Question:
1) Is the “subconscious” synonymous with one’s true bechirah (free will)? The Rav describes that one’s subconscious contains the personality makeup which one receives from one’s parents, and that it is contains memories from previous lifetimes, and from one’s past. Are these factors which cause a person to choose certain things in his current lifetime? It would seem that these factors are not the deepest part of the person, and that they are closer to the physical side of one’s life.
2) What about the concept of going “above” one’s conscious (as the Rav describes) – is this the beginning of the revelation of one’s neshamah? Does it include all of one’s lifetimes, one’s comprehension in Torah, and one’s ability to see patterns on the forehead?
Answer:
1) In one’s “subconscious”, all one’s past is contained, and it consists of the many complex factors of the reality that is in one’s soul. When one uses his power of bechirah (free will), on a very basic level, he is using a power contained in the “animal” level of the soul, no less than how an animal chooses to do something. There is a more inner motivating factor behind one’s bechirah: the G-dly “spirit” contained in the soul. Even if a person is not conscious of it, it influences his free will.
2) When one goes “above” one’s conscious, this is the free will of the neshamah which is choosing to do the will of its Creator, as it was made to do at the time of its inception and when it stood at Sinai. Ever since then, the power of free will is experienced on the “Ruach” level of the soul. It can be experienced either in (1) the “Ruach” level within the “Nefesh” of the soul, or in (2) the “Ruach” within the Ruach of the soul, or in (3) the “Ruach” within the Neshamah of the soul, or in (4) the “Ruach” within the Chayah of the soul, or in (5) the “Ruach” within the Yechidah of the soul.
In every person, according to his level, there is a conscious and a subconscious level within one’s comprehension. Above one’s comprehension is the area “above” the conscious. Every person, on his own level, has bechirah, on a conscious level as well on a subconscious level.
Categories
