What Stands behind the External Picture of the World?

423.01Question: In the material world, we see an external picture of the history of the development of egoism. What is happening behind this external layer?

Answer: Behind the external layer of the history of the development of egoism there is a manifestation of light in a not-yet-formed pot (a common spiritual Kli , vessel), and this causes us suffering. In other words, the light that should already fill the pot, let us say, by one millimeter or two centimeters, is revealed, but the pot is not ready. Then the light is perceived as darkness.

The deficiency of this pot is revealed to us, the deficiency of our connection with each other. Therefore, it is felt as a global, integral crisis.

As soon as we begin to unite, instead of a negative crisis, we will feel positive fulfillment. Everything you desire, every one of your wishes, all of them together, will be completely satisfied, and not only on the earthly level.

You will begin to feel these desires in connection with others as desires on an entirely different level, as the unity of one global, integral system in which you will feel your eternal perfect state. It cannot be conveyed in words. It is a different dimension.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The History of Kabbalah” 9/29/11

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Our World Is the Desire to Enjoy

707Our world is the desire to be filled, to enjoy. Essentially, this is its entire substance, its essence.

Therefore, what we see around us: the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, and humans, wherever we cast our gaze, before us appears nothing but matter, the property of which is to absorb, take in fulfillment, and become saturated.

The desire to enjoy is all that exists in our world. From molecules and atoms to gigantic stars and nebulae, everything represents only this desire.

Everything that fills our matter that makes it move and react represents not the desire to enjoy, but the enjoyment itself, which, by filling the matter, triggers its reactions, movements, and so on.

Thus, the desire that absorbs enjoyment is the only thing we have in the universe, which we have been continuously exploring and revealing for many, many years now.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/27/23

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TANTA – Impressions of Enjoying Light

509Baal HaSulam calls the pleasure from connection with the Creator, which is included in desire, TANTA (Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, and Otiot). These are the four types of light, manifested in the four stages of the Kli (vessel). The light gradually descends through these four stages and fills the Kli to the point where it is completely absorbed into the Kli.

There are such examples in our world. For example, when I start to eat something, I first feel pleasure from eating. This is called Taamim (taste). Then the pleasure begins to slowly disappear, but the tastes remain. Memories of tastes are called Tagin. And the memories of how these pleasures entered are called Otiot.

In the material world, if we eat something, this process arises within us naturally. The same thing happens in the spiritual world; when the light enters me and fills my Kli, it leaves its impressions in it— TANTA.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/27/23

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Through Sweetness and Bitterness

527.03Question: The Creator constantly influences us either with pleasures or with some kind of deficiency because my desire perceives everything as bitterness or sweetness. Why did He choose this way of influencing a person—through sweetness and bitterness?

Answer: Because these two tastes are opposite and clearly define where we are and what we want. This is the language of the Creator who communicates with us through pleasure and suffering.

Nature develops us in such a way so that we fully appreciate the upper light, feel the need to come closer to it, appreciate all its tastes, all its metamorphoses, and fill ourselves with it.

Today, in our world, we automatically feel only suffering and pleasure. We do not feel the one who awakens all this in us. In the end, we must come to the revelation of the Giver.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/27/23

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An Impregnation of the Soul of a Righteous

219.01In The Book of Zohar it is written that a donkey driver is a help to souls sent to them from the upper most level to raise them from degree to degree. This is called “Ibur” (impregnation, conception). Ibur is an impregnation of the soul of a righteous.

If we want to follow the path of the Creator, then perhaps we resist at first, and then we agree a little and invest all our strength and capabilities to move forward. In the end, we fall under the influence of the Creator, who educates us by hitting us with a stick, pricking with a “stimulus,” a sharp stick, so that we move forward.

This is how we go forward until we begin to discern that we are dealing with a great upper force, which educates us in this way and leads us to the desired goal.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 9/3/23

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“How do you think life on Earth would be different in the next 500 million years?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: How do you think life on Earth would be different in the next 500 million years?

In 500 million years, there will be nothing on Earth because our planet and our universe will be nonexistent.

This is because we perceive the world through uncorrected senses, i.e., through senses that perceive in a manner of wanting solely to enjoy egoistically, at the expense of others and nature. The moment we correct our senses so that we perceive in an opposite way—by wanting to bestow delight upon others and nature—we then rise above our world and feel a different spiritual reality.

Today, discussing such a spiritual reality above our current egoistic senses seems fantasy-like. However, when we attain such a reality, we will feel how our egoistic perception is in fact the unrealistic fantasy, and that true reality is through a mode of bestowal upon others and nature.

The correction of our senses takes place during a period that Kabbalists call “6,000 years,” starting from Adam HaRishon (Heb. The First Man), and it translates to us having just over 220 years to go in this current level of reality.

In our world, Adam HaRishon was the first man who corrected his senses from egoistic to altruistic, or in other words, from complete opposition to nature’s laws to entering into equivalence and balance with them. Before Adam HaRishon, there had been people living for several years. However, just over 5,780 years ago, a man called “Adam” discovered the spiritual reality, the true form of the universe, for the very first time. By doing so, he also discovered the program by which humanity develops and how it will appear at the end of its development. He wrote his findings in a book called “Raziel ha Malach” (“The Angel Raziel”), and he is considered the first Kabbalist.

All people are destined to undergo the transition from egoism to altruism and to discover the spiritual reality similar to what Adam HaRishon went through. When we do so, we will feel a different spiritual reality, and the corporeal reality will then become swallowed within the spiritual one—we will simply cease to feel it. We will then only sense phenomena that unfold at a higher level of existence, above our world.

The lower reality in our egoistic senses then disappears because our five bodily senses will seemingly evaporate and not be felt. We currently accept our world as it appears to us because we are made in a way where we hear, see, taste and breathe, i.e., we use senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. They provide us with a sensation of living in a certain reality. If we had different senses, then we would sense a different reality.

The evaporation and disappearance of this world does not happen in an instant, but gradually. It is because, as we start to positively connect and spiritually rise in our sensation of reality, we lose our egoistic mode of sensing reality. We can somewhat compare it to how we do not feel the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature in our own body. Take, for instance, our hair and nails, which are the vegetative level on our bodies. Do we feel them growing? We do not. They either grow, or they do not grow, and we can cut them and they continue growing. They cause us no disturbance.

It is similar to when we rise to the human level of existence, which is characterized by our developing an intention to bestow above our inborn egoistic desire to receive. We will then not feel the animate level—our desire to receive—in comparison to the new human level that we develop and identify with. When we all develop into the human level of existence, we will then cease to feel the animate level. We will stop perceiving reality as solid the way we currently do. Rather, we will increasingly perceive it as forces and qualities.
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Based on “Ask the Kabbalist” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 19, 2008. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 9/24/23

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Is Preparation for the Selichot (Forgiveness)”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “General Preface”

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Selected Highlights

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 9/23/23

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A Cry from the Heart

239Question: Is the state before crossing the Machsom when there is a lump in your throat, tears flow, and you scream?

Answer: It just seems to you that you are screaming from the depths of your soul, that you are being torn to pieces. All this is child’s play because it does not come from real attainment, which is complemented by the correct state.

People are, of course, torn apart. I remember myself, and I know these states. Everything is completely wrong. It must be balanced between the heart and the mind and come at the same time from both understanding and suffering. But not the kind of suffering that arises in you: “Give me!” and so on.

In this case, unnatural suffering arises from the inability to become a bestower: “I want to be in the quality of bestowal! I want to, but I cannot do it. I do not have this quality!”

This state is similar to childbirth: “It must be born in me!” This is the pressure you feel from within. Moreover, this is the pressure on the quality of bestowal. It is not a demand: “Give me!” It is the demand: “Give me an opportunity.”

Question: I just saw a man who was crying and saying that he needed the light of correction. How plausible is this?

Answer: Children cry too, so what? I remember I cried too. And my teacher Rabash just laughed in my face as if he had in his hands what I wanted, but would not give it to me. He said: “These are not real tears. This is not a real scream.” And, of course, he was right.

Time is what we need. But now time is shortening. By connecting with the rest of the network, you put yourself in a state where you must receive help from above since you are a transition point, a node, in this system. Therefore, you can radically shorten the entire path of your revelation of this system.

But today it is so close to everyone that you will see it very quickly.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Last Scream before Death” 10/24/11

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Erich Maria Remarque Was Wrong

565.02The strongest feeling is disappointment. Not grudge, not jealousy, and not even hatred. After them, at least something remains in the soul. After disappointment—emptiness (Erich Maria Remarque).

Question:  In general, disappointment occurs after strong hope. How can one not to be disappointed if everything is in vain? How? A person will be disappointed, right?

Answer: That is correct. It is after this great, all-encompassing disappointment that the correct attitude toward life emerges. When you do not look at it as “what else I need to take from it” but “what can I give?”

Question: This is a complete revolution. You are overturning your nature. That is, disappointment is a direct blow to my egoistic nature? And this, you are saying, is very good?

Answer: Yes. Directed against one’s egoism, the real one.

Question: Then what is my step? I am utterly disappointed; what is my step?

Answer: I am no longer disappointed. I am already disappointed, I have already parted with disappointment itself. What do I have left? Nothing. Only to be in the same state as the Creator. Meaning, to give everything, to return everything, to pay off everything, to be empty, absolutely free.

Question: This is what you called a state of bestowal?

Answer: Yes. And after that, if you are lucky, you could think about how to engage in bestowal in order to ask the Creator and give without any expectations, selflessly, pure bestowal. Why, for what purpose?

There is no answer to that. And to whom, there is no answer. Just like that, “send your bread upon the waters.”

Question: And is this true freedom?

Answer: Yes. There is no better state than this!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/24/23

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