Why would a loving Creator give us the freedom to cause so much suffering?

Why would a loving Creator give us the freedom to cause so much suffering?
Why do some selfish acts seem worse than others?
We live in a world of cause and effect. Some selfish acts cause greater harm to others and numb our ability to feel love more deeply.

What gets in the way of being loving?

But even when we want to be loving, fear, shame, and selfish desires can get in the way. This is why spiritual growth isn't only about understanding the Creator. It's also about developing the emotional skills to experience deeper awe, love, and joy, and build healthier relationships.
Chassidus [Jewish mysticism, psychology, and philosophy] teaches that the Infinite Creator is beyond cause and effect.
No words can describe the highest level of His Essence. At a lower level, Chassidus uses the metaphor of awe and love united like inseparable friends. The purpose of these metaphors is to help us understand how to experience deeper relationships.

When all nations become united like inseparable friends through pleasure, free choice, and compassion, humanity reveals a level of His Essence through the lowest reality [this gives the Creator delight without causing any change in Him].
The deeper our ability to feel awe and love, the more goodness we can bring into our relationships.
I refer to the Creator as ‘He’ because masculine represents giving in Chassidus. His Essence is beyond gender.

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Why can survival mode numb our ability to feel joy?

What is the Creator's perspective? Why is pleasure missing from so many people's lives?
The Infinite Creator [Hashem] knows the whole story, while we experience only part of it.
Creation reveals so much goodness that human beings can struggle to believe they matter. When we feel unimportant, survival mode can seem like common sense.

Fear, shame, and survival mode [like people-pleasing or perfectionism] can numb our ability to feel awe, love and joy. Suffering can have this effect even when we're not acting selfishly.
When we deny our fears and shame, we can end up spreading worry instead of joy.
Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch of Nadvorna [a student of the Maggid of Mezeritch] compared extreme people-pleasing to idol worship. A person becomes like an idol: silent, willing to put up with anything, and unable to say no.

Being compassionate doesn't mean giving people permission to treat us selfishly.

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Why does a real relationship need free choice?

Why did the Infinite Creator choose to create?
Before creation, the Infinite Creator was wondering how to give His children the greatest gift.
I use "wondering" as a metaphor for free choice. Chassidus teaches that creation comes from His pleasure, free choice, and compassion.

The Creator lacked nothing, including wisdom or love. Nothing forced Him to create. He freely chose to create a world where we could develop a relationship with Him.
The Creator chose that even 'dust' could become part of the intimacy He has with Himself and be meaningful to His purpose. Through a human nervous system, dust [earth] can notice He is real and feel awe toward His Essence.
A programmed being can only respond as designed. A real relationship requires freedom to choose love, which also means the freedom to act selfishly and cause suffering.

I can choose for myself, and that freedom comes with responsibility. Free choice becomes more meaningful when we can do what we believe is right, even when it feels uncomfortable.
Through developing emotional skills like compassion, boundaries, and self-forgiveness, we become partners in building the relationship the Infinite Creator desires.
Spiritual growth is also about improving our personality so we can feel deeper awe, love, and joy, with less guilt, worry, and shame.

The Creator doesn't need us to become perfect before developing a relationship with Him. Our limitations give us opportunities to choose trust, compassion, and love.
This structure of creation allows us [with human nature] to experience deeper joy in a world we helped build.

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How do awe and trust grow into deeper love?

How does a relationship with the Creator begin?
That relationship begins when we recognize He is real and feel awe. As we learn to trust that He is good and wants what's best for us, we can feel love, joy, and pleasure more deeply.
Goosebumps can be a physical sign of feeling awe.

As our ability to feel awe and love grows, we can experience more pleasure in music, nature, wisdom, and everyday life.

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Does everyone need to see life the same way?

Why does humanity see the world so differently from the Creator?
He wants everyone to have a reason to sing.
People have different tastes in music. We don't need to enjoy the same songs to experience the goodness of music. We also don't need the same personalities or perspectives to develop a relationship with the Creator.

We can express goodness in different ways, but we're each responsible for how our choices affect others.
Some people are more humble than others, but that doesn't make anyone higher or lower. We're allowed to grow at our own pace, standing in different places and seeing life from different perspectives.
The goal isn't for everyone to become the same. It's for everyone to discover how their own life can express His goodness and live with the mindset, "I'm here to be a channel for goodness."

Studying spirituality should change how we treat people, not just how we think about the Creator [Hashem, King of all worlds].

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Related ideas:
Trauma can make free will feel like an illusion, because some choices feel too uncomfortable to make.
The deepest ideas about the Creator don't end your questions. They deepen your wonder.

We access the 13 attributes of mercy through practicing emotional skills like awareness and self compassion.
Selfish desire can get out of control when the nervous system does not feel appreciated.
To feel, deep in your nervous system, that life is a gift instead of a threat, you have to transform your adaptive trauma patterns [people pleasing, avoidance, narcissism].

The soul is the part of the personality that allows you to feel deeper awe and love.
The body is like a 2–5-year-old child. You need to keep gently reminding it of its desire to experience deeper awe and love.
How do you develop the desire to feel deeper awe and love?

How do you transform selfish desire into deeper love?

When does deep emotional healing begin?

Why were Adam and Eve were created lacking emotional skills?
jesus is embarrassed about the harm that catholic and muslim institutions caused the jewish people over 1400 years through his name, he'd want reparations to begin
Habits likes narcissism, avoidance and people pleasing can block your ability to feel awe

According to the Jewish tradition, you're the same personality in the world of souls, you feel emotions and no physical suffering
There has to be one cause for existence or nothing would exist

3 types of consciousness of light

#NextSelf #kabbalah #biblestudy #SpiritualJourney

“The Infinite Creator wants everyone to have a reason to sing, but not everyone needs to sing the same song.”