Entries in the 'Inner Work' Category

Wild Humans And Peaceful Animals

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why were Adam’s sin and his breaking necessary? What was so special about it that the Light couldn’t have created in the creature directly?

Answer: The Light couldn’t supply the creature with the Creator’s status or the awareness of “who I am” as it is impossible to pass this on from one to the other. The sin with the Tree of Knowledge is a unique condition where pleasure overpowers shame. At every spiritual degree, state, and decision, bestowal is placed before reception. This is why all these worlds are called holy. But not so in this case; here reception comes first!

“I ate [from the Tree of Knowledge] and will eat more” implies that I am not able to resist this pleasure. I am going to receive pleasure for myself; I don’t care what happens next. Moreover, I don’t care one bit what happens to the Giver.

I can’t resist. The Serpent rising within man unfolds an abyss of unfulfilled desire that constitutes the difference between an animal and a human. Before the sin, Adam and Eve existed at the animate degree. Afterward, they became “savage humans.” Even if sinful, they nevertheless are humans.

Without this, the entire creation makes no sense since the initial plan was conceived as making man equivalent to the Creator. The force that advances creation lies in the revelation of this shame, the gap between the Creator and the creature.

At the still, vegetative, and animate degrees, the creature isn’t separated from the Creator; it follows all His orders and doesn’t oppose Him with any desire. However, in this new desire that unfolds today, in this new emptiness, the creature feels that it opposes the Creator, and that the former is the guest and the latter is the Host.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Who Are You, Adam?

Dr. Michael LaitmanAdam is the collective soul created by the Creator as the inner part in the external part: the spiritual world. Uncovering the AHP, the egoistic desires, led to the fall of the initial state of the soul, GE, as it received for self-gratification.

It resulted in the breaking of the soul, after which every one of us carries its part that needs to be connected with all the others in yearning for “loving others as I love myself.” It is done in the group, the common attribute of bestowal.

Adam was the name of the first man who, 5770 years ago, attained the Creator, the collective property of bestowal (it was the reason behind the emerging year of the Jewish calendar). Following him, all the rest of us have to also attain the Creator within 6000 years.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Eternal Life Has Been Divided Into Tiny Drops

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”: Now we can understand the severity of the punishment of the Tree of Knowledge, for which all people are put to death. This death extends from eating it, as the Creator had warned him, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

… Hence, that eternal breath of life, expressed in the verse, “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” had to leave there and depend on a slice of bread for its transient sustenance.

This life is not an eternal life as before, when it was for himself. It is rather similar to a sweat of life, a life that has been divided into tiny drops, where each drop is a fragment of his previous life. And this is the meaning of the sparks of souls that were spread throughout his progeny. Thus, in all his progeny, all the people in the world in all the generations, through the last generation, which concludes the purpose of creation, are one long chain.

Obviously, it is not talking about the ordinary life and death of a person in this world. It is speaking about life cycles of the desire to receive pleasure. Each time it is revealed in us anew, and we correct it further. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah calls “a new life cycle.” However, if we live an ordinary “animal” life, we do not correct anything and do not go through “life cycles.”

Due to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, a new and enormous void became revealed called shame. This is what we need to correct, but it requires a lot of life cycles. If a person changes, the entire world changes together with him. And if the person does not change, the world cannot change either.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Let The Light Come In!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do the Reshimot (spiritual information data) get realized?

Answer: All Reshimot are sorted by the Upper Light (the Light of AB-SAG). Imagine what kind of work it is to sort out all the Reshimot that remained after the collective Malchut broke while wishing to perform full correction (Gmar Tikkun).

Malchut of Infinity performed a “Zivug” (adhesion, merger) with the Light of the End of Correction in its full volume created by the Creator, in its entire phase Dalet (4/4). And all of it broke into the tiniest fragments. There is no property, Sefira or its sub-Sefira, that would remain linked with the other. They hate each other.

What an infinite multitude of various properties are now in the Rosh de SAG from the multiplication of these Lights that rose to it after the breaking! It is impossible to count and imagine it. The Light of the End of Correction is against the Kli (the will to receive, desire) at the End of Correction, and instead of unification, there is hatred between them. And this entire Kli is completely broken, fallen apart into fragments.

And now, Rosh de SAG has to sort the Kli broken in all its individual Sefirot: what to collect from it in order to make the first Partzuf, at least somewhat corrected, under the Second Restriction and various limitations. What an enormous and complex job it is!

On the other hand, when the Upper Light comes in, it illuminates this entire multitude of breakings, the Reshimot, and they immediately line up in its light with each of them taking its correct place. The Light organizes them, illuminating who gives more and who gives less; and in this light, they all get aligned in a straight line at once.

Then, from the countless multitude of these forms, SAG selects the correct forms and puts them in order. But how does it pick them out? This work, still done by the Upper Light that illuminates Reshimot from Above, most wondrously discerns what is right and what is not, according to what property, in which direction, and in what way to align them along the three lines, from Above downward, with the screens so that all of them are mutually connected.

The Light collects the broken parts into the first drop of semen, which is the beginning of an embryo. It contains everything but the work that must be added. Yet all sorting is done by the Light. And then, the lower one is able to work. As to the discernment, the lower one can never accomplish that.

Therefore, if we wish to discern something, sort it out, and unite with each other in our world, we will never be able to do so. Nothing and never! We need the Upper Light to connect all separated parts since we, too, remain in the broken world. Meanwhile, we wish to organize, restore, and revive it ourselves… What a foolish endeavor!
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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It’s Not Easy To Agree With The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we feel that the Light is working on us, by sorting the Reshimot in us?

Answer: In order to achieve a state where the Light sorts out our Reshimot (spiritual information data), a person must be ready for it. In reality, I do not discern my Reshimot; the Light does. It isn’t I who decides, but the latter. I am willing to accept its decision and ask the Light to do it for me. This occurs as a result of the most powerful breaking.

We have to undergo the breaking in order to agree with everything that the Upper One discerns in us for our own good.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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A Trip Into The Past

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is Reshimo (reminiscence)?

Answer: A Reshimo is what has already happened, a previous spiritual state, since nothing disappears in spirituality. The previous states that emerge in every detail but don’t manifest in life due to the lack of the screen which serves as the means of their realization are called “Reshimot.”

Suppose yesterday I was in some state, and today I am reliving it. In spirituality, this state emerges in me in its every minute detail, as if I am living it right now. It is totally, 100% clear to me what is occurring, and nothing is lost; I simply cannot realize it due to lack of the screen. This is called “Reshimo.”

It is not a recollection of the past as in the corporeal world when I remember something “vaguely.” A Reshimo is when I don’t doubt anything; everything is revealed as in the present except for its realization.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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1 + 1 = 3 (The Creator Between Us)

Dr. Michael LaitmanYou need to get used to the fact that if you begin to scrutinize anything, you always find two opposing attributes inside that, nevertheless, are united. It’s a kind of “splitting.”

If you’re working with an egoistic desire, then everything works out nicely: 1 + 1 = 2. But if you combine the desire to receive with the intention to bestow, they are opposite and cannot unite. In other words, 1 + 1= 3! The third is the Creator. You have to get used to that paradox and accept it as natural; it’s a norm for us.

We are witnesses to such a “paradox” in human society. On the one hand, everyone does everything possible to separate himself from the others, but on the other, people are looking for contact with each other.

It has turned into a mania. There was a case where an entire mobile communication system broke down, people were left without cellular phones, and they just started going crazy. How can it be that everyone wants to be alone, and on the other hand, can’t do without communication with other people?

The fact is that a person wants to be alone for a short while, so that no one will interfere. But together with that people tend to live together: in one big city, in one mass culture. They tend to imitate each other and to do everything the same way as the others. Therefore, one does not negate the other.

A person needs his corner where he can hide, like a bee each in its personal cell. But as soon as one receives such “independence,” he has to feel that he exists among everybody else.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress

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The Creator Will Preserve Both Man And Beast

Dr. Michael LaitmanNature won’t be saved by all our attempts to preserve and improve the environment. Only the Light that Reforms can help since it’s the force which we are lacking to balance the human in each of us and bring him back to harmony with Nature which is called Elokim, the Creator.

The very same force which will come to make us equal to the Creator will bring to balance the still, vegetative, and animate parts within us. We will begin to use nature correctly, only as much as necessary, because we will feel that we don’t need more.

My animal body will feel as an animal should; the human in me will feel the way a human should be feeling. The sages say, “Man and beast Thou preserves, O Lord.” He will save both, not me.

I don’t know what material actions will follow. Maybe we’ll burn more trees, who knows? We just need to let the Light that Reforms work, use it as a means. After all, it comes from the upper level and will bring to balance all parts of nature, organizing them in its likeness.

Don’t try to judge all that in your mind. Just let the Upper Force do its job, invite it, and wish for it to do it. After all, how can we know what a corrected world should look like?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, “Peace in the World” 

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The Protective Shield Of A Person

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Beit Shaar HaKavanot (The Gateway of Intentions), Item 87: Sefira Keter with the Light of Nefesh is called the state of Ibur [embryo] of each degree, which has not yet scrutinized its “body” and is wholly located in the Klipat Noga, where the good is mixed with the evil.

Only the root is corrected in it for now, not the body itself, and that is why the entire body is called the “skin” for now. But when it reaches the state of Yenika [breastfeeding] and receives Kli de Hochma, into which the Light of Ruach clothes itself, it then receives the “body.”

In the state of “embryo” (Ibur), the good is mixed with the evil, and we do not know how to differentiate it. However, in the state of “breastfeeding” (Yenika, drawing of sustenance), we are already beginning to distinguish between the good and evil and to use the good desires. Due to our clarifications, we grow, and that is why this state is called “breastfeeding.”

It is not a material infant who is born and changes his place, coming out of the mother to the outside. A spiritual “embryo” and an “infant” that receives sustenance are different kinds of connection between the upper one and the lower one.

If I cannot scrutinize anything by myself and the upper one does it for me, then this state is called an “embryo.” If I participate in the clarifications myself and differentiate the good from evil, using the good, then this is “breastfeeding.”

If I clarify the Klipat Noga (the Noga shell) so as to make a “shield” out of it from the three impure Klipot (shells), turning the selected evil into the “skin” that protects me, then I can begin to build myself, choosing from the mixture of good and bad desires.

This is a special mixture since in it the qualities of the Creator and the creature are intermixed. It is precisely out of this that I have to build something new: an independent man (Adam, meaning “similar” to the Creator).
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Where Everything Is Dark And Confusing

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Beit Shaar HaKavanot (The Gateway of Intentions), Item 87: And know that the complete evil that becomes clarified, in which there is nothing good [It is the scrutiny of the three external Klipot (shells) which will only be corrected at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun)], but the fourth Klipa is not fully clarified, and that is why it stays in the form of “garment” and “skin.”

This means that there is something good in it, but it is not yet scrutinized, and that is why it is called Klipa (shell). However, still, it is not a Klipa like the three impure Klipot which clearly carry no good in them, and hence, we cannot correct them until the final correction.

However, we can scrutinize the fourth Klipa, Klipat Noga, and we need to work with it. It is the broken Kelim (vessels) that fell into the worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, Assiya) where good and evil are mixed together. We are clarifying them in particular in the Klipat Noga called the middle third of the Sefira Tifferet.

This is the only place of our freedom of will. Above it, there is sanctity; there is nothing to scrutinize there. Below, there is complete impurity, the Klipa; there is nothing to sort out there either. We can only work in the Klipat Noga where there is still a mixture of good and evil.

It turns out that it is precisely the place where we have to constantly reside: the place of confusion and doubt, where everything is mixed, unclear, and dark. This is where we make clarifications; it is precisely the place of our work.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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