Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/8/24
Posted on December 8th, 2024
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 20
Chapter 3 Correction With a Gentle Guiding Touch: The Inner, Middle, and Outer Desire
It is not our role to judge ourselves as strong or weak, brave or cowardly, wise or foolish. We need to exert ourselves to the best of our ability in the developmental process according to our inclinations and inner nature.
It is written, “The prayer of every mouth.” This means that the Creator hears every person’s prayer. In other words, it does not matter who we are or what we feel; we each, with our own feelings, and even deeper, in our heart, pray to the Creator. This deficiency influences our attitude to the Creator and the Creator’s attitude toward us.
In the heart, there is an upper and outer layer through which we feel our desires, and through which we can direct them to the Creator. For instance, we might want to appeal to the Creator with a specific desire that belongs to spiritual work, which is directed at the purpose of creation. Such a desire, albeit external and artificial since we have awakened it, is received above. However, to the extent that it is external for us, it is also external above.
If we delve deeper and examine our innermost desire, by assessing what our heart truly wants, we might discover that our heart does not long for the object of our prayer. We might find that we actually desire rest or some small pleasure instead of treading the path toward the purpose of creation and aiming at lofty matters. Such a feeling is also part of the prayer. The more we expose our innermost desire, the more it is received above.
In the heart, there is an even deeper inner desire that is beyond the level of our awareness and sensation. It is entirely hidden from us. But because it is the innermost, truest, and deepest desire, it is fully received above with its entire power and strength. When a response to this prayer, this hidden desire, comes from above, it is rarely understood.
Everyone exists at every moment in a state that results from the feeling in their heart, which stems from their prayer. However, we do not know how to connect the inner, middle, and outer prayers of the heart with the Creator’s response, as we are unaware of our heart’s deepest desire.
If we were aware of this desire and felt it, even from our current state, based on our present qualities and feelings, we would understand the extent to which we diverge from what we should feel in order to progress toward the purpose of creation. If we felt this deviation, we would know what specific correction needs to be made from above, and we would then understand the spiritual states the Creator sends us to receive through which we become corrected. However, for now, such states are concealed from us.
Nevertheless, at all times and in every state, we raise a prayer, MAN, and receive MAD in return. In other words, what rises from our heart is received above in the general system, which also contains the mechanism that operates on us personally. The response returns to us, which is essentially a correction of direction. It is our next spiritual state, which is aligned with our soul’s root and the purpose we need to reach.
Before we engage in spirituality, we lack the understanding and feeling that this mechanism operates in such a way. However, when we enter spirituality, we start seeing it clearly, and begin working closely with MAN and MAD. We form a reciprocal relationship with the Creator, which connects us to Him and which dictates our every action and our life’s course. This is called “half a shekel.” Half of the work is given by the person and half by the Creator.
Baal HaSulam provides an example of farmers in the Negev who are entirely unaware of the prayer they raise. Nonetheless, their request for rain is received above, and they receive the response below. Every layer of our heart—the inner, middle, and outer—rises upward, and it becomes felt and received by the mechanism responsible for bringing every created being to its correction and root. Accordingly, we correct the heart, which is our desire through various external conditions that continuously correct our direction toward the purpose of creation.
The more the inner desire is directed precisely at the purpose of creation, the more delicate the correction of the direction will be. That is, it will be a small and soft correction, felt as a gentle, guiding touch, like a mother tenderly supporting her child while it is learning to walk. The greater the deviation between the heart’s content and the feeling in our current state toward the purpose of creation, the more significant the correction will be and the more painful the effort to bridge the gap between the present and the desired state. We then feel the force that guides us to goodness in a more severe way, because the environmental conditions we are placed in become more challenging.
This mechanism of MAN and MAD from souls toward Malchut of Atzilut and the returning influence on the souls is a simple mechanism that we study in the book The Study of the Ten Sefirot.
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Question: Let us say a person has been awarded the sense of adhesion with the Creator and considers the bestowal that he makes as a gift from the Creator. Can he ask to receive for the sake of others?
Answer: If he purely bestows and has no desire to receive for himself and does not want to use it, then he can ask to receive for the sake of a friend.
Question: How can I tell if this feeling is genuine and I did not invent it myself?
Answer: There is no way. Just act. As a result, you will begin to feel which of your desires were genuine or false and what you can do with them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/24, Writings of Rabash “The Discernment of “In Everything”
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In other words, through reinforcement in Torah and work, he was rewarded with repentance from love, when sins became as merits (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 354, “Abraham Gave All that He Had”).
In order to strengthen in the Torah and in the work, each member of the ten, despite having multiple obstacles of all kinds, must try to break through them and connect with the Creator in such a way that all the obstacles further strengthen his connection with the Creator and attach him to Him.
And when sins become merits, you feel how the Creator’s attitude toward you changes, and you begin to understand that everything you previously evaluated as bad was actually for your benefit.
Question: What does it mean “to be rewarded with a response out of love”?
Answer: It is a state when a person asks the Creator to give him strength to relate to the Creator with love.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Abraham Gave All that He Had”
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Question: How much love can I receive in order to pass it on to my group?
Answer: If it is true love, then there is no limit to receiving love and no limit to giving it. The whole problem is in receiving love that does not turn out to be limitless. Baal HaSulam writes that boundless love turns into hatred in us. We cannot answer it because we cannot limit it in our Kli.
Therefore, if parents endlessly love their child, then they disfigure him. After all, he does not have the opportunity to feel where the boundaries are. As a result, he begins to hate his parents. It comes from nature. He gets the desire to pierce them, to do something in spite of them, because they do not set boundaries for him with their love.
It is a well-known principle that we receive everything in our Kli in a limited form. Thus, when we give something to another, we must explain these boundaries, convey them along with our love: “I love you from here to here and no more.”
By nature, we are very limited and do not perceive infinity, which we will be able to feel only with complete correction. Therefore, if you give infinite pleasure to a small Kli, it turns into hatred. In no case should you do that.
But you can always add love to our work. Do not be afraid, you are still far from making it endless.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Will states of hatred in spiritual work constantly arise, and must they always be covered with love?
Answer: The Book of Zohar says that the students of Rabbi Shimon, who wrote this book together, experienced such intense emotions toward one another that they wanted to kill each other. This refers to great Kabbalists on high spiritual levels.
Therefore, if you think that your minor negative attitudes toward others will simply transform into good ones, don’t; such hopes are futile. On the contrary, even more irreconcilable feelings toward others will arise within you, so that you will ask the Creator to change them.
He will correct them, and simultaneously awaken deeper egoistic desires in you in which you will feel even greater hatred. Then you will ask Him for even more correction, and He will continue to correct them.
This is how, step by step, hatred followed by love, hatred followed by love, you will move forward.
Thus, the greater a person becomes compared to their friend, the greater their egoism because the previous levels of egoism have already been corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Comment: Sometimes I feel hatred for the teacher and it is completely unexplainable.
My Response: Hatred for the teacher is an absolutely natural state and you do not have to conceal it. I will tell you why. Who is causing all the problems in your life?
Question: It used to come to the point that it seemed to me that it would be better if I leave completely, that I would feel good. It was this way. What should I do with this feeling? How can I not leave the group?
Answer: But you haven’t left.
Question: Yes, but this may happen again. I am afraid to leave.
Answer: This is the key that you will stay. You have to be afraid; otherwise, you will go down to the level of an animal.
You see where the world is heading to. What is the use of people living, no matter how good their lives are? At the same time, we have a clear path in front of us, and the first spiritual steps are beginning to unfold. I am happy that the sensations of the spiritual path, spiritual steps, and spiritual ascent are awakening in my students.
But the most important thing for us is to control the two forces, the positive and the negative, and advance forward on two legs. It means revealing the negative force and covering it with a positive one: left-right, left-right.
Why is the left first? It is because we are created in the desire to receive pleasure, in egoism. If it did not exist, we would not have any possibility or any necessity to connect with the Creator. Therefore, it always begins with the left: “And there was evening, and there was morning, one day.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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The true joy in spiritual work is the reward of faith above reason.
Is there joy in faith above reason? Of course, there is. The greatest joy is there because in this state a person is fully included in the Creator.
We should feel that we are pleasing the Creator in the ten. This should be our demand.
Question: How important is acting out joy when you do not feel it?
Answer: You need to tune in to joy and bestowal, and you will see how quickly this will advance you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/20/24, Writings of Rabash “Serve the Creator with Joy”
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Question: I read a story about a Korean woman who was flying from Seoul to California with her four-month-old baby. Before the flight, she handed out 200 small bags to all the passengers.
In the bags were earplugs, sweets, and a note: “Hello, I am Joon Woo, I am four months old, and I am flying to America with my mom and grandma. This is my first flight, and I might cry. My mom prepared candies and earplugs for you. Please use them if it gets too noisy because of me. Please do not be upset with me. Sorry, and thank you.”
As a result, this boy, Joon Woo, behaved wonderfully and slept for all 10 hours.
What do you think of the mother’s attitude, the Korean woman’s, toward others?
Answer: This is certainly commendable.
Question: Please tell me, what plays a bigger role here: a national trait or upbringing?
Answer: I think it is more of a national trait. I don’t know them well enough, but it seems to me that they have this characteristic—not to disturb others.
Question: Can this be nurtured in a person, and should it be?
Answer: It can be nurtured, and it should be. But who will take on this task?
Question: So, here you have this question here: “But who are the judges?” Meaning, “Who are the teachers?”
Answer: Yes.
Question: So the teachers must fully embody this quality in order to nurture it.
Why is it that some people are uncomfortable disturbing others while others say the opposite: “Why are you bothering me?” Why does this happen?
Answer: It depends on upbringing. It depends on how much each of us is willing to look at the world through different eyes.
Question: Through the eyes of not wanting to disturb others. Am I instead always looking through the eyes of being disturbed?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Is this how most of the world is? “I’m being disturbed.”
Answer: The natural world is the one that looks from its egoism.
Question: If we consider the cause of divorces using the example of this Korean woman, could we say that if we care about making others comfortable with us, there would be no divorce?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So what is the root cause of divorces?
Answer: Only that we do not understand each other.
Comment: That is, I feel uncomfortable with you, and I start to…
My Response: Yes. I cannot put myself in your shoes.
Question: If I may ask, what is the cause of wars, using the example of this Korean woman? If one country cares about making it comfortable for another country to live with it, there would be no wars. Such fantastic scenarios…
But in what case does a war occur?
Answer: When one side refuses to understand the other side.
Question: Will this ever end? Can we be educated like this Korean woman and gradually…
Answer: I hope so. But this requires very serious investments in people.
Question: In education? Do you mean purely financial or spiritual investments as well?
Answer: Serious investments of effort and money. Of everything possible.
Question: Will anyone ever decide to do this?
Answer: I think so, because eventually there will be no other choice. It seems to me that we are currently in a transitional state where this might happen. People need to be given such an education that they will feel the need to change themselves.
Question: Tell me, will this happen? You say that we might be approaching this. Will it happen because of pain, suffering, or through understanding, from some light ahead?
Answer: Through pain and suffering.
Comment: You still believe that…
My Response: I believe… I am a materialist.
Question: A materialist. So through blows, essentially?
Answer: Yes, only through blows!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/15/24
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Follow your path and do not look back at people’s pain. Only by walking your path can you help people surpass themselves. (Unknown)
My Response: Yes, in general, healing lies in a person overcoming himself, rising above himself. This is something you can help with but nothing else.
Comment: You walk and ignore people’s pain. The fact that you are following your path helps them. There are a lot of contradictions here!
My Response: This all needs to be analyzed; it is not simple. But overall, the attitude toward the world as a system that needs to come into balance, and that is what we need to learn.
Question: When we discuss the topic of overcoming suffering you seem to come alive. Why, can you tell us?
Answer: Because by addressing suffering much can be explained to people, and they are willing to listen. How else can it be done?
Question: What is the main explanation you would like to give regarding overcoming suffering?
Answer: It is according to Kozma Prutkov: “If you want to be happy, be so.”
Question: Be happy! And where is the suffering in this?
Answer: If a person is unhappy, they suffer.
Do you want to be happy?
Comment: Yes.
My Response: We will!
Question: Do you see even a deep philosophical aspect in this?
Answer: Yes, exactly when you want to be happy, you must overcome what prevents you from being happy, and you will be.
Question: Please tell us, what kind of happiness are you talking about now: “If you want to be happy, be so”?
Answer: It is the harmony of a person with nature, with higher forces, and generally with the whole world.
Question: Regardless of what happens around?
Answer: Regardless of what happens.
Question: Regardless of what turmoil is inside me?
Answer: It doesn’t matter.
Question: So I must come to this calmness?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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