Question: Along the spiritual path discover the evil of the ego, and yet, it is also pleasant since I aspire for something else.

Answer: If I enjoy the pain, even if it also connects me to the Creator, it is impurity, called a Klipa (shell) that protects the fruit until it ripens. It protects me so that I still will keep the connection with the Creator, but it isn’t the right state yet. After all, the sweetness in this pain is a sure revelation of the Creator. I feel that the pain comes from Him since otherwise, He cannot draw my attention. If I agree with this egoistic sweetness and enjoy it, it means that I am in impurity.

The question is to what degree can I bear the pain in the current state and at the same time, understand that it is essential in order to keep the connection with the Creator. How can I not fall into pleasure through this pain? How can I stop the moment I am in contact with it and immediately get on the right track?

After all, I am drawn to the sweetness. I descend and succumb to the deviousness of the ego, which lures me like a snake by the sweetness of this purposeful pain. Different religions and faiths based on the suffering of the righteous stem from this.

Question: How can I focus the process on the right path?

Answer: I ask the Creator who is Good and Benevolent for help. He wants me to feel good in the connection with Him and that the good will lead me to Him, but how can I do that?

If I feel emptiness, threats, troubles, and darkness in my egoistic desire, then, as a result of my hopelessness, my desire to receive looks for the source of evil, even if it is the Creator. It remembers some preliminary higher cause from which everything stems.

However, what should I do if I enjoy, if my desire is full, if I feel that the entire world is at my feet? My life is just fine, and I am fully satisfied, and nothing or no one threatens me. I have endless bars of gold in my warehouse. I am healthy, full of energy, and I have something into which to invest them.

At the same time, all this hides the Creator from me and bars any thought about Him. If the pain and emptiness push me toward Him, then the pleasure keeps me away from Him.

The question is, how do I prefer to advance: by the path of pain or by the path of pleasure? After all, in this state, the hard way is the way of pleasure that “encloses” me and eliminates all the options. How can I think about the upper force when I lack nothing in life?

It turns out that the path of “I shall hasten it” is not simple at all as compared to the path of “in its time.” When I advance according to schedule, my powers are enough. The suffering, the emptiness of the egoistic desire, pushes me to the Creator. At the same time, only along the path of “I shall hasten it” do we have free will.

If I want to hasten my advancement when I feel good, I need a group. My private desire is “fattened up” and “heavy,” and so I simply need the friends, additional external desires. Only by the connection with them can I advance.

The more I advance toward the end of correction, the more external desires I need. My inner desires are filled, and they immediately throw me off-track.

Question: When is the Creator revealed this way?

Answer: It is when you want to restrict Him, in other words, when you stop wanting Him and instead, want to bestow upon Him. After all, when you ask for His revelation, you want to discover the attribute of bestowal, real bestowal and not like “commercial” one when you give something in order to get something in return. This is bestowal in order to receive. On the other hand, when you begin to at least bestow in order to bestow, even not to receive in order to bestow, you begin to come to know the Creator’s attributes. Later, when you receive in order to bestow, you already begin to locate the attributes of the Creator within you, to identify them within you, and to attain Him.
[106522]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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