What is a “place”? The will to receive in the emanated being is the “place” for all the abundance and the light in it (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1 “Table of Questions for the Meaning of the Words”).
There is nothing but desire, without any boundaries. We depict it in diagrams as a circle, a square, a triangle, spreading from above from the Creator or from below from the creation. But this is only a convention we adopt in order to illustrate that part of the desire that is fit for correction, for receiving the light.
In the original desire created, there are no boundaries. It ends nowhere. All of creation is desire; without desire, there is no concept of “place.” Place is created by desire.
Therefore, the matter concerns only the correction of place, and according to the measure of correction, this place is divided into circles (Igulim), straight lines (Kav Yosher), or other forms. But the desire itself is boundless, like Malchut of the world of infinity.
Thus, in spiritual work it is of extraordinary importance to constantly relate to creation as to the place of desire, that is, to strive to view everything from the proper angle and from the perspective of correction.
If I see that everything is only “place,” that is, desire, then at all levels of reality—still, vegetative, animate, human—I will look only at desire. And these desires are mine, but my ego paints them as external, not belonging to me. Work on the ego consists precisely in gathering, in reuniting these desires with myself.
In this way I collect from these parts the “place” for the revelation of the Creator and of the whole upper reality. It is revealed within me, and apart from me there is nothing. All perception of reality depends entirely on this concept: place.
What is the place of this world? A spark that burst forth from the upper world downward, into properties lower than it, more deficient, and created the place of this world. That is, it generated a desire within which our world exists.
What determines the boundaries of this world? Only desire! It is very difficult to explain in relation to our three-dimensional space and the boundaries of the universe. There is a “place” where the universe is located, and what fills it—the content of that place. But all of this pertains only to desire. One must completely detach from the “geometrical” perception of the world, and then it becomes much easier not to get confused and to perceive in essence what appears before us.
The only thing we need is to correct our desire. All of reality is within us, in our sensation, and apart from us there is no other “place.” Place is our desire!
[46909]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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