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.
[317577]
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.
[317852]
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.
[318125]

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.
[317776]
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!
[317607]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/24/23

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Hate Creation?

261Comment: You once said that in every person there is both the Creator and a creation. I must love the Creator and hate creation.

My Response: No, I would not say that creation should be hated because it is also a part of the Creator coming from above. I just have no right to agree with it. I must work against this egoistic part together with its owner.

And my friend is a person who can separate his “I” from his egoism and from his point in the heart.

Egoism was given to him by the Creator initially and so was the point in the heart. But it begins to manifest itself from some point in life. Therefore, I relate to the personal “I” of a friend.

His point in the heart and his egoism are two parameters that are given to him by the Creator. Therefore, by relating to his “I,” I help him in developing his point in the heart and in suppressing his animal egoistic qualities.
[317589]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Love the Creator… to Hate Creation…” 10/22/11

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The Creator Is the Driver

507.05The article “The Donkey Driver” in The Book of Zohar talks about a man driving donkeys.

A driver is not a simple figure. This is a force that drives our beast, that is, man, and causes certain properties, thoughts, feelings, and reactions in him. So, this driver is very complicated.

“Donkey” in Hebrew is Homer, and Homer in Kabbalah is our will to receive. It is called an animal that we develop and push forward. In principle, the donkey driver is the Creator Himself.
[317634]
From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 9/3/23

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 9/22/23

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