A question I received: How does The Book of Zohar want to direct us?

My Answer: The Zohar directs us only to revealing the world inside us and there finding all the possible inner notions – myself, the world, a the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. After all, everything we can only imagine now, including ourselves, is inside of us.

If I relate to The Book of Zohar in this way, knowing that it reveals myself to me, then the book will tell me about me. Everything I read in The Book of Zohar takes place inside me. I am essentially a screen, and the force of desire depicts various forms, images and actions on my screen. On different levels of my desire to enjoy, this force either depicts inanimate objects, or the vegetative world, or the animate world, or the human world. All of these pictures appear inside of my desire to enjoy and they are drawn by the force of desire.

Similar to how we see images on a computer screen, there is a “photo camera” inside us that creates an illusion of the reality that appears before us. But in actuality, there is no reality; it is all our desire to enjoy receiving these impressions from the force that acts inside it, depicting various images inside the desire. We, in turn, discern these images as inanimate objects, plants, animals and people, depending on the level of desire that they are depicted on.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, I have to imagine that I am a small world and everything is inside me; the ocean, mountains, colors, sounds, trees, people and all events are taking place inside me. Then I will gradually start to shift from images that are being described by The Zohar to qualities and forces. Instead of responding to the words of this book by imagining animals, people, trees and all the things happening to them, I will gradually begin to discern these qualities within me. In essence, there are just two qualities – reception and bestowal, but they can be present in varying degrees and expressed in different ways.

We have to try to recognize everything that is being described by this book. As soon as we really make the transition to the world of forces, we will begin to see the truth and to understand that all the images we now see are an imaginary world, and in reality, it is all just forces. And then, behind these forces, we will gradually start to discern the One, Single Force – the Creator.

That is how we have to read The Book of Zohar.

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