The mystic is not concerned about being loved. The mystic is concerned about being the Truth, which is being in alignment with the light. That is why it is written about angels that their feet are straight (Yehezqel 1:7); and we should seek to be like the angels. Angels move straight ahead. They do not look to the right or to the left, and they are not affected by what is said or thought about them by others. Nothing stops an angel. It means, in this whole process, as a nation of priests (Israel), we have to be what is in truth, the best that we perceive it, rather than being guided by social and economic pressures. In other words, we have to live as though we are not running for political office.
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Associated with true humility is hishta'vut, which is equal vision. Equal vision is seeing God in all things equally, wherein one is neither above nor below the other. The desert has other important meanings. In the Sinaï, the Hebrews were leaving capitivity and mental slavery, and had to empty their minds of all the conscious and unconscious habits of slavery. The heaviest slavery was the slavery of the ego - the desire to receive exclusively for self, alone. In the process of slavery Am Yisrael had become covered by k'lipot, the ego shells that block us from experiencing the Divine, always emanating from us. Going into the desert (of the self) means to be removed from the ego of receiving for self, alone. It means opening to experiencing the oneness of who we really are. The advantage of slavery is that we do not have to take responsability for our lives (which, in reality is a large spiritual disadvantage). We are the victims of slavery, and therefor create a mindset of "What do I have to do with this or that? It's not my fault!" The symbolism of the desert means we have to take responsability for who we are. We have to leave the slavery of blaming other people. We are accountable. It is in that accountability that we are able to bring shalem, or completeness, and kedusha, or holiness, to the world. The process of throwing off the thought forms of slavery, which indeed seperate us from Hashem, is called teshuva. It is teshuva that allows us to return to God awareness. Entering the desert in humility, in openness, with, in essence, the "beginner's mind", we are able to connect to the complete divine presence within ourselves, and everything is able to turn and return to the divine sanctity of the way life is meant to be.
Source : Torah as a Guide to Enlightenment by Gabriel Cousens
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