Discussion about Lecture in Arosa, Talk 3
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Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
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Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Reader: We are reading from the Arosa document, section Altruism is Life's Principle, Page3.
Through attaining nature’s unity under the principle of “one for all,” we begin to perceive the uniqueness of the human phenomenon and its place in the world. The peculiarity of humans, compared to the rest of nature, lies not only in the power and nature of human desires, but in the fact that human desires are continuously changing and evolving. Thus, human desires are the motivating force that propels and develops civilization.
Nature as we see it in front of us can be divided into four parts or degrees: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking. Each degree, each level is different as we learn in its desire to receive. The desire to enjoy, which is the desire to receive, is at its least at the level of the inanimate or still. Therefore, the desire to receive invites or awakens this desire in the still.
This means the desire is the force. The desire to receive is the internal force. It already determines all the attributes and because it is small, the form that it creates is the still, inanimate form. The still doesn’t need anything; it doesn’t move. It only needs, let’s say, to hold its structure in some form, like the molecular structure, like H2O, etc. It is not important what form. With the still form the desire is only to hold itself in existence, and we see how the desire to receive, which is at still level, forces it.
Next we have vegetative. The desire to receive in vegetative is much greater. It’s unique in that it changes, and then it’s not enough that it's there and exists: it also has to go through some process. But again, the process is unique, although it’s similar in all types of vegetation: day, night, summer, winter. Plants live for a few months in a year, and then all of them die together. This means they have no character at all.
We have a little bit of character in the animate, the living. How is it expressed? It moves from place to place. The animate already has its group, individual life, genders—male or female. They give birth to more offspring, but also in particular seasons and place, according to what nature determines in an absolute manner. The animate doesn’t especially know what is not in the animate, such as the past, present and future. There is no sensation of time at all, just the moment that it’s alive.
At the level of the speaking, there is an awareness of oneself, of time—past, present, future, and certainly motion—and changes that occur. It’s not only that I have good because it is good for me, but rather it is good for me if it is bad for the other person. This means one already has the sensation of fellow man.
Therefore, one’s ego and desires can always grow. According to how much one sees in other people’s things, one wants them for oneself. A person wants them so that others won’t have. Then accordingly, in comparison to other people, one would seem to be in a better state.
We find even more and more that there are many discernments in man that we don’t know. We have yet to open them and develop, but what we also see here is the difference in essence of all the levels. All the types of the still, vegetative, and animate are operated on by the force from nature to be as they are. Nature (in Gimatria is Elokim, God) forces them and they don’t change: if they live in such a way, they die in such a way.
Rather Adam, a person who was born, although nature operates him, he grows. In what way does he grow? He grows in his mind; he grows in development. At birth he knows nothing, but he grows to such a state, maximum state, where he leaves behind him all the parts of reality, the parts of Creation.
For example, let’s compare a person who is one-year old to an animate who is one-year old. The animate, even a week or two weeks after he is born, already knows how to maintain itself; it knows where it is and so on. After a year we say that some animates, like an elephant or a dog, are already great. They are already adults, mature in all matters. However, many years pass until a person grows and accordingly also his ability to be great, to be an adult.
Thus, we have much greater sensitivity to our environment, which the other levels don’t have. A person has the sensation of time: past, present, and future. From this he has a sensation to the perception of Godliness. Another thing which is unique to man and not to the still, vegetative, and animate is that a person develops from generation to generation. If we don't see time as the personal life of a person, but rather as the process of history, then within that historical process a person develops in his desire.
It’s not enough that he develops in his desire during the course of his life. When he is born, he doesn’t want anything. Then he grows and grows, which an animal doesn’t do and certainly more than the vegetative and still. Rather, in a person, we have growth from generation to generation: the next generation has a greater desire more developed, more egoistic. This brings us development of society, countries, nations.
In everything a person does he is always constantly developing, during his life and during the generations. If we are talking about the development of nature, then the person didn’t complete his development yet and who knows where his development will bring him. We have not reached the end of our development; we are continuing. Although we don’t feel good in this process, this process has not ended. This means that in any case, we still have many more states before us, and we should be familiar with them. This is our future.
During our life, from generation to generation, humanity is developing more and more. This is in contrast with the rest of all the parts of reality. This means a person is not just like some animal or more developed animal. Rather he has discernments in him that are unique, and they determine his degree as the speaking. This is not a monkey that developed more. He has discernments, tendencies, inclinations, and forces. We do not have such things in nature. We see that nature relates to a person in a unique matter. It’s always developing him; every moment it’s developing him. In addition, each and everyone in a personal matter are different from the others, in each moment.
Question: Why are we speaking about the still, vegetative, and animate as having desire of different strength, and not that they each want different things?
The magnitude of the desire to receive in a creature—still, vegetative, animate or speaking—determines his degree, namely what he desires and how much he desires. The desire determines the movements, the attributes and the abilities: his physical ability, his spiritual ability, his mental ability, his ability to criticize, to draw conclusions.
Everything is a desire. From the desire the mind grows, and the mind grows only in order to fill the desire. As much as the desire is greater and more developed, that’s how much more complex he grows. Accordingly, the mind becomes bigger, more complex and more developed. The mind is the fruit, the result of the desire, because if the desire lacks something, then the mind grows.
If the desire was full, we wouldn’t have the mind. Why would a person think and what would push him to think, if not for a deficit, a person’s lack? This we see in our daily life. When does a person start to think? When he feels bad he wants something. Give a person everything that he truly wants and we will not develop him; we will shut him up. On the other hand, if he had more knowledge and he also had more pain, the additional suffering adds knowledge.
With the exception of humans, all of nature consumes only what it needs for sustenance. Humans crave more food, more sex, and more physical comfort than they need for their sustenance. This state is especially true in desires that are uniquely human, in the (endless) pursuit of wealth, power, honor, fame, and knowledge.
This means that in addition to what we spoke about, if we are speaking about the desires, they are not just great desires in a person, rather in all of nature. We spoke about the inanimate. It only wants to hold itself in the same form like an atom, molecule, or crystal. It wants to hold its structure. Its desire to receive is like this, not to change. That’s why it’s called the "still." The vegetative wants to develop according to a specific program found in it, which is general for all plants of the same type. The animate is restricted by this: it lives according to orders and instincts. It knows exactly what to do and it carries it out.
But in a person we spoke about his desires. His desires are desires that are only partially operated on by nature. This means that in a person there are desires called "bodily desires" and "human desires." Bodily desires are food, sex, and family—everything that belongs to the body. This means that if a person lives alone, he would also need these things. But also in the desires for food, sex, and family, he desires more and more. It’s not enough for him to be in a cave or in some corner. He has a wife and children, the animal desires of the body on the level of animate, but no, he wants more than that.
Other than the bodily desires, it's mainly that man has a desire for money, respect, and knowledge. These desires are already desires, which are entirely not found in the operation from nature, rather they are dependent on society. Then from generation to generation, man develops a desire for money, respect, or knowledge and also combinations of them. In these desires a person is unrestricted because he is jealous. He desires and sees what is happening to everyone around him, and he is impressed by every single thing. Therefore, this means these desires are not operated on by nature but rather by society.
If a person was not in society, he would not have a desire for money, respect, or control—let’s say, control and respect are the same thing—or for knowledge. He would not need all these things. He would live like they lived back then, in the barbarian period. This means man is so different from the animate that we cannot comprehend this change.
As to how much he is dependent upon the society, which is constantly changing, and he changes all the time, they are both impressed by one another and build one another. He is like someone thrown into a volcano and doesn’t know what’s happening to him there. He is developing by a thousand and one different things in the sensation of past, present and future.
He is impressed by every person in his generation and also in all the generations. He is now jealous of Napoleon. He wants to be like Napoleon; he has such an attribute. It means that it’s not enough for him, those six billion which are now before him and also in the past and future. All this influences a person. We don’t know how much this changes us. Thoughts that pass from one another and desires always build us, in every moment in a different manner.
I am not talking about the things we can seemingly measure and that are admittedly so. But rather we exist in such a whirlpool of mutual influence, and we are all and every one of us dependent on one another, not only in our physical state. Rather we are dependent on one another in forms that we don't even know; we are not familiar with them. Past, present and future sensations of the other people are always developing inside of a person. He is always developing by society, which is constantly changing, from generation to generation. Society is also changing from generation to generation. A person has reincarnations. His soul is always reincarnating and coming clothed differently. In short, it’s very hard for us to even understand and determine about this creature that he has something stable in him at all.
Question: The inclination of society is towards money, respect, and knowledge. If I take a person and put him on a desert island, money and respect are lost, but he will always desire knowledge.
No, knowledge is not just to know what is happening to a person in nature. No. Knowledge is about how to fulfill himself, the person in him.
Question: Do you think a person who operates according to his desires is actually worse than an animal, because animals don’t lack anything or have these desires?
No, we are talking about a person as an animal, meaning everything that’s revealed to us from nature and society, from our great school, humanity. It’s all called "as animals, they are alike," because we are developing by a program that is found in nature, only we don’t understand it, how we are developing, how nature develops, how humanity, society and the surroundings develop.
But because we are not changing it from within ourselves, we are not getting into it consciously—in understanding and in essential change—that we are doing this. We are operating; we are doing it. We are a bit different from the animals and society is changing and everything, but our relationship to it is like animals. This means we operate according to our mood and what’s happening. Even though we want to make changes in society, we operate within the framework of our nature that is set for us. Even if you think like this and he thinks this and this, we are all different. This is also so within nature.
It means if we do not draw to the degree of man the force from Above, truly an Upper Force, then everything that is occurring in us and to us is called in any case "animal level," because we work with what we received.
It’s true that it’s always changing, and in the animate it doesn’t change. Take an elephant from a thousand years ago and today: he is almost the same. Maybe there will be changes because nevertheless the vessels are also changing, this is clear. But it has no personal, private changes of its own, like we have in each and every one of us. These things are also set, determined, and come from within nature, without us taking any part.
Man is what’s added from himself. So where is the “himself”? It's only if we take the Upper Force and with it we will make changes in our nature. If we operate within forces which nature set for us, it is called "we are like animals." Then you are more developed, not more.
Desires for things that are necessary for existence are not considered egoistic, but natural, since they come as nature’s commands. These desires are present in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate, as well as in humans. Only those human desires that exceed what is necessary for existence are egoistic.
In addition to the fact that the human desires grow exponentially, they incorporate pleasure from degrading others, or seeing others suffer. These desires are not given to us by nature, but are instilled in us through education and social environment.
Our continuing evolvement in those desires indicates that we have not completed our evolution. Only these desires can be considered altruistic or egoistic, according to the purpose with which we use them. At present, their development yields progress along with a comprehensive crisis.
We have said previously that in a still, vegetative, and animate, the operations are from inside of nature. There is nothing outside of nature. The still, vegetative, and animate are operated by instincts and when they are operated on in this way, by nature, what they receive is called "necessary" because from their own side they don’t add anything.
Look at the lion. He killed someone, ate his part and that’s it. He doesn’t need to prey more than this until he will be hungry again, finds something and eats it.
Man, in contrast, is willing to kill the whole world, the whole world should be under him. As much as he fills himself, he cannot fill his Kelim (vessels). This means here there is no necessary minimum like there is in nature. There is a person and let’s say this person needs a thousand calories a day, a wife, children, a corner, something minimal.
If he were operated on like in nature, these wouldn't be found even at a level of bodily necessity: food, sex, family, a house and things like that, which animals have as well. Rather in this he also needs money, respect, and knowledge. Here he is unrestricted and takes these bodily things. So these are bodily and human desires. Then all these desires, even the bodily, are human. All these desires that he wants to use, he actually wants more than he needs because he needs what the body demands. This is called the "ego" and especially "my ego" if it’s against others.
Therefore, what is beyond a person’s minimum, his necessity, this is the ego and ego is even greater when it’s against others. And against the others there are a few levels, or "I want to be more than everyone." Then they say "the person is advancing, he wants more" and this determines his development.
This means all our development from generation to generation and what we are developing—a different society, technology, science and all sorts of things—come from our ego. On the one hand, the basis of our development is negative from the beginning because it comes from the drive, which is inside of the ego. On the other, when we build our development—in most cases without maybe even knowing, but also consciously—we are ruining other people because we want to be more than others, to do more than others.
For example, we do something and as a result made more than the other, or the other has something but we want to have more. Or we can also go to the opposite: that one wants to kill him, to lower him, degrade him. In this he is also getting to be more than him, because it is relative to be more than the other. It could be more than the other, if I have an additional piece of bread or huge companies and billions compared to him.
It means the ego could be seemingly positive or seemingly negative, but it’s still entirely ego. Man’s development, if it’s not in the direction of connecting everyone in one society, is entirely negative. This is what we, our generation, are starting to feel now as a result of development of all generations.
Man’s excessive and developing egoism testifies to its incompleteness. By egoism dominating over man, it deprives him of instincts that ensure his survival.
A person distances himself from nature, and by being further away from nature has lost a lot of correct and good discernments. And at the end of development—though this is still not the end of development but as a result of egoistical development, the natural one, let’s say as it is in our nature—begins to sense himself like we see in the wisdom of Kabbalah.
You cannot ever fill the Kli (vessel) in a direct manner because the pleasure cancels the desire and it is not felt, and then the person needs to yearn to double it. Because the pleasure is one, and the vessel, which is empty, is one, when they meet and he wants to enjoy it, they both disappear, and he now feels a double desire, a double deficit. There is nothing he can do.
Thus, in every generation, we feel ourselves even more and more empty. This pushes us, develops our mind and our ability. Deficits, desires develop the abilities to attain the desired, but we never reach the desired until we come to a state where our vessel within this world is saturated, and we see that we cannot fill our heart. As much as we desire food, sex, respect, money, knowledge, and what is not found in this world, it’s all worth zero.
In this situation it’s not just enough to equal zero, so therefore a person wants to kill himself. He only wants drugs or depression or wishes to commit suicide. Against these the point in the heart awakens, and this is occurring in our generation. This is the result of egoistical development of thousands of years.
Question: What does it mean that this egoism controls man? He wants or he steals from him the instincts and such things?
The egoism of man is that a person begins to develop it, above being the barbarian he was once. We are speaking of a person who develops from man, who was not actually a man but rather an animal. What is an animal?
Man lived on earth, but his desire was no more developed than the animals. What did he want? He lived in a group. He lived as married. He entirely belonged to some group, and he lived in such a way that he did not have more desires besides existing. In such a form he was equal to nature, like animals and beasts or all types of nature, which feel nature and therefore they do not make mistakes.
It is said, "Animal does not make mistakes." Why doesn't it make mistakes? Because everything operates according to laws, to programs, according to instincts, unless maybe it’s sick where there is something wrong with its role. But there is no such thing that the animal just makes a mistake. Rather the balance of forces always operates and that is how a creature exists, in how nature operates it from the inside and outside and so on. It is a result of nature. There is no freedom of choice here or anything. Where to turn, what to do and how to hold itself every single moment, this way or that way, is all the operation of forces on this creature, and it has no freedom of choice at all.
This is how it was for primitive man who lived back then. When he started to develop and became the modern man that wears a tie, then everything he acquired in the development was by egoistical development, and in this he was contradicting nature.
When man contradicts nature, he doesn’t feel nature anymore. Nature doesn’t operate on him one hundred percent. Nature operates on him according to the specific laws of nature, and man reacts. Let’s say nature controls one percent and at ninety-nine percent man operates according to himself.
What is according to himself? This is also nature, but in the forms that they use, the desires are not directly tied to the operation; money, respect, knowledge, desires from society, and desires which come from the breaking of the vessels. Let’s say it this way, because the difference between a person and an animal is that in an animal the phenomenon is not from the breaking of the vessels. There is no soul as we call it, which you do have in man. Where man operates his broken vessels, it is called the "ego." The broken vessels are called "his ego" or "desire." Where man receives the minimum he needs and in this he is equal to nature, this is not in the broken vessels; this is a direct matter.
But where he operates the broken vessels, this is a part of the Creator from Above which operates him and operates the broken vessels, and then he needs to correct them. If he operates them in a form as they are by him, it is called the "ego" And if he begins to operate these broken vessels in order to correct, then he returns to his soul. That’s it. If man operates these broken vessels, his ego, he is already not in balance with nature. He is not connected with nature; nature does not operate on him.
There is nature and there is the breaking. Nature operates the still, vegetative, animate, and the speaking part in man, which is called the still in him. However, nature does not operate the vegetative, animate, and speaking in him.
Man’s body is mainly operated on by nature. We invite many problems and diseases to our bodies, from degrees higher than the body, but actually it's operated on by nature. As much as we ruin it, we do that. When man develops the vegetative, animate and speaking in him, he is entirely coming from the breaking and this is the problem.
Question: In the previous diagram you drew a state where the vessel grows, and reaches the stage that he is so great that he is empty. As a result, he understands that he must change and then a point in the heart awakens. If not, he goes into drugs, depression, etc. But in reality the opposite thing occurs. Meaning that the vessel grows, a person feels empty, but the point in the heart does not awaken in him. On the contrary, he gets even more depressed, gets into drugs. Essentially, only a few people come to spirituality, a majority come to drugs and similar things.
We are only at the beginning of the process. You are right. Meantime, the point in the heart awakens only in a small part of humanity, which also happens along with depression and emptiness. In the other part, in the bigger one, it does not awaken. We will wait and see.
This is because despite what happens to us, there is a pyramid, and this is what operates. How many people in the world truly belong to spirit? Just the tip of the pyramid. All the rest belong to the corporeal. Maybe only 0.01 percent are related to the spiritual.
You say: “Why doesn't the point in the heart awaken in all of us?” In the end, of course "everyone will know me from the smallest to the greatest" as it is written. But how will they know? How many forces are operating from the Rosh (head), and they are then operating the Guf (body)? This means we need very few high forces and very few unique souls, high souls in order to operate the rest of the system.
Here is an example. When we draw this pyramid, it doesn't look so bad, but this pyramid actually is extremely wide until Ein Sof (Infinity). Why? Because how many still do we have in the universe? I talked about this more than once. The entire universe is still. Vegetative, live animate, and speaking are on the face of the earth. This is our earth, and below is the entire universe.
So how can we compare the small planet earth and small life upon it with the rest of the universe? You see the pyramid is extremely wide, so therefore, how many people do you really need on the top? Those with points in the heart that are only now beginning to awaken.
Later on it will awaken in everyone, but these people will work in connection with the others. Otherwise, in others it will not awaken. We need to awaken ourselves even more and bring the method of awakening to all the rest. They will stay in a depression, on drugs and in all these areas, on the edge, on the borders, where they are in states that are worse than today, until we will bring them the method.
They themselves cannot discover it, process it, learn it, and utilize it. Look how people operate in the world. How many people truly think about how to manage and how to arrange the world? All the rest carry it out. Even at high levels, which are seemingly managing, they are those who carry it out. The process is according to this, so in the meantime we don’t have anything to get angry about.
As mentioned above, all of nature’s forces besides the human ego are in balance, forming a single system, and only man disturbs their harmony. Everything in nature is connected and aspires for equilibrium within itself and with its surrounding environment. Violation of the balance leads to disintegration of the organism, illness, and the ultimate death of the organism. The possibility of maintaining and restoring equilibrium is a necessary condition for the existence of life.
This is the rule of equivalence of form that operates from the beginning on all of Creation. Why? Because we have the upper light Atzmuto, the Creator, (His essence) that operates on the top of the Yod, on the creature, on the desire to receive, and this is the desire to give. This is contradicting one another, and because they are contradicting, the Creator operates on the creature, in order to bring him to correction. He lowers him into this world, and during history He brings him to development, say in the 21st century, until a person ascends back. This is so that this creature will ascend back to the degree of the Creator, to His height. To reach this difference, we have to make this the whole trip.
The initial state, Ein Sof, is called the first state. The whole trip is called the second state. The final state we reach is called the third state. So the whole trip is needed only for the creature to reach the level of the Creator.
I drew such a small distance between the two degrees, however, in reality this is the difference between ’existence from existence’ and ‘existence from absence,’ from existence and non-existence. It’s something utterly unique.
What is initially found in the Thought of Creation? It is that same difference that you have to bring to the zero degree. This force only operates within this Thought, there's nothing else. It is called the “Thought of Creation to bestow good upon the creatures." The Light operates, forces, and develops the Kli. All this is the same force, the force to balance itself with the Creator.
In what (the creature can reach balance with the Creator)? In the attribute of bestowal. Within the creature there is an attribute or desire to receive. The creature has to reach the state where, even with this desire to receive, it gives. The desire to receive remains: it's called the "creature stays." It reaches this through the Ohr Hozer (the Returning Light) and its intention to equivalence of form to the Creator, to bestowal.
This one force operates on the creature during his entire development from above to below and below to above, in all things and opportunities. We have no communication or contact with anything else other than the force, the law which operates for equivalence of form.
We perceive and sense only according to how we are in equivalence of form with the Creator. We sense ourselves as much as our mind is balanced, and in equivalence of form with the desire. Wherever you can point out where this law of equivalence of form is found, either positively as much as it is equivalent to something, or negatively when it is still not equivalent. Only in the difference between these things, do we feel the cancellation of this law. If we reach equivalence, we loose the sensation. We sense contrast, the separation, the difference, like black on white. We don’t feel only black or only white.
Therefore, in our life, if we discover ourselves, we will understand that all our deficits are a result of the lack of equivalence of form with the force, the Creator. This will finally motivate us to act to reach balance. With this motivation, we will always operate correctly.
Nature did not give us instincts but gave us freedom, society, and ourselves in unending development, and humanity unending in its development, and our ego in absolutely everything. If we worry where we are all the time in our free desires, and if we worry about being in balance with nature because all of nature is bestowal, then we will reach correction.
How would we describe nature? There is the world and our part in the world and nature. The Upper Light operates through this world, which we are familiar with, upon us. We need to understand that the entire world, through the Upper Light that relates to us, is good and the bestower of good. This is nature, and man is the only part that is egoistic and lacking balance.
Or we can say it another way: The Upper Light which comes from Ein Sof, passes through all of the worlds and also through this world to where we are.
We have to see the Ein Sof, as it goes through AK ( Adam Kadmon), Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, Machsom and to this world. The self is in this world and the Light operates upon us. Everything comes from there. This means what we see before us, comes to us from Ein Sof throughthese dressings. We grasp the Ein Sof and these dressings according to our egos. We only need to balance and correct ourselves. Read Kabbalah Science and the Meaning of Life. There is something there about the perception of reality that is also built by us, by equivalence of form.
Baal HaSulam says we grasp through the five senses, the total sum, in our minds, in our photographic memories. Here we grasp our egos and see in our egos the reality, nothing else. That reality around us is Ein Sof.
It turns out that if we don’t come to the internal correction of our egos, then we don’t see the world and ourselves correctly. We are in some kind of illusion, in a bubble that is entirely our egos, and we don't see anything. We are in a sphere that is entirely a mirror and we see ourselves all the time.
Wherever we look, we see ourselves. We grasp ourselves, how we are and how we always see how this is for our good: that we see this way and that we think this way about everything. We are not aware of what the world is outside of us. The world is how we always interpret, sense, and understand it.
Until we are able to change this perception, we will not feel nature. We will have to deal with it and this whole process is a gap that we will feel as suffering, diseases. It’s not important what happens with man. Everything that happens, happens as a result of lack of balance with nature. We have no other reason for our states.
Question: So, the broken vessels are the sensation of time and they are stopping me from feeling EinSof. But on the other hand without this, I would not feel it? So, this whole process is necessary and natural?
The whole process is necessary until the current moment. From here onwards nothing is necessary, but everything is dependent upon us. Up until this moment, "there is none else besides Him." From this moment onwards, without “If I am not for myself, then who is for me?"
Question: Once you say that the attribute of the Creator is bestowal and once you say it is above bestowal and reception.
The attribute of the Creator is bestowal.
Question (cont’d): But you say that the property of the Creator is bestowal, and we have to combine the two properties: reception and bestowal, the left and the right lines…
That’s in lines. The Creator is bestowal, giving. He does not have the desire to receive. He only gives. Why? Because that’s how it is, like the sun, there is an emission of energy, of light. This is the attribute of the Creator, giving. Rather we, in order to give us birth, in order to exist, need to be the opposite form from Him. This means in the desire to receive. The creature is desire to receive; this is the substance, matter.
You cannot change the substance, but in order for the creature to reach the degree of the Creator, he needs to do something with himself in order to be a giver. What does it mean to be a giver? He must use his Kli, vessel. He cannot begin giving something from himself. He is not a supplier of something. How can he do it, if he has the intention to receive from the giver? He receives from the giver with the intention to bestow good to the one who brings him pleasure. What does he give? Intention. He gives the intention, that’s it. This is what we need and with this we come to the equivalence of form.
We have the left line called "the desire to receive" and the right line is "the desire to bestow," the Creator. If we use both of them correctly, to receive in order to bestow, this is called the middle line, the third line and in this is the entire wisdom of Kabbalah.
Question: Even at the beginning of the lesson you said reception and bestowal are not ours, they are the Creator’s.
The right and the left both belong to the Creator. Our substance belongs to the Creator. The desire to receive and forces we receive from Him in order to correct ourselves, are also from the Creator. We only need to make this order. This order is called "building intention." We need to obtain that ourselves, build it ourselves. This is something we don't get from above, but rather we need to find ourselves, in ourselves, from the data that come from Him. The equivalence of form is precisely in intention, because in substance it cannot be. Our desire to receive will always be a desire to receive, our substance. Only the intention can be equal to the Creator. If the intention is to give, it is equal to His desire to give.