Part 1 · Inner Observation 3

Chapter ThreeExplanation of the origin of the soul.Now we shall explain the matter of the origin of the soul. It has been said that it is a part of God above. We asked, “How and in what does the form of the soul differ from His simple light until it is separated from the Whole?” Now we can understand that there really is a great disparity of form in it. Although He contains all the conceivable and imaginable forms, still, after the above said, you find one form that is not contained in Him, namely the form of the will to receive, as from whom would He receive?However, the souls, whose creation came about only because He wanted to delight them, which is the thought of creation, were necessarily imprinted with this law of wanting and yearning to receive His abundance. This is where they differ from Him, since their form has changed from His. It has already been explained that a corporeal essence is separated and divided by the force of motion and remoteness of location, and a spiritual essence is separated and divided by disparity of form. According to the measure of disparity of form from one another, so is the measure of the distance between them. If the disparity of form comes to complete oppositeness, from one extreme to the other, they become completely severed and distinct, to the point where they can no longer suckle from one another, for they are regarded as alien to each other.