We Came To The King’s City All Together

Dr. Michael Laitman“We come into the King’s city [this world] all together.” Those who work faithfully for the Creator turn His “magic powder” into sweet, refined seasoning. And those who do not do the work keep tasting the bitter powder and they cannot enjoy His feast.

Everything depends solely on the correct effort of a person. There are many who come to study Kabbalah, put a lot of effort into it, but eventually leave. They realize that this feast doesn’t satisfy their tastes, and instead of blaming themselves, they blame the King, thinking that the method of Kabbalah, as well as, the group and friends give them a bitter taste. As a result, they leave thinking that they can find more pleasure elsewhere by either taking it easy or using some other methodology.

It all depends on whether a person realizes what ‘’place of work” he has entered, what responsibility rests on him, and what he should aim at in this work in order to taste the sweet flavor. The feast is set before us! It is written: “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” We only need to “taste” Him, meaning that we must prepare our vessel for His Light and receive this “supplement,” a sweet flavor.

But people do not labor in the correct place, and later they look at the clock to see how much time they have spent and they weigh how much effort they have exerted. But they did not put their effort in the most important work: in uniting with the other souls. This is why the work does not taste good for them. As a matter of fact, the sweet taste comes solely through connection, which is that very vessel where the Light is revealed.

Instead, they labored elsewhere in vain. It is as if you worked for one company for a month and at its end, you went to another company to collect your salary. Do you think they will pay you? You haven’t earned the right Kli, the vessel needed to receive the reward. The reward can only be received in the collective vessel because only there is the Creator, His feast, His Light, revealed. And if a person has not exerted an effort to earn that, his work is worth nothing.

We must be focused and alert regarding this. Everyone should examine himself: Does he understand that all his effort should be concentrated solely in achieving inner connection, and uniting toward one goal, one desire, where the Creator will be revealed? If a person aims at this, the “feast” will gradually begin to taste sweet for him. And if not, he will eventually get tired and disappointed in this work because instead of the sweet taste, he will taste “dust,” the “bitter powder,” and leave.

Such a person wonders, “How long can one work without receiving something in return?” But he does not see that he labors in the wrong place, that he is not working where he is supposed to be. It becomes evident in one’s attitude to the group and friends whether or not he is present in the group and works in it.

This effort cannot be substituted either with money or with professional skills. Only if you work for the unity of the souls, does this “bitter powder,” the concealment, fall away, and will you uncover the spiritual world which is right here, next to you. Until then, you simply have not gotten the inner device, the Kli, that allows you to tune into the spiritual world, like a radio that can tune into the right frequency.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 26, pg. 85

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The World Is Built By Our Prayers

Dr. Michael LaitmanPeople think that prayer relates to religion and religious people, and that it is removed from regular, secular people. But that is not true! All of our external garments, physical bodies, and objects surrounding us in this world are expressions of desire. There is nothing but desire, which creates all these clothings for itself.

Therefore, without being aware of it, we determine our entire lives with our desires, including what state we will enter in the next moment and how we will experience this reality! Whether we want it or not, we are all always praying, or asking for some kind of fulfillment for our desire. We do it completely unconsciously. I don’t have to pray for someone or something intentionally. Desire comprises our entire inner essence, and my sensation that I lack something is called prayer.

We want something at every moment. That is how we influence reality, which contains nothing but desire and the force of desire. This means that at every moment I want something and I pray for it. Our desires connect with one another and control the entire universe, continually producing new pictures and new states for us.

We build this world with our prayers! Therefore, the only thing we need is to change our requests, despite the desire of our heart. Then we will reveal a new world because the whole world is the sensation inside my desire.

The science of Kabbalah is named after the word “Kabbalah,” reception, because it talks about what you will receive the next moment. Only you determine what the next moment will be, what you will receive and feel in it. Will you be able to change your vision of the world, directing your desire in the necessary direction (which is called prayer)? If you change your prayer so that instead of desiring what you desire now, you desire the right thing, then you will change the entire picture of the world and all of reality.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, “The Importance of the Prayer of the Many”

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Kabbalah For Beginners “Perception Of Reality” – 07.12.10

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The Magic Powder

Dr. Michael LaitmanA fable from Baal HaSulam’s Igrot (Letters), Letter 26, pg. 85: A great good King had one purpose: to give pleasure to the citizens of his kingdom. He gave them an order to do work for him for a year and designated a special place for it in his palace. The reward was set up at the place of work where the King prepared meals with an abundance of various delicacies.

They all started to work and thought that the King would put guards over them to watch their work, but the King hid himself, and they could do as they pleased. They were not aware of the King’s invention, a seasoning, the healing powder that gave all the dishes filled with delicacies and sweets a bitter unpleasant taste. But in the place where people did work, this seasoning made the food taste divine!

Those who where loyal to the King, did the work as they were told and carried out the orders precisely, even without being watched. Thus, the healing dust filled their bodies. When the time of feast came, the workers were able to taste countless flavors and the sweetness they had never known before. So they constantly praised and thanked the King.

But those low workers who didn’t recognize the greatness of the King and that they should love him faithfully (because no guards were watching over them), disregarded the place of work and chose to work where it was more pleasant. So when the time of feast came, the food tasted horribly bitter because of the magic dust. They started to curse and berate the King and his feast because he prepared such a bad reward for their exertion. And for them, the King became a great liar for he gave them bitterness and salt instead of delicacies and sweets.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 26, pg. 85

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Tuning-In To The Creator’s Wavelength

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything that the Kabbalists tell us about occurred in their sensations. However, it is also happening within me, within my matter (Kli), yet I don’t perceive it! I need to receive the properties of the very processes that I wish to perceive, and then I will be able to sense them.

All actions described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot occur within us; infinite numbers of actions take place each moment. And yet, we don’t perceive them for we exist “without (spiritual) consciousness.” Likewise, in the corporeal world, I am being washed over by countless waves. Transmitted by numerous electronic devices, millions of telephone conversations and all television and radio channels pass right through me. We can recognize these frequencies with the help of various devices.

Similarly, we reside in the spiritual environment where activities described by the Kabbalists are constantly occurring. We have to learn to perceive them. We have to develop a sensibility toward bestowal. We need to be able to determine what it is, whom to bestow to, based upon what, what reward comes with it, and whether it is worth doing or not.

If I start analyzing it, I will develop a sensor within myself which will be able to recognize the properties of bestowal. As a result, I will begin to “hear” frequencies of bestowal like radio waves. I will “grow” a transmitter capable of receiving various types of frequencies of bestowal that are called the Lights. Through these Lights, I will start perceiving the sources they are coming from, where they are headed, toward whom, and for what purpose. And last but not least, I will come to know that this broadcasting station that is generating these waves is the Creator! But this will become possible only if I build a receiver (“radio”) within me, which can “read” such properties.

As a matter of fact, according to the law of equivalence of form (resonance), in order to receive these frequencies, I have to create a similar one within myself. In these internal and external waves, there is one common characteristic: “the carrier wave.” In the external wave, however, there is one more, accompanying wave, which is embedded into the main one; it is the latter that carries information to me.

By creating a wave of the same frequency (for instance, 93 MHz) in your “radio” (your soul), you will be able to receive the external signal (the Creator), to discern the “valid signal:” a wave (a voice, song, or message of the Creator).

Tuning-In To The Creator’s Wavelength

The spiritual radio runs on the same principle as a corporeal one does since nature doesn’t change. We and the Creator need a common ground, this (93 MHz) frequency wave, the force of bestowal, overlaid with a tiny signal for your reception. This signal enters you, and you receive it. When you align yourself with the incoming wave in its property of bestowal, it brings a minor additional attribute for your ability to receive, the Light of Hochma that fills you.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Why Does Everything Exist?

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur entire reality is divided into two parts: the unveiled one that we are aware of and the concealed one that we know nothing about. Through advancing conventional science, we can certainly broaden our knowledge of the evident part of reality, but only through refining the same five sensory organs we have always had and nothing more. However, this will not allow us to make a quantum leap and discover a new dimension.

Kabbalah says that we can develop an additional sense that will allow us to perceive the reality beyond. Yet, we should be aware that we will find it opposite to the one we see today. Currently our perception of reality depends on our ability to absorb it by means of our five corporeal sensory organs: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The sensations supplied by these organs are called our world.

But we have an ability to develop additional perceptions. It doesn’t mean to receive additional arms, legs, tastes, or such, but to step outside our self through developing another five organs of perception: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. In these extra organs of perception, which are completely opposite to the corporeal ones, we begin perceiving all that takes place outside of us.

Purpose of Existence

This means that our perception becomes limitless and we exit into an endless open space. We see all the worlds. Our ability to perceive them depends solely on how developed our spiritual organs of perception are. We are not limited to our body which is bound by how much we are able to consume till satiated. Now everything depends upon how far we can expand.

We then begin to grasp all forces, thoughts, desires, tasks, and the purpose of creation: the whole world around us. We begin to understand what is happening within us. In contrast, without this knowledge, we will never understand what is happening around us and how it impacts us, neither in the world nor within our self.

The science that teaches how to step out of self and unveil life in the Upper dimension is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. When we finally exit our ego and begin exploring the universe, we discover the purpose of creation, why everything exists.

When we step out of our self, we break free from the restrictions of our tiny body and rise above time, motion, and space; that is, we rise above the corporeal perception of reality in its three axes of coordinates: up-down, left-right, back-forth. We stop experiencing time for there is no time in that reality. We see other causes and effects, meaning that we receive absolutely new properties and abilities, outside of the connection to our animate body.

In the same manner as we are able to see, sense, and understand a person directly in front of us, we have to know and comprehend the whole of reality called the Creator or the Upper Force. Hence, we will feel worse and more restricted in our limited reality until we find a way to step out of it into the open world!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Article, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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No Useless Moments In Our Lives

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: How do we imagine the processes that take place in spirituality and that are described in the wisdom of Kabbalah? Where and when do they occur or have they already happened?

My Answer: All these processes have already happened in our spiritual roots. All we do is reveal them by ascending from below upwards and in this way approach them. Yet everything has already “happened.” Time in spirituality is a sequence of causes and effects.

The Creator created the desire to enjoy. Then, this desire received the Light. Afterward, it started to experience shame, restricted itself, made a decision to start receiving anti-egoistically (using a screen/intention), and began to receive in order to bestow according to the degree of its ability, and so on. In other words, we study a sequence of actions that happened before we began sensing them ourselves.

Here I am being born, and from this moment, I begin to sense myself. I know that before I was born there were other people alive, but I don’t know what “before me” really means. I begin to perceive reality only from the moment I am born. “According to my perception of reality,” it appears that there are other people around who were born before me and even some who were alive and died before I was even born. But all this exists only in my reality into which I was born and currently live. “They” are something I conceive as images in my head. We all work only with our inner desire which needs clarification.

That is why my reality begins at birth. Everything that supposedly happened before I was born is a preparation to my current sensation. It relates to the Creator and His actions within me. He performed  them to prepare me to perceive the world and the reality around me the way I do starting from the moment of my birth. Who are my father and mother and all the people surrounding me? Why do they act this way? It is the Creator who prepared this system of caring for me. The whole world that I see is made by the Creator for the sake of my work.

Therefore, our life is connected with the spiritual processes that are meant to bring us to spiritual awakening and revelation of new sensations. Did you really think that there is even one useless moment in your life?

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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The Prayer Of The Stony Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanEveryone knows what prayer is. It exists in all the religions and cultures. People turn to each other with prayer begging for something. Prayer can be directed at people or at the Upper Force (however a person imagines it).

Prayer contains great power because when a person feels that he is in a dead-end situation, a true prayer for help bursts forth by itself. This is a natural reaction that we call prayer, a plea, or a cry. There is also a prayer of gratitude that pours out of the heart. This action awakens enormous inner reserves of a person and brings about healing, the ability to overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable.

However, in Kabbalah “prayer” is not just any plea, but a request for correction, for attaining the goal of creation. Prior to our fall from the sensation of the Creator, we did not have prayer books because people felt the Creator and every person turned to Him from the heart, according to the verse, “A person’s soul teaches him. “Every person knew what he needed to discern and what he needed to do in order to come closer to the goal, to unite with the Creator and attain equivalence of form with Him.

This was the case before the destruction of the Temple because the entire nation lived in the higher sensation and felt what it needed to ask for. The sensation in people’s hearts was essentially the prayer. People lived by the principle, “Whatever one feels in one’s heart is what one speaks.”

People felt in their hearts an aspiration for bestowal, love for the neighbor, love for the Creator, and equivalence with Him. This was felt by the heart and therefore words were not needed. Expressing this verbally is often done for us, in order to hear ourselves and to understand what our heart feels.

This was a time when we were in a corrected state. However, then the Temple was destroyed in our hearts due to the general fall of people from “love for the neighbor” to “unfounded hatred for one another.” Thus, we stopped being similar to the Creator and lost equivalence of form with Him. Therefore, He disappeared from our sensation and we started asking for things for our egos instead of our own correction!

We ask for things that are requested by the new desire that has taken over us, our egoism. And what can egoism possibly want? It wants to feel good and for others to feel bad since then it will feel even better compared to them!

That is how our new heart, “the stony heart,” operates. Obviously, we don’t attain the true prayer until we correct our desires. But on the other hand, we still have to know what the true prayer has to be in order to understand it at least with our mind (if not with the heart), and to advance in this direction by correcting our qualities.

That is why Kabbalists composed a prayer book for us, so we would know what to ask for.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, “The Importance of the Prayer of the Many”

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Kabbalists On The Purpose Of Creation, Part 16

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. Commentaries in brackets are mine.

Why Is The Creator Concealed From Man?

That deficiency [in our sensations] was born only as a result of the concealment of the face of the Lord, who did not wish to shine His face upon His creatures immediately, and [by this concealment] create them whole from the start. Rather, on the contrary, the Creator hid His face [perfection of the property of bestowal and love] from them, leaving them lacking [since the opposite property of reception and hatred appeared in them as the result of concealment], as the Light of the King’s face is surely life, and Its concealment is the source of all evil.

However, since the initial intention of concealment is not to be concealed, but on the contrary, to be revealed later and to transpose any evil born only from that concealment, He thus established law and order in order to reveal His concealed benevolent face. This is achieved by people’s actions, by fulfilling the laws and the doctrines which He gave us in His Torah, the doctrine of truth. By carrying them out, man reaches [reveals the sensation of ] eternal life since the reward of a Mitzva [the correction of each of 613 desires of the soul] – Mitzva [the act of bestowal itself], that is the Light of His face [fulfillment by bestowal and love], which He concealed from man at the beginning of His Creation.

Thus, the creature’s toil [by aspiring to become similar to the Creator], being dominated by his evil [egoistic] inclination, and his evil manifests in all sorts of [egoistic] deficiencies [with regard to the others], and his distance from that which would give him the Light of life [the property of bestowal]. And the acts of Mitzvot [the acts of bestowal to others and the Creator] draw the [previously] hidden Light upon him, so that by the time he has completed the law of the Mitzvot [has corrected all 613 corrupted, initially-egoistic desires], he himself complements them [in similarity to the Creator since Adam (man) comes from the word “Dome” (similar)] in drawing the Light in this life [and thus sensing the eternal and perfect existence, similarity to the Creator, in the property of bestowal].
– Ramchal, Klalei Pitchei Hochma ve Da’at (The Rules of Gates of Wisdom and Knowledge)

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