Entries in the 'Perception' Category

The Bitter Sweetness Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can the Creator interfere in the action of the laws of nature?

Answer: He Himself determined these immutable laws. “He gave a law and it can not be surpassed,” and therefore, actually everything was done because “The end of the action is incorporated in the initial thought.” The final state is already contained in the moment He decided to create the creation. And only for us this perfection still needs to be revealed, in all the negatives and all the positives. It is revealed only in our perceptions and actually nothing is changing except this revelation in us.

And therefore the laws are determined as all the stages in the path. We are going through all of them, but are able to move in different rates or different beats and to feel different tastes: bitter or sweet. In this is the whole difference: I can progress in a sweet and fast way or in a bitter and long path. The stages are predetermined, but on the sweet path they are changing quickly and in the bitter path they are lengthening. It depends on our attitude, in our effort. In principle, the world was created for this, that we will change our attitude toward the progress, in order for us to transfer from the long and bitter path to the sweet and fast path, according to the manner we are rising above the ego.

And here is where the whole problem lies. After all, I want what seems to my ego as sweet and fast. But instead of this, I choose the opposite, bestowal, that is desirable in the eyes of the Creator. I agree with Him, with His long and bitter way, and then this way suddenly becomes sweet and quick. “Click,” and everything thing changes.
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From 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/12, “The Peace”

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We Always Start From Zero

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should we use the environment in order to establish the right intention?

Answer: It is written, “Every man shall help his friend.” If someone worries about others, it must influence everyone else and awaken their hearts. It works even without words, especially if we can help ourselves by speaking with others mechanically, even against our will, and evoke one another.

If I begin to jump now, I eventually will improve my mood and feel happy. We always start from zero, and it is precisely for this reason that we were given the perception of reality in the form of this world. Thus, we have a chance to enter a state that is inaccessible at the moment.

It gives us a wonderful chance to advance. After all, there are rigid laws in the spiritual world. If you are on a certain level, you cannot change anything. You must enter a level from which you can change your current self.

Thanks to this world, we enter a state that may be mechanical but more advanced. We can sing, hug a friend, talk to him, and be impressed by him when we actually don’t want this at all internally. Thanks to these corporeal mechanical efforts, we begin to wake up. If we were not in corporeal bodies, we wouldn’t have this chance. How else can this be done?

So, this world is very important. On the one hand, it is an illusion that is only in our imagination, a very artificial thing that is external to the spiritual ladder, outside the systems of impurity and Holiness.

On the other hand, it is impossible to manage without it! On every higher spiritual level, even the last one before the end of correction, we wouldn’t be able to do anything if it weren’t for this world.

Therefore, there are reincarnations. We must return to this world, even if we have reached halfway up the spiritual ladder. This earthly reality must exist.

Yet, the question remains as to what this reality is. It very well may be that you were given such an illusion now as if you are living on earth with seven billion people in a big universe, and it is all your reality.

I am also inside you as part of you that you must connect to yourself, and there is another “self” that has nothing to do with you, and who feels his world with seven billion people, the earth and the stars, and that is his reality.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The World Will Disappear And The Group Will Remain

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The exertion is the same vessel in which the Creator is revealed, but what does my exertion have to do with the exertion of the friends? Is my exertion enough for the Creator to be revealed in them, or does it have to be the sum of our collective exertions?

Answer: It is impossible to answer this unequivocally. I see the friends as my eyes show me, in my perception. If I see them today as I saw them yesterday, it means that I haven’t changed at all. If I see that, today, they are greater, deeper, cleverer, and more successful, it means that I have changed.

However, we cannot connect all these states yet. They advance, or I advance, seeing their advancement. The truth is that they are all at the end of correction already, at an infinite height, and it is just me looking at them from my level.

The growth and the advancement of the friends impresses me, but isn’t it they who grow? I have changed, and therefore, I see that they have grown.

We cannot explain this by using our earthly language, which is totally egoistic. It is just as it is impossible to explain the new economy by using old terms since a healthy economy is the right integral connection. For the same reason, it is impossible to explain the relationships among the friends.

We have no choice if in the meantime we operate in our egoistic desires. We must look at things like in mathematics, one parameter after another. If there are several variables, and I depend on them all, I must fix one parameter and check how the change affects the second parameter.

Then, I fix the second parameter and check its dependence on the first parameter. Only then do I connect them to one system of equations in order to solve them together.

There can only be one element in every equation that I can find. If there are two elements, we need another equation. When we have two equations with two elements, we can already solve the problem.

However, in the meantime, we cannot combine two equations in our analysis. We can see what happens with one parameter and with another parameter separately, but we cannot connect them into one system.

Our brain cannot perceive these two opposite parameters as one. So, by explaining this, I am like a woman in labor who cannot give birth yet. It cannot be explained in words. Everyone will discover this according to his vessels.

In Kabbalistic explanations, we must pass the information from the world in which everything is united, to our world in which everything is totally separated.

This means that these are different software, different formula, and different approaches.

We try to understand the explanation by using earthly language and to grasp in our earthly minds what happens in the upper world. Even physicists already understand that it is simply impossible. They come across phenomena that are on the borderline where matter disappears, and, thus, the scientific language ends.

Modern physics will advance in a way that in each of the following stages, in every experiment, there will be more and more hidden parameters. It will become a hidden science. We will see that we have managed to advance to a certain point after which everything we had before disappears. Science can reveal only how each of the parameters disappears, but not more than that.

Our job is to continue with our exertion in the group, and eventually everything will be clear.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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A Flight In Integrality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will a person feel his integral inclusion into everyone constantly?

Answer: Certainly! A person will constantly exist in such a social environment that will support him since he fully depends on the surrounding environment.

The person we see now is unreasonable, limited, and almost negligible. Therefore, when a person starts revealing the properties, feelings, attainment, and width in the integral system, they will be billions times greater than the ones he reveals inside his small, low, and enclosed egoism. This is why he in no way wants to break away from integrality to withdraw into himself to “take a break.”

After all, existence in the integral system will become like rest, a flight, or relaxation for him rather than stressful with the burden of taking care of himself. At the spiritual level he will feel his perfection, eternity, and freedom from the body.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World,” 11/26/12

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Pharaoh Will Remain In Egypt Forever

Dr. Michael LaitmanPharaoh will remain in Egypt. We need to escape from Egypt and Pharaoh’s vessels. We do not work with the desire to enjoy itself, but we fight against it. It puts on the brakes or even shifts into reverse, but we want to break out from it, ahead of it to carry out the work of the Creator outside the borders of Egypt.

The battle that we fight during all the ten plagues of Egypt creates our vessel. I work above the desire to enjoy, which holds back the point in the heart, and this battle is called: “I labored and I found.”

My attempts to get away from egoism create the derivative, which is my new vessel. The same will be repeated on the next degree: Every time I build a more flawless, accurate, and finer vessel. After all, the desire to enjoy is the same, but my job becomes more refined and more precise, aimed at more internal clarifications. That is why, each time, a new vessel is created, more selective and of higher quality.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Horizons Of Perception

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, we conduct practical scientific research according to the principle, “A judge only has what his eyes see.” In other words, to the extent that we change our nature, we can see the result in the wisdom of Kabbalah. However, these results appear in us. A person is a laboratory. He changes his attributes, and then he discovers a new reality.

Now, I discover a certain dimension within my current attributes, and when I change them, I discover another parallel dimension, and then another and another. These attributes, these layers of reality, are called “levels,” and the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us precisely how I must change myself each time through the society and by the force that develops me that I receive in order to rise to an upper dimension in my new feelings and mind, which are broader and more sublime.

At the same time, my new perception doesn’t erase the previous “picture.” I simply rise higher and higher, by perceiving an upper reality that science talks about. There is no contradiction or conflict between my discoveries and those of science. On the contrary, science seems to be part of my perception.

In fact, tomorrow’s science is actually your perception of the spiritual space. It is “spiritual” in the sense that it appears through the changes in a person.

Thus, we discover the “worlds,” new perceptions, although we don’t know what nature as a whole is. Kabbalists tell us that there are currently 125 levels of the development of our perception before us. I discover each one according to the Reshimot (informational genes), the Masachim (screens), and the degrees of Aviut (the depth of the desire). Everything is calculated and measured; all ticks like clockwork; everything is revealed to me according to the changes that I perform internally. I change, which means that I attain. I change again and attain again, again and again.

Thus, the process continues until the stage called “the end of our correction.” Kabbalists don’t tell us what happens afterward, although they speak about the levels of the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth millennia and beyond. They end their explanations at the final correction because it is impossible to speak about the rest of the process.

You will have to go through all the 125 levels to the end, and then you will go through another change, a change that you go through since you rise from our world to the spiritual world. This is a true change of perception, an inner revolution that will take place again at the end of correction when you become totally integral, whole, like the Creator. Then, after you are corrected, you will be worthy and ready for something more sublime for which there are no words today. It is because, in the spiritual levels, you already transcend time. You transcend life and death, place and motion, and all the limitations of this world. What is more, we cannot speak about the further stages. Our current mind and feelings simply aren’t able to touch them.

So, now, we discuss another question, a question regarding humanity that, for the time being, perceives the world through five corporeal, animal senses. How can it acquire five additional senses called Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut?

We acquire them according to the level of the correction of the five levels of thickness of our desire, which are the root phase, phase one, two, three, and four. I develop the five senses on top of the thickness that is constantly growing, both quantitatively and qualitatively. My “animal” body remains as it is, while, at the same time, I perceive and identify new parts of nature, layer by layer.

The interesting point is that even the smallest part, which appears in a general, fuzzy scale, still helps me understand and feel all of reality to the end of all the 125 levels.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy“

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Philosophy: A Building Without A Foundation

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: …for we do not define by name or word that which we do not attain. That is because a word designates some degree of attainment.

The root of everything is the unattainable and imperceptible essence of the Creator (Atzmuto). We never speak about it because something can be described something only on the basis of their attainment through our bodily senses when we analyze our sensations with our brain.

A person consists of two parts: mind and emotion. The emotional part is a desire. The part that measures and explores is the mind, which develops next to the desire. If we don’t experience any “feedback” from either of these two parts, it means that we are deprived of the ability to perceive. The “insight” happens in the desire that lies underneath a dry, mental analysis.

As it is said in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” besides Atzmuto, there also exists an abstract form that we are unable to attain. As opposed to abstract form, both materialized form and matter are attainable. Thus, in Kabbalah, attainment occurs from bottom to top to the extent it is actually possible.

On the other hand, philosophers do not contemplate the steps of ascent; they talk about some “force” that is outside us and scholastically deliberate on it as if this kind of “research” is legitimate. This kind of approach has actually ruined philosophy. Today nobody takes it seriously. When it comes to abstract conversations, everybody hypothesizes as much as they want to. Moreover, this principle lies at the very foundation of philosophy; a person can build their own picture of the world based on speculation; it is “legal.” This “pluralism” has resulted in a fountain of fantasies and nothing is left of the serious real foundation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, on the other hand, declares a very simple thing: Reality can be explored only by the observer, meaning, it can be researched only in conjunction with the explorer. Everything is evaluated through the observer and the picture that is created in the observer’s bodily sensors is in accordance with the law of similarity of properties. A person is comprised of both matter and form.

Matter is the desire to receive.

Form is the intention either for the sake of receiving or for the sake of bestowal.

We perceive reality through ourselves in accordance with the level of our ability to change. What is outside us, we just don’t know. Discoveries of Kabbalists can’t be applied to our personal research until we achieve the same level they did.

So, we use the wisdom of Kabbalah to attract powers from these steps, trying to reach them, like little children who strive to grow. In other words, we still use the wisdom of Kabbalah as a “special remedy” that is not clear to us yet, but it works. Then, when we attain revelation, we will research and apprehend the same phenomena inside our own vessels. At that time, Kabbalah books will help us examine ourselves and will direct our advancement.

But still, we never know what actually is outside us. Kabbalists who advanced further due to their internal changes tell us about some 125 steps of attainment and describe what they have perceived at each of these steps. They outline specific remedies that will allow us to widen our limits of perception. Their desires are vessels of the soul; they perceive something called “Divinity,” the power of bestowal that emerged in them to the degree of their similarity of properties with Divinity. When receiving desires shape themselves as bestowing ones, they feel that “something” is fulfilling them. This “something” is called the “upper force” or the “Light.” But again, that, too, is perceived only by the person.

So, the “Light” is a reaction that happens in our sensations, in our receiving desires, as it is being filled. In other words, the “Light” is a phenomenon in the vessel. Even the Light that in Kabbalah is called “external” is, in fact, located inside the vessels, only more distant from clear perception. One way or the other, it’s always about what is happening inside our sensations and desires. This is the way we advance.

Regarding Atzmuto: according to our logic, we say that there is a higher root. We never sense it, nor will we ever attain it; however, by of course, there must be the source of our existence, of our sensations, and all the changes in us. And yet, no matter what we feel, we feel it only in accordance with our own properties. That’s why the “Creator” (Boreh) means “Come and See” (Bo-Reh). This phenomenon I also perceive internally and Atzmuto is outside us.

The entire reality is divided into three parts:

A man

The fact that he feels

The source of his feelings, which is imperceptible

The approach of the science of Kabbalah calls upon everyone to study reality. After all,  there is the commandment, “Know your Creator and serve Him.” How? According to the principle “From Your actions we will know You.” Man changes himself and is constantly trying to come into agreement with the upper force and become similar to it. Then he feels the changes made in him, and according to these changes, begins sensing new phenomena. It is the upper force to which he aspired.

So the “Creator” is a new modified form clothed in  the changes that happen to us, the property of bestowal that is revealing itself within us. Subsequently, the wisdom of Kabbalah is very strict about its major rule: Never detach reality from the person comprehending it. Otherwise, we’ll end up being philosophers.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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A Picture Drawn In Thin Air

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal 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 124th level and all that is left is the last 125th 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 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” 

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“Horde”

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalists 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 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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Aquarium

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah is the means by which we can attain the spiritual goal. “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” This means that the Torah is part of creation, the whole system of worlds by which we can draw upon ourselves the force that will correct us and gradually raise us up the levels of the spiritual worlds until we reach the end of correction.

But the corrections are necessary so that by performing them we will get to know the Creator who intentionally made this flaw. I can only know Him and become like Him in my corrected desires. All this comes together as in one skein of yarn. We must constantly yearn to see this world as one whole. If we don’t see the unity, it means that we are not focusing on the goal correctly.

When you look at all of creation, at people, at the group, at the study, at humanity, at politics, at all the events, at the upper worlds, at Kabbalists, at history from different perspectives, no matter how you study it and from which perspective, you have to see the same thing. If all this doesn’t come together, it means that you still have to correct something in your perception. Eventually, you will see how it connects to one ideal skein of yarn, and all you have to do is just arrange some masses on both ends in order to connect them and to receive one perfectly smooth sphere that is built like a hologram.

There was a physicist David Bohm who gave a very clear example for this: There are two cameras focused on an aquarium from different sides. First it seems to the viewer that he sees different fish in different places. But when he begins to relate one picture to the other, he sees the connection between them, the mutual dependence, and then he begins to understand that it is the same fish in the same place.

In the same way, we also perceive everything separately as disconnected images: our fears, love, the group, the study, this world, politics, and history. But the truth is that we are simply looking at the same “aquarium full of fish,” at the same situation, from different angles.

Try to practice this in order to reach a unified picture. When we reach such an attitude, everything becomes simple.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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