evile

Get
Real

March 11th - March 17th,
2012

72 Name of the
Week

Vav Chet Yud

# 33 – REVEALING THE DARK SIDE

I concentrate on this sequence of letters and ask the Light to illuminate
my nature, to show me where I can make improvements in myself.

Show me my reactive behavior, my ego, and the negativity that covers up my
soul so that I can work to clean it all up.

I will spend each day spreading Light and joy in the world, sharing my true
and imperfect self with those around me.

None of us are 100% truthful, 100% of
the time.

The ego demands admiration and respect, and so we seek to look like “the good guy.” If we were too lazy to work through the weekend, maybe we would use our loved ones as an excuse claiming, “Family comes first!” when we know we could have easily found the time between television and surfing the web. When we’ve helped at a soup kitchen all day, it’s the first thing we want to tell our friends about, but if we yelled at a co-worker or hurt someone close to us, it’s unlikely to be our next Facebook status update.

This even happens to the most spiritual of people! Maybe we want to get more people inspired to walk that path and so we pretend to be perfect human beings; we want people to think that we are without ego and that our lives are without strife. But while this may intrigue one to take up study, imagine what they will think of Kabbalah once they find out that you still have an ego, or that you still have challenges to overcome.

In the end, the truth always comes out.

This is a big reason so many of us fall in our spiritual work. We try to show how good we are on the outside, but on the inside, we are not really what we appear.

Developing the Light within is a process of transforming the negativity that no one sees buried within us. The important thing is not to lie—to others or to ourselves—in an attempt to cover up that negativity. Before long, we will believe the lie and out goes our spiritual work.

We live in a culture that glorifies self-promotion, but trying to seem “greater” than we are will never really bring us genuine fulfillment. That only comes from learning to “shrink” our ego so we can find acceptance and truth. Acceptance of ourselves leads to acceptance of others.

Exposing our negativity to others is exposing it to the Light.

This week’s assignment: Get real! Take down some of the walls you’ve constructed, remove the masks and don’t be afraid to embrace yourself as a flawed human being. We all are!

It’s only in facing the truth of our negativity that we can begin any honest work on removing it.

All the best,

Yehuda