Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 157
If the Final Disappointment Comes Only at the End of the Path, Why Should We Constantly Remind Ourselves About “There Is None Else Besides Him”?
If a person finally despairs and then turns to the Creator only at the end of the path, why do we constantly say, “There is none else besides Him”? Why must we turn to Him all the time? It seems one could sit, wait, forget about Him, and work within oneself as if He does not exist, until one eventually becomes disappointed with everything, and subsequently some “point” in the mind and heart will awaken and remind us to turn to Him.
The matter is that if we are not unceasingly relating to “There is none else besides Him,” then all the effort we seemingly make on our own is directed at another goal. We miss the target and do not advance in the right direction.
What is disappointment in our own strength? It is disappointment meant to establish that “There is none else besides Him.” That is the true point of disappointment.
What does it mean to reach the final correction? We are in a certain state right now. What does it mean to reach the final correction in this state? It means to reach it with everything we currently have. We do not know what else we will have later or whether there will even be anything more than what we have now. Perhaps what we have attained up until now is already the final correction and there are no further degrees? How can we know where we stand on the ladder? We do not know anything.
If we can now completely and absolutely connect our qualities within ourselves, the state we are in, and our environment (both our inner and surrounding conditions), together with the Creator, and if we can bind all these factors into one unified whole without any difference between them, this constitutes our final correction.
What will take place on the next degree and whether it even exists, who knows? Perhaps everything is about to become revealed in the next moment? We should not think about what will be. We need to act now.
If at this point we become disappointed in our own strength and turn to the Creator, that is the best possible action. Why?
It is because if we truly attempt to connect these three variables together, we arrive at the awareness that we cannot. This is a sign that we truly directed ourselves at uniting these three factors. It is like a person who aims a rifle, where they align their eye, the barrel, and the target into one straight line. If we cry out to the Creator that we are incapable, this is a sign that we have indeed found Him. If we are not precisely directing our appeal to the Creator, we still believe that we can succeed by our own strength.
If we truly turn to the Creator and the Creator performs this unification for us at our degree, it is as though we are in the final correction. We acquire an inner light, a spiritual standing, perhaps a part of the final correction. But how would we know it is only a part? We would not. We do not know everything, and accordingly, we do not know the value of that part within the overall picture. Kabbalists say there are another 620 such states until a person reaches the final correction.
A person becomes disappointed with trying to unite Israel, the Torah, and the Creator as one. Only from this work do we despair. This is the work, and it is what “There is none else besides Him” means. We despair of our inability to accomplish this unification. There is nothing else to do but this.
Moreover, if we despair at being unable to make this unification and turn to the Creator, it is a sign that we are indeed close to unity, perhaps already within it, because we turn to the Creator from the very state we have reached and want to connect the two: “There is none else besides Him.” What else is there besides this? It is that tightly connected.
This is the sign that we have truly turned to the Creator and not to something we imagined to be the Creator. It is the test that we have directed our path and our vision precisely at Him.
Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 156
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 155
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 154
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Question: You say that if I correct myself, the entire world will appear corrected to me. Then why are so many Kabbalists needed to correct the world if the world is within me?
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