Every time we begin to study from the books of Kabbalists and especially The Book of Zohar we must first of all be grateful for the state we were rewarded with. We are lucky to study about the attribute of bestowal, about the world of bestowal, and to connect to the source of power that can raise us above the animate level to the level of the speaking. Then we will be in bestowal and will love others and the Creator.

This means that we must value the “tool,” the means, that we have now—the special book, which by reading I determine my connection with the upper world. If I value it, if I am attracted upwards and feel awe, then by reading it I can perform different actions on myself. It isn’t just in order to change, but in order to become compatible to what is external to me.

It seems that there is a big world around me and as for now it is true, but later I discover that it is all built of vessels, of my desires. I will perceive them as parts of my body and by that will establish my attitude towards the upper force that created me and I will adhere to it.

The book should provide me with all that. So, I have to value the giant system that is around me. A Kabbalah book, just like a guide, helps me become familiar with the reality I am in, and tells me how to use it in order to get to know the upper force and to adhere to it.

First we have to value the new perspective that is revealed to us. Then accordingly we can turn to the upper force with a request, since the goal is so sublime, great and wonderful, that I surely want to attain it.

Then I begin to operate my desire, to receive or to bestow, according to how much I clarify it. In order to clarify the desire correctly several conditions must be filled:

1. I acknowledge the greatness of the source.
2. When I see that it is great, I want it to influence me correctly. After all, this force can be the “elixir of life” or the “potion of death”—it all depends on my attitude and on what I want from it. In order to establish the right attitude towards it, I was given a group. If I try to reach a “prayer of many” together with the friends, our demand will be right and we will be rewarded with the “elixir of life.” A person cannot know if he is asking for the right thing by himself, and so I was given a tool called “friends,” thanks to which I can undoubtedly turn to the upper force correctly and ask for the right things.

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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/12, The Zohar

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Question: It isn’t enough just to know that everything comes to me from the Creator. After all, in such a case, I may be enjoying this “picture,” without asking any questions. On the other hand, if I have a question, I overcome all the obstacles since I look for an answer.

Answer: That’s right. A person must check himself constantly.

Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator”: One prays and gives charity for one’s troubles, but is not answered whatsoever…

A person checks himself and sees that he doesn’t succeed in anything. However, he is still connected to the Creator since otherwise he wouldn’t pray to Him and give charity.

And precisely when one stops praying for one’s troubles, one is answered. Whenever he overcomes, believes in Providence, and betters his deeds, luck turns away from him and he mercilessly falls back.

A person can make serious inquiries, try to do everything the right way, and see the opposite results. This state is called “double concealment.”

And when he denies and begins to worsen his deeds, he becomes very successful and is greatly relieved. One does not find one’s sustenance in proper manners.

A person can advance in devious ways and be around successful criminals. Then, the good environment seems like a poor, stupid, deprived environment.

When Providence arranges things in this manner for a person, it is called “concealment within concealment.”

However, he understands this and is aware of what is going on. So, after all the inquiries and the attempts, a person, himself, determines clearly and accurately which concealment he is in with regard to the Creator: whether it is a single concealment or a double concealment.

We must do that every minute and in every situation. It is possible. Baal HaSulam gives us clear instructions as to how to arrive to the real state, to the real connection with the Creator.

When Providence arranges things in this manner for a person, it is called “concealment within concealment.” This is because then one collapses under one’s weight and cannot continue to strengthen the belief that one’s pains come from the Creator for some hidden reason. Finally, one fails, becomes heretic, and says that the Creator is not watching over His creations whatsoever.

This isn’t even double concealment since the Creator is totally absent from the picture of the world.

And all that transpires, transpires by fate and by blind nature. This is not seeing even the back.

Therefore, the moment I wake up, I immediately begin to check myself and the state I am in. Clearly, one can say a couple of blessings automatically or sing a song, but, on the whole, the scale should not be the tunes or the blessings other people have composed, but my own.

Thus, I gradually understand that, eventually, everything depends on the influence of the environment. Then, I discover that I must submit myself to the environment because this is what pulls me forward through the double concealment and the single concealment toward the revelation of the Creator. Only self-submission before the group brings me the Light that Reforms.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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No matter what happens in my life, I must understand that it all comes from the upper force that undoubtedly controls everything. But so far it isn’t revealed to me that way, but in concealment, and so I suffer.
The Creator is good and benevolent, but He is revealed to me after going through a “filter” that turns all the good into something bad and unpleasant. I call the thickness of this “filter” “single concealment.” In addition, the Creator can place another “filter” and send me to a “double concealment,” which is much worse.

So how can I get rid of the veil that turns the goodness of the Creator into evil? To do this I ask: “Correct me! But not so that I will get rid of the unpleasant feelings, on the contrary, they help me, and spur me. Without them I wouldn’t even think about something else. They focus me on You, on the source of something that seems bad. Therefore, I am asking for help in order not to feel that something bad stems from You.

I don’t want to be behind the “filter,” but in front of it, in direct contact with you. Not in order to feel good, but in order to know you better. I want to bless you, but now because I have no choice, I curse you. My body screams because of that; “I feel bad and I curse the source of evil. But You gave me the feeling that the evil stems from You. You are playing with me by using hints, half revealed and half concealed. But I don’t want to curse You anymore.”

Question: Where is the group here? I can also ask for all that without the group.

Answer: Try. If you start, you will be confused and you will discover that the true plea is only possible in the group. There you are protected from making mistakes; there you really turn to the Creator for correction despite your good and evil desires. Eventually the group allows you to see clearly what to ask for, what it is that you actually want and whom it is that you actually turn to. That’s the whole idea.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: We are talking about a person who is connected with the group. And what is the same person on the street who sees, feels, reacts, and chooses? Is this a superposition of all the desires, the collective result of the whole person, the whole world desire?

Answer: It depends on where the observer is located.

If the observer is me, then I can say that everything that I see around me now is a manifestation of the Creator. It is He who plays with me in this way, on the one hand. On the other hand, all that I feel outside of me is parts of my soul. What I feel in myself is my Galgalta ve Eynaim, and everything that I feel outside of myself is my parts that I cannot connect to myself yet because between me personally, my inner part, and those parts outside of me there is egoism that does not let me perceive them correctly.

That is, my general soul was broken in two parts, and one of the parts I perceive as my own, and the other part I do not. I do not feel that it is mine. On the contrary, I feel it as the opposite of me, I hate it, I do not like it, I do not want to feel it like my own.

This sight was created in me artificially. However, I need to find the way to feel it as my own. It is actually mine, but I perceive it as so foreign that I cause harm to those who are around me, all sorts of still, vegetative, animate, and human objects, and enjoy that I harm them. How can it be? The higher I am, the more I submit and use them (my external part for my inner part), the more comfortable, better, and happier I feel; I enjoy this.

This is a terrible self-deception. Then, a person begins to reveal that by causing everyone harm and thus disturbing the balance in the world, he hurts the elements closest to him, those who are much closer to him more than his children, than he himself. In reality, these are the Kelim (vessels) that are dearest to us. It is a horrible condition called torments of hell. But its redemption then gives a person new opportunities.

So, it all depends on how do I look at what is outside of myself, either according to the principle “There is none else besides Him,” or like parts of my soul, which in principle is the same thing.

When a person connects to the Kabbalistic method, when he comes to the Creator and unites with everyone else, that is, with the entire universe and the Creator, then naturally, everything becomes one: It was the Creator in front of me and He me showed that all were my parts.
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From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 09/23/12

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Opinion (Dale Purves, R. Beau Lotto Why We See What We Do Redux): “The First Edition of this provocative book reviewed a broad range of evidence leading to the conclusion that the visual system does not reveal the physical world by an analysis of retinal images and their representation by the visual system. Rather, what we see is based on the history of the species and the individual as a means of contending with the inherent uncertainty of light stimuli. It follows that visual perceptions are reflexive manifestations of past behavioral success rather than the result of a logical processing of present stimuli.

“When Darwin’s skeptics attack his theory of evolution, they often focus on the eye. Darwin himself confessed that it was ‘absurd’ to propose that the human eye evolved through spontaneous mutation and natural selection. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have now tackled Darwin’s major challenge in an evolutionary study published in the journal Science. …

“Researchers in the laboratories of Detlev Arendt and Jochen Wittbrodt have discovered that the light-sensitive cells of our eyes, the rods and cones, are of unexpected evolutionary origin – they come from an ancient population of light-sensitive cells that were initially located in the brain.

“’It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity,’ explains Wittbrodt. ‘Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision.’”

Source: (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041030215105.htm)

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, there is nothing “around” us; everything that we see as existing is an illusion. Everything is felt inside of us: ourselves and the world around us. By changing ourselves, our properties, which Kabbalah allows us to do, we can “change the world around us.” Rather, we begin to feel its relativity, the dependence of the picture of the world on a person’s (observer’s) properties. See “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”
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All of reality is in a person. He thinks that he exists and that besides him there is a huge universe, but this picture is depicted only in his shattered vessel.

Once there was one vessel and in it a person felt one world, one reality, himself, and nothing but that. The Creator, which means the force that revives him, was also inside him. On the outside there was nothing and there was no such concept as “outside myself.” This is the correct perception, which we call “Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity)”; everything is inside me and nothing is divided by boundaries, there is no boundary, it is infinite.

Then the vessel was broken into two parts. Now in order to attain Ein Sof and to acquire the true, deep perception of the upper dimension, there is only one thing we can do—go through infinite states of preparation, which is what we are doing now.

The world of Ein Sof divided into two parts: “I” and “outside myself,” and all my work is in connecting the two parts. This is why there is the condition of “love thy friend as thyself,” which I have to keep so that I will attach the external part to the internal part that I naturally feel as mine. If I could do that, I would return to Ein Sof.

Loving what is outside myself just as I love myself egoistically means to bestow, and that is the love of others. These words confuse us, but in fact it is about understanding that just as I love myself, I should understand that everything outside me is mine. It only seems to me that the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and also people exist on the outside. I even discover the upper force internally, as it says, “You shall not have a foreign God.” Everything is inside me.

Baal HaSulam explains this in the “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” saying that there is a kind of “camera” in our consciousness, which depicts the outside world to us. This means that some of my desires are the inner feeling of my “self” that is divided into the “root,” “soul” and “body,” while the other part is the external picture that is divided into a “garment” and “temple.” According to another terminology, I divide myself into “mind,” “bones,” “tendons,” “flesh”, and “skin” and the external world into the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature.

There are different sayings regarding the perception of reality used by Kabbalists, such as: “Don’t do onto others what is hated by you,” “Love thy friend as thyself,” “unite in a group,” “you have whom to unite with,” “help them and they will help you,” since eventually it helps a person acquire the right attitude and to return to what he was before the shattering of the vessels. There, there are no “I” and “others”; there this whole world disappears; there we don’t feel the bodies, but only parts of the individual souls that connect more closely until they merge into one soul.

Baal HaSulam explains that in fact there is only one soul, which means the world of Ein Sof, one desire that is full of one force. It is the only thing that exists.

But by our exertion and by attainting this perception, we begin to feel what is happening in the world of Ein Sof in depth; we attain all its ten Sefirot with all the Lights of NRNHY. After attaining the initial state of a created being, through the second state, through the shattering, we arrive at a third state. Then we attain the root and all of reality and become like it, understanding and feeling like it, equal to it in every way.

Actually the point isn’t even in the equality; there are no words in our language to express this state. We are simply in it: There is no “I” that attains “Him,” that is somewhere on the outside. I am Him. This is called adhesion.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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A good environment is a society that affects a person in a positive way and changes him or her in the direction of connection, unity, the best comfortable state. This is still just an earthly, animal well-being.

But then inside this society, a person suddenly begins to open a wonderful source of energy that flows forth from there and raises him upward like a fountain of water toward the sun.

Imagine that our world is superimposed, an overlay of many worlds, many possibilities. We are still in one possible cut of them, and we can move into others. It all depends on the observer’s angle of view, on the person.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 9/7/12

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Question: Can you describe in a few words what one should expect in the spiritual world?

Answer: It is impossible to describe the feeling of the spiritual world in words. How can the feeling of infinity, the ascent above time—when two opposite poles connect and the past, present, and future merge in one point—be conveyed to a person who perceives the world only thorough his current corporeal senses?

If you change one millimeter in the angle of your vision in this space, you will see a totally different world. If you change it by another millimeter, you will see another new world. It all depends on your position regarding the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). You choose the angle of vision by yourself, and then another section of an infinite reality is immediately revealed to you.

However, it is impossible to explain that since these pictures do not include the visual images we are used to. It is possible to teach a person the spiritual mechanics, to explain how the transition from one state to another occurs and how to perform different actions, but it is impossible to convey what he will feel then. In order to do so, he must be ready for a spiritual sensation.

On every spiritual level, there is the expansion of the mind and an exceptional feeling that cannot be compared to anything in this world. There is no way to express this, not even in music or in colors.

No matter how hard artists have tried to approach this in the late phases of the history of painting, in impressionism, this whole stream stopped, having reached a dead end. A person has no other greater means to express his inner world.
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From a Talk About Dissemination 9/7/12

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In his article “Body and Soul,” Baal HaSulam explains a very common confusion about body and soul. The topic concerns everyone. What am “I” in this realm? What will happen to me after I die?

Animals do not worry about such things. They never have thoughts like that since they do not sense time outside their nature, nor do they ever rise above their nature, whereas on top of human sensations of life, there is an additional feeling of detachment that causes questions. What happens outside of this life?

In fact, we belong to eternity, and to the degree of our personal connectedness with eternality, we raise different kinds of questions. Our quest varies in intensity and strength, but everyone deals with these questions one way or another.

As a result of this quest, people have come up with multiple theories and concepts. There are several thousand religions, beliefs, customs, and so on that Baal HaSulam divides into the following categories:

• Some think that there is no soul whatsoever and that a body is a machine, a sack of chemical combinations, and that it is driven by electric impulses.
• Others think of a body as something that possesses a soul that enters a body at the time of birth and exits it at death.
• Some think that, even though a soul does exist, still a body can live without it. We know how to attach bodily parts that were torn apart and learned to implant new organs, sometimes even artificial ones. In the future, we possibly will create our own bodies from a set of body parts.

To make a long story short, people are very confused about this issue. Is there a soul or not? Is it inside or outside a body? No one knows the precise answer, nor does anyone have any scientific explanation of this matter.

Therefore, people chose theories according to their tastes. Numerous hypotheses were created during the last century that brought a lot of money to their authors. However, so far, none of those theories provide a true answer to the question since they do not disclose the topic in full.

Here, the wisdom of Kabbalah steps in. It divulges reality to its full capacity: the Creator, the soul, and so on—in other words, everything! Nothing is hidden from us here.

That’s why Kabbalah is called a “secret wisdom.” It studies things that are concealed from us and makes them obvious to those who study this science. Of course, one must invest lots of effort, but he will be rewarded according to his exertion. It’s a place where veracity can be discovered, although we should remember that revelation in Kabbalah is conditioned by internal changes of a student.

The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t deal with external activities such as rituals, amulets, or secret ceremonies. In a very accurate and clear way, it demands a person to change internally.

The demand is very rigid. Being controlled by our desires to receive, we always think to take care of ourselves. This makes us “egoistic animals.” Think about it, check it out, realize your evil inclination, and transform it into its opposite: the intention for the sake of bestowal. There is a special power that implements the correction when we work in the group.

One way or the other, the implementation of Kabbalah principles should be very clear and easy for everyone who wants to know them. The problem is, let’s say, in being lazy. Hence, there are not too many people who have managed to reveal the truth so far.

The wisdom of Kabbalah states that there is no soul that dwells in the body. There is a vessel of the soul that also is called the “body of the soul,” a desire to receive that is totally oriented toward bestowal. It is a corrected vessel for the soul, that is, for the Light that fills it according to the law of similarity of properties and which is called the “Light of the soul.”

Thus, if a person transforms himself into a vessel that receives the Light, then the Light enters him. Afterward, one obtains a soul that belongs to him and that reflects the level of the desires with which he has worked.

There are five levels of the Light of the soul: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida. In general, a person must attain a big, common soul and recognize his spiritual attainment in everything around him.

As for material values, they disappear, cease to exist, since material sensors are imaginary. They were given to us temporarily so that we escape this reality and exit to spirituality.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, “Body and Soul”

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Baal HaSulam, “Body and Soul”: The rest of the concepts, which combine the reason of their method and other methods, are forbidden to us. One who uses them breaches, “Turn you not unto the idols.”

If I imagine something that is imperceptible by my organs of perception, that is called “idolatry.” From this, it is clear which kind of fallacies all of humanity is in.

My analysis must be exact to the maximum. It must be based on real data, on what is in my hands, not in fantasy and conjecture. Only this kind of perception and approach will make me change and see the new world, but, again, in real perceptions, “in my hands.” Everything else is a game of imagination.

Only if I stop fantasizing and accept that there is nothing outside of the five organs of perception, that one can be guided only by what you see, this will oblige me to expand the range of my perceptions, and that is why the prohibition against fantasies is necessary for internal changes. Thanks to this, I will reveal the upper world in my improved organs of perception.

Question: However, no one understands that!

Answer: True, however, there is such a thing as the recognition of evil. Only when man reaches the edge, the limit, when it really becomes unbearable for him, then he is being opened for changes.

Humanity needs to reach the very bottom of all religions and beliefs. This is where modern religious fanaticism is from in all of its manifestations. There is a place for this. People must give an exhaustive expression for all of these approaches to life. Only then will they be able to pass from one edge to the other and reveal the truth—the simple, materialistic truth—based exclusively on the study and the perceptions of the organs of perception.

That is what the science of Kabbalah is. There is no mysticism, no chimeras. In the same way that a donkey stands in front of the feeding trough, either there is food or there is not food. There are no other options.

In the very end, people will discover that all of their beliefs do not give them food; it doesn’t give them anything. You go down with no strength either to live or die. You will not be allowed to provide for your existence in your perceptions, and then you will need to change them.

At first, we imagine this world in perceptions, and we get along here without changing our perceptions. Then, we begin to go down, and the perceptions shrink, contract, push, and limit us. It is similar to the torment of birth labor. The world descends into darkness, into scarcity, into problems and dangers, and then, because I have no other choice, I am forced to run from these perceptions since, in them, I am experiencing death. In them, I am no longer able to carry on with what I do. Here, there is no longer a place for belief in something better “on the other side.” I can’t survive now. The hope for life after death no longer helps.

Today, problems are impacting the wallet, but, tomorrow, they will befall the souls, the source of life’s strength. Together with the science of Kabbalah, all through the entire world, people will be led to understand that it is necessary for them to change their perception.

The most important thing in it is the desire to receive, and people will need to change it for the one to bestow, no longer believing in something that they do not see with their own eyes, what they do not know from experience. Fantasies will stop helping. People will develop to such an extent that they will feel that the only way is to change their own perceptions.

That is the realization of evil, of the evil inclination, that the Creator created together with the Torah, meaning, the methodology for correction with the correcting force of the Light that allows coming to the good beginning. Such are the three states, the three stages of the path.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/31/12, Article “Body and Soul”

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