The most important quality that is necessary on the spiritual path is patience, the willingness to suffer, confidence in success. Having patience means being willing to pass through all the phases that await me on the path so that neither my current corporeal sensations nor my reason would throw me off or set the truth for me.
From the start I accept faith in the sages (Kabbalists) who have already traversed this path and advise me on how to act. And I follow their instructions and actualize them. This is not at all about self-denigration, as it may first appear to an outsider. Just the opposite: I intend to attain everything in sensation and reason at every phase of the way.
I realize that I am distant and must achieve closeness, and above these two states I always receive a higher state, a new sensation and understanding, and that is how I advance. The result of all this wavering back and forth is clarification, which I make in sensation and reason, attaining a new state and constantly adding to it.
On the other hand, the process I undergo always involves the bending of my ego. I distance and feel myself in darkness and worthlessness. And that is when I must gather up my pride and say that I feel so distant precisely because I received independence. It follows that I can be proud of being against it and lacking the desire; I can be proud of being distant from the Creator. Indeed, I am lost and in a bad state, but thereby I acquire a new desire.
And now I begin to work on this new desire and draw closer to the Creator, and I begin to fill this period of distancing, confusion, darkness, and unpleasant sensations with the Light and insight, new attainments that aren’t egoistic but are above the ego. And that is how I achieve a new degree.
[55582]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/2011, Shamati #121
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