Why Does The Creator Keep Being Concealed From You?

Who is the Creator? The Creator is the general quality of bestowal and love. That is why He is concealed from you, since He is entirely bestowing, while you are an egoist, a receiver. That is why you do not feel Him.

Does He really conceal Himself? It is you hiding Him and not wanting to recognize Him! You say, "If only You would give me egoistic pleasure, which I desire right now. Then I would get to know You. Do you want to give me pleasure by bestowal? Well, I want to enjoy by reception!"

And that is the entire problem. No one conceals the Creator from you. You are inside Him and there is none else besides Him! But look at what kind of world you perceive yourself in....

Canceling your ego does not mean canceling your desires. It's only the negation of the egoistic intention for your own sake. I don't need to limit myself in any way. I must only limit my egoistic intentions and increase my intentions "for the sake of bestowal." We don't touch the actual desire.

From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/10, "The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose"

Upwards Along The Degrees Of Intentions

A person can check how included he is in the group and whether it is able to provide a new intention for him. Obviously, bestowal is opposite to his nature and he is initially unwilling to do this, yet he must artificially build himself and his environment so it really "brainwashes" him."

The group has to "bend" a person, pushing him off the "straight" path to his beloved self, onto the path of bestowal and unity which appears to him like a crooked path. Therein lies the first criterion for making the check: Which values will the group give me? For now we are talking about the values of unity. This is the task that the group must place before me, raising its importance in my eyes.

But at the same time, we must understand that there are other goals which the group cannot yet arm itself with and realize in full force. In the meantime, by means of the environment, my intention changes: I think about my own benefit more and more, but I already connect it to the group and find personal benefit in the unity with friends.

Then it becomes clear that we do not simply connect to one another, but reveal the Upper One, something spiritual. Now we expect that this will be to our benefit: We will ascend higher and higher up the spiritual degrees. This is already a group intention of Lo Lishma.

But after that, we start to slightly think about a true altruistic intention, Lishma, because in reality all our efforts must benefit the Creator. With time we start to have thoughts even of this nature.

Of course, we do not want this, yet to some degree we agree to talk about this. Then every person starts to slightly connect to the true goal and to be permeated by it.

That is how we go from one state to another, from one "place" to another, from one degree to another, as we improve our desire and its intention which we received from the friends. Gradually we correct our desire, and more than that, our intention. Our intention is the vector we receive from the environment, the direction we take above the desire.

Therefore, we have to ensure that the purpose, the goal we obtain from the environment, will constantly change, becoming higher and more important, and becoming truer in our eyes. As a result of all the "intermediate" intentions, we will consolidate together in the group in order to give pleasure to the Creator.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/10, The Zohar