God Wants Us to Be Happy, So Why Aren't We?

I'm taking an online course in Kabbalah, which is a form of Jewish mysticism. Last night I learned something that was a Copernican shift in my worldview--God wants us to be happy. God wants to give us endless fulfillment. Then the professor said that we were asking ourselves, "What went wrong?" God wants us to be happy--so why aren't we?

Why Reality Exists and How It Applies to Borderline

In the beginning, Light, or God, decided He wanted to share with us, the Vessel. As Light poured in to the Vessel, the Vessel took the form of Light. We wanted to share, but had no way to do so. Then we wanted to feel like we'd earned our fulfillment--we didn't want it as a gift. So we pushed the Light away, causing the Big Bang and sending us into the Reality of the Five Senses. This formed barriers to the Light.

"There is no coercion in spirituality," the professor explained. We have to want the Light to get it. This is hard enough for a person without borderline personality disorder (BPD), but when BPD factors into the equation, we go haywire. We feel as if the Light is hostile. We feel as if we don't deserve the Light no matter how hard we work.

But from the Light's point of view, nothing happened. The Light still wants us to be happy and is still willing to give us fulfillment. We simply have to remove the barriers to the light by accepting responsibility for our lives--something extremely complicated for a person with BPD to do. We need to learn that accepting responsibility, even for the negatives, especially for the negatives, does not make us bad people. Regardless of what we've done, the Light wants to fill us with bliss. The Light sees us as good.

The Bread of Shame

The Bread of Shame is what we receive when we receive anything we feel wasn't earned. People with BPD give and receive a lot of Bread of Shame. An example is the son who wants to inherit his father's company but would rather earn it than be given it because he's the son. Either way he gets his desire, but one way he's happy and the other way he's not. It depends on whether he feels he earned it.

Creation was an attempt to remove the Bread of Shame. The Light gave us free will, the greatest gift one can give. That's why the more effort we put in, the more Light we receive. That's why complaining adds barriers to the Light but accepting responsibility removes them. We can remove the Bread of Shame by working hard.

But how do we know if we're giving or receiving the Bread of Shame? When our light is repetitive, unappreciated and leads to resentment, the Bread of Shame is present. Enabling others, for example, gives them the Bread of Shame. The professor said that enabling others takes away their efforts to share the Light. We never grow if someone does all the work for us. If we look at BPD as a challenge to draw us closer to the Light, if we look at the work we do to recover as work that draws us closer to the Light, we can remove the Bread of Shame.

Fixing the Relationships

In the beginning, there was only one Vessel--the collective Vessel. When the Vessel refused the Light, it shattered into billions of tiny pieces. Each piece has the capability to receive the Light, and as it receives the Light, it connects with other pieces. In other words, a right relationship with God leads to right relationships with others. Every religion I've studied teaches this, so there must be something to it.

So how do we fix the relationships with God and others? By being honest about who we are. By sharing what we have received. By accepting responsibility for our actions. For a person with BPD, this may mean consistently working hard in treatment. For example, as a sexual assault survivor, this means that I admit I am hurt, share my resulting compassion with others, and accepting responsibility for my anger and resentment toward my attacker.

God wants us to be happy. It's up to us to find that happiness.

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