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Hey mrc,
Oh this is what makes each person completely unique – the way they interpret these flavors of pleasure, all according to their own unique desires. I think it’s totally reasonable to feel how one person could have a great desire for knowledge and would feel immense fulfillment there, while his neighbor might not have any attraction to that desire, but always works hard to be respected at work.
Hey Mary,
Kabbalah explains that each and every thought and desire comes from the upper force.
Intention is how we use the desire to receive. How we have it ruled by another force instead of the intention to receive pleasure for myself – we discover the general force of creation which is to do good. We don’t know what it means to do good yet. Any good we are thinking of doing is only “good” to our ego, ourselves. That’s fine though for students of Kabbalah to hear, they can somehow begin to digest what that actually means.
Trying to begin this inner work in your attitude towards others in the “outside world” isn’t where the focus should be. In fact, the focus will only be with those who have the same aspiration as you – in the meantime. I said “outside world” because those joining the path, really do start feeling a difference between the reality you have within and the reality that you live on the outside. As you start to change, your world starts to change. The others there also living in that world have no idea about the world you’re starting to see which is different than the one they see. They won’t ever see it unless they discover it for themselves and that has nothing to do with how much you can communicate that or not.
As far as your intentions to not be harmful or what the other person feels, all these should be much more simplified and down to earth. Kabbalah doesn’t need to enter into that realm and a person can start getting really confused if that’s something they end up doing. Trying to connect all things together as a simplified world I built for myself where I understand everything and am content, this is natural. We should already start paying attention to the tendencies of the ego and how it draws us to such positions. We always want to be in control and in a position where I can ensure I’ll be comfortable. The ego is “allowing” you this study of Kabbalah because it sees benefit there for itself, of course. We’re not worried about that, the light will do its work. Everyone tends to do this, right, it’s not just you. Hopefully, others are reading this and identifying. They just all know not to “fight” the ego, but always simply increase the importance of bestowal.
Going back to your situation. Just do what you would normally do, try to see the Creator’s hand in guiding you the way He does, bringing you to feel certain things and encounter pleasant or unpleasant situations. He wants your attention and doesn’t want you to try and “solve” the disturbances He’s throwing at you. Kabbalah teaches us how to “respond” and we are all still babies flailing our ams and legs over any stimulation. We will become more experienced and therefore more understanding of the One taking care of us, holding us, confusing us, and growing us all with only one intention – “to do Good to His created beings.”
That’s kind of not an answer to your question but is at the same time. We can expand it if you need.
Best of luck,
Chris
Neither. Until you reach a certain degree of equivalence of form with the Creator, the only movement “up” is by “moving” – right and then left.
The only steps ever taken are taken going “forward” – towards the goal of greater adhesion – however, the next state to be revealed and corrected comes to us clothed in a corrupted form. The Creator adds the left and we add to the right. The trend should always be to move the “right”, meaning “adding” in bestowal.
A person moving closer to the Creator must also be “thrown” from Him as well. This is the meaning of a “righteous” and “sinner”. Man is not in control of his states, just how they relate to them – how to they “receive” this next, “heavier” perception of reality which is initially received and perceived as “in order to receive”.
Anyone not working with these two states practically, precisely, “scientifically” even – cannot be considered as either a “righteous” or a “sinner” – they would just be “neutral”, a common component in the system acting exactly as designed from the first moment to the final moment. When this component wants to decide to be operated and operate and act for the good of the entire system by consciously working with the Creator’s force, that’s when they have the “responsibility”. Before you know you have the responsibility, you cannot be considered “responsible.”
Kabbalists write it as “a thin candle” – × ×¨ דקיק.
The slightest illumination from the upper worlds, enough to sustain a person – a “starting” point. We start out in our bodies to do the work, without the “body” – the will to receive for oneself, there would not be an opposite intention to look for. We have to start out in concealment in order to move from concealment to revelation. First we have to feel the concealment.
It’s only felt as “labor” to the ego – the will to receive for the self.
“Servant of the Creator” is not “worker” or “employee”.
Yet, like with the example of the Host and the guest, the intention to do good to one another is then common – they are in adhesion – and this is where the creature can finally use its will to receive, its desire to receive pleasure correctly and gain access to higher and higher levels of “acquiring” more of that force, becoming more and more similar to it. The ultimate fulfillment.
The source texts from the Kabbalists, actually the entire engagement, the whole “study” is what the will to receive perceives, what it feels as a result of interacting with the light. So the only state you write about is the state of the will to receive, rather with an intention to bestow – at varying degrees. Therefore, words like “servant” and “labor” are correct but the “effort” is not in tolerating pain or suffering, rather the calculation itself is inverted and “pain” and “suffering” are in relation to not being able to do good to Him as He does to us – this is our worry and our concern. The words are words that are associated with phenomena within the will to receive, yes but described in relation to work in bestowal.
