Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 21

How Much Does Our Work Depend on Going in the Right Direction?

We need to understand what the purpose of creation is, what the Creator wants from us, and what our heart’s desire is, which is called “recognition of evil.” We examine and learn how far and how different our “self” is from what it needs to be in our current state, not how it should ideally be in its root at the completion of correction, but right now.

We should always improve relative to our current state and not compare ourselves to other people’s states or a different stage of development from our own. Just as a five-year-old is regarded as a five-year-old and not as a ten-year-old, it would be disheartening if that child suffered from growth delay and required the support of various treatments and corrections.

At every moment, we have all the data needed to discover, examine, see, and understand how we should be and whether we are moving in the right direction. It depends solely on our effort and labor. There is no corruption from above; all corruption exists within a person, and we are granted permission to discover and heal it.

However, we need the reforming light to come and illuminate our way. It is a light that reveals our nature and clarifies the extent to which we are tarnished by various thoughts, impulses, and desires. We draw this light by studying Kabbalistic texts. Therefore, it is all in our hands; only studying can help us see the gap between our current “self” and our ideal “self.”

Moreover, an overly-strong desire to immediately see the extent of the deviation between identities will not help, as transgressions, mistakes, and feelings of distance, disparity, and separation from the correct state all gradually accumulate and surface. They are specifically where we feel the revelation. Therefore, such information gathering requires a long time. We develop this ability to perceive over years, depending on the quantity and quality of our effort.

The mechanism will always be prayer and correction on the prayer, on the desire in the heart. Whenever we feel our presence in the world, at every moment, we essentially discover the gap between who we are, what is in our heart, and who we are meant to be. At the end of the day, the pressures or pleasures that the world provides are forces of correction that act on us.

For a corrected person, the worlds disappear. All the worlds exist within the person. They are a mechanism, a system, that constantly surrounds and corrects us. They guide us closer and closer to the goal. The more we approach the goal, the purer the worlds become. They become purified from the world of Assiya to the worlds of Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut, until they disappear and become replaced by simple light.

In a person who has reached the goal, there are no worlds. There is no longer a mechanism of worlds between the simple light and the person; instead, the person becomes attuned to the simple light.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 20
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 19
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 18

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