Kabbalah Insights – Cogwheels
Posted on May 18th, 2011
Each of us feels that he is special and unique, as if he were the only one existing in the world and the whole world is intended for him. As generations develop, every person stands out more and more, egoism grows and requires a person to become more self-sufficient and to feel that he is the center of the world. Envy, fear, and conceit force us to act in a way so others will think we are higher than they. We are only willing to give this up if we have no choice or are too lazy because in order to achieve anything we have to lead an endless battle. However, the desire and urge to affirm oneself above everything still burns in a person.
We see that only the sensation of one’s own exclusivity invites people to “climb on top one another,” to step on each other, building up the human pyramid from the rulers on top to the smallest ones down below. Everything depends on how much a person stands out with his exclusivity, as well as the conditions and qualities he was born with and which he received from the environment in the process of his development.
One way or another, eventually people attain something in human society only by using the quality of their own exclusivity. This quality comes from the Creator: He is One, and therefore every one of us, who has separated from the common desire that was created by the Creator, also feels singular.
We are like a holographic picture where each part contains the whole. We used to be one soul, similar to the Creator, but then it broke into parts and now each of its pieces contains the single form of the common soul, but in the opposite form due to the breaking. There is an integral form of the initial soul concealed inside of me, and therefore, pressured by the force of the breaking, I feel whole and demand the whole world and the Creator to be at my disposal. Who or what can have any importance besides me?
As a result, our self-expression in this world is built only on the quality of exclusivity which operates in every person. Where do I aim all of my desires, thoughts, and abilities? At becoming even more unique and exclusive. Every person advances down this path according to his own forces, qualities, and speed, and also to the extent that the environment spurs him on.
The most important thing is: For whose benefit do I use my “I,” all of my qualities, and in general—my exclusivity? If I am unique in the world, then whom am I acting for? Eventually a person makes the decision that correctly using himself means serving the world just like the Creator. That is when he becomes human, similar to the Creator, and the world turns into a meeting place of the Creator and creation. There they unite and merge with one another, serving all the souls.
From this we see that the quality of exclusivity can play a dual role: at first a person strives to conquer the whole world like Napoleon and to use it as he sees fit, in opposition to the Creator, but in the end he reveals the need to change and acquire similarity to the Creator. Exclusivity can be used either for one’s self or for the sake of the neighbor. This is what determines a person’s place on the spiritual ladder.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/11, “Peace in the World”
Question: In the material world, we have no power over our desires. In bestowal, desires are much greater, so how will we be able to manage them?
Answer: In bestowal, I face a fellow man. By connecting to him, it is I who determines the degree, the power, and the kind of desire from which I form the vessel of the soul. I am the one who makes all the decisions.
On second thought, this is where another question arises: Who am “I”? After all, I have certain predispositions and properties that define what I am. True, certain parameters are not up to me since in the end, I am just a cogwheel in the integral system and can function solely in this capacity. It can’t be argued with, but it is still you who decides how to build a relationship with the others, how to act in a common mechanism, and how to form it in your own view.
Thus, by unifying with others, you take over the entire “machine.” If you stop, the whole system will stop with you. Do you want to switch the engine off? Go ahead! So, it turns out that when you start to move, you feel the entire reality and see which part and what side of it you can connect with.
Despite the fact that you are just a tiny cogwheel, the entire enormous machine depends on you, and you acquire the collective desire, the whole system with all that is in it. You, a mere minuscule cogwheel, become totally identical to the Creator because the entire system hinges upon you.
The integral system possesses a remarkable property we can’t comprehend: Everyone is just as vital in it as the whole. This pertains even to those whose points in the hearts haven’t awakened yet. Such a person may take his or her place at the last moment, to patch a tiny little hole in the common boat, but without them, the system simply won’t function right. And in the end, they too will receive the collective reward.
Why then is he or she the last to arrive? That is so because they were the most corrupted. Only after all the others have been reformed, this last person’s time has come to contribute their part to the collective.
We may have a tendency to despise the “people on the street.” And yet, it is they who will do the most meaningful work. Baal HaSulam explains it to us in “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”: Our forefathers have done tremendous work, but it is we, the lower elements of the integral structure, who carry the Lights to their vessels.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “The Freedom”
Question: Does The Zohar talk about our one common soul or about separate souls?
Answer: The Zohar talks about the soul of one person. That’s because there is nothing else in all of reality besides one man, one soul, one creation, Malchut – it doesn’t matter what you call it.
And if it seems to us that there are many people, many desires that are separate and foreign, all of that comes from the lack of the right perception of reality.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/11, The Zohar
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Question from Moscow: What does it mean to desire to unite? And what does unity feel like?
Answer: Apparently these questions are coming from our Moscow group in anticipation of the upcoming convention in Moscow. What does it mean to unite? Why? Why are we holding this convention? The question is correct.
Why should we unite? To be frank, this is impossible to explain. If a person has a Reshimo (informational gene) that remained in him from the unity he once experienced while being in the common desire, where he once revealed the Creator and then lost this sensation, and now this Reshimo is awakening again, then he desires to return to this state. “I want it!”
For example, some people like eating frogs. Well, what can you do…. I don’t have this desire, but to them it is a heavenly delight. That is exactly how the desire for spirituality emerges. It awakens—and that’s all. What can you do?… One person starts feeling a desire for frogs, and another—for spirituality. This desire awakens from the inside and it does not depend on us.
Why would someone start feeling a desire to eat frogs? It’s because he once tasted it and felt a pleasant taste, got used it, received the corresponding upbringing—and now he desires this.
But another person was in spirituality at some point and a Reshimo has remained in him, and now it awakens. That is why it is impossible to explain what unity feels like to people who don’t have a Reshimo from the spiritual state. But it is possible to show them that it’s worth it to unite with one another because that way we will come out of the general crisis, and therefore, it’s worth it for them to join those who are setting out to correct the world’s current state. After all, they will also benefit from this.
This is what we have to tell people. They don’t understand what spirituality means, or the Creator, adhesion, unity, the feeling of perfection, eternity, harmony with nature, the upper spheres…. This is meaningless to them so they will tell you, “Leave me alone! Just give me something in this life—peace, safety, good health. I don’t need anything else!” Every person speaks based on his desire.
When you are speaking to that kind of person, you have to show him that he also won’t be able to fulfill his desire unless he goes together with everyone toward unification because this is what the global, integral nature demands. We have evidence to rely on and ways to explain this to him. Therefore, you tell him that the world requires unity because this is what nature demands. You have to speak to a person on his level instead of telling him about the Creator and spirituality. Due to having no other way, he will also join in. But every person has to be addressed according to his or her desire.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/11, The Zohar
The upper Light is in a place called “Shechina,” which is the unification between the souls. With our efforts we have to attain unity among us. Then we will reveal the Light that builds, creates, corrects, and fulfills all of creation.
This Light is always present in the Shechina, in the assembly of souls that aspire to the Creator (Knesset Israel), in the unification among us.
The Zohar is the same source of Light, but on the condition that we imagine ourselves (and it doesn’t matter how many millions of us there are) as being the group of Rabbi Shimon, which had ten people who sat, connected together, and received this Light called “Zohar”—“the upper illumination.” This is the Light that influences us, corrects us, and elevates us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/11, The Zohar
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When we enter the spiritual space, we embrace other souls. Otherwise, I simply cannot enter the spiritual world since it isn’t some fenced area that I can walk into through a door.
Only if I unify with the others into one system and feel reality not just personally, individually, but as the integral life of the system where we are connected together, the friends and I, by having become one man with one heart, can I start perceiving more details in it, through additional organs of perception besides my own. Most importantly, I feel it through our common desire, the common spiritual vessel that we are building together and which includes us all.
It isn’t simply a sum of our desires, but rather a totally new property that is regarded as the property of bestowal. It is this property through which I start feeling another dimension, the upper, spiritual one.
It isn’t just certain supplementary details and peculiarities that each of us can see differently, nor is it an exchange of our personal impressions. It is one common impression, but it derives from bestowal, from the sensation of the Creator’s actions. We perform the acts of bestowal, that is, we repeat His actions!
You begin to feel what it’s like to be the Creator, and for this reason spiritual attainment is unlike material attainment. And although the system that you have built isn’t “divine” but comprised of our souls, it still has a special design, the integration of souls in love, mutual reciprocity and guarantee above their initial ego, evil nature, hate, and repulsion. And the difference between the first and the second properties is what creates the space, the new dimension inside which we start experiencing actions regarded as “bestowal.”
In other words, you have built within, inside your desires and qualities, a model of the Creator that helps you understand what He is. Previously, you simply looked at this world and saw some creation without having the slightest idea about it. But now that you are approaching it, you find the Creator inside this creation since you are assembling His image from your own parts, from all souls.
In the end, you discover such a great number of details that you reveal in this world what was previously hidden in it. You see that the Creator’s actions were concealed in it.
You keep delving deeper, to the extent that you can attach a greater number of parts (souls) to your system and link them closer together, until all individual souls, with their personal view of the world, unify as one soul, one desire, regarded as Malchut of the world of Infinity. There, in their connection with one another, in all its smallest details, the individual souls come to a personal feeling and attainment which completely matches the upper force, the root that created collective attainment from which we started on our path.
It turns out that as a great number of particulars connect, you move on to the collective attainment which is extremely detailed and extensive. Through every soul and all of them at once linked together, you attain the Creator, the spiritual world. And it is you who is constructing Him since there is no Creator without the created being! This is why He is named “the Creator” (Bo-Reh), “come and see.”
Indeed, the key here is the work of the system. From the “matter” given to us, we build the “bricks” of the souls that each of us puts into the common system, while rising above our personal hate, egoism, repulsion, and at the same time preserve all our unique characteristics. Thereby, we create a very powerful system of our personal attainment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, Writings of Rabash
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Question: Ever since we started studying the article “There is none else besides Him,” I feel totally confused about the intention. If the upper Light is constantly at work, doing 100%, then what is the “Light that reforms?” And whom do I ask for it? From whom do I demand it for others? What works here if everything is inside of me?
Answer: Suppose I have a remote control. I press a button and activate some kind of mechanism. Nowadays there are many devices that work this way. However, if you were to show this to a person who lived 100 years ago, he would think that you are simply an angel that performs miracles: You press a button and suddenly the glass turns into a picture….
That is, using the remote control I can activate various systems. For example, I press a button and you, who are looking at a piece of glass (a screen), start to receive all sorts of impressions. You start crying and then laughing, experiencing worry and then joy. It turns out that by simply pressing a button, I made such a powerful impact on you. I influenced a friend.
Kabbalists say that when reading The Book of Zohar, it’s as if you are holding the remote control to all the souls and they depend on you. Think about how you awaken them! This is called “pressing a button.” If you think about this, then you “press the button” and activate an influence that causes them to begin awakening.
Everything depends on how much you desire for this to happen and how many other people also aspire to awaken others. All the efforts must be both qualitative and quantitative.
That is how we awaken one another. No one can awaken himself. Every person can attain this spiritual community called “the group” only in order to awaken others. Otherwise, he does not even come in contact with the group. That’s because the group is like Malchut of the world of Atzilut.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/11, The Zohar
Our desire has to be common. Each of us has two parts: the male and female. I influence you, and you influence me and others, while others influence me again and so forth. It can’t be that I care solely about myself. I will never be able to fill myself.
Within the common organism I can only fill others by passing them my desire or my fulfillment. I will not be able to independently direct something straight to myself.
This is the meaning of the integral system. Its essence lies in the fact that no one is able to provide anything to himself through his own power, but only through the environment. And this, too, is only possible if one does not think about himself, but only about his friends. Then his efforts come back to him if, of course, he does not think that they will indeed come back to him.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/2011, Passover Brochure
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