My Spiritual Simulator – 09.12.10

Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

Through The Zohar To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanHere is a simple intention to have while reading The Book of Zohar:

1. I connect to every letter and word, and they enter me like a medical infusion that is administered drop by drop, which I perceive as “the elixir of life.”

I go from one word to the next, not knowing what hides behind each one. Yet I am convinced that word after word, like drop after drop, this “elixir of life” gradually pours into me.

2. If I am able to hold on to this thought at all times, then without really delving into the text but through the text or inside it, I allow myself to discern the Creator and my attitude to Him.

The text is what happens to a person, and the intention is a person’s connection to the Creator. At first we hold on to the intention, and then through it we try to reach the Creator, the One from whom we hear and from whom we receive. The text is the state of my desires which I want to attain.

If a person is also able to imagine that right now he really hears the text of The Zohar from the mouth of the Creator, that the Creator passes this knowledge to him, telling him about his own higher states, then this is one of the best ways to connect to the Creator. This is called “Hearing or studying the Torah from the mouth of the Creator.”

3. If we try to unite our intentions together while reading The Zohar, then deep down, inside our joint efforts, we will feel that The Zohar talks precisely about this.

The Torah describes only how we should unite together, in what degree, form, and manner. Therefore, the text of The Book of Zohar is not separate from the intention. It does not exist by itself, but talks only about realizing the intention.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, The Zohar

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Expect To Be Healed By The Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen I read the text of The Zohar, it’s not good if the text conceals the purpose of reading from me. I must constantly check: What exactly do I desire by reading it?

First and foremost, I desire for the reading of The Book of Zohar to reveal my illness: egoism, and then to heal it by helping me acquire the quality of bestowal instead of it. I want to acquire unity with others who aspire to the same goal. This is called the intention before the study.

After preparing the intention or the reason why I read The Book of Zohar, I can then start to read it. If I am consistently able to maintain the intention, then I can allow myself to also listen to the text and its meaning.

This is similar to a sick person who is in a critical state: He reads a medical book only in order to find the remedy. Nothing else interests him! He doesn’t care about the style of the text or the details of the story. He only looks for the remedy (the elixir of life: the Light)!

Therefore, first and foremost we must have the right intention, and after that we can listen to the details about what The Zohar narrates. There is nothing more important than receiving the “medical procedure” because we don’t understand any of the actual story until we enter that state ourselves.

Why then did the authors of The Zohar write all of these stories for us? It was in order for us to make efforts to keep the intention. Only after that, to the extent it is possible, can we allow ourselves to listen to the story while desiring to reveal it through the intention. We have to realize that we are not living these states and don’t understand the text, but we do desire to reveal it and aspire to be inside the state that is being described. Then we can understand the text and connect to it.

My primary desire is to attain the spiritual quality through the right attitude to The Book of Zohar. After that I can pay attention to the text and be sure that I will understand it correctly. This is called “desiring to attain what you study,” as written in Item 155 of “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot.”

The text of The Zohar is the place where I perform my inner work and make the inner discernments regarding where I am. First I must have an intention in relation to the goal, and then a sensation in relation to the text.

We have to feel the depths of the layers of attainment. This is called “Engaging in the Torah and the Commandments,” and “Studying the Torah.”

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, The Zohar

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The Path To The Creator’s Palace

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to “appreciate the state of spiritual ascent?”

Answer: Ascent is a state where I can justify anything that is happening to me, to justify the friends and the group by seeing them as angels helping me to realize my free will and to reach the goal. From the elements of this condition, I can assemble myself and my relationship with the Creator who is revealed within such a state.

The group, home, work, studies, health, and so forth comprise the components of my state. I have to determine that all of them are secondary in relation to the group. I have to “collect” everything but the group and enter the group with it even though the group is just one element among the many others. In the group, I also have to discern the multiple components until I select only the one: the desire to attain the Creator.

I go deeper and deeper in this work and these discernments, into the center. I am as if coming to the King’s palace from afar until I finally reach it. I narrow down and contract my focus verifying the route until I come to the goal.

At first, I feel there is a whole world around me. Soon, I see that there is only the group and the various situations within it. It remains so until I come to the realization of a very simple scheme: Everything around me is merely angels, forces aiming me at the Creator and helping me to reach Him.

What is this group? Is it a local group closest to me or the world group? The group is all souls. We begin with the entire world and gradually contract the circle.

The group for me starts with the physical bodies, the people I know around the world to whom I feel are connected to me through the common goal. These are the people who understand and sense me despite the fact that I don’t know them in person. However, in the spiritual world, we reside in one collective system. In this world, we may not have ever met, but in the spiritual one, we are together.

It is, undoubtedly, an opportunity for salvation because we are connected, support, and depend on one another. It’s not only the people of my generation who exist today in a similar state in relation to the Creator, but all the Kabbalists of the past beginning with Adam who was the first to discover the Creator 5770 years ago and to realize free will.

From that moment, the created being, a point of desire, began its journey of attaining similarity with the Creator. Since then and until today, all Kabbalists connected by this goal belong in one system regardless of their rung on the spiritual ladder. In regard to those who are not yet working in this system, they also belong in it, but we have to awaken them.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, “And Jacob Went Out”

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Kabbalah Insights: Pyramid

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOyb1DoGUus]

Find Yourself In The Upper Dimension

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about my ascent to an Upper dimension. What does “ascent” mean? The Kabbalists say: “You exist in an Upper dimension but do not feel it. You have to reveal yourself existing in it.”

I exist in two dimensions. One is at the level of “this world,” where I reside in my physical body. The other is in an Upper dimension, where I exist in my spiritual body. This spiritual body, a desire to bestow, is concealed from me, and I know nothing about it. Opposite to it, there is the Upper Force called “the Creator.”

Opposite to my corporeal body, there is Nature. In the reality of “this world” I feel bad, which pushes me to uncover the Upper reality, my existence as “the Soul and the Creator” instead of “the Body and Nature.”

Kabbalists say that I have to discover the Upper dimension because that is where the governing forces reach me, and I along with my entire future depend on them. If I ascend, then I find out why I exist, who I am, and what happens to me. I reveal the meaning of my life and how to change everything for the better. These questions push me toward the Upper dimension.

When I start reading The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, I discover that they are talking about this Upper dimension. Conversely, if a person thinks that they are speaking of our world, then this view of the Kabbalistic texts is incorrect. This means that the reader makes an idol of the entire Torah by engaging in idolatry, and then it is forbidden for him to open these books. The reason being, instead of learning about the qualities of the Creator (loving  the other as you love yourself), such a person becomes an even greater egoist by thinking that the Torah teaches him how to perform rituals.

All “holy” books speak about the quality of sanctity (bestowal) and the Upper World (the acts of bestowal), whereas all ordinary books speak about the quality of reception and this world. Therefore, when I open a holy book, I yearn to enter the state of the author. He explains to me how to reach bestowal, never speaking of this world. After all, looking from above, this world is an illusion, “Olam HaMedume” (the imaginary world).

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Zohar

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Let The Hidden Be Revealed

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During The Zohar lessons, you reveal very subtle, concealed, and secret things so to speak.

Answer: They are secret and undisclosed to our senses because we are too coarse and can’t detect them. That’s all there is to it! It doesn’t mean that these things represent some kind of secret. They only seem like a mystery since I don’t see or feel them.

I have to sharpen my perception and make it more precise, capable of sensing more subtle gradation of properties. As a result, I will suddenly start sensing a very different, true picture of reality at a higher “resolution.” In order to do this, we have to bring our perception to the quality called “bestowal.” Once we feel it, we will feel the Upper World.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Zohar

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Jacob’s Ladder

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe general and the particular connect and plug into each other. Hence, those who are coming to us today, by uniting with us,  are able to use our experience of inner work and receive our understanding.

We witness how easily the new generation learns to use all modern devices, cell phones, and computers, which we had discovered and developed with such hard effort. But the young come to the plate ready to easily gobble it all up without paying any attention to us.

It is the same in spirituality: Those who come study Kabbalah will be able to achieve even greater success than we did since they “stand on our shoulders”! The first obstacle on the path is disappointment in one’s own capacity and ability to feel joy in descent. This discernment is possible solely with the assistance of the Upper Light, and not in dealing one on one with it, but rather in working through the group.

That is where the breaking between us unfolds, which I need to correct. I have to become a bestowing one in regard to this breaking, but I am incapable of it. Then, the Light comes and gives me an opportunity to connect with the others, and within them to find the Creator so I may bestow to Him.

This predicament has to unfold before me in all its depth, and I have to expect salvation from this innermost point. Such is the picture we should visualize, and then we will certainly find ourselves standing before the spiritual ladder leading upward.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/10, Shamati #42

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Kabbalists On Kabbalists, Part 22

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Main Kabbalistic Sources: Baal HaSulam’s Commentaries on the works of the ARI and The Book of Zohar

Indeed, I know the reason: It is mainly because faith has generally diminished, specifically faith in the holy men, the wise men of all generations. And the books of Kabbalah and The Zohar are filled with corporeal parables. Therefore, people are afraid lest they will lose more than they will gain [from their study, and they will receive a greater breaking or egoism rather than correction], since [by reading what is written in the corporeal images] they could easily fail with materializing [rather than imagining the spiritual properties].

And this is what prompted me to compose a sufficient interpretation to the writings of the Ari [TES], and now to the Holy Zohar [Perush HaSulam]. And I have completely removed that concern [of possible incorrect and, therefore, harmful study of the Torah], for I have evidently explained and proven the spiritual meaning of everything, that it is abstract and devoid of any corporeal image, above space and above time, as the readers will see, to allow the whole of Israel to study The Zohar and be warmed by its sacred Light. [This means that, if one studies The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, he does not need to fear losing his way to the purpose of creation: adhesion with the Creator.]
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 58

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Between Malchut and Bina

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VaYechi (And Jacob Lived),” Item 210: Come and see how important are the works of the Holy King. In the deeds that are done below, they tie them with the high things above, in their root, since anything below in this world has its root above in the upper worlds. And when they are taken down and worked with, the act above awakens corresponding to them, in the roots in the upper worlds.

“Above” and “below” refer to Bina and Malchut. If we think that “Above” refers to some abstract place in spirituality while “below” alludes to a place in our world, that is incorrect. After all, the science of Kabbalah does not speak of our world whatsoever. It does not concern itself with man in our world or actions which we perform here. The science of Kabbalah alludes only to actions in the desire which we can perform in similarity to the Upper Force, in bestowal.

Therefore, “the work of the Creator” means to learn from Him how He performs actions and to perform the same actions in our desire. Herein lies our work. We study this and ask the Creator for the ability, the strength, and a model of how to do it (from NHY [Netzah, Hod, Yesod], AHP [Awzen, Hotem, Peh] of the Upper One in the lower one).

Our entire work is the connection between Malchut and Bina where Malchut wants to learn the qualities of bestowal from Bina and, in response, receive the strength and realize it so as to become similar to Bina. That is why Malchut is called the lower world and Bina is the Upper World. All the actions to correct Malchut (the creature or the souls) are made only in the World of Atzilut. The souls which wish to unite rise precisely into Malchut of the World of Atzilut.

Therefore, wherever The Zohar speaks of the lower and Upper worlds pertains to what takes place between Malchut and Bina of the World of Atzilut,

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