Rav Yehuda Ashlag writes that all people throughout history are actually one long chain of souls. To see and experience this oneness of humanity, you must have an eternal soul that is connected to the eternal, to the Creator. That\u2019s the kind of soul that Kabbalists are talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you see why your personal correction is so tightly connected to everybody else\u2019s correction. All souls are linked as one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here it\u2019s our own responsibility to choose. We have to decide that we want our souls, and we have to build our souls by ourselves, along with other souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the language of Kabbalah, we say that souls are connected and integrated in a single body. For each soul to provide all the souls with what they need, all souls have to understand one another and realize that they are integrated in the others\u2019 desires. In other words, in your soul, you have to be incorporated with all the other desires, of all people, so you can provide them with what they want. Each cell in the body does just that; it feels what the body requires of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Off Course<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Kabbalah, there is a difference between what people want <\/em>and what they need<\/em>. What they want is what their egos tell them they want. What they need is a desire for spirituality because this is a desire for giving, the only lasting desire that can be fulfilled endlessly. By having a desire for spirituality, you feel eternal satisfaction because you sense both the desire and its satisfaction simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ___________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a personal level, you must know what others need from you and provide what they need. In this way, you become like a complete body. You contain the desire of others within you because of your love for them, and you <\/em>want what they <\/em>need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you work with others in that way, you feel that you, personally, have grown tremendously. Then you can give them what they need, and you become one unique and unified great creature, standing opposite the Creator.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you want to give others what they need, you have become like the Creator. When you give someone else what he or she needs, you instill a part of yourself in the other person. As the other person receives, it begins to build in the other the understanding that giving to others is good, valuable, and\u2014most importantly\u2014pleasurable. In time, the giver begins to feel that it is not the giving to others that is pleasurable but the giving itself, the state of being a giver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you think about it for a moment, you\u2019ll see that nothing, even in our physical world, is created without giving. How can creatures be born without their parents\u2019 giving? Newborns are born because their parents love them and want to give to them, even before they come into existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This brings home one point: if this world exists, it means that its Creator loves it. If we, too, want to love our world, we have to learn to see it through His eyes, beyond our self-centered egos. If you want to give people what they need, you begin to see the world through the Creator\u2019s eyes, and thus, gradually, achieve the purpose of creation: acquiring the Creator\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you give because giving has merit in your eyes, without any direct or indirect benefits from the giving, it\u2019s considered that your actions are of your own free will. The giving is not for yourself, but for the sake of giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, no act goes unrewarded because, as we\u2019ve just explained, the Creator wants <\/em>to give to us. But the reward for liking to give is seemingly detached from the giving itself. It\u2019s the revelation of the giver, the Creator. In other words, the reward for acting like the Creator is discovering the Creator and why He does what He does. By that you achieve the final correction, and the purpose of your creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n _____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Off Course<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Love thy friend, or neighbor, as thyself, taught by the great Kabbalist Rabbi Akiva, is a maxim that virtually all religions and teachings have adopted. But this is a very dangerous maxim if lived without its final goal\u2014reaching the Creator. Baal HaSulam writes that this is exactly what happened with Russia\u2019s communism. It was doomed to fail because it used nature\u2019s law of altruism without its final purpose: reaching the Creator through equivalence of form with Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ___________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key to the whole process is a shift in thought and awareness. You need not change anything <\/em>in the whole world except your own <\/em>attitude to all the other souls, all the other people. This is why the saying \u201cLove thy friend as thyself\u201d is enough to correct the whole world. There is no other way to influence and change the world.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the previous chapter we said that egoism is the engine of change. The greater your desires, the more evolved you are because when you want more, you can also receive more. You can achieve more because your will to receive drives you and gives you the strength to get what you want. Such a person is stronger because of his stronger willpower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because desires are egoistic by nature, they are initially ill-willed. In the end, that\u2019s bad for you, too. If you care only for yourself, you become detached from others and then can\u2019t fulfill yourself. The sensation of self-fulfillment depends on the existence of others. Thus, if I\u2019m an egoist, I can\u2019t connect to others, and if I can\u2019t connect to others, I can\u2019t enjoy. My egoism has become my own bane. This leaves me poor, deficient and suffering. Because I have a big will to receive, I\u2019m constantly chasing pleasures, yet I\u2019m constantly empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the state that, as we have said, leads to a spiritual crisis. You realize that you can\u2019t go on living like that and understand that you have to change something in your life. Your point in the heart awakens, and in that state, all the evil in you can be turned into good.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, the great desire leads to a choice that is, really, no choice. If we\u2019re so dependent on others, we have to care for them and watch over them, even if we hate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To survive and correct, we must tend to those we hate. If we don\u2019t, we will suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what should we do? Become true grownups. If we\u2019re that connected, we\u2019re also that responsible for one another. Just as grownups take responsibility for everything around them\u2014their environment, their children, their employees, their friends, their cities and towns and countries. Everything and everyone. The Creator wouldn\u2019t want it any other way. It\u2019s His plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n _____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.kabbalah.info\/var\/kbl\/storage\/images\/kabbalah\/nauka_kabbala\/spryyt_ktby_mqoblym\/mihael_lajtman\/sprym\/a_guide_to_hidden_wisdom_of_kabbalah\/introduction\/sidebars\/off_course\/1139403-1-eng-GB\/off_course_small.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThrough His Eyes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMy Egoism Is My Own Bane<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
All Grown Up<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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