Translation:Likutei Moharan/279

Know that there are those who teach Torah from bottom up, and down below it is extremely wide and they spread out and expand the subject a great deal, while up above it is narrow and gets narrower as it goes up, until up above it is most utterly narrow, for up above nothing remains of it except a tiny bit, for there definitely has to be some holy spark there.

But conversely there is one who teaches Torah from top down, and there up above it is most utterly wide, and whatever descends below shrinks as it descends, until down below it is extremely narrow, and it is only a tiny bit down below, while up above it is extremely wide.

And similarly with "awakening from below:" it needs to be narrow from below, in the aspect of (Ps. 66), "And my mouth spoke in my constriction", in the aspect of Shofar, where the wide part is on top and the narrow part is below by the mouth. So this is the aspect of, "And my mouth spoke in my constriction," that is, that the narrow short part should be by me, by my mouth, in the aspect of Shofar as mentioned. And as we find with David in all his prayers, that the beginning was from affliction and stress, as it was extremely sore for him, for instance due to the Avshalom's afflictions falling on him, or the afflictions of Naval and so forth, and then afterwards in the same prayer he comes into Ruach haQodesh/Prophetic Spirit.