If everything in the universe originates from the Creator, then what remains? What remains is a very intriguing component: my effort to sustain the perspective that everything comes from Him.

Let us suppose I have attuned myself to this perspective, but within a minute it disappears, slips away, or distorts. At one moment I might feel as if I exist independently, and the world around me revolves by the Creator’s hand. At another moment, it seems that all my parameters are shaped by the Creator within me, while the external world appears either stable or fluctuating, but somehow separate.

So if I want to reveal the Creator, I must continuously work within concealment. Concealment lies in recognizing that everything is conditioned by Him and that “There is none else besides Him.” My task is to properly perceive myself and the world, to separate what does not pertain to me from what constitutes my “self”—my efforts.

And even within these efforts, I must analyze what is truly mine in my efforts, and what has been created in me by the Creator. It may have seemed to me that something was my own doing.

Even if yesterday it seemed that I personally wanted to follow the Creator’s path, I must still correct myself and acknowledge that it was the Creator who granted me this opportunity and not my own doing.

Thus we see that the work within concealment begins to take shape as a clear delineation of where “I” ends and where the Creator begins. Does “I” even exist, and what is this “I”? It is evident that my physical body is temporary.

If my thoughts and feelings are not “me,” then it follows that only through correctly discerning our efforts to form a perception of “self and the surrounding world” might we find something that is truly ours.

Clearly, this “mine” will not encompass the fundamental parameters of the world or myself, as these were predetermined long before me. Therefore it is in my attempts to construct an internal view of the world that my “self” might be found, a result of my search for the Creator, for truth, and for the meaning of life. And this “self,” essentially, is what is called “my soul.” This is the essence of the work within concealment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/19, Preparation for convention in Moldova “The Work in Concealment”

Related Material:
Where Do I Objectively Exist?
If There Is No One Else Besides The Creator, Then Who Am I?
If The Creator Is All, Where Am I?

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