Good Environment – 09.04.11
Posted on September 4th, 2011
Question: In our world it is customary to lower yourself before a person you deem important. Why is it so difficult to lower yourself in the spiritual world?
Answer: In our world we lower ourselves before an important person because by doing so, we profit. Our egoism always carries out actions that are profitable for it. If a person is influential, powerful, and wealthy, then it’s worthwhile for me to lower myself before him and to be next to him, to serve him, because I know that usually a small person receives from a big one, and I expect to receive something as well.
That is how we usually act in this world. And if we don’t act that way, then we receive blows that make us learn this principle. Suppose I don’t want to listen to what a policeman says to me. Then I receive a fine or get called to court where I receive a punishment. So next time I will listen. That is, in our world it is egoistically profitable to listen to a powerful person, and if I don’t understand this, then life will teach me with blows.
However, this does not work in relation to the Creator because He is concealed! After all, if His quality of bestowal became revealed to you, then you would run after Him like a thief who runs ahead of the crowd, yelling, “Catch the thief!” It would seem that you love the Creator from the bottom of your heart because you can receive so much from Him. Who wouldn’t want to cleave to this force, which controls the whole world? It’s clear that this is what every person does.
That is why the Creator cannot become revealed to us as great, mighty, and generous. He can only become revealed as an example of the quality of bestowal, which we have to acquire on our own. But then you won’t want Him and will run away from Him. That is why He cannot become revealed to you—not from the good side nor from the bad, not from the side of fulfillment, nor from the side of intention.
The only thing that remains for us is to work with the environment. The Creator gives us a small desire for bestowal, but everything else has to be revealed by us in the environment that inspires us to bestow, to build our desire for the upper force. We receive help and awakening from above only to the extent of our exertion in the studies, the environment, and dissemination.
It’s impossible to advance in any other way. Otherwise we would chase Him, wishing to swallow Him up, or would run away from His quality of bestowal, being scared of the possibility of becoming that way ourselves.
[53599]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/11, Shamati
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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled),” Item 217: The meaning of the book of Torah on this day. It is written, “And they read in the book, the Law [Heb: Torah] of God, distinctly, and they sensed and understood the reading.”
The secret of the book of Torah becomes revealed only between us. If we manage to create a space between us, which on one hand will be determined by the level of hate between us, separating us from each other, and on the other hand above the hatred, will create a connection between us, the hatred will give us the power of resistance, “a resistor,” while the connection between us will provide us with the current to operate this resistor.
Then, the work becomes revealed based on the current running through the resistor: We can operate an engine, heat or cool it down—anything can be done. These two opposite forces can benefit us when each one acts against the other.
Everything depends on the type of resistance that becomes revealed. The ego is constantly exploding, showing many opposite forms, detachment, hate, and the rejection between us. We want to remain in the same connection and love, but since our ego is constantly changing, our relationships also experience transformations.
The Light is at absolute rest, but our desire to receive pleasure is constantly changing, manifesting itself in various forms without any break. Therefore, we are constantly revealing new states called Partzufim. Thus, if we want to reveal the secrets of The Book of Zohar or the book of the Torah, they are only revealed in the connection between us.
[53175]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/2011, The Zohar
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Question: What is “Truth and Faith”?
Answer: Truth is a fair reward and punishment, when I work and receive what I’m entitled to for my work.
However, we see that life is not always arranged according to this principle. And a person who works more than everybody else does not necessarily receive more than everybody else. If that was the case, the world would be relatively straightforward.
But in order to pull us out of this egoistic straightforwardness, the Creator makes His additions and greatly confuses us. Thus, we see that a fair, true calculation does not always transpire, and there is a place for faith, meaning hope for good luck or some upper help beyond one’s understanding.
Faith destroys the principle of fair truth. This is why people get so confused in this world and hope for a miracle, a blessing, or a miraculous cure. The same confusion exists on the spiritual path as well: On one hand, everything is given to the measure of one’s effort, but on the other, everything depends on luck.
A person should work in order to join these two principles into one. It is written: “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named, but sacrifice him.” Meaning on one hand, you will see him giving birth to your “grandchildren,” all the new successors up to the end of correction, but on the other, he needs to be annihilated. How is that possible?
It is not clear to us now, but it constitutes the very first principle of entering the spiritual world, which Abraham had to adopt according to this story. A person corrects his vision in such a way that for the first time he is able to join two opposites into one.
It means that he ascended to the first degree and mastered a spiritual principle according to which two opposites merge into one whole. And now, he understands how to work with reason and faith above reason simultaneously—with hatred, the sins of which are covered by love.
If a person begins to grasp this principle and takes it into account in his or her work, even without having realized it yet, he will no longer experience difficult obstacles that push him backwards. He feels that these obstacles in particular are meant to advance him and sees that all these contradictions are an opportunity for him to ascend. And then he rises.
On the contrary: “Man’s pride shall bring him low.” If he does not accept this condition and is not willing to join two opposites into one, this becomes an impassable obstacle. That’s why he gets off the track and leaves the path.
Therefore, it is important to direct oneself correctly: straight to the world of Infinity, understanding that the difference between this world and the next one is in our ability to join two poles into one. That sets us a direction, just like taking an aim.
This principle is expressed in various ways: “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one”; ascents and descents that have to become one whole; the group and I should work together so that I invest into it at the time of ascent and receive from it at the time of descent, meaning so that the group serves as my electrical current “rectifier.”
The main conclusion that follows from it with respect to this world is that we must not destroy a single quality either in ourselves or in the world. We need to bring them all to correction and combine them into one—to rise above them by uniting with the Creator.
We won’t be able to establish a good life and a fair society in our world if we don’t unite among ourselves as equals. Meaning, everyone will work for the benefit of society to the extent of his or her ability and receive according to his or her needs.
But we can fulfill this condition only if we aspire to it for the purpose of uniting with the Creator, meaning for the sake of the quality of love and bestowal that unites our opposite properties into one, infinitely perfect state.
[52315]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/2011, Shamati #43
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Everybody knows that habit becomes second nature. Let’s say I want to learn some craft and offer myself as an apprentice to a turner or a carpenter. I’m not familiar with the material yet, and I am gradually taught how to work with it. That is, I acquire skills (habits) in the work and start to feel the material: How it behaves in response to what I’m doing with it and how best to work with it.
With the experience, I get an additional feeling from the material I touch. It is when we say that habit becomes my second nature. And the things that were previously unfamiliar, incomprehensible, imperceptible, and indistinguishable to me, I start to feel and recognize better. I even discern the details that I previously did not pay attention to at all and which escaped me.
Clearly, nothing happens without a cause, so why does habit suddenly become my nature? There is always the Light that is working on our matter, our desire to enjoy. According to man’s aspiration, his desire to reach a certain state, the Light works on him and brings him closer to this state, enabling him to understand and feel it.
This is how we have developed throughout our evolution for thousands of years: All due to the habits that were part of our nature. The Light stood behind our every desire and helped to implement it. Desire attracts the Light, man evolves thereby, and in this way we grow.
We see how many times a little child repeats the same action, until he or she finally gets used to it (learns) and stops. Young children seem to do such silly things, but for them it is absolutely necessary, and it is nature that pushes them to it because this is how they are supposed to grow.
We, too, constantly grow on the contrast of opposing states, the ups and downs, a feeling of deficiency and its fulfillment. Such is the path.
We find it hard to believe that even now we are in the world of Infinity! But with the help of the ups and downs that we undergo, we begin to gradually get used to this idea. After all, we see that the world appears as it is depending on which eyes we look at it with. When I wake up in the morning in a good mood, it seems to me that all is well and the whole world is good. And if something spoils my mood, the world immediately turns bad.
And yet at the same time, our properties don’t change; it’s only their balance that shifts slightly. If we start changing our properties, then, as Kabbalists say, we see very different worlds, a different reality.
Everything depends on a person attaining it. But reality itself is the same Light of Infinity, and you see what you can currently draw for yourself on its background. This defines your world: a degree of concealment of the Light of Infinity, in which you’re currently present according to your properties. So, if we want to be similar to this Light and bestow as it does, we can draw the Light that Reforms that will correct us and transform our desire to enjoy. And it will want to exist in the form of bestowal.
These actions will become our habit. But this habit always opposes our desire and requires effort until we will reveal in ourselves such properties in which we will experience the form of bestowal, the form of the Creator. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
Everything happens by virtue of habit that becomes second nature. We train ourselves to arouse in ourselves desire with the help the environment and the studies in order to come closer to bestowal from a state very distant from it.
[51881]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/2011, Shamati #7
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Question: If I have fallen down, what do I need to do in order to move forward?
Answer: When you have fallen, you are first of all sorry about it, and you want to come out of the fallen state, to rise above your nature, which you can no longer bear. You are even justifying this fall and you understand that “There is none else but the Creator.”
And then, gradually, you forget about this and you return to your usual state, thinking that there is nothing scary about that and that all kinds of things happen. And so it goes on until the next blow.
How many blows like this will be needed depends on the extent to which you connect your mind to it and work on your falls with the help of the group. The group must become your store-room, accumulating the whole of your mind at the time when you are completely under the control of your feelings, in order to balance it.
And on the contrary, when you fall under the control of the cold, dry reason, and when you do not even know how to awaken feelings inside of yourself in order to be inspired by spirituality, then you receive the impression in terms of feelings from the group.
But you will never be able to possess both, the feeling and the mind. That is why the connection to the group is so necessary for us; it can compensate for the lacking opposite and in a way connect both of them. Under the condition that you lower yourself in front of the group and are ready to accept its sorrow. Then you can connect the heart and the mind inside of yourself somehow.
Although, in reality, they do not really connect, because you are not yet really connecting to the group, but still it influences you from afar. And this indirect “surrounding” influence allows you to somehow connect the two opposites inside of yourself. And this is already helping you to understand a little bit about what the spiritual is and what the connection of these two poles means, when you feel and understand the spiritual simultaneously at the same one place.
This is an absolutely special feeling, in which there is understanding. Such things are almost non-existent in our world.
[52735]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/11, Shamati
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We are always at the mercy of the Creator, and He fills us, causing us to feel either Him or His opposite. This feeling may be vested in a variety of different images, but in fact, there are only two states.
If a person tries to remain in this assessment of the Creator continuously, while being aware that he is working only against Him, it saves time. Then one understands that during the ascents and descents, during the times when he praises or criticizes the Creator, loves or accuses Him, that all the while he is in the hands of the upper force that either knocks him off the path or assists him on it.
This is considered a success or a transgression only in terms of a person’s point of view. And for the Creator, everything is holy because it is necessary for the clarification of the properties of bestowal, and there is nothing wrong in the process a person undergoes.
But still, you should try to get things clarified swiftly and soundly. You need to play against the Creator the same way He plays with you, to neutralize this game. The Creator raises or lowers you, but you should use the environment so as to soften the ups and downs by giving and then receiving from it.
Amid these ups and downs, you should employ the environment to find some kind of intermediate, stable state for yourself that wouldn’t change. That is, use the environment as a regulator, a spring, a power generator, which helps you maintain balance during an ascent and descent. You use the environment to transfuse from one state into another, the strength, intentions, and desires, when you are at rock bottom or at the greatest height.
Thus, the environment will work like a rectifier of alternating current, and all your ups and downs will come in one state: the revelation of the Creator as one force.
[52296]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/2011, Shamati #62
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