Question: Is it possible to transition to bestowal without any pain or suffering?
Answer: Yes, one can make such a transition without suffering if it occurs under the influence of the environment.
The environment is capable of instilling a longing for any goal in me, even the most unrealistic one. If everyone around thinks about it, I will also begin to aspire to it.
And then, it will not be difficult for me at all to value the quality of bestowal as a great reward instead of today’s egoistic reception, provided that those around me think and act this way.
A person is like a computer, and society can erase the old program in him and install a new, more advanced one, with new data, and as this happens, I advance.
I need intellect only in order to follow those who point me toward the spiritual path. It is not so simple to follow them because in doing so, you do not become a robot, but on the contrary, you grow!
You are constantly given disturbances on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human, which all interfere with your ability to follow the spiritual path.
And you must lower yourself from the height of your enormous egoism in order to be able to follow the spiritual guide. Therefore, one must have a great intellect in order to decipher all the schemes and cunning tricks of one’s egoism, and to not follow it, but to go above one’s reason and follow the guide.
We are sent such states, we are so confused that we begin to neglect them and even hate them. But if you are able to rise above this and make yourself into “nothing,” “dust beneath the feet of the righteous,” then you are following the righteous one along the spiritual path.
It turns out that you are great, that you are just like him. After all, you receive everything that is in his mind through him; you receive it from the Creator.
When it is said that the people followed Moses like a flock follows a shepherd, it does not mean they followed like animals. It is a special form of advancement where you annul yourself before the teacher, before Moses, and through him, you annul yourself before the Creator.
Just as through love for people we come to love for the Creator, so here as well, we cannot change ourselves in any other way. You transform your previous form and acquire a new one, similar to the Creator.
There is no disparagement in these words. If you annul yourself in the spiritual world against the Klipot at the height of the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and follow the teacher, you rise to the height of these worlds. It speaks only of the magnitude of your resistance to the disturbances that are sent (that arise).
This is called going by faith above reason because I do not possess the knowledge of the spiritual teacher, and I annul myself with respect to him, annul my reason, and receive from him new knowledge, knowledge of a higher degree—faith.
The lower part of his spiritual Partzuf, the AHP, descends into me, and I accept the darkness as the light for myself even though it appears as darkness in my egoistic desire. In this way, I can progress along the spiritual path.
[18392]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/10, Baal HaSulam, Preface “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot“
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