Entries in the 'Inner Work' Category

Feeling Responsible For All Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe first correction of the will to receive is to bestow in order to bestow. This means that I restrict the use of my desire due to its egoistic nature (for my “self”), unwilling to inflict harm to others, as it is said: “That which you hate, do not do to another.” But even this restriction of using my egoistic desire contains a correction since I don’t just halt myself from doing evil deeds. If I get a chance to steal and not be caught, what will stop me?

Correction implies that I not only unplug from all my desires as if they don’t exist, but I go further. I must experience in my feelings how much I harm another person and how much he will suffer. This sensation of suffering has to stop me from stealing, as I am told: “That which you hate, do not do to another!”

I absorb the desires of another. At first, my awareness of the evil inclination seems to keep my hands tied so that I can’t steal. But after that, it releases me and gives me an infinite opportunity to steal everything that belongs to others and even the Creator! You are allowed to do anything, without any consequences!

Yet, I start experiencing the “Shechina’s suffering” or the pain of others as if I have stolen something, deprived or killed someone. I feel the pain of the others within myself as if I am the cause of it. In relation to them, I am like the Creator who created the evil inclination. That is how we become connected. I become like Bina, a mother who feels all the desires of her children and the evil she is imposing if she isn’t taking care of them. But at the same time, she is aware of how much good she can do them if she is nurturing.

Then, the second stage of correction becomes revealed to us: How we can bestow to the others. In this phase, a person is already able to serve as a conduit between the world and the Creator. He feels that only he may channel fulfillment to them and that his crime is not in stealing but in the fact that he is not fulfilling their desires. This is what is actually called love of others as we love ourselves.

A person has to experience these two stages of correction himself: “That which you hate, do not do to another” and “Love thy neighbor as you love thyself.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Developing A Human Being Within Ourselves

Dr. Michael Laitman“Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the sentence that determines the whole principle of the connection between desire and the Light, the correction of the common soul. In order for the creature to be able to reach equivalence to the Creator, the Creator is forced to first break the creature and bring it to hatred, to a state that is opposite to Him.

Achieving a state that is opposite to the Creator is only possible by creating a creature that is similar to Him and then changing this state to the opposite so that an imperfect form would arise from a perfect one. Thereby, the creature is presented with an opportunity to reach equivalence to the Creator on its own from an imperfect state by scrutinizing its own qualities and those of the Creator: What does it mean to be perfect and how does one reach this perfection.

The creature is searching for a solution, and in this manner it achieves the Creator’s state. In the process it obtains freedom to decide by choosing equivalence as the only perfect state. It is impossible to understand how one can be free from one’s nature. However, under the influence of the Light, which is opposite to our nature, a neutral space is created in our desire, which is absent even in the Creator. And precisely that which will develop in this neutral space will be called the created being.

We ourselves build this creature, the human being, “Adam,” which means “similar” to the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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The Union Of Hearts Is The Union Of Bina And Malchut

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the “union of hearts” between the friends in the group mean?

Answer: From the wisdom of Kabbalah, we know that the breaking occurred to enable the correction of Malchut. Unless Malchut incorporates the desires of bestowal (the Kelim of Bina), it’s impossible to correct it. Malchut is gradually being corrected through the mutual penetration of Malchut and Bina, with the exception being its basis, “the stony heart (Lev Ha Even),” which becomes corrected last.

We correct Malchut through incorporating the properties of bestowal, Bina, into the properties of reception, Malchut. In souls, this happens through their mutual penetration until all the souls completely intermix and become corrected through the others (Israel vs. the nations of the world within each person).

Our corrections can only occur by incorporating ourselves into one another. To correct oneself means to correct your mutual incorporation with all the other parts of the common soul. The basis of correction lies only in the correction of the broken connection between us. Everything results from this: the entire group charter and the laws that we need to aspire to fulfill by following the advice of the Kabbalists that are based on their understanding of the Upper World.

All of this comes from the correction of the Kelim which need to be included in one another. This is attained through the effort to connect by attracting the Light which corrects the mutual incorporation.

All the recommendations of the Kabbalists described in their books come from the laws that define the nature of the breaking, correction, and the perfect state. When they speak about it, they say, “Unite, hold gatherings of friends, raise your friends’ spirits.” However, we need to understand that this comes from the need to become incorporated in one another in order to jointly attract the Surrounding Light that will correct the connection between us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, The Zohar

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A Paradox Of Giving

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person has to aspire to fulfill himself by pleasing others rather than by pleasing himself. I fulfill you, feel your desire and how it’s getting filled, and thus get pleased myself. I become filled by sensing your satisfaction, which is why I strive to please you as much as possible, like a mother who is happy because she fed her child.

I am not willing to fill myself directly, only through my neighbor. It is not about how much food my corporeal body has consumed; it’s about the fulfillment of my soul. My soul becomes happy when I satisfy others, when I fill the Creator. Then I become similar to Him since He enjoys delighting us. If we are incapable of accepting pleasure that emanates from Him, we make Him experience the affliction of Shechina.

The Creator feels pleasure from our fulfillment; all we can do is “allow” Him to delight us. We have to reach a state at which this is all we wish for.

This appears to be a paradox: How is it possible “to get fulfilled by giving”? And this is what love is for: to connect all of us together. If there is no love between us, we just cannot be pleased from bestowal. I have to sense my neighbor’s desires as more important than my own.

For a mother, her baby’s sensations are much more essential than her own. A mother feels her child’s pain from within. This is natural love. We have to attain the same type of love with the help of the Light by allowing it to correct us. As a result, we will have the same desire as the Creator and will attain spirituality.

Imagine that you have billions of babies and you are in possession of something that can fulfill them since you have access to a channel of unlimited Light. What bliss you will experience while sensing desires of other people and their fulfillment as your own! You will fulfill yourself 620 times stronger since you managed to build love above hatred.

By fulfilling them, you feel 620 “ounces” of joy instead of the 1 “ounce” that each of them received. I connect their souls to myself and sense them as if they are my own.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Freedom From The Angel Of Death

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen I develop my point in the heart into a whole spiritual vessel, within it, I begin to sense the concealed part of reality. That is when I begin to truly identify myself with this newly revealed part of the universe. I feel that I live in this new dimension and receive a greater impression from it than from the corporeal world.

I begin to perceive sensations in my spiritual body, the soul, much more strongly than corporeal sensations (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch). And even if my body dies, I do not feel it as a loss for I now sense a much more powerful reality, one that is eternal and perfect.

This is what we must come to. This is why it is said that the Torah “frees from the angel of death.” To the degree that we rise above our “undertaker” (our egoistic desire), we free ourselves from the very notion of corporeal death.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, Kabbalah Learning Approach

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Everyone Has To Cultivate His Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah deals with the correction of the soul. Everyone has a soul, but a hidden one. It is the desire to know the purpose of life. When this desire awakens enough so as to lead a person to the place of studying Kabbalah, it means that the soul has started to unfold. Such an individual feels the need of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Otherwise, he will not be able to cultivate his soul, and it will remain a mere point, which will trigger the pressure of the driving forces experienced as suffering.

The purpose of our life is to discover and develop our soul in order to establish a connection with the Creator. Hence, it doesn’t matter what natural capacities a person possesses. Some gravitate toward sciences, others to culture and education; one needs a primitive mechanical job, and another philosophy.

There are lazy, agile, and smart individuals. But there is absolutely no connection between all these corporeal characteristics and the development of the soul. Kabbalah says: “Not the wise one learns.” I myself value knowledge and a scientific approach, but I have seen how it can tangle a person. Therefore, there are no restrictions; the key is the desire!

Only the point in the heart matters, which is nurtured by the force of the Light and is not one of the corporeal properties of man. There is absolutely no relation between natural capacities, habits, education, or success in correcting one’s soul.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, Kabbalah Learning Approach

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About Love And Hate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to “love your neighbor as yourself"? What do I actually have to do?

Answer: Loving your neighbor as yourself means that our entire world (the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, as well as humanity) and our entire universe become an integral part of you, "as one man with one heart." You connect everything to yourself and perceive it as your "self." Otherwise, you don’t exist!

Our egoism separates us, but above it we must receive a force from Above, the desire and ability to feel every person as myself and even more than that. I have to feel that this is all me. However, this "me" is not an egoistic feeling because the hatred between us remains and even grows. I unite with others precisely above this hatred, and in that case they are called my "neighbors," or the people close to me.

A "neighbor" is a person whom I hate, but at the same time I "love him as myself." "Love will cover all sins" means that the previous hatred remains, but love is added above it.

In our world everything is driven by one egoistic desire, whether in reception or bestowal. In the spiritual world, however, we find ourselves between two opposite forces: bestowal and reception. Egoism grows, but the quality of bestowal emerges parallel to it. These two qualities enable me to reach the sensation that I am standing before a mountain of hatred (Mount Sinai, which comes from the word Sinah – hatred). However, prior to that I have to go through "Egypt" – the slavery of egoism, the Pharaoh. I have to come to hate it and then run away from it, searching for the force to correct it.

When I stand at the foot of the mountain of hatred toward my neighbor, I have to say whether I really am ready to unite with others, to love them above my hatred, and to become as one man with one heart. If I have gone through all the blows and plagues of egoism (Pharaoh) and I feel that I have suffered sufficiently, then I agree to it! That’s because I hate my egoism even more than I hate my neighbor.

I agree, thinking that this will enable me to reveal the Creator. Eventually, however, I understand that love and bestowal to my neighbor is what fulfills me. I no longer demand anything but this. This action in itself fulfills me, and that is how I become equal to the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Inseparable Opposites

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What enables the middle line to combine the right and left lines?

Answer: Essentially, the right and left lines are diametrically opposite to one another. The right line is absolute bestowal, and it does not know nor does it want to know what reception is. While the left line is the receiving Kelim (vessels) which do not understand what it is to bestow.

But any one of our desires, impressions, or thoughts necessarily consists of a combination of Bina (the bestowing desires) and Malchut (the receiving desires). They can only be separated through the power of the Light, when I "suppress" one in relation to the other. Also, the right and the left lines both have their own three lines. We are incapable of separating a thing in its pure form.

The breaking soldered them together for eternity by the Light of the highest power. It fused them together to the depth of their core so that not a single detail or particle was left without containing both elements in it. For this reason, in reality, the right line is the bestowing Kelim which work on the receiving Kelim, and at the same time, in the left line, the bestowing Kelim hide beneath the receiving Kelim. Once I attain the middle line, I acquire the Kelim which have both these properties combined in them.

The interconnection that I attach to the middle line is the force of the Upper Light or, to be more precise, it is the force of the Creator, the Thought of Creation that has preordained and evoked the breaking. This way, by beginning to combine the two lines into one, I use the force of the Creator Himself.

I plan and intend to reveal Him specifically, and the middle line connects me to Him, the Source of the breaking. In the middle line I attain the reason behind the breaking and the Creator’s intention. By rising above nature, I merge with the One who exists above it. This way, the Creator conceals himself in the middle line, and I touch Him due to its uniting force. This is where the meeting point of the Creator and the creature is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “What is Silver, Gold, Israel, the Nations in Work”

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The Order Of Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanBy acting upon us, the Light divides within us the receiving and bestowing desires, and we start feeling rejection between them. It becomes clear that the bestowing desires gravitate to a different perception and fulfillment from those of the receiving desires.

Each of us possesses desires of both kinds, and the question is which of them prevail. In the souls regarded as “Israel,” the bestowing desires, GE (Galgalta Eynaim), rule over AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh), whereas in the souls of the “nations of the world,” the receiving desires, AHP, rule over GE.

The first type of souls is closer to the Light which illuminates them with Ohr Makif (OM) and causes them to undergo corrections first. Until “Israel” corrects itself, it is impossible to begin correction of the “nations of the world.” First, “Israel” corrects itself in GE (the right line), then adjoins AHP (the left line) to it, and finally builds the middle line from them, thus correcting the “nations of the world” within itself. As a result, “Israel” is able to continue the correction of the collective group, the “nations of the world,” since its corrected Kelim (vessels) are connected with the uncorrected Kelim of the rest of the souls waiting in line.

Work in the two lines with the receiving and bestowing Kelim, in their correct combination creates the middle line. Such are the steps of our correction in both parts of the collective soul. Furthermore, major corrections take place in AHP or the receiving Kelim of the “nations of the world” whereas GE that initially descended from Bina exist in AHP solely in order to correct it.

Hence, all our corrections that precede the correction of the “nations of the world” in the collective soul are merely a preparation.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “What is Silver, Gold, Israel, the Nations in Work”

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Correction Begins With "Babylon"

Dr. Michael LaitmanCreation is generally referred to as “Babylon.” It was created out of desire which has developed through the four phases of Light, the descent through the worlds, and the birth and the breaking of the structure of Adam in the course of which the desires to receive and bestow have mixed so that each desire contains parts of all the others.

Afterward, the Light shines upon this broken state, and the broken desires begin to awaken from the still level to the vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature. But along with the subsequent development of egoism in people, 5770 years ago, the desire to bestow appeared in one person, Adam. This initiates the process of correction, and for this reason time is counted from Adam.

Twenty generations then evolved in preparation of mutual correction. The first manifestation of the complete breaking is referred to as “Babylon.” From that time on, thousands of people have followed the path of Adam in the revelation of the Creator, and this is why they were called “man,” “the son of Adam” (Ben Adam).

The Light continues to pour on all of the broken desires, and its influence evokes in them the manifestation of the broken desires to bestow, it causes them discomfort. Man instinctively begins searching, hoping to fulfill his desire. He wants to reveal his true state and find the reason for the breaking of the properties to receive and bestow. This is what leads him to the revelation of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “What is Silver, Gold, Israel, the Nations in Work”

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