Daily Kabbalah Tip

Advice in the daily Kabbalah lesson is recommended, practical tasks for advancing spiritually

We Will Meet In Happiness  

What is descent and how do we maintain happiness also during the time of descent?  

A descent can be when a person doesn't understand the lesson very well and finds himself mentally confused. It is also called a descent when I am angry with the friends, with life, nervous.  This is a state that comes as a result of spiritual advancement.  These definitions are characterized for us only.

Descent can also be a definition of a state that was formed, not according to myself, or my personal states, but according to the Creator or according to the group, the lessons and advancement. If I want or don't want to bring contentment to the Creator, if the Creator becomes less important in my eyes, if I forgot the goal and when I remember it I am not alarmed by my distancing myself from it, if the society is  important or not to me.  This is still an egotistic way, of course, since the decision is only according what I measure my state to.  

The correct measurements of ascents and descents is when I measure the state according to bestowal. This is a completely different measurement.  It is if I measure the extent that I am in bestowal, not according to the Creator but according to my participation, my contribution, my elevation above reason.

 How can I differentiate that I am in the correct measurement? If my feeling is a bad one, and together with that, above that, I feel happiness that even with the bad feeling I can overcome, stay adhered to the intention of the sake of bestowal and not for the sake of the Kli of reception. 

-from the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10 (minutes 22-30)

Daily Kabbalah Definition

Definitions in the daily Kabbalah lesson guide a precise, spiritual approach to terms, & disqualify materialized corporeal definitions

Descent   

What is "descent" in spiritual work?    

In spiritual work a man must measure "descent" not according to himself but according to the Creator. This means that man is in a state where he doesn't want to bring contentment to the Creator, a state where the Creator is not important in his eyes to the extent that he doesn't care about his relations with Him and doesn't fear that he is cutting off from Him.

This is to say that the descent in the work of God is not measured according to the personal states of the man only, but according to his relation to the Creator, according to the attribute of bestowal.  This is a completely different measurement, i.e., to what extent man is in bestowal.  It is measured by his participation, his contributions, and his feeling of spiritual evaluation above reason.  This is the correct measurement for ascents and descents, i.e., a measurement not according to the feeling of his Kli of reception  but according to the importance that he gives the attribute of bestowal, to how important this attribute is in his eyes above all else.

 -from the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10 (minutes 22-30)