All the upper worlds, the breaking and the descent from Above downward all the way until this world, and then the development in this world until our time, all of this cannot yet be called the creature. Only now, when we are finally beginning to reveal something and to supplement our previous development, it can be said that we are approaching the beginning of being the creature. The degrees we are now beginning to realize are turning into some sort of actual reality.

Everything that happened before: the four phases of the Direct Light, Malchut of the world of Infinity, the entire expansion of the worlds all the way until our world, the birth of our universe, the Earth, and humanity, its entire history until today, all this is like a grain that contains the entire program, the entire process in its potential. After all, none have yet realized their freedom of will! There is no creature yet! None have yet done anything by their own desire, their free choice, separate from the Creator.

This special process is starting only today. Until now everything came from Above. And even when we read about certain actions, such as screens, calculations, all of this refers to the future. In addition, people who have already attained this from below upward tell us about it. And only the upper program is realized from Above downward.
[53418]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

We can only speak on the basis of our sensations, to the degree that we are impressed by the impact of the Light that fulfills us and is aroused by “His desire to do good to His creations,” and to the degree that it reaches the receivers.

Similarly, when we examine a table our sense of touch feels it as something hard. We also discern its length and width, all according to our senses. However, that does not necessitate that the table will appear so to one who has other senses. For example, in the eyes of an angel, when it examines the table, it will see it according to its senses. Hence, we cannot determine any form with regard to an angel since we do not know its senses.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
[52407]

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It is extraordinarily difficult for us to change the ideas we have formed over the course of our entire lives until now. In fact, it’s simply impossible. One way or another, we remain with our old perception, even though it seems as if we are already changing. In fact, nothing is moving. However, now we have to change our old perspective to a new one, and this change has to happen in the whole world. So where can we get this new perception, an integral view?

Suppose that tomorrow the whole world wanted to turn into an integrally connected network where every person devotes his full energy to work for the sake of society (even though today no one wants this and no one feels this way, but let’s be dreamers for a moment). How will we find out how to build this system, how we should be connected and interact with one another?

How can we build such a government and society, production and trade, since all of this must exist as long as we live in the material bodies? Therefore, we are obligated to organize the entire system of relationships that ensures our life on earth in order to satisfy the needs of our animate bodies.

To do this we need many systems, but how can be build them by the laws of bestowal where every person is free and freely acts to maximally bestow to others, where every person knows what he should be doing in this ideally organized machine, in which all the cogwheels are spinning in harmony? This seems like a utopia, so how is it possible to actually make this transition?

It’s possible to write a novel about this, but how can we rationally envision an economic system that is necessary in such a society, the government and judicial structure, this entire mechanism, from the large elements to the tiniest bolts, including the supply of goods, care for the elderly, families, children, construction, and culture? The organization of all of this is very complex because everything has to operate in “perpetual motion” without the fuel that we are used to!

Everything has to work upon a different source of energy—love for the neighbor. But where will it come from? If I simply receive it from above, the way I now feel love for my own children, then I will be working automatically again, like a machine. So what’s the difference? Instead of egoistic love, I will be driven by love for the neighbor, so what will change?

Therefore, we have to build one thing upon the other so it would work upon resistance, ascent, the sensation of ourselves between two worlds or two desires where every person constantly rises above his egoism, which pulls him back toward the earth.
[53827]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/11, “The Nation”

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

For themselves, all the worlds are regarded as simple unity and there is no change in them. This is the meaning of “I the Lord do not change.” There are no Sefirot and Behinot (discernments) in the Creator since the essence of the Light itself, the Creator, cannot be attainted. Rather, all the discernments speak only of what a person attains in them.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”

The proliferation of the names is only with respect to the receivers. Hence, the first name that appeared, that is, the root for the creatures, is called Infinity. And this name remains unchanged. All the restrictions and the changes are made only with regard to the receivers, and He always shines in the first name, “His desire to do good to His creations,” endlessly.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
[52272]

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

“There is no change in the Light.” Rather, all the changes are in the Kelim, meaning in our senses. We measure everything according to our imagination. From this it follows that if many people examine one spiritual object, each will attain according to his imagination and senses, thereby seeing a different form.

In addition, the form itself will change in a person according to his ups and downs, as we have said above that the Light is simple Light and all the changes are only in the receivers.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard) No. 3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
[52098]

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

We attain everything according to our sensations. And reality, as it is in itself, is of no interest to us at all. Hence, we do not attain the upper Light and the Creator at all, but only attain our sensations. Thus, all of our impressions follow only our sensations.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 66, “The Giving of the Torah”

The spiritual Light tells us not about its path, but only about the reaction within us to the encounter with the Light.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”
[51984]

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In the world of Infinity, the Light and desire merge into one whole with no difference between them. We are incapable of understanding how it is possible: Do they blend that much or just become alike? How can these two different qualities, reception and bestowal, merge into one?

It happens that one is much stronger than the other and overshadows the other with its power so much that the other becomes absolutely inconspicuous. But this is not something we call becoming one whole. At the moment we cannot grasp how two opposites can merge into one, yet nevertheless remain as two opposites.

For our rational mind, one cancels the other because this rationality is very limited and not capable of combining two opposites. This begets the whole complexity of perception, of our ability to understand the spiritual world and its concealment from us. Our present organs of perception do not capture spiritual reality, even though we are in it.

In order to gain independence and freedom of will, we have to come out of a spiritual state and return back to it from its complete absence. Like the Creator created the creature as “existence from absence,” the same way we should come to His “existing” reality—out of absence: attain reality out of absence thereof.

Then, we will understand what the creature is and from it, who the Creator is. As it is said: “Know Him by His actions.”

Therefore, the world of Infinity divided into two parts: the Light and the vessel, which merge and remain in unity in it. The descent of the worlds from the world of Infinity into this world means the divergence and separation of the opposites that merge into one whole there.

The lower the worlds descend, the further the opposites separate, in a cone-like manner, and get closer to our world becoming two completely separate poles. And now we are capable of perceiving them—one separate from the other, understanding that they cannot co-exist.

That’s why truth and faith, or knowledge and faith, the desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow, the work for oneself and for the other, I and the Creator, exist separately in our consciousness. It turns out that the truth of the world of Infinity: “He and His name are one” get separated in our world. And a common vessel, desire, divides into multiple parts; people become opposite to and separated from one another.

Therefore, we see that our fates are completely different, and we don’t understand why one person is given such luck, while the other punishment. We see that there are good and bad times, ascents and descents, and inequality among people. After all, one person earns a lot and easily, but the other labors hard and barely earns a living.

Some are healthy, the others are sick. One was born a prince, and the other was orphaned and left on the street. It only seems to us that all this “injustice” exists, but in reality, everything is arranged absolutely perfectly.

In fact, our vision divides all reality into separate incidents and different times. Therefore, some parts separate from others for us, and we begin to attribute each state to different people, assuming that one is blessed, while the other has bad luck.

However, the cause of that is our distorted perception. And it will remain such until we correct it. Then, everything will join into one whole, and we will see a perfect world.
[52304]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/2011, Shamati # 43

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

We Have Neither Attainment Nor Perception of any Matter

As there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.

Thus, all we know about our friends and relatives in the world of action before us are nothing more than “acquaintance with their actions.” These are prompted and born by the association of their encounter with our senses, which render us complete satisfaction although we have no perception whatsoever of the essence of the subject.

Furthermore, you have no perception or attainment whatsoever even of your own essence. Everything you know about your own essence is nothing more than a series of actions extending from your essence.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
[51874]

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

We Have Neither Attainment Nor Perception of any Matter

It’s impossible to attain the essence by thought. Moreover, we do not even know our own essence. I feel and I know that I take up space in the world, that I am solid, warm, and that I think, and other such manifestations of the operations of my essence. But if you ask me about my own essence, from which all these manifestations stem, I do not know what to reply to you.

You therefore see that Providence has prevented us from attaining any essence. We attain only manifestations and images of operations that stem from the essences.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 12
[51769]

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Filed under: Kabbalistic Sources, Perception - No Comments →

Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

We Have Neither Attainment Nor Perception of any Matter

We have no perception whatsoever in the essence of the person in himself, without the matter. This is because our five senses and our imaginations offer us only manifestations of the actions of the essence, but not of the essence itself.

For example, the sense of sight offers us only shadows of the visible essence as they are formed opposite the light.

Similarly, the sense of hearing is but a force of striking of some essence on the air. And the air that is rejected by it strikes the drum in our ear, and we hear that there is some essence in our proximity.

The sense of smell is but air that emerges from the essence and strikes our nerves of scent, and we smell. Also, the sense of taste is a result of the contact of some essence with our nerves of taste.

Thus, all that these four senses offer us are manifestations of the operations that stem from some essence, and nothing of the essence itself.

Even the sense of touch, the strongest of the senses, separating hot from cold, and solid from soft, all these are but manifestations of operations within the essence; they are but incidents of the essence. This is so because the hot can be chilled; the cold can be heated; the solid can be turned to liquid through chemical operations, and the liquid into air, meaning only gas, where any discernment in our five senses has been expired. Yet, the essence still exists in it, since you can turn the air into liquid once more, and the liquid into solid.

Evidently, the five senses do not reveal to us any essence at all, but only incidents and manifestations of operations from the essence. It is known that what we cannot sense, we cannot imagine; and what we cannot imagine, will never appear in our thoughts, and we have no way to perceive it.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 12
[51666]

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