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

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Kabbalists 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 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, The Zohar

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The 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 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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In reality there are no separate, cut off parts; everything is one, but we can only perceive a few parts. Every single element is due to its environment; receiving powers and support from those around him, he can express himself in relation to others. Eventually, the environment gives us the power to connect.

Each separate part has to accept all the other parts as one body; all of reality as one system. It’s because there is a law: “Israel, the Torah and Creator are one.” Without the Creator, I cannot perceive the whole reality as one.

After all, if there is a Creator, then this reality has a single root that connects everything to one whole, except for me. So if I feel this one root, I perceive all of reality as one, except for myself.

To the extent that I want to connect to this reality, I can receive through it forces from the Creator and connect to Him. Everyone in this reality has one goal and the same opportunities. It all depends only on how one uses them.

A person has to go through all the stages and can’t be awakened more than he has given to the society as a result of his exertion to connect to it; otherwise, he hasn’t earned this awakening and it isn’t his.

It’s the same with our study and with what the teacher can tell a student. It all depends on the student’s vessel. Otherwise it turns out that the teacher denies the student of his freewill and steals his chance to exert himself. This is forbidden. Otherwise it’s like a merciful mother who does the homework instead of her child. Is this in his benefit? After all, he will grow up to be ignorant.

In the spiritual work we can’t use such lies, since any reward is given only for a person’s exertion: “The reward is according to one’s sorrow,” meaning the reward is according to one’s exertion. The vessel itself brings the Light out of its concealment and reveals it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: Likewise, all the fixed pictures that we know and use to define materials are inconsistent and do not exist in their own right. Rather, they only dress and undress forms under the influence of conditions such as heat or cold.

During the lesson we think about the force that “draws” the material that actually doesn’t exist. If, while we are reading, we are together, we constantly think about the united group and want to discover the general force among us, then we discover a whole world and live in it in a much clearer, more emotional, and more intensive way than our current life.

This is no fantasy. Evoke these forces. Now you are looking at the friends sleepily, and they look at you in the same way. So evoke these forces together and you will understand that there are worlds between you and that everything depends on your closeness and unity in your mind and your feelings, in your yearning and your inclination, in the desire to feel your inner essence together. Suddenly you will see how the abstract force turns into something real and concrete.

Previously you only paid attention to “coarse” corporeal forces: heat, cold, pressure, etc. But there are much finer and stronger forces in a person than the ones that operate even in the micro-world, on a subatomic level. These fine forces reveal the real material to you. When you enter this field, you discover that it is the beginning and the end of everything, that all of creation is there with its plan. Here, however, there is nothing but the false, artificial, external drawing that is meant to confuse you and to focus you on the correction by false incentives without taking your freewill from you and so as not to turn you into a robot.

This realization should focus us on the main thing, on developing the forces that are between us. They are the strongest “weapon” against evil, against all our problems. Even in our imaginary world subatomic forces are much stronger than the ordinary forces of the macro world. A lot of energy is required in order to cause a collision between the particles in the collider. We, however, enter the field of our personal forces that operate between the friends. This is such great intensity that cannot be measured by using the means we have in this world.

It is a real force. We only have to reach it and to learn how to manage it, since it will not be revealed without an intention to bestow, for the good of others.

Question: Does this mean that there are forces in me that enable me to discover a new reality? How can I find them?

Answer: Start acting, exert yourself, fix the connection with the friends, annul yourself, and by that allow them to connect to you. Start evoking them so that they will impress you with the greatness of the goal. We should make such efforts every day, every moment, because the desire to receive is constantly renewed and constantly demands us to renew our relationships, the whole Ha-Va-Ya-H. This is all our work.

If you evoke and arrange the forces that connect you with the friends as correctly as possible, the force of bestowal and the force of receiving, you will discover that the relationships between you are much more important than the corporeal world.

It will come, since you study and you are expecting the Light that Reforms, and it will influence you. Suddenly you will discover that the relationships between you are the most important thing, and then you will begin to discover a new spiritual material, which is much more real and concrete than what surrounds you today. It will be so powerful, heavy, and real that the temporary, imaginary picture of this world will dissolve on its background.
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From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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While reading The Book of Zohar we must remember that it is only about the connection between us. It all depends on the relationship between the friends, and in this relationship spirituality is revealed. The forms of the connection between us depict the picture of reality, since now too you see these forms of connection.

In any case, you perceive the world according to your Reshimot (reminiscences), and this is where the picture of the world that you imagine stems from. There is no world outside you; there is only what you imagine inside you.

Now you are among people in this world; you were born and developed in our time, but your worldview is also built by your being connected with the whole world. A boy left in the woods who has never seen human beings perceives the world according to the Reshimot in the form of a forest, animals, and other forms of nature since he doesn’t perceive his environment on the human level, but on lower levels, still, vegetative, animate nature.

You, however, perceive reality also on the level of speaking. But in the relations between all these parts of nature: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature, you discover your reality.

All of reality, the whole world, is what is revealed between the shattered parts of the creation. This is why we say that the perception of reality is subjective. If I don’t exist, then there is no world and there is nothing to speak about; Baal HaSulam writes about this in the “Preface to The Book of Zohar.”

So if we want to reach more advanced forms of perception, we have to evoke more advanced forms of connection between us. No wonder that this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah requires: You should develop more advanced and complex connection with others and in them you will discover a higher reality, which is more advanced and more internal. Everything depends only on the levels of the connection.

Now comes the time when all the connections between us are destroyed and we actually see that, and the world obligates us to form new connections. The world doesn’t know yet what types of connection they should be. As we have already heard about it, we have to start fulfilling them. This is what awaits us. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about: Leave all your imaginary dealings and start dealing with building the correct future society.

Then according to the connection between you, which you want to establish, you will receive help from above, from nature’s forces. The integral nature that is being revealed now will help you, it will influence you, and you will feel to what extent you are adapted to its general advancement, and you will succeed. We can say that nature is the Creator, but it doesn’t matter since it is about laws.

So where can you change anything in order to hasten your development? Now for the first time in history you can hasten the development of humanity. Before you were always dependent on forces that moved you forward. Internally new connections between people were revealed and new social structures appeared: instead of the tribe, there came along the era of slavery, and then the Middle Ages, then capitalism, and now we are advancing towards communism. These are the five social structures.

But what has advanced humanity? It was all about the changes in social structure, the new connection that appeared between people. But now, during the fifth and last era of our development, you cannot discover new connection naturally. You will discover them in a negative way, since you have to complete them. Here everything depends on your conscious advancement. You have to attain it, you have to adapt yourself to nature—this is the process we are in.

So we are actually creating a new social structure, hastening the process that all of humanity will have to go through. This is called being a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation,” setting an example and being the conductor. But we are building this in the group, between us, and it is all in the new connection.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/12, The Zohar

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Question: Why do I discover new things about the world when I correct my attitude to others and love them?

Answer: It is always about your desire. There are only the vessel and the Light—the desire and what happens in it. The whole point is how I treat you, the “outsider,” from within my desire.

In other words, there is an image of a stranger in me, and I have to correct my desire with respect to that image, to turn my desire around, and accordingly, to discover a new state.

I never exit myself. I only need to change myself, my bad attitude, my hatred, and turn it to love. Then I will discover the spiritual world in my relationship with you.

One way or the other, everything happens inside. We are facing a huge world, but everyone understands that this picture is depicted in us. Baal HaSulam writes about it in “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”

But where does the image in me come from? It is a result of the Creator’s action. Every level in nature—the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—all the levels of the development of the desire from the “root” phase until “phase four,” lead me to the Creator, to attaining the upper force.

This means that everything that I feel on the outside is the Creator. Therefore Rabash says that we should see the Creator in the friend, or at least behind a friend.

So the external image in my perception is the spark, the particle of Light, the Creator. Thus, thanks to the shattering of the vessels, I suddenly discover the others, the strangers outside myself. A “dipole” is revealed in me: I and someone else. This someone fills the place of the Creator for the time being, so that I can exercise self-improvement with him; but in fact, there is nothing but a person and the Creator.

So we should understand that in our corrections in the circle of friends, we help improve the whole world. Here we can understand what Baal HaSulam says at the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“: If Israel correct themselves, the Light pours from them to the rest of reality; we don’t need anything else. It is enough for us to correct ourselves.

So my friend is not a friend but the Creator, who has inserted this image into me on the background of all the other levels of reality. On the fourth phase of the development, the created being feels shame before the Creator, and it is exactly for this reason that I hate the friend that I see before me. This is the result of that shame.

Let’s go back to what a person learns during the correction.

Without this information it is simply impossible to manage. Since how can he increase his love? Every level is made of feelings and mind—it is impossible to advance only by one of them. After all, the pleasure is only in attaining the Creator’s actions.

He wants us to discover Him as good and benevolent. In order to do that, you have to know how He does it: by what wisdom, in what way, with what concern. The wisdom is essential here, and it has to be deep wisdom, as if you are dressed in the Creator.

In our world you will not understand parents until you actually grow up and become a father. It is the same in spirituality, the adhesion is necessary, since without it you will not understand the Creator: who He is and what He is. Love comes as a result of this.

Unless you attain the Creator, you will not be able to love Him. As adults, we remember different events from our childhood, what our parents did, what they taught us, how they sacrificed themselves for us, and we begin to understand them, and to love them much more than in our childhood. It is the same with the Creator.
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From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: How can I correct my perception if I only see evil in the world around me?

Answer: Only the Light that Reforms corrects everything. We, on the other hand, are required to continue persistently, since despite all the explanations and the efforts that we make in our heart and mind, we will not understand anything until we reach the first revelation. Then a new mind and feelings open up for us.

Today, no matter how much we want to perceive the explanations, we are wasting great efforts by trying to perceive new spiritual discernments in our current vessels. We constantly yearn for that, but in fact, our work should be totally different.

It is as if we are stuck in one place just burning our fuel, our attention and time. It is because such efforts don’t help us attain the spiritual world. It is as if we are trying to push a ball through a square opening, but it doesn’t work; it’s a completely different system of measurement. The more efforts we make in bestowal and connection, and the less we try to get spiritual information in our current corporeal perception, the more we will succeed.

No matter what, by using our current mind and feelings, we will never understand what the books say or the states that we are going through now. We are like a child who is trying at the age of three to understand his own psychology. Of course he cannot even understand himself, and certainly not the mature and more advanced thinking. It is simply impossible.

So we must simply do what Kabbalists say; this doesn’t mean that we have to act with our eyes closed and without feeling and clarifications, but we shouldn’t stall trying to understand these experiences, except for what is needed for our practical advancement towards unity, connection, and love. It is only towards this goal that we should focus our study and all the events and actions. Otherwise it is called that “his wisdom is greater than his actions.”

I am telling you about this since I also used to make the same mistake in the past. For a long time I couldn’t be convinced that the spiritual world is attained only by self-annulment, by self-submission, by devotion, and not by the rational mind, sensible understanding and feelings.

It is important to remember that “it isn’t the wise who learns” and to keep the right attitude towards the study, the right attitude between what is essential for our advancement and what can interfere with it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace,” First Method: Nature

This method is an ancient one. Since they did not find a way and an outlet to bring these two conspicuous opposites closer, they came to assume that the Creator, who created all these, who watches mightily over His reality lest any of it be cancelled, is mindless and senseless.

Hence, although He watches over the existence of reality with wondrous wisdom, yet He Himself is mindless, and does all that senselessly. If there had been any reason and feeling in Him, He would certainly not leave such malfunctions in the provision of reality without pity and compassion for the tormented. For this reason, they named Him “Nature,” meaning a mindless, heartless supervisor. And for that reason, they believe that there is no one to be angry at, to pray to, or to justify oneself to.

This is an ancient concept, approach, although we see it as a new attainment of materialism. The simplest way is to see the world as it is, and this was actually the initial approach of humanity. Religions, beliefs, and philosophical approaches came along much later, when man developed internally, became more complex, and began to invent different myths. In the beginning people simply saw nature and lived in it like animals who also don’t believe in anything. This is how we should actually relate to nature, as it says, “a judge only has what his eyes can see.”

The following approaches stemmed from the disagreement with what happens in nature; people invented them as different excuses, and so they are all false. In fact, we see facts that are independent of our attitude towards them. But man invents different excuses in order to sweeten life or to enjoy false hopes.

A healthy attitude to life is in the scientific approach. We see the effect of unchangeable exact laws everywhere, the activity of systems and the periodicity of natural elements. If I see that that’s the way things are, then it is so, and don’t offer me different lies. I see the truth and any addition to it is individual and cannot be counted on. It is in these additions that beliefs are created, while nature is revealed in facts as it actually is.

The wisdom of Kabbalah continues this approach, telling us about the principles of the perception of reality. We see this world before us, and, except for that it, says that there is a whole area called “the upper world,” which is not imaginary, but which can be studied scientifically. Thus the wisdom of Kabbalah continues conventional science and conducts research beyond the boundaries of conventional science.

With the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, I continue scientific research and develop new vessels of perception, expand their range, and keep the principle of “a judge only has what his eyes can see.” There is nothing more than that; everything else, including religions, is actually philosophy.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/12, “The Peace”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“: ‘The wicked, in their lives, are called “dead.”’ This is because their death is better than their lives, as the pain and suffering they endure for their sustenance is many times greater than the little pleasure they feel in this life.

If we don’t advance towards attaining the source of life, then life turns into an escape from sufferings. All our thoughts are only about how to avoid evil and unpleasantness. Therefore, we don’t imagine the good as a filling, since we cannot fill ourselves, but simply try to find some peace between the bad moments.

As a result, all the pleasures that we feel don’t last more than a short while, and so we are called “dead” even while we are alive, since we don’t receive a filling from the real source of life upon which all of reality and all of creation stand.

Of course, everyone has his own accounts, and if he sees how much pain and suffering he feels, how much he suffered and what efforts he has made compared to the few moments of pleasure that have made him happy and brought him joy, then he discovers that it wasn’t worth living. This whole life can only be justified as a preparation for the spiritual ascent. But if one examines this life as is, there is no point to it.

Now when we are awarded the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), we are awarded with the real happy and joyful life by keeping them, as it says: “Taste and see that the Creator is good.” This is what those who have attained it feel. Then we can choose between good and evil. After we receive the Torah, the way, the spiritual principles, we begin to work with the two lines.

This is what the writings mean by: “and you shall choose life so that you and your descendants shall live.” Actually it is a repetition: “and you shall choose life so that you shall live.” But it refers to living by keeping the Torah and the Mitzvot. Then one really lives. “But life without the Torah and the Mitzvot is harder than death.”

This is how a person perceives the difference between life and death: Life means spiritual advancement, and death means lack of advancement. A person gradually understands that advancement means getting closer to love, to bestowal, to self annulment, to rising above one’s ego. Only this is called “life,” without any account of what we feel in our egoistic desires.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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