Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.17.11
Posted on January 17th, 2011
Shamati #189 “The Action Created by Thought”
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Shamati #187 “Choosing Labor”
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Shamati #189 “The Action Created by Thought”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
Shamati #187 “Choosing Labor”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio
In the past Kabbalists advanced by a personal path and it was very difficult for them. It even says that a thousand people come to study, but only one of them comes out to the Light. However, in our times, with the help of a properly organized environment we can advance practically without any losses, without losing our friends on the path.
This depends only on whether we will be able to build our common, external desire among us. Therefore, the most important thing is “the prayer of society” where all together we try to unite our desires so they would evoke the influence of the single force that fills space. This force will then be revealed as the force that connects us and exists among us. Revealing this basic, fundamental force of Nature means revealing the Creator because it is primary and we are its products.
How, then, can we elicit the influence of this force so it will give birth to us, pulling us out of ourselves to the outside, so that like a baby coming out of a mother’s womb we would start to feel what happens outside of us? We have to elicit this force in order to be born. It will make us and everything around us strain in order to “push” us out into the Light.
To achieve this we need a “prayer of society.” All together we must reach the realization that this is necessary. Naturally, we will then see and feel everything that really happens in the world. Everything, including all the causes and actions, will immediately become clear to us. We will find ourselves born into the sensation of a new world and will no longer identify ourselves with the body, but will exist in a connection with the single force that fills all space.
From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash
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When we come out into the external world, we discover the general force that includes both bestowal and reception. It is the source of everything taking place and it fills everything. It is the force of reason, thought, and plan; the general force of Nature.
We call it “the Creator” because we discover that in relation to us it is the creator. However, we are still talking about an all-inclusive force, which includes all other forces.
By studying it, we study its constituent parts—the laws of Nature, spiritual laws of the nature of bestowal which are above our regular, earthly state. At the same time we begin to understand how our earthly being is built, seeing the source of the laws operating in our world.
As a result, a person understands why he exists and how to come out of different situations that he has gotten himself into with his one-sided vision of the world. He starts rebuilding himself and the surrounding society, and it doesn’t happen coercively, but voluntarily. When revealing the true laws of nature, a person naturally acts differently. Coming from the same egoism, he understands that he cannot act otherwise.
Today we automatically act with the greatest self-benefit in mind. And later on we will also automatically act the same way, but with a consideration for the general part: that we depend on each other and are one whole. We will see the entire picture, the entire global, closed system and will therefore act completely differently.
The most important thing is for us to discover this general picture; then we naturally won’t make mistakes. This is what Kabbalah is leading us toward.
To the degree we develop, we gradually reveal our egoistic nature. However, overall we have already assimilated it, having exhausted all the egoistic instruments for attaining the world through science and technology, as well as in the human community and familial relationships. We see that we have reached a dead-end.
That is when a real need for additional knowledge arises. Today we are at the edge, the transition to feeling the next part of the universe. It is already here, between us. Sometimes we call it a different dimension because what matters is how you measure things: When you change your point of view, you see completely different phenomena in the same volume.
That is how we discover a new world.
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From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash
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Our goal is to return to the Creator. Everything is already “set for the feast,” but first we have to examine our path in order to find all the available means and understand how to use them correctly.
It is a given that there is nothing new neither in us, nor in the means that are prepared for our path, nor in the processes and phenomena that we will undergo during our ascent, or in their results. Our work is merely an analysis, discernment of the available means and a correct assemblage. It is as if we were given a broken device, and now we have to figure out what it should be like once repaired, and what is the order in which its parts must be assembled.
The wisdom necessary for this assembly also comes to us from the Creator. There is nothing new that can appear within us, as it is said: “There is nothing new under the sun.” All information comes to us from Above, and only one thing depends on us: to wish to carry out the correction process, which means to assemble all elements of creation.
Nothing is created accidentally or is designed to harm; everything has its place. Our only job is to connect all the elements in complete harmony, which is what we still need to learn. As a result, we gain something new: knowledge, attainment, perfection, the attitude of the “Good Who does good,” the Creator’s love towards us, His caring.
In the end, we become aware of our attainment, revelation. And all the steps on the path to this point are regarded as the stages of revelation of the upper governance, the Creator’s relationship with us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/2011, ““What is the Prohibition to Bless On An Empty Table in the Work”
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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What is the Prohibition to Bless On An Empty Table in the Work”: One has to supply empty vessels so that the Creator could fill them with the upper abundance. This is called a “blessing.”
The spiritual path contains several stages, during which we learn how to properly combine, put together, all parts of reality. What desire do we need to prepare time after time so as to turn to the Creator with various demands: How do we find the means, manifest the attributes, and uncover our unity?
After all, we find that everything has already been prepared for us and is just waiting for our desire. Discoveries that we are making along the way only seem such to us. We call them stages of attainment, but in reality all spiritual degrees already exist, and all the states, including the final one, are predetermined.
Thus, by climbing the rungs of the ladder, coming back from the darkness and separation, and increasingly attaining the overall reality of the universe, we reveal reality only to ourselves. All the new attributes, details, ties, conjunctions, and parts are the manifestations of a new reality that protrudes in front of us out of darkness of concealment.
As a result, when a person sees what the Creator has prepared for him, he “blesses.” But that’s on condition that he feels what he has received in his new attributes. Having started from spiritual oblivion, he began to collect himself at the still, vegetative, and animal levels and was finally born into the light, each time combining two parts: a receiving desire and the attribute of bestowal which rules over him.
This is how one is moving forward: The two components, desire and intention, come to him from Above, and he just precedes them with his demand for them to be revealed, united, and fulfilled. All of that is coupled with a search for the aspiration to bestow in everything that goes beyond his “beastly,” material life.
However, wishing for bestowal isn’t enough; a person needs to receive for the sake of bestowal. This state is called “complete faith.” Until then a person has no opportunity “to bless” because he hasn’t yet received a blessing from the Creator. During the stages of correction the vessels (Kelim) are filled with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), and then the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothes into them. Only then does one come to a blessing.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/2011, ““What is the Prohibition to Bless On An Empty Table in the Work”
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Speaking of the Creator’s attitude to us, we use our lexicon and say that He is “merciful,” “angry,” and so on. Naturally, all of this exists only relative to us.
We don’t merit any transformations by the Creator. But to the extent that we ourselves change in relation to the unconditional, unchangeable, and ever-constant active law of “Good Who does Good,” we merit a reciprocal reaction.
I would be able to predict what this reaction will be if I were familiar with all the inner parameters of my soul, with the entire system and its conditions. Obviously, it is challenging to know everything. As pertains to us, however, the Creator doesn’t change. The force that fills all of nature and sustains all creation’s existence always treats us with absolute love, as the “Good Who does Good”; on its part, there aren’t any changes.
We ourselves trigger all reactions according to how much we change in relation to this law, how developed and similar to it we already have to be, and how capable or not we are to accomplish this. Besides, it depends on our collective influence of one person on all and all on one. This is what we are now discovering in our global world.
Yet we say that the Creator treats us well or badly, sometimes this way, other times another; we feel that there are good and bad times, holidays and so on. But none of it exists. All of this is defined by how a person attains. If I didn’t labor, I wouldn’t come to the state of correction since I didn’t reach this degree.
But why is it then that times still change while I don’t? It is so because I am linked with all other systems, other souls, and everybody must advance. Hence, the Reshimot (spiritual information genes) constantly unfold. If we actualize them correctly, we feel good, and if not, they get actualized by way of suffering, and we feel the evil. But only Reshimot emerge, while the Light that works on them is constant.
Also, the Light that we regard as “the Light that Reforms” or “the Surrounding Light” doesn’t change either. We are still in the same unchangeable system. But I aspire to the Light, and it affects me to the degree of my yearning. If I don’t, it doesn’t work on me. There is nothing that will change without my desire. And only relative to this desire do I experience transformation.
[32709]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”
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Question: How can we increase the demand for unity even more?
Answer: A person never does anything unless it comes from a feeling of necessity. You have to ask yourself the question and clearly have the following picture before your eyes, “Where do we reveal the upper world? When do we reveal it? In what do we reveal it? What is the Creator?”
If you answer these questions, then you will arrive at the fact that the inner connection between us is the single soul in which the Creator becomes revealed, and He is the common force of nature that is already now bringing all of us together, pushing us to unite, while we oppose it.
All the people in the world feel this way. Look at the dependency that exists, at the things happening in the world, and the unpredictable, sudden events in nature. All of this is in order to force us to think about it, to come closer to each other, and answer the question, “What do we have to do?”
More and more people in the world are asking, “Why is this happening?” And eventually this “Why?” will lead us to the right answer: that we aren’t similar to nature and are, in fact, opposite to it.
If we feel this, if we depict this clear picture to ourselves and it is constantly facing us, if we talk about it, discerning more and more of its aspects, details, and dependencies, then we will gradually become part of it and it will live inside us. We will demand for it to be realized inside us.
This is the aspiration for it to be realized inside you, for this inner connection between all of us to come true. This is the revelation of the common soul.
When a person starts to feel this necessity, his aspiration is called “MAN” and it evokes the Light that Reforms (Ohr Makif).
However, if we cannot correctly depict the system of the universe as being one, single, closed, integral scheme in which we are all small elements, like totally interconnected little wheels, if this fact is not crystal clear to you, then of course the question of unity seems purely theoretical and sounds entirely silly, like a boy-scout motto.
It has to be felt as a necessity. Otherwise we do not attain the goal. Otherwise, everything is in vain.
We simply have to see this picture in the world today because the world does not change. When we think about the upper world, we think it is detached from this world, but it is not! Rather, it is a more internal part of it, the place where we are all united together. It’s like several screens on a computer where on the first screen we are disconnected and see our world. On a more internal screen we already see our unity with each other, and so on, as we reveal increasingly internal screens.
Therefore, we must now already imagine that everything depends on how we relate to the world. If we really imagine this picture and desire to go from the first screen to the second, then we are raising MAN. This is aspiration and progress forward. This is already the movement that evokes in response an illumination from the second screen upon me that attracts and corrects me. That is how it works.
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From the talk at the meal in Moscow on 1/14/11
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Our earthly existence has practically exhausted itself. What once seemed valuable to us is losing its previous charm. All the different pleasures related to food, sex, family, wealth, fame, power, and knowledge no longer satisfy us and can no longer serve as the goal. Even while being fulfilled by them, we still feel empty inside.
That is why today we are facing a very serious challenge from Nature, which is showing us that we completely don’t understand where we are. After all, the entire volume of the universe is there, in front of us, but we only perceive a microscopic part of it.
In reality all of matter is emptiness. Matter consists of atoms and every atom consists of a nucleus and electrons. But if you zoom in on the atom so the nucleus is the size of a small coin, then the distance between it and the electrons would be equal to an entire kilometer! An atom is like a solar system where the planets (electrons) rotate around the sun (nucleus), while everything else is emptiness. Moreover, it’s not like cosmic emptiness which nevertheless contains particles of matter, but it is total emptiness.
Thus, overall in relation to us, matter consists of emptiness. But we can look at it differently: It isn’t emptiness, but filled space, and we just don’t feel the filling. However, the filling is the most important part. It is the invisible filling between the nucleus and the electrons, or between all of us. It’s not the material parts that are important, but what is between them.
We will be able to feel it only if instead of perceiving the surrounding nature as an object for egoistic reception, we will feel it through the opposite quality, bestowal.
Nature consists of two qualities: reception and bestowal. All of it is sustained upon the balance between them. But we—all of us together and each of us individually—are receiving elements that aim to fulfill ourselves. We use only the five senses or our small “reservoir,” the receiving desire, which is why we only perceive a small volume, a very limited piece of the existing world, qualitatively speaking.
That is where the science of Kabbalah comes to the rescue, being a science of reception, of perceiving the true state. The gist of this science is to develop the opposite quality in a person: instead of reception, to develop the feeling of bestowal. Then you come out of yourself, out of your inner, closed volume, and start to feel the world outside of you and outside of the dependence on yourself.
In the previous emptiness, inside of its infinite reaches, where matter has a minimal share, you will suddenly discover a volume filled by the force of bestowal —a different, external world. It is absolutely connected with our world, complementing it, being its root and source.
That is when we will begin to understand why we exist, where everything originated, and how it operates. Instead of a measly grain that has no beginning or end, we will see the general, closed picture of the whole universe and it will tell us about the causes and goals, and about what happens to us.
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash
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The problem with feeling the spiritual world, meaning the total volume in which we exist today, is the problem of its perception. Now we are also inside this volume, along with our nature, which is still concealed from us. However, we feel only a small part of it with our earthly, bodily senses.
We have to attune ourselves so we would feel not only what enters our small egoistic desire. After all, it’s enough for egoism to desire something and we suddenly perceive what we did not notice earlier.
For example, when I start a new job, I start working with new materials and new phenomena, and some time later I start to feel what I am working with. We are attuning ourselves to a finer perception, creating inner models of phenomena and objects that we are dealing with. For example, a metalworker feels a metal by its sound and by the motion of the chisel. Likewise, people connected to nature understand it through signs that we are unfamiliar with.
We are created so that the surrounding world is depicted for us in a three-dimensional coordinate system. But is this really so? Other creatures perceive the world in a completely different way: through smells, temperature waves, ultrasound waves, and so on. However, no matter how much we expand the range of perception in this world, we always come across the same restriction: ourselves, our capability to receive or absorb inside.
In this way we limit our perception and do not feel the huge world that is around us. Gradually we begin coming closer to understanding these phenomena, or at least to the sensation that this is really so. However, it is difficult for us to cope with this and to work with this difficult problem because that is how our bodies are built.
Thus, as a result of our earthly development, it becomes clear to us that we are simply blind. We do not see where we are or how to live. This brings us to feel enormous suffering, which accumulates more and more. On one hand we develop, while on the other hand we do not know where and how, or what to do with ourselves.
As a result it becomes simply necessary for us to break down the barrier separating us from the real world. It is necessary for us to understand it because we cannot continue to exist this way. We already see that there is a certain psychological barrier here. Whether it is inside us or outside of us, we have to overcome it.
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash
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