Ride on the Creator’s Roller Coaster

On the spiritual path we are going through multiple ascents and descents. Just as He draws us closer to Himself, so He Himself places obstacles on the path to Him, so that we would learn to understand our own nature and be able to react to our every thought and desire during our attempts to break free from them.

Undoubtedly, such states can happen only among those who strive to attain Divine qualities, and to “break through” into the spiritual world—to such individuals the Creator sends various obstacles, which are felt as thoughts and desires of the body that push them away from spirituality.

All this is done so that we may discover our true spiritual state and relation to the Creator. To see how much we justify the acts of the Creator despite the objections of reason, how much we hate the Creator, who takes away all the pleasures from our lives, once filled with wonder and Light, and then thrown into the abyss of despair, because the body cannot find even an ounce of pleasure anymore in the altruistic conditions.

Becoming Acquainted with Our True Selves

It appears to us that it is the body that is objecting, and not the Creator Himself who acts upon our feelings and reason by giving us thoughts and emotions that are received either positively or negatively. The Creator Himself forms specific responses of the heart and mind in order to teach us, and to acquaint us with ourselves.

A mother teaching her baby shows him something, lets him taste it, and immediately explains it to him. Similarly, the Creator shows and explains to us our true attitude toward spirituality, and our inability to act independently.

The Struggle Between Two Contradicting Goals

The most difficult aspect of spiritual ascent is the fact that within us are two opinions, two forces, two goals, two desires, all of which constantly collide. Even with respect to the goal of creation: on the one hand, we must attain unity in our qualities with the Creator, just so, on the other hand, we would beget a single desire to part with everything for the sake of the Creator.

But the Creator is absolutely altruistic and has no need of anything, wishing only that we should experience absolute pleasure. That is His goal in creation. However, these goals appear contradictory; first, we must relinquish everything to the Creator, while simultaneously being gratified and attaining ultimate pleasure.

From the Correction to the Goal of Creation

The answer to this seeming contradiction is that one of them is not a goal but a means to achieving the goal. First, we must reach the condition where all thoughts, desires and actions are situated outside the boundaries of egoism, when they are ultimately altruistic, solely “for the sake of the Creator.” But since there is nothing in the universe other than man and the Creator, everything that falls outside the boundaries of our five senses (body) is automatically of the Creator.

Once we have attained the correction of creation, that is, the congruence of our personal qualities with the qualities of the Creator, then we begin to grasp the goal of creation, to receive from the Creator the unlimited pleasure, unbounded by the limits of egoism.

“Want to Know what the Goal of Humanity Is?” is based on the book, Attaining the Worlds Beyond by Dr. Michael Laitman.