There are two forces in nature: reception and bestowal. These two forces depict pictures on our desire to enjoy like on a computer screen. They project the picture of the world that consists of me and everything around me. As Baal HaSulam writes, in the posterior part of our brain there is a screen through which we perceive a picture of the world.
This picture is created with the help of two forces: a receiving (left) force and a bestowing (right) force. The combination of these two forces on my egoistic material depicts the whole picture of reality for me. I feel it, I see a picture, as it were, and it seems to me that this picture, this reality, exists outside of me. I, myself, project my inner picture in front of me. This is how I “see the world.” It’s as though I retrieve it from within myself and project it outside.
Why am I built this way? Why do I see my inner world in an external form? It is in order for us to treat it egoistically with neglect and hostility. Thereby, we receive an opportunity to study our inner world and to correct ourselves.
If I sensed it as being inside of me, I would never be able to correct myself because I would relate to everything in a positive manner with goodness, but solely in an egoistic manner. But now, since my ego comes out to the outside and I feel that it is foreign, I relate to my “external self” like to a foreigner, egoistically in a negative way, rather than positively and like it is my inner part. Therefore, I have an opportunity to understand what “external” and “internal” mean for me.
The world was split into two parts: me and the others. I cannot convince myself that something which exists outside of me is my own. I am given an opportunity to see my inner essence in the outside picture: “Come and see who you are and how you treat those around you. This is how you are inside.” You say, “Look how ugly this one is, how lazy that one is, how dumb another one is! I hate them so much!” Meanwhile, all these qualities are yours and not those of others.
These revelations help me. Otherwise I would never be able to relate to them, to completely reveal the “evil inclination” (egoistic desire, hate for everyone) and later to understand that these are my inner qualities that are projected on the outside.
Then I begin to understand how the Creator helps me by giving me such a perception of reality: to see my insides on the outside. I begin to understand how much this helps me, and that without this, I would be completely locked within myself and I would never be able to understand what the “I” is. Meanwhile, there is something here, “something in me that I do not consider to be me.”
Therefore, our entire work boils down to the unification of our inner self with our outer self, with the outside world, and particularly with the group. We can practice with the group. After all, when I begin to work with the group and try to treat the friends like myself, I see that I am incapable of uniting no matter how much I try to convince myself that all this outside of me is also me. I can’t even treat a small part of humanity, the group, whose goal is close to my own, like myself. I can’t relate to it above my egoistic mind.
In this regard, I begin to see this egoism like something that was artificially created by the Creator, particularly for its annulment. However, I am unable to do this on my own; I can only desire it and then ask the Creator for the disappearance of it (egoism). Why should I ask? In order to receive a connection with the Creator!
“How can this be?” Understand that they are you! Treat them with love, since they are parts of your soul!
“But I can’t!” They are your friends, your neighbors. They are advancing to the same goal as you! What separates you after all?
“The force of the breaking separates us. The Creator placed it as an obstacle, and I cannot overcome it.” And then you ask to correct this in particular. You ask for correction and incorporate the whole world into yourself.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar
Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Unique Range Of Each Soul
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Love For the Creator & Love For The Created Beings”
ARIfilms: “Kabbalah and Our Perception of Reality” – 2 of 2
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