by MAYURI on OCTOBER 2, 2012
When money is hooked up with our animal soul and/or our narcissistic needs – life is an endless stream of short-lived pleasures
What is the animal soul?
In kabbalah, the animal soul (נפש הבהמית; nefesh habehamit) is the part of the soul that gives life to the physical body, and is the source of animalistic desires within a person. Although its initial desire is to seek out worldly, physical pleasures, it can be trained to desire spiritual pleasures instead through the guidance of the divine soul. – Wikipedia
The animal or libidinal soul is driven by two primary instincts or drives: the aggressive and libidinal. The aggressive drive includes the soul’s power and energy directed toward survival and all of its correlates: dominance, rivalry, territoriality, etc. The libidinal drive includes sexual and erotic energy and impulses, animalistic wanting and desire, and the desires for togetherness, connection, and so on. These two drives appear in the animal soul within the context of two primitive object relations, again split off from each other. The first contains the aggressive drive and we refer to it as the “rejection object relation,” and the second contains the libidinal drive and we refer to it as the “libidinal and/or frustrating object relation.” A. H. Almaas
What is the Culture of the Self?
The Commanding Self – Described by the author as a key to the entire corpus of his work, The Commanding Self describes the mixture of primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, that inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. This book is designed to offer a way to transcend the limits imposed by this “commanding self.”
The center of the ego-self, the center of its initiative, action and perception, is a psychic structure characterized by a specific pattern and by incessant psychological activity. The pattern, or the particular psychic organization, provides the direction of action, while the activity provides the drive to act. This gives the self a sense of orientation, center, and meaning. The psychological activity includes hope, the self is hoping consciously or unconsciously to achieve its aim or ideal. A.H. Almaas – The Point of Existence
Pleasure – Satisfaction – Suffering
In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is. Without the capacity for mental concentration and insight, Buddhism explains, one’s mind is left undeveloped, unable to grasp the true nature of things. Vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance.
An exploration into our financial habits and our unconscious beliefs and attitudes around money will include exploring many concepts that are unfamiliar like: the animal soul, the culture of self, narcissism, pleasure, instinctual drives and a whole lot more!
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