A New Type Of Disciples – Laitman Unplugged
Posted on April 6th, 2011
Question: Could you tell us about your intention while reading The Book of Zohar?
Answer: Kabbalists teach us what the intention should be. Every person has to actualize what he read to the extent he understands it.
It is impossible to tell you about the intention. This is something that cannot be explained to another person since the intention comes from a person’s inner state which he reveals.
I am in a state that’s unknown to me. I reveal it as it unfolds inside of me. From this state that becomes revealed to me, I create the intention.
In essence, it is impossible to clothe this intention into words. There are no words for it. That’s because it includes a person’s inner desire (Hissaron) and the degree of his connection with the upper reality through his attempts to find the means that will bring him to the highest possible closeness to the Host, the Creator – to adhesion (Zivug de Hakaa) with Him.
What are those means? They are the books, the teacher, and the group. A person includes everything that he understands and feels from their entire sum total, and through them attains unity with the Creator.
All of these means have to be present. If you miss even one of them, then you don’t have the right contact. And in addition, each of them must be properly balanced with the others.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/11, The Zohar
Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”: A man found him while he was wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” To which he replied, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they?” … This is talking about a person who has veered off the path of the spiritual development, who does not know the true way there, who has already reached despair and thinks that he will never attain his goal. That is why he answers, “I want to be in the group where there is love of friends because then I will be able to ascend up the path leading to the Creator.”
That is how we wander around, not knowing how to reach the right state. We don’t understand how to establish the connection with spirituality and where to find it. However, in fact we are already in the spiritual world now, which is why we are wandering around this field. We already have the opportunity to establish a relationship with the group and to connect with the friends, but we are unable to do this. Thus, we walk by, like we are blind. We are already in the right place, but we cannot find this connection, as if we are wandering around in the dark.
This darkness is not outside, but inside of us, as a result of our blindness and lack of understanding. What’s missing here is some kind of epiphany in feeling and reason so I would understand in what form I have to connect with the friends. Then I will find how to make the breakthrough to the spiritual development, to the first contact with spirituality which is called “three days of absorption of the spiritual seed.”
For that I have to understand how to bind myself to the environment the right way, and that is the most difficult thing to do. In our world we know of cases when a woman is unable to get pregnant. And it is much more difficult yet to get into the spiritual world.
The Torah talks about the great problems of infertility that each of the fore-mothers had and how difficult it was for them to get pregnant. This is a symbol of how difficult it is to bind oneself to the environment.
How, then, is it possible to help a person who feels that he is lost and does not see any chance of advancing spiritually? He has put years into it and seems to know and understand everything, other than the direction. At first he thought that the knowledge he receives will help him, or some kind of actions, or maybe time will do the job.
But later he reveals that nothing helps him and then he becomes confused. That is when an angel comes to him and finally asks him, “What are you asking for? What are you looking for here?” Then the person checks himself and starts to understand that he lacks precisely the connection with the environment, “I am looking for my brothers!”
This is already a great attainment where you understand that you will be able to realize your spiritual development only on this path, inside of the connection with others. The group turns into a spiritual place. Instead of the material, physical group that he sees now, he will feel the inner connection between everyone and will turn this connection into mutual bestowal. He will reveal the net connecting them, which is called the system of the upper worlds, and all of the worlds will enter it.
This group will become the place where he will gradually reveal all of the spiritual levels, until he will come so close to the other 125 levels that he will unite with them into one whole. This will be called the end of his correction (Gmar Tikkun).
If a person begins to feel that he will be able to realize his spiritual development precisely in this way, through the relationships with the environment, this means that he is wandering around the Creator’s field and looking, while knowing what to look for and what to ask for. He still has to go through a difficult road up ahead, but this point where he decides that the spiritual world can only be reached through unity with the environment is extremely important. That’s because it is opposite to all of his previous, material, egoistic development.
This point marks the beginning of his development and his connection with others “from himself outwards, for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore, this point is the beginning for the new path.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention
Question: Until we started studying the world of Atzilut in Part 9, Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES), it seemed to me that I understood the flow of the material. But in this part, I understand absolutely nothing. Can you tell in general terms what is happening there?
Answer: I can tell what is happening with you, why you don’t understand anything. It’s because you have no relation to it.
There are several levels of perceiving the study material: “I don’t know,” “I’m not familiar with,” “I don’t understand,” and “I’m unable to understand.” The latter is because your mind does not correspond to the mind of the book.
If this were written in Chinese and you didn’t understand the language, it would be one thing. If it depended on your education level and you didn’t comprehend certain formulas or basic definitions needed to master the material, you would still have something to study.
However, here you can study as much as you want, year after year, and you nevertheless won’t understand anything until your Kelim (vessels, desires) become at least somewhat similar to the desires described in the book. When each word will echo with an inner change within you, you will start comprehending what is being described here.
You may ask: “But didn’t I understand something in the first three parts of TES?” No, you didn’t. The three parts in question describe the acts of absolute bestowal that are so distant from and opposite to you that this opposition gives you the illusion of understanding. In reality, you interpret them completely incorrectly.
It’s easy to draw a Kli (vessel), the Light, and the screen in the middle, the arrows pointing in different directions, the percentage of the Light received or given away. But it’s impossible to imagine this action for real. However, it is so inaccessible and opposite to us that it makes us think that we understand.
Meanwhile, the actions described in Part 9 of TES are very close to us. The moment you have at least one ounce of the desire to bestow, you will enter a similar act.
Hence you see that you don’t understand. Your mind has to become similar to the spiritual one—then the connection will appear and you will be able to comprehend. This is the only way!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot
Behind every word or phrase of The Zohar, we have to try to recognize forms of connection between man and his environment. In essence, this is exactly what The Zohar describes. There is nothing more in reality besides the forms of connection between a person and those around him.
Even now, when I see people and the walls of this room in front of me or hear the noises coming from outside, all of these are forms of connection between us. There is nothing besides these forces connecting us, which are forces of desire which appear this way to me in my earthly perception of reality.
In the same way, if we try, then we will begin to imagine other kinds of our connection, other forces which don’t operate inside reception, but inside bestowal among us. Then we will see that in reality, there have never been egoistic connections between us. We felt them like in a dream so that based on this illusory connection, which is opposite to the true one, we would recognize the true connection, the only one that exists in contrast from the illusory life—the desire to enjoy with all of its power.
After all, this desire existed only in order for us to transform it into the desire to bestow. The Creator supports it in this artificial form, but it does not have any real essence of its own. Only the force of bestowal exists in the world.
That is why The Zohar describes all the varieties of the force of bestowal to us, which we reveal in all the various forms, as well as the forces of reception standing opposite them, being the basis upon which the forces of bestowal are revealed in the process of man’s inner war.
This is the only thing we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar, making efforts so the revelation of these spiritual levels will help us and will become revealed in us so we will include them inside of us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar
We have just been reading The Zohar for over half an hour. I ask you, during all of this time, how many moments did each of you yearn for the arrival of the Light that reforms, expecting something to happen? It is written that the angels asks a person after he dies, “Did you study the Torah and did you await salvation?”
How many moments did you spend in exertion, trying not to miss out and to "catch" something very important, like a goalee guarding the gate, or a hunter chasing prey? Were you passionately anticipating it, the way you might feel before a long-awaited date with your beloved? How long did you remain in this state? How many times did you return to this aspiration again?
Only these moments count in life. They are summarized and they determine the speed of life. The other moments don’t really exist….
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar
Question: During the lesson on The Book of Zohar, millions of viewers look at strange letters, hear strange words, and expect something they can’t define. Is this what you call a scientific method?
Answer: First, a regular person lives according his instincts and understands everything naturally. This is how he was taught in his parents’ home.
Second, a person who studied the sciences of this world knows how to relate to nature based on scientific knowledge he obtained. This is an engineering approach. For instance, a mechanic, an electrician, or a specialist in any other area received appropriate education, can do manual or intellectual work, has a set of tools for the job, and thereby forms his attitude toward nature.
He isn’t allowed to work with something unfamiliar, but only after his knowledge and experience have been checked is he accepted to a job in a specific field. Suppose a person studied mechanics and now can repair engines or more complex devices. He uses the acquired knowledge in his work, but he is more or less aware of what he is dealing with.
Third, a scientist is a person who discovers something which was previously unknown, phenomena that couldn’t be predicted in advance. Sometimes, he may feel, guess, and be prompted about something, but he has no clear internal definitions for it. This is what we call discovering new phenomena in nature.
At this point, a question arises: How can I find new phenomena? I need to tune myself to them, but what does “to them” mean if they are new? Should I anticipate certain results, discoveries, and events that may take place, or should I not?
Hence, science has two parts. There is theory where hypotheses are made and are later explored through research. Thereby, new phenomena are revealed. This is the major part of science which is built on the examination of the ideas scientists have regarding expected discoveries. Without this, it is impossible to advance.
However, there are also scientists who search in complete darkness. They have no preliminary theories, hypotheses, and ideas about possible findings. Kabbalah is a science, and we utilize it in all the above-mentioned forms: as regular people, the specialists who study it, and as scientists who in some way can visualize phenomena that may be.
Herein lies a problem: In all our studies, beginning with regular people as in our world and up to great scientists who don’t know where they are going and what they will find in nature, and at all of these levels in the science of Kabbalah, there is an unpredictable part you know nothing about.
What is unknown? You don’t know which property, what phenomenon you actually will find within because you don’t have this property. You can’t even imagine it.
After all, you will discover it in the Kli (vessel) of perception that you build, while the phenomenon is the vessel itself. You can’t pre-experience what exactly will unfold within you since you have never felt it before, don’t possess any intuition, and can’t even guess at it. It is a new Kli. The impression, the sensation, is totally new.
This is how we advance in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Even in something small and simple, there is nothing that we might know in advance. Therefore, our approach when we read The Book of Zohar is correct. I expect the Light that Reforms to come and reform my Kelim, my desires. For example, I can’t see anything without my glasses. There is something before me, but I need a device to see it. I put my glasses on and see something new.
Hence, while reading The Book of Zohar and looking at the “dead” letters and text that doesn’t make any sense to us, we must approach it as scientists of the highest degree who are about to discover something unprecedented to them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/2011, The Book of Zohar
Question: If we read The Zohar with the right intention and demand for twice as long—for an hour and a half a day instead of 45 minutes, will we attain the full correction twice as fast? Or is there a different formula at work here?
Answer: The formula is very simple. The custom at my teacher Rabash’s was that we read The Zohar for half an hour a day. Rabash did not explain anything and did not add a single word. We simply read the text, everything in a row without asking him any questions for half an hour before sleep. That is why I follow the same order.
Do you want to study for twice as long? That is why I added another quarter of an hour to the lesson.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/11, The Zohar
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