Today a person perceives life only as reception, absorption, consumption, acquisition, and attainment for himself. That is how he goes around until he gets tired of this life, retires, spends a few years in lines at health clinics, and finally dies.

But there is a possibility of raising ourselves to another level of existence: to conduct life through bestowal and not consumption. And this is not through benevolence and charity, where you help the poor monetarily, rather it is life beyond our ego. Life outside of the ego gives a feeling of anti-life, anti-death, anti-world, as it is said, “I saw an upside-down world” (Baba Batra 10b).

There exists another form of life parallel to our world. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to attain the new form of life. This is an upside down life, not within the ego, which swallows and absorbs everything into it, not within the desire to receive and enjoy, but within the desire to bestow, to love.

This is not the same egoistic love that is familiar to us in this world. Love is when I go outside of myself and am included in the desires of others and then I live within these desires without taking myself into account. A lifestyle like this is not limited by the intensity of pleasure that you can get.

This is not pleasure within the physical body, which cannot eat and drink without limit. In bestowal I am not limited by anything because I go out to others. I am not limited by the life of this biological body, but I am outside of it and that is where I feel my life.

My body remains, but it lives next to me, like a domesticated animal that lives by the side of a human. My inner part that goes out of me and is included in others is called Adam (Man). And that part of me, the biological, beastly body that remains, lives as usual. It lives out its allotted time, going to doctors until it is taken to the cemetery.

Question: But a person struggling with everyday physical problems is not interested in lofty concepts like life outside of the body?

Answer: Every person is concerned about the same questions of life and death. But even normal life is impossible to arrange today without being included in the right network, without balancing our reception and bestowal, and without connecting with each other with the right mutual connections. The wisdom of Kabbalah compels us to organize our lives this way.
[155720]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/8/15

Related Material:
A World With The Dimension Of Bestowal
Is There Eternal Life?
Controlling Reality During Our Lifetime

Filed under: Body and Soul, Kabbalah Study, Perception - No Comments →

The Torah, “Leviticus,” 25:6 – 25:7: And [the produce of] the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to eat for you, for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you, And all of its produce may be eaten [also] by your domestic animals and by the beasts that are in your land.

Everything that belongs to a person, to his vessel, which is made of the parts of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels, divided horizontally, vertically, and upwards, has to be included in his work. He has to prepare his desires so that they are ready to be filled with the Upper Light. A servant, a maid, cattle and beasts are all parts of a person.

When we reach that state, we will see that all the other parts of nature (the still, vegetative, and animate), which we feel externally to us, will be filled with the same Light and it will be clear that they are not external but all exist inside. We will discover that our external and internal world is one whole, general world. This means that my animate part and the whole animate world that surrounds me, my vegetative part and the whole vegetative world that is external to me, the part of the still nature in me and the whole universe, are actually one unique whole.

It turns out that the one, unique human figure that we create when we fully connect includes all of creation inside it, which we feel as one whole. There is no division into I and others. Humans, animals, plants, and inanimate nature all become one unique desire in which the concept of the one Creator is attained, which is the one force of nature. This is typified by the seventh millennium.

And the Creator’s attitude to this—the attainment of the thought of His creation, the plan, His actions, His main initial desire to create the created being in His form and image—is already the next three thousands: the eighth, ninth, and tenth. Then it is all locked into one unique whole that is not divided into thousands of years, and the created being enters another dimension, which we know nothing about. But he exists, since we have clues to that in the writings of great Kabbalists, but nothing more.
[155316]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/13/14

Related Material:
A Sabbath Of Solemn Rest In The Seventh Year
Working With The Level Of Still Nature
Everything Begins From The Land

Filed under: Inner Work, Perception, Spiritual Work, Spirituality, The Creator, Torah - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Item 40:  And I know that it is completely unaccepted in the eyes of some philosophers. They cannot agree that man, whom they think of as low and worthless, is the center of the magnificent creation. But they are like a worm that is born inside a radish and thinks that the world of the Creator is as bitter and as dark as the radish it was born in.

But as soon as the shell of the radish [of one’s egoism] breaks and it peeps out [comes out of the egoism, of the intention, “for his own sake,” and enters bestowal and love for others], it wonders [in awe of the upper world that it revealed] and says: “I thought the whole world was the size of my radish, but now I see before me a grand, beautiful, and wondrous world

This is what we feel when we discover a hidden treasure that was always in our possession without our knowing about it. Now we can open the gate and see what is happening beyond the limits of this world in which we have reached a blind alley. When the exit from it is discovered, we see before us a “grand, beautiful, and wondrous world.”

Question: What did the worm see when it came out of the radish?

Answer: It saw the sun, the flowers, and the blue sky. Imagine what a difference this was compared to the dark and bitter radish! We are like this worm when it is disclosed that the world is infinite, that death does not exist, that life here is worse than death, and that we’re in it. The world is revealed before us with absolutely different dimensions. We begin to see the world in a dimension of bestowal and love, and then its boundaries are changed.

We now perceive our world in a rather limited form and our possibilities within it are limited, our lives are so short. Suddenly all of these limitations disappear and the boundaries are expanded. Before then we existed within our ego, and there it was possible to receive only as much as it succeeded for us. But for the characteristic of bestowal that we acquire in place of the ego, there are no limitations and borders. Therefore we feel life as eternal and not limited by anything.

For this we only need to come out of the radish and see the true world.
[155511]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

Related Material:
The Treasure Hidden In Our Pockets
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
X-ray Of My Ego

Filed under: Baal HaSulam, Perception, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: What determines the length of the course of one’s life, that is, the length of one’s life?

Answer: The length of one’s life is determined by a person’s role with respect to everyone else because we are all connected in one network. I determine the length of my life and its value to the extent that I try to advance and pull all those around me towards the goal.

However, if I don’t make any such efforts, there is no point in keeping me alive. A person is given a long life to the extent that he is necessary to others and is willing to help them.

Question: Does that mean that if a person lives a long life, he has good relationships with others?

Answer: No, the calculation here is much more complicated. It is impossible to calculate it so simply. When a person sees his place in the general system, he will know how to participate in it correctly and will thus prolong his life. However, a long life doesn’t necessarily mean a meaningful life.
[155519]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

Related Material:
Is There Eternal Life?
How Long Will Man Live?
Make Life A Success

Filed under: Body and Soul, Inner Work, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We depict a reality that doesn’t exist on the outside, but only inside us. Thanks to that I can discover who I am and learn from myself.

The world is like a photograph that I produce. On the outside there is only the Upper Light that fills all of creation, the force of love and bestowal that fills everything.

My egoistic attributes are projected on this force of bestowal and depict different colorful pictures on the background of this white Light.

These colors are the reflection of my different egoistic attributes and therefore I see a big world, but in truth, it is only the form of my ego that is inside me.

I am an egoist who sees things according to my attributes as if they are on the outside. The whole world is actually the egoistic picture of my attributes that appear on an external screen.

Thanks to this perception I can thoroughly study myself since I see a huge world around me that lives and operates, but these are all my own attributes. It is as if I see my own radiograph.

Question: Do Isis and the fundamentalist Moslems also exist inside me?

Answer: Of course, otherwise it wouldn’t exist on the outside. Everything on the outside exists only because it is inside me. This perception gives me the unique opportunity to learn and explore myself. I can attain myself and discover how I have to correct myself thanks to the fact that all my inner attributes are exposed on the outside and perceived by me as the external world.

If I begin to treat everyone in this world nicely, I will see how all the negative attributes and flaws disappear and take on other forms. The whole world gradually evaporates and turns into the white Light, into bestowal and love.
[155151]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/8/15

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
X-ray Of My Ego
The Paintings Of My Ego

Filed under: Inner Work, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Will the fact that I correct my perception of reality help me succeed in life and be healthy?

Answer: First, it will help us understand the reason we don’t have success. This is a great achievement. However, the main thing is that by correcting our perception of reality to the right perception, we change our entire life. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about. It teaches us how to discover the true reality and a new world. We don’t need anything beyond that because we discover a world of perfect bestowal, full of Light, in which we don’t lack anything.

This correction isn’t meant to change our corporeal life and help us make more money, for example, or to improve our health and our family relationships, but actually to change all of reality from one end to the other. Thanks to the change of our internal attributes, we also change the external world because the world we see is the imprint of our internal attributes.

Question: I come home and my wife begins to yell at me. What should I change inside me so that she won’t yell at me, but rather will welcome me warmly?

Answer: We must change our internal attributes. There is nothing else we should change. Then, we will feel that the same people who treated us badly before suddenly begin to treat us nicely. This is the only correction. We must let the Light work.

Question: How will my wife know that I have corrected my internal attributes?

Answer: It is only up to you. Only you determine how she will treat you. Every person determines how he feels the world. We can feel that we are in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), the good white Light, by ascending above time and space, like Einstein dreamed. We can do that. It only depends on changing our internal attributes, which can be corrected by a special method, by the wisdom of Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah allows a person to change his attributes, and then he feels that he is in a world of absolute goodness.

 Does that mean that we learn how to pay attention only to the full half of the glass that is half empty?

Answer: It isn’t a simple psychological exercise that enables us to pay attention to positive things and disregard the negative ones. By changing our attributes, we actually change the world around us. The half empty glass is actually filled!
[155151]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/8/15

Related Material:
Draw Yourself A Good World
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
How To Succeed In The School Of Life

Filed under: Body and Soul, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation,” Part 2: …in fact, there is nothing more natural than coming into contact with one’s maker, for He has made nature. In fact, every creature has contact with his maker, as it is written, “The whole earth is full of His glory,” except we do not know or feel it.

Actually, one who is awarded contact with Him attains only the awareness. It is as though one has a treasure in his pocket, and he does not know it. Along comes another and lets him know what is in his pocket. Now he really has become rich.

Now when he discovers this treasure, he knows that he has ownership of this and he knows how to use it. Before, he put his hand into his pocket and he didn’t know what kind of treasure was in his possession, whereas now he discovers it in his pocket and he knows how to use it.

Question: So what is this treasure that we have in our possession without our knowing about it?

Answer: We are in a world that is concealed from us. We don’t see more than one percent of all of the reality that surrounds us. Essentially, we see only a small, compressed, and completely distorted world. We don’t pay attention to the treasure we possess.

Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah make it possible for me to discover this treasure?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah gradually reveals the entire map to us to the degree that we can use this treasure correctly. In the meantime, only this world is revealed to us, and we are destroying it. So how is it possible to reveal more to us? The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us where we can develop and what kind of goal we can attain.

Question: And a treasure is waiting for us at the end of the road?

Answer: We discover it gradually. Gradually we are allowed to put our hand in our pocket and use part of the treasure if we know how to use it correctly. If we learn to use it correctly with the powers and knowledge that are given to us, then they become revealed before us.
[155410]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
Kabbalah Is The Physics Of The Integral World
Are We Awake or Still Asleep?

Filed under: Baal HaSulam, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Spiritual Work, The Creator - No Comments →

I once asked my teacher Rabash the same question: “What happens to a person’s soul when he dies?” And he answered that it is just like when you take a dirty shirt off at the end of the day and throw it into the washing machine….

So also at the end of life you take off the body from the soul and discard it. The body rots, whereas the soul continues to live. After all, you remain alive after you take off your old shirt. In this way you remain alive even after taking off the physical body.

Question: So how does the soul exist without a body?

Answer: The soul even exists now without a body. It only accompanies it and doesn’t touch it. The soul exists in another dimension that you don’t feel.

Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Peace,” that: “Thus, in our world, there are no new souls the way bodies are renewed, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate….Therefore, with regard to the souls, all generations since the beginning of creation to the end of correction are as one generation that has extended its life over several thousand years….”

The period of the development of the soul here in this world is 6,000 years. This development began with Adam HaRishon (the first man) who lived 5,775 years ago, and will continue to the end of 6,000 years. This means that another 225 years are left for us. During this time all of us must develop our soul, meaning our part in the collective soul, and connect everyone together into one soul.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains this entire process. 14 billion years ago the material evolution of our universe began from one spark; it was used as the beginning of the “Big Bang.” That is how the evolution of inanimate nature began. Two billion years ago the first plants appeared on Earth, then the animals, and after that the human. The human species developed until a desire to attain the source of his life, the upper world, the next level, began to develop in him.

Development proceeds and advances from the inanimate to vegetative, to animate, and after that, the human. And the human must attain a higher level, which is called the development of his soul, and rise to the next level, the upper world. And in the upper world there are also the phases of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. But there are spiritual levels that we need to develop and rise to an even higher world. And that is how we pass by way of the five worlds.

Question: Does it follow that Adam HaRishon lived 5,775 years ago, who developed the soul within him?

Answer: Yes, and so he is called Adam HaRishon.

Question: Does this mean that everyone must develop the souls within them during the next 225 years?

Answer: Yes, all of them without exception, in 225 years or before then. So we see how this development is accelerating; time is becoming very thick and is seemingly shrinking and compressing. If we don’t develop the soul within us, if we don’t push ourselves towards development, we will be thrown into terrible pressure from the forces of nature that will pressure us through all kinds of disasters and problems; they will push us towards development of the soul.

Development of the soul can only happen in this world, and secondly, it can be renewed only through connection between people. Through the connection between us we give shape to the single soul that is general and common to us all.
[154589]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/1/15

Related Material:
A Person Without A Soul
Conception Of The Soul
How To Acquire Your Soul

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →

Question: Is there a heavenly court that determines where the person will go after his death, heaven or hell?

Answer: We are within a rigid system that is bound with iron fetters. This is a program that encompasses and includes all of creation.

Through our behavior, which depends upon our characteristics, we influence the system and feel its reaction. This is called judgment and mercy. According to how the person influences the system, it reacts, influences, and acts on him. This is called the “heavenly court.” So, we need to learn how to behave to influence the system only positively.

Question: Does it follow that we feel heaven or hell here and now and not somewhere after death?

Answer: Absolutely! There is no other heaven or hell other than what is found here in this world. I myself determine where I am found, in heaven or in hell. If I determine that my egoistic desire is hell because it buries me underneath it and doesn’t let me reach and attain eternal life, I feel myself in hell.

It is excellent that you have understood this. It means that now you will try to break out of your ego and attain heaven, and you truly will begin to feel yourself in an eternal and perfect world. You will feel that you are living in heaven and will not be concerned about your body at all.
[155081]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/1/15

Related Material:
The Magic Of Egoism And Bestowal
How Do You Imagine Hell?
Today’s Heaven Is Tomorrow’s Hell

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →

Question: Is there eternal life?

Answer: There is eternal life but not in our corporeal body. Our biological body is a machine that cannot exist more than many decades.

Science can extend the life of the body up to several decades more than we lived in the past, but it is hard to understand why people should want to live so long if it isn’t in order to develop the soul inside us. We see that people today live twice as long, and even three times longer than then they did 200 or 300 years a ago.

Eternal life is life in the altruistic desire, not in the egoistic desire. It is because the ego kills itself, while we can live forever in the desire to bestow because it doesn’t disappear and is continuously renewed. The desire to bestow connects to other people and lives in them.

When a person develops the soul inside him, which means the love for others, he exits his narrow world that is filled with pain and problems and enters a wide eternal world.
[154956]
From Israeli Radio Program 103 FM, 2/1/15

Related Material:
Chasing Eternity
An Everlasting Sensation Of An Eternal Life
The Embryo Of The Soul And Its Growth

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →