Hisboddedus Preparation - 004 Three Ways to Enter Deeper

Going Deeper Into Our Self

Previously, we spoke about calming our five senses, so we can quiet down our surroundings, as a preface to beginning our hisbodedus. Before we continue, let us give a short introduction of what is to come.

There are layers within layers in our soul. The outer layers of our soul are used to connect with others, while the more inner layers of our soul are a place of solitude deep inside us. The more solitude we acquire, the more we will be able to reach our soul. 

We can compare this to going into a forest. When we start walking into a forest, we can still hear all the commotion of the city, with all the cars honking. As we go deeper into the forest, the noise lessens, and we enter into more and more solitude, alone from people and from all noise. This describes what we are trying to accomplish here. The goal of hisbodedus is that we want to leave the external layers of our self – which reside in others, to leave all the noise of our surroundings - and to enter in the deeper layers of our self.

We mentioned last time that there are two abilities in particular which help us to enter more inward: 1) the sense of smell and breathing; and 2) the sense of hearing, which we can use to hear stirring music to help us penetrate deeper into our soul.

Deep Smell As A Way To Enter Deeper Into Our Self

When we smell the besamim on Motzei Shabbos, we all enjoy the scent, and we like to hold onto the smell and savor it. But that’s only the external layer of smell. We can reach a deeper sense of smell. One way we can do this is by inhaling it deeply, lingering with the smell. But that’s still only a superficial way to use smell, because we’re not doing anything with the smell. The deeper method, which is the way we will use to deepen our sense of smell, is to use the smell as a way to help ourselves reach our soul.

Practically speaking, take an esrog or besamim (anything that smells good, but preferably use something that was used for a mitzvah) – and inhale its scent deeply, each time deepening your sniff. With each time you smell it, concentrate on the fact that you’re trying to reach deeper and deeper into yourself. Don’t do this in a pressurized manner, but be very, very relaxed as you inhale the scent. Do it slowly and calmly, not rapidly.

In order to succeed with this, it must be done as we said – slowly, and calmly. We must keep bearing in mind the whole time, as we sniff again and again, that we are trying to enter deeper and deeper into ourselves, with the smell. We must remember that we are doing this so that we can get used to deepening our sense of smell, as a tool to help us reach deeper into our soul.

By training ourselves to smell like this, we are able to get in touch with the more inner layers in our soul that we never knew about before. As we get used to practicing this more and more, we will find a whole new happiness we never had before – a whole new kind of menuchas hanefesh (serenity).

The goal of this exercise is to become calmer as we deepen our sense of smell. We are trying to calm ourselves because we are trying to reach a very calm place within ourselves that indeed exists.

Reviewing The Goal of Hisbodedus

Our lives are very busy, and the noise of life doesn’t allow us to have the calm and quiet we need to get in touch with our inner self. That is why we need this hisbodedus we are describing – so we can get away from all of the noise, and finally have the tranquil silence to reach our inner self.

The sefer Chovos HaLevovos writes that a person is able to come to a point in which he loves hisbodedus. This does not mean that the person is supposed to come to a point in which he loves to be away from people! It means that a person loves the calm and quiet of hisbodedus because he is enjoying getting in touch with his true self.

Therefore, the goal of these classes are not just to learn how to do hisbodedus or to learn how to enjoy becoming secluded. The goal of these classes is to enter the state of mind which we can achieve through hisbodedus. Although we have learned in the classes so far about how to physically calm ourselves down, this is not yet the purpose of hisbodedus, and it is only the tool that can help us reach our goal. The purpose of hisbodedus is not to calm ourselves down – rather, calming ourselves down is the tool that helps us get to our goal, which is to find our true self.

Alternate Method To Enter Deeper: Deep Breathing

Another way to use the sense of smell is that helps us reach our soul is through breathing. We can deepen our breathing in the same way that we deepen our sense of smell, each time remembering that we are trying to get deeper and deeper into our soul as we breathe slowly and deeply. (review this shiur on breathing).

Another Alternate Method to Enter Deeper: Music

We have a third way as well to reach deeper into our soul, and that is through the sense of hearing. We deepen our hearing by listening to stirring music. As we listen to a calming tune, we can concentrate each time we listen that we are attempting to reach deeper into our soul. Each time you listen to a song, say to yourself that now you want to enter deeper into yourself than the last time you listened.

The Next Step: Holding Onto the Calmness

We gave three different methods how to reach deeper into our self: deep smell, deep breathing, and music. Each person is unique, so each person needs to use a different method to see what works best.

After we train ourselves with one of these exercises, our avodah is then to be able to hold onto this calmness for a longer time. Check and see if you can hold onto that calmness a little longer, after you attain the calmness.

When someone’s tired at the end of the day, he needs to go to sleep and rest in order to feel refreshed. In the same way, hisbodedus refreshes us by calming us down from all the noise of life, and it rejuvenates us to continue going on with our life by giving us the calm and quiet we need.

The goal of these classes is therefore not just “to do hisbodedus, for fifteen minutes a day” - or even an hour a day. It is rather to show us that there is a certain way of life we can live – a state of calmness which we can live with, accessed via hisbodedus.

Let us now continue to the next step after this. However, we must point out that one should not continue to the next step if he/she hasn’t achieved the previous steps.

The Goal of Hisbodedus

The goal of hisbodedus is to be able to reach the deepest part of our soul. Each time we practice the exercises we have said here, we can enter deeper and deeper, until we finally reach the deepest part of who we are. We aren’t doing this simply out of a love for the calming quiet of hisbodedus – the goal is rather to reach our true self. The ultimate goal of all this will be to find Hashem, but that will be a much later stage. For now, our goal is that we want to reach the innermost layer of our self. (See The True “I” is Hashem)

To have a clear picture of what we want to achieve here, let us present the various methods of hisbodedus which our Rabbis have written about. There are all kinds of hisbodedus - some of them utilize our physical body, while other paths utilize our soul more than our body.

What we have spoken about so far is only the external kind of hisbodedus, which uses out physical senses. These classes don’t apply to every person, because it is only one of the paths of hisbodedus brought in the sefarim of our teachers. We will explain who it can work for, and who it can’t.

Who can these classes work for? They can only work for someone who has emotional depth, as well as intellectual depth. If someone has both of these aspects, then he/she can gain from the approach we have given over so far, which have addressed how we deepen our physical senses.

If someone is trying to practice any of this and is only feeling pressured by trying to carry this out, it’s a sign that these classes are not meant for them to work on.

As we advance in these classes, we will discuss more subtle and delicate matters. If someone feels at this point that these matters are troubling, please ask all your questions now. We must be honest with ourselves if we are indeed going in the right direction with all of this.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH THE RAV

Q: Are these three different options we have to reach our self (smell, breathing, or music), or must we do all of them?

A: We do not need to do all of them, as we have already said in the class here that each person needs a different method. It is definitely better if we use more than one of these methods, but we don’t have to, and we definitely don’t need to do all three.

Q: Is there any prayer or thought we need to have in mind before doing any of this?

A: Good question. We need to be very calm as we do this, so it is better not to think deeply about anything.

Q: Isn’t hisbodedus more about speaking with Hashem?

A: Although the purpose of Creation is d’veykus - to connect and bond with Hashem - when we begin to serve Hashem, we first need to start with the lower rungs of the ladder,such as through hisbodedus. If someone begins with talking to Hashem, then it’s like running away from ourselves. First we need to reach our true self, and then we can eventually connect to Hashem, our purpose. Therefore we need to learn how to do proper hisbodedus, so we can truly connect to ourselves, and then we will eventually be able to reach closeness with Hashem.

Q: I have emotional depth to me, as is required for this; but I am practicing everything so far here and I don’t feel that I’m becoming calmer. What should I do?

A: What haven’t you achieved yet – you aren’t becoming relaxed, or you haven’t felt that you’ve reached deeper into yourself? (Neither – I’m not becoming relaxed, and I’m not getting deeper into myself. All I feel is internal pain, and I can’t release myself from it, because I have so much stress going on in my life). There can be two possibilities why a person isn’t get calmed as he\she tries to enter deeper into his\herself: either there is a lot of confusion going on in his\her life, or because the person is feeling pressure at doing any of this. These classes will not be able to provide the answers to those problems. (So what should I do if I am one of those people?)….One needs to seek help for those particular issues, because in order to become calm, you need to get past all the other issues you’re having. These classes cannot answer every particular issue that a person has – they are just a general approach, which applies only to those who aren’t having issues more than the norm.

Q: But aren’t these classes meant to help a person who isn’t calm to become calm?

A: These classes are for those who are going through a normal amount of stress in their life, not for those who are going through extreme stress in their life. There are indeed about 20% or 30% of people who are going through more extreme stress than their norm (either because of emotional turbulence, or other various issues they are going through), and they need different guidance than these classes. They must get past those issues in order to be able to work on acquiring the calm state we are trying to achieve through these classes.

Q: If I can’t concentrate so well, does that also mean that I’m not able to become calm yet through these classes?

A: All of us have a hard time concentrating, but some people have a harder time with it, and then it’s more of an extreme problem. These classes are not for those who have extreme issues. These classes are more general, and they are not meant to address the various particular issues that a person can have. Those who are having extreme issues need to go to a professional and get help, and if they are helped, they can then benefit from these classes.

Q: How do I know if I’m really progressing with all of this, or if I’m just imagining it?

A: In everything, there is a combination of truth and falsity. Therefore everything contains in it some imagination – every feeling we experience has some imagination mixed up in it. Someone with more of a tendency to imagine things will have more imagined feelings. But in any case, as long as one feels that he is becoming calmer through these exercises, the goal has been reached.

Q: Which kinds of music should we listen to (if we are using music to reach our soul)?

A: The older the music is, the closer to holiness it is. In more recent times, the niggunim of Rav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro zt”l are considered to be the best songs to listen to (see samples online). Rav Wolbe zt”l said that these songs are extremely holy. There is no music on it, however, just words. You can hear them on Kol HaLashon. You can also buy the songs of Rav Baruch Ber Levovitz zt”l (online profile) in the sefarim stores which are from many years ago. These are very holy niggunim.

Q:  If I think about my stress and that calms me down when I think it through, can I use that as a way to reach the calmness here?

A: It can definitely be a part of the calmness, but there is still a lot more to be done. We need to strengthen our emunah, (see Bilvavi Part 7 here) as well as to accept suffering with love.