Virgo: The Perfected Self                                                          

Dear Students,

I would like to share with you an excerpt from a lecture I gave this week in                            London on the energy and gift of this month.

Blessings,
Michael                            

We know this month precedes Tishrei (Libra); it is the month that precedes      Rosh Hashanah, which is viewed as the beginning of the year. The Kabbalists     teach that every Rosh Hashanah, which is the first day of the month of Tishrei, is the day when the world was created, when everything we know of this physical world came into existence.

The month of Elul (Virgo), the month that we’re in now, is the month that precedes the process of Creation.

What do we know about what precedes the process of Creation? There’s a concept that the founder of the Centre, Rav Ashlag, speaks about, and it’s one that really encapsulates the great gift of this month.

Rav Ashlag calls this concept “machshevet habria,” which means the “thought of Creation.” He compares it to an architect who wants to build a beautiful house. Certainly, he doesn’t go ahead and put down the bricks, or start laying a foundation before he has a plan. The plan includes everything in perfection, right? Before he goes ahead to build, he has the thought: What do I want the house to look like? What do I want it to have? How beautiful do I want it to be?

In those moment of inspiration, in those thoughts that come before the beginning of creation, are included the entire perfection of that structure, of that building, of that house. It might take three years, right? Everybody knows the joke about construction; it’s always over budget and over time.

But however long it takes and how much money it costs, the thought that preceded the beginning of the building was perfect. And whatever happens, there’s a process that goes on, the contractor delays, there are problems, but at the end of the day, if it’s three years later or if it’s five years later, the house that the architect saw in the beginning is there.

So, Rav Ashlag explains, and it’s a beautiful concept, that there is what’s called the machshevet habria, the thought of Creation, which means before anything becomes into existence, there is the moment of perfection that precedes it, and that moment holds within it all the details, all of its intricacies, all its perfection of what will come later.

And with that understanding, Rav Ashlag says, before the Creation of our world, there was what is called the Creator’s thought of Creation. What does that include? That includes our world, not as we see it today, but in its perfect form. It includes every single one of us, every single soul that ever came into this world and that ever will come into this world, but not as we are now in the middle of the process, but in our perfected state.

When we understand this concept — that in the thought of Creation, as the Kabbalists call it, the consciousness that the Creator had before He began the process of creating our world, existed everything that we know and will know in its perfected state — we begin to understand the power of this month of Elul.

As we said, the beginning of the process of Creation is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of next month of Tishrei. This month of Elul is the revelation of the thought of Creation. It is the revelation of the perfection of our world. And, therefore, the Kabbalists teach why this month is so important.

There’s no other time of the year that we can connect in as deep and strong a way to our own perfection, to the perfection of the individual, and to the perfection of our world as in this month of Elul.

So, the first level of consciousness, the first gift that we want to understand that is going to be revealed to us if we ask for it, if we connect to it, is that we can see and we can connect to our perfected self. No matter where we are, and all of us — except those of us who are already perfected, probably not most of us — all of us are in that process. Some of us are in the beginning, some in the middle.

But in this month, we don’t want to connect to that imperfection, whatever we lack. We want to know that an attachment, a connection to our perfected self is available — a connection to our perfected self is available. And the reason why that’s important is because, as the proverb says, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there.

One of the biggest problems that we have is not pushing ourselves as strong as we can. Rav Ashlag says that out of a thousand people who begin their spiritual process, only one completes it. Not even 1%, right? Why?

Because most of us don’t know where we’re going. Most of us don’t have a sense of what our perfected self, of what our true potential is. And that’s why we allow ourselves sometimes to be lazy, sometimes not to push ourselves as strong as we need to, because we don’t see what that perfected self looks like, or we don’t even believe that it’s possible.

The work we want to do this week and the desire we want to awaken this month is to begin to call for, to ask for, and to connect to our perfected self. It’s available in this month as it is not available any other time of the year because, as we said, the Kabbalists teach the beginning of Creation is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of next month. Therefore, the revelation of the thought of Creation, the revelation of the perfection of humanity is in this month, the month of Elul. It is a tremendous gift, when we understand it, and may we all take the opportunity to connect with it.