn't mean that our feelings of hurt, pain, loneliness, or injustices in the world are not important. 

They are significant for us to try to deal with them and make things better. 

Yet, we cannot go back in time and right all the wrongs, and we cannot change all the things about ourselves that we'd like to in a presto change-O wave of the hand moment. 

Life, change, and improvement are incremental. 

Sometimes, we make progress only then to fall back some. 

But overall, we need to keep the momentum of positive change for ourselves, forward.

But why are we even here? 

My wife said something the other day as follows:


"We are here in order to learn why we are here!"

Sounds confusing, but really maybe it's not. 

Our souls are sent here in the temporary vessels of our mortal bodies.

We are here so we can spend time here in this complex and interactive world, and learn from our relationships, positively and negatively with each other. 

The learning corrects our soul's imperfections and makes us better human and spiritual beings and brings us closer to G-d. 

At the same time that we are here, we should make it as pleasant as possible for ourselves and each other (but not over-the-top in a nihilistic and debauchery type of way). 

Stay fit, support yourselves and your family, live reasonably comfortably, so that you can pursue your karmic-driven learning and growth toward inner perfection. 

Like Buddha, we seek to purify our souls before they return to our Maker. 

In the realm of things, we are a very small microscopic human insect, but in the bigger picture, we are part of the ultimate magnanimous giving of opportunity to fix and maybe even come close to perfecting ourselves to be more like our beautiful and merciful Creator. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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