JSSUMMERS™ Entertainment®: Countless Miles Ahead

July 12 — 18

Who are we, really?

Our 1% physical body is not who we are. How do we know this? You can remove a person's heart, replace it with a donor's heart, and the person will remain as he was prior to the surgery. Many internal organs can be replaced. And still, we continue to love the same people, the same hobbies, and the same foods.

Conversely, a person can experience a trauma — physical, mental or emotional — and they will never be the same. The physical body hasn't changed, or perhaps the change is unseen to the naked eye, and the person can be a completely different. You can change the insides of a person and they stay the same, but when something happens to them - triggered by an outside force - they are totally changed.

A lot happens to a person in the course of his/her life. But one thing is for sure, the person we are today is not the person we once were.

So who are we?

The idea I'm trying to get across is that even the person you are today isn't your true self. Your true self is someone you are working towards. Even if I've been working on myself for 20 years, I can never feel I've reached my ultimate self.

By the time Moses was 80 years old, he revealed a tremendous amount of Light; he was already righteous. He had witnessed the burning bush, spoken directly to the Creator, and so much more. He was already a leader, but he didn't reach his ultimate self until he stood on Mt Sinai.

Rav Ashlag, the founder of The Kabbalah Centre, had a life full of study and teaching but didn't reach his ultimate self until he wrote the Sulam (Ladder) commentary on the Zohar. But even after he became his true self, he continued writing. He continues to do his work today because we're following his path. Those 15 people he studied with 100 years ago, was that his true work? Imagine if he had thought that way!

He wrote that men, women, and children need to study Kabbalah, but in his day only religious Jewish men studied Kabbalah. Somehow he knew his teachings were meant for the whole world ... and until those teachings reached the whole world, he would still be working toward his ultimate self, even from the Upper Worlds.

Rav Shimon also knew he would become his complete self long after the Zohar was written. That process only began 300 years after his passing as his students continued to commit his teachings to writing. And 1,200 years after his passing, only then did the ball really begin to roll ... .

My point is we cannot afford to be attached to the person we are now. The person we are today is guiding us to the steps we need to take to find out who we are meant to be. Even when life brings you those successes, big or small, don't put your feet on the table and relax. Know you've hit a milestone, but there are countless miles ahead.

This week, see where you are and where you are headed. Check in with a good friend or your teacher to get some guidance. Rest assured, you're not there yet.

All the best,

Yehuda

72 Name of the Week

Here I accomplish nothing less than the complete transformation of negative situations into positive opportunities and blessings. Manna rains down upon me. Life begins to taste like anything my soul desires or imagines.