Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

Place and Content

232.04It is difficult for beginners, for they perceive matters by means of corporeal boundaries of time, space, change and exchange. However, the authors only used those as signs to point to their upper roots ( Baal Hasulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol.1, Part 1, Chap.1).

Here it is necessary to clarify that we are not talking about a material place and its content, as in our world, although we will still imagine this way because we can’t get away from our usual stereotypes.

But at the very least, we need to step back a little from what we have in our minds and think about what place means.

A place is a desire created and filled with some kind of filler. This means that what desire wants is what it is filled with. Only these two substances exist in the universe. Desire is called a place, and filling is called filling or light.
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From KabTV’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) 8/14/22

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What Does Thoughtless Disclosure of Knowledge Lead To?

559Comment: In our world, no matter how hard Kabbalists tried to hide spiritual knowledge from the impure, wrong intentions of people, nothing helps; even the ancient Greeks spoke about this. Somehow all the same, knowledge reaches the egoists.

My Response: Because the ancient Greeks were at the level of the same egoists; Kabbalists, however, are above this level. Therefore no one can approach and grasp this knowledge.

To approach them, to reveal them, and to work with them, one must be at the level of this knowledge; therefore, an ordinary egoistic person cannot do it.

Question: To acquire Kabbalistic knowledge must a person must change himself, his intention?

Answer: Absolutely! When he corrects himself, he has no other choice but to use this knowledge correctly.

In our world, we see that scientists can remain egoistic, receive knowledge, and pass it on. This is a big problem. Even Aristotle warned about not revealing our knowledge to the common people because they would not be able to use it correctly and would cripple the whole world.

But in our time, on the contrary, scientists reveal knowledge to everyone. Therefore, look at what is happening, look where we are turning all the power of science, mainly toward destruction.

Question: Can we still hope that there is some upper system that will prevent us from destroying each other?

Answer: Yes. But we must also think from our side. From our side however, we have already revealed everything we could.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/21/22

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How To Feel The Study of the Ten Sefirot

137Question: What does your statement mean that a person who has a “point in the heart” will never understand The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)?

Answer: A person who has a point in the heart and develops it will understand TES only to the extent of his spiritual development. And while he is not yet spiritually developed, he will perceive it purely mechanically and this will not give him anything. He will strive to be connected with TES in some way, but in general, this is not the approach.

I used to be like that myself. I was striving for spiritual attainment, but when I found myself in front of The Study of the Ten Sefirot, I began to study it like physics. I just didn’t know how to approach it or grab it. This went on for a while.

And when spiritual sensations gradually began to manifest, I also woke up in accordance with them.

Question: So you came to this through a mechanical approach?

Answer: At first, yes, my approach was purely mechanical. I thought that TES was like any science, you need to study and eventually you will begin to understand. But as a result, I came to a feeling and through this to an understanding of what I feel.

And before that, for the first years, I spent a lot of time without trying to enter the material with feelings, but to speculate. I generally neglected feelings. I believed that only a pure mind makes a man out of a monkey and therefore any of our feelings were just the animal in us. I thought, satisfy feelings if you want, but don’t confuse it with something sublime; this is your animal, why develop it further?

And the fact that a man develops over an animal was incomprehensible to me. Moving toward others, entering into others, altruism, socialism, and communism, etc. were all so disgusting, completely unreal, unnecessary, and ugly to me. Therefore, when I was told “love for friends,” “be in friendship,” what kind of kindergarten is this?!

So several good years passed before I began to feel that there were some feelings of the screen. In principle, a person can take 20 to 30 years to do this.

Spiritual birth is the most difficult because in these states you go through all the previous astronomical and geological processes. In a spiritual sense, it is like you are starting to grow yourself from the point of the big bang. You go through the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature until a person begins to arise in you. And a person is a measure of your connection with others.

Question: At what point did you move to the sensory entrance to The Study of the Ten Sefirot? After all, in the past you were closely connected with science.

Answer: I was a very big egoist, a mechanic who believed only in pure science, experience, and facts, but not in feelings. Psychology for me was something completely disrespected.

Question: And how did you come to the sensory feelings?

Answer: This is the influence of a developing force and it is not directed at all. Nothing else! In this way, this force developed me and suddenly I began to understand that desires come first and only after them come the thoughts, some calculations, and research, which in the end are intended for the study of desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Feel TES?” 3/25/13

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Imprint Kabbalistic Terms in Your Memory

258For this reason, I will make an effort to give every word its spiritual identity, detached of space, time and change.

It is upon the readers to memorize the meaning of these words thoroughly, for it is impossible to repeat them every time (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1, Restriction and Line).

Comment: Baal HaSulam also wrote a dictionary of definitions of Kabbalistic terms. He recommended that we memorize them so they do not need to be repeated every time.

My Response: The fact is that we cannot take any wise, pure person, no matter by what selection criteria we use, and explain to him or her what the upper world, the world of infinity, light, and being filled with light are. It is impossible. A person must come to such explanations on their own in the process of long-term work on oneself.

Therefore, Kabbalistic books seem so incomprehensible in the beginning that there is nothing to grasp onto.

But as a result of reading them, a person who studies Kabbalah begins to be influenced by the upper light, which is located in the created place (practically, this is a desire). Under the influence of this light, he gradually begins to feel what all this is about.

Thus, gradually he approaches the state when he can, in general, begin to imagine and quite correctly what this place is, what the filling of the place with the upper light is, which the great Kabbalist Ari really wants to tell us about.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 8/14/22

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One Question Two Answers

231.03Question: When you are asked a question, you answer according to the following principle: first you answer once, and, inside the same answer, a second time. Why is the answer arranged like that?

Answer: Because first I have to answer the question itself, and the second time I have to answer in general where this phenomenon comes from, why it exists, in what form it takes place, and so on. That is, I don’t just want to answer the question, I want to give a general form of what kind of natural phenomenon it is.

Question: So you are not doing this because the person did not hear the first time and he needs you to explain the second time?

Answer: No. I don’t refer the question to a person at all. I look at the question as an opportunity to reveal some greater part of the spiritual world or the connections of the worlds.

Comment: It happens that you are asked a question and you answer as if you are on your own wave. The student says, “No, I meant this!” and still you keep going on your wave, and the others think: “Oh! You answered his question!”

My Response: I’m actually answering his question; he just doesn’t hear it. I’m not going somewhere to the side, but I just want him to see it from my side. Otherwise he won’t understand the answer.

Question: So you need to find a workaround, not a direct one?

Answer: This is not a workaround. I believe that my path is the most direct and general. I give both a linear path to the answer and a circular one, which generally includes the whole general problem and its specific solution.

Therefore I have two approaches: I always outline the general state and a specific answer.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Ask a Kabbalist a Question?” 3/6/13

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Formation of a Vacant Place

746.01Before the worlds were created there was only Ein Sof. There was no “vacant place,” meaning a place of dearth that would qualify for corrections. (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1, Restriction and Line)

While the upper light was filling that place, which is the primary state of all creation, there was no time, no space, no deficiency, and no movement. An infinite simple light, which has neither beginning nor end, filled everything.

But since the Creator wished that there would be created beings besides Him that would somehow be transformed, a deficiency was created. Thus, a state appeared where the light started to disappear, leaving a space that was vacant from it. This vacant space is called desire or creation.

So, this is a gradual process that includes four phases, the last of which is called creation.

The initial creation is a desire that feels only itself.
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From KabTV’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot  (TES) 8/14/22

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Everything Is Included In Ein Sof (Infinity)

746.02It is seemingly perplexing, for it speaks of the time before the worlds were created. Thus, which reality exists here, that the upper light should fill?

The thing is that all the worlds and the souls that exist and that are destined to be created with all their incidents until the end of their correction are all included in Ein Sof in their full measure and glory. (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1, Restriction and Line)

This is about the fact that the upper light, which fills the entire reality, carries absolutely all the information about everything that has been, is, and will be. This gradually manifests before us, and we call it our world.

At the very beginning of creation, everything was flooded with one simple light, i.e., the emanation of the Creator’s complete love for future creations.

In other words, from the side of the Creator there is a thought of creation and absolutely everything is included into it up to the final state of each person.
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From KabTV’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) 8/14/22

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Why Do Kabbalists Study at Night?

962.3Question: Why is nighttime the most productive time for mental activity? In principle, Kabbalists always studied at night when the concentration of thoughts is much clearer.

Answer: Firstly, it is physiologically conditioned because a person feels that during that time he has nothing else to do and he can concentrate on some work while everyone else is asleep.

Secondly, at that time, not many stimulating centers are activated in him, and therefore he can more easily concentrate on one thing.

Thirdly, if we are talking about spiritual work, then this is the time when you really need to connect to the spiritual root, root to branch or branch to root. At that time, new desires are created in which a person will continue to acquire an attainment.

Such work begins from midnight onward. Therefore Kabbalah encourages people to get up at twelve o’clock at night and start studying. Twelve at night, midnight, is not half of our night, but a conditional night. If you break the whole night from sunset to the appearance of the first ray of light into twelve parts, then the middle part, the sixth, conditional hour, will be midnight.

The night hour can be forty minutes, fifty minutes, or an hour and twenty minutes. We use mechanical clocks, but in general, in nature, clocks are not mechanical but rather solar and lunar. Therefore the hours are conditional.

Our body works the same way according to its internal conditional clock. The human body works completely differently during sleep in winter and summer. All this is taken into account in Kabbalah. That is, night and midnight are purely astronomical values and not mechanical according to the clock, which ticks no matter where and how.

Comment: But there are different regions.

My Response: Man is connected with nature; he is an integral part of it and cannot be separated from it.

And the regions are indeed different. Therefore there is a problem of how to study. But it is believed that it is still better for us to study together. This is most important.

Baal HaSulam writes that joint study, joint appeal, and joint actions override all other parameters.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Everything Happens at Night” 3/5/13

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A Long Way and a Short Way

760.4How can we develop such sensitivity within us that we will understand that if we hope to build our soul without the help of the Creator, then we are taking a long, circuitous path?

We will feel that we are taking a long path each time, and this will push us to look constantly for ways to shorten it and direct it straight to the Creator. It is this long path that directs us to the Creator because we are always trying to straighten it.

Everything depends on the directness of the heart, whether it is directed straight through the friends to the Creator or not. This determines whether the path will be long or short. Imagine how we twist and turn in our hearts and minds in order to avoid connection with the friends and not to come closer to them as well as to the Creator openly and directly. This means that we are not taking the straight path.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/22, “Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain”

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Maintaining the Common Spirit

250Question: How is a question formed? Where does it come from? Is the person who asks you a question just an irritant that allows you to give out information?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How should one prepare for this? How can you ask a question correctly?

Answer: The question, in fact, is to cling to me and make me want to lift the person who asks the question up like a child who runs up to an adult and asks to be held in his arms. This is the real question, and all the rest is nonsense.

Comment: I noticed that there are two types of people. The first type is when a person wants to hear from you something specific: “No, I am asking him this!” And there are people who understand and as if follow your flow. You start answering, and the person possibly had another question in addition. But he sees that you are now revealing this topic better, and he supports it rather than standing his ground.

My Response: These are big problems because we have a large number of people who want to hear, who are perhaps tuned in to a completely different wave. Then someone breaks into a general conversation and begins with his personal questions or with something he imagined to lead everyone somewhere to the side.

In this case, I try to react either harshly or not at all because it is important for me to maintain a common spirit so that people continue to ride together and rise. Therefore, if someone asks some questions from the outside, I can cut him off and that is it.

For me, the main thing is that the general flow is observed.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Ask a Kabbalist a Question?” 3/6/13

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