Question: What is the difference in intentions when we are learning from The Book of Zohar or the The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: In principle, there aren’t any. The two books were written from the level of GAR of the world of Atzilut. These two languages simply complete each other and help us in that way.

If we read books that were written only in the language of the Midrash, then it’s not clear to us as to what to attribute to them. One person might be caught in isolated details and would search for meaning in them, another would try to draw parallels, and so forth.

Therefore, in order to establish, to stabilize us with the right approach and not turn The Book of Zohar into what has been done with the Torah where everyone finds what he likes: psychology, sociology, history, law, and so on, Baal HaSulam inserted a kind of “physics” or “mechanics” of mutual spiritual activities into our learning. Thanks to this we know what he was really speaking about. His books describe a spiritual system of concepts methodically, and even though I am not there emotionally yet, I can already basically imagine the essence: the ten Sefirot, the relationship between them, their actions with regard to the upper Light found above them, how they identify with it and are filled by it.

So from the start, I can hold to the right direction without running away; after that, I can begin to clarify why the author writes like this, conveying emotions like these, using words like these of our world. Baal HaSulam communicates the upper system to me where everything is determined according to the nature of things found in the lower system, where I see the nature of the still, the vegetative, the animate nature, and humans in all their diversity and richness and all the mutual connections between them. My feelings are derived from the world in which I am found, but simultaneously Baal HaSulam describes the upper world for me: “See how it is constructed.” And so without choosing to do so, I begin to receive some kind of stimulation, begin to connect seemingly separate details, and so I advance forward.

There are many things hidden there that we do not know. When we begin to become a little more sensitive, even subconsciously, with slightly greater feeling, we receive an illumination that develops us…
[103880]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Perturbing Language Of Partzufim And Sefirot
You Cannot Replace A Diamond With A Formula
Hearing The Melody Of The Spiritual World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

As I annul myself, my ego, the old “me” disappears. Instead I acquire the whole system that becomes mine. I don’t drown in the system, as if I cease to exist; instead I acquire everyone!

I begin to feel that everything in the system is my desires, my intentions, my life. I live this system, I kill my desire to receive and so I begin to feel the desire of the system, its mind, the force that operates it.

I can’t be under two authorities at the same time: I can either be under my dominion or under the dominion of the Creator; it is one of the two. So I have to raise my vessels from the worlds of BYA up to the connection with Malchut of Atzilut, up to the Shechina (Divinity).

The worlds of Beria, Yetzira, Assiya (BYA), are the desires of HBD, HGT, NHY that are under Parsa. First we raise our vessels from the world of Beria to Atzilut, then the desires from the world of Yetzira to Atzilut, and then from the world of Assiya to Atzilut. Accordingly, the states of Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling) and Mochin (mind) are formed in us.

Thus we raise ourselves to Malchut of Atzilut, rising in faith above reason. Everything that is external to me is separated from me by a barrier, by the Parsa, behind which there is the world of Atzilut. On this side of Parsa, there are the worlds of BYA that are called vessels of separation in which I feel my “self.” But in fact it isn’t me, it is the shattered vessels that were once connected and then fell and so they are depicted to me this way now.
[103367]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/13, “Matan Torah (The Giving of Torah)”

Related Material:
Processing Desire
The Essence Is For The Human, The Necessity Is For The Animal
The Instructional Part Of The World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: How can we work with the next degree correctly? What is this next degree? How can we approach it, find it, see it, discover it? What is the difference between the degree itself and what is discovered in it?

Answer: Our world is the feeling of our egoistic division, of mutual repulsion. We comprehend everything in this state of mutual distancing: from one another, from the still, vegetative, and animate nature. And this state is called “our world.” In other words, since we draw everything towards us in an egoistic manner for the sake of personal pleasure, we separate the one spiritual Light into negligible portions and comprehend these as objects of the still, the vegetative, the animate, and the human nature of our world.

And on the contrary, if we begin to connect these objects together and relate to them as to a single whole, then we begin to feel the next degree, the upper world.

The group has been given to us so that we can find how to comprehend the space that surrounds us in another, correct form. Ultimately it follows that when we connect with each other, trying to unite emotionally, imagining the integration of our desires and thoughts, as one heart and as one mind, then we portray the spiritual world before us, and yearn for it. In the same manner, a child desires to be an adult.

Through this desire we summon upon ourselves the upper Light (Ohr Makif), which corrects the ego that separates us and in this manner forms the next degree, the connection between us, the AHP of the upper degree.

Thus we connect to the upper level, only through mutual cooperation between us. And then we begin to feel the field, the energy, the wave, that streams between us.

Problems between us will grow more and more, forces of repulsion will be discovered more and more, while we need the opposite: To rise above them and to connect ourselves all the time until the negative and rejecting forces of opposition, on the one hand, and the forces of our mutual connection, on the other hand, will attain the position of our first spiritual degree. And then it will be discovered in the middle line.

Thus, the spiritual world will be discovered through the connection between us provided that we rise above the repulsive forces, working patiently and steadily on the connection until we rise to the position of the first spiritual degree.

These accumulated degrees, when we tirelessly try to connect despite the incessant problems between us in a group, are simultaneously the internal development of the embryo through which we need to pass. And then we are born.

What do they say when a newborn arrives in the world? “Congratulations!”
[103439]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

Related Material:
Filter All That Is Redundant
The Creator Is Known By His Actions
Discard The Distorting Glasses

Filed under: Conventions, Egoism, Group Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 25: Since the body is so corrupted that the soul cannot be fully purified before it rots in the ground, why does it return at the revival of the dead? And also the question about the words of our sages: “The dead are destined to be revived with their flaws, so it will not be said, ‘It is another.’”

…We stated there that this exaggerated will to receive is all the substance that He had created, for He needs nothing more than that, to carry out the Thought of Creation.

…We also said above, that during the six thousand years that are given to us for work in Torah and commandments, no corrections come to the body—to its exaggerated will to receive. All the corrections that come through our work relate only to the soul, which thus climbs the degrees of holiness and purity…

Our desire to receive is the whole matter of creation. It is divided into ten Sefirot: six Sefirot above, in Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE): HBD–HGT until Hazeh (chest), and four Sefirot below, in AHP: NHY.

GE are vessels of bestowal that we can correct, and so we correct them by raising them to the level of Arich Anpin in the course of six thousand years, which makes six hundred thousand (60 times 10,000 = 600,000). But the desire to receive itself remains uncorrected. It is because we have only corrected the vessels of GE and of AHP of Aliyah, but not the real AHP that is also called a “body.” We have only killed it, which means that we disconnect it from actions of bestowal, and this is called the “death of the body.”

But eventually, after the correction of all the vessels of bestowal, we can approach AHP, to perform the “revival of the dead” and correct it so that it will all be in order to bestow.

Here we refer to desires which I have treated as “dead” before, which means that I did not use them, restricted them, and limited them since I couldn’t receive the Light of livelihood in them. But now I take them out to the Light and correct them. These dead desires “are revived in their flaws” since I have to correct all the horrors of the great desire to receive and to change them into the opposite, into bestowal. Then, in them I will receive the greatest Light of NRNHY. Thus, the correction of GE is only a thin line; while below I acquire the whole measure, the whole sphere.

Question: What do I discover in the desire that is revived?

Answer: The Creator. You discover the upper force, the upper, eternal life beyond the body. You feel eternity and wholeness above matter, beyond quantum physics. You discover the field in which we actually live, and there you feel the real upper reality and not the tiny particle like you do today.

You feel all that by the correction of the senses. This is why our method is called the “wisdom of Kabbalah” (the wisdom of receiving), which means the wisdom of how to receive, how to perceive. Soon all of humanity will be pushed in this direction. After all, the goal of creation is not that we arrange a wonderful spiritual life for ourselves in this world. It is coming to an end in any case, and we will have to discover the upper dimension.
[103243]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Rising Of The Dead
An Echo Of Love
310 Worlds As Your Reward

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: Who created the Creator?

Answer: We exist in a world that has a beginning, an end, time, limits, and expansion, that is to say, changes. And the spiritual world, even its lowest level, is wholeness. Wholeness cannot be changed; it cannot be that something whole has a beginning and an end. Therefore, the question about what happens in the spiritual world, to say nothing of the Creator, is illogical. For you see, nothing changes there.

Everything changes in our world only, and it is changed only from the first point to the last point, from the infinite state in which we are like an embryo, to that state in the infinite world in which we are completely corrected. In the entire spiritual transformation only the smallest fragment on this way—our world—undergoes changes. And there are no changes in all the rest; there reigns eternity and wholeness, time is absent.

Physicists and psychologists have already spoken about this. Therefore, there is no reason to discuss who created the Creator, was there something before Him or not.

I hope that in the near future we will make the necessary effort and you will feel what “beyond time” is that we learn about in The Book of Zohar in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”. This was described more than two thousand years ago. Already then, the Kabbalists wrote openly that time doesn’t exist, that the spiritual world is found beyond time, and that the current comprehension of our reality is false. Essentially, the world is found within a “matrix,” in a completely different dimension, where there is no time, space and movement.

That which seems to me as outside of me is essentially found within me. We will grow and will see all this.
[103340]
From the Meal before the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13

Related Material:
A Field Glowing In The Light
Infinity Is Just A Moment
A Symphony Of Opposites

Filed under: Conventions, Perception, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Today I comprehend the picture of reality in the will to receive, and as a result of this I feel tired all the time and don’t want to open the windows of my perception wider; and there are those who prefer to close them completely. I limit myself all the time because my desire is very small, very narrow.

We build all kinds of devices that expand our view of the world: telescopes, microscopes, radio receivers, and we discover a reality that is much richer than that reality that we feel on our own. But we try to contract and even limit this segment of reality found within the range of our vision.

In the end, I become tired and closed until I die. I die because I agree with death and want to contract my instruments of perception. The picture becomes repulsive to me and gradually I fade together with the fading of my life. This is what happens with the will to receive.

On the other hand, with the will to bestow, which I build above the will to receive, I open myself and discover a reality that is found outside of me, outside the will to receive. This is an eternal reality, and it begins to supply me with forces of vitality. Now, even though my body will die in a natural manner, I already live in another “region” that is found beyond time and space. And there I receive the Light that streams from everywhere.

In our world we move from place to place where we see a kind of reality in that. But if I were to move close to the speed of light, then as a result of a change in the perception of space, I would see the reality that surrounds me from all sides. And the problem here is not my vision; rather the light itself seemingly reaches me in a form like this. In accordance with this, I emerge from a “linear” comprehension and enter into a “circular” one in the Surrounding Light (OM).

We contract time precisely this way. For with this, distance and time are “zeroed,” and I don’t just receive the Light from all sides, rather I begin to perceive all of the reality existing in circles; I rise above time. Now it no longer exists for me; it simply cannot exist. There are no more spaces between “today” and “tomorrow,” no spaces between two moments. I receive everything equally from all directions, everything is balanced, mutually nullified, and I am found everywhere all the time in one integrated whole, in the unified reality of creation.
[103240]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Separate Your “Self” From A Mortal Body
A Bonfire That Shouldn’t Be Extinguished
Worlds That Move Toward One Another

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Free Will, Perception - No Comments →

There is a kind of “virtual printer” inside me that prints the picture of my world. In other words, there is a program inside me that operates me and draws the world for me. It actually does not exist. Everything is internal, in my feelings, but the program gives them an effect of something that is external.

Question: What happens if the friends decide to focus on thoughts about creating one reality and mutual connection?

Answer: The program also is shows me the group in which I work. It just seems to me that I am among other people and that we make decisions together. The inner attributes project certain images, shadows in different forms, but they actually do not exist.

In the same way, our collective decision and my inner resistance to it are all determined by the program. There is only one way to correct it: If I know about it and about the reality that is projected by it, and I want to unite everything into one, to connect. In that case, I rise to the level of the programmer and understand why he has arranged all that for me.

On the one hand, I get to know the program, and, on the other hand, I see which pictures it draws in my imagination. So, when I correct my imagination through using it, I crosscheck them and unite them into one. Thus, I go through different corruptions and corrections, and eventually I discover the mind of the programmer, the plan of creation. This is the desired effect of the process—to be incorporated in the purpose of creation.

Question: Does this mean that the programmer wants us to be constantly in two worlds, the imaginary one and the real one?

Answer: It is essential that we discover the goal of creation by ourselves. What for? So we treat it with respect.

After all, the ego pulls me downward, offers me sleep and distracts me. If I want to wake myself up, there is only one way to do that: to use this program, the environment, and everything that is related to it, but only if, at the same time, I respect the programmer. This is called bringing Him contentment in Kabbalah.

Question: So, how should I integrate these two systems?

Answer: You simply should be together with the friends. Now, they seem like strangers that are external to me. Later, I will feel that, despite this picture, they are inside me. They are mine, my beloved, mutually connected and incorporated in one. Then, in the connection between them, I will begin to reveal the source, the Creator. All this will be like one whole.
[103178]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Picture Of Creation Hanging On Two Hooks
Progressive Double Vision
Becoming An Active Element Of Creation

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 20: And the same “body,” in its bad form that is given to us in the present, this too does not spoil our essence as this and all its properties are about to be annulled completely together with all the system of impurity that is its source, and everything that is about to be burned is as if it is already burned, and is considered as if it never existed.

The essence of the soul (Nefesh), clothed in the body, is merely at this stage of desire, but the desire to bestow is derived from a system of four worlds of ABYA of sanctity; it exists eternally, because this form of the desire to bestow is in equivalence of form with the source of life and is unchangeable.

We exist in the reality of Ein Sof (Infinity) and all the worlds (olamot), meaning the concealments (alamot), are only filters that adjust the picture of Ein Sof for us; the degree of concealment exists only in our perception and they will vanish the moment we are able to annul our body,” the desire to receive for itself.

However, this desire still needs to be revealed. Where does it really exist? In fact, today all my desires are actually acting at the beastly level. The real desire in order to receive is revealed only when I begin to work in order to bestow and find out everything that is opposed to the desire to bestow. Opposing the right line, the left line is revealed; against sanctity, impurity is revealed.

Here below, under the line of spiritual perception, we are in the imaginary world where our desires, as it is said, “All look like beasts.” But if by work in the group, in dissemination, in connection, for friends, for humanity, and finally for the Creator, we reveal our inclination toward Above, then we reveal our corrupted “body,” meaning the desire to receive with the intention to receive.

In order to correct this desire, the intention needs to change to in order to bestow. The desire to receive itself stays and above it I build a desire in order to bestow that is called soul (Neshama). Its essence is in my bestowal to everyone. By giving to everyone, loving everyone, I develop the soul above my “body.” And in this form, we are reach correction.

Then this world disappears, and I can see all the worlds to the world of Infinity.

Now we also exist in the world of Infinity. And now, too, everything depends on my intention. Nothing is immutable and constant, as everything is being depicted and happens only in my qualities.
[102676]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 

Related Material:
A Veil Over The Face Of Infinity
What Holds Me Back?
What Are We Escaping?

Filed under: Body and Soul, Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” item 26: We have already stated that the first state necessitates the third state, to fully materialize as was in the Thought of Creation—in the first state—not omitting a single thing.

The three states of Creation, the initial state (1), the intermediate state (2) and the final state (3) obligate one another to exist. At the beginning the creation is in Ein Sof (Infinity). In the second state we (WE) are in our world. Then third state is the end of correction.

During the transition from the first state to the second state, we go through shattering and restrictions, and during the transition from the second state to the third state, we go through and ascent and corrections. In addition, we correct GE on the way and then AHP of Aliya. Thus we advance from the Light of Nefesh to the Lights of NRNHY.

We should remember that all these states exist only in our perception, but we have to use everything that we have until we attain one desire that is filled by one thought. It is because the desire is emotions (a heart) and the thought is the mind. They have to connect so that in the connection between them we will attain the Creator.

This will become our final state, and this is our goal today. We don’t know what comes after that, but we should know that after the end of correction we will go in some unknown direction. The creation will continue since we have corrected the vessels, our desires.

It is like fixing a broken-down car and learning how to drive it: The job is done, the repairs are completed, and I learned how to drive it. I sit in my perfectly fixed car and what’s next? What have I corrected my vessels for?

So the equivalence of form with the Creator is only the beginning. Then He opens the door of His palace for me inviting me in…

We rise to His level, and we don’t know what will be next. I don’t see that Kabbalists have hinted about this. They hint that there is something afterward in terms that we can understand. We simply cannot understand these dimensions.
[103174]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

Related Material:
Contact With The Future
Steps Along A Great Road
Believe It: All Of This Only Seems To Us!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Perception - 2 Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 19: …And all this agony is felt only by the Klipa of our body, created only to be perished and buried. This teaches us that the will to receive for oneself was created only to be eradicated, to be abolished from the world and to be turned into a will to bestow. And the pains we suffer are but discoveries of its nothingness and the harm in it.

We are confined to a “cage” called this world that is all affliction. On the other hand, all 125 spiritual steps on which we continually obtain an altruistic intention (Lishma) by working in three lines reveal “the Good who doeth Good” to us. Consequently, our current state and this world are “non-existent” in the spiritual sense of the word, since genuine “existence” means similarity with the Creator, the intention to bestow. When we annul the boundaries of this world and rise above it, we enter the realm where there is “the Good who doeth Good.”

It goes without saying that this work contains multiple “surprises” that are of a very unpleasant nature. Each time, we suddenly find wicked things in ourselves. It so happens because it gives us a chance to correct the evil inside us. Our path is all about the correction of broken vessels.

However, in this world we don’t correct anything; rather it is a preparation period. Only after it’s over do we approach a real correction and find answers to our questions: “Why,” “what for,” and “how” should we implement this knowledge? However, we won’t understand the answers with our current intellect, since at the spiritual plane, all clarifications are done in a reverse order…
[102523]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Everything Is Accurately Measured
Breaking Through The Narrow Confines Of This World
The End Of An Illusion Or The Change Of A Paradigm

 

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Perception, Spirituality - No Comments →