The difficulty in our work is a result of the oppositeness of the states between which we have to balance ourselves, on what is called the “middle line.” On the one hand, you should be proud that you are following this road. Otherwise you’ll fall under the influence of the world around you and will become infected by its “viruses”: you’ll start dealing with money, respect, control, knowledge and many other empty goals the world is full of.

On the other hand, the internal work requires modesty and humility towards the group and Creator so that they’ll pass on to you the right values. If a person constantly carries on such a correct clarification—as to what he should be impressed by and what he should ignore, who he should be in contact with and from whom to keep away, he thus chooses the right environment. He builds this environment since it’s not just a group he has come to and in which he exists.

He determines what is important and what is not important in every society he finds himself, and so he builds his environment, as it says, “one chooses a good environment.” The environment doesn’t exist in its ready form, each of us has to clarify this concept and build an environment for himself.

This work is perpetual, not a onetime event in which it is enough to make a decision once and leave it at that. I have to make new decisions at every moment, and I realize that this is the only opportunity I have of free will. It is the only way that I can hasten my advancement while everything else are already the outcomes, which I don’t even touch.

I cannot change anything and if I make efforts I will only spoil my advancement. Not only will I not advance, as I don’t correct the only thing that needs to be corrected, but I also will spoil my attitude toward other things that were supposed to be the result of my good free will, as I treated them as the first main tool.

Besides, I have to clarify my attitude towards pleasure and suffering, since if the Creator is good and benevolent, why does He send me sufferings? Do I feel these sufferings because of my corruption or is it the Creator who treats me so cruelly? What can I attribute to Him, if anything?

A person clarifies these things until he comes to the conclusion that his goal is to attain the force of bestowal, the force of faith, which eventually turns into the force of love. Love is the force of connection by which a person receives the image of the Creator and becomes like Him, which is called to become Adam (human in Hebrew).

The Creator dresses in a person and gives one’s desire to receive the form of bestowal. If this is what a person demands, one reaches such a simple prayer and asks for simple mercy.

But all these actions are revealed together with great confusion and changes of different opposing states until eventually a person ends one’s clarification and it becomes clear that there is nothing but the simple upper Light.

The attribute of bestowal begins to dominate him and it determines the only reality he knows now. All the opposing, conflicting states were given to him only so that he would feel and understand in his mind and heart, having tasted pleasure and sufferings, and attaining the truth and the lie that there is nothing in this world and nothing controls it but the attribute of bestowal.

All the attributes that a person has felt along the way, which are opposite from the attribute of bestowal, were only the shadow of the attribute of bestowal that helped him learn, understand, and acquire it. So eventually he reaches simple mercy, which is the pure attribute of bestowal.
[84154]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/12, Shamati #113

Related Material:
From Feeling To Reason, From Pleasure To Truth
The Days And Nights Of The Spiritual Path
The Group Offers Painless Healing

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator | Add Comment →