Question: Can one remain in the sensation of the material world and attain spirituality at the same time?

Answer: A person who attains spirituality does not lose anything in his sensations. On the contrary, he feels this world much more as a source and motive to enjoy.

The spiritual world means that you attain the reason why you are alive. Then this entire life in the reality that you feel in your body, called “this world” is also worth it.

The spiritual world is the Creator. By collecting your previously dispersed and broken attitude to others into one, relating to them as to one whole which is yours and dear to you, you begin to reveal the Creator within that attitude.

Through this entire world, like through a focusing lens, I focus all of my attitude to it – in love, unity, and connection, and in this point of focus I find the Creator.

It’s as if many rays (forms of my attitude) enter this lens (the group, humanity), come out of it, and focus on one point (the Creator).

Therefore, nothing disappears, but on the contrary – I use this entire world. Without it there is nothing for me to do. Until the full correction (Gmar Tikkun) I have to be in this world, and if I didn’t finish the correction, I have to return to the same reality, to its observation.

What does “this reality” mean? I return to the same qualities of perception, to the same desires that I did not finish correcting. And then I once again see a certain reality, feeling this world the same as now or maybe somewhat different. But I have to see reality in the intention to enjoy, in my flawed receiving desires, which I still retain, until I correct all of them. Then this reality disappears because it becomes unified.

Look from aside at this entire reality, which appears before us, and at the spiritual reality. We have to see the will to enjoy and how much we feel in it – for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal. According to this, we are in one reality or another. And our life cycles are like a change of Partzuf, one after another.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, The Zohar

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The Zohar tells of how the upper Light operates and bestows on us and builds from all of our attributes something that is similar to the Creator: not of our flesh, but from our inner essence that is called, “mind” and “heart,” from all of our thoughts and desires that constitute the person’s “I.”

I don’t know what He needs to do with them. In the meantime, all my desires and thoughts are involved with what I see before me in order to benefit myself. This is the way the ego, which stands behind them, operates.

And the Light that arrives during the reading of The Book of Zohar doesn’t leave me anything from the previous thoughts and desires, but begins gradually to give me other values, yet at the level of the state that I am in. And then later, it begins to detach me from the present reality, as each time He performs some changes in me. On occasions, I rise above this reality and then on other occasions, I again sink within it even more.

Thus, through all kinds of exercises and changes, He helps me stop being dependent on this reality, until eventually it isn’t important to me if I am in it or completely separated from it. And I can use all these forms just for the sake of one goal. Even if I were given all the King’s treasures, and even if I am a poor person living in the forest without even a shirt, it isn’t important because I am dependent only on the intention, something more exalted than my state. I agree with it and want it, above everything that can appear in my vessel (Kli) of reception, both in thoughts and desires.

If I arrived at such a state, thanks to the exercises, that is the work of God on me, and from this moment onward, I begin to see what the The Book of Zohar speaks about.

We hope that with each day and with each moment, we will enter such a state where the Light reaches us, the upper force, which will begin to change us and to raise us above all the desires and thoughts so that we will begin to be dependent on the Giver that bestows upon us.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” (50): However, before that, when the writing speaks only from the perspective of one concealment, the text ends, “they will say in that day: Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?”

In other words, a person feels that he has no connection with the Creator because he lacks the equivalence of form with the Creator, and as a result he feels bad. It could be that he made a lot of money in the stock market and that everything is fine, but he feels bad because he has no contact with the Creator, meaning that he lacks the equivalence of form with the attribute of the general bestowal called the Creator.

“This means that they still believe in Providence of reward and punishment, and say that the troubles and suffering come to them because they do not cleave to the Creator…”

This means that I understand that I am bad, that I didn’t bring about the correction, and so I was “punished.” I have sunk into concealment. But on the other hand, we can also see it as a reward because I feel a negative response and thanks to that I can correct myself. This means that I have to “kiss” the stick that helps me be aware to how low I deteriorate. Otherwise I could deteriorate without even feeling it.

So the difference is in how I judge: according to how I feel my present state, or according to the state itself, as is. I have to determine the state as bad in relation to the required correction of the desires in which I am not adhered to the Creator. These vessels are broken, and the evil can be felt in them in a different way. I may feel bad because I am empty, and I may feel bad because I am detached from the Creator. I can also feel empty and feel good about it because I feel the shattering that way. Finally, I may feel bad because I feel the detachment. In any case, I feel that I am detached from the Creator.

So everything is determined according to the present state. It doesn’t depend on you and you can’t randomly jump from one state to another (like the arrows in the drawing). Rather, you have to examine what you have: “Do I feel good or bad? Suppose I feel good, what do I feel: detachment from the Creator or a connection with Him? Detachment: Does it bother me? No, I feel good. But can I still see the evil in this situation? Not at the moment.”

You should determine your accurate feeling and your attitude to the real state. This is the inner clarification of the state you were given. Then you feel the demand: “How can the group and the reforming Light and the other means help me correct my attitude?” It’s impossible to correct a good feeling or a bad one, or the state of detachment. The group can only correct my attitude to the situation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/12, Shamati #1

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Question: What does a group that enters spirituality look like?

Answer: On the outside there are no special signs. Everyone seems like ordinary people. Inside will be everything we read about in the Kabbalah books. You will see the same faces, but you will treat them differently.

You will feel the internal network of connections among you. This is what creates the place where the spiritual world is revealed. It is as if you’ve received a flashlight, you turn it on, and in that light you begin to see stones, trees, animals, and people: a whole world.

This shining flashlight is your good attitude towards all the others, the mutual guarantee that you feel towards them. In the mutual guarantee that stems from you, you begin to discover the upper system and to see that in it, right there before you, there are trees, animals and people, which you didn’t see before.

But all the inanimate objects, plants, animals and people are not corporeal like in our world, but are spiritual. This is the picture that is revealed to you. They are the same familiar faces, but you discover the internal connection among them.

Many years ago I saw a movie about a diamond theft. The robbers sprayed a special spray and in this mist they began to see the laser beams that activate the alarm if someone crossed the room.

So it is as if you are also spraying a special spray around you, like a cloud of emotional attitude, of sharing, of a sense of connection and mutual guarantee, and in it you discover the laser beams that connect us to one another and see how they pass and tie everyone.

You discover this relationship, and see how it operates and manages everything. You understand what really motivates everyone.

Now, you see that everyone is moving, but you don’t understand which forces are moving them. Then you suddenly begin to feel, both physically and internally, how a hand enters the puppet and begins to move it from one place to another. This is revealing the governance and upper Providence.

Accordingly you learn how to adapt yourself to the system of this Providence, just as the movement of a good horse is adapted to the desires of the rider.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, Shamati #174

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Question: A person forgets a lot, banishing much to oblivion, leaving behind unfulfilled beginnings and uncorrected defects. How can we avoid oblivion on the spiritual path?

Answer: Now it is impossible. Only in the end will all of the separate events be collected and lead to the collective correction, called “Rav Paalim u-Mekabtziel”. After accumulating all of our vessels, they will simultaneously unite in a unified state, and then this action will be accomplished. It will sum up all of the generations of the many billions of people and will collect all of their affairs into one. This is when the time of the full correction will arrive, which will unite all of us into one desire, perfect, and filled with the Light of Infinity.

Until then, we are forbidden to perceive the past because we would not be able to endure all of the things we had experienced. We do have the fortitude needed for that, in other words the screen (Masach). Today we would not be able to justify the states we have  experienced.

That is why we tend to oblivion. We switch off from time to time. This periodic “blackout” is actually no more than switching between two moments, between the day yesterday and the day today, between the past and present lives, until finally they will be all gathered into one.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 1/17/12, “Course to Be A Man, Human Development”

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For tens of thousands of years until today, we have been developing by the will of fate and practically have achieved little. Psychology, the science about man, his nature, and inner world, is only about a hundred years old. Prior to its existence, we did not consider it necessary to study our behavior and we developed like animals by chance. Only now, we feel the need for knowledge about human beings, society, the environment, how to create it, and how to organize our life correctly.

The very concept of “life out of the body” sounds like mysticism, but has nothing to do with it. It means developing the ability to look at oneself as from the outside, seeing the world through the eyes of the other person. Doing so, we acquire an ability to understand each other. And that’s exactly what we need to be able to do.

It is nearly impossible for men to look at the world through the eyes of women. But almost everyone lives in a family and understands the need to create one; otherwise, we would become extinct like dinosaurs. We are obliged to have children and raise them. So, it is important to understand the psychology of the opposite gender and know not only how to live properly, but also how to enjoy this life.

By becoming included into each other, we find the other half of the world. We are built like this. And this is called a “life out of the body”; that is, we obtain an additional perception from outside. So far, I developed egoistically inside my body and tried to fulfill my desires as much as possible and to take into account the other person’s knowledge, opinion, and views as little as possible. Today, the crisis, which involves the whole world, obliges me to become part of the other and accept his point of view, his opinion, and his inner world. And then, I seemingly exit myself and become part of other people. Thus, I acquire the desires and thoughts of all humanity, all its possibilities, as if I leave my own body and attain the ability to feel the entire reality.

Here, the old era is giving way to the new one, a completely different perception of reality. Now, I have an opportunity to see and feel the reality not within my narrow perception, but through a collective feeling and understanding accumulated by all of humanity.

If I become closer to all other people and am raised in a society presented in all its breadth and diversity, then I acquire the ability to see life in the whole spectrum of sensations and perceptions rather than in my individual one. After all, now I include all people, and my palette of the world becomes much richer.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode #3, 12/29/11

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You shouldn’t torture yourself because of your qualities or the bad things that you did or do. After all, it is the Creator who “trips you up” and arranges all the different states for you. This is how He brings you to the recognition of evil and actually does all the work. And you, instead of revealing the truth, reprimand yourself for your actions.

Question: But if you don’t pay attention to these things, isn’t it like running away from the struggle?

Answer: It isn’t a struggle at all. You are like a donkey in front of which an obstacle has been placed: He doesn’t understand how it can be bypassed, and tries to break through it. There is no point in that.

We have to rise above all the actions and feelings, above all the imaginary calculations, and through the group, connect with the Creator. It is the only way to reach the right decision. All the rest is a game, the show of life. It costs us great pain and suffering, but this is our evolution: It is impossible to avoid the mistakes here before we discover the opportunity to rise. One day it will happen.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: When we speak about evil, what exactly do we mean by the term “evil?”

Answer: I discover the Creator as the source of evil and at the same time I understand that I see Him that way because of my bad qualities. So, I understand that it all depends precisely on my attributes.

There are three things before me: the Creator, my evil, and desire. Can I think about the Creator as the good and the benevolent? After all, I feel bad and see troubles and darkness. Still I determine that the good is Above and the evil is inside me. The reason is that in the middle there is something that turns the good into evil.

I feel it in my bones that this is what happens. I am made of these three discernments, and they are in my feeling and my understanding. Such a state is called “double concealment.” In the spiritual space it is the furthest level from the Creator, and everything before it belongs to the beastly level.

It is important to remember that these things already exist in me: I feel the Creator as good and benevolent, I feel my own evil and I can’t get rid of this feeling, and I also understand the fact that I myself corrupt the Creator’s good attitude when I feel it as bad. If we annul this mechanism of turning the good to evil, if we correct it, I will certainly feel the goodness.

Then there is a question. What is the goal: to feel good or to not curse the Creator? From here on the clarification begins: Why was I given the bad feeling? What should I do with it? If I annul it, I will deny myself the option to be corrected. It is by being opposite from the Creator’s goodness that I can reach His good attitude in order not to curse Him.

This means that I use the evil on the way to goodness. Does that mean that now, when I feel bad, it is actually in my favor, and that it is actually what is good for me? So what am I correcting? [Read more →]

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According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a “righteous” person is a person who justifies the Creator, understands the reasons and the essence of his state, and can clearly cut his state into slices of cause and effect.

At the same time he can be in a state of double concealment from the Creator. How is that possible? The whole point is that the concealment and the revelation are determined only by one’s attitude towards the Creator as being “good and benevolent.” It doesn’t matter if I feel good or bad; what’s important is how the Creator is revealed to me. It is important for me to reveal Him as good and benevolent, and not to enjoy His goodness egoistically, because they are two totally different things.

Suppose I have diabetes and you give me a candy. As far as my natural love for sweets goes, it is good. But according to your attitude, it is bad. So it all depends on an internal criterion with which I assess it. What is sweet for the egoism may be bitter if we look at your attitude.

Therefore, to discover the double concealment is to feel all these discernments: I rise above my desire to receive and look at it from the side. Then I see that there is an egoistic intention in it that feels good, while in the desire to bestow, in the intention of in order to bestow, I feel bad. This is the double concealment of the Creator.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Pure desire without intellect represents an original form that is derived from the root. If desire strives only to maintain itself without any other desires, it is called “inanimate.” It doesn’t change, but rather always wants by all means to preserve its existence one hundred percent as it is and continually resists any changes whatsoever. That’s why it’s called “dead.”

On one hand, it’s the most powerful force that keeps inanimate matter in its form and because it is inanimate, it is stronger than anything else. On the other hand, it has a deficit because it doesn’t develop at all, nor does it create any advanced form!

A plant doesn’t possess as much force for self-preservation as inanimate matter; it is weaker. But it does have an addition; it is able to change! It develops, alters, and grows. On the other hand, it still cannot remain eternal; that’s why it “acquires” life and death.

There is no choice, there is a price for the opportunity to continue developing. If you don’t possess stony steadfastness, but rather allow yourself to change, you go from edge to edge, from life to death; there is no other option. In other words, our development happens at the expense of immortality.

For a lifeless stone, life and death are the same. For a plant, life and death are different since plants can sense life. This is the root of any sensation, pleasure and affliction, one against the other.

Animals are much farther from inanimate nature; they undergo dramatic changes and experience tremendous growth. They acquire a higher intellect that accompanies their desires; so, during the process of development, animals acquire diverse forms. Naturally, animals are subject to an array of external and internal influences. Compared to inanimate and even vegetative levels, animals have a much more complex organization. Of course, animals sense their mortality very strongly as the difference between life and death.

The added ability to use intellect for analysis constitutes a distinction between human beings and animals. As opposed to an animal, a person has developed to the extent that he recognizes “time” in his brain: past, present and future. People can bring time closer by including it in desire. All of a sudden, we start envying someone who lived a thousand years ago or someone who will be born two hundred years from now.

We observe that at a human level, intellect enhances desire. The work of intellect upon the desire is directly related to the Light; actually, it’s the only work we ever do. The more we work on clarification and expansion of our desires, the more advanced we consider ourselves to be compared to our past, undeveloped states: inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking levels within the human stage.

Naturally, humans sense life and death, the Light and the darkness, even more strongly. We become more dependent, delicate, sensitive and constrained. But this is the payment for our development.

At the time when our development at simple levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking) is complete, we approach the Creator’s level at which we gain new senses, a different kind of intellect and an alternative developmental force, all three components together, which we didn’t have before.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/12, The Zohar

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