Direct and Return Light in Kabbalah

Direct light is our effort to feel the presence of the Creator — a light that does not waver, that stays with the same intention and the same restoring nature. It doesn't change. Whatever we are able to feel from it, it presents itself to us as a direct light.

Return light is not something separate. From that presence, what we draw is a vessel, an intention, a feeling — something that enables us to feel the qualities of the direct light. We use the presence of something to create the value of it in us. The value of the higher is a return light. It is what the Creator can draw from the direct light: an acknowledgment, a feeling, a need for that presence. Without the awareness that there is a direct light, there is no return light. Return light is what we do from the direct light.

Within the work — within any study that is opened — what is present in it, and how we engage with it, matters deeply. Through prayer and understanding, we try to create the right attitude, the right feeling for what is present. True belief begins with saying: I am not able to feel this now, but something higher is causing me to want it, to want to feel it. Knowing that I cannot feel it allows me to give birth to something that will bestow — that will carry the right feeling and attitude toward the light, so that its presence can increase. But the presence of the light does not change. It is our consciousness that changes. We say it increases because we are more aware, more tuned to its presence. From study to study, we need to become more and more tuned to what is trying to penetrate us, to be acknowledged by us — because in any study, in any lesson, there is a presence.