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I want the light to form a genuine desire/ need in my heart to adhere to the creator. I ask that the light gives me the ability to surrender to it so that I may forget my own individual will and align with the will of the light. I want to be able to see the hand of the creator behind all phenomena so that i will know experientially that there is none wlse besides him. I also want these realizations to come not for my own sake but so that I can then use that wisdom to establish deep connections with everyone that I come in contact with and come to see them as extensions of myself. I hope to serve as a mirror to reflect the light of the creator to others so that when they look at me they see him and all of his glory.
I was inspired by the fact that all of of the technical complexities of Kabbalah revolve around one essential principle which is to love one’s neighbor as thyself. I learned that this principle is at the heart of the creator and that by striving to embody it I can achieve equivalence of form with the creator. I also learned that the current body I possess is not my real body but that it is like an illusory body to be purified resulting in the revelation of my true body which is at one with the creator. I wish for my fellow students and I to cultivate a non-dual recognition of one another. I hope I come to see them as an extension of myself and I hope they come to see me in the same way. I also hope that this recognition can be cultivated to the extent that this felt sense of oneness expands beyond merely the scope of the Kabbalistic community to include all beings.
My role in the process is to primarily focus on embodying the principle of loving my neighbor as myself. I think many times we see that the world needs to change and we attempt to change everything outside of ourselves. The only thing any of us truly has the power to change at any given moment is our own actions. Through bringing myself into alignment with the creator, I will naturally love others as the creation and simultaneously serve as a source of inspiration which can encourage others to march forward on their path towards unity with the creator as well.
To me viewing reality from the perspective of the creator would be coming to the realization that all forms of life are merely projections of myself. Recognizing that the myriad forms of suffering beings in the world are merely emanations of myself, I would seek to alleviate their pain until every last one of them felt completely fulfilled. This would be the embodiment of the principle “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
I was hoping to get some clarification on the third and fourth factors relating to an individual’s development. To my understanding, the third factor is a second layer of cause and effect driven by the environment. Using the seed analogy, this environment directly relates to the developmental process of the seed but cannot alter the predetermined path of development set by the seed’s nature, but it can influence the manifestation of that seed’s end product in a quantitative/qualitative way by producing more or less stalks of wheat than its progenitor for example. It appears that this occurs as a direct response to the interface between the essence of the seed in relation to the environmental conditions that are available and is therefore out of our conscious control, This just happens automatically. What I am having trouble understanding is the fourth factor of environment. At this level particular environmental factors are categorized as not directly related to the developmental process of the seed such as winds, other plants and hail storms that still have an impact on the seeds rate of development. Are we to understand the difference between factors three and four as environmental factors which we choose vs environmental factors that are beyond our control? If that is the case, then the seed analogy seems to fall a bit short because a seed does not get to choose whether it is exposed to other plants, winds, or hail storms. It was also stated that a person is neither punished for their good/bad thoughts and deeds because those things arise automatically but they are punished for the environment that they choose to abide in because that is what determines the type of thoughts and activities that they will engage in. If a person inherits a packet of data (via the bed )from their ancestors and previous incarnations, won’t that information have an impact on one’s decision making skills when it comes to choosing an environment for one’s self? If I inherit negative thoughts and behaviors, those thoughts will probably result in me choosing an environment that aligns with those thoughts and behaviors giving rise to more of the same. What would compel an individual with automatic negative thoughts to choose an environment contrary to their current nature?
