The Difference Between Depression And Spiritual Descent

Question: Why when studying Kabbalah are descents referred to as egoism, isn’t it ordinary depression?

Answer: It seems to you that it’s depression. You experience an unknown feeling, i.e., you aren’t interested, it doesn’t attract you, but actually it is not the usual depression of lack of taste for the world, but a real immersion into darkness.

This is impenetrable darkness, the feeling of the absence of desire for anything whatsoever. In other words, egoism has been added.

Man begins his life in Kabbalah at the state of “zero,” with the normal animal egoism toward this world with desires for food, sex, entertainment, money, control, and knowledge. This is his initial position (DR).

Then, he reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah and experiences a certain ascent, he is included in the group, ready for anything, life is wonderful, and everything is good. He has found himself. Until then he was somewhat sad, something was missing, the meaning of life, etc. And here is the first ascent, “I have found it!”

But then he falls into the opposite state that sucks him as if in a black hole. It is a vacuum that pulls all his strength from within, he person can hardly turn his head, he has nothing to live for. It’s like he was hit in the head with a bag of dust and he feels dust in his head and his heart. He begins to experience ups and downs, ups and downs.

It’s important to understand that the attainment of the upper world is built on the absence of the egoistic desire for it. Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called, “the wisdom of how to receive.”

And without egoism, how can I receive something? How without desire, without a burning yearning to be a real and healthy egoist can I grasp and capture the upper world?

A normal person wants to eat, to walk, to dive into his cell phone, or to talk to someone. But it isn’t possible to conquer the spiritual world in this way. For this, one needs a different weapon, a huge desire. When I’m burning, I’m ready for anything, I want to obtain the upper world.

And so egoism is added, to the state of egoism number 2. And thanks to that, I rise to state number 3.  Because of state 3, I descend even lower to state 4, and then rise to state 5, and again descend further downward. After a huge number of descents and ascents, I attain, for example, state 9.

And when I’m in the lowest state, a terrible and unpleasant state, I experience fear, defeat, and a feeling that “death is better than this life.” This is the parting with our corporeal egoism, while we are still alive.

When a person accumulates a certain number of ascents and descents, he rises to point 10. Comparing points 9 and 10, I see that all of this really comes from the Creator, “There is none else besides Him” and “He is Good and Does Good.” And this is faith above reason because reason (knowledge) is within egoism, and faith is in the property of bestowal.

So this is the first time that I build a spiritual Partzuf, a drop of semen, the embryo of the soul.

With this begins the birth of the soul. And whoever reaches this degree is already on the way! And whoever hasn’t reached it can say whatever he wants. Interestingly, people who are in the middle of the path but haven’t reach 10^th point often leave the study of Kabbalah. They begin to curse the wisdom of Kabbalah, me, our system.

We need to understand that the spiritual world is not what it appears to you; it is perceived according to the method described in the authentic Kabbalist sources.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/15/16