Q: Why is it that, when you are in a certain situation, you cannot even imagine the possibility of a different situation?
A: Every situation is considered a life cycle. If the situations are extreme, they are called a “catapult,” meaning the running around of the soul from one end to the other after the body dies. The sensations of the self and the people around one in every situation are called a “world.” Thus, each time one enters a new state, that person is actually in a new world.
The ego, whose root is in Malchut de Ein Sof (Malchut of the infinite), does not change. What changes is the screen over the ego. This changes the extent of its connection with the upper nine Sefirot, the attributes of the Creator. That way, when Malchut feels that the nine Sefirot are outside it, it feels itself in a completely separate world. If it weren’t for those nine Sefirot, Malchut would only feel the pleasure or the lack of it in itself.
But when it bonds with the attributes of the Creator, it feels Him in them. That feeling can be either conscious (when a person is in the spiritual world), or unconscious (if one feels only this world). It can be felt inwardly (in the senses) or outwardly (concealed), and we call it “the world,” or “my world.”
Thus, you can see how miniature changes in your natural attributes, in your smallest particles, generate a completely different picture in you. That picture is so different, it makes it hard to say that we are dealing with the same person. And indeed, these are two different people. Their insides are different, but their outside - the physical body - remains the same. That is why it is said that at any given moment, meaning after every change, we are different, reborn.