The age old question of any spiritual or self-help movement is: shall I get rid of the bad or shall I pile on the good?

If you look at health advertisements, the main line is: take stuff to pile on the good.

What does this say to you? For most people that means, that is what they should do. Look at the proliferation of superfoods, acai, etc. and tell me if this isn’t so.

But “who” is directing the main line? Who’s voice is trumpeted through all media? The Light or the Opponent? Of course it is the Opponent, the darkness, the ego part. But why would the ego part be so interested in you thinking that all you need to do is add some more goodies to your life, and everything will be all right?

I am going to use a little story here to drive the answer home. Imagine a that 100 righteous men are locked up by 100 bandits. The bandits beat up the righteous men every night. The light of the righteous men is dimmer by the day. The world is getting darker by the minute. This is your life: your health, your wealth, your relationships… I am not talking about an imaginary scenario: this is your life!

You have a choice: will you send in troops to strengthen the righteous men or will you send in troops with weapons to get rid of the bandits? Will you try to offset all the bad stuff you do and think with some good acts, or will you kill off the bad stuff?

Eating superfoods is like trying to fatten the righteous men, they will die from the daily beatings anyway. But the sellers make an incredible profit in the meantime.

The smart answer is: decimate or kill off the bandits.  i.e. stop doing what is killing you and what supports the darkness.

And this is what Kabbalah teaches, exactly. Its whole foundation is to make choices, moment to moment, to stop feeding the ego and listen to the soul. You can’t do both. At any moment, you are either in light or in darkness.

When you are hurting others, indulge, or feel jealousy, greed, anger, however justified, your world is all dark. Every moment you share, your world is all light.

Just like stealing money and giving 10% of it to charity wouldn’t make your world light, overindulging in bad stuff and then taking a multi-vitamin is all dark. Superfood are great when you have already stopped what’s killing you.

You need to cut out the bad, like the bandits in our story.

I wish I had known this before. I am paying the price now.

But you see, it’s never too late. Killing the bandits takes a moment. Even if it is your last.

I have been observing myself as a spiritual practice. Trying to “remember myself” as Gurdjieff would say it, call upon the “witness” or “observer”. Be awake. Either way, I have noticed something remarkable about myself: see if you can relate.

When I am in front of my computer* (where I spend most of my day) and I encounter something that requires the slightest push on my end, I see myself automatically going to the computer game of my choice, freecell.

I began observing this phenomenon about 6 months ago (it was there, unobserved, for many years). But 4 days ago I decided to employ “restriction,” which is one of Kabbalah’s main tenets, and see what will happen.

For about 36 hours I closed the freecell program as soon as I opened it. Then every time I was “awake” which means I was by myself and I was still observing myself. On the other hand, every time I was on the phone, or watching a video on my computer, or listening to an audio file, my attention wasn’t on myself, and I played… until I “woke up.”

Still curious, more interested in the experiment than conquering the force that moves my hand, I saw something today that is worth sharing.

Since I have started this blog, I have been watching how I somehow leak the energy that is necessary for creative thinking and expression… by talking on the phone, by playing freecell.

Every occasion when I need the little push and I opt to play instead, two things happen: 1. I have diminished the internal discomfort 2. I have successfully diverted my attention from what is important to me.

The first one is good, right? Who would want to be uncomfortable, after all. The second one reveals who or what is underneath this behavior: who would win if I didn’t do what is important to me, if I lived a life of quiet desperation, if I just vegetated, comfortably, but without any accomplishment of my own? Well, Satan, of course. Satan’s other name is Opponent or Adversary. Some cultures call it Ego. I even did once a week-long program where we called it “IT.”

IT has only one thing in mind, and IT is awake 24/7. IT wants you to play small, be comfortable, be selfish, worry about yourself, what you get, what you feel, what you…. it’s all about you. Even when it pretends that it’s about others… after all it is still about “what’s in it for you” in giving.

I have heard that before, others are teaching it… but these aspect of reducing the tension in the moment and thus reducing the capacity for push and diverting your attention long enough that you forget what you wanted to do… except for a gnawing feeling in your gut, that you just missed something important.

* When I am not in front of my computer, I find myself opening the refrigerator in a similar circumstance.