Question: When we read The Book of Zohar there are parts that I understand and there are parts that I simply cannot put together; how should we work with that? Should we try to understand or should we totally ignore the mind?

Answer: It’s true that there are parts in The Book of Zohar that we can understand and there are parts that we can’t. We have to look for the feeling; it’s a vessel of perception. If the mind can bring you such an emotional impression, then it works as it should. But if it only works as a cold mind, then it’s the wrong direction. It’s not because we don’t respect science or the rational approach, but because the mind is revealed in the vessels of feeling. The vessels come first; they are the basis. The mind can only control what is in them.

So I first have to make sure that I feel, and then from the feeling I should understand what I feel. This is called “the heart understands.” First comes the heart, the vessel. In the vessel we feel and not understand. Afterward, there is a desire; it discovers the Light. But what does it discover, what does it calculate? It calculates what corrections it has performed in order to discover the current feeling.

The corrections I have performed, my actions in order to reveal the current feeling, are called my mind, what I have attained is my feeling. It turns out that the heart understands. The corrections that I have performed in the heart are in the mind since I went through them, have performed them, and I compare, compile, connect, and subtract them like math. I do all that in the heart, in my vessels of feeling.

But now I delve into these corrections with the mind in order to discover a greater depth of the feeling. Thus I multiply my vessels of feeling by 620 times by the mind, by understanding now what corrections I have been through in order to discover the current state.

This means that the feeling without the mind remains on the level of the still nature, and by incorporating the mind in the feeling, I raise the feeling up the levels from Nefesh, to Ruach, to Neshama, to Haya, and to Yechida. There are no changes in the Light itself; it is only by delving into it with my new vessels of perception that I discover NRNHY in it. The Light itself is Nefesh.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Questions At The Zohar Lesson, Part 1
How To Understand The Zohar
A Motivation To Be Born Sooner

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