The Creator begins to awaken us through His illumination and changes in relation to us in the last stage of development where we are most distant from Him. We are just the “material” of desire that is possible to “awaken” and activate.

We ourselves are unable to initiate a single action, our desire can only react and does not have the slightest potential of independent undertaking. It has no creative power of the Creator, the force of creation; it has no Light, no source of energy. It’s capable of only two things:

• Either to merely receive fulfillment without any freewill
• Or by means of a special attitude towards the Host, the Light, to form a qualitatively different response.

As a result, we are always under the full control of the Creator: He sends us the Light, and it depends upon us as to how to accept His attitude. Either we accept it applied only to the “material” of our desire. That is, we enjoy to a greater or lesser degree, or besides that, we respond to Him above this or that level of enjoyment.

If I start calculating my attitude to the Creator in response and this becomes more important for me than the pleasures received by the “material” of desire, then I work in faith above reason. In other words, receiving the feeling of my own being from the Creator, I make calculations every second of my life: Do I take into account only my attitude, my “physical” reality, or, based on this reality, do I respond to the Creator with bestowal? Can I respond to Him with bestowal using what I feel in my life now?

Thus, I begin my path along the steps of getting closer to the Creator. And my calculation on this path is the following: To what extent, above the growing desire with its changeable sensations, good or bad, can I build a reciprocal relationship with the Creator?

In fact, I proceed from the assumption that only absolute good comes to us from the Creator. He can cause no harm to anybody, and if the created being feels evil, then in the end the only reason is that it cannot build within itself the correct attitude to what it receives.

For example, we know from life experience, how many people are willing to pay a surgeon who performs a vital operation on them, including injections, intravenous infusions, blood transfusion, a difficult period of rehabilitation, and other painful sensations. That is because the goal is important, so important that a person does not feel any pain because he is wholly focused on the goal and wants to get rid of the disease. The surgeon for him is not an enemy but a well-wisher who it is worthwhile to pay.

So, it all depends on the attitude. My attitude to the Creator is changing dramatically: Having changed the intention to bestowal, I feel from Him only good instead of evil and I feel pleasure. In contrast to the example with a surgeon, not a trace is left in my perception from some painful surgery on my “body” of desire. On the contrary, my “body” feels that I am enjoying. But again, all this is possible only if I obtain the intention to bestow. It all depends on the change of intent.

How do I change it? Here lies the work of the fourth degree of human development. I constantly have to ask so that besides good or bad affects felt in the desire, the Creator helps me correct my attitude to what I receive from Him.

I want to feel Him as He is, according to His bestowal upon me, completely Good That Does Good, but not because He brings me good, but because I don’t want to think ill of Him, to treat Him badly. If I feel that the Creator causes me pain, then surely He is not good for me. This is the natural reaction of my lower levels. It’s obvious to them. The egoistic desire cannot experience other responses to the source of evil. That’s why I don’t want to build a direct relationship with the Creator based on the feelings in my own desire.

Thus, there is a game: We need to be ready to feel increasingly bad feelings in our desire, in various forms, more and more complex, sophisticated, and at the same time more qualitative. In other words, I will feel evil, more and more directed at the Creator. And the more, in spite of my bad feelings, I try to see the source of good in Him (only not to internally curse Him and not in order to avoid evil), the more important my attitude towards Him will be, the further I advance.

At first, during the first few years, a person faces a lot of confusion. No matter, the core of the matter is my attitude to the Creator that should be tied to what my desire feels. This is not masochism: by truly changing my attitude to Him, I no longer feel bad sensations. Everything in me says it’s pleasure, including the still, vegetative, and animal levels, which are attached to the fourth stage, to the intention.

However, much work is required to establish connection with the Creator, so that He changes my response from negative to positive. That is the goal: To establish contact with Him. That is why we have two “alert systems”: One is based on the feelings of desire on the first three levels, and the second one, on my response on the fourth level. Together, these hub systems form connection between man and the Creator.

For example, I see those who surround me in one system and I react to them in the other one. There is no “feedback,” meaning a conscious response to the Creator, on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, only instinctive reactions. He just makes them act as necessary and no more. On the other hand, on the fourth stage, we have to participate in responses, giving them a certain form using the screen and the Reflected Light. This response to the Creator is the human being, Adam.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/6/13, Shamati #8 “What Is the Difference Between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra”

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