The Gatehouse Of Intentions
A question I received: What kind of book is Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot which we started studying today? What is the correct attitude I should have while studying it?
My Answer: Everything is already expressed in its title, “Beit Shaar Ha-Kavanot” (The Gatehouse of Intentions), which implies the foundation, the basis of intentions. While studying this book, you should have the same intention directed to the development of the soul as you do with other Kabbalistic books.
Everything a person reads affects the corporeal mind and heart in a certain way, and it depends on the style of the content at every level of PARDES (hint, parable, secret). In other words, one book has greater influence on feelings, another on the mind, while a third book is completely unclear.
Nevertheless, a person must aspire to extract just one thing from this book: the force of bestowal. It is the “Light that Returns to the Source.” At the same time, we should try to understand this book and connect with it as much as possible. However, this should be secondary to maintaining the proper intention of drawing the maximum power of Bestowal from it. Our primary aspiration should be directed to correction, rather than knowledge. Otherwise “one outsmarts his actions.”
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Thank you for this answer, and for the question for that matter. It happens a lot to outsmart one self because of the uncorrected mind. And by the same way we do it to the others. But what do we do with the mind while is not yet corrected, to avoid it?