Spiritual Gradations
When we are gradually filled with the Light of the Creator, the stages of this process are called “spiritual gradations” or “worlds.” Life’s trials and tribulations force us to move towards the goal of creation. However, if instead of pleasure the ego experiences great suffering, it is willing to forfeit the desire to "receive" in order to end the suffering, since receiving nothing is preferable to receiving torment.
Various afflictions pursue us until we forgo the urge "to receive" and want only "to give." The only difference between people is the kind of pleasure that each hopes to receive: animalistic (bodily pleasures, also found in animals), human (fame, honor, power), and cognitive (discoveries, achievements).
In everyone, the drive towards each of these pleasures is composed of proportions unique to the specific person. The human intellect presents itself merely as a tool to help us achieve our desires. While these desires may change, the intellect helps to find ways to attain a variety of goals.
When the ego begins to suffer, it abandons the desire for enjoyment and becomes inclined to "give." The period necessary to completely eradicate the ego is said to be 6,000 years. However, this number has no relationship to our concept of time.
Egoism is known as the "body." When we are under its influence, we sense that it is spiritually dead. Thus, we "kill" the body by departing from it in five stages, from the simplest stage to the most egoistic stages.
For those egoistic desires we manage to resist, we receive the Light of the Creator. In this manner we sequentially receive five types of Light: nefesh, ruach, neshama, haya and yehida.
The stages of our spiritual elevation include:
1. The pursuit of the egoistic pleasures of this world. We may finish our lives without leaving this stage, unless we begin to study Kabbalah. Then we will proceed to Stage 2.
2. The recognition of egoism as harmful to us, and evil, followed by our renunciation of its use. Precisely at the center of our egoistic desires is the source, or seed, of our spirituality.
At a certain moment in our lives, we begin to feel a desire and longing for an understanding and sensing of spirituality. If we behave in accordance with these desires and develop and cultivate them, rather than suppress them, these desires will begin to grow.
Later, by adding the proper intention acquired from our teacher’s guidance, we begin to sense for the first time, the spiritual Light in our new spiritual desires. Its presence helps us attain the confidence and strength we need to further correct our egoism.
3. The attainment of the state in which we desire only to please the Creator with our every action.
4. The correction of the newly acquired desire to "give" into desires "to receive for the sake of the Creator." To do this, we must use our desires for pleasure, but with an intention "for the sake of the Creator."
The commencement of this task is called the "revival of the dead." In this state, we transform the rejected egoistic desires into the opposite, thus winning doubly. We are able to both enjoy the Creator and our likeness to Him. The conclusion of the process of changing egoism into altruism is known as “the end of correction."
Every time we correct a part of our desires, we receive a part of our souls, and this Light allows us to continue until we completely alter ourselves and regain our souls. The amount of Light, that part of the Creator, corresponds exactly to our prototypical egoism, as was created by the Creator.
By completely transforming our egoism into altruism, we can wholly eliminate any remaining barriers to receiving the Light of the Creator. We may now fill ourselves with the Creator, fully merging with the Creator by perceiving the entire ocean of Light around us and by enjoying it.
We have repeatedly been made aware of our limited potential to understand the world.
The less we understand ourselves, the less we can understand the Creator.
All our perceptions are the result of subjective sensations, the reactions of our bodies to external stimuli.
In other words, we receive and perceive only the amount of information that is selectively sent to us, in accordance with the quality and quantity, or depth, of our potential to perceive it.