Mesillat Yesharim – The Path of the Just #26 – Chapter 4 – Watchfulness [A World of Illusions]

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In this world, people have a hard time when they see the success of others in comparison to where they are at. We are not willing to settle for anything less than at least what others have too.

Society push upon us this additional stress of expecting each of us to strive for only the best in everything. In fact, someone who does not fit in within these “norms of society” is said to be lazy! How often to people remark of a poor beggar who sleeps in the open (homeless) that he has (incredibly) chosen this way of life for himself. Society expect upon us that we will all reach the highest levels of physical satisfaction. We should all fit in with the norms of the best of everything – the best car, the best holiday home, the best outfits etc.

Yet, when it comes to one’s spiritual goals, we are miraculously able to put aside all our concerns for wanting and demanding more of ourselves. We will settle for with whatever will come our way when we leave this world after 70 or 80 or 120 years. We will be happy – we fool ourselves into thinking – that if we only receive entry into the “Garden of Eden” – it will suffice.

But the truth is different. Our natural inclinations are just as accurate in our spiritual goals as they are in our physical goals. Just as we want the very best physically, so too, in reality do we want the spiritual best for ourselves.

How embarrassing it would be then, for us to find ourselves in the next world in a place far lower than those who we had once looked at in scorn in this physical world down below — a world which is a mere illusion filled with imaginary realties. But at the moment – it all looks so real.. But then, when we are about to leave this world, we realise the illusions of what life was about. Then it is too late already to be able to do what must be done.

Now is the time to act. We have the opportunity to improve ourselves and make this a better world – where ultimately it is run with the Creator of the world manifest rather than pushed aside.

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