We Must Be More Than Passive Participants In Our Development

Laitman_2009-08_2611A question I received: How can a person ask for bestowal if he does not know what it is?

My Answer: Spiritual growth is like the development of a child, for whom it is not enough to be just a passive participant in the process. This is natural development where a child reveals the world for himself in a natural way. He needs to taste it, hold it in his hands, recognize it, put it together, and break everything. He himself doesn’t know what he is doing since he is operated by nature. Later, having experienced everything, a child begins to think about and build connections between things; he begins to understand and demand.

This is very much like we act in regards to our spiritual development. No matter how smart we think we are, and no matter how many serious subjects we discuss, this is not what causes us to develop. Just like little children, we bring the force of development onto ourselves, which is the same force that develops a child.

Therefore, a person needs to reach a demand for bestowal on his own. There is no button you can press and immediately be allowed into the Upper World. If a demand, an aspiration is burning in you, you express it involuntarily within yourself. A “prayer” is work in the heart and is the innermost desire of the heart, which you may not even suspect exists.

After all, is it possible to compel yourself to pray? You can’t oblige the heart. Therefore, we need this force which develops in the material and the spiritual worlds and which constantly changes our desires. The Light created these desires, and it also reveals and transforms them through its influence. Therefore, our goal is to draw the Light onto ourselves with the help of books and our studies.

It is in our power to evoke a response, to turn to the source of Light in order for It to cause a faster development. This is the only means by which we can speed up this process. Nature develops us according to a designated program, in planned time frames; however, starting from this particular stage in human history, it has become possible to speed up the process.

Today we are able to activate the force of correction so that it influences us even more intensely. The science of Kabbalah is in fact that tool, that vehicle that allows us to achieve a shortened period of development.

The point is not in gaining more understanding. It is enough to “wave your arms and legs,” like a restless child, within the bounds of the Kabbalistic method – in lessons and dissemination. In other words, we must become animated and engaged in the process of our development. We intensify the Light by trying to aspire to It, rather than through our business-like manner and thoughtfulness.

Questions, answers, lessons, and discussions – all of this is here just for us to “play” with. A child is the same in this regard. When you play with him, something awakens in him and causes him to develop. This is called “the Light that returns to the Source.”

Whether a person is smart, phlegmatic, or sensitive is irrelevant. In the long run, whoever behaves in a more active, engaging manner will advance more rapidly.

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