Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 159
Chapter 16. Preparing the Sensation
During the period of preparation and upon entering spirituality, there are many actions we need to undergo. These include passing through special spiritual states called “birth,” “conception” (Ibur), “nurturing” (Yenika), and “mind” (Mochin), or “smallness, infancy” (Katnut), and “greatness, adulthood” (Gadlut).
When we are already in spirituality, in the sensation of Godliness, we go through various stages called 24 hours of the spiritual day. In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 12, we learn how prayer is continuously divided into these 24 hours. Even sleep (the departure of the Mochin) is not rest. Instead, it is a special preparation for the next stage, and within it too there is much inner work in every single state.
That is, spirituality speaks of states in which we need to seemingly exert great effort in order to perform certain corrections and connections.
However, here it is written differently: “There is none as holy as the Lord, for there is no one besides You.” Meaning, everything is the Creator’s work. The Creator performs all the work. It is His work. The person has nothing to do but reach the sensation that indeed “there is none as holy as the Lord,” that “there is no one besides the Creator” who performs all actions. The Creator is responsible for both the planning and the execution, and in whom the result also resides. Our entire work and efforts are only to feel what is truly happening to us, and to feel it as correctly as possible.
Therefore, we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah that all the degrees and states, from the present state to the future, even to what is called “the future to come” (which means after the final correction), are states that we exist in now. The states exist, we only need to experience them, one after another.
We can pass through them only by the force of movement, which is the light that corrects and fills us at every stage. That is advancement. This light acts upon us without any intervention on our part. Even the request for the light to come and correct us is a special request that we cannot generate by ourselves since we do not know what the light is, what we should be drawn to, what we should yearn for, or what we should attain.
We only need to pay attention to what is happening to us, what the Creator wants from us, and what the Creator is operating upon us at this very moment. In other words, we need to be sensitive to our contact with Godliness.
The moment we fully feel a state, it changes. When we have felt, absorbed, and accepted it, the state becomes ours. Afterward, we must once again sharpen our senses in order to equalize our form and feel the next state. In this too, of course, the Creator acts upon us, but we must make some effort to intensify our yearning. That is, we must actualize the yearning that the Creator gives us, or become aware of the yearning that we receive from above, and in such a way we advance.
Therefore, we learn in Kabbalah that all these states—birth, conception, nurturing, and Mochin—are carried out by the upper one. The preparation that we make is only to sharpen our sensitivity. We must be ready for the actions the Creator performs.
This means that opposite the holiness (Kedusha) from above, we must prepare our holiness from below.
Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 158
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 157
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 156
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