Aiding or Opposing Spiritual Advancement

The path to attaining what is hidden through Kabbalah is unlike any other experience in this world. For example, when one is honored, this fills the ego and consequently causes great damage to the soul. The damage is considered to be so great that prominent righteous people who gained immense popularity and acquired followers considered that such fame had actually been a punishment from the Creator.

On the other hand, there are those great ones whom the Creator wishes to protect so that they do not forfeit even the slightest amount of their spiritual level. To these, the Creator sends not only followers but also those who hate them, envy them, oppose their views, and are ever ready to slander them. Thus the Creator balances the praise and honor received by these great ones with the suffering they experience at the hands of their contemporaries.

Having or Not Having Spiritual Strength

It is difficult for one who has not yet entered the spiritual realm and has not yet perceived spiritual strength and desires, to sustain actions and thoughts in the right direction. In contrast, it is easy and natural for a person to act in accordance with the nature of the spiritual worlds if that person has received spiritual strength and entered the spiritual realm, thus acquiring a higher disposition.

Remembering or Forgetting Spiritual Achievements

At the time of a spiritual decline, all former spiritual achievements disappear. The wish to serve the Creator and to reunite with Him, the wish to battle with oneself and to remain only in the state of spiritual ascent—all these disappear. Even the memory of these spiritual achievements disappears, as well as the awareness that a desire for spiritual ascent can exist.

One feels that, if these things truly exist, it is only by lofty and exalted thoughts that they can be maintained, while shielding oneself from the multitude of petty and minor pleasures of this world. But most ordinary people, to whose ranks one feels that one belongs at such a time, have other worries and aims in this world besides spiritual yearnings.

Descending then Ascending Towards the Creator

And how can a simple person such as myself, one asks, even dream of having a bond with the Creator, not to mention a close attachment with Him? The possibility itself seems absurd and remote.

It is of moments like these that it has been said: “Where you find the greatness of the Creator, you will also find His modesty,” since the Creator gives to each of His creations the possibility to unite with Him. And after the passage of some time, when those who were dejected soar spiritually once again, they must never forget this state of moral decline, so that they can truly appreciate the highly spiritual state of aspiring to unite with the Creator—the personal, individual gift from the Creator.

In such a case, there will be no need to experience this state of spiritual decline ever again, because through constant work on oneself, through an elevation of faith over reason, through learning and the observance of an established order of actions and thoughts, a person will thus create a spiritual vessel for a gradual spiritual ascent.

“How Opposites Work to Aid Your Spiritual Advancement” is based on the book, Attaining the Worlds Beyond by Dr. Michael Laitman.