Question: What is the primary principle for advancement?

Answer: To better understand what spiritual work is we have to start at the very end, the last point, the goal: “merging.” It can be attained only with the influence of the Upper Light.

Throughout the whole path of one’s spiritual ascent, the correction of one’s egoism from its initial point until reaching the stage of final correction, at the very beginning of this path, the original point of correction of egoism, a person has to realize that only the Upper Light has the power to correct him.

In other words, the recognition of evil has to transpire within a person, as it is said: “I created egoism and the Torah to correct it”; this is the starting point.

It is the most important thing since it distinguishes between religious people and Kabbalists.

Religious people do not observe the evil within themselves and therefore they don’t correct it, rather they do actions that lead them to a heaven after death.

Whereas a Kabbalist knows that the possibility of revealing the upper reality is given to him only in this life; the death of the body does not add anything to him because there is neither paradise nor hell after death.

When a person refuses any chances to attain the goal by all the means that are available to him, but instead releases himself to the Upper Light and begins to rely only upon Him, it means that he is approaching the starting point of the ladder that leads us to the Creator.

Further on, he has to apply a lot of effort to pass all the gates and realize that they don’t lead to the upper world; this understanding allows him to arrive at the very last gate that is always open, the Gates of Tears, and enter.

Before achieving this state, there are many egoistic tricks that come from the revelation of evil, learning, attaining egoistic wisdom, dissemination, anything that replaces worshipping the Light, a state that is impossible to reach on our own, and can only be attained with the help of the Upper Light that corrects and raises us to the level of the property of bestowal.

Realization of evil can be accelerated only with the help of the group. Recognition of evil associated with our egoism should not be felt like a regular desire “for my own sake,” but rather like an understanding of our oppositeness to the Creator, a state that prevents us from attaining the goal.

The group, studies, and dissemination have to bind together in order to quickly initiate our understanding that only the Upper Light’s impact will save us.
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