Question: Baal HaSulam writes in his articles that egoism is not the same for everyone. There is gross egoism when a person uses it without hesitation and there is a veiled, more developed one, when a person realizes that it is bad and sort of acts secretly. What is the difference, in principle?

Answer: If a person realizes his egoism, then this is good, you can talk to him, discuss that; he can come to some kind of decision: is it right or not, should he be in this property or not?

He can determine that it is evil and try to get rid of it in some way. He sees how this property harms him and makes him rise above others. And this is his whole life.

He begins to understand what he spends precious seconds of existence in this world on. And what if he treated others differently, in a completely opposite manner? Perhaps in doing so he would find such a form of sensation of life which in our world is not perceived by us at all. After all, we are constantly tuned in order to influence, control, rule, and absorb.

And if I set myself up differently, I might be free. Free! First I would not be pressed from behind by this terrible force that guides me like this. I would feel myself in a free space, independent, not connected to anything.

I would begin to see everything around me in a different way – not from the point of view of what threatens my power, self-preservation, security: what should I take possession of, what should I suppress, absorb, crush under myself, and so on, where is everything around in the world? A person only looks like this, initially. Look at young children, how cruel they are, how they treat each other. This is our nature.

And if I began to relate to the world in a different way, I would see a completely different picture of the world around us, which is a consequence of my attitude to it. Now I selectively see only what is good or bad for me. Bad, I have to do something about it; good, I can enjoy it.

But if I had a different attitude to the environment around me, I would see circumstances, objects, and actions of a different type, a completely different world that is called the upper world in Kabbalah.

That is, the perception of the world and what happens to us depends on our focus; the way we look at the world is how the world appears to us. Therefore we need to change ourselves.
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FFrom KabTV’s “Close-Up. Fire Island” 1/1/10

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