The Intention Cannot Be Expressed In Words

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Could you tell us about your intention while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: Kabbalists teach us what the intention should be. Every person has to actualize what he read to the extent he understands it.

It is impossible to tell you about the intention. This is something that cannot be explained to another person since the intention comes from a person’s inner state which he reveals.

I am in a state that’s unknown to me. I reveal it as it unfolds inside of me. From this state that becomes revealed to me, I create the intention.

In essence, it is impossible to clothe this intention into words. There are no words for it. That’s because it includes a person’s inner desire (Hissaron) and the degree of his connection with the upper reality through his attempts to find the means that will bring him to the highest possible closeness to the Host, the Creator – to adhesion (Zivug de Hakaa) with Him.

What are those means? They are the books, the teacher, and the group. A person includes everything that he understands and feels from their entire sum total, and through them attains unity with the Creator.

All of these means have to be present. If you miss even one of them, then you don’t have the right contact. And in addition, each of them must be properly balanced with the others.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Intention: What’s Important Is The Result
The Ship Of Our Intentions
The Intention Is The Thread To The Future

In The Radiant Sphere Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” Item 465: On Sabbath, the Torah is crowned with him, crowned with all those Mitzvot, all those sentences and punishments in seventy branches of light that shine to every direction…. Who saw those gates that open to each of the directions in them, where each consists of ten, and they are fifty gates? They all shine and illuminate in that light that is emitted and which never stops.

Where can I reveal all these details? I can find them only in the internal connection between the friends. The Zohar describes all types of connection that we will reveal, until it becomes an infinite bond between us, when we completely correct it.

All states and relations The Zohar describes, as well as various images of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, including people and all kinds of situations, or in the language of Kabbalah, Partzufim (souls), Olamot (worlds), Reshimot (spiritual genes), and Sefirot (properties), along with their ascents and descents, all of them are expressions of the internal connection between us, the people who are willing to unify in order to reveal the upper world within, in their relations.

Everyone advances in being able to see how the 613 desires of his or her soul expand outward in bestowal to the other souls and how from every soul, its 613 desires also expand to all the others. Imagine this: There are billions of souls that match the number of people in this corporeal world. From each soul, there expand 613 desires to every soul, all of them link into each other, and with a new, mutual linkage they bestow to each other again, and interconnecting once more, they continue to bestow.

Thus, finally we will see a sphere that has no empty “space” since all of it is filled with the souls’ bond. If we reveal this bond in the minimal measure, in 1/125th part of it, we begin revealing the Light flowing in the channels between us. This is called the revelation of the Creator because this Light is, in fact, the Creator, and that is what The Zohar describes.
[39073]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
One Soul For All
Eureka! It Does Exist!
The Radiance Of The Integral Soul

A Tower In The Sky

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can studying The Zohar help a person realize that he has gotten off the path and correct this transgression?

Answer: In reality, the most effective means that directs a person in this regard is the group’s opinion, the common sensation that reigns in the group. If a group follows the advice of the teacher and the authors of the books, then it forms a sensation inside of it that enables every person to check the extent to which he loses the direction toward the goal of creation.

This is like a tower floating in the sky, but I have to be inside of that tower.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Upwards Along The Degrees Of Intentions
The Secret Of The Group
Wanting Is Not Enough

Prayer For Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanYou and I were not created by accident. The Creator wanted for creation to become the same as He, and everything happening to us is moving toward this goal. Therefore, on this path we have to go through the realization that we are divided, separated, and hate one another. However, we receive the force to unite above this hatred, which gradually increases more and more. That’s because we cannot overcome and rise above all of the hatred reigning in us all at once. But if we can overcome it gradually, step by step, then we will acquire the quality of bestowal, mutual attention, care, the quality of Bina that does not allow us to do to another what we hate. And after that we reach love for the neighbor “as for ourselves.”

That is why the entire science of Kabbalah, which is called the science of truth, talks only about unity. It’s because inside unity, we, people, attain the qualities of the Creator.

If people get together and unite in one desire in order to multiply every person’s forces and give each other the guarantee that through their common efforts they will attain the desired goal and will gain greater confidence, this is called “a society of clowns and liars.” That’s because they think that through their unity they will be able to gain greater egoistic benefit. Therefore, their common prayer acts destructively and separates them from the goal.

A person has to understand that he unites with others only in order to discern how to ascend above his nature. It’s not to receive greater force from the society or to satisfy the demands of his egoism, but to enter inside this society and start bestowing to it. This is the only force we should look for.

The force of bestowal to society comes form the Light, from the Creator, from what is concealed inside of a person’s relationship with the society, the group. That is to say, the group has to consist of people who unite precisely in order to attain the Creator, the common quality of bestowal.

The Creator does not exist separately from creation. The quality of common bestowal does not exist unless there is a person who reveals it. Therefore, if a person includes himself into the group that aspires to the quality of bestowal and there he desires to find this force, to attain this quality, he starts to understand from his unity with others that this care about society, inside of which the quality of bestowal exists, or care for the Creator, which is the same thing, is the prayer of the society.
[39184]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

Related Material:
Bestow With A Generous Hand
A Prayer For Society
What Is A True Prayer For The Society?

Creation’s Worst Nightmare

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe need to unify Israel, the Torah, and the Creator as one (the person striving straight to the Creator, the Light, and the Creator). Each part must strive to unify with the others so that in the end, it could bestow to the Light. It is just as in the beginning, the Light was the one to bestow, having endowed Malchut with the sensation of His love, prompting it to all of the actions that started with the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and unfolded further downward.

But when after all these corrections Malchut returns to the same state of perfection, wholeness, and oneness, in its love and bestowal to the Light of Infinity, we get to see that all of it is just one created being which has gone through all kinds of “hardships.”

These “predicaments” are regarded as the “worlds,” from the word “concealments” in Hebrew. They are concealments on the perfect state of Infinity, in order to withdraw from that sensation of fulfillment and undergo all kinds of inner experiences, impressions, choices, and wars, to construct within an identical relationship with the Light while going through the states of separation from and then drawing closer back to the world of Infinity, and to finally arrive to an embrace, or complete adhesion.

In all of this process, there are infinite details, each of which is linked to the beginning and end of the process. After all, we also participate in this whole entanglement of feelings that Malchut experiences, caused by the collision of the Light and the vessel, pleasure and desire, the force of the Creator and that of the creature. We pass through the same states individually, as parts of Malchut, so that in the end we would experience ourselves as one soul.

After all, there is only one creature: Malchut of the world of Infinity. And every one of us must unify with all the others, having overcome this terrible nightmare and our illusory separation, this concealment of a perfect, eternal state. And then, everyone will see that he or she is included in all the others with their feelings, thoughts, love, and bestowal.

Therefore, we need to do all that we can to expedite our awakening from this dream. It is written that the Creator will bring us back “out of Zion,” meaning that there is a way out (Yetzia) from this reality, from this slumber. Then, we’ll see that we were in a dream-like state and will unify into one soul.

I hope that the upcoming convention will help us make a huge leap forward so that we’ll wake up and feel as one soul.
[38976]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, Preparation for the WE! Convention

Related Material:
From Love To Hatred And Back To Love
Who Decides: Desire Or The Light?
Returning To Malchut Of Infinity

A Wise Man Looks Into The Distance

Dr. Michael LaitmanOn the spiritual path, we undergo phases of development and at the same time, creative development. It is the same in our world: Man does not live by bread alone.

We do not only feed children to strengthen them, nor do we solely appraise them by the weight they gain. Rather, the most crucial factor is the extent to which a child becomes a human being: one who is understanding, perceptive, responsive, longing, and directed towards qualitative rather than quantitative achievements. This means that a child grows. It is a pity if he is deprived of this.

It is the same in spirituality. Is it really possible to evaluate yourself according to the number of hours spent studying? No, we require qualitative growth so that our desires and thoughts focus more and more on the principle of “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one,” on the goal of our growth.

Nature imparts on us purposeful development and obliges us to learn to relate to everything we do in life purposefully. And this means that we have to define for ourselves what a person should be like. After all, a wise man looks into the distance. If we develop purposefully, we need to understand what nature wants.

Nature demonstrates to us the wholeness, interconnection, the integrity of all of the parts, a constant development. And so we, too, must distinguish the corresponding stages in our development, accepting them as desirable.

Today, correct education is required for both parents and children. We must deliver the basic principles to everyone: constant self-perfection, aiming towards unity, the goodness of qualitative and quantitative connections between us, naturally arising as a result of association, unity, harmony, and homeostasis with nature.

If we ourselves behave this way, and if we begin to teach this to the young generation, if continuous steps towards unity, becoming closer, and mutual understanding, up to loving our neighbor as ourselves becomes a norm, we will be moving ever closer to the goal. Our education will be purposeful.

As we develop and undergo states that contradict our egoism, we should understand that the end of the action lies in its initial thought. Nature has set the end goal: We must unite with each other. And because there is no other way out, we need to educate ourselves and the growing generation with the method of uniting.

Otherwise, instead of longing towards a sweet fruit, we’ll only be more immersed in the bitterness of the previous stages of ripening.
[39003]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Principles of Global Education

Related Material:
Useful Obstacles
Life Could Be Beautiful
Making The Principles Of Global Education Clear To Everyone

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.28.11

Lesson on Topic “Preparation for the WE Convention,” “The Torah, The Creator and Israel are One,” Lesson 6
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” “I Am the Lord Your God,” Item 504, Lesson 11
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 9, Lesson 16
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Topic: The Principles of Global Education, Lesson 11
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

“Ask The Kabbalist” – 13

Download: WMV Video|MP3
To send a question for the program, please click here.