Day Two

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

DAY TWO
“And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of
the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And
God made the firmament and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament
Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a
second day.”
Don’t get caught thinking that everything was filled with
water, for the passage speaks of something very different.
The word “water” in Genesis means the Light of Mercy.
And the created expanse called “heaven” alludes to the need
to separate within me thoughts and desires, so as to see
which of them are Light (meaning “heaven”), and which of
them are dark. The dark desires are called “earth,” but we’ll
talk more about them later on.
This is the very first commandment you must perform.
Only afterwards can the soul be conceived. (Note that here,
too, Earth is conceived on the basis of water, that is, on the
Creator’s quality of mercy.)
“And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land
appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth.”
The Secrets of the Eternal Book

This separation of “heaven” and “Earth”— light thoughts
from dark thoughts—is called the “recognition of evil.” It
is a state where you clearly realize that within you lies evil
that must be corrected, or you will never reach the spiritual
world. And if the desire to obtain the spiritual world lives
within your heart, haunting you, you will do whatever it
takes to cleanse yourself of this evil. However, your first step
is to expose and recognize the evil within.
RECOGNITION OF EVIL
Recognition of evil happens by studying Kabbalah books
written by Kabbalists at high spiritual levels. These books
contain a special luminescence that you invariably draw by
trying to understand the meaning of the texts. Shortly into
the study, you begin to feel how opposite you are from this
luminescence, which represents selfless love and bestowal. It
helps you realize that you are an egoist, always striving to use
everyone around for your own benefit.
The luminescence is peace and security, whereas you
are consumed with fear and anxiety. The luminescence
is eternal, blissful life, whereas you are dragging along in
a wretched existence full of suffering, at the end of which
comes death.
You want to merge with the Light. You make that your
goal, you know that it’s possible, but how do you cleanse
yourself and become similar to the Light?!
If you continue to apply to yourself all that these books
speak of, if you try to realize that they are written for you
and about you, it won’t be long before you feel the world
around you beginning to change. This is the beginning
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)
29
of the process of your purification of evil, your first steps
toward the Light.
Yet, this path is fraught with inevitable states of descent.
When those moments come, how do you endure and refrain
from saying something like, “The goal is impossible; I am
too weak and ought to stick to matters of this world; no use
dreaming of eternal happiness; I am tired, exhausted.”
How do you endure these devastating states? Well, there
is a remedy, but for now you must listen to yourself, for
your entire spiritual life depends on it. Little by little you
will learn to analyze which of your qualities pertains to the
spiritual, and which to the animal, which bring you the
sensation of life, and which the sensation of death. Your
recognition of evil will grow until it becomes absolute. That
will be the real breakthrough into the spiritual dimension, a
proof that you will be granted a remedy.

BACK TO “THE HEAVEN
AND THE EARTH”

Remember the following Kabbalistic concepts, for you will
need them from here on: “Heaven” means the quality of
bestowal. When acquired, the creature becomes filled with
the Light of Mercy—the pleasure of being similar to the
Creator.
“Heaven” means the Creator’s spark within you, a tiny
grain of completely selfless bestowal and love that you
discover within. It is precisely this quality of “heaven” that
prompts the feeling of unease, compelling you to search
insistently for something that doesn’t exist in this world.
The Secrets of the Eternal Book

“Earth” is all of your egoistic desires. This entire world is
built on them.
And between these two polar opposites—“the heaven and
the earth”—is your soul. Its state is unstable, as though hung
on a string.
Subject to these two forces, in times of ascent the soul
draws nearer to the heaven, to bestowal, to the Creator, and
you feel like you’re soaring as joy overcomes you. In times
of descent, the soul falls to the ground, to the desires of the
body, to egoism, and you are imbued with worldly concerns,
calculations, fear for the future, and a total lack of faith.
It is similar to the way we maintain balance as we walk,
our legs taking turns: first the right, then the left.
The correction process is the same. You find your “golden
mean,” that is, you utilize your innate egoistic desire by
transforming it into an altruistic one, in order to climb up
the spiritual ladder to the Creator, ultimately acquiring His
quality of bestowal.
It can further be said that correction constitutes the
very understanding that the quality of bestowal exists, that
it must be acquired, and that you must work with your
egoism—“earth”—to achieve this goal. While previously you
didn’t have this understanding, now you begin to live and
draw closer to Infinity.
Your whole objective is to shorten the period of descent,
to not allow it to last for months, weeks, or even hours, but
a mere instant.
You must constantly cultivate the “heaven” within
yourself. We have plenty of “earth.” Being born egoists, our
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)

entire lives are filled with “earth.” However, we have only
a tiny spark of “heaven,” and this spark must be kindled.
Think back to your “past” life, where you viewed the
surrounding world through the prism of your “healthy”
egoism! Back then, any mention of the spiritual world
seemed only to distract you from real and worthwhile
endeavors.
“I’m working here,” you would say, “building a business,
making a career, starting a family, and these people are
bugging me with their stories of ‘heaven’!” That is, in
your perception, the spiritual world was barely worth
considering.
Today, however, with your vocabulary enriched with new
terminology, like “earth,” “heaven,” “egoism,” “bestowal,”
“life,” “death,” and “the secret of Creation,” the spiritual
world has gained significance and become a desired goal.
Today, it has truly become a world, and not just a point. You
continue to pursue a career, do business, build and maintain
your home, but it doesn’t detract from your advancement
along the spiritual path. You want to live in both worlds,
and you understand that this is possible.
Kabbalists differ from other people precisely in their
ability to use the altruistic quality of “heaven” to correct
the egoistic quality of “earth.” In no way do they attempt to
suppress or eradicate egoism.
The correction consists of seven states, called “seven
days.” Naturally, the days in question have nothing to do
with our earthly calendar. This correction can occur in
a matter of seconds, or stretch over a year, many years, a
lifetime, or many lifetimes. It depends only on you.
The Secrets of the Eternal Book
32
It is written in Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let the waters
under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and
let the dry land appear.’”
As soon as your consciousness fills with Light, of thoughts
of the Creator and the Upper World, you begin to feel that
you are comprised of qualities entirely opposite to the Light.
Your qualities are egoistic, i.e., “earthly,” hence the phrase,
“Let the dry land appear.” You begin to think about what can
be done to make life appear, for the first sprouts of bestowal
to emerge. (This is described in the Book of Genesis as
the emergence of living and non-living organisms.) You no
longer want to exist as before. You simply cannot allow it.
There is a point that has come alive in your heart, a point
that is in direct contact with the Creator, and it won’t let
you rest.
The “heart” symbolizes all the egoistic desires of this
world, while the “point in the heart” is the Creator’s sprout.
It can also be likened to a lifeline that the Creator lowers
into our world, so we can grab it and rise to Him.
So how does spiritual life begin on earth? Or, to use
the language of Kabbalah, how do I use my egoistic desires
(earth) to grow the first sprouts of bestowal within me?
How do I break through my egoism and move toward the
Creator?
This is done with the help of a special Light that He sends
us. Two types of Light emanate from the Creator: “The Light
of Life” and “The Light of Mercy.” This is precisely how the
creature perceives them.
By using the quality of the Light of Mercy, which is
called “water,” you acquire the ability to bestow. What does
this mean in terms of your corporeal life, and how do you
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)
33
achieve it? You must “cleanse” yourself by reading the books
composed by those who have already attained the spiritual
worlds, writing to us from their heights. In so doing, you draw
the emanation of the Upper Light that these books contain.
Herein lies your spiritual work. The very process of
reading is already helpful, but if you approach it with the
desire to change, to be like the Light, to cleanse yourself of
the ego, the Light influences you to a much greater degree.
It is precisely this influence of the Light that separates the
works of Kabbalists from all the other texts in our world.
That is when “life appears on the earth,” meaning you
begin to clearly sense the first, tender sprouts of spiritual
desires. These desires haven’t yet taken a complete hold of
you. Rather, your state is like that of a baby who hasn’t yet
learned to walk, but can already use his feet to kick. Better
yet, you are like those first blossoms—unable to move, but
which are drawn toward the sun.
When night falls, you wither, for night can be likened to
states of descent, which are inevitable and mean only one
thing: that you are advancing. (Indeed, obstacles are sent
only to those who are advancing. Obstacles are necessary
for strengthening one’s resolve in order to wage an “inner
battle” and come to a genuine prayer: “I know that morning
will come, and I ask for the strength to endure, to overcome
all the descents. I know that at present I am undergoing
a cleansing of my desires, which are resisting, demanding
that this process be stopped, appealing to my reason and
logic. But I don’t want to hear them. Instead, I ask You for
the strength to endure…”) And then morning invariably
comes—a state of ascent, confidence in knowing that you’ve
acted correctly in choosing the spiritual path—and like a
flower, you open to the Light.
The Secrets of the Eternal Book
34
Let’s reiterate. “Earth”—the egoistic quality—is our nature.
We already know that “tilling” it must be done carefully.
We also know that “water” (Light of Mercy) is our main
helper. It corrects the ego, saturates the earth, and facilitates
the conditions for new life to be born. “Life” refers to the
quality of bestowal; that is, the correct use of egoism—for the
benefit of yourself and others.
You may ask, “What is “corrected egoism”? It is a state
where you feel bliss from bestowing pleasure upon the
people around you, and not from using them for your own
pleasure. This bliss can only be felt in such a state, which is
characteristic of the spiritual world.
What do you see in our world? Your eyes detect all kinds
of objects, plants, and bodies. How do you relate to them?
You love them if they bring you pleasant sensations, and
you hate them if they don’t bring you any pleasure. In other
words, your attitude toward them is completely egoistic.
What happens when you correct your egoism, or even
when you merely begin the process of its step-by-step
correction? You suddenly begin to notice things you hadn’t
noticed before. Through this imaginary world, you begin to
see the real world, one that has always existed around you,
a world that is full of Light, Love, and mutual bestowal, the
Creator’s world, the so-called “world to come.”
You have never seen it because you were full of darkness
and hatred. It was concealed from you by your own ego.
Your world and “the world to come” have nothing in
common whatsoever, as they exist by different laws. Many
people carry the false notion that “the world to come” is a
place they go to after death.
Chapter 1:In the Beginning (Genesis, Beresheet)
35
Not so. “To come” means it is your next state, which you
must attain not after death, but in your lifetime, here and
now. The moment you put yourself in congruence with “the
world to come,” you acquire the ability to see it.
It is as if you exit yourself, leave your egoistic body, and
open yourself up to a new world, a world with only one
law—the Law of Bestowal. And you aspire toward that world
because the lives of its inhabitants are founded on mutual
love. Thus, instead of perceiving only our world with its
bodies and objects, you begin to perceive the force that
governs it, to the extent that you grow more similar to this
force. By aspiring to bestow, you realize that this force is the
absolute good. This force is the Creator.
This is how you come to perceive the pure, genuine
Light, just as it stems from the Creator. It is as if you come
out to meet the Light before it enters and fills you. This, the
Creator’s Light, is not yet weakened by your egoistic filters.
It is still pure, and you are given the opportunity to feel it.
The very fact that you are capable of detecting it is happiness
in its own right. This is called, “to hear the Creator’s call.”
Afterward, when the Light passes through your system of
filters, all that remains is a tiny glimmer, so weak that even
an uncorrected person can endure it.
It is the same Light that you had felt as your point in the
heart. It is what Kabbalists call “a tiny candle.”
This Light trickles into our world through the thick wall
of egoism that screens it. It enters here with the sole purpose
of maintaining life in our world. This Light “hides” within
all the objects of our world, dressed in all kinds of garments.
All those times you found yourself enjoying good food, new
The Secrets of the Eternal Book
36
things, fame and money, it was this very Light that drew you
toward it! That was the true source of your enjoyment!
You may ask: would anything exist in reality if not for
this Light? Our world would not exist. There wouldn’t be
anyone with the desire to live because there wouldn’t be any
desires.
However, the very fact that you have a desire (and a great
one at that) to attain the depth of what is happening to
you speaks of one thing and one thing only (no offense
intended): that you are a big egoist, much bigger than
everybody else. Whereas others are satisfied with this world,
you demand nothing less than the spiritual one! You will
not rest until you reveal it, and that is a very good thing
because it is precisely what the Creator wants from you.
And this brings us to Day Three—an explanation of your
new desires.