Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.01.13
Posted on February 1st, 2013
Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-02-01_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’3.2.13′]
Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-02-01_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’3.2.13′]
Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: Who is the Almighty, all His deeds are to bestow and to benefit the other, and not at all for His own benefit because He, the blessed, has no lack that needs to be fulfilled, and also he has no one from whom to receive, also you, all your deeds will be to bestow and benefit the other.
Question: What does it mean “to bestow and to benefit the other”?
Answer: It means that I need to feel exactly what you want. And for that I need to be in love towards you, in an inclination toward you. Meaning, I need to do a “Tzimtzum (restriction)” upon myself and to assemble on all my desires a “Masach (screen)” and “Ohr Hozer (Returning Light).” Then in my qualities, that will be directed outward and not inward to myself, I might be able to understand and to feel you and reveal precisely what you want.
I need to receive all your “tastes” from you even though I don’t recognize them. And for me, you are some kind of alien that came from another planet. Still, I take upon myself your vessels in such a form I even receive what your mother fed you in your childhood.
How is it possible to feel this in my vessels, my desires, if I have no idea what you are made from and what inner reaction you feel toward anything? Here I really need to come closer to you, to love you. In the wisdom of Kabbalah we call it “nearing,” embracing,” “kissing,” “coupling,” and “adhesion”; these are concepts that symbolize measurement of connection through equivalence of desires and mutual fulfillments.
Question: I mean, what seems to me now that the other is lacking something, is it only how it seems to me?
Answer: You cannot interpret your needs in your current vessels. Yes it is true that in our world the means of communication and the influence of the environment make it possible somehow to bring the desire into a common denominator, but to really feel what is in the heart of the friend is the same as to feel the Creator. You need to make a Tzimtzum, Masach, and Ohr Hozer. Only in this way will you feel him as yourself and only in this way will you be able to exit toward the other.
[99192]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
Related Material:
How to Fulfill Teenage Emptiness
Relocation Into The Other
Kindling The Spark Of Light
Question: How can I annul myself correctly before the teacher? As it is written, “The left rejects, and the right adducts.” I must build my middle line from these two systems, but how exactly: receiving something in parts or everything as a whole?
Answer: The middle line is the adaptation to the upper. It symbolizes that I receive everything that comes from my teacher as much as I can. In general, a “teacher” is called a guide on the spiritual path. I must receive what I hear from him spiritually, instead of rationally. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be a teacher.
On his part, he wants to prepare you with his explanations about leading an independent life.
However, in order to receive from him all the discernments, all the preparations, all the instructions, and the guidance, I must annul myself before his teaching, before his path, before all that relates to the system. In order to realize the system, I need a group. The “head”—which means the idea, the teacher’s plan—resides in the group, and I enter it and am “swallowed” in it. Then, when I am in the group, we all advance according to the teacher’s guidance as he leads us and “pulls” us, the group and me in it, after him.
[99119]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
Related Material:
We Need The Right Balance In The Work
The Teacher Connects Me To Life
Spirituality Cannot Be Expressed In Words
Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Rather, we understand Dvekut as equivalence of form between two spiritual objects, and we understand separation as disparity of form between two spiritual objects.
Question: What is “equivalence of form?”
Answer: There are two categories: internal and external. For example, I see different statues. One is made of marble, another of plaster, a third one of clay, and yet another of granite, plastic, and so on. They all have the same external form, but the material is different.
In the same way, we also are required to reach an equivalence of form. First, your material—which means who you are and what you are—is revealed in the form of cotton, wool or clay, and from this material, you sculpt an upper image. Your “material” is your attributes—your desires, thoughts, everything that you are internally.
Then, you create the image of the upper from a harder material, and, although it is less pliable, you can create more accurate forms. Each time, the material gets increasingly harder, until you reach the hardest material, and, accordingly, you reach a much more accurate resemblance to the upper. It will be total accuracy, a complete equivalence of form, adhesion.
[99116]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam
Related Material:
Revealing The Canvas Of The Universe Inside Us
Drawing the Creator’s Image When He Is Concealed
The General And The Particular Attainment
Question: How can I know where to go in advance? How can I aspire for the next level of adhesion in advance if it is revealed to me after the fact?
Answer: Indeed, we don’t know anything along the way and we cannot find any landmarks except for the shattered Reshimot (spiritual genes). In order to implement it correctly, I need a certain environment, a certain reality, which means that I need a group. The fulfillment of the Reshimot is done by the Light.
On the whole, there are several components here: Reshimot, my general desire with all its features, the group in which I am incorporated, and the Light that operates on us. If I want to be a faithful, active part in the system in these components, I must annul myself to adhere to the friends and see them as the greatest in our generation.
I must need the Light that Reforms, the Creator’s influence, thanks to which we connect among us, but what is the reason that we connect? It is in order to support Him or to be the place wherein He is revealed. What for? It is in order to bring Him contentment.
So, I must do my best to build all the details within me and start working.
Initially, there is nothing spiritual in me, but only an “animal” desire. It is in this desire that the point awakens, the upper level, the “human” level, or the Creator. This is the shattered Reshimo that I cannot fulfill until I am brought to the group, to the books, to the teacher, and, in general, to the Light that Reforms. Then, I annul my desire to receive and see within me only the Reshimot, which I want to incorporate in the group.
I take this point out of my heart and bring it to the group so that it will live there and receive bestowal from everyone. Thus, through the friends, I receive the Light that Reforms. Together with them, I study and perform different actions and gradually change.
I leave only the necessary minimum in my desire to receive, which “is neither condemned nor praised.” This is my “animal,” the “animate” level, while I develop the “human” level in the group.
Related Material:
The Ego Should Not Understand
The Path To The Group
A Nation That Has No Rest
Opinion(Jeremy Rifkin, American economist, writer, political advisor, activist, author of The Empathic Civilization: Rethinking Human Nature in the Biosphere Era): “‘Empathy,’ explains Rifkin, ‘conjures up active engagement – the willingness of an observer to become part of another’s experience, to share the feeling of that experience.’…
“Biologists and cognitive neuroscientists are discovering mirror-neurons–the so-called empathy neurons–that allow human beings and other species to feel and experience another’s situation as if it were one’s own. We are, it appears, the most social of animals and seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows. …
“By extending the central nervous system of each individual and the society as a whole, communication revolutions provide an evermore inclusive playing field for empathy to mature and consciousness to expand. For example, during the period of the great hydraulic agricultural civilizations characterized by script and theological consciousness, empathic sensitivity broadened from tribal blood ties to associational ties based on common religious affiliation. Jews came to empathize with Jews, Christians with Christians, Muslims with Muslims, etc. In the first industrial revolution characterized by print and ideological consciousness, empathic sensibility extended to national borders, with Americans empathizing with Americans, Germans with Germans, Japanese with Japanese and so on. In the second industrial revolution, characterized by electronic communication and psychological consciousness, individuals began to identify with like-minded others.
Today, we are on the cusp of another historic convergence of energy and communication–a third industrial revolution–that could extend empathic sensibility to the biosphere itself and all of life on Earth.”
My Comment: Undoubtedly, we will continue to develop in this direction according to the plan of Nature. The only question is whether we will overcome egoism driven by blows or repressing it consciously.
[99208]
Related Material:
A Cobweb Between Us
Group As A Guarantee For Success
The Future Lies In A Good Mutual Connection
In the News (from BBC News): “The home of the ancient Greek gods is snow-capped and steep and the road that winds its way up the slopes of Mount Olympus leads through lush, fertile forest. But the vegetation is dotted with bare patches – precious trees ripped away.
“This is now the site of some of the worst illegal logging in Greece. The practice has risen here by more than 300% in the past year since a new tax pushed up the price of heating oil by a third.
Many people are now unable to afford heating oil, instead turning to wood to heat their homes.”
My Comment: Hunger and cold will force people to do anything. Could we require them to refrain from providing themselves with the minimum necessities?!
[99205]
Related Material:
Systematic Limitations
The World Is Ready To Hear
The Influence Of A Committed Minority
Question: How does my integral sense of perception, the new layer of my psyche combine or resist my subjective “I,” my individuality?
Answer: Your individuality is beneath your “we.” Never pressure your “I.”
The thing is that your “I” always keeps growing in the sense that you can realize yourself through the “we.” As you include yourself in the common organ of humanity’s entire desire and thought, you begin to “swell,” expand.
Your expanding sensations and consciousness seem to cover all of mankind. Like a pregnant woman with a fetus inside her, you will feel like you contain all of humanity inside you. This is the actual realization of your “I.”
Your inclusion in everyone else is your individuality. For example, a woman’s individuality in her family is expressed through the fact that she holds everyone, serves everyone, takes care of everyone, for the family she is—everything.
Otherwise, your individuality will be expressed through your egoism, individualism, and separation from everyone. There is no longer a place for this in our world, we are going to a new level.
[99171]
From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12
Related Material:
Einstein Could Only Have Dreamt Of This
One Is Everything
How To Keep Your Uniqueness
Question: How can individuality be retained in an integral world?
Answer: Egoism does not die, it constantly fuels the “we,” and your “we” always keeps growing. Then you will discover that your egoism keeps constantly growing.
As a result of common egoistic development over thousands of years, we have come to a certain level of fulfillment and have become round. And now we are a society which does not wish to think about anything, a society where drugs and entertainment rule, and we do not need anything else.
As soon as you begin to perceive the integral society and include yourself in it, a new kind of egoism appears, “round” egoism, which grows when your individual egoism pushes it up towards the next level.
Today, many people feel like they are losing their individuality because nature nullifies it, and people find that they are lost; they do not know who they are, what they are, and what their purpose is. Today they can no longer realize themselves as they did in the past before egoism became round; today there is nothing they can realize themselves with.
This is why the generation of the last 40-50 years is considered to be the lost generation. It is called that way because egoism has stopped growing; people do not feel the need to make a family, to have children. Why should I strive towards anything, make plans, discover new planets, as if there were anything out there. Desire has disappeared, egoism has stopped growing; it has become round.
Begin to adapt yourselves within this new form of egoism and you will see how it will begin to grow within you, but in a round way, the circle will either begin to expand or rise. This is our next stage. In other words, the form of egoism has changed, it has become global and integral; further growth will continue and it will be beautiful.
We will begin to see absolutely new forces and new interconnections in nature, we will be attaining nature, and we will suddenly discover fields, laws, and forms Einstein could only have dreamt of.
The new mechanism of feelings and mind will enable a person to feel all of nature holistically, see its entire diversity, and perceive in it the forces that govern everything, the network of forces, which he will discover himself. He will create an analog of the common nature inside himself; he will begin to delve into all of its layers. This is a completely new science, about which little is written, the next inner stage of development.
Humanity will discover this stage of development. And once it begins to develop altruistically, increasingly strengthening the inner connection between them where gradual unification, mutual feelings, and understanding take place, which will continue until this common network of interconnection turns into a completely analog connection, then we will lose the perception of time.
This is the entrance into the field of forces where mind and feelings exist and matter does not. Now we only perceive it in our egoistic senses. As soon as egoism fully transitions to altruism, a full interconnection between us, the perception of the existence of matter will disappear.
[99168]
From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12
Related Material:
Individuality Is In Including Yourself In Everyone Else
From Linear Egoism To The “Round” World
A Happy State
Question: We say that I see myself in the friend, but which part of him exactly is my reflection?
Answer: If I consider a person my friend, then he really does become my mirror. If I see something negative in him regarding my spiritual advancement, then I should understand that this negativity is within me and that my perception is simply distorted.
As for other people, it is a different story. It is clear that I should remember that they represent the Creator, but, in that case, they don’t represent the external reality as a replica of my internal attributes. We need a serious study in order to treat people on the outside who are not members of the group correctly. To the extent that the first part of the system is revealed as GE, we will learn to treat the AHP correctly.
So, it is only in a friend that I should see my reflection. It is as if the Creator puts a mirror before me at a certain angle and each time shows me a certain part and says that I should look at myself, at my flaws. He reflects my attributes outwardly, dresses them in different figures, and presents them to me.
At the same time, when I look at the friend, I don’t attribute everything to me, but only what belongs to the spiritual path. However, this already depends on the level of connection. If I love someone, I don’t see any flaws in him; I simply love him. People say that it is a habit, but it isn’t. On the corporeal level, my desire to receive doesn’t want to suffer and so it guards itself. I get used to the flaws of others, and it is as if I don’t pay attention to them so as not to suffer all the time. However, in spirituality, as it is written, “Love covers all transgressions.” Love covers all the sins, and it isn’t a habit, but the work of correction.
On the current level, it happens that I envy a friend since I see in him something better, attributes that I would like to have myself. It is painful. Do I thank the Creator for this pain? After all, He shows me that I am inferior to the others. I begin to regret and search, and this brings me to the question: Why don’t I actually love the friend if I see that he is better than me?
Thus, in the example the Creator presents to me, He shows me an opportunity for advancement. Otherwise, I would have remained “dead” on the level of the still nature, but now, thanks to the envy, lust, ambition, and even hatred, I have “fuel,” a “fuse,” and I cannot sit still.
Sure, I can calm myself and say, “Nonsense, it only seems this way.” But, I can do the opposite, hold onto the feeling, and plan how to exit the negative attributes that were revealed, to make a real plan of how to rise.
Question: But still, do I have to attribute all of the friend’s negative qualities to myself automatically?
Answer: You are right; the animal attributes are irrelevant. If, for example, he is too hasty or a bit lazy, it is nature that has given him these attributes. Someone may be slow and another may be too loud; everyone has a collection of innate, corporeal attributes.
We are speaking about an inclination to change, about the fire that burns in a person. This is what you need: reasons to feel envy. Do you envy his innate attributes or his sensitivity and his yearning for the goal?
Question: Suppose I see that the friend is sleeping during the lesson, and I understand that it is actually I who is sleeping. How can I make use of that? After all, I don’t find any flaw in myself.
Answer: It is very simple. If you are not sleeping, then he isn’t sleeping either. Include him within you, and try to wake up his image inside you. Even if he continues to sleep during the lesson, he will receive everything through you.
[99106]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“
Related Material:
Everyone Has A “Point In The Heart”
Holy Envy
Who Are You, My Friends?
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
