Addictions 

ADDICTIONS
In this fine delicate fabric of life that we are all living in, it seems that it is a continuing miracle that all of us didnt become patients in heavy addictions while we are trying to find our way in the daily way of life. The unending competition in front of this hard rock reality, the stress and repression in the communication with others, the horrible pressure that occurred in us while we keep our social persona and the most horrific of it all, is the painful separation from the inner truth - which is hidden inside us - all of this turning our life journey, the one that goes upon this social rice paper to be very painful and exhausting.
And us, as long that the personal pain becomes unbearable, we are turning again to our known painkillers, those that allow us not to feel the full impact of our pain (either from pressure, stress, or emotional pain),those painkillers that provide us the necessary comfort. And to all the pains - the comfort is one - consuming fast food that is easy to digest (hard food, liquid or energetic food), comfort that relaxes and lessens the pain as fast as possible. May it be food, alcohol, drug, sex, tv, pills, work, gambling and so on. But as long as we are coming down and drugging ourselves as many times as possible just not to feel the pain, instead of doing a root canal for the reason, the pain is being pushed down, is repressed inside and gets bigger and bigger. Therefore, gradually what gives the tone inside us is the potency of the suppressed pain and our lack of ability to handle our many pains and those addiction pain killers that demand their own , more and from the same kind. But not only that, every time we must consume higher and higher dosages in shorter times from the addictive material so we can get the same effect as we did last time we used it.....
Inside all of this we must remember that the pain is the symptom only and that it is just pointing direction to the source of the problem, which is basically saying that something in us doesnt work correctly. The pain is just a fragment from a larger vast calling - the calling of the inner being. That being, that is placed in what could have been our center of gravity, but in its present state that its in, its raw pit only longing to its salvation and fulfillment. A pit, that if it is germinated and fulfilled, will become a being that radiates the individual uniqueness of the person that carries it.
In order for it to grow to fulfill and to be, our inner being needs the right kind of nourishment, a constant ecology and a clear direction, exactly as a seed that is lying deep beneath the ground. Now, all of this is needed from us, the servers of the Temple.
In relation to the constant ecology and creating an inner space that will allow the being to grow - so only if ?we? wont exist - it will be. If we will succeed to evacuate enough place inside us to the vacancy so there is a chance that something else will be able to grow and to be through us, it is similar to a flute that because of it being empty, hollow and tuned, music can pass through it. But the biggest difficulty for us - humans, maybe the biggest of it all, is the difficulty to stay and to be with a feeling of inner vacancy. With the feeling that nothing is happening, that nothing is going on - nothing, except of one big continuing vacancy.
But its very hard, because all of us want to feel good. We are all addicted to the good feeling that comes from satisfaction, happiness, being in- love, and in fact from what not?! Anything goes - anything goes as long as it gives us the feeling that something is going on with us - that we are alive. Therefore, between an obsessive chase after happiness from one end into the pain of disappointments from the other, the place of the inner being is being taken by a false self (the ego, the personality that was built during the years) and conducts our life. It determines our boarders by its needs, controls us through the senses, causes us to bring it to a constant satisfaction (physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual) and increasing its grasp on us in such an envy way until we are totally and completely identify our self with it.

This is how sport and sex become a major stress releaser, eating a cheap fast food gives us an illusion that emotional pains are fading away and TV and alcohol turning imaginary words into alternative reality, one that you can run to from a horrible anxiety. Every time that we are giving up on the inner intimate paying attention and disconnect our self from the strength of our being, the sound of the rush outside becomes stronger, until pressure and exhaustion causes us to collapse inside without any strength at all and we allow once again our physical body to pay the price for our unbalanced life.
My claim is that us - humans, were supposed to from the first place to be addicted, and the major question is to what?
Inside all the unbelievable chaos that we are living in, as described above, there are some moments of grace in which we succeed to let go, and we experience the strength of silence connecting our self into a deep inner tranquility where the skies are the limit. Those moments are just a small clue about the biggest addiction of all - the addiction experience of the blending with nature and with a strength of creation. Those are the natural intoxicated drugs of nature that were supposed to ease our life in our daily struggle, but they were taken from us with the exile from paradise that leaves us naked and exposed in front of the hard reality. The Gates of Paradise were shut at us but our desire to blend with something greater than us remains the same. This is the reason that we are falling down again and again so easily into the trap of temporary substances that soften the pain of existence but not really constitute a solution to the problem. This is the way of addiction - a temporary release that stabilizes a long and hard slavery.

So, as long as we are not in lightened with the radiated warmth of our illuminated being and as long as we can?t really contain the continued vacancy (meaning a hard diet in all the levels until our system will be cleansed ), we are doomed to be addicted to a temporary substances that will come to compensate on a true inner connection that is lost and gone. The essence of the rose is being released only when the rose bush is being trimmed again and again and the bud is open and blossoms - Dede, a Sufic Teacher.


Yossi Aflalo