Question: Why is the first phase after the root phase the still nature? Why didn’t it all start from another phase?

Answer: Because this the lowest phase that includes everything in it. There are no internal differences in it and so it cannot differentiate anything on the outside. We are speaking about the upper Light only with regard to the created being’s vessels. Therefore, still nature is the first phase in which the created being’s desire receives only the force of restriction that doesn’t allow it to discover more that it discovers now.

The force of restriction operates on the vessels and on the Lights that can be revealed in them. It operates on everything. The question is: What does this force influence? Does it influence the center of the created being or his limits? In other words, on what do I operate by the restriction—on my desire to receive or on the Light?

Of course, I influence my desire. I can never operate the Light.

I restrict the desire to receive and keep it. Thanks to that it doesn’t “jump” on anything. Thus I limit myself in order to receive the Light only in this manner. It is because I know that I don’t have the power for more than that, and so I constantly “keep the limits,” keep my ego in a neutral state.

This is the still phase: The ego is constantly developing, and I constantly keep it on the same level of the still. Actually, it is a great and positive work that takes place in different forms. But by its nature, it belongs to the still level: By myself I put my desire into the regime of the still, where my desire stays the same.

Within this desire I work in relation to the Creator. What can I do? I annul myself inside Him. Thus, I can be in the Creator and adhere to Him, I can be incorporated in Him, which is the attribute of the still level. I don’t allow myself anything except for self-annulment. Imagine that you are inside a great force and you have no other choice and this is the only way you can hold on.

On the other hand, it prepares me for the next level of the vegetative. This is because there are constant changes taking place inside me, which grow according to the five phases of the still level. We may think, so what if instead of a tiny pebble I become a large precious gem? But this isn’t everything yet: The changes I have been through have taught me what it means to grow. The ascent in the phases of the still level has given birth to a mind inside me, since I had the chance to compare things and to get used to the actual fact of instability.

I have restricted the growing pleasure time after time, but at the same time I followed the changes, until I understood that I can really change, and then I moved on the vegetative level.

Thus, we speak about a qualitative development and not about a quantitative development: At the end of the still phase, in its last fourth phase, I already understand from the experience I had that I can change by myself, consciously and purposefully. Then the opportunity to move from the last phase of the still to the phase of the vegetative is born. It is here that its initial point is created by the changes in the desire.

Every such change comes from the Creator in the form of the reviving force. I could never find the preliminary conditions for growing inside me. Therefore the Creator doesn’t just develop me; He inserts His force of creation inside me so that I will resemble Him. As a result of this development, we and the Creator become partners in the creation. His goal is not to increase the desire to receive, by putting it through a series of changes, but rather to teach me His art. What is more He teaches me in a qualitative manner.

Thus, thanks to everything we go through, we attain His actions, according to the rule: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
[83418]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Growing On The Creator’s Supplements
To Become Nothing And Stand Before The Creator
HaVaYaH: The Phases Of Growth Of The Mind And Heart

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