Question: Why do I discover new things about the world when I correct my attitude to others and love them?

Answer: It is always about your desire. There are only the vessel and the Light—the desire and what happens in it. The whole point is how I treat you, the “outsider,” from within my desire.

In other words, there is an image of a stranger in me, and I have to correct my desire with respect to that image, to turn my desire around, and accordingly, to discover a new state.

I never exit myself. I only need to change myself, my bad attitude, my hatred, and turn it to love. Then I will discover the spiritual world in my relationship with you.

One way or the other, everything happens inside. We are facing a huge world, but everyone understands that this picture is depicted in us. Baal HaSulam writes about it in “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

But where does the image in me come from? It is a result of the Creator’s action. Every level in nature—the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—all the levels of the development of the desire from the “root” phase until “phase four,” lead me to the Creator, to attaining the upper force.

This means that everything that I feel on the outside is the Creator. Therefore Rabash says that we should see the Creator in the friend, or at least behind a friend.

So the external image in my perception is the spark, the particle of Light, the Creator. Thus, thanks to the shattering of the vessels, I suddenly discover the others, the strangers outside myself. A “dipole” is revealed in me: I and someone else. This someone fills the place of the Creator for the time being, so that I can exercise self-improvement with him; but in fact, there is nothing but a person and the Creator.

So we should understand that in our corrections in the circle of friends, we help improve the whole world. Here we can understand what Baal HaSulam says at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“: If Israel correct themselves, the Light pours from them to the rest of reality; we don’t need anything else. It is enough for us to correct ourselves.

So my friend is not a friend but the Creator, who has inserted this image into me on the background of all the other levels of reality. On the fourth phase of the development, the created being feels shame before the Creator, and it is exactly for this reason that I hate the friend that I see before me. This is the result of that shame.

Let’s go back to what a person learns during the correction.

Without this information it is simply impossible to manage. Since how can he increase his love? Every level is made of feelings and mind—it is impossible to advance only by one of them. After all, the pleasure is only in attaining the Creator’s actions.

He wants us to discover Him as good and benevolent. In order to do that, you have to know how He does it: by what wisdom, in what way, with what concern. The wisdom is essential here, and it has to be deep wisdom, as if you are dressed in the Creator.

In our world you will not understand parents until you actually grow up and become a father. It is the same in spirituality, the adhesion is necessary, since without it you will not understand the Creator: who He is and what He is. Love comes as a result of this.

Unless you attain the Creator, you will not be able to love Him. As adults, we remember different events from our childhood, what our parents did, what they taught us, how they sacrificed themselves for us, and we begin to understand them, and to love them much more than in our childhood. It is the same with the Creator.
[95685]
From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
A Warm Attitude Toward The Friend Brings Us To The Creator
The Creator In The Form Of A Friend
Plant A Concern For Your Friends In Your Heart

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception - No Comments →

Question: How can I correct my perception if I only see evil in the world around me?

Answer: Only the Light that Reforms corrects everything. We, on the other hand, are required to continue persistently, since despite all the explanations and the efforts that we make in our heart and mind, we will not understand anything until we reach the first revelation. Then a new mind and feelings open up for us.

Today, no matter how much we want to perceive the explanations, we are wasting great efforts by trying to perceive new spiritual discernments in our current vessels. We constantly yearn for that, but in fact, our work should be totally different.

It is as if we are stuck in one place just burning our fuel, our attention and time. It is because such efforts don’t help us attain the spiritual world. It is as if we are trying to push a ball through a square opening, but it doesn’t work; it’s a completely different system of measurement. The more efforts we make in bestowal and connection, and the less we try to get spiritual information in our current corporeal perception, the more we will succeed.

No matter what, by using our current mind and feelings, we will never understand what the books say or the states that we are going through now. We are like a child who is trying at the age of three to understand his own psychology. Of course he cannot even understand himself, and certainly not the mature and more advanced thinking. It is simply impossible.

So we must simply do what Kabbalists say; this doesn’t mean that we have to act with our eyes closed and without feeling and clarifications, but we shouldn’t stall trying to understand these experiences, except for what is needed for our practical advancement towards unity, connection, and love. It is only towards this goal that we should focus our study and all the events and actions. Otherwise it is called that “his wisdom is greater than his actions.”

I am telling you about this since I also used to make the same mistake in the past. For a long time I couldn’t be convinced that the spiritual world is attained only by self-annulment, by self-submission, by devotion, and not by the rational mind, sensible understanding and feelings.

It is important to remember that “it isn’t the wise who learns” and to keep the right attitude towards the study, the right attitude between what is essential for our advancement and what can interfere with it.
[95668]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

 Related Material:
Looking From The Creator’s Point Of View
Without Turning Away From The Path
Use Your Mind To Bestow

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Letter 1: And since the supervisor and the supervised are one, it is impossible to distinguish between the evil and the good, and everyone is loved and everyone is clear, since everyone carries the Creator’s vessels, ready to praise the revelation and the uniqueness of the Creator, and this is felt by sense and according to this value, they eventually know that all the actions and the thoughts, both the good and the evil, carry the Creator’s vessels, and He prepared them and they came out of His mouth, and this will be revealed to everyone as the end of correction.

But in the meantime, it is a long and threatening exile, and the main problem is that when a person sees some action that is not right, he falls from his level since he thinks that he performs this action, forgetting that He is the one who is the cause of everything and that everything comes from Him, and there is no one else who operated in the world besides Him.

We can attribute the good events to the Creator, but a person begins to torture himself because of the bad events, to feel sorry about his actions and to regret what happens with him. It is hard for him to attribute all that to the Creator. He is upset and sorry about his past, about his failures, thinking that he is the reason for the unpleasant events or for not advancing enough, or for having missed something. Only later can he correct these “errors and malicious acts” with regard to the past and turn them into “rights.”

It is the same with regard to the present and the future: If a person considers something as bad, it means that he doesn’t attribute it to the Creator, but rather to other reasons. This is how it is arranged by the upper Providence. If he thinks that there are other reasons than the Creator, then he is actually guilty of what is happening, and it is called “and you shall worship other gods,” idolatry.

Thus a person breaks the first law of “there is none else besides Him,” and therefore, gets off track. He is not focused on the goal of creation anymore, on the revelation of the Creator; he is not between balanced forces that bring him to the truth.

Therefore, all our work is to reveal the upper Providence as the private Providence that comes from “there is none else besides Him” in the form of the good and the benevolent, at any moment in the past, present, and future, and it is the same for all the people in the world.

A human being is the point from which a person determines that “there is none else besides Him” and that He is the good and benevolent. The point from which a person determines the quality of the upper Providence grows gradually until it reaches the dimensions of the Creator. This is where all the 125 degrees of our spiritual growth are.
[95598]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12

Related Material:
Precious Moments Of Truth
Growth On The Rungs Of The Spiritual Ladder
Not To Be Nameless, But To Be Called After The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - 1 Comment →

If we embark on the spiritual path, we must exert effort in order to make each next step. On the other hand, the greater part of mankind will obtain the spiritual world “in a single step” so to speak, and we are the ones who will provide this step: by our sweat and hard work.

What do we get out of this? At best, satisfaction with the work done, or simply nothing. This is what it means to be a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation”: This is exactly what the Torah calls the ones who carry out this mission.

In other words, everything we do, we do in bestowal, which is “holiness.” We work hard seven days a week; we face ungratefulness and resistance, and in the end, everyone, all at one time, will receive that which cost us so much, and it’s in them where the greatest Light will unfold.

Question: But how? One percent gives all their soul to it, crosses the Machsom, reforms itself to bestow, and, all of a sudden, the rest of the 99 percent, in one easy move, collects the entire revenue?

Answer: Our pleasure, above all, is to delight the Creator so that He won’t know about us. That’s what it means to really bestow without wanting a reward: I bring Him pleasure and He doesn’t know who His secret admirer is. He thinks it came from somebody else. Otherwise, if both of us, the Creator and I, know that the delight is coming from me, it’s a payment, and there is no greater payment than that.

Question: Why did the Creator handpick us to bestow from the whole of mankind?

Answer: There are souls who feel that they are supposed to become realized in the most advanced form as compared to the rest of mankind. Their progress is tied to the vital need to find the Creator, the mystery of life, the general system of all creation, the grid that links all in one. This idea, this desire, takes a hold of them and doesn’t let them go.

Question: Why, then, do we receive troubles and problems on the spiritual path?

Answer: You seek justice? There is such, but it is not what you think it is. Justice lies in my gratitude to the Creator for this hard work, for the chance to bring Him delight that I won’t even know about and that He won’t know comes from me. This is the true, pure bestowal.

Question: However, the other 99% eventually will overtake us on this path!

Answer: That’s true; and I thank the Creator for this special role He assigned to me. I have accomplished selflessly, and this is my reward. I reached a state where lack of payment is my pay, and this is what fulfills me, and it is called the Light of mercy, the Light of Hassadim.
[95585]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/12, “The Peace”

Related Material:
Servants Of The People
Nobody, But Us
The Boss Who Doesn’t Pay For The Work

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, World - No Comments →

Question: How is it possible to love a friend like your own son?

Answer: In our world, we were given this example of a natural, human love for one’s child. And according to this, we need to measure what spiritual love means. It’s love at a level “+1.”

Question: But it’s quite obvious that this is impossible?

Answer: Nothing is impossible! Because everything is impossible without the help of the Creator, only the Light makes everything possible. And if something seems impossible to us, this means that we need to ask first, and only then it will become possible, the Creator will do it.

The world is divided into two parts. One part is the action that the Light performs automatically, without our request, and this is what we refer to as “possible,” and we think that we’re doing them ourselves with our own will. But we don’t do anything ourselves; we’re not capable of doing anything. However, we don’t need to ask in advance for the Creator to do those things.

But there are also actions that we must request first, because through asking, we show that we desire this action, that we desire correction. This correction should happen in me, it should bring things inside me into order and reformat me, and thus it must be preceded by my request.

This request means that I cleave to the Creator, I reveal him through His actions. But this entire correction is done by the Creator. So all actions are divided into “possible” and “impossible.” Impossible ones are those that won’t happen on their own but only after my request.

You love your son with a natural, animal love. But love for a friend is an ascent to the next degree of love, love that is perfect and eternal, which is much greater than the love for one’s own child.

The very first spiritual love towards others, which appears in the very first degree, is already an order of magnitude greater than all your love for your family. Just ask the Creator for it, and He will do… The entire world was only created as an example so that you would have something from which to begin loving, something relative to which you can measure yourself.
[95462]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
A Warm Attitude Toward The Friend Brings Us To The Creator
The Progress Of The Friend Is More Important Than My Own Progress
The Mysterious Puzzle Of The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Love, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1]

[media 2]

“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 89, Lesson 23

[media 3]

[media 4]

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Naso,” Item 78, Lesson 5

[media 5]

[media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 9, Item 1

[media 7]

[media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy“

[media 9]

[media 10]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

From Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 78: “Even if the whole world says you are righteous, be wicked in your own eyes,” specifically in your own eyes. In other words, as long as you have not attained “opening of the eyes” in the Torah, regard yourself as wicked. Do not fool yourself with your reputation in the entire world as righteous.

People are not at will to do good or bad deeds. Regarding spirituality, the natural qualities of a person, which he was born with, don’t count: how nice and polite or how rude he is. Until one merits a revelation and the Creator’s testimony, that will guarantee his good intentions, until then, one will remain wicked.

But when a person achieves a revelation and the Light keeps holding him up, from then on, he will be a good, righteous. Therefore, we don’t make calculations about each other, who is bad and who is good. Regarding the spiritual path, everything is determined by crossing this cherished border—the “Machsom.”
[95665]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Seduced By The Light
When The Light Is Present But Doesn’t Correct
All The Light? That’s Too Much, Can I Have Just A Bit?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Free Will, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: Egoism is the engine of progress. How do I get to the essence of it?

Answer: Start relating to it properly: Egoism is assisting you; it is “help against.” It unfolds so that you transform it into its opposite, and then it will become a helping hand. If we look at things properly, life will stop feeling like tough resistance and an “unbreakable wall.” On the contrary, you always keep playing with your egoism, constantly “juggling” it. You befriend each other, and it already knows that it’s the right thing to do.

And suddenly, behind egoism the Creator appears. It turns out that He is pulling the strings, and now He becomes your partner. Try to view everything not only from below upward, but also from above downward as well, not from creation’s point of view, but from the Creator’s angle, meaning how He has to restrict Himself, what He should send to you and how.

Suppose you have received something from Him. Now you consider how to work with it from below; besides, you can take a glance from His point of view and visualize how He sends you certain conditions and how they descend downward until they form the exact situation you find yourself in.

And what am I supposed to do now? You must appeal to Him from below upward, give Him credit for everything, and patiently start studying while discerning how to arrange things so as to reinforce the awareness of two principles within:

1. There is none else besides Him.
2. Good Who does good.

This is the key. After all, no matter what the Creator is giving me, every case comes down to this, and this is what I must be aiming at all the time. As a result, each time, my response should be as follows: to carry these two principles (1, 2) from state to state, enhancing them more and more. This is the sole purpose of all that happens.

Clearly, in order to implement this, I need a guarantee, support, the Light that Reforms (Surrounding Light, Ohr Makif – O”M), and in general, the Kabbalistic method. But one way or another, everything occurs solely in order to give me a chance to come closer to revealing the Creator, as there in none else besides Him, who is Good Who does good.

[95582]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/12, “The Peace”

Related Material:
In The Heat Of The Battle With Windmills
A Look At Life Through The Creator’s Eyes
Pursuing A Mirage

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Peace,” First Method: Nature

This method is an ancient one. Since they did not find a way and an outlet to bring these two conspicuous opposites closer, they came to assume that the Creator, who created all these, who watches mightily over His reality lest any of it be cancelled, is mindless and senseless.

Hence, although He watches over the existence of reality with wondrous wisdom, yet He Himself is mindless, and does all that senselessly. If there had been any reason and feeling in Him, He would certainly not leave such malfunctions in the provision of reality without pity and compassion for the tormented. For this reason, they named Him “Nature,” meaning a mindless, heartless supervisor. And for that reason, they believe that there is no one to be angry at, to pray to, or to justify oneself to.

This is an ancient concept, approach, although we see it as a new attainment of materialism. The simplest way is to see the world as it is, and this was actually the initial approach of humanity. Religions, beliefs, and philosophical approaches came along much later, when man developed internally, became more complex, and began to invent different myths. In the beginning people simply saw nature and lived in it like animals who also don’t believe in anything. This is how we should actually relate to nature, as it says, “a judge only has what his eyes can see.”

The following approaches stemmed from the disagreement with what happens in nature; people invented them as different excuses, and so they are all false. In fact, we see facts that are independent of our attitude towards them. But man invents different excuses in order to sweeten life or to enjoy false hopes.

A healthy attitude to life is in the scientific approach. We see the effect of unchangeable exact laws everywhere, the activity of systems and the periodicity of natural elements. If I see that that’s the way things are, then it is so, and don’t offer me different lies. I see the truth and any addition to it is individual and cannot be counted on. It is in these additions that beliefs are created, while nature is revealed in facts as it actually is.

The wisdom of Kabbalah continues this approach, telling us about the principles of the perception of reality. We see this world before us, and, except for that it, says that there is a whole area called “the upper world,” which is not imaginary, but which can be studied scientifically. Thus the wisdom of Kabbalah continues conventional science and conducts research beyond the boundaries of conventional science.

With the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, I continue scientific research and develop new vessels of perception, expand their range, and keep the principle of “a judge only has what his eyes can see.” There is nothing more than that; everything else, including religions, is actually philosophy.
[95592]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/12, “The Peace”

Related Material:
The Science Of Changing Oneself
Are The Exact Sciences Really So Exact?
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And Philosophy: Who Has The Last Word?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Philosophy, Religion, Science - No Comments →

Instead of holding on to the principle of “there is none else besides Him,” my thought depends on different factors, which I see before me. Instead of looking ahead to see beyond people, beyond the mechanism, beyond all the natural phenomena, and to see just the Creator and myself, I, like a shortsighted person, look at objects that are close to me and see them as the factors my freedom depends on. Just like Don Quixote, I fight windmills, lifeless “scenery.”

As a result, the Creator has to intensify the evil and the sufferings, so that I will have to take a better look at what my life depends on. He does it so that I will not be able to stop this search.

We see this in the example of the state of Israel: Ahmadinejad, the Hamas, threats, missiles, Mubarak instead of Sadat, Mursi instead of Mubarak…the Creator constantly hardens the heart of Pharaoh. Why is that? Because the Jewish People don’t want to see the real reason for what is happening. In the meantime, all the minor reasons were only meant for one thing—to bring Israel to the Creator, so we have to be grateful to them for that. They are merely means.

Accordingly, the people are required to be a bit more clever in order to see who they are dealing with and who is managing the world. The troubles only remind us what the goal is, and it is easy to get rid of them if we turn to the Creator. But we don’t turn to Him in order to receive “rewards,” but in order to correct ourselves, in order to adhere to Him and by that bring Him contentment. Then the current “reminders” will be annulled, and then the “angel of death” will turn into a “holy angel.”

Question: So whom are we working with, with the group or with the external world?

Answer: All of reality, including the external world, including me and the group, are in the Creator. The external world gives me a negative impulse (1), by constantly evoking me to turn to the Creator (2). But I know that I cannot turn to Him directly. First I have to turn to the group, and then together with it to the Creator. Only then will I have a vessel, a desire for it, while nothing will help me if I work individually.

[95523]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Rabash 

Related Material:
The World Where “There Is None Else Besides Him”
There Is None Else Beside Him
The Creator Is Hidden, But The Group Is Open

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Suffering, World - No Comments →