The distance between the desired and the actual states contains our entire life. This is true to say about both corporeal and spiritual life. For any situation there is an actual state and the state we would like to be in. And the difference between these two states is called our life.

Therefore, if we want to achieve the true states described by the Kabbalists, we must imagine ourselves in a state of perfection, that is, under the full control of the Creator.

This perfection is the only state that exists, but we need to discover it. And on the way to this perfection, we will have to discover many different states: those that we feel at the moment as well as those that we want to reach.

When we approach the desired state, all the states that we have experienced before will seem like a dream. All this was not real but only seemed to us in our egoism, created by the Creator. We looked at everything through our egoism: at ourselves, at the world, and therefore, we perceived our state as flawed.

The Creator arranged this illusion for us, but He explains through the Kabbalists that our state is in fact perfect and has never been different because it is under the full control of the Creator. We are simply in a dream, in an illusion, in concealment. There is something that conceals the perfect state from us and causes this split into desired and actual.

On one hand, you need to be aware of your actual state. After all, this is what I feel now, as they say: “A judge has only what his eyes see.” But on the other hand, we need to build a desirable state over this reality—the way we imagine the world under the control of the upper perfect force, that is, what the world should actually be.

By the difference between these two states, we can estimate where we are relative to the truth, at what state relative to the final one. This way we will constantly move toward the Creator, toward the state of the unchanging upper light that fills the entire universe.

The closer we get to the Creator, the greater the distance between the actual state and the desired state may seem because we have a better idea of what perfection should be in relation to our current state.

Our state seems to us more and more egoistic, harmful, evil, and flawed, and the desired state more and more perfect. The difference between the desired and the actual increases until it grows from zero to plus infinity and minus infinity.

In order to imagine a perfect state of connection with the Creator, we need to annul our egoism. And we need to ask Him for this state, because the Creator created this difference on purpose so that when we despair from our egoism, we begin to turn to Him and look for connection with Him. Without His help, we cannot get out of this state.

You need to dream about this desirable state because man is where his thoughts are. Therefore, it is worth thinking more about perfection, about good, realizing that the state we are experiencing now is a deception deliberately prepared by the Creator so that we would want to get out of this world of lies, darkness, and concealment.

All the work is to make an effort to get out of concealment and get closer to the light. It may seem that such exercises are self-deception because I feel the world as it is now. This is my reality, my life. Why do I need any fantasies?

But we always make plans for the future, and without such plans, nothing can be achieved. And if each time we build the desired state over the actual one, it means that we are guided by faith in the sages: we try to imagine the states they have achieved and achieve them too.
[277149]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/21, “The Work Between the Desirable and the Existing State”

Related Material:
The Point Where The Desired And The Actual Meet
Between The Desired And The Actual
Thoughts And Desires

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work | Add Comment →