Exist In Both Worlds

We learn how to work on the first spiritual level when from feeling ourselves  inside our egoism (in this world), we rise to a higher level than our egoism where the Creator dwells. We need to discern these two steps—our egoism and the level above it—in order to live simultaneously on both levels. This will be our first spiritual degree.

The first spiritual step is the most difficult one because it is not even like a baby taking its first steps; it is an entirely new world and a completely new attitude to reality. Cardinal changes occur inside a person. I realize that the natural picture of the world is seen within my egoism, in the desire to receive with which I was born and which was created by the Creator.

This world does not exist in such a form by itself, but it appears so in my egoistic properties, which can be changed, and then the world will also begin to change. Therefore, for now, the world seems to us as dark, egoistic, and then it will change.

Such an image of the world is given to us from above by the Creator so that we can rise from this state. For this, we need to imagine that all this comes from a higher degree where the light, bestowal, and love reigns, and fills all of reality. All this exists above my ego, above this world, and I want to cling to this higher state.

But the selfish image of the world that I see now: black, unhappy, hopeless, unjust, also comes from the light, and apparently, with a specific purpose. Therefore, I remain with the sensation of this world as it is, but I want to belong to a higher state, a higher world, where the Creator, the highest light, the power of bestowal and love reigns. I want to merge with it. Therefore, I divide myself in two, trying to cling to the highest level with all my heart and soul, despite the fact that I feel myself below in my selfish desire to receive. I do not see any contradiction in this: these two opposite poles must exist.

The one who breaks away from the lower world and feels only the highest is called an angel. Living only in the lower world is resembling an animal. But one who tries to exist in both worlds at the same time, exists in faith above reason. The force of bestowal that one wants to find in the higher world must be higher than the force of reception ruling in the lower world, our egoism.

Further progress is to descend lower and lower into this world with all of its miasmas, and accordingly rise higher and higher, up into the spiritual world: from -1 to +1, from -2 to +2, from -3 to +3, and so on. It is said: “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than him.” “Another” is my previous state. We need to descend to find out the broken desires, then raise them to a higher level and fix them. This is our job.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/4/19, The Absolute Zero