Sadness:
the Root of all Evil
The time has come to discuss this matter. There is now sufficient worldwide resistance to the expressions of evil and desire to be free of them for this discussion of the root of evil to be had publicly.
The time has come to discuss this matter. There is now sufficient worldwide resistance to the expressions of evil and desire to be free of them for this discussion of the root of evil to be had publicly.
There is
now a ratcheting up of sadness and fear-inducing staged events and
circumstances on the part of those who can only rule on the low, dense, slow
level of existence that is generated by misery. They need to keep us sad
because they wield a power they do not deserve and don't really know how to
handle. To maintain that power they have to keep us generating the misery even
as we protest against it. They know our unhappiness is the dynamo behind their
empire. That is why they have generously provided us with the internet - the better to commiserate one with the other
and encourage one another's complaints of being miserable all over the world.
With the help of this wonderful technology, we can generate a world wide web of
sadness that reverberates, echoes and is amplified. All we need
to continue to create this grid is to discuss the news items they provide for
us in our news troughs and make one another feel outraged and tell one another,
all over the world, that we are nothing but slaves being sprayed like bugs and
speculate what all those camps in disuse are for.
We are
genuinely indignant and outraged and tired of living as we are, and that's
good, for a start. But we are not yet aware that even indignant outrage and
truth-telling can, and is, used against it because it makes us unhappy. It is time that we likewise knew that we are
forging our own chains, even as we commiserate about being enslaved, and learn
how to finally dissolve those cast iron bands.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (April 4, 1772 – October 16, 1810), the great Chassidic Master taught: It is the fulfillment of a great injunction to be happy always. He did not explain why fully. He said that sadness is "the serpent's bite" and that its poison travels quickly through the body and becomes depression. That was probably a satisfactory explanation for his students, but today it sounds droll and we need a more exhaustive explication, with lots of rational-sounding elucidation to appeal to the modern mind. Moreover, Rabbi Nachman did not explain how sadness plays out on the socio-economic levels of society. That is a main object of concern in our times and it is well that we explain.
Sadness is the ultimate Deceiver and the ultimate deception. It would appear that sad people are poor, weak schnooks who are harmless victims of circumstance. Sadness seems reactive, but it is very proactive. Unfortunately, one of its deceptions is making the sad person believe that the sad circumstances in which they find themselves hapless and helpless are no fault of their own. They "just happened". We all say: such and such makes me unhappy. In that statement lies the deception. The situation is not making us, we are making the situation – which then takes on obduracy and cannot be willed away. So, we think the situation is antecedent to our being bummed out, but that's not the case. Our funky attitude generated that reality.
In fact, sadness, hardly weak and pathetic, is the origin of the massive, monumental, obdurate and elaborate systems that surround, overwhelm and enslave us. The world banking system, the military-industrial complex, governments, the pharmaceutical industry – all of our worst horrors are built of sadness and are maintained by sadness. It is the "vibrations" of sadness that create these dense, huge and weighty structures that are essentially dead, but are animated with the spirit of sadness that those who practice what is essentially black magic constantly induce in order to fuel their systems.
The people who run all those systems revere the builders of the pyramids and use the pyramids as their symbol because the pyramids were the early, impressive, detailed monuments to sadness built in misery by those who were enslaved to their sadness.
To be happy, or, more correctly, to be an embodiment to Happiness itself is an act of supreme Will. The default setting of the Universe is sadness. This idea has been expressed by the Satanists who say, correctly, that Satan is antecedent to God. But they are wrong in presuming that evil is precedent to goodness. The real crux of the matter is that sadness is antecedent to Joy. It's a frightening idea that sadness is the default setting of God and the universe, but we can take comfort in knowing that we are the product of God having found the wellsprings of Joy within Itself. Life is the result of that discovery – all Life, with Man as the Crown of Creation.
But we cannot rest on that fact and just let events play out. The Will to Joy is an ongoing act of Will that must be constantly renewed again and again and again. In perpetuity? Let's hope not. But for a long while.
Sadness is the progenitor of every misunderstanding and every misconception that results in deformed ideation. It is the root of misunderstand between and among people and it is the root of the misunderstanding of the Hebrew Holy Writings that lead to sad interpretations and practices born of sadness and fear.
Sadness locks us into an iron grid of delusion wrought by our own minds and hearts. The way out of that most terrible of prisons is to learn to induce Joy in the Heart, not reactively, but proactively and preemptively.
The only sacrifice that we are called on to make is to surrender our dubious enjoyment and admiration of sadness and its products. Sadness tells us that sacrifices have to be painful, that the nature of sacrifice is the feel the loss of that which we sacrifice, only then will it be meaningful. That too is a lie. God would have us even sacrifice in Joy – only to give up being sad. We are required as our sacrifice to stop thinking that sadness is somehow more honest than Happiness because we have to work to be happy and make others happy, while being sad is baseline. We are required as our sacrifice to think that sadness is necessary for motivation and creativity because so much art is born of depression and the products of depression are so dense and durable. We are required to stop believing that being sad is the result of being intelligent and insightful.
All that is a lie. Sadness is a lie and a liar. Joy is infinitely more creative than sadness and its products are alive, alive in-and-of-themselves and do not have to be enlivened by panting into them with misery as do the products of sadness. The products of Joy live and breathe on their own. They have their own life and their own integrity. And they are beautiful and wonderful to boot.
The task before us then, is to take upon ourselves the gentle, patient, ongoing discipline of willing the Heart to be happy not because it feels good, but for the sake of the Creation. Joy does feel good though. It so happens that that which is best for the world is also pleasant. As I said, God does not call upon us to make sacrifices that sting. That too is a misconception of the sad. To be the embodiment of Happiness is an effort and a challenge, but it is not a bitter sacrifice. The product of that endeavor, when we undertake it Together, will be the creation of a world in which challenge will exist in order to grow and learn – but not misery. Challenge should be adventuresome, not an ordeal and need not be. There is no reason to believe that whatever is valuable is won or born of misery. That notion too is the pathological ideation of the essentially sad.
So, let us undertake the ultimate moral-spiritual discipline (whether you believe in God or not does not matter) – and will our Hearts to be Joyous. This is an ongoing challenge. Be patient, kind and gentle with yourself.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (April 4, 1772 – October 16, 1810), the great Chassidic Master taught: It is the fulfillment of a great injunction to be happy always. He did not explain why fully. He said that sadness is "the serpent's bite" and that its poison travels quickly through the body and becomes depression. That was probably a satisfactory explanation for his students, but today it sounds droll and we need a more exhaustive explication, with lots of rational-sounding elucidation to appeal to the modern mind. Moreover, Rabbi Nachman did not explain how sadness plays out on the socio-economic levels of society. That is a main object of concern in our times and it is well that we explain.
Sadness is the ultimate Deceiver and the ultimate deception. It would appear that sad people are poor, weak schnooks who are harmless victims of circumstance. Sadness seems reactive, but it is very proactive. Unfortunately, one of its deceptions is making the sad person believe that the sad circumstances in which they find themselves hapless and helpless are no fault of their own. They "just happened". We all say: such and such makes me unhappy. In that statement lies the deception. The situation is not making us, we are making the situation – which then takes on obduracy and cannot be willed away. So, we think the situation is antecedent to our being bummed out, but that's not the case. Our funky attitude generated that reality.
In fact, sadness, hardly weak and pathetic, is the origin of the massive, monumental, obdurate and elaborate systems that surround, overwhelm and enslave us. The world banking system, the military-industrial complex, governments, the pharmaceutical industry – all of our worst horrors are built of sadness and are maintained by sadness. It is the "vibrations" of sadness that create these dense, huge and weighty structures that are essentially dead, but are animated with the spirit of sadness that those who practice what is essentially black magic constantly induce in order to fuel their systems.
The people who run all those systems revere the builders of the pyramids and use the pyramids as their symbol because the pyramids were the early, impressive, detailed monuments to sadness built in misery by those who were enslaved to their sadness.
To be happy, or, more correctly, to be an embodiment to Happiness itself is an act of supreme Will. The default setting of the Universe is sadness. This idea has been expressed by the Satanists who say, correctly, that Satan is antecedent to God. But they are wrong in presuming that evil is precedent to goodness. The real crux of the matter is that sadness is antecedent to Joy. It's a frightening idea that sadness is the default setting of God and the universe, but we can take comfort in knowing that we are the product of God having found the wellsprings of Joy within Itself. Life is the result of that discovery – all Life, with Man as the Crown of Creation.
But we cannot rest on that fact and just let events play out. The Will to Joy is an ongoing act of Will that must be constantly renewed again and again and again. In perpetuity? Let's hope not. But for a long while.
Sadness is the progenitor of every misunderstanding and every misconception that results in deformed ideation. It is the root of misunderstand between and among people and it is the root of the misunderstanding of the Hebrew Holy Writings that lead to sad interpretations and practices born of sadness and fear.
Sadness locks us into an iron grid of delusion wrought by our own minds and hearts. The way out of that most terrible of prisons is to learn to induce Joy in the Heart, not reactively, but proactively and preemptively.
The only sacrifice that we are called on to make is to surrender our dubious enjoyment and admiration of sadness and its products. Sadness tells us that sacrifices have to be painful, that the nature of sacrifice is the feel the loss of that which we sacrifice, only then will it be meaningful. That too is a lie. God would have us even sacrifice in Joy – only to give up being sad. We are required as our sacrifice to stop thinking that sadness is somehow more honest than Happiness because we have to work to be happy and make others happy, while being sad is baseline. We are required as our sacrifice to think that sadness is necessary for motivation and creativity because so much art is born of depression and the products of depression are so dense and durable. We are required to stop believing that being sad is the result of being intelligent and insightful.
All that is a lie. Sadness is a lie and a liar. Joy is infinitely more creative than sadness and its products are alive, alive in-and-of-themselves and do not have to be enlivened by panting into them with misery as do the products of sadness. The products of Joy live and breathe on their own. They have their own life and their own integrity. And they are beautiful and wonderful to boot.
The task before us then, is to take upon ourselves the gentle, patient, ongoing discipline of willing the Heart to be happy not because it feels good, but for the sake of the Creation. Joy does feel good though. It so happens that that which is best for the world is also pleasant. As I said, God does not call upon us to make sacrifices that sting. That too is a misconception of the sad. To be the embodiment of Happiness is an effort and a challenge, but it is not a bitter sacrifice. The product of that endeavor, when we undertake it Together, will be the creation of a world in which challenge will exist in order to grow and learn – but not misery. Challenge should be adventuresome, not an ordeal and need not be. There is no reason to believe that whatever is valuable is won or born of misery. That notion too is the pathological ideation of the essentially sad.
So, let us undertake the ultimate moral-spiritual discipline (whether you believe in God or not does not matter) – and will our Hearts to be Joyous. This is an ongoing challenge. Be patient, kind and gentle with yourself.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
