A person starting to study Kabbalah does not quite understand why he becomes even more egoistic, with even greater desires for food, sex, family, career, and everything else. It is puzzling that while studying Kabbalah, he simultaneously feels drawn to watch movies, read novels, and take walks. That is, his old egoistic desires, which he had abandoned for a while when he began studying, suddenly begin to revive in him again.

This is not a step back. Greater egoism is revived so a person can rise even higher above it.

Our advancement is step-by-step, along two lines: left and right. The left line is a greater egoism, despite which we try to increase the importance of the spiritual state and the Creator, and thus rise above the ego. Therefore, we walk on two legs: left-right, left-right lines, and so we gradually move forward.

We must realize this technique as if to post it before us visually or even to write it so that in all states, we can understand which of the two states we are in and what we need to do to strengthen the right state; when you steer toward the property of bestowal, to the Creator, and the left state, when you realize the greater egoism descending on you, which the Creator specifically develops in you.

The left, egoistic part developing in us is called “Pharaoh.” The right, altruistic part, which develops in us due to our efforts in the group and in studying, is called “Creator.”

And so, Pharaoh against the Creator, the Creator against Pharaoh, and us between these two upper forces, as if positive and negative because Pharaoh is the reverse side of the Creator. This is how we move forward.

And there are no other forces in the world except for one upper force, which plays with us in this way: positively—negatively, negatively—positively.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is None Else Besides Him”

Related Material:
Don’t Nullify Your Ego
Balancing The Lines
When You Get Close To The Creator, You Raise Pharaoh

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