As counter-intuitive as it may seem, if I want to ascend to the next spiritual degree and receive greater Light, I need to “come outside,” exit the state where I had fulfillment, the Light of Hochma, and ascend to a degree that doesn’t have the Light of Hochma, but only the Light of Hassadim. Then I am guaranteed to never fall from my spiritual degree, and nothing could ever harm me.

Indeed, nobody can harm me but me! A person is a tiny world. Everything I see outside of me actually exists within me, within my sensations. This whole world only appears external, but it actually exists within; I merely imagine it to be outside. When we begin to acquire spiritual sensations, we will feel that these qualities and phenomena transpire within. It seems obvious that everything exists outside, including the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature, as well as all the people in the world, all the stars and the entire universe. After all, how could I possibly fit all of that inside!? But in fact, I do feel all of these things inside me. It is a great folly to view the world as external. Even classical science, which examines the physical world, is beginning to agree with this viewpoint, something The Book of Zohar wrote about over a thousand years ago.

All the things and characters described in The Zohar, such as the Creator and the creation, Leah, Rachel, Yaakov, Israel, angels, evil spirits and various other forces, myself and all the worlds that I can possibly imagine – all of that exists only in my perception. Therefore, when I read The Zohar, I need to try and feel as though these things are happening within me, while outside – there is nothing! All the friends with whom I study, the television that plays the lesson for me – all of these things are my own sensations.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar | Add Comment →