Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 135

How Can We Direct Desires?

We cannot direct our desires except by examining whether a particular desire is beneficial toward our goal. If we have no goal beyond simply fulfilling the desire, then we are like animals: when commanded to crave grass, they eat grass; when commanded to rest, they lie down; they drink water according to command, and so on. In this animalistic state, we merely carry out whatever desire arises within us, period. We possess no other inner program aside from instinctively executing desires. Thus, we are called “inanimate,” “vegetative,” or “animate.” In the “speaking” or “human” degree, we have a goal, an additional program that connects us to our “host” through the processes happening within.

RABASH explains that there is something called “the sustenance of existence,” which exists in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate. It concerns how each being lives: how it has a will to receive, how it sustains itself, and what it desires for its own survival. But beyond this, there is a purpose: to bring this existence to a special state. The wisdom of Kabbalah does not deal with the sustenance of existence, with how everyone was given a desire and how we maintain ourselves like animals. It deals solely with the ways to reach the purpose, the additional inner program implanted within creation.

Thus, two programs were instilled within us, which create a split personality. We do not know which program to follow that will be better for us. The first program demands we protect our animalistic self, while the second demands we reach the goal. Then, we bounce between desires: we want money, then we want honor, then we want honor again, then we want the Creator, then we want the Creator again, then we want the purpose, and we scrutinize whether to act or not to act, constantly moving between a blend of drives. This is all because we possess two programs. As Kabbalah explains: when there is a host and there is also food on the table, the two contradict each other.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 134
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 133
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 132

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