Good Environment – 11.25.10
Posted on November 25th, 2010
Question: Instead of gaining superpowers, I feel weaker from one day to the next. How can I become a spiritual superman that ascends above his ego?
Answer: First of all you should base everything on the facts. There’s no reason to get scared of the facts because everything comes to us from the Creator, who presents a process to us as a way to learn something.
The Upper Light influences our inner Reshimot, creating inside them the pictures that appear before us. He takes informational data (Reshimot) from us, projects them on our inner screen, and thus we perceive ourselves as being in a specific state.
All of these states have to happen to us on the path. So what’s the problem? Is it the fact that sometimes I feel bad and sometimes I feel good, having completely no power over myself? After all, I am governed by the Light.
Now I am receiving an explanation of how the Light influences me. But who am I? I only observe this work. That is why it is called the Creator’s work. We are looking at it from aside and should use it to learn about what is happening.
Is it unpleasant to know He is operating me? What if I looked at my friend who suddenly cries or feels happy, sometimes he sleeps and sometimes he is rushing off to some place; that would be normal because I would see the Light’s actions operating someone else. But I am not glad to observe how all of this is happening to myself.
On one hand, this is correct. On the other hand, if you start to identify with these actions, with the Creator, and if you desire to justify Him, then you won’t care what passes over you. You identify with the One who operates you and perceive yourself as the material for Him to work on.
Can you detach from this material? Can you say, “This is not me at all. If I am moving, doing something, thinking or desiring something, none of it is me. I identify with the Creator who is doing anything He wishes to this material.” That’s when you can already see yourself from aside.
Now a question arises: Can I ask the Creator to carry out other goal-oriented actions? It’s possible that this will happen, so let’s try. What actions will they be? And for what? What will He hear? What will He want to carry out? I don’t want to ask Him for something vain. If I have already reached a state where I act together with Him against my body, as Moses did with the Creator against Pharaoh, then let me ask for something real. That’s when a person begins this entire process.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar
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Question: When does faith turn into attainment?
Answer: If it is faith above reason, then it becomes a vessel or Kli for attainment. After all, faith is a name for the Light of Hassadim.
Faith above reason is the quality of bestowal that rules over the desire to enjoy. The desire to enjoy with the intention of bestowal becomes a vessel or Kli for the Light of Hochma.
Then the Light of Hochma, clothed into the Light of Hassadim, starts to rule inside the desire to enjoy, and that is attainment.
The fulfillment of the Light of Hassadim by the Light of Hochma is called “total or complete faith” (Emuna Shlema).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
Engaging in Kabbalah Requires No Preliminary Excellence
The purpose of creation belongs to all creations without exception. It concerns not necessarily merely the strong and skillful, the brave people who can overcome, but all the people.
In “Midrash Rabba,” [The Great Commentary] sages wrote: “The Creator said unto Israel: “Regard, the whole wisdom and the whole Light are easy things [for those who protect themselves from egoism]. He who fears Me and does deeds of Torah [acts only for the sake of bestowal and love], [in that case] the entire wisdom and Light are in his heart.”
– Rabash, Steps of the Ladder, “Love of Friends- 2”
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The Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride),” Item 138: …and the iniquity became as a mistake to him, as it is written, “If the Lord had not been my help, my soul had almost dwelt with Dumah.” But the rest of the people should fear that they will not be able to say before the angel that it was a mistake, and will fall into the hands of Dumah, to Hell.
When we manage to correct some parts of Malchut, a thin thread still remains that connects the parts that are impossible to correct to us. We have to “nourish” them and allow them to stay alive so that we can correct them later.
There is always a “catch” that holds us “tied up” to egoism. It is similar to the “gates of hell” through which we can suddenly submerge into egoistic intention. This is where a problem hides.
Are we capable of retaining the screen that prevents us from getting pleased for our own sake? If we cannot retain it, the Lights will disappear, and we will stay in the darkness of “hell.” Do we have a chance to preserve a little portion of egoism without opening the gates and ensure minimum illumination that is vitally necessary for its existence?
The Book of Zohar speaks about the ways of achieving this. We are correcting our mistakes, whereas intentional evil will be corrected only at the last stage of our work.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”
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Question: On the second day of the Convention, I started to feel that all people, all “points,” as though, are within me, and feeling them as part of me, I could truly love them as myself. Is it correct to perceive the entire group within myself?
Answer: It is precisely how we start to form the place where later the property of bestowal called the Creator becomes revealed.
Question: I witnessed how during the Convention, people completely devoted themselves to work. Do we really need such external actions? Perhaps they actually distract us from the goal? After all, aren’t they just vaguely related to the truth?
Answer: Possibly, we need to distribute duties more evenly, but there is no doubt that we have to fully care for and perform all these duties ourselves.
Question: Suppose, we start hating the friends. How do we distinguish between this, let’s call it “divine” hatred that obstructs the connection of the broken vessels and simple hatred caused by nasty character or mental disability?
Answer: If, in order to reveal the Creator, a person exerted efforts in connecting with the friends, then a strong common effort exposes hatred toward the obligation to unite. The Zohar talks about it as well. But if a person did not exert effort in trying to unite, he will not feel true hatred.
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In the beginning, a person grows like an embryo inside his mother’s womb, thus far, at the “still” level; he simply nullifies himself. Then, he becomes as a little child who exists next to a grownup, and this is the “vegetative” level. After that, a person is an adult which is the “animate” level.
All these levels are staged by the forces of nature, meaning that we don’t need to exert effort in order to evolve since Nature turns on the forces and desire to grow in us from within. In other words, it raises a request for development, MAN (Mayin Nukvin – female waters), on our behalf; it awakens in us on its own.
The Creator (Nature) acts from two directions. From within, the embryo strives to develop and nullifies itself in relation to its mother, and from inside, the mother’s organism nourishes the embryo and doesn’t treat it as a foreign object. Both are driven by basic instinct, mutual love for each other, a grown up to a child, and the child to the adult.
On the animate level, at a more mature age, we still have to nullify ourselves in relation to each other in order to learn from the others. Yet, again, all of this is controlled by instincts.
As for the development of the soul on the speaking level, the level of Human/Adam (Adam or Domeh in Hebrew), man, himself, must initiate the raising of MAN, the plea for correction. In other words, there has to be a desire coming from man himself.
I have a desire to evolve, but I am unable and don’t understand what and how to do that. Everything is concealed from me, yet, to figure it out, I am given the group, the environment. This is why the collective soul broke.
Attach them all to your point in the heart; you will receive the power necessary for the act. Your point in the heart is backed up by the group, and, if you receive assistance from it, you will be able to raise MAN to the Creator (who, in truth, also resides within the group).
As a result, you will receive a response, MAD (Mayin Duchrin – male waters), the force of development, the Light that Reforms, from the Creator. It doesn’t matter where you work all day long; what matters is where your thoughts are as that’s where you are as well.
However, your thoughts can be defined with the help of the environment. So, let’s agree that we will do our best to make sure none of us forgets, even for an instant that we must stay connected, thereby awakening each other.
Let’s make this wish and together with all our friends around the world draw the Upper Force, the Creator, to this desire. Let’s force Him to help us think solely about oneness, only about mutual responsibility, the Arvut.
If you don’t wake up, the others won’t wake up either, and if the others don’t wake up, tomorrow, I, myself, will be asleep during the lesson. There is no way out of this unless we take responsibility to provide the basic desire, having received it from the group, and with it, appeal to the Creator.
Anything that Nature does with the embryo, a child, and any creature living in this world by pushing them toward growth, we must accomplish with our own free will and consciously start our own evolution.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, Baal HaSulam “Body and Soul”
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Question: How can we reach revelation so we would see the spiritual world as realistically as we now see our reality?
Answer: I don’t know whether the things I’m seeing now are reality or not. What if I am dreaming and cannot wake up?
It seems to me that I am now inside of a certain reality, but how do I really know whether or not this reality is just a dream compared to the next reality? Maybe there such a level of wakefulness is awaiting me that everything I felt in the past will seem like a dream?
Inside my current reality there are also periods when I tune out from it and go to sleep. So how do I know: Maybe I am sleeping now as well?
In other words, I have to discern how to go from one state to the next and acquire a new consciousness. And that is why Kabbalists have given us a means.
Until you acquire that new consciousness, you will remain inside a dream and you won’t even find out that it is possible to wake up and start living! We all understand what it means to dream. I was sleeping, I woke up, and now I am considered awake. And that is exactly how we exist in relation to the spiritual world, the world to come.
There are many states like this, one above the other. Kabbalah gives us the means to keep ascending from one state to the next. If you correctly use the means given to you in your current state, then you will be able to ascend to a state that is called “life” in relation to your current state, and what you feel today will be called a “dream.” It is written, “We were as dreamers.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”
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Question: How do we acquire the ability to advance “above reason”?
Answer: “Above reason” is above our “matter,” the will to enjoy; in other words, “above reason” is inside the quality of bestowal. We are unable to rise above our egoism ourselves. This is possible only with the help of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif.
“Reason” means my desire. Inside of my desire I am able to feel, see, and make calculations depending on the probable benefit or harm, or on whether it’s worthwhile for me to use a certain desire or not. As a result of these calculations I reach certain conclusions and then realize my desires. I do not have any problem in this regard. That is how I live in this world.
I am certain about part of these calculations and I have doubts about another part of them. In our earthly sciences we also use the theory of probability whenever we do not have reliable information. However, in any case we have something we can rely on.
On the other hand, “faith above reason” or “above knowledge” is when I don’t have any instruments or means of perceiving. In addition, I don’t even know what “higher” is. If it were simply opposite to reason, then I might be able to calculate how I should act according to my reason and then I would act exactly in the opposite manner. Yet, this would also be a rational calculation.
However, I don’t have the slightest idea of what “faith above reason” is; I don’t know what reason it follows, what sensation and calculation it entails, and in relation to what. It is a certain approach, tendency, or paradigm that does not exist inside me.
Therefore, only the Light can come and give us this approach because “above reason” means “for the sake of bestowal,” meaning not according to the calculation inside the Kli, the desire to enjoy. But if it’s not inside the desire, then I don’t know what it is. How can I find out? I don’t know. And inside what desire?
Kabbalists say: If you start to perceive the desire of your neighbor as your own, if you can make a calculation in relation to his desire, one that is for his good, then that will be above your current knowledge. However, to do that I have to receive super powers that I don’t have. If I receive them, I will be able to go “above reason.” However, for now you cannot jump higher than yourself.
Only the Light that created us can change us. Therefore we have to use the “miraculous means” (Segulot) and perform various actions that awaken the Light so it will influence us. That is how our success will be measured. The mind and the sensations that you accumulate inside your desire to enjoy for now are unable to help you. They can only help you in the opposite form. If you make a daily assessment of what you have attained in spirituality, you will see that in reality you haven’t attained anything even though you put in many efforts.
And the same thing will happen tomorrow. On the day after that, you will get confused in addition. Another day later you will suddenly feel confident that you have become smart. And so on. Every day you add more negative phenomena due to the fact that you reside inside the desire to enjoy for your own sake and you think that only the Light can help you, but it does not come and does not help you.
So what should you do? Start waging war against reason, as it is written about the Egyptian exile.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar
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