Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 2

What in Prayer Is Under a Person’s Control?

It is written: “I have labored and found.” The effort is under a person’s control, but the outcome is not. Why? It is because we are working on our soul without knowing its structure or its paths of development. We only need to try, to apply effort, both in quantity and quality; we do not need to worry about the results, the path, or the events that we might encounter. We should not worry about the pace of our progress or our ultimate form. This is because we not only do not know our final form, but in every new state, we have no idea where we will arrive. Even a great Kabbalist like Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai knew that he was ascending to the level of the final correction (Gmar Tikkun) only because he recognized its posterior side. If he had not seen its posterior, he would not have known what level he was about to reach. A new state awakens at every moment. It is born out of an internal memory called a “Reshimo” (record).

People think that a Kabbalist knows and sees everything from the beginning until the end of the world. A Kabbalist, however, only knows what they have traversed on their spiritual path. They know what they have attained up to their current level, and not what they have not yet experienced. Therefore, spiritual levels are referred to as “ascents” and “discoveries,” discoveries of what was previously unknown.

In a spiritual ascent, the effort should thus be aimed above our current understanding, against the understanding and thoughts in our present state. This is always the relationship of the lower level to the higher level because the posterior side of a higher level is darker and less corrected than the lower level.

Effort itself holds no indication of the result. It has no direct correlation to the greatness of the goal. A person labors on a certain matter and receives a result that they never expected because each time a new part of their soul becomes revealed that was previously hidden from them.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 1

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