Shamati (I Heard), No. 166, “Two Discernments in Attainment”: There are two discernments: 1) the cascading of the worlds from Above downward; 2) from below upward.

First discernment: “that God has created and performed.” This means that the Creator has prepared for us a place for work. Second discernment: when we begin to engage and clothe from below upward. However, before we achieve the completion of the degree, we cannot know anything for certain. This is called “learning first, understanding next.”

A little one, who is beginning to eat bread, still has no knowledge, but only of the bread. And when beginning to grow, he begins to understand that there is a reason for the bread, which causes the shape of the bread….

Thus he continues until he comes to the state when the wheat is taken and sowed in the ground. Until then, he can only receive from the bread, meaning reduce the bread that exists in the world. But afterwards he already knows how to add.

If I simply take a piece of bread and start eating it, I will feel only pleasure which dresses in the desire and nothing else. Then, I begin to think about what the bread is made of. This is its previous stage. In order to reach this previous stage, I must delve into it, rise to it, and attain it.

It was the state that preceded the bread, for example, the dough. I have to advance and to learn about its existence. I rise one step above myself, from the bread to the dough, and attain what happened during the expansion from Above downward, from the dough to the bread.

Then, I ascend higher, from the dough to flour and water, and find out that the dough is made from them. Then, I advance even higher and understand from what source the water is taken and that the flour is made of grain. Where does grain come from?

Thus, I move higher and higher until I reach the source. From my perspective, I went toward the root, but I understand that the levels cascaded from the root down toward me until they reached “the bread.”

“Bread” means pleasure. I examine my desire all the time: It is pleasure or lack thereof, the reason why I do not have pleasure, and how to reach it. I have nothing else to explore. All of our life and its sensations revolve around this.

Through the actions, I attain the root from which come the entire attitude toward me, myself, and this entire path from Above downward, which also contains within itself my return from below upward. If I reach the root, I attain the true state. All the previous states that were revealed by me until then (which formed during the descent from Above downward and in my ascent upward to the root) were only necessary for me to reveal this single, existing state.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, Shamati #166

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