Working for Self-Gain Provides Fleeting Pleasures

The first stage we go through when trying to understand the purpose of creation is working on ourselves for personal gain (“not for His name”) since there are many ways to feel pleasure—eating, playing games, receiving honors and glory, etc. These methods, however, allow us to feel only small and fleeting pleasures. The motivations behind such actions are “for the self.”

The Level above Agonizing over Self-Gain

We can attain much greater pleasures by having faith in the Creator; in the fact that He is Almighty; in His Oneness with respect to ruling over the entire world, including everything that happens to each of us, in His Dominion over everything that concerns each of us, in His Willingness to help, when hearing our prayers and in having faith in all of the above.

Only after we have accomplished the first stage of this work will we receive very different, special sensations of a higher spiritual state. As a result, we will no longer be concerned with whether or not we will gain personally from our actions. On the contrary, all our thoughts and calculations will be directed toward attaining spiritual truth. Our thoughts and intentions will focus on yielding to the essence of the true laws of creation, to perceiving and carrying out only the Will of the Creator, which itself will ensue from our perception of His grandeur and power.

Transferring Concern from the Self to the Creator

Then, we will forget about our past motivations and will realize that we have not the slightest inclination to think or worry about ourselves, that we completely surrender to the grandeur of the all-transcending Supreme Reason, and cannot hear the voice of our own reason at all. Our main worry will center on how to do something pleasing and agreeable for the Creator. Such a state is known as “not for oneself.”

The underlying cause of faith is the fact that there is no greater pleasure than to perceive the Creator, and to be filled with Him. But in order for us to be able to receive this pleasure unselfishly, we need the Creator to be concealed; the state of concealment allows us to observe the commandments without receiving any pleasure in return. Such an act is considered “not for the sake of the reward.”

Reaching the State of Perceiving the Creator

When we reach this state and create such a spiritual vessel, we immediately begin to see and perceive the Creator with our entire being. The reason that earlier prompted and convinced us to work for the Creator for the sake of personal benefit disappears, and is even compared to death, because we were once connected to life, and attained this feeling by virtue of faith.

But if we begin to work on attaining faith above reason when we are already in the corrected state, we receive back our souls, the Light of the Creator.

“How to Attain Freedom from Always Worrying about Self-Gain” is based on the book, Attaining the Worlds Beyond by Dr. Michael Laitman.