First Familiarity With The Creator

In spiritual work we proceed in the right line, which is towardsbestowal, approach, and unification. And everything against this that is awakened in us is what we need to correct. Only this! All the rest is done intentionally and isn’t subject to any correction. We get all kinds of disturbances so that we will choose what we need more clearly. This is so that we will begin to choose from the general providence, which isn’t subject to any correction or individual, personal attainment of the Creator. This is specifically where following our efforts, we are shown how much we are not ready to do this.

Why? So that we will require help from above.

The forces that are awakened specifically in this place of unity and push us away from each other are an expression of the shattered Kli.

Specifically, we must not miss these desires and characteristics. The moment that this snake reveals himself inside, you should immediately grab him, constantly choke him and not let go. It seems to you that you have strangled him, you breathe easily and can then embrace him. But after a moment, he wakes up again. This happens even within a second, and there is no interruption! And this is good. We must constantly make starting and stopping movements like these.

The recognition of evil is the first stage and is very difficult. On every level it will be more and more acute and will require a more precise, conscious, emotional, and analytical intention. “Why is this feeling awakened, for what purpose, or is this just rejection? Why this? What for? What does the Creator want to tell me?”

I begin to associate the recognition of evil with the Creator, “He deliberately tripped me up.”

When we give a child something to do, understandably he tries to do it because instinct is pushing him towards this. And we are led forward, not by instinct, but by feeling the environment. The group holds me, obligates and directs me. There is tension in the air all the time and a need for constant methodical work until the completion of correction.

The group must constantly push me, and we all do this for one another. After all, the group is not a team of external employees. The group is what we organize and hold and the reason why we obligate ourselves. And each one of us, when he feels pressure and resistance from within, must feel that the group is holding him and won’t let him relax or go beyond its limits. This situation must be constant.

Clearly, new outbreaks of ego, anger, rejection, and trouble will be awakened. And the group must awaken in us an increasingly sophisticated sense of responsibility and the need to work specifically on the new sensations that are awakened in us. This is so that nobody will flee or try to justify himself and say “All of this is nonsense. I don’t want it and it doesn’t interest me anymore.”

These disturbances are very sophisticated, but it is precisely through this sophistication that we begin to be aware of the Creator. It is specifically in this way that I learn about Him. Just as in life when we live with someone, we begin to understand him through all kinds of good and bad relationships in our mutual dance. It is the same thing here. We have no other way of becoming aware of the Creator.

In these states, we have to go through a particular amount of necessary mutual movements. The Creator shows me negative characteristics, I try to overcome them, He shows more, and again I overcome.

Like a gilded statue made from plaster covered with gold, so have to cover our desire for pleasure with a desire to give pleasure, meaning to use it in order to bestow. And so all kinds of egoistic, negative desires constantly come to me that are awakened regarding others, and I must cover them and transform them into characteristics of bestowal andlove instead of hatred. We advance according to this principle.

After I have learned a bit and have understood how the Creator plays with me, I am ready to be closer to Him. I have passed through the first stage. I am now aware of Him, understand Him, and can somehow resist Him. I have accumulated data and experience and am no longer found on such a level where it was possible to get rid of me, to confuse me with one small blow. I already understand more, I am more self-controlled, I have gathered a group that is appropriate for me, and have surrounded myself with friends, and so forth.

Ultimately, after I have learned some of the characteristics of the Creator, I can be in a more complex interaction with Him, and He then begins to be more revealed before me.

He is revealed to me: “Here I am”, and who are you?” I am negatively and egoistically worse. But I begin to understand that all of these are expressions within me, and from this I begin to understand the opposite positive image by correcting my characteristics, which have already become shared characteristics.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day One” 7/12/13, Lesson #2