Opening The Zohar – 05.30.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “The Donkey Driver,” Item 97
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The "Dirty" Filters That Obscure Our View Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe exist in a system called the only creation, Soul, or Adam. This system was created by the Creator. We are connected within it by permanent ties like the organs are in a body. Our mutual connection is filled with the life of this system: Light. The system is called the World of Infinity because everything in it is boundless and perfect.

In the World of Infinity, all of its parts are bound by love and filled with Infinite Light. However, the Creator covers this infinite world with reductive filters, one after another, as if spoiling everything. It is similar to drawing a beautiful picture and then placing a dirty, plastic film over it which mars the view of the picture. Then, with additional, successive layers, through 125 layers of plastic wrap, the original picture looks even dirtier. These are the 125 layers of reducing the properties of bestowal and love that connect us in the system of the World of Infinity.

We are located in the outermost layer and don’t perceive the preceding ones at all. Thus, within our layer, the system of connection is completely ruined. Instead of feeling love that binds us in the World of Infinity, we hate each other, don’t perceive our mutual connection, and are separated, divided, and broken. From this lowest state, the Creator wishes to bring us back to the very first, which is illuminated and good, so that through all these layers, filters, and worlds (“world” in Hebrew is Olam, concealment) we return to Infinity.

Therefore, the Creator calls and awakens us. Previously, He developed us through egoism so that we could understand and feel more, and manage our lives better. However, when we reach a certain maturity, the Creator begins to advance us qualitatively. It isn’t enough for us to evolve by increasing our egoism anymore. Now we have to become similar to the Creator in our attributes, to receive an equivalent type and form of desire, and not just cultivating it as during our previous history. This is why our current state of development is so special.

By making an effort to align ourselves with the innermost layer, by becoming strongly connected to each other, we draw the Light of the Creator, which shines on us from afar as the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). We become corrected in it in order for love and bestowal to reign among us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

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The Mechanism Of Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: How can I conduct my point in the heart through the group, which functions as a spiritual amplifier?

My Answer: There are external means that we use: books, the group, the teacher, our study system, and connections around the whole world. These are the conditions that Kabbalists have fixed for us. If we realize them by building external boundaries for ourselves, and bring our desire for spirituality into this system, then this desire begins to grow.

Initially, I have just my single point in the heart. Then, I give it to my friends, thus receiving from them the points that belong to them. This system of connection between us, the souls, already exists. Everything is already prepared in advance during the descent of the worlds from above downwards, in order for us to ascend from our world to the World of Infinity.

All I have to do is tune into this system: Lower myself, see all others as corrected, and desire to receive the Light of Correction through them. Then I will receive desires for bestowal from all the other people, which will increase my desire. This will happen even though I initially had only my own small point in the heart, which probably wasn’t even aimed at the right goal. Yet, I invested in the group, desired to be a part of it, and therefore, I performed an act of bestowal. In response, I received a real force from others, a real desire to bestow.

You suddenly see that you really desire and value this. And then you start to experience fear: “Will I be able to attain bestowal to the Creator or will I complete my life in vain?” These are still egoistic thoughts, but they are already concerning how to attain bestowal. This is called “Lo Lishma“: When one a) aspires to give, and b) thinks about profiting.

It turns out that through the group you receive a more internal direction – to the Creator. But when you aspire to the Creator, you come closer to faith, and thus begin to draw the Surrounding Light upon yourself. It’s not that the Light changes, but it’s you who change, and therefore, the Light influences you differently. Now it can give you the quality of bestowal. When you acquire this quality, you begin to rise above your egoism.

This is what you wanted to achieve from the very beginning, but the Light arranged everything so that it happened according to your own desire, rather than by force. Suddenly you feel how you are filled by the quality of faith, meaning the quality of bestowal, Bina. It gives you freedom from your ego! And it’s not that it liberates you from your egoism, but it gives you the power to ascend above it. That’s when you rise above the Machsom.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/10, Article, “Love of Friends”

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This World Is Just A Starting Point

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator did not create our material world. It exists only in our imagination because we are within the boundaries of our egoism. The moment we transition to bestowal and begin to acquire bestowing desires, the Upper reality (in which we in fact exist and develop) will reveal itself to us.

The lower layer of this material world will continue to exist for it has to constantly provide us with the freedom of choice in attaining spirituality. In this world we go to work or go to buy groceries, yet we know that we have a permanent place of residence, our home and family. The same thing applies to spirituality: There is a place where we permanently exist. We climb and descend spiritual steps, but the lowest level of existence (our world) is always guaranteed to us.

This world is illusory and doesn’t exist anywhere except in our imagination; it’s a basic point that allows us to act on our own for the sake of bestowal. The Creator shows all of us the same movie, thus allowing us to exist within the same reality. That is the reason why the most advanced Kabbalist and the most feeble-minded, silly person perceive the same material world.

It goes without saying that an intelligent person sees our world a little differently and understands more, but in general all of us see the same picture. It makes no difference whether a person possesses specific properties because it doesn’t have anything in common with spirituality.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

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Shaping Our World View To Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why do 90% of the obstacles I get pertain to my physical body (I’m hungry, I’m tired, and so on)? After all, corporeality is far less important than spirituality and contains only a small spark of life.

My Answer: You’re asking why we weren’t given the opportunity to work with spiritual desires, lights, and screens, instead of the corporeal ones. But to the extent that you begin to view the world in waves of bestowal, you naturally stop noticing this world. It stops being the determining world for you. You continue to exist in this world and connecting with people, but without this world being connected to the spiritual world, it loses its meaning. It is merely a consequence, a reflection, of the spiritual worlds that project reality to you.

There is a special technology that projects three-dimensional, holographic images in the air via laser beams. They make all kinds of figures appear in empty space. In a similar fashion, this world is presented to you in illusory images, for this world is but an imprint of what exists in spirituality.

It is our egoistic desire that projects this world for us. For the time being, it can only exist in this form that does not disappear until the very end of correction. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai could be sitting here with us and he would be seeing our corporeal world despite being fully corrected himself. Indeed, this world will only disappear from our senses following the general, final correction.

This world pertains to the general desire to receive pleasure. It is an egoistic desire, yet it is not against the Creator. It is simply a desire to lead an animal life and receive pleasure.
Therefore, it is not considered criminal and does not require correction. You simply need to use it like an animal and shape it into a desire to bestow – the soul.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

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Choosing The Good Fortune In The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: How can I annul myself before the environment if I have no desire to do so?

My Answer: Understand that there is no choice; you are facing the wall. There is a group; annul yourself before it and you’ll receive from it the importance of the goal. It’s like filling up at a gas station. You refuel in the environment, and hence can drive a few more miles. If you refuel again, then you can drive a little further, and so on. You are saying: “I don’t want to get any fuel; it’s hard for me to drive to the gas station, what should I do?” You have no choice, strict laws are at work here.

Ask for your friends to help you, as it is said: “Help a fellow man.” But after you clarify all the conditions, there is nothing to ask for. You should act. Don’t expect to find a back door to spirituality for it does not exist!

There is only one principle: “We are under the influence of the environment which we choose.” The Creator created it this way because we are parts of a single soul, and everybody depends on everybody else. This dependency remains even after the breaking of the vessels. It’s either a good or bad influence, but in any case, a person is completely dependent on the environment.

You were presented with the opportunity to enter the society that aspires to spirituality. However, now it is you who decides how to get established in it. The Creator puts your hand on a good fortune and says: “Take it!” Now everything depends on you, whether you’ll take it or not. He can’t help you with anything else, for otherwise He will deprive you of free will. If He does your work instead of you, your individuality will cease to exist.

But if a person wants to stick to his old ways, meaning behave according to his nature as does the animal within him, it is his choice. How can he become “human”? He has to rise above the “animal” within and understand that he should overcome himself and annul himself before the group. From the first moment, any act consists only in feeling the importance of the others and uniting with them. You won’t be able to do anything alone.

Only together can we change and attain anything. If it’s not together, all that you do will be in vain. You won’t realize yourself as a human being and will remain an animal. A “human” is he who was born by annulling himself before this special environment. It sounds paradoxical, but it is so.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/10, Article, “According to What is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend’”

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The Holographic Picture Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator demands of our souls to unite. Our distancing from each other and feeling as strangers constitutes the entire corruption. The correction, on the other hand, lies in perceiving ourselves as being parts of a single body. Yet, if we simply perceive ourselves as parts of a body working together, it’s not enough.

I have to become incorporated into everybody, they have to become incorporated into everybody else, and so on till infinity! It resembles a holographic picture where each element contains all the others in itself.

We are still unable to imagine this sensorially because we are opposite to such a picture. The breaking of the vessels resulted in us feeling completely separate from each other. We can’t even understand how it is possible to incorporate into each other when there is no “I,” which unites with all the others and becomes a single whole.

When our points in the heart unite, this illusionary reality of physical bodies fades away; only our desires remain. The more correctly each of us attempts to imagine our unification, the closer we move toward the true picture of reality, the only one there is. We only have to draw closer to it and reveal it. This is how we gradually heal ourselves from all these material illusions that envelop us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/10, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.30.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Item 411
Inner disagreement is positive and necessary because by resolving it a person advances forward.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 27
The left and the right line can never achive perfection. Only the middle line, which is the result of unifying with the Creator, can bring them to reconciliation.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 17
The Light acts upon me to the degree of my desire to obtain the quality of bestowal. This desire is acquired through the group, and my success is determined by this desire.
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Rav Baruch Ashlag, According to “What is Explained Concerning ‘Love Thy Friend‘” 
My environment forms my future-the fulfillment that I’ll wish to obtain in the mind and in the heart.
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