Fundamentals Of Kabbalah – 07.17.11
Posted on July 17th, 2011
Question: How can I avoid taking pride in my bestowal to the Creator?
Answer: The only thing you can take pride in is that you’ve received support from Above, which enabled you to overcome the hardships, meaning your ego. In other words, you need to take pride in the Creator, the Light, His help, but not yourself!
What do we have? Nothing! Our desires and actions are not our own, and neither is the Light. Even the prayer is not our own, but we receive it from the environment. Therefore, the further we advance, the less we receive, and the more we are grateful.
And when we return back to Malchut of the world Infinity, we receive the same Light of Nefesh de Nefesh which was in Malchut in its very first state. However, we intensify its illumination by “613” times with our gratitude, attainment of the good, and sensation of the Giver’s greatness.
But the Light itself does not change since it has no measure. The Light itself remains Nefesh de Nefesh, merely a small illumination. It is we who turn it into a great flame.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/2011, Writings of Rabash
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Question: Why is it that after so many years of study we still ask about its purpose? It follows that we always start from the beginning, from zero?
Answer: No, each time we start from an even greater “zero”! Indeed, the egoistic desire is constantly growing, as does understanding. Our desires become sharper and more precise, and thus our “zero” becomes deeper and more defined.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/2011, Writings of Rabash
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Question: Over the last few days couples in Israel began a protest against the housing crisis. They are starting up tent cities in public places to protest against the skyrocketing housing prices. Will this lead to correction?
Answer: This is a good thing. However, what can our poor government do for them? We ascribe great capabilities to it, thinking, “They’ll decide something today and will carry it out tomorrow.” But that’s not so. Didn’t the government know about these problems? Don’t the ministers just want to get together for a conference and make a decision so that starting tomorrow, new, cheap houses will start being built?
This can’t happen because we are dealing with a great complex of interconnected social problems, and this is just one of them. We cannot correct any one of them unless we correct the connection between the people in the country. No one will be able to help: not the prime minister or the government, not the parliamentarians, and not the people who are sitting in tents on city streets.
It’s good that they are sitting there, and it’s good that the Prime Minster is concerned. It’s good that he’s afraid and they are making demands of him. Maybe this will finally push them to reach the right conclusion: that correction will not come from the Prime Minister. And even money won’t solve anything. There is a bigger problem concealed here. Even if there will be enough money in the country, the authorities won’t be able to make any useful decision.
We have to understand that in our times there are no separate, problematic situations. Now, when nature has closed us inside of an integral net, everything depends only on the connection between people. There is not one social problem, not even the smallest one, that could be solved without a social interconnection, without a connection within the nation and within the world. Without resorting to this means, you won’t be able to do anything.
The task might seem secondary or purely technical, “What’s so hard about it, really? Just give out an order, free up some land for construction, and let them start building.” But they cannot do that because they will come up against insurmountable barriers on the inside. That would be the same as demanding pure bestowal from a person when he is simply incapable of it. He just can’t do it.
So know this: Today there is just one solution to any problem: mutual guarantee. If there is no mutual guarantee, there is no solution. This is exactly what we have to bring to the people’s understanding. We can be sure that we will attain success and will overcome all the problems only by means of the force of the mutual guarantee.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/11, “Arvut”
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The ARI Institute successfully participated at the the 8th Forum of Ministers of Social Development of Latin America organized by UNESCO.
The international forum that took place in El Salvador on July 11-12, focused on social policies for youth within the framework of the UNESCO Management Social Transformations (MOST) Programme. Ministers of Labor and Social Development from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered to analyze the challenges facing the region in terms of unemployment and educational problems, subjects that concern today’s societies in general.
As ARI Institute we had the opportunity to present our views on global and integral education as a solution to the crisis, as well as the use of the new technologies for the sake of an educational system that truly responds to the needs of an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world.
These innovative ideas generated enthusiasm within the audience. New opportunities for mutual collaborations were discussed with UNESCO officials and with other educational institutions, in order to create pilot programs for virtual education to youth.
The President of the Government of El Salvador, H.E. Mauricio Funes Cartagena, participated in the opening session, as well as Ms. Pilar Álvarez Laso, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, and Dr. Julio Carranza, Head of UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Program for Latin America and the Caribbean. The event was also attended by representatives from several United Nations agencies such as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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Since initially we lack the aspiration to bestow and we need to gather, form, and organize it ourselves, we are given work in the group to help us achieve it. In the group, we work with other people whom we, as it were, see before us as “help from the opposite side.” And essentially, instead of working with people and desires which appear to be foreign to me, I work with my attitude towards them. I need to learn to treat them like myself.
In working with them, I see opposite relationships: rejection, hatred, and alienation. However, at the same time, I must reach attraction, love, and closeness instead, and this helps me to rise above the animate degree, to the degree of the Creator.
This is because there are only two kinds of relation to others: reception and bestowal, which are opposite to one another. Hence, I can test myself only by my relation towards my neighbor and try to build, form, within myself a need to come closer to another, a need for love—above all the hatred and rejection that are being revealed to me towards the others.
The revelation of evil can only be discovered in one’s relation to one’s neighbor. This also involves a lot of learning which can happen under the condition that I want to become closer to him, and I use all my strength for this. And then I discover that I am moving in a completely opposite direction; I get further away, reject, and hate. These are the qualities I refer to as the “evil inclination” since I understand that union, proximity, connection, and love are the “good inclination,” the quality of the Creator (if it becomes revealed to me).
Everything is attained through one’s relation to his neighbor. And this is why this world has many people. If I were to regard the entire world and everything in it, meaning humanity, the still, vegetative, animate nature, my life, my relationships with other people, commerce, family, relatives, and other people, either near or distant, as a means for attaining the quality of bestowal, I would be using this world correctly. Then I could say that everything is there to serve and help me, and I am there to serve the Creator. The entire world is created for me.
If a person agrees that the entire world is created correctly from Above, and everything is arranged to properly suit and help him arm himself with an aspiration, to allow him to make an effort and use it to acquire the desire to bestow above the common desire to receive pleasure (which was given by the Creator), he will succeed. The law of “I labored and I found” or “I labored and did not find, do not believe” states that everything is already in front of you, everything is there, and the rest only depends upon you.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, Shamati #117
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If the Creator has created the desire to receive and wishes to please it, then it is unclear as to what else is expected of us? Why does He not just reveal our desire and fulfill it?
But the point is that we must add our own aspiration, hunger, appetite, to the desire created by Him and instilled in us by nature. The common desire for fulfillment does not give us a sense of existence. This is similar to the way the still, vegetative, and animate levels, including humans who lead an unconscious animate existence, do not feel that they exist.
But the aspiration to perceive the Creator, revealing the quality of bestowal within, is a vessel which is the opposite side of the Light in which this quality becomes revealed. And then this vessel becomes filled with the Light. This is why you should not believe that it is possible to “make an effort and fail to find!” Everything is in front of you: Go ahead, you can reveal anything; nothing is hidden from you. Only the lack of your own aspiration conceals the Light from you.
We only lack the vessel, our own desire, the sensation of hunger, thirst, lack of fulfillment, and suffering. But this must be suffering for the absence of that specific quality, phenomenon, which must be revealed. In other words, we only lack one thing: aspiration towards bestowal!
This is why desire created by the Creator is not enough. This is nature, a common quality. And it’s not enough to simply develop this desire. We see that the desire develops beginning with the still level and begets the vegetative and animate nature, but this doesn’t let them experience the essence of life because each one of them exists within themselves.
This is how humanity keeps living throughout thousands of years of development as well since this development is only of the simple desire to receive pleasure, and nothing else. In this manner one cannot go beyond the interests of one’s existence, the animal life. In this way we only maintain our life, but we don’t attain its source, cause, and purpose, which exist above the simple desire to receive fulfillment.
All of this is contained in Him who gives us the desire, the One who begets it, the Creator. And this is why we need to find in our animalistic state a way to arm ourselves with an aspiration towards Him, a vessel for the revelation of the Creator: the source of life, the most authentic life on the human level, and its purpose.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, The Zohar
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Question: As yourself, I also read a lot of materials about financial crisis in all of its forms. However, after reviewing experts’ articles about the world crisis (L. Grinin, R. Shiller, S. Maltsev, and S. Roach), I came to the conclusion that many of them see “globalization” as one of the problems. In their opinion, if countries were not interconnected, crisis would hit only one or two of them, while now it has enveloped the whole world. But at the same time, other experts view the crisis as an instrument to solve the problems. Who is correct?
Answer: If we are egoists and desire to remain such, the crisis is definitely a problem related to global interconnection between all countries, states, and the world’s nations. But if we are conscious of the purpose of our evolution (which is our unity and revelation of the Creator’s presence in it) and wish to achieve it, we experience the emerging globalization as a desirable state and understand why it is necessary.
The key is to distinguish between 1) the manifestation of the entire world as a single system, which originates from nature and 2) egoistic humanity (a cancerous tumor in the world’s organism) that manifests because of us and which we are able to reform. Otherwise, nature will make us do it by force (suffering).
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Question: What does it mean “to maintain the intention”? I get an impression that one does not move or develop this way. How can one develop the intention?
Answer: While reading The Zohar, I play a game with my friends. It doesn’t matter how well we understand or fail to understand these words, whether we hear part of a phrase, a quarter of, or the entire sentence, all of the words, and whether we delve to a greater or a lesser depth—everyone does what he can. The game is in correlating all these words with the connection between us.
Indeed, The Book of Zohar tells us about the way we should connect with one another. I don’t know what this connection is like, but it is described here. And for this reason, while I am reading The Zohar, I try to think about what it’s like to be connected one way or another, in one form or another.
For example, it is written: “‘Time to act for the sake of the Creator’ …since ‘they have transgressed against their Torah.’” What does this refer to? When a person forgets about the intention for the sake of bestowal, it means that he has “transgressed against the Torah.” And then “time to act for the sake of the Creator” means that you must once again return to the same intention, the same strong connection with your friends in mutual bestowal, because this way you aspire to build a “place” for the revelation of the Creator. And you do this to give Him the opportunity to reveal Himself. He receives pleasure from this like a Host who reveals treats to his guest.
So why do you read The Zohar? Where do you realize what you have read and reveal it? It can only be revealed in the corrected relationship between us. There is no other “place.” It is only revealed if we are able to create a correct connection in mutual bestowal.
For this reason I try to find the threads, the net that connects our desires, thoughts, and the strength of the aspiration between us. What forces operate this connection? What is the formula of this network? I want to know about it! And The Zohar specifically tells us about it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, The Zohar
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Kabbalistic texts are written in Hebrew and Aramaic, as if using the right and wrong sides of the same language. But in reality, language doesn’t matter. Anything can be described in English, Greek, or German; it makes no difference which language we use.
It doesn’t matter which symbols are chosen. The key is that they are suitable to express the properties that exist on the level of reception so that with their help we elevate our desire to the level of bestowal.
The language of branches isn’t like languages of this world. It articulates the desire with all its properties since it attracts the Light that Reforms and changes us so that we can rise to the next step. Language means connection; it has similar usage in this world, but it is used in a simpler, one dimensional way.
When I say something, I express my connection with this notion to the extent that I understand, feel, or worry about it. The language of branches is not a common explanation of my attitude, but rather an explanation of elevation—the very action of ascent. The language teaches us how to connect with the upper level from the lower one.
Any language expresses connection; there is nothing else except connections. The universe consists of multiple elements, and the main thing for us is the connection between all of them. Our development is about perfecting the connections. This is how advancement is defined.
Each time we reveal a more authentic connection between the parts of reality until we reveal the world of Infinity where all connections are open. This connection is called “the Creator,” the property of bestowal that governs all of the parts.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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