Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Good Turned Evil

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 44: Thus, understanding His Providence is the reason for every good, and the lack of understanding is the reason for every bad. It turns out that this is the axis that all the people in the world circle, for better or for worse.”

We don’t comprehend the Creator’s governance; it is unclear to us how He feels about us. Therefore, we constantly beg Him for something: “So, where are You, the Good Who does good?”

And what do we get in response? “I am good and always bring you good, but what do you do with it?! You take all the good that I send you and turn it into evil, and instead of light and warmth of love, you receive a blazing flame. It is you who does not dress the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), and that is why instead of the Light of Hassadim you experience the destructive fire.”
[29010]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Opening The Way To The Light
Let’s Hope For The Best

The Perfect Formula For Spiritual Ascent

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we calm down the ego which demands constant fulfillment?

Answer: You’ll never be able to overcome your ego with your own strength. Even if you think that in the past you were able to do so, that was only an illusion. You were simply fulfilling your desire to receive pleasure.

We are going through a preparation period, and at its first stage we seem to be able to achieve something with our own strength, to advance with the help of knowledge by overcoming ourselves. But it all ends after our desire to receive gets some fulfillment. However, without this desire you wouldn’t be able to study and gain the foundation for the beginning of spiritual work. In other words, at first you are led by your ego, and this is called “seven years of plenty.”

Then you suddenly cool off to studying; you ran out of fuel and feel tired of everything. Now you’ve entered the second stage of the preparation period. You are no longer led by the ego and you need a new stimulus: studies with intention and the environment.

Now you have to advance by receiving strength from the group and not from your own desire. The purpose of your studies shouldn’t be to obtain knowledge, but rather to build the correct intention for your desires, which you receive from the group. You must unite with the group in order to reveal the Creator.

For now you’re doing it for the sake of self. However, by continuously doing this work and as a result of the Light’s influence, you gradually begin to feel that bestowal is good. You receive the desire to bestow from the group and begin to demand this quality from your studies. Bestowal frees you from the ego, from your evil inclination, and elevates you above this corporeal life.

Later, due to the influence of the Upper Light and connecting with friends in the group, you begin to understand that your goal is not to reveal the Creator and the spiritual world, but rather to adhere to Him, to bestow to Him rather than to receive from Him. By uniting Israel, the Torah, and the Creator into one, by striving to give the Creator pleasure, you receive the perfect formula for your spiritual ascent.
[29014]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
Who Doesn’t Wish To Be Eternal and Happy?
The Benefit Of Pretense

In Spirituality, We Don’t Exist!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator intentionally confuses us with His governance so that we can’t find where it starts and ends, as if He doesn’t exist at all. But if He revealed Himself to me right now, my “self” would cease to exist since it is He who carries out and controls everything one hundred percent.

It is hard for us to understand that in the spiritual dimension, we simply don’t exist for our present nature is egoistic. My individuality begins emerging only when I start resisting Him. My spiritual reality starts with Pharaoh from whom I must take all his might. This is what we call “to resist the Creator.” Otherwise, how will I grow?

Later on, grounded in this resistance, I acquire the form of the Creator. However, it occurs in accordance with what I myself have planned having examined, discerned, and decided that this is exactly what I have to and should do.

Therefore, I have to include two opposites within myself: darkness and the Light, or I will never grow independent. That is why the Creator gradually awakens us by sending all sorts of problems to us so that we may aim ourselves correctly.
[29018]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot”

Related Material:
The Most Materialistic Approach
Working In Two Directions
A Person With A Refined “Taste”

Our Help To The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we understand Reshimot in spiritual work? Can we perceive or understand them?

Answer: I do not hear how they are “clicking,” but I feel how I change from one moment to the next. These changes are the result of Reshimot that awaken along the chain that was built during my soul’s descent along all the degrees from Infinity down to this world. Now I ascend back along the same degrees, but only on the condition that the Light comes and the Reshimot change.

In reality, everyone ascends up this ladder, but every person does it differently: either by way of suffering or by way of Torah. The Light pours upon everyone, but each person uses it to the degree he is able. Inside this integral, single system, we all influence one another, and therefore the personal corrections on the path interweave with the group and universal corrections.

If we could take a bird’s eye view of the whole system and discern all the phases of its development, we would see the connection between the events in our world and would understand how inside the complex they advance certain parts toward correction. And this also happens either by way of suffering or by way of Torah.

In addition, we would see how by working with each other, we awaken the world more and more from the inside, and thereby help everyone take the right steps. Thus, the world advances toward the goal quickly and easily, instead of by the lengthy and painful way.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
I Don’t Want Anything But The Light!
For Whose Sake Should We Demand Unity?
I’m Asking For Everyone’s Sake, Including Ourselves

The Benefit Of Pretense

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if I don’t wish to be part of the group and am only pretending because I am told that it is necessary for reaching the goal?

Answer: I should pretend not because I must but in order to help the friends, give them strength. In truth, I play against and confuse my egoism. I put in all my strength, but it is insufficient. In the meantime, I realize that if the group radiates all its might toward me, I will get inspired and be able to rise above myself. So how do I instill such “illumination” in the group?

To achieve this, I perform bestowal to the friends. I pass my awakening onto them, envelop them in warmth, and inspire them despite lacking it myself. I intentionally pretend in order to receive the same from the friends in response, only one hundred times more. After all, my pretense ignites them, whether they like it or not. And it doesn’t matter that I am lying; they get inspired nonetheless and radiate it back to me.

Hence, it turns out that my artificially blown out spark becomes a real flame. I started with pretense, but as a result, got truly ignited. And all this fire coming from the desire is mine. By utilizing the environment, I have accomplished the goal of transforming egoism into bestowal.

The group, like an amplifier, has multiplied my first meek inspiration manifold. And now, with this hard-earned desire, I turn very seriously to the Creator and without any falsehood.
[28899]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
“The Place” Where The Creator And I Meet
The Perfect Formula For Spiritual Ascent
A Speech At The Alternative Medicine Congress, 10.27.10

The Timer Keeps Ticking

Dr. Michael LaitmanEvery morning before the lesson we get up on our feet again and start with a clean slate. The same thing can happen over the course of the day as well. It is written, “Let the old things you have already heard become new for you every day.” A person must constantly feel that he is a new creation, again and again establishing contact, starting the spiritual work, and coming closer to the Creator.

Every time he makes this renewal, he realizes Reshimot, until he acquires a sufficient amount of them. This number is not known in advance, but the timer is ticking and the wheels are turning, changing the numbers after the point, and at some point in time the main wheel on the left will jump from one number to the next.

The same thing happens to us. That is why at every moment in time we must renew the contact, the intention, and the aspiration to the goal. It is written, “The end of the action lies in the initial thought.” I must already keep the goal in mind now, which I hope to reach at the end. Where am I going? What do I want exactly? Each time I must imagine this anew, but more precisely, clearly, tangibly, and perceptibly.

In the final goal, all of my hopes, efforts, desires, and disappointments come together, fuse into one, and are fulfilled. My work is completed in the point of the final contact, the point that is called “the drop of unity.” In it, I, my entire perceivable reality, and the Creator (the quality of bestowal, the Upper Force) all become one whole. This is the state I must already imagine now.

Baal HaSulam puts it this way: A person must aspire to the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. Say it however you like. The most important thing is for us to think about the final point of unity. The more distinctly I imagine it in my feeling and mind, the more joy this should give me. Then I will unquestionably realize the current Reshimo and will successively advance toward the end of the action.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Do I Exist Or Not?
Give Yourself To The Friends Without Leaving Out Anything
Our Help To The World

Free Will Remains, The Situation Is Getting Tougher

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the lower Partzuf is in the dark, where does it get the strength to rise up and receive the Light?

Answer: Clearly, the lower Partzuf has no strength to rise to the upper Partzuf, but it does receive the desire to do so. A person receives the first awakening from Above, but later he has to realize it on his own. It is written: “The Creator lays a person’s hand on the good fate and says, ‘Choose this.’”

If you don’t, you will be given a second chance although it will happen in a different form. It is taken into consideration what states you are going through, but only in the context of free will. This means that you must respond correctly, or next time the setting presenting a choice will be more “aggressive” and not as favorable.

If the second time you miss what is expected of you, another awakening will occur yet again. After all, the plan of creation must come to fruition. But the settings will be getting tougher and more unpleasant. And so on.

Every time a person doesn’t act on an awakening sent to him from Above, the situation presenting the same choice gets more challenging. If he didn’t accept the properties of mercy (Hassadim) and didn’t use them for correction, then mercy turns into harsh properties of overcoming (Gevurot).

Thus, everything is determined by our responsiveness to what is happening around us.
[28905]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Allow The Creator To Work On You
A Good Fate
A Speech At The Alternative Medicine Congress, 10.27.10

Don’t Try To Argue With The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I wish to see the whole world awake and aware. How do I achieve that?

Answer: You cannot step out of the boundaries of what the common system of the souls’ correction reveals today. And it reveals a great deal. The question is: To what extent can we can affect it?

The world does not yet feel the need for Kabbalah as it cannot tie what is happening to its correction. Man doesn’t want it. When something bad happens to me, I seek someone to blame and never blame myself. That’s natural for egoism, so we always turn our back on correction.

In such a setting, we must do whatever we can. And what we can’t, we should then at least lay a path by which the next generation will be able to walk upon and follow. The place of work is given to you by the Creator, and He can’t be argued with.

The world is awakening but not at the rate we would like. The Creator has other plans. After all, the impressions that are being imprinted in the souls on the path of evolution have to reach their depth. And this takes time.

We would prefer to charge forth; however, having learned the design of the soul, we realize that between its two states, there lie millions of actions performed in the will to receive (desire). At times, a computer “freezes” for thirty seconds, and there is nothing you can do but wait.

And still, with time the process accelerates. It used to take half an hour to download one simple program from the Internet, and now we download whole movies in half a minute. And yet, in any case we need to be patient: There are too many actions that have to manifest in the collective desire of Shechina (Divinity). Our urge to rush derives from our ignorance of the importance and necessity of each such action.

Therefore, we simply “press the gas pedal to the floor,” meaning that we give the world as much as we are able, regardless of whatever its response. It isn’t up to us. The world has its own evolutionary pace. Look at the tremendous efforts there were made by Baal HaSulam, and only 60-70 years after his desperate appeals something is beginning to move.

We don’t see the entire scope of egoism approaching correction. We need to thoroughly count our modest forces in order to utilize them for dissemination with the utmost efficiency. If not, our words will miss people’s ears and won’t plant anything in their hearts.

I spoke about it with Rabash and some other Kabbalists with whom we used to visit. I saw them burning within and being patient at the same time. They were truly “charged,” but what can one do with a child who is playing with his toys? He needs time to evolve.

Therefore, we need to work harder within, among ourselves. In this way, we will be able to pass the awakening onto the world, through the inner network of souls, and people won’t even have to turn on the TV or attend introductory lectures.

Put all your desire in action aimed at building the correct connection in the group as previous Kabbalists used to do. As to the outside audience, release the necessary knowledge in small doses in the degree of their readiness. Feed it from a teaspoon, as you would feed an infant.
[28918]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Between Slumber And Awakening
Living In The Stream Of Endless Light

How Bina Works With The Souls

Dr. Michael Laitman with StudentsWe are studying an article from “Introduction from The Book of Zohar” titled “MI created ELE.” It speaks about Bina of the world of Atzilut and how its three upper Sefirot (GAR or MI) created seven lower Sefirot (ZAT or ELE).

GAR created (Bara), meaning it drew from within itself outward (Bar) its lower part, AHP. Having descended to Zeir Anpin and Malchut, AHP is now able to interconnect with the souls that ascend to Malchut from the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) and are willing to be reformed and unified.

The souls ask for the strength to unite, and they don’t need anything except that. They understand that by doing so they will acquire a Kli where the Creator will be revealed. Besides, they realize that their own strength is insufficient to accomplish such unification and the upper force is necessary.

Therefore, they raise their desire to Malchut of the world of Atzilut, causing it to merge with Zeir Anpin as one whole, ZON. At that point, ZON discovers that in Malchut and Zeir Anpin, there is the lower part of Bina, ELE, and this part elevates them to Bina, MI, itself.

As a result, the souls, Malchut, Zeir Anpin, and both parts of Bina, unify Above and receive the Light’s force there: the property of bestowal that rules in the upper part of Bina completely. Thereby, MI creates ELE and later reforms the souls that ascended to Bina.

If we wish to act following the example described in The Book of Zohar, we must strive to find among us the desire, the need, to ascend to Malchut de Atzilut in order to enter Bina’s AHP. This need will flame up in a person when he gets eager to become part of the group because Malchut of the world of Atzilut recognizes and responds solely to this specific desire.
[28924]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction from The Book of Zohar,” Article “Who Created These”

Related Material:
Don’t Try To Argue With The Creator
Do I Exist Or Not?

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.12.10

The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Mother Lends Her Clothes to Her Daughter,” Item 21, Lesson 3
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Letters by Rabbi Amnon Saba,” Item 22, Lesson 1
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 20, Lesson 9
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Item 72
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Rav Yehuda Ashlag “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress,” Lesson 4
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio