“And all that my eyes asked I
kept not back from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart
rejoiced from all of my doings, and this has been my portion from all my doings.
And I looked on all my works that my hands did, and on the doings that I
exerted myself to do. It was all vanity and a vexation of the spirit, and there
is no profit under the sun!”
(Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)
King
Solomon’s wisdom invites us to experience life and the material world as we are
supposed to, and to approach it as pleasant as it can potentially be “with a joyful
heart”. He also tells us that the “eyes” (by which we desire and lust) and the “heart”
(as the mind that feed our desires and lust) are the vehicles that push ego’s
fantasies and illusions, as God warns us in the Torah.
“(…)
and do not search after your heart and after your eyes, after which you go
astray (lit. prostitute yourself), (…)” (Numbers
15:39)
As
long as we experience life with good “eyes” as a positive approach and a good
heart as a joyful positive attitude, goodness and joy will be “our portion in
all our doings”. However, if our eyes and hearts follow the predicament of ego’s
fantasies and illusions, we will experience them as the vanity that is a
vexation to the spirit of life. Hence we come to the realization that we do not
gain or benefit from a materialistic approach that has been and will be the
same in this world “under the sun”.
“And I turned to see wisdom, and
madness, and folly; but what is the man who comes after the king? That which is
already -- they have done it! And I saw that there is an advantage to wisdom
above folly, like the advantage of the light above the darkness.”
(Ecclesiastes 2:12-13)
The
only good news about ego’s fantasies and illusions is that they make us experience
their vanity and futility. By their repetitive patterns sooner or later they
also make us wiser enough to turn them into references to always choose the transcending
goodness of love’s ways and attributes, where true wisdom leads without madness
or folly.
We
also must know that both the fool and the wise “come after the king”, as if what
he does is different or new; and later both realize that even what the king
does also “they have done it”. Thus we assimilate that there is an advantage to
wisdom above folly, as the advantage of light above darkness.
“The wise! His eyes are in his
head and the fool in darkness is walking. And I also knew that one event
happened with them all; and I said in my heart, ‘As it happened with the fool,
it happened also with me. And why then I am more wise?’ And [what] I spoke in
my heart, that is also vanity.”
(2:14-15)
Sometimes
we think that being wiser than the fools makes us better than them, but it is
not so if we fall as they do into the follies of ego’s fantasies and illusions.
In that lower level of consciousness we are fools no matter how smart we may
be. As we live in the vanity of an egotistic and self-centered approach to
life, our small or big wisdom is also vanity.
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