To Connect With The Shechina [Divinity]
It is written in Degel Machaneh Ephraim: “One who truly wants to serve the Creator” meaning, to yearn for coming closer to the upper force, to build correct connection between people since it is impossible to work for the Creator and to come closer to Him in any way other that by building in practice the connection between us, such a person “must include himself with all creations.“
He should feel that he is in them just as the Creator is in each of us, but we do not feel it. He must “connect himself with all the souls, include himself with them, and they with him,“ that is, to reach a state where we are connected to each other so that we do not feel the difference between us at all.
In our world, there is such an example of this in a pregnant woman whose body works only for the development of the fetus. We need to imagine that each of us is impregnated with a group, and we want to develop it, to be in it so that it is in us to such an extent that we do not feel the difference between us; it is just one body, one desire, one yearning, one life.
“That is, leave for yourself only what is necessary to connect with the Shechina [Divinity].” A person should not have anything besides the yearning to connect with the Creator through connection with the friends. The Creator is attained as a common connection between us. He is not somewhere outside of us, but we are constantly creating Him out of the right connection between us. Try to imagine what the nature of the connection between you is today in order to create the Creator from it.
To the extent that you would yearn for connection, you will begin to attain the revelation of the Creator between you, which you reach through your actions. In addition, you will begin to feel how the upper force, the common upper light, is in you according to your correct connection with each other, and then you will call this animating force the Creator.
And in order to unite with Him “it is necessary to bring together many people, for the more people serve the Creator,” meaning work in order to attract this upper force upon themselves, “the more the light of the Shechina,” the light of the Creator (the upper light) “appears to them. For this reason, one must include himself with all the people and with all creations, and raise everything to their root, to the correction of the Shechina.”
So you must feel that He is in them. Just as the Creator is in each of us but we don’t feel it, so he needs to connect himself with all the souls and incorporate himself with them and they with him. In other words, to achieve a state where we are so connected to each other that we don’t feel any difference between us, that everyone is together.”
The correct connection between us is the one in which the upper light is revealed according to its similarity to the light.
Although our connection is between egoistic desires, if everyone rises above them a little and begins to treat his friends altruistically, then in these altruistic connections, which are like superstructures between our egoistic connections, the Creator begins to be revealed. Then this altruistic connection will be called the Shechina, the spiritual Kli (vessel) in which the Creator is revealed.
It all depends on how much we rise above the egoistic connections between us, which were initially created correctly in order for us to rise above them in the opposite quality, in the opposite relation, contrary to our relations with each other, and to understand that we must be opposite to ourselves, that is, to make a restriction (Tzimtzum), screen (Masach), and reflected light (Ohr Hozer), and to raise ourselves above egoistic relations.
To the extent that we create altruistic relations, the quality of bestowal, even, perhaps, love for each other, we create the Shechina, the place, the Kli, in which the Creator is revealed to the extent of our equivalence to Him.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1
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