Question: How can I avoid making mistakes and diversions along the way if I have to totally annul myself?

Answer: To annul myself doesn’t mean to totally erase myself. Self-annulment means that although I have the greatest egoistic desire, I am ready to work without any reward for my desire to receive, without any compensation for my ego.

I have pride, lust, envy, etc.; I would like to be like the King! I come to the palace and offer my devoted help. I can really do any kind of work in the palace, arranging and fixing everything. There isn’t a job that I cannot do!

Instead I am told: “Great! The king has a farm far away from here, on the border of his kingdom. Go there and wash the floor. It will take you twenty years to get there. You will wash the floor and then come back and report to us; that will take you another twenty years. So your whole life will go by, but never mind, you will at least do something for the King. We, his ministers, give you this mission. We will not even tell Him about it, why should we bother Him with such trifles? It is enough for you to know that you are doing this job for Him. At the moment we have no other available job.”

You gladly take this job and dedicate your whole life to washing the floor in some distant place about which the King will never know and his ministers have long forgotten about the mission that you were given.

This example shows us a little of what self-annulment means. It means that you don’t annul your desire to receive; you annul your demands. We cannot annul the thickness, the thickness is not refined; it only ascends or descends according to the Creator’s plan with regard to everyone individually or to everyone together. But it is not refined; it is only revealed or concealed.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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