What Kind Of Changes Are Waiting For You

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When can a person who has started studying Kabbalah be able to say that he is working with his desires?

Answer: When he starts going through “ascents” and “descents.” In these states we start studying how dependent we are on our inner changes. And that is only the beginning. This is how you are being played with by the upper force, even though for now it’s happening in the plane of this world.

That is when you will start being thrown from one world to the other, sometimes being elevated and sometimes being cast down. Then you will feel how inconstant everything is.

Imagine that your senses were changed somewhat so your eyes saw the world through X-rays and you had radars instead of ears. What kind of world would you feel? You would go crazy from the overabundance of information coming at you, from the entire range of waves because you would hear people talking here and there and everywhere at the same time, even thousands of kilometers away from you. You would see through walls and would be aware of everything that happens.

Accordingly, your brain would also have to be developed to the same extent in order to process this flow of information, as well as your nervous system. You would be a completely different being, and all that just if we were to slightly expand the range of our perception in the same world.

Yet in Kabbalah we talk about qualities which we currently lack entirely and a fundamentally different approach. For example, imagine that you started feeling the sensations of other people, dressing like a ghost into one person, then another, and then a third….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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The Materialistic Psychology Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanLove does not belong in our world. If you start to relate to others with love, it means that the soul has begun to operate in you. However, now you have just one broken point from that soul. If from that point you start building an attitude of love for another person and creating this “vector” of intention, the aspiration called love, it will become your soul.

It will be built on your desire to enjoy, which was corrected by the intention “for the sake of bestowal.” This is called love.

If you acquire this intention, then you will become a spiritual person. Inside this attitude to another person you will start revealing the Light of NaRaNHY, the upper worlds, everything that is between you and the other.

This will continue until you feel him completely the way you feel yourself, experiencing the two of you as one whole. This means that you have attained the world of Infinity because there are no boundaries, no limitations left. This signifies the spiritual world.

I have to relate to everything that happens with love. However, if someone attacks me with a knife, then what should I do? I must also take a knife and kill him, but with love…. That is the law. And if a Levi, a tax collector comes to me and tells me that I have to pay him, then I will pay him. Inside, in my heart, I may be crying over my empty wallet, but my soul will rejoice.

We have to understand that our attitude to the neighbor is built on our desire to enjoy and its correction for the sake of bestowal! If I take all the needs of another person and fill them using my desire, that means I love him.

However, if I merely restrict my desire in order to avoid harming another person, that means I am in the state of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” (Hafetz Hesed), but not love. It is written, “Do not do to another what you yourself hate.” This is the test of how I should relate to him. If you don’t like something yourself, then don’t do it to another.

But maybe there is also something that he likes? I don’t know that because I can only test it by my own desires. This is “materialistic psychology.”

Love is also not beyond materialistic psychology. Yet, in this case I feel another person so much that I feel his desires. Therefore, I take them and fulfill them by what I can practically fill them with using my desires and opportunities.

If I love the neighbor and absorb his desires, then I can raise his request (MAN) to the very world of Infinity! He cannot do this himself, but I can do it for him!

In spirituality, none of us can take a bite and put it in our mouth directly. We can only eat it if I give it to you and you give it to me. And it can only happen on the condition that I know exactly what you want and you know the same about me! Then you will be able to place that bite into my mouth, and I for you. That is how we are connected and none of us can receive fulfillment by himself.

And all of that has to happen here, in this world! The Light of Infinity has to expand down to this world, as it is written, “His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.” Spiritual relationships will become such that you will not be able to act differently in the material world as well.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Sentenced To Mercy

Dr. Michael LaitmanForces opposite to the Creator become revealed in creation. Creation attains and feels everything through opposites, which is described by the verse, “The advantage of the Light is attained from darkness.”

Creation adds to and places itself before the forces that become revealed in it while going through 125 degrees or states on the path to the Creator. This entire process is actualized by the Upper Force, the Creator. Thus, along the levels of ascent, creation gradually attains the fact that the forces of judgment, collision, and opposition were given to it so it would acquire independence and recognize the initial point. Then creation introduces all of its own qualities to that point, increasing it by 620 times, while at the same time making it become the point of unity and adhesion with the Creator.

On the path to this, creation discovers that it differs from the Creator. The Creator’s forces seem opposite to it, as forces of judgment. However, later creation reveals that all of these states came from mercy so it would feel perfection through its independence. It turns out that all of the opposite states, the entire egoistic desire that rises up against the Creator, against the force of bestowal, must only be used correctly.

Then creation sees how judgment turns to mercy and realizes that from the Creator’s end there was never a single thought or action besides absolute love.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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A Walk Or The Way To The Creator’s Tower?

Dr. Michael Laitman“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver,” Item 88: They said to him, “But you have not told us your name, and where is your dwelling place?”

He replied to them, “My dwelling place is good and of great value to me. It is a tower floating in the air, great and honorable. And those who dwell in that tower are the Creator and one poor man. This is my dwelling place."

It is a problem when during the reading of The Zohar we begin to enjoy the narration because the pleasure muffles our inner search.

Question: But what do I need to look for here?

Answer: Let us say that I am taking a walk with my friend, and we receive pleasure from it on the spot. We are walking and enjoying every step of the way: The birds are singing, the grass is green, there is a nice breeze, the sun is shining. This is called a stroll because we enjoy the actual walk.

But there is another way to walk. We walk covered in sweat, it’s hard for us, and we curse the entire journey. But why do we continue walking? It’s because we want to reach the goal, and it is impossible to make it there in a nice and pleasant way. The path is so unpleasant that we would gladly give it up if we were able to reach the goal in one jump.

Basically, there are different ways to treat the journey: as a walk or as a means to reach the goal. The walk is not a means; it is a goal in its own, which we immediately attain. Now you need to decide for yourself the process that you are in: Are you even moving? Are you taking a walk? Or are you walking towards the goal?

If you read The Zohar and enjoy the actual reading, you are taking a walk. You feel good and you are not thinking about the distant goal. “What a beautiful narration! I am enjoying every word!” This is a walk.

You lack the intention, the inner search, the aspiration of unity with friends. You will see it as soon as you think about connecting. And then this will no longer be a walk, but a journey toward the goal.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 16

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

The Torah Develops the Recognition of Evil in a Person

The Torah and the Mitzvot [correction of oneself through the study of Kabbalah] were given only to refine Israel [to unite into a single desire], to develop in us the sense of recognition of evil [egoism], imprinted in us at birth, which is generally defined as our self-love, and to come to the pure good defined as the “love of others,” which is the one and only passage to the love of God.
Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom

When one engages in the Torah [the method of correction of one’s innate egoism, and if he indeed studies the true Torah], he sees the truth, meaning one’s measure of remoteness from spirituality, and one sees that he is such a low creature, that there is not a worse person on earth than him.
Baal HaSulam, Shamati #56 “Torah is Called Indication
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Living Letters

Dr. Michael LaitmanYear in and year out, we are trying to bring our lessons closer to people, to the world, and it is extremely difficult. Baal HaSulam wrote in his "Prophecy" that he had asked, pleaded before, the Creator to help him descend from his degree to be able to explain the method of revealing the Creator to people.

In the spiritual world, it’s very hard to lower one’s degree because there everything is completely transparent and clear. Since the upper degree is perfection, to "step down" from it on your own is even "more impossible" than to climb to it. There are no words to explain it either since spirituality is pure sensations.

Kabbalists managed to find words to convey spiritual information, but they intend them for their own peers in their Kabbalistic writings. Behind each word they pronounce, such as the "screens" (Masachim), "discernments" (Havhanot), the "rise of Malchut to Bina," and so on, behind special forms of the enlarged capital letters there stand spiritual notions.

For them, all of it is like a "musical score" for a musician who may cry or laugh simply by looking at it. For him, they are life-like sensations which immediately arouse feelings in him. It’s another thing, however, to take a musical score and relate it in words. If I asked you to tell me about your sensation from a symphony, what would you say?

However, we need to relate our feelings somehow. Although they are not spiritual yet and precede the entry into the spiritual world, nevertheless, our students and ordinary people on the street are separated by many, many years of development. If we were to broadcast our lessons in a unadapted form, nobody would understand them. It’s very difficult to descend from that degree, but we have to attempt to do it. There is still a lot for us to do here.
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From Lesson 2, Kabbalah Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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Turning To The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I turn to the group internally?

Answer: Turning to the group is a search: In what way can I picture the whole of reality as existing inside of me, and not outside? Perception of reality is not a brain-twister with which you can interest and confuse others. We are talking about a state which we must reach in practice. I have to reveal that all the things that are seemingly outside of me are my internal parts.

For example, the Torah describes all kinds of different occasions from the lives of various characters, which have occurred in different places. It’s a real theater. I must apply all of this onto my desires, onto the details of my perception. There is no external world, so where is it inside of me? In which parts of me do these characters live and are these actions performed?

This approach builds the right relationship toward my own Kli (vessel), to the actions which the Creator performs within me, and to the states which I need to go through. That is why I must try to find the “external” images within me every waking moment.

I live inside my soul, and all of the "external" images are its parts: forces, actions, and elements of perception. Nothing else exists. Everything is in this Kli. This is the way I try to picture the entire reality.

So, who is setting all of this up for me? Who separates, deletes, draws closer, and connects all of the parts of my desires: the “men” and “women,” “animals” and “vegetation,” and so on? This is when I perceive Keter which builds the still, vegetative, animate, and human degrees within me: Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut.

I live inside of my soul, besides (outside of) which there is nothing. That is why first of all, I need to see the group as my integral part. This is what turning to the group internally is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/10, “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World was in Donation”

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Rising Up Through The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanInitially, I have a mere material desire for “self-gratification” and a point in the heart, a seed of the property of bestowal, that yearns for the upper world. I raise this point above desire by increasing its importance relative to corporeal desires and then turn with it to the environment: the group, the Kabbalistic texts, and the teacher.

In response, I receive an increased and refined desire from them. It is increased in terms of its might and modified in the sense that I acquire the importance of the goal (to achieve the property of bestowal) and realize my inability to reach it on my own.

With this desire, I turn “upward,” raise MAN (a plea for correction). As a result, the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif, OM) descends from “Above” and reforms me, brings me back to the property of bestowal.

The following are the mandatory stages:

  1. Appeal to the group;
  2. Receive a spiritual aspiration from it;
  3. Appeal to the Creator;
  4. Receive correction.

Consequently, there emerges a Kli, a vessel of bestowal, the sum of all factors.

Question: How do I know that my aspiration came from the group?

Answer: You examine the degree to which you wish to unite with the friends, but are unable to do so. If you have put a great deal of quality effort into this need, you raise MAN with it. In other words, the sum of your desires aimed at unification creates a plea for help.

Question: What are the signs that I’m appealing to the group correctly?

Answer: If I do it correctly, I see how unified the friends are and how separated I am from them, how small I am and how great they are, how magnificent the purpose of creation is that they are seeking and to what extent I am unable to appreciate it. To me, the group is an ideal, a criterion by which I measure my flaws. I can’t take these flaws anywhere else except to appeal to the Creator.

When I address the group correctly, I discover such flaws in myself, such a lack, such unfulfilled desires that they immediately evoke the Light that Reforms. This Light doesn’t come from another galaxy; it lives in me, in my heart. I only need a deeper desire to experience it.

Note: The term “group” implies not corporeal faces and characteristics, but rather a network of the friends’ “points in the heart” connected into one system.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/10, “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World was in Donation”

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