Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 120

Can We Escape the Blows?

It is impossible to escape the blows. Our entire learning is based on how to pass through them. Even though all these states are predetermined, we learn how to navigate the path with awareness and willingness, so that even if we were given a different set of circumstances, we would still prefer to learn about ourselves and how we are opposite to the Creator.

In other words, we want to walk the path with full awareness. And when we do, we do not experience the blows as suffering. Instead, we pass through them joyfully.

We might feel the pain of disappointment, but at the same time, we observe ourselves from the outside, as if we were a body lying on an operating table, ready for surgery and correction. We actively participate in our own correction. Experiencing difficulties from this external perspective is an entirely different feeling. Instead of enduring each blow over the course of 50 years, we can pass through them in 10 minutes.

Corrections that would otherwise take an entire lifetime of struggle in the material world, through suffering (because suffering also purifies the body), are nothing compared to the corrections made by someone who studies Kabbalah.

We do not even understand what it means to go through these difficulties with full awareness. What humanity has done for thousands of years, what we ourselves have done over many reincarnations, can now be completed in a single lifetime, in one great leap forward.
From a Talk on the Article “On My Bed at Night,” 6/7/2002

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 119
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 118
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 117

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