The Creator created everything to give pleasure to man. But we need a vessel, desire, to receive the good that He wants to give. He wanted to give the pleasure that He enjoys Himself: bestowal. There is no other pleasure in the world!
However, to feel this pleasure, we need to have the opposite quality, the lack of fulfillment, because the opposite of the desire to bestow is the desire to receive pleasure. That is why the Creator creates the desire to enjoy, an artificial creature that did not exist before, as a reverse imprint of Himself.
And now, the creature feels these opposites in itself. On one hand, it feels that it is possible to enjoy the fulfillment of its desire. But then, it makes a calculation and begins to desire bestowal. That is, it no longer seeks fulfillment.
Bestowal is not fulfillment, but a property, a desire to give. In bestowal, a person does not get pleased by what he receives in return, but the very action of bestowal becomes fulfillment for him. Whereas in reception, an action is separate from fulfillment. And when fulfillment enters me, I feel pleased. That is, my desire and fulfillment are two opposite things, and I need to toil hard to receive fulfillment since it is opposite to me.
However, in bestowal, I need only to feel somebody else’s desire and satisfy it. And this very action, relative to the other person whom I satisfy, becomes my fulfillment. I do not expect to receive any reward in return. My pleasure is in the action of giving.
Due to this difference, a person working with reception always has to check and evaluate: How much I have given, and how much they will pay me? It’s because the payment depends not on me, but on the other, on how much he would like to pay me. But if I work in bestowal and want only it, I do not depend on anyone and can decide myself where my boundary is!
Therefore, the one who walks the path of bestowal establishes himself to what extent he wants to be in it. And the Creator agrees with him! There is only one general law of bestowal and love, which envelopes and fills the entire creation. There was no restriction or ban on bestowal! That is why each creature can decide for himself at what level he wants to be in relation to this quality, thought, the intention to bestow.
Here can be no calculation of how much I have done and how much I will be paid. There is no need to fear that if I did less, I would receive less. I am in this general law of mutual bestowal, enveloping the whole universe and filling it, as “there is none else besides Him.” I myself establish at what degree I want to be. According to this degree, I experience the revelation or concealment of my ability to bestow, and to that extent I enjoy.
[49673]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/2011, Shamati #61
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