All of history and the former, private part of my life make up 99.9% done by the Creator, and 0.1% is what is left for me to do. However, for me this 0.1% of my life is, in essence, 100%. It is because it depends on me by 100%, and I need to worry only about this and nothing else. After all, everything else is not under my control.

I need to clarify particularly this tiny area, where I need to do something on my own. It’s like a big orchestra with the greatest musicians in the world performing all the pieces perfectly, with immense feeling, and without a single mistake or falling behind for even a second.

I just need to twiddle a few notes of my own in this whole great symphony. However, if I don’t play them on time, it will spoil all the music. But if I do what is assigned to me, I will complete an absolutely perfect symphony. This is how my life is arranged. Therefore, a person needs to concentrate all his attention and effort on adding these few points, playing these few notes, but he should do that properly.

Thus the wisdom of Kabbalah does not talk about anything else but this. There is an infinite multitude of everything in the spiritual world; it’s a huge reality, like a symphonic orchestra with plenty of different instruments and the most complex musical score. However, we do not study all this, and we don’t understand or feel anything there.

Kabbalists don’t tell us about that although having reached their correct realization, they already feel this whole common harmony. They explain only how we can play our tiny portion, our few notes.
[63691]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/2011, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
Who Gives Me No Peace?
The Drifting Button
Only The Group Helps You Focus On What’s Important

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work - No Comments →

We don’t change reality, but only our relation to it, its perception. We need to worry about our inner feelings so that each time we transform each situation to joy.

And this isn’t because it causes me to feel good—I can also feel bad. Rather, I feel good because this situation comes from the Creator and thus I cause Him happiness. In my every correction makes me feel good, I feel good from the fact that I bring contentment to Him.

And the first correction is to rise above good and evil so that it is not important how I feel. This means that I rise above my desire to receive. Try to eat something with the intention to bestow and see that the tastiest food loses its taste. Thus, I now rise above my good or bad sensation, and it becomes tasteless to me, like grass.

Afterwards I begin to feel the taste of importance of the Giver, and as a result of this, I cause Him delight. And having felt the importance of the Giver, I return to myself and enjoy in all of my desires. However, it is already a different pleasure: I enjoy because I delight the Creator.

This means that I do not change reality, but I change my relation to it. The main factor in all of these actions is the greatness of the Creator, which for me changes everything. I work on a higher level than the one where I felt good or bad in my beastly body. I need this beast, but I work above it.

Thus this is considered my free choice. Indeed, I receive a free plane in which I can do whatever I want. I don’t go into this low area where the Creator directs me through different situations. And my free choice is consequently expressed when above all these states, I build a relation called the intention to bestow.
[63716]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/2011, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
A Ray Of Light Through The Clouds
The World Of Our Intentions
An Intermediate Form Between A Person And The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

If we need to rise above this life to the intention for the sake of bestowal, then regardless of how bad life on this plane is, we can create the most favorable relations with the Creator above it. This condition already shows the initial point of the ascent from the physical, beastly, level of sensations to the level of spiritual intentions.

There are two levels: the level of sensation and the level of intention, which is also a sensory level but is connected with the Giver. In sensation, in desire, I can feel good or bad. Whereas, with the intention, it can be for my own sake or for the sake of the Creator.

If I want to reach free choice, I need to work on the level of intention. It doesn’t matter what will happen on the level of my desire—I need only to worry about the intention. Below can be a very bad life, and above, on the level of intention, I attain goodness and give thanks to the Creator. If I can do this, it is a sign that I attained the intention to bestow, “Lishma.”

I rose above my desire, detached myself from it, restricted it, and stopped relating to me all that is good and bad. I look at myself from the side and see how this machine feels itself, its parameters and conditions. And then I understand how it needs to work for the sake of something else. This means that I am disconnected from myself.
[63713]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/2011, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
A Free Plane For The Intention
A Ray Of Light Through The Clouds
An Intermediate Form Between A Person And The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

If I carefully follow the signals that the Creator gives me in my life, I will see that He brings me to the good fate and says: “Choose this, son!” And it is my responsibility to grab onto this opportunity and realize it.

But how can I see all this? How do I find my fate and the Creator who directs me? How do I understand that it is precisely what I need to execute in my life, and it is in fact the missing piece in the common puzzle? The whole picture is already complete except for this one piece. So how do I see it and where do I find it?

It turns out that I need to search for the place of my free choice. The Creator will bring me there and lead me directly to the place where I need to execute my action. The Creator directs us through a simple and natural path, allowing us to feel some guidance that brings us a sense of comfort in a life that is difficult, full of suffering, problems, ailments, and misfortunes. And since we are a simple desire to receive pleasure, we instinctively run from evil and strive for peace.

The Creator shows us the direction: from evil to good. However, one needs to exert effort from his side since advancement by this path is possible only under the condition that we change our motto, the intention with which one does everything. Either I just want to run away from evil and reach goodness, according to my natural desire to receive, or I advance above my desire, at the level of intention, and I do this in order to delight the Creator.

In other words, I need to separate from my desire to receive, rise above it, perform a restriction on it, and in spite of everything that remains in it, advance with the intent to give joy to Him, rather than me. This constitutes my free choice.

I constantly work with my desire, and it advances me and shows me the path from suffering to pleasure, which shines to me ahead like through slots in the wall or like a ray of light through the clouds. However, advancement toward this ray is only possible if I change the reason for my movement, and rather than doing it for myself, although it is pleasant and nice, I begin to do it for the benefit of the Creator.

He calls me in order to do good to me, and I go in order to do good to Him.
[63688]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/2011, “Introduction to TES”

Related Material:
The Drifting Button
Fine Tuning To The Right Frequency
The Indispensable Box

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work - No Comments →

Every given moment with all its data comes from Above. Everything in it is predetermined, and I am under its control. However, the next moment is in my hands.

I begin to analyze what is the meaning of life? Can I understand it? Suddenly, I realize that not only can I understand it, but  I can change it as well. Moreover, I not only can change it, but I can attain the highest possible degree of perception, sensation, awareness, and control of the situation.

It turns out that among the thousand buttons, there is the one, the most important one. All the other 999 buttons will not disturb you when you press that single button. It is your free will.

You have to find that button over and over again, to move step by step, each time doing different work and performing different analyses. You can’t just grab that button and hold on to it until the end. No, you have to look for it each time anew, among all the other buttons. Now, it was here, so how can I reach it? On the next level, it is in a totally different place.

This is how you change your life. This isn’t some superficial work. It throws you from one place to another, from one end of your data matrix to another. With the help of this button, you have to activate all others. This button is the access to them.

Eventually, free will merely obliges you to come to the group. It isn’t complicated. Enter the group and bring yourself under the influence of the right environment. Thanks to that, together with the environment, in mutual connection with it, you will find the right button and change your fate.

Reality is much more simple than what we imagine. It says that the Creator created man simply, but people have made many complications.
[63484]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom”

Related Material:
Instructions To The Control Panel Of Life
That Infamous Button
Spiritual Fine-Tuning

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

What is my “self?” I exist, feel, live, and perceive reality…. But I don’t know what the “self” is. I only know that it’s the way in which I feel myself: There is the “self” and there is my environment. Where does this feeling come from? It comes from my desire to receive. I feel all kinds of pleasures and deficiencies one way or another, and they are part of my perception, feeling, cognition, and understanding.

On the whole, my vessels make up the desire to receive. To some extent they are full and to some extent empty. The desire that is divided into five levels of development (the still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and the root) makes up the feeling of my personal body, my life, my “self,” and the environment. Eventually I have to attain the essence of my desire with everything that is within it. What is this desire? What does it mean to feel it?

I am in it, and it radiates the feeling of itself and of external reality. The feeling of the self is my body. The feeling of external life is made up of many people and of the whole universe. All of this is depicted and presented inside my desire.

These things should be clarified in the light of free will: How can I use them? Which way should I direct them? Can I do anything that I want with these feelings? Or can I use them only if I turn in a certain direction? Do I have to find the right “frequency,” the right range of frequencies in which I’ll see the whole picture and the way to the goal? In such a case, all the other ways are closed. They’re not for me.

A very delicate approach is needed here, the only approach that will enable me to see the picture in the right light. All the other paths provide me with false and distorted pictures, and I will pay dearly for their falsity. The main point here is to understand what I should do and where to go. In order to do that, I tune myself to the desirable range of frequencies, choose the correct “crack,” in order to look at my internal and external reality. Such approach brings me to the only possible action I should perform—that of a free choice.

Everything else is irrelevant. Even if I don’t know anything else, it makes no difference. The main point is that I know this. My whole life and future depend upon this. By fulfilling this “subtle” principle, I can also change everything else, and extremely so. I should deal with what’s important and not with anything else because then I will only mess things up.

Thus, free will should protect me from false and harmful actions that will take great efforts to correct. I need to reach the essence in the shortest way possible and to realize it.

For that Baal HaSulam explains that every state I am in is divided into four parts. If I know myself, I am under their control. These are the factors:

• The source;
• The unchanging conduct of cause and effect;
• The internal conduct of cause and effect;
• The conduct of cause and effect of alien things.

The source is the unchanging nature, the essence, which I received even before I felt myself here and now. One may ask about it questions like, why, and what for, but it won’t change reality. You are what you are, and you advance on a one way street, from the beginning to the end. The distance you have traveled is the past, and there is no point complaining about it. All you have to do is find out how to make the future better.

As for the conduct of cause and effect, here too, as Baal HaSulam says, there is nothing you can do. Of course, wheat will grow from a grain of wheat, and rice will grow from a grain of rice. These changes are additions to the source, they dress upon it. Besides the initial data that exist in the Reshimo, in the “particle of information” which contains everything, there is also the rest of the development, the second factor, which is also predetermined. And this means that one should look for free will in the third or fourth factors.
[63487]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom of Will”

Related Material:
Thoughts Of Freedom Are Lies Over Lies
Descending For New Desires
What Remains Of An Apple?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: However, when we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice.

We are the desire to receive created by the Creator. This desire responds only to pleasure or its lack, which is pain. Thus, we can experience either positive or negative feelings.

In the first case, a person feels good and comfortable, so he wants to remain in this state. What fills us exactly, and where do we feel the pleasure? After all, we are not just talking about a glass that we fill with water.

Pleasure comforts, and this is especially evident in children: If we make a baby feel good, he’ll become tranquil. This is the response of the desire to receive, and at that  moment it doesn’t need to change. In fact, it can’t change because the pleasure completely fills the desire.

When we feel pain, it is exactly opposite. A person can climb the walls and not find a place to rest.

There are deep-rooted reasons for these responses. Peace and pleasure are like a copy of the Light, the Creator, embodied by the mother. They bring appeasement—and the baby becomes tranquil.

So, we respond to two things only: pleasure or pain. However, in addition to the desire to receive, internal processes take place through four phases of development. Combined, these phases create a kind of internal volume, where input and output are compared: what enters me, how do I respond, and what ultimately comes out.

As a result, a person’s mind develops. The Light enters and evokes either positive or negative feelings, as well as positive or negative realization. Here everything depends on the “input and output module” from this “box” of the four phases, which checks whether the input signal corresponds with the goal.

Thus, besides the pleasure and pain in its pure form, we have the opportunity to study and accumulate experience. Consequently, we build a scale of “true or false” and understand that a good feeling can be false, while a bad one can be true. It enables us to hold on to the truth and if necessary, to change the input signal from minus to plus or from plus to minus.

This is the role of the four phases, through which the response of our desire moves toward awareness and understanding. It overcomes distance, divided into four parts according to the structure of HaVaYaH, and this provides us the opportunity to  compare the input and output.
[63131]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, “The Freedom”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

There is nothing more important than freedom. When I am in chains, when someone controls me, it does not matter who it is in particular. It makes no difference to me whether it is nature, or the Creator, or the upper force, or God. I do not care if He has a mind and feelings or on the contrary, is faceless and indifferent. This is not what matters.

When I am in the hands of someone or something, I do not exist. My “I” does not exist. There is only a certain being under total power of a force of a higher order.

Any item that we speak of has its own essence in our eyes. It exists on its own. Even if it is a chair or a house, we attribute an independent existence to it. We subconsciously personify it. For example, we get angry at a frozen computer or a broken car. Nothing has value in our eyes without a certain share of independence.

Thus, the notion of freedom is fundamental. We perceive things only if we see them as independent, self-existing. Otherwise, we simply do not distinguish it; we do not recognize it. I attribute independence to things. To the extent of this independence, they acquire weight and meaning for me, to the point of becoming a source of threat or pleasure. I weigh everything in the world on the scale of freedom. Only then do I recognize and form a corresponding attitude.

This individuality of things, people, and phenomena varies according to my tastes and scale of values. Overall, the notion of freedom represents the foundation of my existence. It forms my view of the world. Nothing enters my field of vision without this parameter.

For example, in life, a certain person suddenly becomes important to me because in my eyes, I attribute to him individuality, freedom, a personal opinion, power, and the ability to influence me. On the other hand, when someone loses the “halo” of freedom, importance, and influence in my eyes, he moves aside or completely leaves the picture of my reality. So freedom is a very significant and important notion.

This pertains to my own freedom as well. When I fully, one-hundred percent, depend on someone or something, I simply do not exist. Just as in similar situations when I do not see others, I also do not see myself when I am fully subject to someone else’s will, for example, in prison or captivity.

However, if we go even further, if we acknowledge that the upper force or nature controls all of my cells and physiological systems, all my thoughts and desires, every breath, if there is nothing mine within me, nothing that doesn’t come from somewhere outside of me, then I do not exist. I do not even belong to anyone because in order to be subject to someone, you still need to be. However, in the case of absolute submission, nothing at all remains of me.

This is where the self-ness criterion brings us. It originates in the Creator who, being distinctive and unique, created us and gave us the feeling of the same distinction. Every one of us evaluates himself and others only according to this measure. In this way, we weigh and distinguish details of reality according to the Creator’s presence in them, the force that gives everyone uniqueness and independence. This is why nature is a basic notion.

However, a reasonable question then arises. When I strive for perfection, I become one-hundred percent like the upper force, which means that I carry out its will precisely. I become the Creator’s slave. I forfeit everything I have, I renounce myself, I restrict my desire. My intention is only to bestow. I am ready to do everything the Creator wishes. But do I not annul my distinction, my freedom this way?

Kabbalists say no, on the contrary, this is the way you acquire your freedom and individuality. Right now, you only have a tiny point of freedom and distinction. Then, you acquire the Creator’s full image from Him and dress into it. The only way to achieve absolute freedom is to acquire the Creator’s qualities from Him, His image.

In other words, even my altruistic intention, similarity to the Creator, comes from my egoistic desire. In the end, I consist of two opposites: inside is egoism, the desire to receive, and on the outside, the intention to bestow to the Creator. This is why I do not disappear.

We must understand that our egoism saves us from disappearing. As I ascend the spiritual ladder, my egoism grows on the left, and it is opposite to the Creator. The intention for the sake of bestowal, which is similar to the Creator, grows on the right. I acquire His qualities through this contrast. I acquire them independently, personally, and without becoming dissolved in Him.

This is the gift the Creator has given us: the opportunity to exist independently. In this way, we gradually acquire independence in our spiritual development. In comparison to it, our current state is called “death,” “non-existence,” while spiritual attainment and overcoming is life. The Light that Reforms is called the Torah. It is salvation from the “angel of death.”
[63028]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/2011, “The Freedom”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: You said once in a lesson that a person needs free choice only when he isn’t sure. Will we have free choice after the end of correction?

Answer: The more we advance towards the Creator, the less we agree with Him, and still we find the internal power to agree each time. When I enter Infinity, I discover that there is no one worse than the Creator.

I don’t agree with Him on anything. I hate Him more than anything. But at the same time I also have the power to rise above this feeling and to feel the opposite: that there is no one higher, more perfect, stronger, and more certain than Him. And so I have to choose: Which way to go? Meanwhile, there is nowhere to go. This is what Infinity is.

In general, we should understand that no matter how high a person rises, the evil inclination is still greater than him. We actually discover creation as “existence from absence,” in contrast to “existence from existence.”
[63125]

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

Question: How can I exactly recognize the point of my free choice?

Answer: First of all, we discover that we are absolutely, one-hundred percent not free. This is the realization of evil.

However, on the other hand, what is so bad about that? If I am entirely under the power of the Creator, or Nature, then there is nothing to ask of me. I am neither good nor bad. What is there to demand of me? No matter what I do, it is not me doing it, as it is written: “Go to the craftsman who made me.”

Religion is based on this. I am a small person. I do everything that He wants. If He says do, I do. In this way, all my charges are removed, any questions are canceled, and I rid myself of problems.

However, on this path, you lose independence and freedom. Just by following the Creator’s decrees, even if unwillingly, you will always find a reward for yourself and ease your task—at the cost of your real “I.” This is why religion is good for the masses. When everything comes from Above, it adds a feeling of comfort to life and provides psychological support to flow together with everyone.

On the other hand, in Kabbalah, I demand independence, instead of self-cancellation. I want to find the beginning of my “I.” In this search, in this rational and logical evaluation, I discover that in reality, I do not exist. I did not make the decision about being born in this world, I did not chose my qualities, my genetics, my parents, my country, or my environment. I was reared and educated by already formed systems and institutions such as kindergarten, school, mass media, and so forth. Who am I after all this? I am a piece of dough baked in a common oven into a regular loaf of bread.

When I see this, a question arises in me: Is this what life is? What does it give me besides never-ending concerns, a constant flight from suffering, and brief moments of pleasure? This is the realization of evil: I begin to think about the essence of what is happening, about my journey and its end, and I understand that I do not exist. There is only a machine that I neither launch nor control. When there is an algorithm conflict in the computer, it gives an error message. I too respond to problems, albeit in a sensory way. The pressure jumps somewhere, and I feel pain. That’s all it is to it.

In this case, I simply have no reason to live. Many people come to this conclusion. The only thing that holds them back is an instinctive fear of death, and even that does not always work.

This is where I begin the search for true freedom, my true essence. The path to it lies through becoming like the Creator, not in worshiping and canceling yourself before Him, but actually becoming like Him. I must grow and become more like Him. Absolute independence and freedom is inherent of the Creator. There is none else besides Him in all of nature. I can grow according to the same principle when there is no one else besides me in all of nature.

This is the Kabbalistic method. We search for freedom and independence. The most painful thing is the fact that I do not exist. Where can I find my “I?”  This pursuit of my own “I” is my entire life. I want greater self-expression. I want to rule over everyone and receive. What is all this for? It is for my “I” to form and grow. Here, Kabbalah explains that to acquire your “I” means to acquire the qualities of the Creator, in other words, to acquire freedom.

Question: So how can I find my “I” without free will?

Answer: The initial point of my “I” manifests itself through questions about the meaning and essence of life. A person who comes to Kabbalah already has this point of choice, a point in the heart, a spark, the other side of the middle line, the reverse side of freedom, the feeling of emptiness and lack.

I have no freedom, and this is why I ask questions about the meaning of life. This is exactly what I lack. I do not care about life itself; I need to find my “I.”
[63025]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/2011, “The Freedom”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Inner Work, Q&A, Religion - 1 Comment →