The Book of Zohar describes spiritual states experienced by those attaining the spiritual world. Yet, it describes spiritual objects in the words of our world. These words bring corporeal images to our mind. They arrange earthly pictures on our “will to receive,” our egoistic screen, through our corporeal properties.

In spirituality there are no words but only sensations. For this reason, Kabbalists borrowed the words of this world to describe the spiritual one and labeled with them the spiritual properties that they reached in their attainment.

Therefore, while reading The Book of Zohar, we should try to identify the upper forces, spiritual states, and relationships, which exist beyond material objects that we are accustomed to feeling behind these corporeal words. It is a very good and useful exercise.

Suppose we read the words “forehead,” “eyes,” “ears,” and “hair” in the text. We have to try to immediately start thinking at least about the Sefirot (Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut), which relate to the corresponding parts of the Partzuf (“forehead,” “ears,” “nose,” “mouth,” GE and AHP).

“Hair” (Searot) is an excess of the Reflected Light that the Direct Light cannot clothe into, which results in the Reflected Light’s spilling over and out thereby forming the “hair” in a Partzuf. These are the Lights that expand in this manner from Above downward in the upper system, in Rosh of Arich Anpin and then in Zeir Anpin, and through all these multiple Partzufim, we receive the forces that awaken, transform, and fulfill us.

Therefore, in The Book of Zohar, we are studying this integral system of transformation of souls.
[31971]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

Related Material:
A Trampoline For Ascending Into Spirituality
Man’s Heart Between Two Flames
Despair, But Don’t Give Up

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: When the connection between us becomes revealed, does it only happen within me or inside the entire group?

Answer: This is an individual revelation of a person in a group. But his friends do not reveal whatever has been revealed to him. This depends on everyone’s individual work.

For example, if one of our friends discovers that he is now ready to connect with his heart and soul with all of us, all the sparks that exist in us from the breaking, then he will immediately reveal the common force called the Creator, which operates in the entire universe. But if we are not on the same level of connection between us or a level higher, we will not feel his presence there.

It is the same in our world: One can hide himself from others by not giving any spiritual information about him.
[31985]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/5/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
My Work Is Part Of The Common Work
The Bridge Over The Abyss Of Ego
The Root Of The Soul

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Sometimes you say that we only need to cleave to the Creator, and sometimes that the key is to unify with the group.

Answer: Your path to the Creator lies through the group, the medium by which you come to Him; otherwise, there is nothing to discuss. For example, I am told that I have to go to Jerusalem, but they don’t tell me how I am supposed to do get there: by train, bus, car, on a donkey, or by foot.

So do we say: “You have to merge with the Creator.” But when you hear this, you should automatically understand that without unifying with the group, you won’t find the Creator.

In fact, you can unveil Him only as a form clothed in matter. And where is this matter? It is in your mutual connection. In the place where you will first find hatred, you will later discover unity regarded as the Creator.
[31982]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Hidden Connections
Experiencing Spiritual Life
The Spiritual Reference Point

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: Could you please explain all of these forms of connection that The Zohar is describing, or can you give an example? What is the easiest way to visualize them?

Answer: The Zohar describes the forms of connection between the souls: types (lion, ox, eagle, man), Sefirot (Gevurah, Hesed, Tifferet, Yesod), letters (Chaf, Zain, Tav), colors (white, black, red, green), and so forth. When all of a sudden you experience a certain spiritual sensation, this gives you a clear understanding that it is called “the right eye brow,” that another sensation is called “the left eyebrow,” and so on; you feel it.

Suppose I look at person’s face. It evokes various impressions in me: “What a forehead! What eyes!” But they are not a forehead and eyes, but rather, my inner impressions, feelings, a phenomenon in my will to receive pleasure. I am affected in a certain way and it creates an image inside of me. Its name corresponds to the feelings that it evokes in me, but not what it really is.

The same is true in spirituality, only without the image I usually see in this world. Spiritual images exist without my participation. I unveil these forms, forces, impressions, and label them with all kinds of words: “red,” “white,” black,” “bitter,” “sweet,” “sour,” “tall,” “short,” and so on. But all of this exists without a corporeal picture.

In truth, we don’t see the images of our world outside our will to enjoy; we see them inside, just like seeing various combinations of electrical signals on the computer screen which are assembled into a movie. We have to gather all of our desires in similar combinations in order to see that this world, this form of reality that we perceive right now, is, in fact, only imagined. It doesn’t exist on its own; it only exists relative to us because we perceive it that way.

Each of us is a product of the Light’s projection, similar to the forms made by laser projectors. We are all forms, images, depicted by the Light; we just feel as if we exist in some reality, some space. But in truth, there isn’t anything real in these images. It is merely a projection of the forms that appear before me since I am still unable to perceive them in a more internal form.
[31868]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10,  “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

Related Material:
The Entrance Ticket To The Book Of Zohar
A Trampoline For Ascending Into Spirituality
All The Worlds Are Between Us

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: In mathematics, when analyzing a system with many unknowns, we make all parameters constant, leaving only one degree of freedom. Oftentimes, in man’s inner work we get the same feeling that you are looking in a number of directions: perception of reality, the group, the Creator; that is, there are too many "degrees of freedom," and it’s overly perplexing. Can I use the same principle as in mathematics and in the meantime only take into consideration the attitude towards the group?

Answer: In spiritual work it’s much easier. Even with all that infinite number of variables, we need to relate to a single Source and become included in Him. Let all these thousands of parameters change, while you remain inside the Creator, the sole cause of all that infinite number of changes.

If you attempt now to "freeze" reality, making it still in order to connect all of it together, it would forfeit the whole purpose of the spiritual work, degrading it to the level of dissecting events in the material world. Why do we need it?

We only need to know that from all the infinite number of changes, I should immediately establish contact with the Upper One, the Creator, and grasp Him. Let everything around me change even more, let the whole world swirl.

Despite and above it all, I have to hold on to Him even more strongly so that these changes will only strengthen our bond. There’s nothing else I need! I don’t have to learn anything about these changes. The moment I adhere to the Creator, I attain all the senses and mind, achieve the purpose of all the changes. So why should I get bogged down in them to begin with?

The sciences of our world are entering a crisis because they are going in the wrong direction. What are we wasting our time on: looking for yet another one of many thousands of particles, a search that has no end? The further we advance, the more and more entangled we get.

Let’s say they discover a new elementary particle which they were missing, only to find that it can be split into another thousand particles, and so on to infinity. It’s pure curiosity. Although in the final analysis each quest contains the search for the Upper One, the Creator.

But if we want to advance correctly, we need to find the cause of all that is happening. And it means that we must break through to a higher level. So I never concentrate on what is happening in this world. I must make only the actions that connect me to the Creator: Through the group, make some physical actions, but only in that direction.

On the level of this world we will never reveal anything higher than that. After all, what research tools do we have in the material world other than our earthly, animal intelligence? From the height of the animate level we explore the still and the vegetative degrees.
[31880]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
1 + 1 = 3 (The Creator Between Us)
Disturbances Are The Creator’s Language
Cling To The Source

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Science - 1 Comment →

Question: In his article "The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy," Baal HaSulam writes: “Even when science reaches its ultimate development, we will still have to regard only the tangible reality.” What “ultimate development” is science destined to reach?

Answer: Science will develop to such a condition when it will merge with the wisdom of Kabbalah and become part of the same movement. In fact, our world is set to ascend and clothe the upper world, having become its indispensable part and included in it along with all our actions and efforts exerted even in the matter of the corporeal world.

Nothing disappears without a trace since everything belongs to one universe, one reality. Therefore, sciences will also merge and join in the wisdom of Kabbalah as its integral part. The wisdom of Kabbalah involves all of creation, and all sciences of our world will be engaged in it.

They are already part of it, and it only seems that they exist separate from it. After all, all laws of our world are the same very laws that govern the spiritual world, though only imprinted in our egoistic matter. If matter works with the intention to receive “for self gratification” at the level of Malchut de Malchut of the world of Assiya, then it results in the corresponding laws.

In the spiritual world, intention “for myself” pertains to the Klipot, the impure forces, where such are the spiritual laws. Here, they come out as material laws, and there is no awareness of the fact that they are based on the intention to receive “for self gratification.”

If we achieve the final corrected state (Gmar Tikkun), then all of this corporeal world is gradually cancelled and dissolves. We sense it less and less, and more of its parts abandon our perception.

We begin to realize how transient and temporary everything is. It is similar to how matter gets transformed from one state to another, when its forms return to their initial state: from “tangible states” of hard matter they become liquid, and then, not a very tangible state, gas, and finally, into a completely intangible one, a zero or a void.

All of this occurs in our sensations, our perception. And if our perception changes, there is no room for ordinary physics which essentially deals only with still matter, while biology, zoology, and medicine study the vegetative and animate levels of nature.

None of our sciences rise above these levels: still, vegetative, and animate. At the human level, there is no “science” any longer in the strict sense of this world; there is merely a recording process of accumulated observations of life and facts as in psychology and psychiatry.

To the extent that this world abandons our sensations at the still-vegetative-animate degrees, these planes will start to “fold up,” by ascending and getting included in the human degree. We will no longer practice these sciences since we will stop feeling these phenomena and counting them as real in the form we see them today.

This entire reality exists solely in relation to us. If all our attributes and sensory organs get transformed, meaning that reality as we experience it right now in these organs of perception changes, then what science can deal with an absent reality? Everything is relative.
[31887]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
When We Will Finally Have Luck In Everything
When Technology Is Futile
The Dawn Of Philosophy

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A, Science - No Comments →

Question: Physicists keep attempting to catch the “X” particle, thinking that it gave start to all matter in the Universe, meaning mass itself. Through their discoveries do they come closer to Kabbalah? How did the material universe form, and at what point does the Upper Force dress in all of these forms visible to us?

Answer: Physics treats the forming of the universe as a new creation while Kabbalah states that the material universe is a product, an “imprint” of the whole previous process when another, new object of creation, a Partzuf, comes to life.

Our world is another Partzuf born out of the previous one: Bina de-Malchut de-Malchut of the world of Assiya. NHY (Netzah, Hod, Yesod), the lower part of this upper Partzuf, expanded downward and clothed into our egoistic matter thereby adding its opposite forms to the latter. This means that all forms manifesting in this world are spiritual albeit dressed in corporeal images (imprints, vectors), meaning “for self gratification.” This is the form in which our world exists.

You are asking at what point it got formed. But time doesn’t exist! We live in an imagined reality, and only when this deception falls away will we be able to see the true picture. Presently, we resemble a person whose head is wired to a few electrodes which send electrical impulses to his brain, creating various images in it and making him feel them as real.

This is how various pictures arise in us, just like on the computer screen as the software dictates. Therefore, there aren’t such things as past, present, and future, but rather a sequence of images.

The upper Partzuf descends from Chazeh of Malchut de-Malchut of the world of Assiya to Malchut that ascended to the lowest Bina, gathers her forms and transfers them into our matter, into Malchut herself. All forms of our world are spiritual imprints albeit egoistic ones.

Here we find the entire world, as well as stars and galaxies, because even in the spiritual world there are the exact same objects: “stars” and “heavens.” But in this world, we see only the reverse projection of a small part of the spiritual world while its major part is out of sight. The spiritual world is much richer in the quantity of components.

Our world is entirely egoistic since it is Bina which doesn’t share its power with Malchut but only its forms. When the rungs of the worlds expand from Above downward, the force of bestowal in them gets reduced, gradually diminishing until it totally runs out.

Finally, at the last degree, when there is nothing left of the force of bestowal except one spark, a “thin candle” (Ner Dakik), this spark is clothed in our world and gives it its form. Our world’s degree is characterized by the fact that here, the force of reception is more powerful than the force of bestowal while at all upper degrees, the force of bestowal is greater than the force of reception.
[31904]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 01/5/11, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Where In The Universe Is This World?
Three Windows On My Computer
Find Life In The Connection Among Us

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Philosophy, Q&A, Science - No Comments →

Question: Do we need to resist the egoism or work with it?

Answer: I resist egoism when I look at it while I identify myself with the point of the Creator. I acknowledge that such is my nature; however, it will become the Creator’s nature once I correct it, because egoism is His imprint.

This is why egoism is referred to as “help against you”: Its form is opposite to the form that I need, but it helps me since I do not have anything else.

For this reason, at this moment I am lacking Light, which will help fill the egoistic “dents” in the imprint with the proper qualities, and I receive unity—the Creator’s form.

Our egoism contains all the opposite forms as they formed while alienating from their perfection to our world.

These forms are as though included in one another, like nesting dolls. And we need to arrive in a complete proper form in the reverse order, with the help of the Light.

This is why we stand against egoism in the realization that we have everything except for the upper Light. So I need to evoke the influence of the upper Light on my desire for the future state of unity, my desire for the corrected form (Reshimo).

For this reason we say “we will do and we will hear” from the very beginning; in other words, we are ready for unity once we receive the desire from the group.
[24040]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Arvut”

Related Material:
The Eternal Engine
The Imprint Of The Light
Help Against You

Filed under: Egoism, Inner Work, Mutual Guarantee, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

A person will not be able to work for the sake of bestowal if he doesn’t receive an experience of its importance, which serves him as fuel for completing the following steps. We are founded on egoism in order not to perform any pointless actions. Egoism aims us at the actions that bring a reward, a benefit; otherwise, it won’t let us perform the next act.

In spirituality, egoism helps us to act solely in the direction of the goal if its importance is greater than egoism; and if it there isn’t a goal, egoism offers us its own and opposite one, thereby aiming us at the goal. This is why it is called “help against you”.

Hence, in each action, even the one which is highly prepared, after the action, we must care to gain even greater importance of the goal than before, to gain a satisfaction from advancing toward the goal. This will be the fuel for the next action.

This always makes us think: Why, for what purpose, and for whose benefit do we act?
[24056]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Arvut”

Related Material:
An Imprint Of Final Correction
Brushing Off The Dust From Bestowal
An Eternal Engine Fueled By Bestowal

Filed under: Egoism, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: How does working with the “wicked” differ from working with the “righteous”?

Answer: First of all, please understand that we are talking about the states a person experiences relative to the Creator. As Baal HaSulam explains in the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” we need to undergo these states on the path: a complete wicked, an incomplete wicked, one in the middle, an incomplete righteous, and a complete righteous.

How do I measure these states though? Anybody you ask thinks they are at least those in the middle if not complete righteous. In truth, the only criterion of a correct assessment is self-annulment in the group. In our case, the environment is our measuring device. The common Kli (vessel) broke only so that you, by lowering your head before the group, could know where you are and receive strength from the Creator.

After the breaking, your Kli split into multiple parts. The Creator, who was present in it, also split, and is now in all of these parts. They are as the pieces of once whole puzzle that you are assembling according to the program designed Above. Thereby, you are restoring the parts of your soul, along with the parts of the Creator, parcels of Light that are hidden in them.

In this world, in your egoism, you perceive all of this as a physical group. But in truth, it isn’t a group. With time, the group will become a spiritual appellation to you. These are not people who sing songs and wish to unite, but rather in each of them, you discover a part of your Kli and a particle of the Creator planted in it.

Behind the friends’ faces, there is a spiritual environment. Now you clearly realize that the breaking, our current reality, and the friends allow you to engage in spiritual work. When the Creator has no value in your eyes, you feel a sinner, and to gain this value, you appeal to the environment. It contains the Kelim (vessels); the Creator dwells in it; and the Light pours into it and brings this spiritual meaning to you. Thus, everything is in one place: the person and all his parts he sees as alien to him at the moment.

[31840]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/11, “What Are the Misfortunes that Come to the Wicked Which Start From the Righteous in Work”

Related Material:
Self – Tst For Spiritual Progress
The Wicked And The Righteous Are Within Me
The Last Variable In The Equation

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →