Taste The Spiritual World Today

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is impossible to imagine how we would live if we saw ourselves as mere animals. However, humanity has religion (faith) which helps it to curb its egoism somewhat. All these belief systems are based on one idea: the existence of life after death.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah thinks otherwise. It states that there is a state called “death,” in which we exist presently, and there is a different state called “life.”

If so, then it follows that I exist in this world only once, and nothing remains after I die? But what can come back? What do you have that can be brought back? The body dies and loses the force that forced it to move, like an engine that worked before and suddenly stopped. Where did this force go? Do you think that it returned somewhere Above, to “its original place?” No, the molecules just stopped working. Was there anything spiritual in them?

How is it that we suddenly have such fantasies? Yet, the whole world lives with this belief. At least, there is some consolation that there will be something after death as well.

Then, why do Kabbalistic books state that if we don’t correct ourselves during this lifetime, we will return to this world again and continue to reincarnate this way? This is really so; we just need to figure out what this means.

In Kabbalah, faith is attainment. It means seeing and feeling the spiritual world, as it is written: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” I “sample” Him with all my senses in such a way that I feel Him in “all fibers of by body.” This isn’t faith; it is the most real sensation that can possibly be.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Kabbalists About Kabbalah Today, Part 6

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

An Opportunity for Redemption

Thus, even though the Creator has delivered the land [our desire] from the hands of the nations and has given it to us [has given us a chance to begin correcting our egoism], we have not yet received [corrected] it. We are not enjoying it.

But with this giving, the Creator has given us an opportunity for redemption [from perception of this world], to be purified and sanctified [of egoism and mutual hatred] and assume the work of God in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma [properties of mutual bestowal and love].

At that time, the Temple [collective desire] will be built and we will receive the land [corrected desire] into our own authority [for the sake of bestowal]. And then we will experience and feel the joy of redemption [fulfillment by the Upper Light].
– Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar
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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If there is no life after death, then why is it written in The Zohar that the soul rises to heaven after death, and angels take it to its judgment, and so on?

Answer: Not a single word of The Zohar talks about the physical body. The Zohar refers to the death of egoism, after which the Upper Forces called “angels” begin to influence it.

They take my desire to receive pleasure from two sides, the right and the left, and lift it “on their wings” (screens) to the first, second, and third “heavens.” This is the name for the different levels of Bina where I increasingly begin to receive more properties of bestowal.

Thus, these “angels” lift me to the “sky,” the common property of Bina. There, I reveal an entire Creator’s palace behind this property. Bina includes the properties of Malchut within it, the receiving desires within the bestowing desires, and thanks to this I reveal the Creator.

However, is it really connected with my material world and the physical senses, the life and death of this animal body? Actually, I only think that it exists; it does not exist in reality.

Does anything really exist behind the image on the computer screen? These are nothing more than electrical signals, forces, and vectors that paint this image for you. In the same way, you are being drawn this three-dimensional image which you perceive as this world.

We already have laser devices which can create three-dimensional images in the air of people around us that speak among themselves. These sensations are a complete illusion. You just cannot touch them with your hand because everything is “in the air.” However, soon, it will become absolutely “real,” just like the illusion of our world.

This is exactly how we see this world although it does not exist. So what life after death can there be? The television got turned off, and that is it: You did not have the desire to reveal the Upper World “in this life.” However, there is no need for the body to die in order to reveal spirituality. There is no connection between one and the other.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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The Most Materialistic Approach

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar does not speak about the physical death. It speaks about the desire to receive pleasure which becomes corrected and attains similarity to the Creator. A regular person has not yet reached this.

When a person works in the spiritual world, he has the left and right lines (the two “angels”), between which he builds the middle line. My ego, Pharaoh, stands on the left side, and the Creator, the Light, on the right side.

I create my spiritual vessel (Kli) with a screen to the extent of my ability to transfer this desire to receive pleasure to the middle line and attract the Light from the right line, the intention, toward it.

The screen is the intention to bestow, while the vessel is the desire within it. In this way, I build myself with these two forces, and I am the third one. Then, I begin to exist in a spiritual reality. Once I have built this “third one,” the desire with the intention, it means that I have acquired a soul.

However, if I did not build it from these two forces, then I do not have anything except for one point where I do not feel anything. This is merely a tiny desire which does not depend on me at all, “a desire out of nothing” (Mi Ain).

It is written in The Zohar that you need to kill your egoistic desire. You attract the Light toward it, kill it, and bring it to the intention to bestow. This will be you, a living you.

All of this can be done with the help of the proper environment which is called “the Holy Society” (Hevra Kedusha) because it helps you bury your egoism. This way, you receive an eternal soul, a part that is similar to the Creator.

You make it yourself, and if not, you do not have a soul. You exist below the life line, in this world, where you have nothing but an animate body, matter (Homer, substance, is consonant to Hamor, donkey). This is the most “materialistic” approach.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Love Is A Vessel For The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we don’t receive the desire to bestow from the environment, we will not be able to reveal the spiritual world through our own efforts. Indeed, spiritual pleasure is infinitely greater than its corporeal counterpart. Even the smallest pleasure which we receive upon ascending to the first spiritual degree out of 125 is billions of times greater than all the pleasures of our world combined.

The “Big Bang” is the result of a tiny spark of Upper Light that infiltrated our world and caused our whole universe. And it was merely a tiny spark! Meanwhile, now we are primed to reveal the entire Light of NRNHY to its full measure. It follows that for this we will need unlimited vessels of reception.

Therefore, we cannot receive all this Light; otherwise, we would simply explode. This is why each person needs to build external Kelim (vessels) outside of himself. Only through connection, a mutual inclusion into one another, are we capable of achieving great external desires.

Even now we are all swimming in the Upper Light; we are just unable to feel it. There is no place inside of us that can be filled because we only have a tiny spark. In Baal HaSulam’s Letter No. 8 (Fruit of Wisdom, Letters), he describes the Light that is revealed in us:

“At the hour of attainment one feels the Upper Light which is revealed and based on all the reverse transformations. And it seems to a person, at the hour of attaining perfection, that all the suffering he had gone through was valuable because it allowed him to appreciate the sweetness and flavor of the Light, of uniting with the Creator. And all of his organs and tendons shall say and bear witness that anyone among the living in the world would gladly agree to chop off his hands and feet seven times a day, if only he could attain the flavor of adhesion for but a brief moment in his life.”

In other words, we need to understand that spiritual revelation is something infinitely stupendous, and we need to prepare our empty desires (Kelim) for it. A great inner work awaits us, and yet it is incredibly easy only if we do it together with love. This union determines everything!

If I unite with others and feel that I exist together with them in one Kli, in one desire, then the Light becomes revealed inside. It is written that “love thy neighbor is the main rule of the Torah (Light)” because love is a vessel for the Light.
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From Lesson 1, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

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Revealing A New Earth And Sky

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the article “Body and Soul” Baal HaSulam explains that we live in one world, but it split into two parts in regard to each of us: an apparent one and a hidden one. Throughout history, we became better and better acquainted with our world, we revealed new continents, examined inanimate nature, flora, fauna, and cosmic space. Reality spread out broader and broader before our eyes.

Kabbalists say that this is not the limit. We just need new aspirations, an aim at bestowal – then the diapason, the range, of our qualities and feelings will become broader, and we will begin to perceive in them the reality that is currently invisible to us.

Today an inner impulse, a need to discover the hidden reality, is awakening in many people. Before, egoism constantly pushed people to explore our world in order to seek out new pleasures, the abundance in various forms, in it. And now, having exhausted all other opportunities, we wish to reveal the hidden reality.

In order to help us in this, Kabbalists wrote books. The main book, with the help of which we can find what has been concealed, is The Book of Zohar. While reading it, we need to pay less attention to the text itself since we still don’t understand what it is about. Instead, we should aspire more to what this book can give us.

The Zohar brings us revelation of “a new earth and a new sky.” The “earth” is the desire, and the “sky” is the degree of Bina, bestowal, on which we will see the reality of bestowal. Therefore, during the lesson we think about how to broaden our perception, to open our eyes, and to allow the still hidden part of one world to enter our sensations.

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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/10, “Body and Soul”

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