My Spiritual Simulator – 09.27.10

Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

A Leap Toward Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanEvery one of us contains a spark, a desire to reveal the Creator. We unite our sparks, but this is not enough to reveal Him because the sparks are egoistic. They come from the breaking of our former unity. When we make efforts, we reveal that we desire the Creator “for our own sake,” for the sake of our own interests.

That is already an attainment because we have discovered the broken desire which the Creator described by the verse, “I created the evil inclination.” This is an important discovery. We reveal the evil inclination when our “sparks” aspire to Him and we unite them in the group.

As we make efforts to unite in the study, we discover our opposition to the corrected Shechina and the Creator. The Light shows us this. In our common desires to reveal the Creator, we reveal the broken place or desire, and this gives us great joy because we reveal the essence of the destruction.

From then on we can make a leap toward correction: to desire the Creator not for our own sake, but in order to give Him pleasure. Then the altruistic intention will turn our place into the corrected Shechina. We will bring it back from exile and thereby reveal the Creator inside it.

Our entire work is to correct the desire. At first we need a great desire, and then a corrected one. This is what the science of Kabbalah is intended for.
[22038]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “What in the Work, is Israel Who Exiled Divinity, is with Them “

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The Elusive Point Of Freedom

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt seems so easy to just let the force of the Light come and correct us, making us love our neighbor! So why is the process of correction so difficult? The difficulty comes from the fact that this entire process is concealed, and that is in order to give us the freedom of will.

To be free means to go against my desire and understanding, when I don’t want it directly! My animalistic body does not aspire to this and my egoism does not help me do this. I have to find a new motivation to advance, which does not stem from my qualities. Otherwise I would just be increasing my animate egoism.

The reason for my advancement must be outside of me, in the environment. In order to advance, I have to use something that does not belong to the egoistic desire, and therein lies the entire difficulty. If not for this, every person would aspire to correction. Who wouldn’t want to receive perfection and eternity, feel the Creator, see all of his fate from beginning to end, and control it!?

Any person would agree to exchange this temporary world for an eternal one. However, people feel that this is too exalted, too difficult, and unattainable. And it’s all because we have to reveal the point of our free choice, called "the middle third of Tifferet."

We understand what love is and what hate is, but it’s not clear what a neutral state is, "the middle third of Tifferet." On every degree we have to make our choice while in that state. Otherwise we won’t be independent of the Creator.

What’s the point of creating a miserable creature that suffers in this world, and then giving it the knowledge that there is a perfect state and one must only use a means called the Torah to go from a bad state to a good one? In fact, any machine could do the same thing if there is good and evil, and a means to go from evil to good. There is no free choice here.

Religions operate according to this scheme of two lines. The difference between Kabbalah and religion is free will, the third line. A person has to find the point where he can carry out actions independently of himself and his earthly choice, so he won’t look for self-benefit.

If we find this point and act based on it, it means we freely build ourselves and are independent of our previous nature. We cut ourselves off from it and give birth to ourselves, instead of having the Creator do it.

This point of independence poses the difficulty. It constantly confuses us and erases everything we understood and felt a moment ago, immersing us into a "fog" all over again. But it is happening because we are being led into a completely different dimension of life where we will reveal the true reality instead of the unconscious state we are in today.
[22062]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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A Curtain That Is Always Lowered

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe exist only in one state, the World of Infinity, but it is hidden from us behind 125 curtains. Beneath 125 concealments corrupted by the descent along 125 degrees, I exist in the opposite nature. But it doesn’t impact my environment in any way. Even if I do not see, feel, or act correctly, I still am present in the spiritual world and have to familiarize myself with its laws. Otherwise I will always lose.

However, since I am distanced from the World of Infinity, the spiritual system treats me accordingly. By lowering me down, the system applies the criteria that “match” me. Of course, I am opposite to bestowal, but only by 1/125th. If I were present in the World of Infinity while being totally opposite to it, I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.

Thus, I constantly bear damages in accordance with my current state and my next degree; I feel a discrepancy (a gap) between these two states which is, in fact, a force that moves me forward. Even now the power of evil in me draws me down, and I sense alienation from spirituality. I feel bad about this world and about the fact that I haven’t climbed my spiritual first step yet.

A Curtain
The system of Infinity is condensed in relation to us; it reduces itself and creates concealments, meaning spiritual worlds. Due to this fact, a person, just like a child, always faces the necessity to grow. Each time he reveals separation from a higher level so that he can again apply effort and climb another degree.
[21818]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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The Mechanics Of Ascension

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You explained that at each of the 125 degrees of ascension, the desires (the left line) and the Light (the right line) are pre-set for us in advance, and that we rise to their degree by connecting them correctly. How is this realized in practice?

Answer: There are two forces in nature: the force of bestowal and the force of reception (“plus” and “minus” or the right and the left lines). Both of them expand from the Creator, and my job is to construct the middle line from them.

The left line is to receive and the right line is to bestow. I need to connect them by placing “resistance” (R) or a “motor” (M) between them. I connect them, and then they work sustained by my effort (R or M). The result of my actions (the working resistance or the motor) is regarded as the “soul” or “human.”

Suppose I have constructed within myself a human at the first spiritual degree. Now, I am facing the next one. What is the difference between the “human” of the first degree and the “human” of the second degree?

Mechanics of Ascension
I have to increase “faith above reason” (bestowal over reception), create a screen that connects us all together, arrange the Kli (vessel) in equivalence with the Creator, and draw the Surrounding Light that will help me build the screen (the connection between the right and the left lines).

The desire with the screen has to be equivalent to the Light. The amount of reception in the left line has to be equal to the amount of bestowal in the right line. If I achieve this, I ascend to a higher spiritual degree.
[21754]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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Kabbalah Insights: Love Of Fish

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHcdel3L9I8]

Preparing A Place For The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator constantly awakens a person by revealing descents and sorrow for the Shechina. One should approach all the descents and ascents from the right perspective: What should I be sorry about, and what am I in fact sorry about?

I have to make an analysis and gradually, with the help of the Light, aspire to the intention of bestowal. Previously I waited for the Light to become revealed to me, but now I want it to change me.

Really, there is no point in waiting for the Light to suddenly start shining. The Creator is everywhere, but we lack equivalence to Him in order to feel Him.

That is why it is necessary to make an order for one’s corrections: how to relate to oneself, to one’s environment, to the teacher, and to the place of the Creator’s revelation (the Shechina), which one must create together with the friends and prepare it for the presence of the Creator. Gradually it becomes clear that all the troubles of every person in the world are aimed only at correcting the Shechina.

This is the only thing we should be concerned with. It is sufficient to take the Shechina to the first degree of the 125 degrees of correction and the Creator will immediately be revealed to that degree. He is at rest and His revelation depends only on the degree of our similarity to Him.
[22044]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, Writings of Rabash

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Where Does Spirituality Begin?

Dr. Michael LaitmanOne’s spiritual search will be successful only if it is done through the connection of the broken Kelim. We are in this world with the worlds of BYA above us. Higher still is Malchut of the World of Atzilut, called "the assembly of Israel." This is the place of unity among those who aspire directly to the Creator. A person must ascend from this world to the worlds of BYA, where the breaking is revealed, and to Malchut of the World of Atzilut, desiring to unite with others as before, in order to reveal the Creator inside the common connection.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to raise our request higher to Zeir Anpin and Bina. There is no other opportunity to do spiritual work. In my current state, I am separated from spirituality and bear no relation to it because I still haven’t revealed the desire in which I can reveal the spiritual world. I must first bring myself to the correct desire. In all of reality there is just the matter of the desire and the form dressed in it. The desire can be material (egoistic) or spiritual.

The spiritual matter relates to bestowal and is expressed in the connection between friends, between those who have sparks of aspiration toward bestowal. First they reveal the broken matter between them, the evil inclination, and then they correct it by the force of the Light that hides inside the broken Kelim, in the broken attitude to one another.

Everything begins only after we find the connection between us. That is the only way we can ascend to the spiritual matter. It is not present in any person separately. It resides in the initial negative connection between us, in the evil inclination which we discover and begin to correct. That is where the spiritual path begins.

[21957]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”

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Kabbalists On The Language Of Kabbalah, Part 7

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

Each lower world [sensed in the desire to receive] is an [opposite] imprint of the world Above it [sensed in the desire to bestow].
– Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

All the stubbornness we detect [relative to our sensory organs] in the conduct of nature [of our egoism] in this world [our initial properties] is only because they are extended and taken from laws and conducts of Upper, Spiritual Worlds [that descend to the level where they clothe in the opposite property of reception instead of bestowal].
– Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom

Now you can understand that the Mitzvot in the Torah are no more than laws and conducts [of nature] set in Higher Worlds, which are the roots [foundation] of all of nature’s conducts in this world of ours [which is an opposite imprint of the Upper World]. The laws of the Torah [the laws of the Upper World] always match the laws of nature in this world as two drops in a pond.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”
[21443]

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Learn The Creator’s Language

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything originates from the Upper Force. All this confusion of “I” and “the world” is driven by a single force of “There is none else beside Him,” and everything happens in order to bring me to its revelation.

The phrase “There is none else beside Him” bears a warning that everything that happens to us is caused by a single force. Every given moment “twists” us around so that we begin to unveil this force, whether it happens in a good way or not.

Good and evil are relative. It is feasible that sometimes He distances us from Himself through successes and draws us closer to Him through afflictions. However, if we recognize that everything comes from Him, then anything in this life becomes a method of connecting with Him.

There is me and the world around me which is, in fact, a demonstration of the Creator’s attitude to me. I have to reveal Him by using this world and initiating a dialogue with Him. However, before I begin to understand Him, He will continue influencing me from the “outside.” He speaks with me in the language of bestowal, but I am still “inside.” and so far, I can only speak the language of receiving.

I am tied up within my ego. Even though the world around me represents the Light, I have no clue about it and continue to accept it in the way my egoism prompts me. If I manage to change myself, I’ll realize that this world is the World of Infinity. Everything depends on the observer (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation”).

I view a terrible world around me because I am terrible, yet if I transform myself, I’ll see that it is perfect and eternal. Many Kabbalists who succeeded in correcting their perception by altering their receiving qualities into bestowal tell us about it.

I cannot properly treat this world the way it appears to me because I see it through my false properties. At the same time, I can change my properties and attain bestowal beyond my ego. Then, I’ll see everything in a different way. The world will look different through new properties that I will eventually obtain.

This is called a “new perception of reality.” The world is not a permanent picture; all depends on the observer. It is said that everybody evaluates the world to the degree of their own faults. This world simply serves as a “wrapping” around the real world, although it is all that I can sense at this moment. Later on, I will discover that it is a space full of bestowal and love, and I’ll view them as clearly as I presently see the current “reality.”

All I have to do is to change my receiving properties into bestowing. Thus, I will perceive the “next world.” How do I do this? For that purpose, we have the teacher, the group, and the books.
[21762]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 51

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