[Logynn]

In the morning lesson they read ” The Striking of Thoughts upon Man” by Rabash. But nobody asked if the “striking” here is the same as a “striking” on a spiritual partzuf, or why the text seems to be framed in a pre-attainment cognitive paradigm.

This text seemed to imply that the “striking” is to trouble the lower one. And the way it’s describing it is as if the same striking happens on someone who doesn’t have spiritual perception or a real screen yet. It certainly describes states that anyone can relate to: having troubling thoughts that require scrutiny, the Creator sending an awareness of your own egoism in a situation, making a calculation not to act on an egoistic impulse for the sake of the Creator. These are thoughts that anyone beginning the study will have all the time.

“…We can interpret that striking is the thoughts that strike a person, trouble him and tire him, and he has thoughts this way and that way. And all this is because he has a Masach…”
(But this also happens in a person without a Masach.)

“…and thoughts begin to run about within him. This is called ‘striking with his views.’…” (Is this another kind of striking? An internal one?)

“…This means that although he does not really feel the importance of the upper one, the scrutiny is through a Masach, called ‘an attempt,’ regarded as ‘concealment.’ But when he overcomes the Masach and sustains it, meaning he does not cancel the Masach,…”

Does this mean that before one gets a permanent Masach and perception of the spiritual world, that they are already making the calculations and the “attempt,”??

Does it mean that even before having a screen and perceiving the spiritual world you could achieve (to some measure) the following result described in Rabash’s note?

“…this causes joy above, and then the upper one also gives him joy. That is, to the extent that he received the importance of the upper one above reason, that same measure of greatness of the upper one extends to him within reason, not less and not more.”

Is the pleasure of devotion the reward described there, which is dispensed in the same measure as the amount of devotion you mustered in response to the striking?

[Logynn]

From the recording today. He said that the surrounding light weakens the vessel and then it can only receive at phase 2.

Is this allegory similar to what he describes there?

The lower one receives an image of herself in bestowal, an image of the future, which is so profoundly pleasurable to see that the craving for it is desperate. But she realizes by her own desperation to become that image that she is the opposite of it. And there are no steps that can be taken towards achieving it. So she has no choice but to be still and wait, but she is… in the meantime, nonetheless… sustained by the pleasure of the image (the surrounding light) which she can see, but cannot be it or reach for it in any way.

[Logynn]

Does this include “friends” outside of your Ten?

[Logynn]

I only have one question from the last two recordings of Rabash. It’s about the one this morning: Baal HaSulam. Study of the Ten Sefirot. Vol. 1. Part 4. Chapter 5, item 3.

If the coarseness of the inner light is what prevents the surrounding light from entering, can the vessel purge or restrict the inner light in order to hurry the process of receiving the surrounding light?

For example, could one get rid of everything that they already have, and that could conceivably make it possible for the surrounding light to manifest the future state more quickly?

Thanks

[Logynn]

Thank you, Gianni. This is helpful.

I am half way through Young Group. So I have been focused on the Social Writings. That’s my context for everything right now. And it is maybe an odd lens to approach this in. But I am excited that these recordings about TES are so vivid to me anyhow. It is unexpected.

Clearly it is all connecting somehow through the efforts of my Ten.

I appreciate all your efforts here. Thanks again.

[Logynn]

There was another recording in the lesson this morning and it came with another heap of questions:

Does diminution occur because the initial state of the desire is so turbulent and monstrous with egoistic need that it needs at least one impression of the upper in order to be fit to begin work?

Does the ascending and descending light “clash” because malchut’s idea of what to do with the desire conflicts with the upper image of using the desire in bestowal? And subsequent clashes are the lower one slowly getting on the same page as the upper regarding the intention that desire should be used for?

Can a striking take the form of a “revelation of a portion,” which would be the image of using that desire in bestowal, depicted in the reflected light so the lower can aim at it to hone in on the intention? Is that also what a “record of clothing” is?

Is the striking specifically to raise surrounding light so that the lower one can work with its attitude towards the reflected image (record) of bestowal, and not an attempt to enter the vessel at all?

When Malchut is in Bina does it mean that all of Malchut’s desires have been moved from the will to receive to the intention to bestow? Are we moving desires from Malchut to Bina like a baby playing with a shape sorting toy?

Does the striking (and sparks) have to repeat because the klipot “eat” each impression, so it has to be renewed along the way? The sparks go out because of the klipot?

If Keter is at the “top”, and that’s why nothing could fall from above and strike it to form a vessel… then how did anything “fall” from AB into Keter to give it coarseness?

If some vessels are never ever refined of their coarseness, are they still able to be used to bestow at some point purely through devotion and annulment? That even without the ability to overcome that falling in love with the upper one could just flip the intention?

Are “twenty sefirot” of direct and reflected light inverted in relation to each other, like a reflection. Or they are stacked like two degrees?

[Author]

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