Baal HaSulam, Preface to The Book of Zohar, Item 38: …there are three categories of man (Adam) in the Sefirot: Adam of Beria, Adam of Yetzira, and Adam of Assiya.

There is a “rock” called a “desire to be pleased.” The “rock” has a shape that is somewhat similar to the Creator. It explains the term “Adam,” meaning similar (Domeh) to the Creator.

We are talking here about the forms and degrees of similarity to the Creator. At any level, a Partzuf is always called “Adam.” Inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels also represent various forms of Adam. There’s nothing at all that’s not a part of the state named Adam except the authentic amorphous matter of the desire. The three prior levels (animate, vegetative and animate) serve as a way of advancement to the speaking (human) level. Ultimately, these levels are the ones that give “shape” to the human level.

The matter of the universe, the Earth’s material flora and fauna altogether constitute a pyramid; at the top of the pyramid is man. So, they all are included in Man, therefore they ascend and descend together with man.

When we perceive reality correctly, it becomes obvious that the entire material of creation is a part of man. There’s nothing outside us; even cosmic objects are only another form of our desire to receive.

From this we see that the desire to receive has no boundaries. A myriad of stars, gigantic nebulae, everything is inside us, in our perception. To the extent of our growth, we discern in the depths of our desire to receive and find a elementary particles and the whole galaxy. There is nothing new under the sun; everything has already been created, but while we are still “on earth”, meaning in the desire to receive, we keep revealing new details of this marvelous picture.
[92005]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/12, Preface to The Book of Zohar

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A replica of the last shattered spiritual level is revealed in us as the corporeal world, which we feel with our five senses. At the same time both matter and the senses are imaginary, and they depict spiritual contours, like a picture on a wall. The picture is old, but it isn’t real. Reality is there behind the wall and there is only a projection on the wall.

People watch movies and experience different feelings, is it real or not? These are just reactions and impressions. It is as if we are living in a movie that is being projected to us.

But besides the movie, I don’t see anything and don’t know anything. My whole life takes place in it and goes through it and so all my feelings reflect this movie. My sight, my hearing, my sense of smell, and touch are all reflected in this movie.

Today we are being shown three-dimensional films that present an even greater reality. It is no secret that a person can be placed in a certain sphere and be shown that it is his life; if he gets used to his tiny world, it would be hard to prove to him that there is an external reality, “Here there are human beings, and here is the earth, and here are the stars, everything is in its place. …” He doesn’t leave the limits of this sphere in his senses. For him there is nothing beyond the limits of his current feelings. He doesn’t feel a deficiency for something in some extra sense or that his reality is inferior.

Today, I too, by using my five senses, perceive only what is inside my sphere. Where is the extra sense, a vessel that cannot be filled by anything that is here, no matter how hard you try? The extra deficiency is called a “point in the heart” (•) and it is aimed at what is outside our universe. When a person feels this desire, he doesn’t find his place, he begins to search and eventually he finds us. Our goal is to connect him with the outside world. He needs to break out, outside the “fence” and get rid of it.

The whole point is that our sphere is built as a replica of the upper world, and they are similar. We should only use what is here correctly. I take my spark, the point in the heart, and insert it into the mutual relations with the friends, as if I want to love them. Then I see that I actually don’t want that, but the deficiency has already been created, and the spark already has a direction and I can demand correction.

So the main thing is to insert my spark into the “playing field” and to force myself to play according to the rules. By this game I acquire a real mind and the right deficiency. Thus from a demo model, from a parallel similar form, I can move on to the real world.

This world is merely an imaginary “playing field” and only my spark is real. This tiny “point in the heart” is a Godly part from Above, and if I use it correctly in the game, I succeed and I grow.
[92099]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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In the News (from ScienceDaily): “That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, finds a study published in Current Biology.

“’Our results show that emotion and perception are not fully dissociable in the mind,’ says Emory psychologist Stella Lourenco, co-author of the study. ‘Fear can alter even basic aspects of how we perceive the world around us. This has clear implications for understanding clinical phobias.’ …

“People generally have a well-developed sense for when objects heading towards them will make contact, including a split-second cushion for dodging or blocking the object, if necessary. The researchers set up an experiment to test the effect of fear on the accuracy of that skill. …

“The participants tended to underestimate the collision time for images of threatening objects, such as a snake or spider, as compared to non-threatening images, such as a rabbit or butterfly.

The results challenge the traditional view of looming, as a purely optical cue to object approach. “’We’re showing that what the object is affects how we perceive looming. If we’re afraid of something, we perceive it as making contact sooner,’ Longo says.

“’Even more striking,’ Lourenco adds, ‘it is possible to predict how much a participant will underestimate the collision time of an object by assessing the amount of fear they have for that object. The more fearful someone reported feeling of spiders, for example, the more they underestimated time-to-collision for a looming spider. That makes adaptive sense: If an object is dangerous, it’s better to swerve a half-second too soon than a half-second too late.’”

My Comment: Feeling stems from the desire to get pleasure; this is our essence, and that is why the space that we feel is a function of our relation to it, to what we find in it. We see only what we want to see either because of joy or because of fear. If the object does not make any impression on us, we do not see it. The other sense organs function likewise. It is only through the additional opportunity of relating to the world through the property of bestowal that we reveal an additional part of the world—the upper world, the opposite of ours.
[92113]

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Question: There are so many beautiful bright people and forces in this world. And in spirituality, it is said, “There is none else besides Him,” dryly and simply. How can I feel attraction to the spiritual world and taste and pleasure from it so that I will want to rush there?

Answer: How can you feel an attraction to the upper world? If you felt more attraction than you do now, you would be driven by your egoism, you would never be able to rise above it to overcome it, and you would hasten there. So it is concealed in order to give us as the opportunity to make efforts that are above our ego, not for our self-benefit.

If we moved to the upper world through our egoism, we would forever stay within our selfishness, we would have no chance to get out of our egoistic shell, and we would be buried in it, buried alive. We would never go beyond the egoistic sphere.

If the upper world were revealed to you right now, you would immediately understand that this material realm is worth nothing at all! We would clearly see that people are animals that live only to feed themselves. I feel sorry for this life; at this point, nothing is worth our efforts, there is no sense to have children and continue suffering…nothing really matters! Is it clear? Then what?

Ah, there is the upper world! First and foremost, it’s eternity that is beyond any limitations. Time, movement, information, everything becomes completely open to us. Time ceases to exist; it only exists in this world, as physicists say, only below the speed of light. Information becomes completely available there. One begins sensing oneself as existing in infinite space. One acquires absolute knowledge about everything that is going on in the entire system of the worlds, in the whole universe, since this system is analog. There is not a system clock, it does not work on pulses; it is always in continuous motion and at the same time rests in calmness. You feel that you are inside of it and at the same time you know that It somehow exists within you, meaning that you are everything there is!

If you happen to see even the smallest piece of that picture, even one gram of it, you’d become a slave to this sensation. Baal HaSulam writes that if the revelation of the upper worlds to us would happen before the contraction of our desires (at which point a man becomes able to keep his egoism to himself and even rise above it), then even one drop of revelation of this enormous pleasure would force one to chop off his hands and feet seven times a day just to experience this sensation once in his lifetime.

Do you understand? You would be a slave and couldn’t do anything at all except to pursue this pleasure. You would make huge efforts in the group and everywhere else only to receive this sort of pleasure. In other words, you would aspire to it egoistically, and thus you would distance yourself away from it even more.

Question: How can we possibly want to achieve that state if we don’t have powers of our own?

Answer: Ask your friends. Only they can ensure your future. If they go for it, you’ll have it, if not, you won’t.
[85914]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

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If from the very beginning, albeit artificially, I “work hard” before the friends, if I bow my head before the group, at least on the physical level, I, in this way, prepare myself to discover my shame for my egoistic flaws and to stand in this sensation. I will be able to endure and “digest” it, I am not identifying with it, I will be grateful for it.

Shame sets me correctly before the Creator. Like fine-tuning, it makes it possible to catch the right wave. The greater my shame is, the more precisely I tune to the narrow range of frequency, the one that leads me to the Creator, to the properties that I want to acquire. And the picture does not become fuzzy in front of me; on the contrary, it is extremely focused.
[91650]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

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Question: What do I raise in my eyes by bowing before the friends?

Answer: Nothing. Self-diminution and the realization of the greatness of the Creator are two different but complementary things. Usually in the context of a relationship with the Creator, we are talking about the group, and in the context of a relationship with the group, we are talking about ourselves because the group is between me and the Creator.

Question: What is exactly revealed to me when I raise the group in my eyes?

Answer: The corrected system of the single soul that is at the end of correction. The system, that today, I see through the prism of my flaws.

This is what the greatness of the group is, and no less, because this is the truth. And although I cannot yet accept it as a fact, in the end, I will understand it completely.
[91647]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

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When reading The Zohar and wanting to imagine the next degree, one should try to join the efforts at this degree and this world, and the internal world, and the group, so that everything is in one structure because there is nothing else besides it.

If one is able to do that and discern “Israel (striving for the Creator), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator are one,” it is the sign that one has already obtained the right focus, the correct attitude to the true reality, which is correctly represented in it, but not outside of oneself.
[91192]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/12, The Zohar

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Question: What should happen so that I will finally be able to understand something in The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: In order to understand what The Study of the Ten Sefirot is about, I have to feel these phenomena inside me. They don’t take place somewhere on the moon or in outer space. It isn’t about some external systems. All of reality is inside us, in me, and in me I have to feel all of reality. If I imagine it to myself, I think about how to perceive it and about how I can change it, about how the upper force comes to me and changes me. Thus I divide all of reality into myself and to the source that created me, that designed me, and that influences me, which means the Creator.

In me there is a desire to receive, and in Him there is a desire to bestow. His desire bestows upon my desire, and my desire can evoke His desire in response. Thus we begin to work together like partners.

There is nothing else but that. So it turns out that the friends are inside me. These are the attributes that are closest to me, to the part of the desire that I feel as myself. They make up that part of the desire in me, together with me, from which I can turn to the Creator and manage my fate. I also have to correct all my other desires and add them to this part until I am totally incorporated in the mutual work with the Creator.

This will happen when I receive the right desire for it and want for all of us to constantly feel this. I won’t separate myself from the world externally anymore, thinking that the world is somewhere outside myself, in the form of different countries, nations, and friends; I have to constantly imagine that everything is inside me according to the right perception of reality. Then I will begin to gradually approach that perception.

At the beginning, the world will remain in duality for me and I will see it outside of me, but imagine inside. However, gradually, thanks to the Returning Light, I will start to connect these two approaches into one picture. It won’t be the kind of split like schizophrenia. I will begin to feel the goodness and the indivisible unity of the picture. A person reaches his perception gradually due to obtaining the middle line.
[90915]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: What does it mean to draw the Light that Reforms?

Answer: When I read The Zohar, I want to see changes inside me, as if a stream of energy enters my internal system, a light, powers, new discernments, new attributes. Something influences me, and I want to feel what it is that influences me and performs changes in me. I want to know this and to feel the flavors and see how these changes take place in me and where inside me I can imagine everything that I read about in The Zohar so that it will not just be imagination, but that I will really feel it in my attributes. This is what I expect, the changes in my desire to receive.

We have to make collective efforts, in mutual help, and then the Light that Reforms will be much stronger than when it influences a single person. Then it is much easier to achieve something. But this is only if a person works with others, in connection with them. By that, he approaches the Light since his desires for the Light are not egoistic any more, but are similar to it in some way.

Of course it is still for himself, but a person tries to resemble the Light in some way and to seemingly become equal to it. This is called a “game.” Of course, I am asking for myself, but to some extent it is like the real and correct attribute of bestowal.

In what way is it similar? Several thousand egoists come together, all of them want to bestow, although deep in their soul everyone wants for himself and disrespects everyone else, but they make collective efforts, as if connecting, as if yearning, as if for the Creator, for bestowal—this “as if” is called a “game.” They “brainwash” each other’s minds as if it is really something great and important. In fact there is nothing real here, but this is what should be done in order to attain the upper level. This is because there is an abyss between the levels, and you cannot be in an upper level before you ascend to it, and in order to ascend you play it.

So we have to connect more strongly and to want to feel that that Light changes us. In the meantime it just changes us, but later our intention will be more accurate, so that it will change us in our connection, in unity, but this will come later. Now at least we have to aim at the influence of the Light.
[90908]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Zohar

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While reading The Zohar, we first of all aim at the Light that Reforms. I think only about it as if I go through some healing process connected to an IV infusion with the upper force constantly flowing through me.

If I think about it, I can already advance. It says that the Torah is the essence of the holy names, which means the acts of bestowal, the Creator, the Light that Reforms, which brings me good thoughts and desires to bestow.

So I try to locate them inside me now while reading The Book of Zohar: “Perhaps something is happening in me?” I want to adhere to the same actions that the Light performs. I want it to perform them in me; I am ready to become Nukva, to receive everything. Let it come and dress in me and do whatever it wants with me.

This is called to “discover the holy names,” “to want to know what one studies, “to study the Torah,” to study the actions of the Light upon my desire to receive—how the Light reforms.

I don’t feel that the Light influences me, but I want to feel it! Being connected to an ordinary infusion a person can lie either unconsciously or consciously just looking at the drops dripping.

But we want to feel how the drops of the Light heal us and what each drop adds. I want to feel it because I want to learn about it, about how to act, how each drop changes my desire to receive; a drop here and a drop there, with relation to one thing or another. By that I learn how I can use every slight change in my recognition, in my understanding, when I get up after this healing process.

The main thing is that I expect to see the actions of the Creator in order to learn from them, in order to know what they are, who I am and how I can resemble the Light that influences me now. I have to perform actions that are identical to the Light’s, to learn from them, as it says: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
[90905]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Zohar

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