Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: They found it difficult to accept the assumption of Nature’s supervision… Consequently, they came to a second assumption that there are two supervisors here: One creates and sustains the good, and the other creates and sustains the evil. They have also greatly elaborated that method with evidence and signs along their way.
As I develop, I encounter different problems, discover new things, and gradually begin to project a copy of myself outwardly, populating the world with my qualities. For example, the computer irritates me by being slow, and I curse the failing machine with all seriousness.
This is instilled in human nature according to the principle of “We will know You by Your actions.” My attitude towards the external world comes from the inner world. Indeed, an objective external reality does not exist: Everything I see externally is a reflection of my qualities.
And for this reason, I transfer the degree of my development to the surrounding world without realizing it, and I expect it to correspond to my standards. Sometimes, when I communicate with people, I wonder sincerely: “How can they not understand or feel the way I do?” I have a deep-rooted requirement for the external world, a firm conviction that it must correspond to my understanding and perception.
This way the ancient approach of nature as a system of impassible and strict laws was replaced with a system of two authorities. People have discovered that nature also has potential and action, cause and consequence, will and unwillingness.
In their imagination, people have endowed it with something like a “soul,” given it reason, a purpose, and started a dialogue with it: “If I do this, the result will be good. If I do that, the result will only be worse. Thus, nature can react in a positive and a negative way. It is like me and other people.”
This way people started attributing their own qualities, desires, thoughts, and intentions to nature. There are two opposite forces in man: good and evil. Accordingly, they also exist in nature. People can either treat me well or badly, I myself can treat others and myself either well or badly, thus nature also has the same division into two forces.
In this case, how do I appease the good force? Or, on the contrary, the evil force? This marks the start of calculations arising from the idea of dual authority.
Moreover, there is an even deeper layer here. There is no way for me to “bring to life,” spiritualize, and endow with independent existence the authority of the single soulless nature. The single authority is always the same. This means it has no reason. How can you plan something when good and evil do not conflict within you, with your making your calculations based on their opposition?
Absolute rule is nature in its pure, mechanical form. But as soon as I attribute two forces to it, good and evil, the calculations begin. After all, I myself do calculations based on the correlation between two possibilities, two forces. And then, once I project myself outwardly, I find them in nature.
This way the resistance begins, but now man regards reality as an authority, power. Unified nature is not enough to account for the current rule, and only two powers put man between two authorities as between two fires. This is our perception of reality. Two authorities presuppose calculations, a plan, a fight of good and evil, and so on.
Religion appears at this point, including mysticism and different “squabbles” with nature. As man develops psychologically, he projects and transfers his inner world onto nature, attributing his own powers and qualities.
This is how beliefs blossom and place deities and idols of all kinds upon a pedestal. As time went by, they became the mythology of the ancient world.
Thus, initially the first theory marked the transition from the animate state: As man distinguished himself from nature and separated himself from it, he became man. And the second theory is connected to the subsequent development, the opposition of good and evil within us, the relationship between man and society. When two opposites arise within us, we can attribute corresponding considerations to nature as well.
This is where human culture originates. In relation to nature, we develop specifically as the human kind, and in this world culture and science are inherent to man by definition. This is exclusively his prerogative, which results from the theory of two authorities. Without it we would not develop culture, which distinguishes us from animals. Culture is everything: from clothes to speech and self-expression.
This is how the human race gradually developed in their perception of the world.
[49950]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/2011, “The Peace”
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Question: Time and time again I hear you correcting false perceptions of your students during lessons, and I also hear how in my local group the inner meaning of the terms “Creator,” “faith,” “prayer,” and so on gets revealed as opposed to their idolatrous meaning. I understand that Kabbalists hid this wisdom in this language for a reason centuries ago, but why must we continue in this way now?
