Mixing the Ingredients
Rebbe Nachman says, imagine I make a pie. I have all the ingredients, and I just have to stir it. Actually we stir it all the time, because we’re living all the time. OK, but imagine I want an ingredient called love. But if this love is in the pie, it has to be soft. If it isn’t ground up, if it is thick like a stone, it won’t mingle, it will stick out. It’s not mixed, it just doesn’t mingle with the other parts. Do you know what is happening then? It’s just obnoxious. It’s good, it’s sweet, it’s a strong ingredient, but it just isn’t mixed in, it’s just so coarse. It doesn’t go.
Some people keep Shabbos, but sometimes your nose tells you, “I can’t stand their Shabbos.” Why? Their Shabbos isn’t really, really, really integrated into their whole being and their whole life. It’s sticking out like a stone, coarse, so coarse it just doesn’t mingle.
It isn’t that we need a ‘great fixer,’ but a ‘great mixer.’ You have got to know how to do it. Coarse just doesn’t go.
Hitbodedut
How do you un-coarse all those ingredients? The only way, Rebbe Nachman says, and he’s very strong about this, is that you have to be alone and talk to G-d. You’ve got to be alone, and you’ve got to get yourself a little control.
And the whole thing is, Rebbe Nachman always taught, that while we pray, mamash we’re completely annihilated. Because if you pray, and then, after you prayed, you’re as coarse as you were before, nothing happens to you. Nothing happens… Something has to happen.
Taste real goodness
What do we know about ‘real good?’ Let’s say, for instance, we say, “This is not so bad, this is better, and this is good.” What? Did we ever taste ‘real good?’ I don’t know if maybe you ever tasted real evil, but did you ever taste ‘real good?’ There is something that is good. Did you ever taste it? Even if you have it, you wouldn’t taste it, because we’re immune to it. You know, if I have chewing gum in my mouth, someone can put the most delicious thing in my mouth at the same time, and I would be unaffected by it because of my chewing gum being there. Some people chew spiritual gum all the time. They chew the same thing all the time, two words, three words, three ideas, or one idea, chewing it all the time. And in the meantime, someone puts the most beautiful thing into their mouth and they don’t taste it.
The soul really wants to be good all the time
So Rebbe Nachman says, when can you taste the real goodness? There is no way… there is no way…. The only part that can taste real goodness is your soul. But if your soul is sleeping, if your soul is not real, it’s not even worth talking. How can you taste it? How can you bring out your soul? This is one of the strong things of Rebbe Nachman. Rebbe Nachman says, if you ask, “What is the soul?” Know that the soul is longing. Longing, that is the soul. That’s the strongest thing of the soul. Not wanting. Not ‘I want.’ Longing means yearning. Yearning! Rebbe Nachman says, I can be alone and mamash be completely yearning, and then I can mamash taste real good.