Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

My Objective Is To Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to remember the Creator all day long? How is it possible to bring Him into every moment?

Answer: We are in Malchut of the world of Infinity, which is entirely filled with Light. However, instead of this eternal, perfect state, we see and feel our own qualities which depict the material world to us. Therefore, if we want to aim ourselves at the goal, at feeling the world of Infinity, then we need mutual guarantee from our environment. The friends have to give us the forces, the desire, the persistence, the diligence, and the realization of the goal’s importance.

After all, I have just one goal—to obtain the right desire, and nothing else. Let me constantly feel that I’m not concerned enough about doing good for the Creator the way He does for me.

You might object, “But I don’t know what He gives me. Judging by my life, sometimes I could say that it would be better if He did not give me anything.” That’s true. Obviously, every person rejects things in accordance with his own defects. Therefore, my attitude to the Creator can be defined this way: I want to reach a state where I will desire to bestow to Him.

And the actual result will come thanks to the Light’s influence, thanks to the efforts that we make time after time. The Light pours upon us again and again, and suddenly these illuminations create a desire in a person.

We don’t know what Lishma, an awakening from Above, is. But when it comes, a person is able to say, “Now I know, now I understand.” One has to make efforts, like a little child, and from these efforts the sensation will emerge. But not before that.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/11, Shamati

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The Light Revolution

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to explain the Kabbalistic method using terms of modern science?

Answer: Can you explain the mathematical Fourier transform to a cow? These are different degrees. A person who does not have a “sixth sense,” a point in the heart, cannot understand what you are talking about. He does not have a need for this, and therefore, it’s pointless to talk to him. Therefore, in our wide dissemination, we have to conform to the desires of the masses rather than of those who study Kabbalah.

Throughout all the generations, the world did not understand Kabbalists. And the world is right: From their degree people are not capable of this yet. It says in the Psalms, “You save humans and animals…”—but when? Today you cannot explain to people about the altruistic intention Lishma. It’s even difficult to talk to them about the topic of the perception of reality. This is intriguing and provocative, but they don’t understand or grasp the essence because they simply can’t.

In order for a person to really be able to hear words about the correction of his desires, he needs one more level of desire. But until then, we can only accelerate his development using external means. One way or another, as long as he doesn’t feel the sting in his heart, he won’t understand your explanations.

That is how the world is built. People are on different levels of development, and even at the end of correction the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels will remain. Yet it is written, “Everyone will know Me from the smallest of them to the greatest of them,” meaning each person according to his level.

The time will come when we will see how people will start grasping our words: some through scientific terms, others in the language of feeling, and others yet by virtue of simple actions, which are enough for a person to join the unity. Some need to attain and feel the adhesion, to actively participate in it, whereas for others this is unnecessary. Everything is determined by one’s desire.

We shouldn’t suppose that everyone will receive the same degree of desire for bestowal and the Creator’s revelation. However, every person will receive the full measure in accordance with his own vessels, and will be filled thanks to the common inter-inclusion.

That is why to this day Kabbalists concealed their knowledge. But now this knowledge can be revealed, although every person will hear just an insignificant part of it. Nevertheless, as a whole the Light is already starting to operate in a big mass of the common desire. This is the revolution that is happening in the world today. The modern crisis is essentially the inter-inclusion of desires.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/11, Shamati

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It’s Better On A Helicopter…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where is my freedom of choice? How can I decide between two choices?

Answer: Man does not face two choices, but only one. We are not standing at a crossroads, needing to decide whether to go right or left. There is no such thing! I am on a straight highway, and my only choice is whether or not to accelerate my advancement.

If I’m moving very slowly, then every moment I receive blows from every bump on this rough, broken highway that’s full of potholes, where wild beasts can attack me at every turn, and a host of other problems and even wars await me.

Or I can take a helicopter and fly over the highway. That depends on me.

However, the direction remains the same and the goal we achieve is the same. And although it says that we can fall off the path, that doesn’t refer to deviating from the highway itself, but to a refusal to travel at a high speed of our own accord.

In that case I advance in accordance with the engine of the program of creation, which is called “in its time” (Beito), and at every step I receive problems, blows, wars, hardships, diseases, and crises, everything that transpires in our lives, in all possible manifestations of the desire to enjoy.

Indeed, it has to demonstrate to me all of these problems so that the despair and problems compel me to “refine” it and cease to desire pleasure in such states. That is sufficient to correct the desire to enjoy at this first degree: the animate level.

Question: How can I check if I fell out of the helicopter onto the highway again?

Answer: First of all, I sense it in accordance with my degree of awakening, inspiration, and aspiration toward the goal. I must check whether I’m “burning” with the importance of the connection with the group, which is the only means of advancement. Am I working toward it, am I making use of all the means at my disposal? These means are the teacher, the group, and the books.
[47037]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The World Through The Prism Of Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do our efforts to unify during our reading of The Book of Zohar impact the world? What changes does it instill?

Answer: There is no world per se. Your efforts build this reality for you. Right now, it seems to you as you see it. To the degree of your exerted efforts, you create another reality, a different world. What you make is what you get.

Spirituality has no image. It doesn’t have any specific picture unless a person forms it within himself, within his desires that he collected and linked in one.

We should reflect on this as much as possible in order to get accustomed to this view of reality. This isn’t about spiritual attainment. I am saying that every person in our world, who hasn’t attained any spirituality yet, can still choose to view reality as suggested and in so doing begin experiencing certain sensory impressions.

Question: But how do our efforts to unify affect the desires of the most coarse level within us, where there is no yearning to unite? It seems that at the deepest level, I don’t have the slightest aspiration or desire to unite with the others….

Answer: I am made of desires of all kinds and forms, of all levels of Aviut (thickness, coarseness), including desires that don’t change until the final correction. These desires unfold in me in all possible combinations which I am not the one to set up.

I must, to the best of my ability, mold them into a spiritual form, meaning to bring them to unification with the desires that seem alien to me and which I reject, despise, and wish to have nothing to do with: “Who are they, anyway?! Why do I need to unite with them?”

I must overcome this resentment and try to unite with them if they have a desire for spirituality similar to mine. For now, it’s only with them. And if we try to rise above our mutual resentment and unify, we build the “place” for revelation of a more inner degree.

Question: Sometimes, I feel as if I am standing against the wall, trying to push through it with all that I”ve got, but it won’t move. What do I do in this state?

Answer: Ask the friends for help….
[46596]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, The Zohar

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Difficulties Are An Invitation For Revelation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can one do when one feels very weak and his family and environment are unable to support him since they do not feel a great importance of the goal?

Answer: Baal HaSulam explains why we experience so many difficulties on the spiritual path in Shamati (I Heard), Article #4: “One comes to a state as if the entire world stands still, and he alone is now seemingly absent from this world, and leaves his family and friends for the sake of annulling before the Creator.”

It is like a person becomes suspended in the air. But the Creator arranges all of this for him on purpose so he would not look for solid ground to stand on, but on the contrary, would search for a way to become similar to the upper one in his thoughts and ideas and would aspire towards the upper one in order to adopt His spirit. In other words, you need to aspire to reveal the Creator as the quality of love and bestowal in the desires of another, and then you will rise above your own desire through “faith above reason.”

When you feel suspended in the air without the support of your usual corporeal environment, it is your invitation to cleave to the upper one in bestowal. Instead of looking for support in rational, reasonable proofs, you need to look for support in faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam says: “There is but a simple reason for this called “lack of faith.” It means that one does not see before whom one nullifies, meaning he does not feel the existence of the Creator. This causes him heaviness.” But on the other hand, this is our invitation to reveal the quality of bestowal, the Creator.

From the highlighted parts we see again that faith is a clear revelation of the Creator. To see means to believe, and the one who sees Him is said to believe in Him. This shows us how distorted the meaning of these words has become and how incorrectly we read the sacred texts. They are  “sacred” because they talk about attainment and revelation of the Creator, and He is holy, He is the property of love and bestowal. Books that describe how to reach this property are called sacred books.
[46791]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/2011, Writings of Rabash

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An Electronic Circuit Of The Collective Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything becomes revealed in the connection between myself and others. Once we were in the world of Infinity where I or other souls did not exist: Everyone was one whole.

Then I developed the sensation that there exist me and others, the outside world: the still, vegetative, animate nature, and people, a multitude of different objects that connect, interact, and create the vanity of this world.

But why am I given this sensation instead of the peace and perfection of Malchut of Infinity? It is so I would start figuring out this mess that I am feeling and connect everything into one, as it is written: “He and His name are one,” like in Malchut of Infinity. This connection can only be realized through the quality of bestowal and love, which connects all of these different things back into one. After all, love unites!

The force of bestowal cancels our evil egoistic inclination which becomes revealed between the scattered and distanced parts, separated by the force of evil, the force of destruction. But I need to overcome this force of hatred and separation and its limitations specifically by opposing it and to build a connection between us. And then I will build a system that connects all these parts.

At first there was no system. They were simply united into one solid whole. And suddenly we get many parts, connected through a variety of different ties. It is like an electronic circuit filled with resistors, induction coils, capacitors, and transistors, which create different connection conditions.

I need to put together this kind of system on my own! Right now my ego is painting all these elements that interfere with connection: resistors, induction coils, and so on. They do not short circuit my circuit, but introduce a sort of resistance: sometimes “magnetic,” sometimes in the form of a “capacitor,” and sometimes with completely different conditions. And a circuit is made out of all this.

All the systems—human, electronic, and biological—operate according to this principle. In this circuit, I examine the creating force which operates within the one being created. I reveal the Creator within all these systematic connections! I do not have another opportunity to reveal Him, only by beginning to build this system within my egoistic desire.

I turn it on and make it work because the Light will be revealed in it if I have connected all the parts correctly. This Light begins to flow through this system like electricity, and then the mutual work of its elements, their program, and interaction become revealed The Creator becomes revealed!

And made all this happen? I did! And of course now I understand who and what He is. This is our work.
[46793]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 07.05.11

Shamati #5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter “Truma (Donation),” Item 365, Lesson 15
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Reality Created By The Blows Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe represent the desire to receive pleasure which feels that it exists by receiving small “injections,” blows of Light. These small blows create the perception of reality within us by painting an internal image of reality in which we perceive the people that surround us, the air, the world, and ourselves.

All of this arises from the small blows experienced by our desire to receive pleasure. And then it receives an impression as if it exists together with the surrounding reality. If the desire did not receive these small “injections” hitting it, it would neither perceive itself, its reality, nor its environment. This is the way it exists. And there is nothing else beside it: the will to enjoy that receives small blows from the Light.

The Light imposes the tiniest blows inside the desire to receive pleasure without a single conscious reaction on the desire’s behalf; this is the state we are in. When the desire becomes capable of developing a reaction to the upper Light, that is, becomes more sensitive to these blows and raises its sensitivity towards them, it wishes to no longer receive them, resists them, and intends to push the Light back one way or another, hit it back. This is called a “screen.”

And then by virtue of my resistance, opposition, and clashes I begin to attain Who is doing this to me, what for, what He wants from me, and what I can attain through this. This is our entire work: the desire to receive pleasure and the blows, clashes with the Light.
[46823]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Divine Taste Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It’s unclear why creation makes a restriction and pushes the pleasure away? Why can’t it be close to the Creator and receive from Him?

Answer: I don’t push away pleasure, but an unpleasant sensation. At that moment I no longer feel pleasure. If you give me some kind of exquisite dish, but it causes me to feel ashamed, then I stop feeling pleasure from that dish. This infinite fulfillment doesn’t make me feel good any longer!

Afterwards I will have to awaken my taste for this pleasure all over again. When I acquire the quality of Bina and start acting for the sake of bestowal, and then I start to receive for the sake of bestowal, I must once again reawaken the taste for pleasures within myself.

However, these are no longer the same tastes I felt before, but a completely different kind of pleasure which I offer to the Creator. First of all, I take His desire and fulfill it. I check with what kind of love He gave me this piece of pleasure and I want to fill the empty place in Him. It’s empty because I did not accept this fulfillment from Him.

I think about His enjoyment, about what kind of pleasure He will receive when He fulfills me. And because I feel what kind of pleasure I give Him, I now understand what kind of fulfillment I have to take from Him and in what form I should enjoy Him.

When I begin to experience pleasure from bestowal, I no longer feel the old taste of pleasures inside of me because I approach them with a new intention. Just like shame ruins all of the pleasures from reception for me, so the intention of bestowal revokes the simple taste in me. That is why it is called the acquisition of new vessels or desires.

Both the bestowing and the receiving desires in me are completely new, which is called “613” times more than what I had before. This multifold multiplication comes precisely from the shame that enables us to increase our desires and pleasures by 613 times.

This is the shame from the difference between myself and the Creator, the difference between our situations. This is not just some kind of sensation, but a precise measurement of how much He is entirely bestowing and above me, since I am a receiver. It’s precisely equal to the height of that shame.

And the difference does not arise due to any material reception, but it’s a difference in our intentions. Therefore, if we work on this shame in order to turn it into respect and honor, then we attain this “613-fold’ increase.
[47115]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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The Long Path From Separation To Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanTalmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Question 43: What is separation?

Two degrees without any Hishtavut Tzura [equivalence of form] on any side are regarded as completely separated from one another.

Our desires are like two circles: They can coincide completely, superimposing on each other and thus becoming one circle. Or they can overlap and be partially one inside the other. Or they can come in contact with one another with one point, their common desire.

Total separation means that we don’t have a single common quality or desire. That is to say, the first is not similar to the second in any way and we do not attain any form of bestowal with one another that would allow us to be one inside the other.
If I don’t take a single desire from you in order to bestow to you, and you don’t take a single desire from me in order to bestow to me, then we do not touch each other and are completely separated.

If at least one desire to bestow to one another appears between us, then there is already contact between us. And if there are several desires like that, then we are already partially one inside the other: I am inside your desires and you are inside mine.

That is how we advance until you take my desires and I take all of yours, and through them we bestow to one another: I give everything to you and you – to me. This is called adhesion.

These definitions from Talmud Eser Sefirot are unusually important. Memorize them mechanically, because that is useful as well. Later, by perceiving them on the level of feelings and intellect, try to gradually unite the mind and the feeling.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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