A Piece Of Bread Stored For The Future

Spiritual Food Is the Light That Fills One's Soul It is impossible to rise to a higher degree without the help of the Upper One. This is similar to how a child can only develop with the upbringing he receives from adults who understand what he needs to receive year after year. How much he absorbs from them depends on how much he nullifies himself before them. In our world, Nature takes care of this process.

Meanwhile, using one’s brain, a person will always judge others on his level and will never leave the boundaries of his comprehension. Therefore, the group gives us an opportunity to attain  similarity to “faith above reason,” which is only revealed in spirituality. The group gives us its opinion, and this opinion begins to govern in us. So, for the time being, this is called “faith above reason.”

Besides this, there is the concept of “a piece of bread in store for the future” (Pat be Salo – bread in the knapsack). If a person knows that he has bread in his knapsack, he does not suffer from hunger as much as a person who has no bread at all. It would seem that this is purely a physiological process. What difference does it make whether we save ourselves a sandwich or not? But there is a difference! We do not feel the hunger if we have this sandwich stored away for the future.

A wealthy person that has all types of food does not feel the desire to eat it, while a person who doesn’t have anything has a huge appetite. This is called a “piece of bread in store for the future,” even though we do not feel a desire for it.

We need to use all the possible tricks to awaken an inner sense of alarm and fear in order to expose the places where the breaking occurred. It should become clear to us that we are not in a state where we can be satisfied. We study and perform dissemination work, but this is not enough to calm us down. We need to make sure that we feel more and more alarmed in regard to our correction with every passing moment.

We need to ensure that we acquire a new desire, building an image of the Upper One for ourselves and adhering to it, so this aspiration to a new, hypothetical degree will pull us higher.

Staying On The Path Of Three To Five Years

What Will Help Us Along the Way We come into this world and into the perception of this reality in order to rise from here to the true reality of the Upper World. Our whole mission in life is to gain consciousness from our unconscious state and to experience the true reality.

We must first go through a long path of development and traverse the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, until the point in the heart emerges in us – a desire to enter the true reality. When we finally clarify what our true state means (bestowal, the root of our soul, and the Creator), we understand that we need to tune into some system that will help us achieve this.

Until now, we have had no prerequisites for this, meaning the required and correct strength, desires, thoughts, and understanding. So, where is that adapter or intermediate step between that enables us to attain bestowal? What is the means that will allow us to advance?

It is written that there are three means by which we can advance: the teacher, the group, and the books. However, we must first lose hope so utterly that we will understand that these are the only means, and thus will begin to use them.

This is when the count of the preparation period of “three to five years” begins (see Item 23 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot). We have to check ourselves at every moment to see if we are truly in this period of “three to five years,” and if not, we have to look for changes that will lead us to bestowal.

After all, if we received an awakening and the Creator gave us this desire, we need to make sure to carry out our spiritual mission. If, on the contrary, we received such an awakening from above and we neglect it, rejecting the Creator’s invitation to come to Him, this will be the greatest shame we can possibly imagine.

Therefore, we have to put in as much effort as possible into building boundaries for ourselves and placing “guards” everywhere who will not allow us to run away during difficult times. We must be guarded when we are in a state of having no control over ourselves, such as when we experience heavy thoughts and various considerations that force us to forget about the spiritual path and the goal.

We have to define all the concepts correctly and fully: What is bestowal, what are the conditions and the means to reach it, and in response to what desire does the Light of Correction come?  We need to clearly imagine each passing state in order to understand whether we are on the path of “three to five years” or whether we’ve shifted away from it.

Moments From The Daily Lesson: Mistakes

5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Lesson: Public Opinion & Individual Effort

Superimposing The Circle Of Infinity Upon The Square Of The Physical World

Laitman_2009-05-27_8144_w The spiritual world is built as an analogous or analog structure, not a discreet or digital one. We imagine it as discreet because our brain is incapable of understanding an analogous structure. We will never, with our minds, be able to understand how an analogous system works.

Even when we study the human body, a system in which everything is interconnected, we still perceive the organism as a discreet system where every part works on its own, be it the heart, the kidneys, or other organs. If we interpret the body as a discreet system, we make measurements which can only be made when something is separated from the whole. Only eastern medicine exercises a partial and purely superficial approach to understanding our body as an analogous whole.

There is a contradiction between the unlimited property of the Light to “bestow” and the limited “screen” that is being corrected by our egoistic desires to match the properties of the Light. There is opposition between the round world of infinite bestowal and the square world of creation (our physical world).

We assess the properties of Light through the Kli, just as we assess the integral between the connection and the sum of all its discreet parts. In spirituality, each new state constitutes a new world and subsequently a new correlation between its elements.

In the system of souls, everybody is connected and any change I make also changes the state of the whole system, and vice-versa. It is impossible to feel this spiritual reality with our discreet intellect; we are automatically limited by our inability to measure beyond discreet parts.

Those who start sensing the higher world are given a new set of tools (instruments) to live in this new system. They start to understand and feel everybody’s bestowal as part of a single whole and are able to superimpose the circle on the square – the analogous and discreet systems. Only by having both forces – reception and bestowal, can we can join these two systems together.

There Is No Such Thing As Time To A Kabbalist

Building the Third TempleA question I received: We have learned that a person should not look back to his prior states of spiritual development. Having this in mind, I cannot understand how Kabbalists were then able to describe all those states to us. Moreover, we know that some Kabbalists prayed to the Creator to lower them to lower (past) states so they could convey them to the lower ones (us).

Let’s say I wanted to write a book based on real events. The only way to do that is to go back to those states or events and feel them throughout once again as much as possible. Isn’t this the same when Kabbalists describe spirituality?

My Answer: For Kabbalists, there is no time, but only the manifestation of the cause-and-effect sequence of corrective actions.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Research Of The Human Level Is Only Possible From A Higher Level
Laitman.com Post: In An Integrated System, Even A Small Change Causes Changes Within The Entire System
Laitman.com Post: The Law Of Roots And Branches – The Most Important Law In Kabbalah
The Path of Kabbalah: “Cause and Consequence”
Interview with the Future: “Writing a Book of Kabbalah”
Video: Language Of Roots And Branches – 5 Minutes Of Light (5:18)

The Creator Uses Fear To Push Us Towards Him

All the People in the World Are Sick With the Same SicknessTwo questions I received about fear:

Question: I read that there are three types of fear, but that only one is real – the fear of the Creator. So if I am faced with a situation that scares me, like when I fly and the plane is shaking, this is the wrong type of fear because egoistically, I am afraid to die. I then try to turn this great but wrong fear into a fear for the Creator. I need to feel fear of possibly losing my contact with Him. It is almost impossible, but I try as hard as I can. Am I wasting my time?

My Answer: The only thing you should do is understand that everything comes from Him!

Question: Everywhere I go, I’m filled with fear. I’m worried what people may think about me.  Why do I care and how can I get over it?

My Answer: Your egoism makes you worry about what others think about you. Start thinking about the spiritual world and its qualities. You will then free yourself from this imaginary world and come to realize that the Creator pushes you towards Him with this fear.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Lies Beyond Infinity?
Laitman.com Post: How Can We Overcome Fear?
Kabbalah Today Article: Extras- Our World Is An Illusion-See For Yourself
Shamati #38: “The Fear of God is His Treasure”- Lesson
Shamati #138: “About Fear That Sometimes Comes Upon A Person”
Video: Disturbances Are Help From Above – 5 Minutes Of Light (5:28)

Your Aspiration To The Creator Is The Most Important Thing

Laitman_2009-08_2934A question I received: You said in a recent lesson that we must enjoy this life. That is confusing, because as we grow in Kabbalah we find a certain distaste for pleasures. How then do we balance this within our work? Are we supposed to use every encounter in our life to do dissemination and use that as the source of our pleasure? I used to love to build furniture and rebuild motorcycles, but now it seems all I do is study and work and do what dissemination I can. Is this the correct way of going about things?

My Answer: Most probably, it is. However, you should not force yourself to do anything, but just do what comes naturally. The most important thing is your aspiration to the Creator, and all the rest will settle down without coercion and according to how it has to be.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Coming Outside Of Ourselves In Order To Hear The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Moving Together With The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Train Your Egoism To Serve You Like A Circus Lion
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Restrict Your Material Pleasures!
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: 25. “The Process of Conforming to the Creator”
Shamati #145: “What Is Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise”

Perfection Is Constant And Indivisible

How Can Singularity Be Transformed Without ChangingA book written by a Kabbalist is part of the spiritual world. This is so even if the author lowers the power and style of the writing by many degrees in an effort to clarify the subject for the reader. It is like Zivug Arkanat Rosh, where the Upper Level comes down to the lower level, like a mother bending over her baby.

Therefore, despite the reduced level of its delivery, the work itself is perfect and spiritual, and we must accept its higher truth. We cannot agree with one aspect of it while rejecting another. If we do, this is only an indication of our own imperfection, our lack of qualities necessary to accept and properly assess this information.

Every Object Exists Relative To Us And Only If We Can Perceive It

matter A sensation is an impression of a desire, the matter of creation. We think that sensations are only feelings, like love or hate. But in fact, sensations are reality itself!

Vladimir Lenin once gave his own particular definition of matter: “Matter is objective reality, perceived by our senses and existing independent of our consciousness.” He couldn’t be farther from the truth with regard to matter’s objectivity and existence outside our consciousness.

Every object exists relative to us and only in our consciousness, to the extent that we perceive it with our consciousness. Matter is the desire to receive (be filled with Light) created by the Creator (Light, the quality of bestowal).

At different levels, matter aspires to different forms of fulfillment. For instance, the still level wishes to preserve its form, the vegetative level already wishes to attract the beneficial and repel the harmful, and so on.

The Light did not create anything besides the desire that perceives itself.