Question: In the example with “the Host and the guest,” the Host offers the guest delicious treats and the guest refuses to take them. He makes a restriction on his desire to receive. Later, after the guest experiences the delight, he becomes dependent on it. How can we avoid being dependent on pleasures?

Answer: It’s about getting pleasure in the world of Nekudim, in the world where there was a shattering of the state.

Let’s say you gave me something very tasty and sweet. I know what it is, so I make a restriction on this treat and build an intention on it. It’s as if I “paid you back.” I refused your treat many times and explain to you that I don’t feel comfortable accepting your dishes, that I am not hungry. You begin persuading me even more strongly saying that you baked this cake particularly for me and if I don’t try it, you’ll be upset.

Now you are the one who is asking me to do you a favor. When it comes to doing you a favor instead of receiving pleasure for my own sake, I “give up” and eat a piece of cake. I really think that I do it for you. I demonstrate to you how pleased I am so that you have no doubts that while I am enjoying your cake, I am doing so to please you.

All of a sudden I feel a delight that is a thousand times bigger than I ever expected from this piece of cake, something incredible, beyond my Kelim, vessels, beyond my abilities. I don’t see you behind it any longer. All I feel is overwhelming pleasure.

At this point, it’s not about a simple relationship at the level of “giving and taking” (level 1); rather, it is the relationship between the Creator and a person on the level of intention (level 2).

When I become equal to the Creator in my intentions (equal) and start giving to Him, I begin sensing Him and rise to His level. This state is above all the pleasure or suffering. It’s beyond anything! It is a sensation of the thought of creation before it was created.

It turns out that there is such a great inherent pleasure in this experience that I did not expect and which I simply cannot resist. Now, I will have to pay you somehow for this piece of cake.

This is called my shattering. All my intentions to bestow to you instead of pleasing myself, all my plans to avoid being a guest disappear. I just become a slave to the delight that fills me.

From that point on, a new type of pleasure that we receive from sensing the Creator builds the system of worlds: Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya.

As a result, when we start self-correction within this system of worlds, we become equal to the Creator because our correction includes the delight that comes not from the Light per se, but from our sense of equality with Him on the level of “Adam – Man.”

The fact is that the level at which we used to exist and build our relationships with others with these calculations (“you give me and I’ll give you”), like a polite guest with a host, is simply animate pleasures at the animate level. Rejecting something because we don’t feel that it is right to take it or because we are embarrassed to accept it, as well as the host’s polite insistence, are ordinary human relationships. They are associated with our current level and there is nothing “lofty” about them. There is no bestowal in them whatsoever.

You simply want to please me because you care about me. I want to return my pleasure back to you because I don’t want to feel that I am the receiving party. I have my pride and shame and I cannot afford to accept your treats. I have to reject them.

A host who knows and understands human psychology acts in a way that will not only persuade me to accept his treats but to feel happy that in doing so I do him a favor. But all this is in the framework of regular human interactions. At the second level, we create a new relationship, not between two people but between me and the Creator, when I have to equate yourself with pleasure that I get from Him .

As soon as I merge with the Creator, I receive pleasures that don’t exist in this world, nor are they present in the Light that created us, since these pleasures derive from the level of the Creator and from our understanding that we are similar to Him. So here the shattering occurs, the structure of a new system. Only by ascending from bottom to top can we create desires and intentions that make us really similar to Him. And then, all our embarrassments and shame turn into glory and delight.

Question: Can we become dependent on pleasures at this level?

Answer: It’s impossible. The system is built in a way that while ascending we cannot be destroyed. It is made so that while we are not ready to receive pleasures correctly, it won’t reveal itself to us.

Pleasure comes from a sensation of understanding and realization, from the feeling of eternity and perfection, from everything that you disclose, everything that you already exist in.

You have to be ready for it. The entire ladder from bottom to top is built in accordance with three lines that lead us. That’s why the entire system is made so that it prepares us to attain this state.
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From the Stockholm Convention “Joy In Unity” Day One 8/30/13, Lesson 2

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