“In Kabbalah and other spiritual traditions, the mystic’s goal of embodying the virtues of God is sometimes called “forgetting the self.” Forgetting the self means forgetting about the lesser self, the human ego. It means emptying yourself to make room for God. Forgetting the self is the ultimate expression of humility. The eighteenth-century Hasid Issachar Ber of Zlotshov says that humility is the goal of all spiritual practices:   The essence of the worship of God and of all the mitzvot [commandments] is to attain the state of humility, namely,... to understand that all one’s physical and mental powers and one’s essential being are dependent on the divine elements within. One is simply a channel for the divine attributes. One attains such humility through the awe of God’s vastness, through realizing that “there is no place empty of Him.”   The Hasidic leader Dov Baer taught, “Think of yourself as ayin [nothingness] and forget yourself totally.... If you think of yourself as something, then God cannot clothe himself in you, for God is infinite. No vessel can contain God, unless you think of yourself as ayin.”

“The same principle of allowing oneself to be a channel for the divine applies to those who pray. Daniel Matt says the Hasidim teach that “the mystic’s only active role is the decision to pray and the effort to maintain the clarity essential for conveying divine energy.”[335] The mystic allows himself to be the instrument, and God does the rest. In one Hasidic work we read:   One who merits this level [of being an instrument for the conveyance of divine energy] is nothing but a channel through whom are conducted words from on high. This person merely opens his mouth.... The essential condition for prayer is that one be clean from all dross, so that the voice from above not be corporealized in his voice. Everyone can merit this level.... Their voice is the voice of the Shekhinah, as it were; they are simply vessels.”

Excerpts From Kabbalah: Key to Your Inner Power (Mystical Paths of the World's Religions) Elizabeth Clare Prophet https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0 This material may be protected by copyright.