In our world, there is a very strange phenomenon: man, who develops from generation to generation. He develops his mind, and thus changes his environment.

But the mind itself develops due to the environment and so it cannot ascend higher than the attainment of the environment and how to make better use of it. This is what makes man so different from other animals. He uses nature and the environment a bit more than other animals, and that’s all. The animals’ desire is limited and definite, and it doesn’t grow from one generation to the next but is only filled by simple things: food, sex, family. That’s all an animal has.

People also enjoy the same pleasures, but they also enjoy wealth, domination, and knowledge. This makes human beings much more active but also worse and more egoistic than animals. It is because the power of the ego is unlimited when it comes to these human pleasures; a person wants to swallow the whole world, and thus ruins it. He ruins his environment to such an extent that it becomes more and more difficult to survive in this world ,which is supposed to be for the benefit of man.

After all, man has intellect so that he can arrange a better and more comfortable environment. But there is something here that ruins all this: our egoistic desire.

If we look and assess our life from this perspective, it is better not to be born at all and not to be doomed to such afflictions. Baal HaSulam says in the article “Peace in the World” that if a person calculated and weighed all the pleasures in life and all the sufferings, he would prefer not to be born at all.

But there is a purpose for being in this world. It is only for this purpose that all of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and especially man exist. It determines our character and all the inner and environmental conditions. All this is meant for our spiritual development.

Our spiritual development is the ascent from our current state to the spiritual world, which means unity, bestowal, and the love of others. But it is defined with respect to us, and in fact, spirituality is called the Creator, the Light, the One who bestows and loves.

We discover all that as the Creator’s nature and we call it spirituality. Our nature, on the other hand, is called corporeality since it stems from the matter of the desire to receive; whereas the Creator’s nature stems from the Light, from the force of bestowal and love and so it is called spirituality. It is based on the wind in contrast to the rain.
[134931]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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