Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 253

What Does a Person Go Through Before the Barrier?

The states we go through before the barrier are called the “time of preparation,” the beginning of Lishma. There is no screen to speak of yet, but we already begin to relate to our state from the point in the heart. What does it mean to enter the time of preparation? For thousands of years, we reincarnate in bodies of this world, and suddenly we receive an awakening from above. This is called “the point in the heart entering us.” It is the point in the heart being revealed in us.

In addition to the heart, which is a desire for all kinds of pleasures in this world, we have a desire to enjoy spirituality. Although it is an egoistic desire for spirituality, dressed in the intention to receive, it already belongs to spirituality. Within it there is a certain sensation of the surrounding light that gives the grace of Kedusha (holiness), which means that there is something of the intention to bestow. We are clueless as to what bestowal means, but this gives us a sense of truth and falsehood.

Beforehand, we viewed the world only from our heart and thought about how to grab and enjoy. Now we sometimes look from within our heart and sometimes from within the point in the heart. We are thrown from one to the other, and this brings changes of states and moods. When we look from within the point in the heart, we begin to criticize ourselves and think that we are beasts, and from the point in the heart we begin to understand a little of what it means to be human.

But this is still not birth. Spiritual birth begins with the actual acquisition of a screen, from root coarseness (Aviut de Shoresh). However, for those who study Kabbalah, preparation for birth begins. Even during the time of preparation there are many stages that cannot be clearly divided in succession. This is not yet birth; it is preparation.

What is birth? Even birth that comes after the barrier is not yet birth; it is only the “entrance of the seed into the womb of Ima Ilaa (Upper Mother),” called the “three days of absorption,” and so on. The “nine months of pregnancy” begins, a state in which we feel that we are in the Creator’s world and begin to acquire a screen in order to annul ourselves toward it, so that everything we receive will be in order to bestow and will not touch our will to receive.

Like in spirituality, the states preceding it, which correspond to spirituality, are also given such names. In any case, these are states in the point in the heart’s development that receive a screen at the barrier.

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