5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Lesson: Perceiving Through Bestowal

The Actions Needed To Prepare Ourselves For New Sensations

Study Kabbalah, and Spritual Worries Will Outweigh Your Current Ones A Kabbalah lesson differs from any other type of lesson since it teaches us how to perceive a reality we were not naturally born to feel. We need to prepare ourselves for these new sensations through the following actions:

1. Before the lesson, we have to forget about all our problems and concerns, as if we have never existed in this world and the world itself doesn’t exist. If we want to sense a new reality, we shouldn’t be bothered by anything outside ourselves; therefore, we should pretend that our world does not exist.

2. We have to attempt to start sensing something great, new, eternal, perfect, lofty, and globally determinative. Thus, we must prepare ourselves to accept this new height and greatness.

3. Sensing the worlds beyond occurs through the unity of souls. We have to clearly understand that only our collective, inner efforts to unite our aspirations into one common intention can generate in each and every one of us the authentic desire to sense the spiritual realm – the property of bestowal and love.

4. As a result of our joint effort to attain the properties of bestowal and love, we’ll discover that we need outside support. This will produce an inner prayer to the Creator to help us and to make this quality emerge within us.

5. This type of prayer can surface in us and influence us as we study authentic Kabbalistic sources together with our group.

What To Demand From Your Kabbalah Studies

Laitman_2009-10_usa_0310_w From your studies, you need to expect changes that are brought to you by the Correcting Force – “the Light returning to the Source.” Kabbalists who wrote books were present in our world and the Upper Worlds simultaneously.

Therefore, if you desire to acquire the Kabbalists’ properties and vision, then by using your aspiration, you can draw the force of correction upon yourself and soon feel the result of its influence. This will be expressed as a gradually increasing feeling of the properties of bestowal within.

Under the influence of the hidden Light in the studies, you will gradually recognize that you don’t have even a bit of the quality of bestowal within you. All the good that you attribute to yourself is just egoism, which attempts to fulfill itself in this manner. This will be a clear recognition that whatever you do is only for self fulfillment.

At the same time you will feel that this is not good. It is seemingly okay, yet you will feel that it is actually bad because it limits you. Through bestowal, you will open up the infinite spiritual world, and by receiving, you will stagnate in this world. This realization is a step forward.

Then you will feel that there is actually someone, the Giver, filling all space around you. You are not familiar with Him as yet, but you want to feel Him, be equivalent to Him, become as Him, and unite with Him through the quality of bestowal.

In this way, you can gradually change under the influence of the Correcting Force that you draw upon yourself during the studies. This Force influences you, especially while studying The Book of Zohar. If you are ready and want to unite with other souls, then together with them, you will attract the most powerful Correcting Light from this book.

Only this Light will help all of us. All other efforts will be useless, other than uniting together to draw the correcting force upon us.

Philosophy’s Attempts To Discover Reality

Laitman_2009-08_2618 Ask anyone to describe the essence of matter, spirituality, and the soul, and you’ll get a thousand different opinions. None of these opinions, however, will be definite or weighted. This is because we are talking about a reality that is hidden from us. Humanity is constantly searching for that reality, but no one is able to point to anything clear, precise, and practical.

This search cannot be done through classical science, since we do not perceive the hidden reality in our current sensations. It also cannot be done through religion, since religion does not even aim to reveal what is hidden. Philosophy, however, wishes to deduce what lies above our nature by means of the human intellect. This is impossible, but philosophers count on the capabilities of the mind to attain what is above it.

Philosophy is made up of the efforts of people who wish to reveal the spiritual world without changing themselves. This is also impossible since reality is revealed through our desires and our senses. If what we reveal can be measured and verified, and this knowledge can be given to others, then this is science.

If one has no sensation of the hidden world, one’s hunches will remain fantasy rather than science. As we say, it doesn’t hurt to dream, but don’t try to pass it off as the truth.  For this reason, people have lost respect for the word “philosophy” since it speaks of a confusing “non-reality.”

Perceiving The World Through The Quality Of Bestowal

Laitman_2009-11_8708 All our perception is built on sensations of this world. All the products of our imagination are derivatives of our sensations, and we will never be able to imagine anything that has no connection to our former experiences.

Even if we were to try to imagine an animal from a different planet, the image will still be based on something with which we are familiar. It is impossible to imagine something that has no analogue in our sensations. Our actions always arise from them and we are limited by them.

We are prisoners of our sensations, but today, even scientists are discovering that on a practical basis, everyone needs to change their perception of the world.

We currently perceive this world inside the quality of reception, but we have to acquire the quality of bestowal and perceive the world from that perspective – not in the imagination, but in actual perception. This new perception will be the spiritual world.

Our attitude should be pragmatic and practical, since Kabbalah is a practical teaching which is in no way connected to abstract philosophical concepts.

In The Union Of Opposites, We Will Reveal The Creator

Laitman_2009-11-06_Zohar_tv_8165_wA question I received: Is there such a thing as the Creator being perceived collectively by a group?

My Answer: There is the personal, individual attainment, and there is the group attainment. Presently we are at the phase of personal attainment, trying to advance to the level of group attainment. Therein lies the world’s future, beginning with our generation and on. The science of Kabbalah is being revealed today, specifically for this group attainment by the entire world.

This is why we are beginning to study The Book of Zohar, which was written by a group and can only be revealed in a group. You need that connection between people, which is the same connection that existed in Rabbi Shimon’s group that wrote this book.

The world stands at the threshold of a new age, an age when revelation must become collective. After all, the whole world is essentially one group. The same thing happened after the exodus from Egypt at Mount Sinai. There was great hatred (Sina in Hebrew) between people, but they were told: “If you don’t demand the Creator right now, then this hatred between you shall be the place of your burial.” In spite of this hatred, they were given a condition – to unite as one man with one heart. But that’s impossible! Everyone hates all the others so much that no one can bear to look at them, even under the threat of death!

It is in this circumstance that the Upper Force (the Creator) is revealed, bringing these two opposites in accord – the depth of the egoistic desire from below, the screen from Above,and the Upper Light that resides in them. That is the spiritual vessel, the Kli.

We need to come to a state when, on the one hand, we hate one another, on the other hand, we love one another, and in addition, we demand that the force of bestowal be revealed between us. This is what is in store for our generation. From here on, the process moves toward global unification, which is why we began the study of The Book of Zohar.

Undoubtedly, we are ready for it. As for the rest of the world – we hope that they will recognize the opportunity to achieve it through a peaceful path.

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.04.09

Preparation to the Lesson and first part
We only notice the things we want to see, the things that our close to our nature. We are therefore concealing the real world from ourselves.
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 14, Lesson 7

The soul is that part of me that is able to be similar to the Creator. Through it, we unite with Him into one.
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Article “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

We are enslaved to our sensations. Scientists are now discovering that even our attitudes can change the outcome of an experiment.
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