A Guide To The Movie Called “Life”

Separate the Truth from the LiesI am a vessel of perception, into which the Light enters. My perception is comprised of five parts or desires. In one desire, I sense my inner essence – my “I,” the human being within me; in another desire I sense my body – the animate part of me; in the third desire I sense all that is close to me; in the fourth desire I sense my environment – society, humankind, nature; and in the fifth desire I sense something even more exalted and distant from me.

Everything depends on the desire – how close it is to me and how the Light affects it. The impressions from all the desires are then gathered and projected onto a screen in my mind, where this whole picture is shown to me.

The difference between this and a movie is that I actually live my life on this screen. This movie is my life and my perception of reality.

The corporeal perception just described does not differ from the spiritual one, where you also have a screen that is influenced by forces, which paint the picture of the spiritual world for you. The difference is that unlike the spiritual world, in this world I am not aware of and do not participate in the creation of this picture of the world inside of me.

However, when I exist in the spiritual world, I “create” the movie by changing my qualities. This movie will be played inside me depending on my connection to the Upper Force, the projector. The degree of this connection is my ability to launch the playback.

Our goal is to make the perfect movie, which will reveal the complete connection and love between you and the Creator.
(From Part 2 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”)

The Invisible Net Connecting Us All

There Is Room for This World In a Kabbalist's LifeAt the end of the 20th century, people began to understand that all parts of the world are connected into a global, integral system. However, they did not have the ability to use this understanding to affect a good change – to build a proper connection among people.

Even if we were to spend all day repeating the phrase that “the whole world is one closed system, where everyone depends on everyone another and everything is interconnected,” this still couldn’t help us to actually act according to this principle, because we do not see or feel this integral system. We have to discover this system of connection between us. It is called the Creator, the force that connects us with one another, the force of bestowal. Revealing it means to reveal the Creator, the common law of Nature.

And people do not have a choice: they will have to reveal Him. We have to explain to people that the wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that reveals the Creator to everyone, or in other words, it revealed the system of connections between us. Without knowing this system, we will simply perish.

Let us hope that humanity will understand that there is a solution and there is no need to “bury their heads in the sand.” Let us hope that we will succeed in the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah and humanity will reveal the Creator, the global, integral system of Nature.

The Cause Of Our Confusion

wordsThere is a rule: a powerful Light enters a thin desire. The Lights and desires follow a reverse order, so when the smallest desire is missing, the strongest Light is also missing.

This creates a great deal of confusion in our world. We don’t understand why we do something in one place and it comes back to us somewhere else. It seems to us that there is no connection between the two occurrences. We ruin something in one place, but the blow comes to us from somewhere else, and we don’t see the connection between the two.

This is why we do not understand the cause of our suffering. We do not see the inner connection, the net that exists inside all of us and connects everything into one system. This is why we go through life as if we’re wandering around a dark labyrinth, not understanding what is actually happening.

The reason for all of this confusion is the reverse order of Lights and Kelim: when I haven’t corrected a deeply flawed Kli, I lack a very thin Light in a completely different place.

The only solution is to see the world as integral and connected as one. This is the opportunity we receive when we reveal the world through the wisdom of Kabbalah. Only the ability to see things clearly will give us the chance to correct ourselves and the world, and to fix all our problems.
(From Part 2 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”)

The Only Way To Feel The Creator Is Here And Now

wayEven now, we are all in the World of Infinity; we just don’t feel it. Everything depends on our qualities, because the Upper Light is the unchanging quality of bestowal and love.

We don’t have to work on correcting our egoism and we don’t need to fight it. What we have to work on is building the quality of bestowal and love (the screen) above it, so we will be able to receive the Light inside this quality and discover the Creator. This is why in Kabbalah, the work and the reward are the same thing.

This is different from the earthly or religious systems where the work takes place in one place and the reward is given elsewhere. Moreover, if you could get the reward without the work, you would happily abandon the work. In Kabbalah, the only reward is to become bestowing and loving like Him.

It is written: “The reward for a Mitzvah is the Mitzvah (Schar Mitzvah – Mitzvah).” This is followed by knowing the Creator or merging with Him (Schar Mitzvah Ladaat HaMetsuveh). On the other hand, in religion people think that by performing commandments mechanically, they will earn a reward in the world to come, and once they get there, they will have everything. This is what religion tells us, and this is the fundamental difference between religion and Kabbalah, which says that we have to receive our reward here and now! There is nothing waiting for us after death, besides the next life cycle where you will get another chance to reveal the Creator within yourself.

Successful Relationships Are Built On Having Similar Qualities

godTwo questions I received from women concerning finding the right match:

Question: On the show “Women, Men, and What’s Between Them” you were asked what qualities a woman should look for in a partner, and you answered unambiguously that only when someone is close to you in qualities does a relationship as a couple stand a chance of being successful. My partner and I have opposite personalities, and there are some problems in the connection between us. However, one rabbi checked our compatibility and said that we are a good match.

My Answer: I have already stated my opinion.

Question: Ever since I was a child, I’ve experienced difficulties in communicating with people. Is there any way to appeal to the Creator with a request to change me, so that, accordingly, my life would change, I would find friends, a partner, and I could be happy?

My Answer: Other than under the influence of Kabbalah, I don’t know a more effective method to change oneself and one’s life, and to be able to do it in accordance with the flow of Nature. If you are sure that this is your path, go to our dating site, and maybe you’ll find your other half there!

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Reward And Punishment, Revisited

our-imaginary-reality-is-created-by-two-mechanismsA person thinks that when his life is over, he will receive a reward in the world to come for having behaved well and being faithful, as well as for having carried out all that was demanded of him by his religion. But what can he receive if he did not prepare his desires for it?

His desires are for the pleasures of this world – pleasures that don’t exist in the spiritual world! A person’s primitive imagination made him decide to collect as much “stuff” as possible from this world in order to take it all with him to the grave.

If we think of the Creator as a king-like character for whom we must work, then we are like the religious people. The Creator is within us; He is the quality of bestowal and love which we have to acquire here and now.

Therefore, we have to work on ourselves in order to correct ourselves, rather than to be rewarded or punished by some contrived powerful ruler. This is Kabbalah’s difference from religion, and the reason why we need the force of correction – the force of Kabbalah, or the Torah. It’s because its Light returns us to the Source – the Creator.

Open The Door To The Spiritual World

marriageIn the physical world, even if a door is closed, you can still see that there is a door there. In the spiritual world, however, you cannot see the door until it opens. The door itself is invisible: it’s a solid wall. A person can go through the door only when he corrects himself sufficiently.

The entrance into the spiritual world becomes revealed to a person as soon as he likens his qualities to those of the next degree. But he will not see the door or the opening even a second before that.

As soon as a person makes his qualities similar to the next degree by acquiring the quality of bestowal that is being demanded of him, then at that very instant he sees the door and it opens for him. Then the Kli and the Light unite.
(From Part 1 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Only A True Researcher Can Objectively Study Reality

The Goal of Creation Is Perfect FulfillmentA question I received: How is it possible that there seems to be an objective reality in this world with external objects and which we can measure?

My Answer: We are used to a life that forms an image of reality based on an inanimate desire to receive pleasure. Similarly, we think that the spiritual world exists on its own and does not depend on changes within us.

This is how we perceive our lives until we begin to sense the relativity of our perception and come to understand that this perception depends on our qualities. Gradually, humanity is moving toward the realization that everything that we see in this world depends on the qualities of the observer.

Quantum physicists speak of the fact that experimental outcomes are equally dependent on the observer. However, we do not have the means by which to measure the influence of thought over matter.

Over time, everything becomes absolutely elusive until we come to the understanding that all things are relative to a person’s qualities. It is not dependent on whether or not one observes or thinks, but rather on the qualities of the person who is doing the thinking and the observing.

At such a point, we transition to being a true researcher from the realm of regular science which is not dependent on the qualities of the scientist. A true researcher is someone who concerns himself with his own qualities first and foremost, and only then proceeds to study matter. That is a Kabbalist!

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.13.09

Preparation to the Lesson
My reward is the ability to bestow, to love.
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Part 1, on Baal HaSulam’s Letter #26
When man reaches the secret door, he starts to understand what it means to part with egoism. He then retreats, until he fully strengthens himself.
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Part 2, on Item 9 of “Preface to the Sulam Commentary
We are lacking the desire of all humanity in order to reveal the Upper System that connects us all.
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Part 3, on Item 156 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot
For the modern generation, the only means to make spiritual progress are the books of Baal HaSulam.
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Who Do We Work For: Ourselves Or The Creator?

Don't Starve Yourself - Use the Upper Light Instead

A question I received: It is written, “What’s important is not your reward, but who you are working for.” How can I be thinking about this, instead of the reward?

My Answer: These words may confuse you. Who am I working for? For myself, and no one else! It’s forbidden to imagine the Creator as any image or form. The Creator is the quality of bestowal which we have to reveal within us. Therefore, the answer to the question, “Who am I working for?” depends on who I identify myself with.

If I identify myself with my egoistic desire, then I will think that I am working for the Creator. Alternatively, I can identify myself with the point in the heart, which is the quality of bestowal – the embryo of the soul. This will mean that I want to attain the quality of bestowal, called the Creator; I want it to manifest inside me.

By definition, the Creator is Boreh, from the words Bo – come, and Reh – see. This means that you have to discover this quality inside you. So, there is no one outside of me that I’m working for. I am working on my own correction in order to attain bestowal and love, which are called “the Creator.”

On the other hand, if I will imagine that the Creator is somewhere outside of me and I have to work for Him, to carry out His desires, then I will not be interpreting the Kabbalistic texts correctly. This is exactly how the religion of Judaism came to be, when the people lost their inner sensation of the Creator during the fall of the Second Temple. Later on, Christianity and Islam also originated from Judaism. These religions depict the Creator outside of a person, separate from him, instead of inside him.

During the period of the Second Temple, the Creator disappeared from man’s sensations and became concealed from him. Thus, people lost the correct picture of the world, because they started thinking that the Creator is someone that exists separately from them, that He isn’t a quality that becomes revealed inside them. They started believing that they have a Master they have to work for, like slaves. All the religions are founded on this false interpretation of the Creator’s essence.

Instead of thinking of the Creator as the main, most important quality of creation, which becomes expressed inside a person, people started thinking of Him as an external individual that sits somewhere up in the clouds and pulls the levers controlling our lives. This is why it’s so important to learn the correct Kabbalistic definitions, as otherwise it’s very easy to make mistakes and bring everything down to regular religion.

In Kabbalah, the rules are explained very simply: There is no Light without a Kli; there is no Creator without creation, Boreh = Bo + Reh, and so on.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)