Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.

Only by truly overcoming all the obstacles that constantly knock me down and lead me off the right path, through faith above reason, when contrary to what I see I still attach all events and all sources of influence to the Creator, despite what I see, I realize that He clothes himself in different people, forces, and events. This is the only way I can make efforts to correct my perception of the world and seek the Creator.

But I do not always have the strength to overcome all these doubts and setups, and cling to the Creator. Not always can I see the Creator through all sources by faith above reason through my efforts and contrary to what I see. Although they are very serious and threatening, I still have to see the Creator through them.

Such a search is called “faith above reason,” when I rush to Him contrary to what I feel. If I cannot resist this, then I fall into the feeling of our world and see only it.

Therefore, the beginning of the spiritual path is to start determining the Creator in all the actions we feel upon ourselves and in what is happening not only around us, but also within ourselves—how I react to the fact that the Creator plays me through all kinds of external figures.

And here, too, I do not react, it is not me: I do not have anything independent, this also is the Creator. It turns out that I am in the middle between how the Creator influences me from the outside and how the Creator influences the outside world from within me. It is in the middle between these two sources of the correct intention that there is no one but Him, that I must find my clear state.

Baal HaSulam writes that in this search a person always has more downs than ups. One always has more failures in one’s attempts to discover the Creator, become strong in Him, direct oneself to Him, and see the Creator in every action.

There are very few such conditions. Far more than others, when I fall I see only the outside world and myself in this world, i.e., not the Creator from within and the Creator outside, but myself and the outside world. This is, we might say, our tragedy.

The state where I feel “The outside world and me” is called a descent. The state when I feel that the Creator is within me and outside of me is called an ascent.

What does it mean that the Creator is within me? It is the fact that I feel how He twists me. He does not give even my inner effort to rush directly to Him, to see this world as His work.

Here I really am between two fires—from within I am always deceived and from the outside too. Such a twofold adjustment “both inside me and outside” is called “adjustment to the Creator,” that there is no one but Him and I do not exist, there is no external world, but there is only one Creator.

And who am I? I am the point that is between two influences: internal and external.
[256641]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 11/24/19

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