The Kabbalah of Love and Ego

What is love?  Everyone thinks that it exists in ourexample, teaches that you can achieve inner peace
world – after all, we all want to feel it. This mostthrough eating less, drinking less, talking less and
profound human emotion has been pondered,removing sources of outside stimuli through meditation
philosophized, analyzed and dissected byand prayer.   
humanity’s greatest minds for millennia, but it stillOn the contrary, the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us
mystifies us. that in order to achieve inner peace and true altruistic
When we think of love, it seems that it should be thelove, one needs the ego. The idea is to learn to use
most altruistic human emotion, that love is somethingour human inclinations and our nature correctly - not to
we give unconditionally without any thought oferadicate them. Hence, the method of Kabbalah utilizes
ourselves. Yet life also teaches us that love is oftenand accepts all the facets of a person, and only
selfish, and hence is the source of our deepestdevelops one’s awareness and use of them.   
agonies. It seems to be a paradox.It teaches that the general law of Nature is the
And another paradox is this: Although many of usaltruistic connection among the separate egoistic
desire love, we push it away by being critical,elements. These two contradicting elements –
judgmental and angry with others. Why do we do this?altruism and egoism, giving and receiving – exist in
The wisdom of Kabbalah provides a straightforwardevery particle of matter, in every creature,
answer: It’s because our nature is the ego, or a willphenomenon and process. 
to receive. Our ego plays the central role in our lives,On the material level, the emotional level, or any other
and by definition, it is focused on oneself and does notlevel, you will always find these two forces. It’s
have the power to love others.because Nature aspires to bring us to perfection, to
In our ego-based world, love is the sensation ofunlimited bliss, and hence, Nature has instilled a desire to
pleasure we get from an object that makes us feelenjoy in us – or the ego. There is no need to cancel
good. Stated simply, we love what brings us pleasure.or eradicate the ego; we need only to correct it, or
And vice versa: If something causes us pain, we hatemore accurately, change the way we use our desires
the source of that suffering. to enjoy, moving from an egoistic approach to an
Often this feeling of pleasure can feel like love, yet inaltruistic one. 
fact it isn’t love, but a form of reception. It’sThrough the study of Kabbalah and the conscious
because love can never come from the ego.   awareness of the ego, we learn how to work with
The fact is, we identify ourselves through the ego.these forces of Nature and achieve love. We learn
Have you ever really thought about all those innerthat by correcting our use of egoism, or our intentions,
dialogues you carry on with your ego? Most likely not,we can actually transcend our own nature, self-love,
since it happens all the time from the moment we areand begin to love others the way we love ourselves.
born. These unconscious thoughts and conversationsAnd in doing so, we do not eliminate or replace our
fly around in our minds constantly, controlling everythingego, but only learn to use it differently. 
we do and think. We judge others, comparingThrough this process, called “correction,” we
ourselves with them, saying things like, “I’mreach a place where everyone can love to their fullest.
better than him/her, I’m smarter than that, I wish IAnd all it takes is changing the aim of our egoism.
could be like that,” etc.  Instead of aiming its expression at ourselves, we can
Many teachings and religions say that the way aroundaim it at our common goal of attaining love for one
this paradox is to suppress the ego through variousanother and for Nature - the quality of bestowal and
“ego-suppressing” techniques. Buddhism, forlove.