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Michael Laitman, PhD

Chapter 2.5 – Building an Inner Attitude

Studying the secrets of the spiritual world leads us to build an inner attitude towards it, which is also expressed in how we relate to our everyday lives. At the end of the process, our lives in this world should be subordinate to spiritual rules. This is the desire of the Creator. The more we are able to leave our egos, the better are our chances of feeling spirituality and liberating ourselves from our corporeal bodies.

The body is the root of our every problem. For example, the world of Atzilut serves as a model for building our society in this world. By doing that, we immediately fall under the influence of spiritual forces that guard, protect, and lead us. The bounty that each receives corresponds to the ability to sense them in corrected vessels.

The spiritual world and the corporeal world are parallel. Spiritual Light and power come down from Above, but cannot clothe our world because there is a different form of reception that prevails here. "For me" is the opposite of the spiritual form. If we organize even a very small community that lives according to laws of the world of Atzilut, then all the Upper Positive Forces will be able to clothe each of its members and raise them respectively to a high spiritual degree.

But building a spiritual frame of life demands serious preparation on our part. It is the best thing that one can do for oneself, for one's family, for the environment and for the entire world. The whole world will gradually feel better if even a small society lives by altruistic spiritual laws. We must aspire for that and the help will come from Above.

The Creator created a soul with a desire for pleasure. The number of desires is 600,000. If we divide the soul by 600,000, each part will be called a "human soul."

The difference between each soul is in the quantity and quality of the desire. I am created in such a way that I aspire for a certain pleasure, and someone else aspires to a different pleasure. Others have different desires, different pleasures, but the Light is one and the same. This means that the difference is only in our desires.

It is impossible to replace one desire with another. The soul consists of all the desires that were created by the Creator. Each desire is a certain kind of Light that comes as a unique pleasure and is felt by each person individually. We cannot feel any other pleasure than the one that fits our individual desire.

We are created different to begin with - different in the kind of desires we have and their intensity. Because of that, each person has unique incarnations in this world, as well as a unique path to attain the purpose of Creation.

However, we do have one thing that unites us all: the purpose of Creation, meaning the correction of egoism, the will to receive in order to receive that we have been given by the Creator, which we must change into a will with the Creator and cleave to Him. Consequently, we will acquire a great collective soul, eternal and endless, which will receive the perfect pleasure.

We are made of a very small egoistic vessel that can receive very limited delights in quality and quantity. We chase something, suffer because of its absence, seek it, and the minute we get it, we lose interest. Then come new pains chasing yet new pleasures, and so on until we end our lives in this world, having fulfilled none of our desires.

Now imagine that wanting something and receiving it are instantaneous! The minute you want something, you immediately get it. What could be more perfect? We are not talking about tiny desires for animate pleasures, but about immeasurable desires to feel and attain endless spiritual delights that instantly fulfill every desire.

Anyone can increase the small egoistic desires, perpetuate them and receive fantastic bliss equal in power to the collective soul. This can be done by simply changing his aim from "for me" to "for the Creator." Each soul must first mingle with all other souls, and according to its measure of mingling, its tiny desire is intensified to match the measurements of the collective soul.

One of the mottos of the socialist movement was, “From each person according to his ability, to each person according to his needs.” In other words, “Give what you can and receive what you need.”

That social rule is in fact borrowed from spirituality and, in fact, applies only there. That is because the ability to receive only as much as you or I need depends on our spiritual degree, on our screens. The more we want to receive, the more desires we will need to correct. Our desire to receive for ourselves does not let us receive what we actually need, and is in fact even more limiting.

Only by changing the aim from reception to bestowal, meaning crossing the barrier to spirituality, can we begin to understand the true meaning of the slogan, “Give what you can and receive what you need". That is the only way for complete and eternal fulfillment.

When we enter the spiritual world, we learn to give more and more and receive only the bare minimum to support ourselves. When we unite with the Creator, we become like Him, and then give everything without taking anything for ourselves. Precisely because of that, we are filled with everything. In the end, giving is itself the reward, which is why a life of giving is eternal, filled with Light that enters our vessels. This is also why the departure of the Light from the vessel is death.

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