There are people who say...

[more from Rebbe Nachman]

There are people who say that when a genuinely righteous man is great in his spiritual level, it is because of his greatness he is not able to pay attention to and consider people in the world, because he is far from the world.  In truth, this is not so.  On the contrary, when a righteous man is very great he is able to pay attention to and consider the world to a greater degree...  For is not God, may He be blessed, highly elevated and completely beyond the  world; nevertheless, he is able to pay attention through divine providence to the world.  For in truth he who is part of mundane reality [yes] is not able to be in every place at the same time.  For a person who has a sense of his own reality when he stands here is not entirely here, for instance when he is serving God.  Thus he is not able to contemplate the world.  But a person who has a deep sense of his own nothingness, there is no place where he is not, since he occupies no place at all.  Therefore, the more that a righteous man is incorporated in nothingness, the more he is able to pay attention to and contemplate the world.  For it cannot be said of him that he occupies an elevated place and is distant from the world.  For he is no place at all.