Question: What are our first steps of coming closer to the Creator, which is the goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: In spirituality, coming closer is not determined by time or space, or by mechanical motions, but by changes in properties, by quality. I need to develop additional sensations within me, a whole new feeling called bestowal. Right now I perceive all of creation only in the egoistic property, in pursuit to constantly receive fulfillment and enjoy whatever is good for me, while pushing away whatever I find unpleasant.

I behold the world only through these categories of good and evil. It’s like a dog that perceives the entire world just through scents and who can tell one thing from the other only based on how it smells. It sees virtually nothing and receives 99% of its information from olfaction. In the same manner, today we differentiate everything around us only relative to our egoistic desire: black and white, different colors, tall and short, distant and proximal, pleasant and unpleasant—thousands of different properties that I perceive in this world.

I do not even realize that I make judgments only based on how good or bad I feel personally. There is a grid inside me which discerns all impressions depending on whether they benefit or harm me, and this is how I determine all the colors, distances, times, movements, as well as various objects and their behaviors—I discern everything according to one egoistic principle.

I don’t even understand this because this egoistic sensation is the only thing that I have, and I cannot recognize its presence within me since I was born with it. Everything is perceived on the grid of the detector called my desire to enjoy. Like in photography, which requires a light-sensitive plate or film, within us there is a certain screen that is sensitive to what brings us benefit or harm.

In accordance with this I distinguish various forms and objects, even inanimate things: a glass of water standing on a table, different colors, people, cold and warmth, or distances. I evaluate everything from the perspective of what is better and what is worse for me. These are such refined differences that they paint me the pictures of this world, which I see in front of me. But all of it exists only in perception of the egoistic desire to enjoy.

In order to not depend on it wholly, the wisdom of Kabbalah is leading us towards desire to bestow. And within that desire I begin to see a “reverse world.” That is, I see all of reality through the eyes of bestowal, meaning to what extent each thing is useful for my bestowal towards others.

It is written: “The Creator made one against the other,” and in revealing both of these paradigms I can rise above these two principles of perception. Thanks to this, it’s as though I rise above the entire creation.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/2012, Shamati #190

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