Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Considering Only The Goal

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll the pressures that we feel, the little pushes that advance the creation along the time axis forcing it to develop gradually, and the terrible afflictions that it goes through, all stem from the love of the Creator who wants to advance us and who operates only considering the goal. The Creator’s Providence is a purposeful Providence, and doesn’t take into account different events and states that we go through.

It is impossible to say that the Creator, the force of love and bestowal, doesn’t care how we feel. First, He feels it Himself, and much more than we do according to His level. The inadaptability, the lack of equivalence of form of the created being to the Creator, is felt as great sorrow on the upper levels.

We, however, feel only the faint resonances of this pain to the extent that we can feel it only on our account. Just as bestowal increases the feeling of pleasure by 620 times, so are the sufferings felt in the upper 620 times more strongly than we feel it. This is actually an infinite difference.

The Creator is an upper level compared to us and so our inadaptability, our deficiency, is felt in it sharply. To the extent that the future perfection is revealed in the upper level, we can see our deficiency in the current state, our helplessness, our suffering, and our inability to justify the Creator who operates for our sake as the good and the benevolent only out of love. Yet because of our corruptions, we don’t understand this goodness and so we don’t advance.

It is only a psychological problem of determining that everything we feel now is healing us and bringing us to adhesion. Then all the problems are solved, the darkness becomes the light of faith, and the bitterness becomes sweet. We don’t need anything else! In fact, nothing changes but the way we determine the state we are already in: It is like is says: “And you shall eat that which is ancient.”

Now we are in the Light of the Infinite, in the eternal word, in the fixed state. All the concealments are only in us, in our perception, in our understanding, in our inner attainment. We only have to change our attitude inside and to prefer bestowal to receiving, and we will feel that we are moving into the eternal and perfect world to the same extent. We will realize that our world was imaginary. So we actually don’t have to do anything but correct our perception of reality.

Question: How can I determine that everything that happens to me leads me to adhesion?

Answer: In order to do that, I have to accept the mind of the environment instead of my own mind. An environment is a group, a teacher, and books that have to perform such a change in me that a new state will be revealed in me; a state called the Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Lesson 12/22/13

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A Universal Foundation For All Sciences

Dr. Michael LaitmanScience is the revelation of the Creator, the sole force that acts on us. There is nothing else to discover. A scientific approach is to measure revealed phenomenon and describe it in formulas.

That is to find out the cause and effect, to describe patterns in the parameters of time, motion, space: either spiritual or material, to determine the correlation of forces, actions and results. We reveal how everything is connected with each other.

In addition, we have to figure out the elements themselves, between which this connection exists: what the actual force is, what the material on which it acts is, the object of influence, and what happens as a result of this interaction with the force and the material: what is the reaction and its result. In essence, this is a scientific study; it doesn’t matter at what level it occurs, the usual Newtonian or quantum physics, or the microcosm of the macrocosm.

But the science of Kabbalah brings everything under one base and speaks about the two forces acting on each other: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. It explains that with the correct perception of reality, everything that happens inside and around us in fact is our inner feelings inside a single material. Only this material is divided relative to my feelings into external and internal parts.

The science that studies our internality we call psychology. Those sciences that study the material that we feel supposedly outside of us, as if it does not belong to us, is not called psychology, but physics, chemistry, and biology, depending on the level of material and its proximity to us.

Kabbalah is called an inner science and conventional sciences are called external because we do not feel that they belong to what lies within us. All their actions, instruments, seemingly belong to what we consider as the external world. But the problem is only in us.

We study the desires of this world, which we do not perceive as our own, on the still level and call this physics. The studies of the desires of the vegetative world, we call botany and biology, of the animate world, zoology, etc. In fact, we divide our perception into several levels: still, vegetative, and animate, and considering them external, we develop sciences with respect to them. Thus, we can study only the material of this world only on this primitive, lower level, provided that we feel it as external.

But if I start to correct my perception, I will see that the entire reality is inside me, and only one force acts in it. I feel that all this reality in which “There is none else besides Him,” I comprehend in one single desire. Then all the sciences are absorbed by the science of Kabbalah. Why should I study physics, biology, zoology, botany, etc., including psychology, education, culture? All these are partial knowledge, fragments of knowledge, developed by humanity. They create a very limited and shaky picture, unstable, and often changing.

There is no firm basis under all this. As we are approaching the unity of our perception, all the sciences are going through crisis and are absorbed into the science of Kabbalah, which provides a universal, single foundation for all the phenomena, occurring in the material of the desire to enjoy under the influence of the Light.

Today, humanity has thousands of different formulas in different sciences. But all this ultimately boils down to a desire, pleasure, and the restricting screen between them; the confrontation of two forces reconciled through the middle line. That’s all!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/13, Shamati #15 “What Is Other Gods in the Work”

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What Do You See In This Picture?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”:  Whereas in the first discernment everyone receives equally without adding or subtracting, like Adam, in understanding the reality of this world. In viewing it, all are equal, but this is not so in understanding it—some evolve from generation to generation and some regress.

Everyone can see the same things in this world, the same phenomena. Yet, it depends on the one who sees them, whether it is a child, an adult, or an old person. The difference is in a person’s mind. After all, their senses have a mind that is behind them that analyze their perceptions; it depends on the level of one’s attainment.

It turns out that we live in very special wonderful conditions. There is no greater wonder than this world: The Creator created it and we can live in it and start our spiritual path from a state that is not spiritual. There is a reality before us that everyone can see, but everyone attains it according to his external understanding.

Suppose I took a photo of a friend working on the construction of our new building: For me it is just someone working, and only later I find out that he volunteers in brotherly mutual guarantee together with all the others, but the photo itself remains the same.

This is the uniqueness of this world: Here everything depends on how a person attains the “frames” that appear before everyone.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence“

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The Universe: The Mirror Of Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll that we perceive in this world does not belong to the spiritual realm. Of all the entire spiritual reality, we “catch” only a tiny and distorted part that can be sensed in our corrupt vessels. This tiny part of spirituality provides the livelihood of our vessels, “fuels” us up, thus letting us maintain our pseudo-existence called “the sweat of life.”

Our world with all its laws, nature, and science are imaginary since they are manifested solely in fictional vessels of the egoistic desire at its lowest stage. Anything we can attain with the help of science, even if it continued evolving for thousands of years, will always remain inside the ego.

This world exists only in our imagination. Eventually, above it, we will reveal the laws of the upper reality, altruistic desires, in other words, we will learn the laws of Kabbalah that pertain to the corrected world.

At that time, this material world will disappear (vanish). After all, this world exists not just in the egoistic desire, but rather in a human being. A person includes this world with everything that it ever had and has: dinosaurs and lions, stars and planets… We don’t perceive the universe per se, but rather we feel the depth of our material desires.

To the extent of the correction our material desires, everything will “flow” from egoism to altruism; then, materiality will “evaporate.” So, spending energy and efforts for materiality is a complete waste, since it is only a preparatory basis for the subsequent stages.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/13, “The Freedom” 

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We All Are Little Artists

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”: Moreover, even the things we imagine we attain by their essence, such as rocks and trees, after honest examination we are left with zero attainment in their essence, since we only attain their actions, which occur in conjunction with the encounter of our senses with them.

I perceive everything and feel only as an impression, created in my sense organs, not in the original form. The truth is outside of me and unknown to me. Only by perceiving something within myself, distinguishing what was “depicted” in my vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, can I consider something. All names and symbols, all phenomena, and responses, all kinds of matter, everything that happens is due to the perception in my sense organs. The essence remains “behind the scenes,” eludes material sensations, lies outside of the picture of the world that they “draw” for us.

Question: How, then, can we communicate with each other and understand each other?

Answer: We can understand each other because each one has a similar program with a similar template inherent in our sense organs. Their correspondence allows a person to pass his emotions to others because they are in the same illusion as he is. We are all at a certain level of perception and this situation allows us to discuss it among ourselves.

Based on the current “picture,” we admit the existence of our world, in which there are the still, vegetative, and animate natures, as well as people who perceive reality. What it is in reality, we don’t know. Perhaps, it’s just waves as physicists say, or almost primordial emptiness because the distance between subatomic particles is incomparably greater than their size.

How do we perceive the world? How does this affect us? How do we imagine what is happening? Why does reality specifically take these forms in our perception? How do we process the received data? How do we compare them with past results? How and with the help of what code do we pass information to each other? How do we store it to use the accumulated experience later to find something, to draw an analogy? All these are derivatives.

And the most important thing is that people in this material world perceive only a subjective picture. If they are given other sense organs, they will see a different world. If their program of perception is changed, the picture will change. Today we have already invented devices that enable us to modify and augment the perceived reality, to create illusions and false images.

Moreover, animals, compared to us, perceive the world completely differently. A dog orients himself by “spotting” odors; he does not look at a person, but smells him and by this means builds a human image. He recognizes a cat that runs by not so much by the eyes, but in the field of smell. A snake determines the temperature of objects to fractions of degrees, and this gives it a clear picture.

In general, it’s clear that everything in the world is relative. It’s relative even between people, although by nature, there is not such a big difference between us.

Question: In this case, how can Kabbalists, discussing the spiritual world, understand each other?

Answer: A Kabbalist is a person who resides in a body, like you, and who perceives the world through the bodily senses, as you do. Besides that, he has additional perception, in which he distinguishes the forces controlling the world and his connection with them. There is a network of forces before him, that’s all. But it is really everything.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/8/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Gravestone Is Not For The World To Come

Dr. Michael LaitmanHumanity has believed that there is life after death for ages, but in fact the next world is the next level. On the whole, there are five worlds: Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. Each of them is divided into five Partzufim and in each Partzuf there are five Sefirot. They make a total of 125 levels and each one is also called a world. It’s a about a certain “place” in my desire to receive that has certain attributes.

Eventually I am stabilized; I am in my current state, and then I feel and understand, perceive, and live according to the definitions, the values, the perceptions and method of clarification that are typical of the current level. This level is my world, “this world.” Everyone is on this level, including the greatest Kabbalists who are also on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature of their existence.

This state is given to us from the start. No one asks me whether I want to be born here.

But I can add the next level called the next world to the current state. It says: “You shall see your world during your lifetime.” This means that I have to attain it here and not after death. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the revelation of the Creator to the created being in this world.” I can discover the Creator on the level of this world. The revelation of the Creator is called discovering another level of the 125 levels. This is how I attain it, starting from the smallest measure until the fullest measure.

The next world will be revealed if I form the image of the force of bestowal out of the items that I have prepared. Then I will acquire new feelings and a new perception in that image, in my new desire to bestow. This will be my next world, one of the 125 levels.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Reality Or A Vision Test Chart?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the connection between my constant yearning to return to the center of the group and the war to see the true picture of reality?

Answer: The war is specifically made about this. If you wake up in the morning and see that you need to direct yourself towards the center of the group, this says that you are on the right path. If time after time you catch yourself unconsciously departing from this state and bring yourself back, this is a sign you are going in the right direction.

Question: What picture and what feeling appear in the center of the group?

Answer: In the center of the group the feeling appears that there is nobody; there is only one desire, not many, in which all of reality is felt.

And then you discover that today’s reality is not true, but only a simulation like on a computer screen. To the degree that your vision is corrected, you begin to see that there is nothing true in this world, there are no real forces. This is like a distorted copy of the spiritual world that shows us what we have ruined and points us in the right direction so that we can eventually enter the true world.

It is as if there is a life that you don’t see, but they show you a performance about it in a theater. And in this presentation you discover how much your view was mistaken and how you can correct yourself in order to see the true life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/01/13, Writings of Rabash

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Truth And Faith

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are two states in our reality: One state is the level I am on now, feeling this world, myself, and everything around me. This is my reality, my life, everything that I feel.

However, the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that there is another level that is above me and that is different from me in its attributes. My attribute is a desire to receive, and the attribute of the upper level, of the upper dimension, is a desire to bestow.

If I look at the two levels at once from the level of my life, I advance toward the goal of creation. I constantly take into account that there is an upper state above me that I must reach, and so my life is focused on and dedicated to this upper goal.

However, then I feel that I am split in my feelings, my perception, my understanding, and in determining my state. I must either accept everything according to what I feel—according to my desires and my attributes, my mind and my feelings—and thus assess my inner state as everyone does, or I can attribute myself to an upper level and assess how I see myself from there, from the direction that the Creator looks at me.

The upper level dominates and determines everything that happens to me now, so how can I imagine that I am on the next upper level? I must imagine that I have attained the attributes of the upper level that are totally focused on bestowal and that I feel the love of others, the love of friends, and the love of the attribute of bestowal itself that is called the love of the Creator. I imagine how I stop hating and the attribute of love and bestowal totally fills me, and that I feel it as a great pleasure.

In that case, I already see reality from the perspective of the upper, of the Creator. This means that my perception is split. If I sink into my state and determine everything from my attributes, feelings, and calculate according to the principle of “a judge has only what his eyes see,” it is called truth, my opinion, according to my real state and what I feel. On the other hand, I see things from an upper state to which I seemingly have ascended and how would I see, feel and judge what happens if I had the attribute of bestowal and love of others, as my ego is restricted.

This state is called faith, which means that there are two levels here: truth and faith. On the current level of truth, I feel deficiencies, incompleteness, discomfort, uneasiness, just like everyone in this world and even worse because I want to rise above that. In the state of faith, there is wholeness and nothing is lacking, and there is total peace and comfort. I am in adhesion with the upper force, and I see from one end of the world to the other filled with gratitude to the Creator.

I must be in these two states together! Then, I determine the direction from one state to another. It seems that it is easier to imagine things that way and that it is possible to remain in this double perception and to, each time, try to bring the future closer so that the attribute of love and bestowal through the group will really bring it to a higher level.

At the same time, there is the matter of the recognition of evil, the inability to ascend, and a prayer of many is born. We will have to collect and accumulate our efforts on account of my efforts by ascending and descending again and again, losing everything, and thus filling the sea of the Sitra Achra (the other side). This sea swallows all our efforts the moment a person falls, but later it will return everything according to the condition, “He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again.” Then, we are rewarded to ascend to an upper level.

We must get used to this work. However, it seems that it is perfectly possible to be on two levels simultaneously: truth and faith.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/13

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I depict the form of the upper level?

Answer: You have to imagine your upper state and try to live in it as much as possible. I am building the upper level in this world in these conditions. The corrected relationships between me and others are called the upper world. Then, I discover that it is right here and that there is no other place.

I see a new connection stretching between me and others, and so I reveal the whole upper level and in it the Creator who fills the world. I see that the whole world is the Holy Shechina, and the Creator is in it. I discover it right here. I don’t need to fly there or to some other dimension.

I constantly establish the form of this spiritual world by what I have before me now, and only the intention changes. I use all my egoistic desires and the hatred as building materials. I only add the corrected connection between all parts of reality. I discover and change the connection from receiving to bestowal. Nothing else changes, as it is said, “Everything goes on the way it was,” and “I ate that which is very old.”

However, I discover that, through the new attitude that I have toward others, and among others, I see that everyone is at the end of correction. They don’t feel that way, but I see them according to my level. I see that there is nothing in this world, except for Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity) that is perfectly corrected. Everything that I saw up until now was simply a dream. Everything depends only on my perception of reality.

So there is nowhere to which you can escape, and there is no need to escape. I should only change my attitude toward what I see and try to see the domination of the Creator everywhere. Then, I need to feel glad since I gradually will discover the real state that already exists. The only thing missing is my effort to discover it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/13, Writings of Rabash

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