No one can benefit or hurt either himself or anyone else except with the permission of the Creator, may He be exalted. For if a servant has more than one master and each of them is able to help him, it is impossible that he should come to rely exclusively on any one of them because he expects help from each of them. If one of his masters is able to help him more than the other, his reliance upon the former will be greater in proportion to that person's power, though he will also rely on the other. If only one of them can benefit or harm him he must necessarily place his trust exclusively in that person since he does not expect help from anyone else.
Once, on a Motzoei Shabbos, the chasidim were sitting in the bais medrash of the Ruzhiner Rebbe zy”a for Melave Malka. Suddenly, the Rebbe opened the door of his room next to the bais medrash, stood at the entrance, and said, “The Baal Shem Tov was not a deity, and the zaida, the Magid, was not just an ordinary wagon driver. And once, when the holy Baal Shem Tov prayed, his talis fringe fell out of his gartel and dragged on the floor. The Magid approached, picked it up, and put it back in the gartel, but he was trembled with such tremendous fear that he fainted and his life was in danger. They were compelled to rouse the Baal Shem Tov from his deep dveikus in order to calm him.” He then added, “I told you that the Baal Shem Tov was not a deity and my zaida, the Magid, was no wagon driver. Still and all, when he touched the Besht’s garment, he fainted from fear. The entire world is Hashem’s garment. How much fear must we feel to touch this world!” May the memory of the...