Likutay Moharan - Torah-teaching 233

233 - When evil thoughts and ponderings overpower a person

When evil thoughts and ponderings overpower a person and he strengthens and overpowers them and conquers them, there is to the Holy One blessed be He great pleasure from this, and it is very precious in the eyes of Hashem, blessed be He, like the parable that there is with kings, sometimes on a festive day they place several animals to fight (conquer) each other, and they stand and watch, and they have great pleasure from the fight (conquest), similarly the thoughts, they come from aspects of the animals (cha’yos, see Tikun 21 at its end), and holy thoughts, they are aspects of pure animals, and evil thoughts, they are aspects of impure animals, and from Above, they place intentionally that they fight (conquer) each other, and there is to the Holy One blessed be He great pleasure when the person overpowers the impure animals and conquers them.

The general rule is, that it is impossible in any way in the world that there be two thoughts together at one time, therefore one can easily chase away evil thoughts by only remaining stationary (“sit and do not do” – shev vi’al taaseh) that is, not to think that thought, only to think some other thought in Torah or service or even business, because it is impossible that there be two thoughts together in any way, and this is already explained in another place (above in Torah-teaching 72), that one does not need to make war and to shake their head here and there in order to banish the evil thoughts because this does not help at all, on the contrary by this they overpower more, only not to pay attention to them at all, only to do one’s own thing - in what he is occupied in Torah or prayer or business, and not to look behind him at all, and by this it automatically departs.