Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.18.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-10-18_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’18.10.12′]

We Don’t Improve Our Foundation, But Replace It With A New One

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will self-annulment, which we want to achieve, help us if I think that it is simply replacing a small egoistic desire with a bigger one, giving up the current reward for the future one?

Answer: Let it be so in the meantime. We are in the preliminary stages of our advancement and do not take into account that the Light that Reforms impresses us. In fact it operates constantly, thus changing a person. We think that we will stay the way we are now, but will be a bit better. But it is qualitative changes that take place and not quantitative ones, and in the meantime we cannot take them into account in order to estimate in advance how we will change. We think that we will be better by intensifying a certain attribute that already exists, but we don’t understand that we will change in our essence. So it seems that we simply replace a small ego with a big ego, but it isn’t that way at all.
[90405]
From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Mechanical Method Of Drawing The Upper Light
The Habit Of Humility
Where Can We Get The Power For Internal Changes?

The Habit Of Humility

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should I express my self-annulment before the friends externally?

Answer: I may annul myself on purpose before the friends, even in an exaggerated manner, to set an example for others. There are those who are too shy to behave that way, which means that their ego will not let them, since how else can shyness be created?

So they cannot annul themselves before the friends, and, by setting an example for them, it is easier for them to do so. It will also be easier for me if I understand and know that I do it only to set an example.

The ego needs some compensation, some justification. Now, I play the lowly, just like an actor in a theater, but I calm myself that I really am not like that. However, even in such situations, the Light operates on me and reforms me.

So, gradually, a “habit becomes second nature.” A habit is the impression of the Light on my actions that brings me another nature.
[90431]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
We Don’t Improve Our Foundation, But Replace It With A New One
A Mechanical Method Of Drawing The Upper Light
Where Can We Get The Power For Internal Changes?

Always Start From The Right

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we begin to read The Book of Zohar we should notice two lines everywhere. But where? And should I evoke the left line?

We have already said that we only evoke the right line, as it says in Kabbalistic sources: “Always start from the right,” which means from the Light of Hassadim, in bestowal, in love, in connection, as if you are already in a completely corrected state and the left line doesn’t control anything; it is gone and we don’t see it; it is all controlled by the right.

We have to try and deal only with the right line by wanting to reveal infinite love and bestowal by the Light that Reforms, asking that it will illuminate on our connection with The Book of Zohar. We can read as if we simply read what is written, “counting the letters.” And there is connection with the text when I want to connect with the force that is concealed there, with the Light that Reforms, so that it will illuminate on me and change me. This Light evokes the left line in me, by illuminating on me and impressing me, thus evoking different interruptions, confusions, and thoughts that are different from love and connection.

Then, despite these interruptions, I have to try and feel love and bestowal and ask for correction so that the two lines will connect. I am not asking that the “evil will die” but that “they reform.” This is how we advance.

This means that I don’t have to worry about the left line. If I advance correctly in the right line, the left line is sure to appear. But when it appears, I have to make sure that I will control the right and it will control the left. This means that the left line doesn’t disappear; the evil inclination remains, but I turn it into a good inclination by creating the right cover for it from the right line, the intention of in order to bestow.

This is actually what we want to happen. So, in reading The Zohar we have to constantly think only about the love and connection among us. And we work with whatever is revealed.
[90423]
From the 2nd part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Rise Above All Differences
The Work At Night
The Ascent Of The Bride

A Mechanical Method Of Drawing The Upper Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Should we play self-annulment only externally or also internally?

Answer: Internally I play on my own, and it doesn’t matter whether there are people around me or not. The main thing is that in the meantime I am divided into internal and external parts and from my current state I want to reach the other one, by organizing my attributes, the internal hierarchy of the forces—this is why I play.

If I play in annulling and humbling myself, then this game gradually becomes reality. All our worlds and our state are mechanical and except for the mechanical drawing of the Light that Reforms, we have no other freewill.

If I understand a bit what the next level should be and where I am now and I play the upper level in humility, by trying different means to adhere and to connect with the friends, it is OK that I have no feeling for it, no mind and no knowhow. Our world is mechanical, corporeal, and physical, and if I use all the means I was given, then I draw the Light that Reforms upon myself.

The Surrounding Light operates on me. On the upper levels we begin to feel the influence of the Surrounding Light that becomes part of our state because our vessel is divided into an internal and external part in which we operate. But in our current state it happens in concealment.

A reversal of my attributes must take place. Even if I deal with something with the opposite intention, but do everything that I can, it is enough to draw the Light upon me, and so this Light is called the Surrounding Light.
[90428]
From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Habit Of Humility
We Don’t Improve Our Foundation, But Replace It With A New One
Where Can We Get The Power For Internal Changes?

Where Can We Get The Power For Internal Changes?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says that a person has to change himself internally, but where can he get the powers to do so?

Answer: We are not responsible for our internal desires of course, but we can influence them by external actions. This is flattery and a lie of course, but by annulling myself externally, I attain my internal self-annulment.

It is because I am doing this on purpose, wanting it to happen. So my actions are considered a prayer, a request for help, MAN, because I really want to impress myself by them.

This is why it is so helpful to actually humiliate yourself before the friends and this kind of work summons internal changes. A person is afraid to annul himself and to remain mindless and lose his own opinions, to lose his “self,” all his life experience and the perspective of life he has established. If he still thinks this, it is a sign that he hasn’t reached the recognition of his real humility, and hasn’t realized that there is no way he can succeed by himself.

He has not despaired of his own powers and so it is too soon for him to deal with this kind of work. He will have to wait a few more years, until eventually he will realize that nothing helps and all he has to do is to erase everything in him and to receive what his friends have.

He doesn’t know what they have, but he only knows that what they have is exactly what he needs and that he wants to get rid of what is in him.

Then a person begins to see that actually there was nothing in him but a little pride and concern for his ego. In fact all of spirituality, the whole upper level is external to him.
[90407]
From the 1st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Mechanical Method Of Drawing The Upper Light
The Habit Of Humility
We Don’t Improve Our Foundation, But Replace It With A New One

The New World Beyond Selfish Interests

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I try to feel others, if I only feel myself?

Answer: If a person discovers that he only feels himself, then that is already a big achievement. Now he has to only understand that with this feeling of himself he will always remain in this world. This perception is called this world.

If a person understands that, then that is already the achievement. When we discover that we only feel ourselves and via that we perceive the rest of what is within us, then that is called the feeling of this world. This is already not a simple state.

Now I need to listen to what is written in the books of Kabbalah, which claim that the spiritual world is found beyond this feeling, external to myself, in others, and think about how to feel others instead of myself.

Everything felt by me now exists only within me and not in reality. Externally are only images, pictures that are depicted in me. And the question that stands before me now is “How can I exit myself? “

For this I am given friends, the group, so that through mutual activities, we will stimulate the Light that will help us exit ourselves outwards to them. This is called the transition outside our “selfish interests.”
[90334]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Shamati #47

Related Material:
The Builders Of A New Reality
What Does Unity Give Us?
An Elevator To The Spiritual World

The Magic Dress Of The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen reading The Zohar, we want to participate in this game, in the scenario that The Zohar tells us about. At this time, the scenario shows the following to us: “Do I want to participate in it?—“Yes. I am interested in participating in this scenario and being a part of it.”

Question: When one plays a role, one usually identifies himself with it. What do I have to identify myself with when I play according to the scenario that is used in The Zohar?

Answer: It is said in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155: Therefore we must ask, why then, did the Kabbalists obligate each person (meaning each of us) to study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Indeed, there is a great thing in it, worthy of being publicized: There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.

This means that every person from Israel (those who have authentic aspiration to spirituality) is guaranteed to finally attain all the wonderful attainments that the Creator had contemplated in the Thought of Creation to delight every creature. And one who has not been awarded in this life will be granted in the next life, etc., until one is awarded completing His Thought, which He had planned for him.

And while one has not attained perfection (until one has not yet reached the revelations or perceived the life in the upper world), the Lights that are destined to reach him are considered Surrounding Lights. That means that they stand ready for him, but are waiting for him to purify his vessels of reception, at which time these Lights will clothe the able vessels.

This is why we should aspire to and try to get closer to what is described in The Book of Zohar. It doesn’t matter how it is called—a game, an exercise, an exertion, a prayer, MAN—in general, it is about “knowing the subject of one’s studies”, as it is said “and Adam knew Eve, his wife.” “Know” means “merging, uniting.”

Until one merges with spirituality, one has to continue aspiring to it; it is called “the game.” One has to imagine himself being already “there.” If one doesn’t have an aspiration, then it means that he has nothing at all. To the extent of one’s desire to trigger the Light that constantly shines upon us, the Light starts influencing us on a bigger scale because our desire to attain it has been increased. We are the ones who elicit the Light’s actions, whereas the Light is unchangeable.  It is our job to enhance our susceptibility to the Light. We visualize the Light more vividly, thus getting a feeling that “we already are “there”: “What is it? How did it happen?” We play the “game of bestowal” and pretend that we are capable of loving others who are already connected to us. Due to the fact that I seem to be there already, the Light of the future shines upon us now.

Question: I strive to be “there.” However, what do The Zohar’s words mean to me in the “scenario”? What is the role of the language of The Zohar?

Answer: It is your future life. So far, these words do not mean a thing to you. What can the authors of The Zohar tell you? Their task is to describe the pictures of the authentic reality.

Spirituality is not the world of bodies, but rather the realm of souls, that is, the desires to bestow that are interconnected with each other. The desires to give make a system of liaisons among them. The degree of their similarity with the Light defines the extent of the Light’s presence in them.

What is this entire “performance” about? Each of us (as a soul), a desire to bestow, is already a particle of the interactive network; all of us are parts of the corrected humanity that we still strive to reveal. It does exist! All we have to do is divulge it. The end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), the third state, does exist!

So, we have to imagine ourselves being in a corrected state and pretend as if we are there already; this is how we implement our desire to reach it. Our aspiration to be there makes us feel that we have already achieved the goal and that we are already “there.” In other words, our aspiration equalizes with the desire to “know” the subject of our studies, to merge with it and dress in it. We don’t know what it is, but it is about us and our internal state, our eternal inner essence rather than our mortal bodies. We want to reveal it and live in it.

Our eternal essence does exist, but our minds have not merged with it yet. We want to connect with it, get inside it, as if one has a dress that hangs in the wardrobe and really wants to put it on. If it so happens, one will live within one’s eternal essence, since our clothing reflects who we are.

In our material clothes, we can only stay in this earthly realm. When one clothes oneself into this “dress,” that is, into the Light of bestowal, Bina, Hassadim, one reaches the future world.

Let this fairy tale hit our imagination. That’s all there is to it.
[89947]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
On The Wave Of The Book Of Zohar
Who Are You, Authors Of The Zohar?
Yearning To Meet The Light

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10.18.12

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

Shamati #212, Embrace of the Right, Embrace of the Left

[media 3] [media 4]

The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt “Aharei-Mot,” Item 336, Lesson 25

[media 5] [media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 3, Part 8, “Ohr Pnimi,” (Starting with: “You also know that all these Komot“), Item 31, Lesson 18

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Rabash, Concerning the Importance of Friends

[media 9] [media 10]