People have a unique characteristic that doesn’t exist in any animal, if he wants to eat something sweet, he will mix this with something salty, which is to say with an opposite taste. The principle of “the advantage of the light over the darkness” is expressed in him significantly. Even on the animate level there exists a phenomenon like this, but to a very limited degree.

The same thing happens in the states through which we pass, and there are very good and pleasant states among them, yet we lose them afterwards without paying attention. The feeling gradually fades and I don’t feel the loss. I lack the awareness of its importance and the incessant concern that I must protect this feeling.

So why do they take this state from me and not let me realize its importance and remain in it? This is so I will attain an even higher state. Yet I don’t feel any need of a higher state; I have no appetite for it; there are no “appetizers” that will increase my appetite. Therefore I must construct the additional desire within me by myself so that I will not be satisfied with the present state.

This is very difficult. Only if I want to expand my desire for bestowal, will a possibility like this exist, thanks to the environment. But if this is speaking of the desire to receive, this is totally impossible. Therefore they give us a state of descent.

A descent can happen in this way; I cannot be satisfied in the present state and want to add to it. I compare myself to the environment and see that the others advance in bestowal more than I do. In this way emptiness is formed in me and I aspire to greater bestowal without a descent. Which is to say, the environment forms an impression of descent in me, and I no longer need a real descent.

And if I don’t feel the descent through comparison to others and don’t see that they bestow more than I, then they give me a real descent and add ego to this, a desire for pleasure above which I must succeed in working and bring to the correct form. This is a lengthy process that continues for a long time.

That desire that I finally attain, after working on my ego after the fall and bringing it to the form of bestowal to the next level, I could have already received ready-made from the environment and used immediately! Think about it!

Specifically in this place we need to make effort. And not to take the long way to first fall and only then to be awakened by what is bad for me. Because then I will be forced to fall into this world, into its egoistic desires, until I will finally be awakened, remember that I need to aspire to bestowal, and will turn to the group to study. This is a very long way.

In contrast to this, if I expose myself to the influence of the environment, then envy and ambition drive me out of “this world” of the previous situation. Even if I am found in an excellent state and have now reached ascent, I can describe this to myself as a descent relative to the state of the environment that seems to me higher and more successful. All the friends seem great to me, raised higher.

It could be that at this moment despair is awakened in me, a sensation of my lowliness relative to the others, a material worldly envy that they succeed and I don’t. Yet this will only spur and arouse me, and from there it is very easy to pass to spiritual envy and to get carried away after them, to want to work with them and to be like them. This is already a state of “Lo Lishma” after which the Light that Reforms immediately appears and helps us to advance.

Be that as it may, the advantage of the light is known only from the darkness, and don’t believe that it is possible to find the spiritual world without effort. And vice versa, don’t believe that someone makes an effort and doesn’t find it! Fulfillment is determined only by the Kli, vessel, and it doesn’t matter where we get this Kli: Do we construct it ourselves during difficult work on ourselves with the help of the environment or do we receive it ready-made from the environment?

Ultimately my Kli is found among the friends, in the environment; that is where my soul is found. Therefore it makes no difference if I am immersed in myself, in my ego that arouses in me opposite states and through this compels me to turn to the environment, to go through external activities outside of myself in order to be connected for something with everyone else, or if I immediately receive from them the right aspiration, thanks to envy, and then easily attain the same goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/13, Shamati #117 “You Labored and Did Not Find, Do Not Believe“

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