Nachman of Breslov

“ Like one who goes into a celebration -— then due to the greatness of the celebration and joy he reverses all his worries and sadness and melancholy to happiness. And an understanding mind can easily find in each pain and affliction and worry some expanse through which he can turn all the melancholy to happiness -— and this is the root of perfecting happiness! ”

“ Because the root of the intellect is the ohr hapanim, as is written: "The wisdom of a man lights up his face" (Eccl. 8) .
9. And there is also sleep which is the aspect of masa umatan b'eumunah/doing trade in faith. And when one is busy with trade in faith then the brains i.e. one's soul come into the faith and are renewed there and are strengthened from their exhaustion, and he draws down new intellect from the ohr hapanim. And the root of the thing is faith, that one must guard the faith very much. ”

“ Therefore every man must very much guard his intellect and thought, that he should not put into his thought any outside through or outside wisdom or foreign thought, and all the more so, bad thoughts. ”

“ As our Rabbis obm said, "A person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of insanity has got in him." But how does a person suddenly get insane, God forbid? So, it is the way of the Yetzer haRa to disguise itself at the outset in mitzvot, misleading the person as if inciting him to perform a mitzvah and then afterwards it misleads him and incites him even more, until he comes to total deliberate transgressions, God forbid. So this is really just like the insanity of an insane person who is confused and whose mind is so torn up that he considers a bad thing good etc. ”

“ Meaning, to accept on oneself the Kingship of Heaven in truth and in complete faith and constricting his mind and expelling all his wisdom entirely as if he has no intellect himself at all, disdaining all the outside wisdoms and intellects, seeking out and hoping and yearning to only receive light and the life from the true Sekhel and Chokhmah that are in the category of the Upper Sekhel of holiness which is the main source of the holy vitality that is in each thing as mentioned above. ”

“ Therefore every person, the more his transgressions and errors that he has committed and blemished, the more he's truly insane. Therefore we find many kinds of insanity by most people. The remedy for this is Torah engagement. For the Torah is entirely the names of H"Y, by which we can subdue the Yetzer haRa and drive out the insanity and the spirit of instanity that has cleaved to a man by his sins. By engaging in this Torah you are also saved from the evil schemes of the Yetzer haRa. Because usually it does not lead a man to sin outright ”

“ But when a man puts into his holy intellect outisde thoughts, which are the outside wisdoms, then the holiness of his intellect is reduced according to the space that the outside intellect takes. And all the bad and ugly character traits and cravings get collected onto and connected onto the outside wisdom.
4. Therefore the main thing is to guard one's thought and brain from outside thoughts and wisdoms, upon which [sit] the whole construction of the yetzer hara/evil inclination, the Merciful One save us, which is aspect of the Primordial Serpent, which karukh achar/chasing after the holiness. ”

“ Because all the blemishes and all the sins and all the transgressions, God spare us, they only come via blemish of thought, as mentioned, when one is not cautious to guard it properly, that it should not go out from the bound of holiness. ”

“ And it is necessary to also place upon them holy names and amulets in order to drive out from them the evil spirit that confuses and tears up their mind God forbid so much that they reverse what is right, calling evil good etc. ”