Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: … the truth is that the force itself is also considered a genuine matter, just as any corporeal matter in the concrete world…”

We say that spirituality is a “force.” Does it mean that this world is the matter? No, it doesn’t. A force by itself is matter. There is nothing but force. Contemporary physics arrived at the following conclusion: beyond atoms, particles, and photons, we don’t detect matter. Even when we use traditional methods of exploration of the universe and go deep down into the very basis of it, we discover that at the foundation matter “disappears” and actually works as a force. We are used to drawing a material picture of the world, but in fact it exists only in our perception, but in fact, matter is only a force, nothing more than that.

This force is divided into two categories (two desires): giving and receiving. Overall, the multiplicity of isolated forces outlines a kind of reality that Kabbalists call imaginary, illusory. It is realistic, but ephemeral, like a three-dimensional drawn in the air with a laser beam. And we live in it, and actually “come from” this “beam.” All of us are “painted” in space, and in fact, our essence is also a force, two desires and a screen that balances them.

These forces are receiving and giving desires that must incorporate and integrate with one another. But so much one of them dominates the other, and so that the resulting desire also has “access to power,” and cooperation, participation, understanding, shared common sensations all the way to love, when everyone is ready to give partnership, stay in mutual cooperation and understanding, share common sensations including love and be ready to give up everything they have for the sake of each other and at the same time they have to accept everything from others.

The receiving force has to achieve the same power of being as the power of bestowal, feel it, and develop accordingly to obtain qualities similar to the Creator. And for this it must go through special states that allow it to feel that it is alive and empowered to make decisions, to plan and to implement plans into reality. At this point, it is impossible to abide without an imaginary picture. This is where the illusion called “our world” in which the receiving desire prevails comes from.

Baal HaSulam brings an example of a coachman who used to live with his wife and children, earned enough money to keep his house properly, and was quite happy until his troubles began: His horse died, the house was burned down, and his wife and children died in an epidemic. As a result, the coachman appeared before the Higher Court where it was resolved that he would be paid for his adversity since he had suffered so much.

What was he given? He received a horse, a cart, a wife, children, and a house; the same feeling, which for him was happiness. In this “picture,” his life is again wonderful: he works, brings money to his family, and rejoices together with them. Everything is great! His desire is small, but for him it’s a real paradise where all is well and nothing more is needed. A perfect illusion.

Sometimes, we have dreams. How do they differ from reality? What if in a couple of minutes the alarm clock rings and wakes you up, and you realize that what you have seen was a dream? In fact, this is the way it is. So, what is the difference between a dream and the reality? How do we tell one from the other?

It is important to understand that our reality is “drawn” by a force and is granted to us to make our desire to receive feel independent, powerful, competent, and detached from the one who actually operates it. This is the only way to reach equivalence of form with the Creator. Otherwise, what kind of similarity would it be if I were completely under its control?

In fact, our detachment from the Creator is illusionary, and that’s why this world is called imaginary. On the other hand, spiritual realms are not imaginary, because that is where we are aware of the illusion, agree with it, and rise above reason. There, we work above our understanding, knowing that there is none else besides Him, agreeing with this more and more deeply. We are already working with a real force, despite the fact that we ourselves also are a force, and there is only force.

Question: If our whole life is just one, long dream, what practical conclusions can we make of this?

Answer: It is said in Psalms: “We were as dreamers.” Practically, I have to take this life seriously. It is given to me to rise above it, not to neglect it. Nothing should be disregarded. The current “picture” is drawn for me by the upper force, and until I complete the preparation period, I cannot get rid of it. I have to continue sensing this world until the end of correction; each time returning for new corrections. Even if I ascended to the 124^th level and all that is left is the last 125^th step, I still will return.

There is no other choice. This “basic infrastructure” is extremely important, since only by leaning on it we realize our choice. Thanks to it, at each step, it seems to us that we act independently and that we are equal with the Creator, and perhaps are even more powerful than He is. There is not the slightest chance to merge with Him without this sense independence. Otherwise, there is no “me”, the one who is able to merge with Him.

This is the way we work in this world. Let it be imaginary, we are aware of it, and then we accept it. We are starting to consciously play with our “independence,” and at this point, the fact that we are being governed by Him is no secret to us anymore.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” 

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Kabbalists talk quite a lot about the “horde,” about the mixed forces that left Egypt together with Israel. This is actually the great problem that is standing in our way: the use of the Torah and the wisdom of Kabbalah not for the purpose of correction. Horde also refers to “those who fear God and worship Pharaoh.” On the one hand, they fear the Creator, but on the other hand, they wish to fill their egoistic vessels of receiving.

Question: What is the “horde” in my feelings, inside me?

Answer: They are revealed when you use what you acquire while you study the wisdom of Kabbalah for your own good and not for the Creator. Here you can say: “But in such a case all I am is the horde, I am all the evil inclination.” So what can I do if it’s still not a clarified state?

Actually it is about high levels. When the Light reveals my desires, I discover these parts in me. A man is a small world, so all the parts exist in each of us. Our work is to sort them out, to define them and to allocate a place for them, to cover them by the Masach (screen) and to know how to use them correctly. Just like a baby who learns to control his body, so do we have to control our desires: to cover some of them, to reveal others, and what’s more, to do it in the right time. A person behaves differently in different places and in different situations. It’s the same in spirituality.

But the moment I activate myself, I learn about the upper desire and about my desire; I learn to use different means correctly in order to resemble the Creator; I understand which “organs” I should activate in me and which not, in order to be called “human,” Adam (one who resembles the Creator), under different conditions, at different angles, and in every situation. I operate my “puppet” in order to resemble Him, and then internally I actually become Him. The “puppet” remains a puppet, and later when I acquire all His thought, there will be no need for it anymore.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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Question: What does it mean that “by exerting yourself in the Torah, you are rewarded with the revelation of the Creator’s face?”

Answer: The Torah is the method for the correction of the evil inclination, as it says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice,” I have also created the Torah as a means for its correction. I study in order to draw the Light that is concealed in the higher levels, the Light that Reforms that is in the Torah. After all, I hope that this Light will change me, that it will give me a new mind and a new heart, that everything will be so new that I won’t even recognize myself.

But the main thing about this new “me” is that the Creator will be revealed to me. This means that the force of love and bestowal will begin to control me. So in order to achieve this, I “exert myself in the Torah.” It isn’t in order to receive abstract knowledge but because I want to connect to the material that I study. To “know” means to arrange the connection.

Then the power of bestowal and love is revealed in me, meaning the Creator’s attribute through which I know Him, as it says, “from Your actions we shall know you.” We don’t know His actual essence, as we don’t know the essence of electricity, our own essence, or the essence of the air. We only know our impressions from these phenomena, which we call “electricity,” “air,” “the world around us.”

So the upper force is called the “Creator” (Boreh), which means “come and see,” a certain attribute that is revealed in me. I call this form that is revealed in my desire to enjoy “Creator,” since I “came and saw” it. My goal was to bring Him contentment by this revelation.

“To exert in the Torah” means to do everything in your power when you fulfill the Kabbalists’ advice: to study and to work in the group. The action itself is to gather the group and to organize the study in it. Everything else belongs to the intention. All this is called “exerting in the Torah,” according to the rules: “Don’t do unto your friend what is hateful to you,” and then “Love thy friend as thyself,” in order to reach the love of the Creator.

These principles not only describe the study of the Torah, but also the direction the whole creation is moving toward, all of the upper worlds and our world including everything in it: humanity, the still, vegetative, and the animate nature. It isn’t just the Torah that someone studies, but the trend in which all of creation is developing.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: We need to connect in an inner form, in our desires. But how can I approach the desire of the friend?

Answer: For you, your inclination to the Creator is enough. Only with this inclination, without trying to dig deeper, do you connect. Both of you do not understand this desire that the Creator “planted” in each of you. But precisely this desire in the friend, and only it, is important for you. This is a subtle inclination from the refinement of the soul. You love the friend’s spiritual spark, his inclination to the Creator. His character and his customs are not important to you; it is only the Creator who connects you, because “in Him our heart will rejoice.” It is in Him. You want to meet in the Creator.

The other desires are connected in a different way; they remain in you and simply are searching for fulfillment together. But practically this is not unity with the other, but it is taking advantage of the other.

And we on the other hand, do not connect only between us. Light comes to us that bestows upon our desires, connects us, and dwells in us, in our connection. And then all of us together are glad that we gave the Creator the possibility and the ability to be revealed.

Therefore, for you, it is enough for you to have the inclination for the truth, for the Creator, for the goal. You yourself still do not know where you are going to, but the yearning exists already, and you need to always raise and care for it. How? By connecting with the friends. As a result of it, enough yearning will appear in you that the Light will correct you, will connect to a big single desire that in it you will reveal the Creator and will rejoice in it.

From day to day it will be clearer to you how to use all kinds of means in order to prepare yourself for the new state. You will not succeed in understanding it in advance, and you don’t need to demand understanding but the force of bestowal in “above reason.” Precisely by this yearning for bestowal above reason,” the knowledge will be revealed you and you will know.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Naso,” No. 93: When the Tree of Good and Evil rules, which is the purity of weekdays and the filth of weekdays, then these sages, who are compared to Sabbaths and holidays, have nothing more than the weekdays give them. As well as on Shabbat, there is no more than is corrected with its help on weekdays.

A man by himself, in his foundation, is just a point. He receives all his “body”/desire from the environment by means of the Light that Reforms. And this “body” is filled with the Light, the Creator that is revealed in it.

That is why Kabbalists write how, through desires/vessels/Kellim received from the environment, a person each time reveals the Creator. Everything what is written in The Zohar are the levels of revelation of the Creator in the desires that we get from the environment.

The Creator is revealed inside desires, within the environment, in the same place. The Zohar describes the degrees of this revelation both from the evil side and the good side, in opposite ways, because it is impossible to try something and feel its flavor if it is not salty, sweet, etc.

That is why The Zohar takes us through different experiences. But we know nothing, reveal nothing, except the Creator. The concept of the environment and specific details of perception disappear, and all this becomes more and more connected in “there is none else besides Him,” in one whole. In the end, we discover one desire/vessel, and inside it—the Creator. And nothing else.

That is why, if a person is yearning to the greatness of the Creator, to have only that in front of him, this directs him correctly.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar 

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Question: For religious people the words “to please the Creator” or “ to give pleasure to Him” are understood. In terms of the integral mind, the Creator is nature. Thus, the words “give pleasure to nature” sound a little strange, as if you want to give pleasure to the law of gravity.

Answer: Imagine that nature is that same force that gives birth to and develops all organisms, all sensations, all intelligence, and all animate and inanimate things, absolutely everything.

Many people already understand that nature is universal and that it really has everything in it: also the concealed intellect and concealed feelings. We need to disclose them, invite them to a shared dialog. And you need to develop them up to the state where you feel all these attributes in nature.

Question: Does nature exist like a person and does it enjoy?

Answer: It is not only living, but the upper intellect exists in it as well. Talk to an astronomer, with astrophysicists, and they will tell you that the entire universe is intellect, it is thought. This is how they feel it.

Question: But why should I give pleasure to a thought?

Answer: You will feel yourself as part of it and will begin to understand that the development of the desires and your longings for that absolute bestowal, which is unconditional, and are what constitute the highest state.

When you bestow, then through you passes all the information, all the energy, all the pleasures, all the fulfillments to everything else. You are with God then, since you are at the highest level of nature. You enter into equivalence with it.

I understand that you still are missing some emotional expressions, but they will come gradually. After all, you previously did not feel many things in your life, you loathed them, you rejected them, and afterward you began to gradually feel them.

Remark: Theoretically, you can understand Indians; for example, generally it is easier to think that some kind of person enjoys, and not some law of nature which is hard to grasp.

Answer: Why not? Nature is a field; it is universal.

And an individual is something concrete, with volume, with specified borders. Nature is something that lacks borders, is limitless. It isn’t even our universe, but much higher and greater. We have no words to describe it.

And if a person invents for himself some upper force, then he really builds it in his image since, after all, he cannot describe it in another way.
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From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman” 11/3/12

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From Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”: …it is the path of Torah, meaning the extensive preparation one must make to prepare the purification of his body before he is actually rewarded with keeping Torah and Mitzvot.

This is talking about the so-called “preparation time.” A person comes to study Kabbalah, but he doesn’t yet understand where he is. He starts with some introductory lectures, then he gets acquainted with a group; he participates in various workshops and common work. If he joins a group, he picks up new values and attitudes from his group whether he wants to or not. This is how one’s preparation period begins; it lasts until one reaches a state called “Lishma,” meaning that the Reforming Light begins to impact him in a way that his desires are altered.

“Completion of the Path of Torah” stands for “asking for a miracle,” meaning enjoying the process of bestowal. One has to wish to rid himself of selfish interests. However, he has to aspire to this condition not because he wants to escape sufferings, but rather to become capable of bestowal. Giving must become one’s only pleasure. When a person rises above his egoistic desires, he is still preoccupied with various problems, but it will be for the sake of caring for others. He regards only this kind of behavior as “life.”

Once while driving with Rabash to a sauna, I asked him about the way to check my level of “Lishma.” He explained it to me as follows: “A friend of yours is returning an envelope with some money that he owed you. There is $1,000 in the envelope. You count the money and see that there is $999. You think it’s not a big deal and decide that most likely your friend simply miscalculated the amount and overlooked that it is short by $1. You think that it’s not even worth mentioning it to him. So, you seal the envelope and close the deal.

This is called “acting within reason.” If you count the money or if you are driven by any sort of calculation, it means that you are ruled by your mind. If you count the money, and still accept your friend’s estimation, (it’s obvious that he wanted to return the whole amount of $1,000), then you accept the envelope without any hesitations whether or not it contains the whole amount you are supposed to receive back. It means that you go beyond your own opinion and above your mind.

It doesn’t matter, how much your friend has returned to you. You accept any amount from him as if it is a thousand dollars; there is no minimum that you would accept. You don’t bring up any conditions, nor do you even think of his possible mistake. It is simply impossible! By accepting $999, you are $1 “above reason.”

If you open the envelope and see that there is only one dollar ($1) enclosed in it, but you still accept it as if it were one thousand dollars ($1,000), it means that your “faith above reason” is $999 worth. It is quite significant…

It is the kind of faith that doesn’t let you get anything in return. You take the Creator’s judgment or your friend’s estimation for granted; thus, you feel as if you received the whole amount back. You feel “as if” your friend returned to you the full amount of $1,000, 100%. This situation fulfills you and empowers you to rise from the level of “Lo Lishma” to “Lishma.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Why do I discover new things about the world when I correct my attitude to others and love them?

Answer: It is always about your desire. There are only the vessel and the Light—the desire and what happens in it. The whole point is how I treat you, the “outsider,” from within my desire.

In other words, there is an image of a stranger in me, and I have to correct my desire with respect to that image, to turn my desire around, and accordingly, to discover a new state.

I never exit myself. I only need to change myself, my bad attitude, my hatred, and turn it to love. Then I will discover the spiritual world in my relationship with you.

One way or the other, everything happens inside. We are facing a huge world, but everyone understands that this picture is depicted in us. Baal HaSulam writes about it in “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

But where does the image in me come from? It is a result of the Creator’s action. Every level in nature—the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—all the levels of the development of the desire from the “root” phase until “phase four,” lead me to the Creator, to attaining the upper force.

This means that everything that I feel on the outside is the Creator. Therefore Rabash says that we should see the Creator in the friend, or at least behind a friend.

So the external image in my perception is the spark, the particle of Light, the Creator. Thus, thanks to the shattering of the vessels, I suddenly discover the others, the strangers outside myself. A “dipole” is revealed in me: I and someone else. This someone fills the place of the Creator for the time being, so that I can exercise self-improvement with him; but in fact, there is nothing but a person and the Creator.

So we should understand that in our corrections in the circle of friends, we help improve the whole world. Here we can understand what Baal HaSulam says at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“: If Israel correct themselves, the Light pours from them to the rest of reality; we don’t need anything else. It is enough for us to correct ourselves.

So my friend is not a friend but the Creator, who has inserted this image into me on the background of all the other levels of reality. On the fourth phase of the development, the created being feels shame before the Creator, and it is exactly for this reason that I hate the friend that I see before me. This is the result of that shame.

Let’s go back to what a person learns during the correction.

Without this information it is simply impossible to manage. Since how can he increase his love? Every level is made of feelings and mind—it is impossible to advance only by one of them. After all, the pleasure is only in attaining the Creator’s actions.

He wants us to discover Him as good and benevolent. In order to do that, you have to know how He does it: by what wisdom, in what way, with what concern. The wisdom is essential here, and it has to be deep wisdom, as if you are dressed in the Creator.

In our world you will not understand parents until you actually grow up and become a father. It is the same in spirituality, the adhesion is necessary, since without it you will not understand the Creator: who He is and what He is. Love comes as a result of this.

Unless you attain the Creator, you will not be able to love Him. As adults, we remember different events from our childhood, what our parents did, what they taught us, how they sacrificed themselves for us, and we begin to understand them, and to love them much more than in our childhood. It is the same with the Creator.
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From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 1: And since the supervisor and the supervised are one, it is impossible to distinguish between the evil and the good, and everyone is loved and everyone is clear, since everyone carries the Creator’s vessels, ready to praise the revelation and the uniqueness of the Creator, and this is felt by sense and according to this value, they eventually know that all the actions and the thoughts, both the good and the evil, carry the Creator’s vessels, and He prepared them and they came out of His mouth, and this will be revealed to everyone as the end of correction.

But in the meantime, it is a long and threatening exile, and the main problem is that when a person sees some action that is not right, he falls from his level since he thinks that he performs this action, forgetting that He is the one who is the cause of everything and that everything comes from Him, and there is no one else who operated in the world besides Him.

We can attribute the good events to the Creator, but a person begins to torture himself because of the bad events, to feel sorry about his actions and to regret what happens with him. It is hard for him to attribute all that to the Creator. He is upset and sorry about his past, about his failures, thinking that he is the reason for the unpleasant events or for not advancing enough, or for having missed something. Only later can he correct these “errors and malicious acts” with regard to the past and turn them into “rights.”

It is the same with regard to the present and the future: If a person considers something as bad, it means that he doesn’t attribute it to the Creator, but rather to other reasons. This is how it is arranged by the upper Providence. If he thinks that there are other reasons than the Creator, then he is actually guilty of what is happening, and it is called “and you shall worship other gods,” idolatry.

Thus a person breaks the first law of “there is none else besides Him,” and therefore, gets off track. He is not focused on the goal of creation anymore, on the revelation of the Creator; he is not between balanced forces that bring him to the truth.

Therefore, all our work is to reveal the upper Providence as the private Providence that comes from “there is none else besides Him” in the form of the good and the benevolent, at any moment in the past, present, and future, and it is the same for all the people in the world.

A human being is the point from which a person determines that “there is none else besides Him” and that He is the good and benevolent. The point from which a person determines the quality of the upper Providence grows gradually until it reaches the dimensions of the Creator. This is where all the 125 degrees of our spiritual growth are.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12

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If we embark on the spiritual path, we must exert effort in order to make each next step. On the other hand, the greater part of mankind will obtain the spiritual world “in a single step” so to speak, and we are the ones who will provide this step: by our sweat and hard work.

What do we get out of this? At best, satisfaction with the work done, or simply nothing. This is what it means to be a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation”: This is exactly what the Torah calls the ones who carry out this mission.

In other words, everything we do, we do in bestowal, which is “holiness.” We work hard seven days a week; we face ungratefulness and resistance, and in the end, everyone, all at one time, will receive that which cost us so much, and it’s in them where the greatest Light will unfold.

Question: But how? One percent gives all their soul to it, crosses the Machsom, reforms itself to bestow, and, all of a sudden, the rest of the 99 percent, in one easy move, collects the entire revenue?

Answer: Our pleasure, above all, is to delight the Creator so that He won’t know about us. That’s what it means to really bestow without wanting a reward: I bring Him pleasure and He doesn’t know who His secret admirer is. He thinks it came from somebody else. Otherwise, if both of us, the Creator and I, know that the delight is coming from me, it’s a payment, and there is no greater payment than that.

Question: Why did the Creator handpick us to bestow from the whole of mankind?

Answer: There are souls who feel that they are supposed to become realized in the most advanced form as compared to the rest of mankind. Their progress is tied to the vital need to find the Creator, the mystery of life, the general system of all creation, the grid that links all in one. This idea, this desire, takes a hold of them and doesn’t let them go.

Question: Why, then, do we receive troubles and problems on the spiritual path?

Answer: You seek justice? There is such, but it is not what you think it is. Justice lies in my gratitude to the Creator for this hard work, for the chance to bring Him delight that I won’t even know about and that He won’t know comes from me. This is the true, pure bestowal.

Question: However, the other 99% eventually will overtake us on this path!

Answer: That’s true; and I thank the Creator for this special role He assigned to me. I have accomplished selflessly, and this is my reward. I reached a state where lack of payment is my pay, and this is what fulfills me, and it is called the Light of mercy, the Light of Hassadim.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/12, “The Peace”

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