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As I’ve been reading the recommended books and reviewing the course material, I keep seeing the teaching that when we recognize an egoistic desire or the consequences of it, the appropriate response is to sincerely ask the Creator for help in correcting it.
My question is: what about the egoistic desires we do not yet recognize?
It seems likely that there are many motives, habits, and tendencies within us that are egoistic, but that we are still unaware of or unable to see clearly. In that case, is it appropriate to ask the Creator not only to correct the egoism we already recognize, but also to reveal what we are currently unable to see and help us correct it?
I am especially interested in whether Kabbalah teaches a way of becoming more sensitive to these hidden egoistic tendencies before we necessarily have to encounter their negative consequences. What is the recommended approach when we know that correction is needed, but do not yet know exactly what within us needs to be corrected?
From what I understand, the perception of reality that the study of Kabbalah is meant to lead us toward is one of connection and eventual adhesion with the Creator.
Our present perception is limited by a sense of separation—both from the Creator and from the collective soul. Through the study and practice of Kabbalah, the goal is to gradually correct that perception by correcting our egoistic desires so that we begin to experience the underlying unity and cohesion of the collective soul, and ultimately our connection with the Creator.
My understanding is that Kabbalists do not describe in detail what this attained perception feels like since it is beyond what words can communicate (at least to someone who has never experienced it). What seems most important is the movement from separation (where we perceive ourselves to be now) toward connection (where we actually are at all times in reality).
One thing that really surprised me was how deeply nourishing I found Attaining the Worlds Beyond and Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life. I finished listening to both much more quickly than I expected because they spoke to me so strongly.
I had encountered Kabbalah before, including Attaining the Worlds Beyond and Kabbalah-related YouTube videos, but at an earlier point in my life I was going through some very difficult experiences. At that time, it was hard for me to hear the teaching that what we experience is ultimately for our good. Life is much calmer for me right now—not that I imagine this will necessarily be permanent—and from this vantage point I can look back on some of those harder periods with more perspective. It has become easier for me to consider that those experiences may actually have had a purpose.
Something else that affected me deeply was the teaching that when we recognize egoism within ourselves, we can ask the Creator, or the upper force, for help in overcoming it. When I began actually doing this, I was struck by how quickly some form of assistance seemed to appear through my environment, often in ways I could never have anticipated. What stood out to me was that the help often felt like an accommodation: some circumstance would arise that made it a little easier for me to move beyond my usual egoistic response and act from a place of greater bestowal. It gave me the distinct impression that I was not expected to overcome egoism through my own strength alone. Rather, when I sincerely asked for help, I was sometimes given exactly the kind of accommodation I needed to take a step that I might not otherwise have been capable of taking. I found that very remarkable.
I have also begun noticing how some of these principles seem to have surfaced indirectly in my life long before I had the language of Kabbalah for them. There have been areas where I pursued egoistic desires about as far as I could and eventually discovered a kind of emptiness at the end of them. I found that pleasure itself could reach a point where it no longer seemed capable of providing fulfillment on its own. What began to give it meaning again was a shift toward giving—to connecting pleasure with bestowal rather than simply receiving for myself. Realizing that I have already encountered something resembling this principle in one area of life makes me wonder whether the same transformation can gradually be applied to the rest of my desires as well.
Finally, I have been struck by how radically different this wisdom asks us to perceive reality. The idea that we are fundamentally parts of one whole can feel almost psychedelic to me at times. One evening my partner and I were simply standing beside each other brushing our teeth, and for a brief moment I had this strange, visceral perception that we were somehow one being. I even had the sensation that our faces were the same. It was beautiful, but also slightly frightening, because I am so psychologically accustomed to experiencing another person as entirely separate from myself.
That brief experience gave me a different sense of what it might mean not merely to understand unity intellectually, but to begin, even for a moment, to perceive reality through it.
In Attaining the Worlds Beyond: A Guide to Spiritual Discovery by Rabbi Michael Laitman, narrated by Tony Kosinec, Laitman writes that “the fear of the Creator is a selfless concern about not being able to do something that could have been done for the sake of the Creator.”
Am I understanding this correctly to mean that “fear” here is not about living in anxiety or being afraid of the Creator, but rather having such a strong desire to act for the Creator’s sake that one fears missing an opportunity to do so?