Only Free Will You Realize You Were A Slave

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where does our desire to bestow come from?

Answer: The desire to bestow awakens in us under the influence of the Upper Light, the “Light that Reforms.” We don’t know what desire to bestow is; bestowal lies outside of us.

We exist in our nature to receive. Suddenly some external force comes in and affects us, and we don’t know what this force is. We recognize it solely by how it manifests and acts. By observing the actions of this force in me, I start recognizing the Creator.

He is those effects that He causes in me. But I don’t know Him for what He really is. In essence, I don’t really know what phenomena of this world are: what electricity is, what bread is, what I myself am! I cannot attain the essence of things since only derivatives of the manifestation of this essence are revealed to me.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah (like any other science) studies solely what can be known: matter and form clothed in matter. And when this unique, foreign, outer force comes in, we don’t know where it comes from and Who it is. It is even evoked by me in some unique, odd way regarded as a “miracle” (Segula).

After all, I have no chance to know how exactly I affect it, how it is set in motion and starts working on me in response. I judge solely by how it appears in me, how I feel in my matter, in desire. Within myself, I experience changes as the results of this external act. This effect, a new form in me, is what is called the desire to bestow.

It is a very strange and special property which is totally unclear and unknown to me. When it suddenly emerges, I realize that I have never felt it before. But if you talk to regular folks, everyone will say that they are perfectly aware of what the will to bestow is and that he gives unto others. They don’t realize that all their giving is merely another form of receiving.

One can comprehend the difference between reception and bestowal only having received both of these desires. One comes to us from outside, while the other is hidden in our nature. In this specific case, a person is able to discern one from the other and starts to understand who he really is.

At present, we don’t even understand that in this world there rules just one law: the law of egoistic reception. We will comprehend it only when we acquire the desire to bestow. Only having exited Egypt can one realize what the Egyptian bondage really was compared to life in freedom! Everything is known and evaluated only from its opposite.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/2011, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
The Upper Thought Is Bestowal
When The Light Force Suddenly Unfolds
Hello Desire!

One Comment

  1. I’m not sure if this is where I should ask this, but I am hoping to directly reach Rav Michael Laitman with this message, not that any incite wouldn’t be greatly appreciated. In the last five days I have been having the most intense feelings I have ever experienced, in the most extreme, of every part of my being, physically but more so emotionally as my physical distress comes from my great amount of confusion, depression, sadness, hate, anger, combined with, love, hope, happiness, elation, liberation, connection and separation, all at once, and all amongst the regular happenings in my day to day life. I listen to recordings of the daily lesson and do my best to get there as often as possible, I have read most of the text working with Shamati now and looking to work more closely with Kabbalah for the student, amongst all of this I hear you talk about marriage,(which i have had each time a twang of disagreeance with) keeping your job,(something that doesn’t seem to be in my grasp no matter what effort I put fourth) living in this world while holding the intention for the spiritual to be awakened in me(each day is the main goal while helping out in any way I can the people I live with and whom live around me) while I do the work of course though a teacher as I joined the Bnei Baruch learning center back in August and of course with help of the group which finally I have allowed myself to join the living in unity group online as of right now I am distant from a physical group. I have come to a point where there is nothing on this globe that I have come across, thought about, lived through or throughly enjoyed before, that I can find even an ounce of pleasure in any of these things or motivation to accomplish them, next to the study of Kabbalah, although at times I desire them greatly, I take no action to acquire them, I have no desire to in the very same moment. I left my home in Calgary where I had all the things I thought one should strive for to be happy, to be with my family in Wasaga beach, and I have come to know now that I was indeed spiritually dead at that point, as none of it made me happy. With the study I have found that the wisdom confirms every thought that I have carried with me up until my age now which is twenty five(feelings I now remember having as a little boy even though I didn’t really consciously know these things my heart tells reminds me so. Right up until Kabbalah I felt that I was crazy, alienated and different, I felt like a leper to think that the world could work in the way so eloquently described by the Kabbalists. Because it seemed people around me do not see this even in the slightest way. Though most times I haven’t a clue mentally of understanding the text it seems to release a tension in my heart more and more each day. Today after days of anguish, betrayal from a dear friend, and the greatest feeling of the lack, and with a slight knowledge that there is non else besides him, I’m struggling because the people who seem closest to me, also seem to cater to the wants I have for egotistical gains. I know in my heart what is true, although right now I am wavering, because the scrutiny I feel makes me feel wrong in my decision to let go of the many possessions and fulfillments that I have already let go of and continue to do so. I still have much faith. The main point and question I ask is, are these feelings from this world, which I feel so out of touch with now, the creator showing me what I feel I have been crying out for, for the past 10 years, and when my friends and family whom have to yet feel the point in their heart, try and console me, end up with no fault of their own helping me wish for corporeal desires once more, and by what seems to be, not by choice the reasons I am reluctant to join the daily lesson daily. Is this the ego still trying to hang on, while I yearn for equivalence of form with the creator and my need for the group? Do I have to abandon these people? I feel that sometimes they hinder my development while at the same time expand it. I currently do not participate in much of my societies regular rituals. Although my situation is of one I am not familiar with, it seems to work out although i feel i suffer blows against my new found enlightenment. I’m so afraid now that I am not on the right track, although at the same time I feel righteous enough to feel I know him(the creator) in my heart very well.

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