Baal HaSulam, “Shamati #59,” “About the Rod and the Serpent”: One examines if one is advancing in Kedusha (Sanctity) or to the contrary, since another god is sterile and does not bear fruit.

Only one force operates in nature. We can call it God or any other name, but the main thing is that this one force manages everything, creates everything, checks and corrects everything. There is no other force that operates in creation.

Everything is under its control, on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and man. On one hand we were given the opportunity to examine and check that this force is unique, and on the other hand, we have the ability to think in spite of this force in order to agree with it by different efforts that we make.

It is actually these thoughts that are aimed against the one force, against the Creator that are called the “evil inclination.”

We actually don’t do anything, we just show our feelings and our thoughts that are opposite from the Creator, the state that is opposite from Him. This state is called “our world.”

Suppose I think negatively about another which means that in my imagination this person is bad. In his image that is inside me, I feel that I hate him and treat him badly, and this tortures me and I feel bad as a result. But if I love someone, I feel good.

This means that the evil inclination was initially given to us so that we will feel in it a state that is opposite from the Creator. To the extent that we correct our evil inclination, which means our ego, into bestowal and love, into resembling the Creator, we feel in this corrected desire what the Creator feels. Thus we connect to Him, get closer to Him, adhere and merge with Him. So everything that we are given is only to examine our feelings.

Actually, everything is fine. We are in a totally corrected state, but we were given a chance to correct ourselves and to resemble the Creator by our own freewill.

What does that mean? The Creator could have created us like the still, vegetative, and animate nature, which automatically perform all the actions of the general nature. On these levels it is actually felt that there is no other force but the force that totally manages everything! But a man has special feelings and thoughts that are not part of our corporeal existence but which somehow belong to the Creator.

These are thoughts and feelings about our designation, about our fate, about who manages us, about what happens beyond the border of our corporeal state, beyond our physical life. An animal has no such thoughts, an animal doesn’t understand and doesn’t perceive this. It is instinctively afraid of death and pain and cannot think about anything that is higher than that.

This actually happens because our Reshimot (spiritual genes) are one level higher than us. When we ascend from the bottom up and fulfill the Reshimo, 1/0 then the digit 1 is the Reshimo from the next level. It is the point in the heart and it leads us forward.

Everyone has a point in the heart but in most people it isn’t revealed yet. Those in whom it was revealed turned into great Kabbalists in previous generations who attained the creation and the Creator. Today the Reshimo 1/0 is revealed in us, which means that it is 1:0 in our favor.

In other people, the Reshimo is still in a state of 0/0, and their counter shows 0.

But this zero constantly accumulates inner cycles. The counter is working and constantly turns the digits (the Reshimo of this world) until the zero changes to one and a person begins to feel the point in the heart, and then he has to advance.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, Shamati #59 “About the Rod and the Serpent”

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