Why the Higher Degree Does Not Feel Good Yet
What Feels Bad May Be Beneficial
In relation to the Creator and the corrected state, there is no essential difference between the forces we experience as bad and those we experience as good. The difference exists in our sensation, in the way their influence is felt within us.
We know this even from our world. Forces that appear bad or unpleasant to a child may, in truth, be good and beneficial for the child's development. A child may experience school, discipline, demands, and limitations as harmful because they prevent the child from doing what feels pleasant at that moment. Yet from a more developed perspective, these pressures are understood as necessary.
There is therefore a great difference between what is presently felt and understood, and what is truly beneficial.
Knowledge Belongs to the Present Degree
Our sensation belongs to the degree on which we currently stand. This sensation is called "knowledge": my knowledge, my feeling, my understanding, and my perception.
The state that I need to reach, however, is a higher state, meaning a state of greater development and greater importance. Since I have not yet attained it, I cannot understand, weigh, or evaluate it according to my present intellect.
We see this clearly in children, and we can remember it from our own childhood. We did not understand the pressures placed upon us or why certain things were demanded of us. We evaluated everything according to what felt good or bad at that moment.
The intellect also develops from sensation and experience. Therefore, I cannot use my present intellect to accurately evaluate a state that lies beyond my present sensation.
Why We Misrepresent the Higher Degree
This problem is even greater in spirituality.
In this world, a child can be encouraged with candy, rewards, punishments, or fear. The child may be compelled to go to school and somehow pass through the educational process.
In spirituality, however, we must acquire every degree through our own recognition and desire. There is no coercion in spirituality. Therefore, the question arises: How can I desire something that is above me and that I cannot yet recognize as good?
Naturally, I imagine the higher degree according to my present understanding. I picture it as a better version of my current state.
I imagine greater comfort, greater knowledge, greater control, and greater fulfillment. I imagine that the higher degree will be more convenient and more enjoyable for me.
It does not naturally appear to me as greater concession, greater effort, greater investment, or greater giving. It does not appear as thinking less about myself, receiving less for myself, or no longer calculating everything according to what I personally feel.
Yet this is precisely why the higher degree is above my present sensation. I cannot feel its benefit because I have not yet developed the qualities through which that benefit can be perceived.
The Higher Degree Is Called Faith
For this reason, the higher degree in relation to the lower degree is called "faith."
Where I am now is called "knowledge." It is my present feeling, understanding, perception, and evaluation of reality.
When I attain the higher degree, what exists there will also become knowledge. I will feel it, understand it, and perceive it directly. But as long as I remain on the lower degree, the higher degree is called faith because it is still above my present knowledge and sensation.
To rise to the higher degree therefore means to give it greater importance than I give to what I presently feel and understand.
In Kabbalah, "higher" and "lower" primarily indicate measures of importance. The higher degree is one that I must regard as more important than my current calculations, even though I cannot yet feel its value.
No Coercion in Spiritual Development
In order to rise to the higher degree, I need a desire for it. Without desire, advancement is impossible because there is no coercion in spirituality.
It is true that a person receives blows and difficulties. But even after these pressures, the person must eventually reach agreement with the path. The person must consciously desire the next state.
Here we encounter a paradox. The more accurately I try to understand the higher degree according to my current nature, the less attractive it appears.
If I were shown clearly that spirituality means greater bestowal, greater self-nullification, less concern for myself, and greater similarity to the Creator, my egoistic desire would immediately turn away from it.
Therefore, the higher degree cannot initially be revealed to us as it truly is.
Concealment Makes Advancement Possible
It is a blessing that the higher degree is concealed from us. Without concealment, we would run away from it.
Instead, the higher degree appears to us as something shining and desirable. We imagine that it will bring us knowledge, fulfillment, understanding, peace, or some other benefit that our present desire can appreciate. We then begin to aspire toward it.
This is called Lo Lishma, "not for Her sake." A person does not yet desire the true spiritual degree. The person desires an image of spirituality built according to the present egoistic understanding.
Nevertheless, this desire allows the person to begin moving.
From Lo Lishma to Lishma
From Lo Lishma, one gradually comes to Lishma, "for Her sake."
I aspire toward the image of the higher degree that I have constructed for myself. Although this image is not yet true, my effort to attain it draws the influence of the higher degree upon me.
This influence is called the Surrounding Light.
The Surrounding Light does not fulfill my present egoistic expectations. Instead, it gradually changes my attitude and gives me what is called the "grace of Kedusha," the attraction toward holiness and bestowal.
I do not know exactly how this transformation takes place. Yet little by little, I begin to agree that spirituality may be different from what I initially imagined. I become willing to accept the spiritual state as it truly is, although everything is still experienced through concealment.
Rising Above Present Feeling
At this point, a person begins to understand that the higher degree is above the present intellect.
"Faith above reason" does not mean ignoring the intellect or believing something without examination. It means that I cannot evaluate the higher degree according to the sensations and understanding of my current degree.
To rise above reason means to give the higher state more importance than I give to my present feeling, even when my present feeling does not justify it.
However, I cannot do this through my own strength. I cannot truly nullify myself before the higher degree or before my future corrected state by relying only on the qualities that belong to my present state.
To acquire a more spiritual degree, I need an external force.
The Help of the Creator
This external force is called the help of the Creator.
The higher degree does not simply mean that I understand more, control more, or acquire more. Nor does it merely mean that I give up more things or perform more acts of giving.
A higher degree means that I become more similar to the Emanator, the Creator, the upper force. It is called "higher" because within it I attain a greater equivalence of form with the quality of bestowal.
The next state is therefore not merely an improved version of my present world. It is another degree of perception, another world, and a more spiritual form of existence.
I can acquire it only with the help of the upper force because my current nature cannot produce a quality that is truly above itself.
When the Forces of Separation Become Helpers
After a person acquires the higher state, the person looks back and sees the true relationship between the previous state and the state that has now been attained.
The forces that appeared to separate the person from the path, contradict the advancement, and prevent the attainment of the goal are then seen differently. The person discovers that these forces were beneficial and that they actually helped bring about the higher state.
The resistance revealed the person's inability to advance alone. It created the need for a true desire, for faith above reason, and for the help of the Creator.
In this way, even the "spies," the forces that speak against the spiritual path and describe it as undesirable or impossible, eventually become beneficial forces. Their opposition helps the person clarify what the higher degree truly demands.
What previously felt bad is then understood as part of the process of development.
Feeling and Truth
Every spiritual state has precise definitions. Yet before attaining a state, we judge it according to the sensations of our present degree.
This is the source of the difference between feeling and truth.
What feels pleasant is not necessarily beneficial, and what feels unpleasant is not necessarily harmful. Our present sensation can evaluate only what belongs to our present level of development.
The higher degree cannot initially be justified through our feelings because we do not yet possess the qualities with which it can be felt. To rise toward it means to place its importance above our present sensation and to ask for the force that can develop within us a new perception.
Only after attaining the higher degree do we understand why the entire process, including its resistance, concealment, and difficulties, was necessary.