Shabbos by the Ohel

I was asked to speak about Shabbos by the Rebbe after I came back Gimmel Tammuz. It's not easy to speak about etc. Just one point:
It's at the very same time extremely communal and extremely personal. You're sitting by a farbrengen even with your friends. You're talking, listening, interacting. Very communal. At the same time there's so much introspection. You're in a place of truth and you try with every fiber of your being to be truthful and internalize anything you should be 'taking'. At the same time you're very confused and conflicted because, the time and place is too holy, too lofty, too true.
So at the very same moment that you're interacting with people, smiling, conversing, farbrenging it's a most personal moment. And it continues for 25 plus hours. Communal and personal simultaneously.

Are we crazy?

It happened again today. Someone comes into the office, he got laid off, needs a scholarship... So I ask him to put on tefilin. He readily agrees, gets very emotional and then asks the question:
"Do you get a Mitzvah when you put tefilin on me?"
And I don't know what to answer! Should I say "well yeah but that's not why I do it, I'm doing it just for you..." Then I sound like I don't mean it and an idiot too. So what do I say? I tell him something about the Rebbe making a campaign... To Get every Jewish male to put on tefilin... But the truth is the Rebbe somehow got me to get someone to do a mitzvah just for that person's sake. And it's so absurd I can't even tell that to him!
Basically it's always exciting to find out how crazy we are.

Joy

Chassidus doesn't give remedies for depression. Chassidus teaches there's no reason to be depressed.
Self help books tell you how to be happy. Chassidus (lehavdil) tells you how can you be sad?
There's no depression in Chassidus.

Selfish Prayer

When I think about prayer or more precisely davening I think of Bitul. To push myself to the side, get inspired by Hashem's awesomeness and come away humbled. And you know for me it's quite inspiring, there's nothing greater and more inspiring than transcending myself and breaking the shackles of my ego.
Then I discover that really davening is supposed to be selfish. Because the main thing is to inspire my animal soul and my animal is selfish. So what davening is supposed to be is: "You know me? Well Hashem is so good to me". Or "He's so awesome that's so amazing to me!"
More in the words of the maamer: emotions are selfish. If I don't feel myself then I can't have emotions. So I love you because I love myself and you're good to me so I love you. Our intellect is selfless, always trying to connect to higher and therefore it's much holier, more spiritual, loftier etc. But if I want to talk to my animal, intellect just won't cut it. I got to have emotions and emotions are selfish.
So davening is selfish, who would have guessed?
Parshas Pinchas Ayin Beis