Question: Why is it that we prefer to stay within the suffering and don’t want to escape it, as if we even enjoy it?

Answer: We enjoy our suffering. The whole world enjoys suffering because there is a very simple way to escape it and attain a wonderful state of goodness, which is even impossible to describe. But people prefer to suffer.

Our desire to receive is responsible for this; it likes to suffer. All of our pleasure comes from overcoming the suffering. It is really masochism. All of our pleasures, from the smallest to the greatest, of all kinds, come only from suffering. We enjoy having been able to avoid suffering a little bit, rising above it, but in any case, it is all rooted in suffering. This is the nature of the desire to receive.

In order to enjoy, we need a deficiency and then after, to fulfill it. In our case, the deficiency is the lack of fulfillment, death. And a little above death is already considered pleasure, but nonetheless, it is still associated with death. Pleasure, is when there is a little more than the state of death.

However, spiritual pleasure is different, there is pleasure from bestowal there. Thus, even the lowest, basic level already gives strength and symbolizes life, since I don’t feel deficiency in anything. I don’t personally need anything for myself. I am in the state of Bina, “Hafetz Hesed (Desire for Bestowal),” like a monk who lives in the forest and doesn’t even feel the need for a shirt.

And above this state, I feel even more life, even more bestowal, even more freedom. While at the same time, in our desire to receive, we feel only death and suffering and can’t escape it. Without this, the ego can’t feel pleasure. We must always add a little “salt and pepper” to the food to spice it up.
[81744]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
To Suffer In Order To Live
Egoism And Pleasure Are Incompatible
The Beckoning Light Of The Future

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Suffering | Add Comment →