Daily Tanya Shabbos 1st Adar: Chapter 29 Part 4: Shouting at one’s animal soul and evil inclination

1^st Adar

3.      The longer the contemplation the more the animal soul is crushed, and the G-dly soul is revealed:

• Repulsing one’s own life: The longer that one contemplates on the above matters in order to break his heart, both through contemplating in his mind and through reading books on the subject, the more he is able to despise and degrade his own soul to the ultimate state of repulsion, to the point that he actually despises his own life.
• Degrading the side of evil: Through doing so, he causes also for the side of impurity to become repulsed and despised and brings it down to the dust from its state of haughtiness and arrogance, which it had elevated itself over the light of the G-dly soul in order to darken it. [Accordingly, doing the above exercise removes the darkness and concealment of the side of evil from his G-dly soul.]

4.      Shouting and screaming at one’s animal soul to crush it:

• In addition to the above contemplation and research from books, one should also scream and shout at his animal soul, which refers to his evil inclination, in a loud voice, in order to crush it and humble it. This follows the advice of the sages who state that one should always anger his good inclination over his evil inclination, which refers to his animal soul which is the evil inclination.
• How to admonish the evil inclination: One should scream and admonish his animal soul in his mind by telling it that it is truly evil and wicked, [a selfish narcissist, a gluttonous and lust filled animal] etc. etc. He should tell his animal soul, “For how long will you continue to conceal the light of G-d from me? G-d is found everywhere during all times, past present and future, and is also found right here in this area that I am in, just as the infinite light of G-d was found prior to creation without any change at all, and you, putrid one, conceal this existence from me. You continue to conceal this fact and deny the truth which is clearly visible that everything is truly nullified to G-d in a most vivid manner.”

5.      The benefit of the above admonishing and crushing of the animal soul:

• A true seeing of G-d’s unity: The above admonishing of the evil inclination will help remove the concealment of the animal soul from the G-dly soul and allow it to experience the unity of the infinite light of G-d in a real way which is similar to sight and not on the level of hearing and understanding alone.
• The root of all one’s Divine service: Experiencing G-d in a way of sight is the major root of all one’s Divine service, [and hence the above exercise to remove the concealment from the G-dly soul and allow it to experience G-d’s unity the form of sight is of much importance].