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Having watched, listened to, and reflected upon everything that is being said in the video, 5 times since my first post, I now see why it has to be Doubt that is significant more than for example anger or sadness.
I understand the message that Tony reads and describes for us in the first part of the video, and I will now spend the necessary time with the second part.
In this video Tony explains how Rabash’s text perfectly describes the way the Creator works through concealment, and how it affects people who study and work to achieve Equivalence of Form. But I will need some time to reflect upon and study more in order to understand how doubt is more significant than for example anger at oneself for being too slow and not bright enough.
I think I’ll get to understand it soon enough, I just need a little time. – But if you, Seth, have any advice (or just anything you might want to share) for me, I will be very grateful.
It is difficult to choose one thing as the best experience I had during the first 5 weeks because there were so many. One such thing was the feeling that Rav Laitman understood and knew exactly where I (the reader, the student) was at when he wrote the first pages of the book ATTAINING THE WORLDS BEYOND.
The question you (Tony) mentioned that we will learn more about in Week 4 (How can I change the world alone, being just one person?) is one I have been wondering about and trying to understand for some time. I didn’t bring it up because there was so much Recommended Reading I still hadn’t read, and I felt I had fallen behind, so I decided to wait.
I have wondered about that question quite a bit, as I am pretty certain Kabbalah doesn’t teach Solipsism (at least not in the traditional sense), and I think I may be beginning to get closer to a possible understanding of it, and I expect to find out if I am on the right track.
What most inspired me in the course?
One thing that inspired me beyond expectation was that I found, that in spite of all the spiritual and emotional pain, that seems to drag me down and sometimes seriously frightens me, I have managed to experience enough important bits of growth to understand that I am capable of succeeding in my life’s (spiritual) journey.
What have I learned about myself in the process?
Something that I think has been crucial for me, is that I have seen, again and again, that this group of people, my fellow students and I, who are complete strangers, do nevertheless connect at a level I didn’t know I would ever experience. I know I am not imagining this, and it isn’t wishful thinking because I can see it in what people write in their posts: We have many of the same questions, and we have many of the same experiences (although a few of us appear in writing to have unusually strong emotional experiences to deal with).
Another thing I have learned is that even though I sometimes experience setbacks and emotional reactions that are so strong that they frighten me, I have grown enough to know I am doing the right thing by continuing to learn. I have learned that I am on the right path!
What do I wish for my fellow students in their spiritual development?
I wish for my fellow students that they too realize that they are on the exact path that is right for them. I also wish for them that they may be able to continue the journey all the way to its conclusion, full of joy and fulfillment with lots of blessings to freely and wisely share with the world.
This time in the Knowledge Check, I kept getting one of the answers in Question 5 wrong…..this one: I didn’t tag “Identifying with the Will to Receive”. The reason why I didn’t choose this answer until my final attempt, was that in my eyes it would be counter productive to seek to rise above what’s your very nature. I mean, we are taught that we are created to receive, it is all we can do and all we will ever be able to do. While we can rise to identify with the Will to Bestow, we can never stop receiving, which means we can never rise above it.
This is the reason why I kept getting it wrong. I didn’t understand the question, and I probably still don’t understand it completely.
Normally I wouldn’t correct a wrong answer if I didn’t understand the correct answer first. But i9n this case I did correct it because I think I may see how it is that we can rise above identifying with the wish to receive: …
 While we cannot stop receiving, we can attain Equivalence of Form, which means we identify not only with ourselves as the Receiving Creature, we also identify with HaShem who Bestows, and in doing so we become more than the Creation who only lives to Achieve for our own, personal sake.
When we view it from this perspective, we don’t seek to become something we are not, in fact we are becoming our complete self, as close to One with the Creator as a creature can possibly get to his/her/their Creator.
I hope I’m making sense (and if not, what I wrote is probably not very important to begin with). 🙂
