The Creator wants the created beings to understand and to attain Him correctly. He chose the language of “pleasure” or “sufferings” to which we respond. The Creator created the desire to receive so that will feel this language.

The Creator “pricks” the created being, and he cries, “Ouch!” He spills a drop of sweet syrup on him and the created being is impressed, “Ah!” And so our whole life goes by between the “ouch” and the “ah.” He speaks to us by using this language: A drop of sweetness, a drop of bitterness, and different combinations of the two lead to endless nuances and various shades.

Thus the Creator develops the desire from a primitive desire to a more sophisticated, versatile desire by feeding it gradually: a spoonful of sweetness and a spoonful that is a bit more bitter, so one tastes all the different flavors.

This variety (TANTA) is born in my desire to receive, according to the way I begin to respond and to feel the Creator’s bestowal. He constantly influences me, either by pleasures or by deficiencies, by bitterness or by sweetness.

I don’t know why the Creator has chosen this bittersweet language to communicate with His created being. I only know that if I perceive all this bitterness and sweetness, if I feel them in all my desire to receive, then by that I will learn to understand the Creator. I will be able to understand not the actual bitterness and sweetness and how they are felt in my desire, but I will discover Him, the one who has chosen this language in order to communicate with me.
[102304]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/08/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How will it help me if I think that everything comes from one benevolent force, the Creator, if I am forced to struggle with each problem individually and deal with them separately?

Answer: If you fight every problem separately, you will never get your life in order! You will keep trying to defeat these alien forces: your boss at work, your wife, your neighbor, friends, and foes, the entire world, and you will waste all your life only to see that you resolve nothing.

Everyone will be disappointed here and very much so since we put ourselves at the mercy of thousands of reasons and people who are acting simply like robots! They are parts of our own souls, but since we haven’t attached them to ourselves correctly, we think they have their own power.

The instant you start connecting them to yourself and loving them “as you love yourself,” you will discover that they truly are like “yourself” and belong to you, and that beside them there is only one force that is at work and which arranges all this for you. And by themselves, they don’t exist and act independently.

The moment, you worry about various problems and can’t sleep, it is all because you can’t imagine yourself as a baby in the Creator’s arms. Feel how He is holding you in His arms, and you have nothing to worry about. The only thing worth worrying about is: When will I really perceive myself, unveil the Creator, and experience His love for me, which means becoming similar to Him and able to receive all this?

When the properties of love and bestowal emerge in you, you will feel how much He loves you. And if you yourself cannot love, how will you feel His love? If you hate everything that surrounds you, you will feel only hatred from everything and won’t stop suffering!

But if you could relate to everybody with love, you would feel only love that fills the entire world. It depends solely on your qualities, desires, Kelim.

So you have to, on one hand, keep calm since everything is in the hands of the Creator and “There is none else but Him,” “the good Who does good.” But on the other hand, “nobody will help me but me” to practically achieve the perception of “There is none else but Him.”

In fact, in order to feel this way, I need to have my attributes corrected and then I will be able to perceive what is really happening in reality. I am surrounded by the Light of the world of infinity, except that I don’t feel it! This is the only thing I should worry about, my properties (Kelim), in order to experience this infinity.

What else is there to worry about? Everything else is a mere illusion manifesting in my corrupted properties. And I worry about illusory problems that are painted by my corrupted senses; I am scared of shadows like a little child.
[29662]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do we look to you in your inner sight from the other side of the internal screen?

Answer: You look like internal organs of the soul; it’s a spiritual, anatomical picture where only desires are visible. There is nothing else in spirituality. There is one desire and everything is included in it as its parts. Nothing is seen separately and it feels like one common field.
[29921]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is our ego, is it a feeling or a mental perception?

Answer: We can compare the brain to a movie screen since it is actually blank. Today, for example, you seem to be ugly and disgusting, and tomorrow after a change of state, I may look at you and see before me a fine guy that radiates vitality. Does my brain depict these pictures, is it the screen? Or do I project them? My ego, my interest, depicts all these figures, but we don’t understand this until the end.

We believe that we are objective when it comes to the still, vegetative, and animate nature, but on the level of the speaking, in the relations between us, there are different variables. Generally speaking, we don’t actually understand that we are the ones depicting our own world on every level of the desire to receive.

This is why our world is called imaginary since it doesn’t actually exist. The moment you clean your ego from the perception of this world, it will disappear. And what will be left? Nothing?

So what will we be left with? Start establishing this “something” now. Start building a new world. It all depends on what you draw on the screen of your perception.

Question: But how do we draw these pictures if they immediately seem real to me?

Answer: I imagine a force that controls me, that surrounds me, that manages me and confuses me, sending me positive and negative things. This whole situation, the bubble I am in, operates on me; it is like a science fiction movie since we have to imagine something and work on something in our imagination. So I imagine a certain space in which a certain force or a force field operates. In the meantime, I cannot manage without this three dimensional illusion with the different phenomena of time and space. I am connected to it whether I want to be or not.

I imagine a force that surrounds me as if I am in a cloud. This force operates on me in every direction and in every possible aspect. Even now when I think about it, it actually operates me; I am relaxed, let it operate me. But what do I have besides this operation?

Because without any additions of my own, I can only constantly yearn for a good feeling and how to thank this force for its good care. It has created a deficiency in my feeling, a desire to receive, and I feel good in this world under its domination.

It turns out that we don’t need anything but that. The whole philosophy of the epicurean school is based on this approach. Other Eastern methods also believe in nirvana and peacefulness. This attitude is in fact the deepest since it is based both on the fear of disrupting something in creation and on the fear of cursing the Creator. So I have to constantly feel good. I constantly try to be calm and relaxed and to be happy with what I have, not because the ego drives me to do so but because of a more sublime intention. In short Abraham worked well with this approach in Babylon.
[117735]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In fact I am not in the world, but the world is in me.

The process of “reading” the external reality as internal is divided into four stages and immediately at the first step I should be guided only by what I see.

And I see that the Creator is making this “projection” for me. It’s as if a projector is placed in me and it shows the whole world and all that happens to it. The light from the “bulb” of this “projector” passes through the “film,” divided into “frames,” and falls on the “screen,” i.e., in my mind; as a result, I see a current picture of the world. Well, the Creator Himself is the abstract Upper Light, the Light of Infinity.

So, in fact, the “film” is my Reshimot that create this or that picture for me. And if it were not for this mechanism, I would have not distinguished what is happening because the Reshimot would have remained inside. However, the Creator, illuminating them, reveals my inner world as an external reality.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”
[117456]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: If there is any definition that can tell spiritual from corporeal, it belongs only to those who have attained a spiritual thing and felt it. These are the genuine Kabbalists; thus, it is the wisdom of Kabbalah that we need.

This material world is completely detached from spirituality. Kabbalists explain to us that our material world is simply an outcome of our imagination. After we wake up, we’ll see that we “were as dreamers.” This dream and our existence in it seems real; however, at its core it is imaginary and illusive.

But we are unable to make the distinction. There is a reality and there are five sensors through which we can investigate the reality. Our exploration of this realm is called “science,” a complex of dependable knowledge that we use as guidance. With the help of science, people produce medications, build houses, etc., thus make our lives better. The set of knowledge that we call “science” is very reliable, trustworthy, and tested. This explains why science makes us more confident and satisfies us.

However, we keep thinking about “life after death.” We don’t know what it is. Physically, one dies together with one’s body, and yet it’s not a secret that on top of it there is a certain part in us, a spiritual component. There are no solid proofs of this fact; moreover, the wisdom of Kabbalah states that there is no spiritual constituent in us whatsoever. The one who hasn’t attained spirituality stays at an “animate,” physical level for one’s entire life. It’s not an accident that Baal HaSulam once said that he didn’t care where his “sack of bones” would be buried. However, we do have a chance to alter our nature in a way that in addition to our “animal” existence we also disclose life in another dimension, a spiritual reality.

It is very straightforward: whatever one manages to attain is all one actually has. Fantasizing won’t help; nothing from this world can be related to spirituality. Spirituality exists independently and if we are not yet there, we just cannot deliberate on it. Therefore, scientists do not explore this topic since they don’t have relevant “tools” for it.

And yet, there is a special approach to life that is called “philosophy.” It speculates on topics that are impossible to explore using traditional scientific methods. As a result, philosophers come up with various opinions about the spiritual world as if they sense, understand, or have access to it. No doubt that it’s clearly a wrong, unscientific approach that has nothing to do with science or common sense. It’s all about fantasizing; so, it’s not an accident that nowadays the word “philosophy” became derogatory. Those who are detached from reality are called “philosophers.” And rightly so.

That’s why Baal HaSulam was strongly against the philosophical approach. Previously, when it was impossible to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses, philosophers could talk profusely about their views. Today, the wisdom of Kabbalah spreads out into the world, whereas philosophers continue to discuss things that they do not have any contact with, thus confusing people even more.

Baal HaSulam explains that philosophical constructions have no basis and that you can’t listen to philosophers since they mystify and puzzle themselves and others, thus depriving humanity of a chance to speed up their progress in attaining the goal of creation. After all, doesn’t the goal of creation come before and stay above all other things? If we don’t hurry up, if we let philosophers confuse us even more, we’ll be triggering additional afflictions. This is what concerned Baal HaSulam.

By the way, a curious question arises: How can sober, thinking people fantasize about something they haven’t yet attained, have no proofs of, and is something they have never tested or analyzed? This mystery of philosophy still has no answer.
[111309]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We should clearly understand one thing: our success completely depends on the Creator and nobody else besides Him. “We are not the ones who will finish the job, but it’s not up to us to refuse it.” We must act applying maximum energy and at the same time staying confident that the result is solely in the Creator’s hands. We already know it very well. It has been proven dozens of times. We realize that we are playing a game the results of which are known beforehand, that everything comes from Him and that He is the One Who organizes everything with a divine “cunningness,” and that there is nothing at all we can do about it.

You can lie on the couch all day long and in the evening you’ll receive your salary as if you worked all day. However, we are obligated to accept the upper governance and work all day long. The same applies to our external dissemination. These two lines teach us the way that the spiritual realm is built: out of contradictory properties that look totally incompatible to our brain. It’s fine for now! Later, we’ll be given a different kind of mind.

Let’s hope that with each day we’ll need the Creator more and more. At the same time, we have to be cautious of weakening the other side of the coin and make sure that our own contribution in the process also has to expand day after day. Without it, we won’t have a need for the Creator. These two lines do not cancel or annul each other. If we manage to act so, we’ll accelerate creation of the first spiritual vessel.

We should apply our efforts as if we were “an ox under a yoke or a donkey to the load,” meaning that we should run faster and use our energy mechanically. As to our intentions, we should clearly realize that in every action of ours, the Creator is both in front of us and behind us, and that He “embraces us from the front and the back,” and that we work only together with Him.

Later, we’ll figure out that He works inside us also . Then, where are we in this picture? This is the point at which we start attaining a transcendent power, the spirit that dresses into everything around us. We understand that “There is none else besides Him” and that there is also a tiny point from which we look around and see that “There is none else besides Him.”

This particular point has nothing in it at all: It has neither volume nor width. It’s just a point that emerged “out of nothing” (Yesh Mi Ayin); it’s a point from which we observe that “There is none else besides Him.” Finally, we get to realize that the Light, the desires, and all states that we’ve been in throughout all of history, and in everything, there exists only one force, the Upper Force. “The Creator is the first and He is the last.” There is no other revelation that is greater than this one.

However, when we say that “There is none else besides Him,” it doesn’t mean that we don’t exist, since in order to make this statement, somebody has to be present in all places, in each and every property, in each of His actions, and then from that point, we have to decide (being on the opposite side) that in fact “There is none else besides Him.” By doing so, we completely merge with Him, meaning that we achieve cohesion and become equal to Him in all our actions, thoughts, programs, connections, etc.

It’s our duty to test everything there is in the Creator in order to comprehend that everything is about Him and finally arrive to a conclusion that ““There is none else besides Him.” All we have left is this one black point out of which we look around, but it’s a peculiar point from which the entire universe can be observed, from edge to edge, in all directions and ranges: the entire Malchut of the world of infinity.
[115823]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/13, “Group and Distribution”

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In the News (from the University of Southampton): “Researchers at the University of Southampton have proposed an answer to the long-running debate as to how stable the Earth system is.

“The Earth, with its core-driven magnetic field, oceans of liquid water, dynamic climate and abundant life is arguably the most complex system in the known Universe. Life arose on Earth over three and a half billion years ago and it would appear that despite planetary scale calamities such as the impacts of massive meteorites, runaway climate change and increases in brightness of the Sun, it has continued to grow, reproduce and evolve ever since.

“Forty years ago, James Lovelock formulated his Gaia Hypothesis in which life controls aspects of the planet and in doing so maintains conditions that are suitable for widespread life despite shocks and perturbations. This hypothesis was and remains controversial in part because there is no understood mechanism by which such a planetary self-stabilising system could emerge.”

My Comment: Kabbalah studies the system of the universe, both in general and in the particular form. The laws of nature that Kabbalah reveals are immutable in all the worlds, which are the levels of the ratio between matter (desire, the property of reception) and energy (the Light, the property of bestowal).

Everything is stabilized primarily by the initial and final states of the system (the plan of creation). The system is static. The progress of the transition from the initial to the final state is only relative to the object that attains it: the human being.
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In the News (from Nautilus): “It’s an odd quirk of the human mind that we tend to think we’re less likely to be affected a particular threat—be it the flu, a car accident, or a flood—than anyone else. Like the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, this is a patent impossibility: Everyone can’t be less likely than the average person to catch a cold. But we persist in what psychologists call ‘unrealistic comparative optimism.’ Even when we have actually encountered a threat, or been in close proximity to one, this warped sense of the probability field persists, as a report published last year shows.

“In the study, researchers had a chance to test how people’s comparative optimism changed after a low-probability, high-impact event: a tornado that ripped across Iowa City in 2006, causing $12 million in property damage. And their results were faintly comical: Everyone they polled, from students to randomly selected Iowa City residents to people whose neighborhoods had been damaged, felt both soon after the tornado and a year later that they were less likely to be affected in the future than the average person. In fact, six months after the events, people in damaged neighborhoods were actually more optimistic that they would not be affected again than were those living in intact areas. After a year, their optimism returned to the usual level—but still, as always, holding that they were less likely to be affected than others.”

My Comment: We are within our egoism, and we cannot objectively evaluate anything before we exit it. Until then, we will perceive the world through the prism of egoistic error.
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