Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 255

Why Do the States Disappear and Return?

The discernments of Lishma and Lo Lishma toward the Creator and toward this world change each time according to the surrounding lights that descend upon us from the world of Atzilut. We exist in the world of Atzilut in potential, that is, in the corrected state, in the corrupted state, and in all the in-between states. The upper light that descends from Ein Sof through the world of Atzilut performs a kind of scan through all these states, from the lowest state, gradually, up to the highest state, to our roots in the world of Atzilut, and accordingly we receive changing surrounding lights. According to what the upper light passes through there, through our states in potential, we change here in actuality. We do not know how we are supposed to change, but we simply change.

After the barrier, in our initial acquisition of a screen, we begin to identify with, desire, understand, and recognize these changes. We even begin to anticipate them, and to such an extent that we already think in advance that we now want to do something, and indeed we do it. We begin to recognize the Creator’s thoughts and identify with them to such an extent that our thought and desire, and the Creator’s desire, unite. This is truly called “Lishma.”

In our present state, we certainly do not know how we change, but we need to believe that we change according to our root in the world of Atzilut. The pace depends on us, on our awareness, on our state, but the changes of states do not depend on us. Our awareness is what changes our inner sensation: we can feel that we are being struck, or we can feel that the blows are not really blows, but a force through which we enter correction. The restrictions can be pleasant if the goal stands before our eyes. This is how we are forcibly compressed into this “pipe,” but with joy that we attain something. Also, if we do not see the goal before us and we are compressed into some “pipe,” we experience it like death.

Therefore, our awareness, our own work, is to change our sensation from one extreme to the other regarding the very same action that is performed on us from above. However, as a result, it is not only our inner sensation of good or bad that changes, nor only the pace. The content changes as well. This is because, from these states we receive lights, and our world changes. It is difficult to explain the extent to which our own intelligent and independent participation in the work of correction, which we ourselves also desire, changes the entire picture. Even though the states that descend from above are predetermined, we determine everything below.

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 254
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