Students usually have a hard time grasping the concept of the “reverse order of the Light entering the desire.” But in reality it is a very natural process.

If I am at degree zero (Shoresh), I understand and attain only the minimal Light of Nefesh. When my desire grows and attains Level 1 (Aleph), the Light of Nefesh passes into it, while the Light of the next degree (Ruach) enters degree zero.

When I was with the Light of Nefesh, meaning with little reason, little strength and calculations, that was the only way I could sense my relationship and connection with the Light. That was all I had.

Now I’ve reached a greater depth of the desire and attained a greater Light. But this Light doesn’t pertain to my current state. At this degree where I’ve ascended with my new, stronger desire, I receive the weakest Light, Nefesh, because I’m only beginning to learn about this new desire.

Yet now I also feel and understand my previous state better. I feel that it was the beginning, the springboard from which I ascended to my present degree. That is why I now attain in it a greater understanding, which is called the Light of Ruach, compared to the Light of Nefesh that I had before.

Suppose that I grew from one to two years of age. At the level of a two-year-old child I don’t yet know the world and myself and I possess a very basic perception and reason (the Light of Nefesh)—I simply exist. But my understanding of what it is to be a one-year-old, including all the previous forms and states, is already better. In them I already have a kind of attainment, the Light of Ruach.

It follows that the more I grow, the smarter I become, only not in my present state. It’s because in spirituality, we always advance by faith above reason, without fully understanding the process, but merely entering into a new state every time. And when I ascend onto this new state, in it I will acquire the Light of Nefesh.

But I have already attained the previous states and recognized their necessity and inevitability. I know why they actualized in me the way they did, why I underwent the entire string of these states. That is why in these state I sense NaRaNHaY (Nefesh-Ruach-Neshama-Haya-Yechida).
[48711]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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