Our work is to discover the higher force. And not for the sake of assuring us through confidence, some basis for our lives, but in order to please the Creator. And this is the opposite of the confidence that we seek in our world, which is that we feel ourselves secure in our ego, that we have power, knowledge, full barns, health, as masters of the country and world.

But the confidence in spiritual work is not focused on me because there is nothing in me that attains a higher level. I need to discover the Upper Light, to discover the Upper Light in the clothing of confidence; this means being in a state opposite that which is considered secure in our world.

The confidence is in the abandonment of my desires to receive. And the more that I rise above them and depend on what is higher, the more I receive of the Light of confidence. Separation from the present state and integration with what is higher, making it possible for me to do this, gives me a sensation of confidence.

This happens precisely when a person feels lost and is not ready to do anything on his own. Everything that I had before: Some kind of understanding, attainment, emotion, connection with friends, with the Creator, all the various forms of support on the way, all this disappears. I feel that I have lost everything and I have nothing to rely on. I have no other choice but to be freed from all my unfulfilled egoistic desires.

In the beginning I am lost and don’t know what to do with myself. I am concerned that I don’t feel the usual confidence in knowledge, in the intellect; everything disappears. The Baal Shem Tov passed through states like these when he forgot the alphabet, all his knowledge was erased, like a nursing infant.

We must understand that if a state like this is given to us, it is a great help from above, when all of my egoistic confidence is erased, all my material foundation. And then I fall into concealment of the face of the Creator, as was said about Moses: (Psalms 30:8) “You concealed your face and I was terrified.” After all, I don’t know what I rely on. And it’s specifically then that I feel an opposite point, a new confidence based on the dependence that is higher.

This is dependence on the conditions of the “Tzimtzum,” the “Screen,” on all of my receptive Kelim in which I don’t want to receive any illumination. I will be satisfied with only a little in order to sustain life in my beastly body, beyond this I don’t want to get any illumination within my ego, even minimally, so I will not feel the confidence of the “landlords.”

I want to be completely dependent on what is higher, like a fetus in his mother. What is higher will do what He wants with me now; I myself don’t seem to exist! I absolutely nullify myself, as if I don’t take up any space.

If I have succeeded a number of times in realizing this, then illumination will reach me, giving me a feeling of confidence in my dependence upon what is higher. The upper provides me with this confidence, like an adult does with a child that snuggles up to him.

In the beginning I adhere inwardly to what is above, like a fetus in his mother’s womb, because I have no possibility of holding onto Him myself. I only nullify myself, and the rest of the work is entrusted into the hands of what is above.

The more that I grew, more and more bad qualities, desires to receive, were developed in me. I need to overcome them in myself in order to grasp what is higher even more strongly and to feel my dependence on Him. This is just the way a child holds onto his mother.

That is how we must see ourselves adhering to the upper all the time. In a state of maturity, I adhere to Him so much that even though all of my desires are foreign and opposite to Him, I carry out actions through which I try to be like the upper and not be detached from Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/09/13, Shamati #72, “Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light”

Related Material:
Cling To The Higher With All Your Heart And Soul
Despair And Confidence: The Components Of A Prayer
Real Confidence Comes From The Light

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