One of the most important fruits of my having continued to study Chassidus in the past five years is that a kind of inner power plant seems to have been built inside me before I knew it. Thanks to this inner power plant, I've become less prone to negative energy.
Every society has some negative energy. The dominant negative energy I feel, for example, in Israeli and Japanese societies, includes egocentrism and resulting insensitivity, and fear of how others think of you and resulting depression respectively.
Until my last visit to Japan last late December and early January, I used to immediately absorb this negative energy in Japan and became depressed by the time I returned to Israel. I was overjoyed to realize that in this last visit I could return to Israel without absorbing this negativity.
Our natural state, or the essense of our soul, is joy. We can return to this state of joy just by removing the darkness that covers it. The sun is always shining even when it's cloudy.
It follows that what my inner power plant built automatically through my continued study of Chassidus is not to generate joy but to disperse the clouds that cover joy and prevent them from coming to me in the first place. The most prominent example of such clouds is negative thinking.
The teachings of Chassidus are characterized, among others, by ultimate positive thinking, for what lies as the foundation of these teachings is a belief that everything is good. There is affinity between this kind of belief and joy. One of the things that hide the fact that everything is good is our narrow-mindedness. Even by making the best use of our five senses and intellect we can perceive only a tiny part of the reality.
The fact that I noticed the existence of the above mentioned inenr power plant during my last visit to Japan has helped me to make a decision to leave Israel and undertake a mission somewhere in the diaspora. Without such an inner power plant I might have hesitated.
This power plant, like the other, conventional, power plants, needs to be continuously refueled and maitained. What I consider the most important fuel is my daily study of Chassidus. Of some hundred Chassidic books I've acquired in the past five years I can take or send only one tenth (cf. online list of these books). I'll continue studying these books in the destination of my mission.
What I consider no less important is to remain in touch with those friends of mine in Jerusalem whom have the same or similar spiritual vibe as mine. What is especially important to me is to continue learning the Book of Tanya, or the "written Torah of Chassidus", in khavruse with two close friends of mine separately once a week online.