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It probably means that “I” am not really I, such that my true “I” should be re-centered from the corporeal center of gravity that “I” have mistakenly understood to me “myself” all my life, to the collective body of the friends (which I assume is identical to what is called a “partzuf”).
Egoism is the will-to-receive for oneself, while prayer is the wish to overcome the will-to-receive for oneself, and to make a fervent appeal to the Creator to enter spirituality.
It would mean shifting the center of gravity of the locus of the “I” from this limited body-mind, to an expanded body-mind comprised, first, of the friends in the Ten until we reach such a point in which we think, feel, and act as “one man with one heart.” Once our fraternal unity is perfected and the transfer of subjectivity from my body-mind to that of the group partzuf is complete, “I” (in the capacity of my Ten) can connect to other such partzufim, who have also achieved spirituality, until the whole of Humanity is transmogrified and lifted up to the level Adam Kadmon, becoming a perfect vessel of reception-in-order-to-bestow, having achieved the quality of the Creator.
Sin is just the thought that there is anything else other than the Creator acting in reality.
Guilt and shame are part of the control mechanism that push you back into your habits. To incriminate oneself after committing a sin, or breaking a resolution, or caving in to a bad habit is the ultimate act of hubris (pride) since it implies that you are some kind of super-being who can control your actions. It implies that you are laboring under the false belief that you are the doer, rather than God, who is the only true Doer. However, if after falling to sin we allow ourselves to understand that God is the only Actor in the universe, it becomes clear that God allowed you to fall for two reasons: 1) To show you that you are powerless on your own, without Him, and 2) To stimulate a response that would cause you to call upon His Grace and Strength the next time you are tempted.Similarly, the pride and self-congratulation one feels upon overcoming some hurdle is potentially more dangerous to the soul than the guilt and shame from moral failure. Patting oneself on the back for victory over sin, rather than giving all glory to the “Good who does good” is tantamount to Satanism, since you attribute the strength and willpower that it took overcome to oneself.
The proper response to temptation and sin, on the one hand, or to the conquest of sin on the other, always comes down to one and only one virtue: gratitude. When one succumbs to temptation one must always say: Glory be to the Creator for giving me this lesson in humility. And when one succeeds, of course, we should always thank Him for having graciously made us a channel of the Good, for truly, “There is none else besides Him.”
How are we to understand the words, “he must say that the core of his joy is that now there is joy in the Divine Presence, from having been able to bring her private organ near her” ?!?! What’s all this about a “private organ”. I mean, it sounds really sexy, but what are we to make of it from a spiritual standpoint?
