Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 163

If Everything Comes from the Creator and the Person Does Not Truly Exist Independently, How Can We Understand Punishment?

That everything comes from the Creator does not erase a person’s existence. A person is the one who feels.

Who is the vessel? The vessel is the desire to enjoy from the Creator. The Creator fills the vessel with His presence. Aside from basic necessity, which is phase one of the four phases of direct light, all other fulfillments stem from the sensation of the Creator, from sensing the host, and not from what He has prepared for us. Therefore, the vessel is essentially what senses the reality of the Creator. The extent of concealment or revelation is the extent of emptiness or fullness in the vessel.

When we come to clarify the essence of actions from the side of the vessels, through screens and discernments, we see that the essence of these actions is awareness: “What is happening to me? Who is doing this to me? Why is He doing this? And what does He want from me?” After we clarify these matters, the states change, improve, and transform into the next states in line, and so on. In other words, we are not the doers. The Creator is the doer. But we are those who feel and who must, through our sensation, clarify what is truly happening to us.

The moment we clarify a state, it changes.

The entirety of these clarified sensations is called the work of discernment and the correction of sensation. Since we already exist in Ein Sof (infinity), we need nothing but the correction of our sensations. We need to correct our dullness of perception. Moreover, even the senses themselves are not truly corrected. Clarity comes from becoming aware that we find ourselves in dullness each time anew.

When we recognize the evil in a state, we reveal the posterior (Achoraim) of the Creator, which then turns into His anterior or “face” (Panim). This is how it is carried out each time anew. This means that our actions are only inner effort: exerting in finding that I, He, and the method are one, as Baal HaSulam writes in one of his letters. We must constantly sharpen this single point, again and again without pause, until the fog disperses more and more, until we discover that we are indeed where we have always been: in the final correction.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 162
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 161
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 160

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder | Add Comment →