Up the Ladder
The desire to be spiritual is the first step up the ladder. You start by wanting to fulfill this desire, and you will obtain it by simply asking (in your heart). Asking to be more spiritual is called “raising MAN” (Aramaic: Mayin Nukvin—Female Water). Raising MAN is also called a prayer. MAN, or desire to be more spiritual, comes from two sources: One is your own spiritual structure, Reshimot. These are the soul’s unconscious recollections of its past states. The second is the environment (friends, books, films, and all other media), which enhances and speeds up the MAN that the Reshimot evoke.
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The environment can speed you up, but it can also slow you down. If you surround yourself with people, books, and media that do not appreciate spirituality, (that is, altruism), you, too, will not want it. Once you’ve placed yourself in a certain society, you cannot choose your thoughts; you subconsciously absorb them from the environment. The free choice we do have, however, is in the environment itself. Choosing the right environment will lead to or from spirituality, and determine our speed.
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Back to the Future
If you remember at the beginning of the chapter, we stated that the Root was the beginning, at the top of the ladder. Although it may seem like a contradiction, it’s important to remember it because it means that you and I contain the seeds of the Root within us—the seeds of the Creator, if you will.
So the Root is both the beginning of the cycle of spirituality and our ultimate goal. Having “fallen,” you and I seek to regain the top, or correct ourselves. That requires climbing the spiritual ladder, from the earthly world back up to the Root. To understand how to return to your Root, you need to know your root and how you came down from there (the Reshimot). How else could you know where to return if you hadn’t already been there in some way? The emergence of new desires, new Reshimot, indicates that you are making progress, how fast you are progressing, and if you’re on the best and fastest route. In the end, we will all reach the end of correction, but a correct use of the Reshimot can save us much trouble, time, and effort.
You move up the ladder each time you increase your desire to be spiritual. As you become more spiritual, you build on the last degree of spirituality to achieve the next. Every time you increase your need, your future spiritual degree responds by elevating you to it. The cycle repeats itself and moves you to become more like the Creator.
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Kabbalah explains that the spiritual path is predetermined, but this does not mean that you do not have free will and choices. You will be on the same path, but you can progress faster or slower, pleasantly or painfully, depending on your participation.
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Once you have examined all your egoistic desires on the egoistic level, called “this world,” a new desireappears. This new desire is special. It is your first desire with a non-egoistic intention. This event in a Kabbalist’s life, though it is a natural evolution of the surfacing of the desires (Reshimot), is so radical that it is known as “The Crossing of the Barrier,” or “the admittance to the spiritual world.”
Reshimo (singular for Reshimot) is predetermined. If you have an urge to realize the Reshimo, this urge stems from within. But if you use the environment to strengthen your desire and accelerate the unfolding of the Reshimo, that would not only shorten the unfolding period, but also elevate the experience to the spiritual level and make it adventurous and exciting.