Dual Control Of A Single Power

As a result of our work in a group, in studying and in dissemination, we need to reach such a state in which we feel that we are under the control of two authorities, two forces. One control is the control of our ego, the evil inclination, the king of Egypt Pharaoh who holds us in slavery.

But sometimes, more or less, depending upon the advancement of the person, another control is also discovered: the good inclination, the power to bestow, the yearning to go outside of oneself towards the other, towards the friends, towards unity, connection, and so forth.

A person is in the midst of such dual power, under the control of two angels: the good inclination and the evil inclination, which hold him by the hands on both sides and guide him forward towards the goal of creation. Certainly the evil inclination also acts according to the program of the Creator and helps a person to advance independently, exercising his freedom of choice.

If he didn’t have free choice, he would be like a beast and not an Adam (man). Through clarifying for himself how to use the evil inclination and the good inclination, the power of reception and the power of bestowal, and choosing how to advance with the right mixture between them, he builds himself as an Adam in the likeness of the Creator.

The connection between the evil inclination and the good inclination begins from the first approach to Pharaoh together with the Creator. The person begins to establish these two forces one against the other. The two forces are under his authority. He decides himself according to his inner state, which of them manages him now and can even pass from one control to another control in that he chooses who has control over him and why, if he is able to do it or if he requires the help of the higher force.

Pharaoh wants to control, and if the person agrees to the evil inclination separating him from the Creator, then he truly is in the Egyptian exile. That is, he attributes some kind of independent control to his evil inclination and says that he is not ready to resist it and is in complete servitude to it.

Of course, if a person thinks this way, it is a sign that he is a slave. But everything depends upon the person himself. He decides and determines in which form Pharaoh will use him or if he will use Pharaoh.

And all of this work was to reveal that there is no other force involved, as it is written “I, myself, and not a messenger.” A person clarifies that the Creator is above the two forces, beyond both the good inclination and the evil inclination. These two forces come from Above. Through the two forces, the good inclination and the evil inclination, that are revealed to him alternately, a person reaches the final conclusion and decision that there is a force beyond them that plays with him through these two angels: the good inclination and the evil inclination.

Sometimes one of them comes to a person and sometimes the other one, which is why one feels he is thrown from one extreme to the other, in two directions. But thus it forms a relationship both with this force and that force, and ultimately with the one higher power, the Creator.
[131546]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/02/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam