Why Don’t I Understand TES?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I feel a complete detachment from TES (Talmud Eser Sefirot.) I can neither understand nor sense it. When I read it, I feel really frustrated. Is there a way to handle this?

Answer: And rightly so. After all, you see that everything written there is unclear to you; it doesn’t “stick” to you.

When we study any science that belongs to this world, we read slowly, try to understand, listen, “digest” the same page or a part of it many times, and then we eventually comprehend it. We can draw it on paper, create a model, or see it somewhere, or ask others about something we don’t understand yet.

Those who know the answers will show us how it works; they will also bring examples: This is an atom, it has electrons and protons. This is an accelerator, it speeds atoms up, hits them, and they break away from their nuclei and bounce from side to side… . We don’t see this picture but we can imagine “bouncing” balls.

When we study spirituality, we just don’t understand a thing. Everything that pertains to spirituality happens in a totally different realm, on a dissimilar plane, in another dimension, in opposite properties and qualities.

All we have is our brain (an empty computer) and an egocentric “program” that has filled our brain since we were born. We observe everything through this prism. We are not able to read texts that are so different, nor do we understand what these texts tell us. This is because we are run by different types of software.

As an example, let’s take a regular computer with a “Windows” operating system. We try playing a different software on this computer, let’s say “Linux.” However, it doesn’t have software to do that, so the computer has “no clue” of what is going on with it. This attempt of ours creates a total mess in the computer, nothing else.

The same applies to us. We are internally programmed. Connections between our memory and logic cells already have been established. We read with our eyes, but internally we feel what we are reading. So we should have a program inside us that is “compatible” with the incoming information, as in a computer. Quite simply, there is nothing else to it.

So, the information that we scan with our eyes contains a different volume and “sits” in a different pool of cells; it isn’t on the same grid with the informational data and their relationships that are in me. We read the information that is based on bestowal, on “getting out of oneself.” However, it is totally different information; it isn’t in us. We don’t have an inner machine to comprehend it.

There are people who still love to read, to understand; they literally “chewing” the granite of science. We have a student who is this way; by the way, he is a very good friend of ours, although he is a big “nerd.” I always use him as an example of how strongly one can really seek knowledge.

I too was one of them. I thought that through learning, I would conquer everything and to the extent that I understood the material I was studying with my brain, I would reveal and attain Kabbalah as any other science of this world. As a result, I hit a wall and felt a tremendous repulsion to TES.

It took me several years to understand the sixth and the seventh portions of TES, the World of Nekudim. Starting with the eighth part and from there on, I didn’t comprehend a thing! In other words, it didn’t live in me because I didn’t have these elements inside of me.

There are people who study TES and are very happy about it because they don’t have an internal demand to reach attainment, meaning they have no point in the heart. And I do have a point in the heart and it requires that I feel things that I study. I have to sense and form them internally; it’s not enough for me to imagine them as a basic model, I have to feel the entire world that they describe to me.

If this world is not present inside us, we won’t understand anything at all. Therefore, one who gets frustrated and angry about not understanding, is a really good soul. However, no one will understand this material until one “upgrades” oneself, re-structures one’s internal “program,” and in addition to the software that runs him or her, is added another programming language called “a spiritual system.”

Then, everything will be just fine. To the degree of our internal spiritual advancement, we will realize what’s written in this book, because it will tell us about ourselves, our sensations, and the innermost vivid feelings and states that we go through. There is more revelation, stronger sensation, deeper understanding, insight,and  connection with the universe and with other people who read TES when we begin disclosing Kelim, vessels, tools, that emerge in us.

So, please continue to be annoyed, not at TES, but at yourself. After all, if you’re angry, it  means that you have already come to a stage when you are able to re-arrange yourself in order to “accommodate” this material; it signifies that this structure will soon become yours. You will feel these sensations inside yourself. You will be able to tell that these particular feelings are Aba ve Ima, the other ones are ZON, others are small (Katnut) or great (Gadlut) states, and some are the Surrounding or Inner Light. It all exists in you! It’s not external but internal because the entire world is inside us. You will start seeing that everybody who is around you is in fact inside you and you will expand yourself to the entire universe.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Related Material:
Can We Understand The Study Of The Ten Sefirot?
TES: A Kabbalist’s Personal Diary
Make Your Heart Understand

One Comment

  1. i studied 3 years and still no understanding anything about TES. I have read from the book that if you study 3 years and havent seen any sign then its pointless to study futher. What now.

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