Question: If we have to build a new relationship that is higher than pleasure, does that mean that we cease to enjoy?

Answer: It all depends on what I enjoy. We have to demand pleasure; we shouldn’t look for sufferings. On the contrary, we should enjoy but from connection, adhesion, brotherly love, the love of the Creator. No one says we have to weep.

Our vessel is a desire to enjoy that constantly demands and checks itself to see whether it has received a filling or not. I work with a “screen and Returning Light” when I restrict my desire. But I cannot suffer from this restriction since it would not be wholeness; it would not be the right state. If you suffer because of a certain action you have performed, it isn’t a whole action. It isn’t a spiritual action.

It may eventually bring you to spiritual actions by the recognition of evil, thanks to which you will understand that you have to change. But you should know that it isn’t right. A spiritual action should be preformed joyfully. There is no pain in any movement or in any spiritual step, since otherwise it isn’t wholeness. I know that I have performed a spiritual action if I perform an act of bestowal and I enjoy the fact that I bestow. It is like a mother who gives to her child and enjoys it even more than the child himself. There must be pleasure in every action since the Creator wants to bring pleasure to the created beings.

Then we begin to discover that in these actions of bestowal there is 620 times greater pleasure. This is the reason that so many people in history tortured themselves just to feel the Creator and reached nothing. What could they feel if they brought afflictions upon themselves? It is not the right way.

On the contrary, it is your human ego that promises you that you can approach the Creator this way. This is why there are traditional fasts and restrictions in different religions. After all, the religions were created thanks to the ego, after the destruction of the second Temple and the disappearance of spirituality. People were left in the dark and for ages they perceived spirituality from the point of view of the ego, of the desire to enjoy.

The ego understands only the impure corporeal pleasure. This means that the action that is opposite from it is suffering. So whoever tortures and restricts himself more, sitting in the same position all day, meditating and living on a bowl of rice is apparently righteous.

But in the spiritual sense it is just the opposite; the goal is to bring pleasure to the created beings. So if you want to follow this goal in every action that you make, you must reach pleasure—but only from bestowal. This is the hard part. After all, how can I enjoy bestowal if I am opposite to it? So the Light that Reforms comes and reforms me.

It is very simple; we should just constantly hold on to this principle. There is no room for afflictions and suffering; on the contrary, if we aspire for connection from the start, we should feel that by that we reach life and pleasure. This is why mutual guarantee is so important because it lets each one feel how important the goal is, the high spirit, which is like a breath of fresh air.

It turns out that the pleasure is not only permitted, but it is obligatory! Pleasure is a sign of advancement. There is no prohibition to enjoy; the whole idea is the way you enjoy. Now I enjoy that fact that I receive on the account of others and harm others, dominate someone, oppress him and feel above him: I receive a great reward, domination, an understanding. I have to turn this pleasure in the opposite direction: as I would treat the one I love—like my own child or someone that is close to me.

If I treat a stranger this way, it will open up a field of study for me—a place where I can see whether I really change or not, whether I receive pleasure by helping others. Others may still be strangers and distant from me, but I correct myself and thus bestow upon others and enjoy this bestowal.

If I don’t enjoy it is not considered a spiritual action. The intensity of the action is measured not according to how much to give another, but according to how much I enjoy it in my desires. This is exactly how we advance. It is a very important point in which all the clarifications take place.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/12, Shamati #2

Related Material:
The Creator Does Not Need Our Suffering
Unnecessary Sufferings
The Privilege To Be Happy To Bestow

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