Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

A Plane Ticket To The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the power of The Zohar if, for now, we don’t understand anything in it?

Answer: The power of The Book of Zohar doesn’t depend upon how much we understand. It depends upon the author: the level from which he wrote it, the strength of his intention that the reading of this book would radiate a special Light on us, and the extent to which we can use this Light. But it has nothing to do with understanding the book. You don’t have to understand anything.

If I have to get to a certain place now, I choose the best and most convenient means of transportation that can bring me to that place. It may be a train, a plane, a car, or a camel. What difference does it make? The main thing is that I will feel good and comfortable.

The Book of Zohar is the best, most convenient, most effective, and the strongest means for those who wish to advance. I am told how to operate it. After all, I don’t know how a plane’s engine operates. I simply buy a ticket and fly.

It is the same here. When I reach my destination, and even on the way, I begin to understand what is going on, but not before. For example, if fly to New York for the first time, do I know what New York is like? Where it is? Nothing! I only heard about it, but I don’t know anything. I use some means of transportation that gets me there. I believe the people who know, who have already been there, and who have discovered and attained this means. I enter it, I reach my destination, and then I realize: “Ah! Now I understand…!”

The principle is the same, there is no difference. Even in our world, when it comes to corporeal things that are totally revealed and can be felt, we act the same way. So why do you expect to find in spirituality what we don’t have even in this world?
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, The Zohar

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Questions About Learning Hebrew And Egoism

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I’m Roman Catholic, and I’m currently teaching myself how to read in Hebrew so I can read the Torah in it’s original language. I feel that it will be very beneficial for my Kabbalah studies. My questions is: Would it hinder or slow down my studies in Kabbalah? Do I need to study Hebrew? I’m just a beginning student.

Answer: It will help you to the extent that we use the definitions in Hebrew, which is necessary. Everything else is according to your desire.

Question: What is preventing the World Kli from connecting? How will we overcome it?

Answer: It’s egoism, and even more than in the case of regular people!

Question: It seems that our only work is to reveal the evil inclination and ask for correction. How can one fight with the feeling of guilt and worthlessness, which is an obstacle in asking for correction? It starts to be unbearable to see each time the bad in oneself.

Answer: All thoughts except for a plea for correction are empty and confusing, and as they arise, one must immediately reject them.
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The Words Of Sages Will Be Heard

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If everyone sitting at the lesson was to be asked whether he wants fast advancement towards the final, highest point of development, everyone would say: “Yes.” But at the same time I see that we are satisfied with your answers. We come to the lesson with a desire, a need, but we gradually fall into a state of sleep. How can we be constantly active? How can we advance faster?

Answer: You cannot maintain your desire near me. Even though I have a need of my own in relation to you, I exist in the state of perfection and am a higher degree. For this reason, when you connect to me, you also experience perfection, like a child next to an adult. Sometimes he demands something from his elders, but still, as a rule, they give him confidence, a sense of reliability, and he peacefully falls asleep in his parents’ arms.

To tell you the truth, it’s even better for me when you fall asleep. It’s because then more enters you. People “snoozing” during the lesson do not disturb me; they’re not supposed to always be “on fire.” It’s written that “the words of sages are soothing.” And it’s not because sages speak calmly; it’s simply that their wisdom flows like water from one place to another and enters the person in the right way. So don’t worry.

It’s good that sometimes people come to the lesson with fire in their hearts, but when they receive the Light that reforms, a sense of appeasement is better for them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, The Zohar

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Questions About The Frequency Of Studying And A Kippah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How often must one study Kabbalah? Is it enough to intensely study and meditate once or twice a week and use the rest for work, or must one study everyday, for us to be in unity?

Answer: All the time, after completing necessary activities.

Question: I have been studying at Bnei Baruch for several years, and I am very enhanced by my experience there. It is very important for me to know why a Kabbalist needs a kippah (yarmulke).

Answer: This is just a tradition, and I must observe it because no one will accept a Kabbalist without a yarmulke, which is also a tradition.
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Don’t Hide Behind A Computer Screen

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After the unity we felt at the convention, should a person studying with us virtually or online go look for a physical group to be in?

Answer: Going to look for a group today is not the same it was 200 years ago, when a person would leave his home with a staff in hand and go off to search. Today a person enters the Internet and is already together with us, in the common group. He already attended the convention and understands what this is.

Should he look for a physical group? I don’t know if he has that opportunity. The closest group might be several hours away from him.

Yet one should try to stay connected to people nevertheless. Sometimes you have to feel how much you don’t want that connection. Maybe by connecting to others virtually, you idealize the situation, thinking that you are already united with them completely, while in fact you are hiding behind the computer screen. So come out from behind the monitor and connect with them in reality. Go and see whether this is possible….

Obviously, now, after our unification at the convention, we are starting to feel confusion, repulsion, and separation—states that are opposite to unity, one against the other. That’s because in order to grow, we must always advance on two legs. Therefore, don’t be surprised that we are suddenly finding ourselves in opposite states. We must finally get used to the fact that these states have to alternate and follow one another.

Therefore, if a person does not have a close connection with a certain group, then he doesn’t go through these states dramatically, quickly, and intensely. All of this gets drawn out and “smudged” for him. He must nevertheless have some sort of physical connection with others. After all, we are in this world and cannot annul it completely. We cannot turn this world into a virtual world. We are here in our bodies and all sorts of connections between us because this is important. We accelerate time by having a physical connection between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/11, Writings of Rabash

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Fundamentals Of Kabbalah – 12.11.11

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Breaking Through The Shell Of Alienation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I break through the shell that does not let me feel the unity of my friends?

Answer: The shell can be broken only by hitting it repeatedly. I know from my own experience that it was only possible to reach unity by persistence, stubbornness, and continuous daily work over the course of few years. In our time, this period of time is becoming much shorter because the world is different, the pace is different. In any case, there are numerous actions to breaking apart this shell.

You must simply forget about yourself and enter the group. Being in it, you feel disturbances, a desire to distance yourself from the friends; you are in a kind of internal storm, you feel sick. This is not important. Stay inside to the maximum, regardless of everything! Get used to your feelings and stay in the group.

Do everything possible in order to come under the influence of others to the maximum. It is not important that you have all kinds of negative feelings, thoughts, and qualities in relation to them. The feelings, thoughts, and qualities arising in you come from Above on purpose, and that’s one thing. It is entirely another thing when regardless of them, you remain together with everyone. This is very hard, very difficult.

Later, you will see that all of your personal thoughts and qualities are those that you needed to get rid of and that all your wisdom, understanding, and personal attainment are worthless. You simply need to erase them in order to enter the group like an embryo into its mother’s womb. Then you will begin to develop spiritually. That is why you must keep trying with all of your strength to break through this shell.

It is giving in; it is cracking now. It will crack even more so when we get together, millions of people from all around the planet, separated physically but united by hearts. We really will get a great power in order to break through the Machsom (the barrier). Everything is moving toward this goal.
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From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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A Gold Mine Of Feelings

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What direction should we stick to for the convention to be as successful as possible?

Answer: We must try to find our most acute feelings from our joint actions and to cultivate them inside of ourselves constantly. We need to grow what we experienced in the desert, in the lessons, and while doing the preparation work for the convention now.

It is necessary to find these feelings inside yourself. It is not possible to express them in words. Hold yourself in these feelings more and more sharply. Somehow, wherever we may be and whatever we may feel, we need to elevate them above everything else, above all of the problems that arise, so that problems only strengthen the feelings that we attain from moments of unity.

Try to collect, constantly increase, and grow these feelings of unity in yourselves. In the end, these feelings will allow us to reach the feeling of the general quality of bestowal, unity between us. Within it, we will feel the upper world.
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From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Returning To The Unity That Already Exists

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe need the influence of the Light that Reforms to make of us one desire, one vessel. How can we summon this Light to shine on us? In order to do that, Kabbalists have described its actions. It makes no difference if these actions are directly connected to us. What’s important is that we awaken the Light. By our intentions, we awaken it, the “One, Unique, and Unified” that exists.

When I read The Book of Zohar, I don’t feel anything. What is described there is concealed from me. To imagine different images is to create idols. I know only one thing: The “One,” the concept that I yearn for, corrects the shattered vessels, meaning the desires that are separated by egoism. I want it to correct the separation. This is what I think about, yearn for, and demand.

I don’t worry about understanding The Zohar because as it is written, “it is not the wise one who learns.” This is called the “studying of the Torah.” After all, the Torah, the method of correction (as it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice”), is not attained by the mind. I correct my egoism and connect with others by the power of the “One.” In this collection of desires, I discover the new integral reality, the upper world.

We know this from the experience that each of us has after years of studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. The mind doesn’t help in any way. There is some internal change, and then I begin to understand, to feel, and to connect the different notions better.

So, in order to summon the influence of the One who will unite me with all of reality, I simply have to read about His actions. However, I aim myself toward the outcome of the reading, the influence of the Light that Reforms: It brings me back to the state of the One from whom it comes. This is what is important.

I add the group to this. I add myself, the entire world, and everything that I perceive in my reality. Everything has to connect to the notion of the “One, Unique, and Unified.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/2011, The Zohar

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You Are Not Alone!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I connect with the group when I watch the lessons alone?

Answer: We see a large number of people connecting to us on the screen from all over the world. We are all together in one group. Don’t you feel it? You have to rise above the distance that lies between us because in reality, it doesn’t exist. We exist in one single field.

Our physical bodies are here on earth: They sit, walk, run, and jump. In the spiritual world there are only desires, and therefore, everything depends upon our desire. The corporeal world is completely imaginary and non-existent. It exists only in our perception, until we enter the spiritual world.

We will pass this state and forget it because it doesn’t really exist. This state exists only in our perception of reality as the lowest of all states, from which we must ascend. This perception exists only in our egoistic desire, but in reality, egoism doesn’t exist.

We were given this uncorrected altruistic state, the only one that exists in the world, deliberately so that we use it as a basis for rising to our first spiritual level. This is why our world is called the imaginary world because it gradually disappears from our perception. This world is not the reality. In reality our world doesn’t exist.

Let’s imagine our true state where all of creation exists as one collective body, one general system. In order to sense this system, we must strive towards it. It is said: “If you wish to be happy, be so.” A child can only become what he aspires to be. Life constantly forces him to want to grow, to take examples from adults, and to imitate them.

We have to do the same and take our example from Kabbalists. We must follow their advice, imitate them, and be led by their instructions instead of by our little childish minds. We must act without looking back, like a child who takes examples from the adults. Then we can be absolutely sure that we will succeed.

We have to create an example of a single global community. It makes no difference if you live in Los Angeles, Mexico, or Siberia. It makes no difference if you are alone because you are actually not alone! You are together with everyone! Try to rise above the computer screen and see and sense us. This is possible!

Let’s try to play it, and then we’ll attract an intensive influence of the Surrounding Light, the Light from a higher level where we are all already connected.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

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