Become a River of Living Waters
BECOME A RIVER OF LIVING WATERS
The Creator created a desire to delight, meaning a desire to feel pleasure. Real pleasure lasts as long as the desire lasts–it is insatiable. But when the desire to enjoy receives – it feels shame. That is why one cannot attain eternal delight by receiving, because receiving restricts the Light and even extinguishes it, thus nullifying itself.
For that reason, the only way to take pleasure is to enjoy not the pleasure itself, but the contact with the giver of the pleasure. If the pleasure of the giver is what you get from Him, then your pleasure will not disappear and will not diminish your desire for pleasure.
On the contrary! The more you receive, the more you give and enjoy. That process lasts indefinitely.
However, the pleasure that we derive from feeling the one who gives is infinitely greater than the pleasure we receive when taking for ourselves. This is because the first kind of taking ties us with the Complete Giver, the Eternal One.
Thus, a mere desire to receive is not considered a vessel yet, because it is unsuitable for reception. Only if there is a screen over the desire to enjoy (a screen is the intent “for the Creator,” meaning a willingness to take pleasure only to the extent that it delights the Upper One), does the desire become worthy of reception, and can then be called “a vessel.”
From this, we can understand that all we really have to do is acquire a screen! When the will to enjoy receives, and feels the giver, it feels both pleasure and shame, because by receiving we become opposite to the Creator. The presence of the giver makes the receiver feel shame, and that shame stops us from enjoyment. When we receive, we feel we must give something back to the giver, to equalize with the giver so as not to feel as if we are only receiving.
| -Rav Michael Laitman, ‘Kabbalah Revealed‘ – “What is a spiritual vessel?”
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