Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Like Clay In The Hands Of The Master

Dr. Michael LaitmanDo not imagine the Creator to be somewhere far, in some far-off  worlds, existing separately from you. Everything only exists within our desire; everything becomes revealed within us.

It only seems to us that the entire reality, beside for us, exists somewhere on the outside and is divided into the layers of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature, which are either closer to or distant from us. But all of this exists within our desire.

It only seems to a person as if it were not his, as if it were foreign, and this confusion is given to him intentionally, as a consequence of the breaking. But as he begins to work on attaining bestowal, he gradually, to the extent of his readiness to bestow and sacrifice his egoism, starts to sense these parts of the universe that appeared to be foreign and external to him: the still nature, plants, animals, and people.

Evidently, everything belongs to him, and it only appeared to be foreign to him due to his ruined perception.

This way the Creator awakens a person with His invitations and stings at any opportunity, and the person becomes more sensitive to responding to bestowal. He only needs to carry out the instructions with more precision. This is why the Torah is called an “instruction” (Oraa) so we could use all the means given to us in this world (the teacher, the study, and the group) and transcend it.

It doesn’t matter that one does not understand what he is doing or that he just tries like a small child playing a game. If he really desires to attain spirituality and is prepared to cancel himself before the teacher, the group, and the study in order to change with their help and become manageable clay in their hands, he will begin to feel the changes happening within him.

A person does not know where they come from. Kabbalists say that they come from the Surrounding Light. But we do not perceive the Surrounding Light because it does not become the Inner one, and we only notice its influence by the results. We suddenly begin to understand and feel more; we become prepared to be closer to bestowal, the teacher, and the group.

This is how the Surrounding Light operates, and everything depends on our sensitivity to the changes we must receive. I must desire for them to happen directly within me, within my desire, for the Creator’s image, the image of the giver to dress itself in me, and for my desire to receive pleasure to acquire the form of bestowal.

And so I will attain adhesion: I will sense how I merge with the Creator inside of myself. But I connect with the Creator and exist within Him, and the Creator exists within me. This is why He is called the Creator (Bo-Reh) or “come and see.”
[47541]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
I Want To See Myself In Bestowal
Above The Matter Of Egoism
The Light, So Unfathomable In Essence

Let’s Live!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Truma (Donation),” Item 432: …all the people in the world know that they will die and return to dust, and therefore many repent and return to their Master because of this fear. They fear sinning before Him.

Question: What is the meaning of “to die”?

Answer: “To die” or “to live” talks about the desire. According to The Zohar, “alive” means bestowing and “dead” means receiving.

In spirituality there is no life or death. We talk about life and death in our world because we perceive only one form of existence and we see that this form seems to disappear from us. We think that life is the body when it’s breathing, and death is when it stops breathing.

But to a person who starts to feel spirituality, this distinction becomes very strange: How is it possible that this is the indication by which we tell the difference between what exists and what doesn’t exist, what is alive and what is dead? That’s because this person shifts to perceiving a different form of existence, and the earthly notions of life and death disappear for him.

If a person shifts to a more important perception where bestowal is considered life and reception death, then he rises above the level of an animal to the level of a human, and then life to him means existence on the human level and death on the animate level. He does not connect life and death to the existence of the animate body.

Then this animate body disappears from his sensation, losing its significance for defining his state, life and death. Even if the body dies, a person is already on a different degree of desire in the sensation of life and death in relation to spirituality, and he is united with them.

Therefore, this world no longer causes him to experience breaks in the process of the soul’s development.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
Life On The Degree Of Bestowal
Death Of One’s Egoism Is Better Than This Life
The Recipe For Eternal Life

The Light Revolution

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to explain the Kabbalistic method using terms of modern science?

Answer: Can you explain the mathematical Fourier transform to a cow? These are different degrees. A person who does not have a “sixth sense,” a point in the heart, cannot understand what you are talking about. He does not have a need for this, and therefore, it’s pointless to talk to him. Therefore, in our wide dissemination, we have to conform to the desires of the masses rather than of those who study Kabbalah.

Throughout all the generations, the world did not understand Kabbalists. And the world is right: From their degree people are not capable of this yet. It says in the Psalms, “You save humans and animals…”—but when? Today you cannot explain to people about the altruistic intention Lishma. It’s even difficult to talk to them about the topic of the perception of reality. This is intriguing and provocative, but they don’t understand or grasp the essence because they simply can’t.

In order for a person to really be able to hear words about the correction of his desires, he needs one more level of desire. But until then, we can only accelerate his development using external means. One way or another, as long as he doesn’t feel the sting in his heart, he won’t understand your explanations.

That is how the world is built. People are on different levels of development, and even at the end of correction the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels will remain. Yet it is written, “Everyone will know Me from the smallest of them to the greatest of them,” meaning each person according to his level.

The time will come when we will see how people will start grasping our words: some through scientific terms, others in the language of feeling, and others yet by virtue of simple actions, which are enough for a person to join the unity. Some need to attain and feel the adhesion, to actively participate in it, whereas for others this is unnecessary. Everything is determined by one’s desire.

We shouldn’t suppose that everyone will receive the same degree of desire for bestowal and the Creator’s revelation. However, every person will receive the full measure in accordance with his own vessels, and will be filled thanks to the common inter-inclusion.

That is why to this day Kabbalists concealed their knowledge. But now this knowledge can be revealed, although every person will hear just an insignificant part of it. Nevertheless, as a whole the Light is already starting to operate in a big mass of the common desire. This is the revolution that is happening in the world today. The modern crisis is essentially the inter-inclusion of desires.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/11, Shamati

Related Material:
When The Sun Does Not Leave The Zenith
The Revelation Of Kabbalah To The World: For Evil Or Good?
The Catalyst Of The Spiritual Desire

The World Through The Prism Of Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do our efforts to unify during our reading of The Book of Zohar impact the world? What changes does it instill?

Answer: There is no world per se. Your efforts build this reality for you. Right now, it seems to you as you see it. To the degree of your exerted efforts, you create another reality, a different world. What you make is what you get.

Spirituality has no image. It doesn’t have any specific picture unless a person forms it within himself, within his desires that he collected and linked in one.

We should reflect on this as much as possible in order to get accustomed to this view of reality. This isn’t about spiritual attainment. I am saying that every person in our world, who hasn’t attained any spirituality yet, can still choose to view reality as suggested and in so doing begin experiencing certain sensory impressions.

Question: But how do our efforts to unify affect the desires of the most coarse level within us, where there is no yearning to unite? It seems that at the deepest level, I don’t have the slightest aspiration or desire to unite with the others….

Answer: I am made of desires of all kinds and forms, of all levels of Aviut (thickness, coarseness), including desires that don’t change until the final correction. These desires unfold in me in all possible combinations which I am not the one to set up.

I must, to the best of my ability, mold them into a spiritual form, meaning to bring them to unification with the desires that seem alien to me and which I reject, despise, and wish to have nothing to do with: “Who are they, anyway?! Why do I need to unite with them?”

I must overcome this resentment and try to unite with them if they have a desire for spirituality similar to mine. For now, it’s only with them. And if we try to rise above our mutual resentment and unify, we build the “place” for revelation of a more inner degree.

Question: Sometimes, I feel as if I am standing against the wall, trying to push through it with all that I”ve got, but it won’t move. What do I do in this state?

Answer: Ask the friends for help….
[46596]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Catalyst Of The Spiritual Desire
Above The Limits Of The Temporary World
The Whole World Is Your Desire

Reality Created By The Blows Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe represent the desire to receive pleasure which feels that it exists by receiving small “injections,” blows of Light. These small blows create the perception of reality within us by painting an internal image of reality in which we perceive the people that surround us, the air, the world, and ourselves.

All of this arises from the small blows experienced by our desire to receive pleasure. And then it receives an impression as if it exists together with the surrounding reality. If the desire did not receive these small “injections” hitting it, it would neither perceive itself, its reality, nor its environment. This is the way it exists. And there is nothing else beside it: the will to enjoy that receives small blows from the Light.

The Light imposes the tiniest blows inside the desire to receive pleasure without a single conscious reaction on the desire’s behalf; this is the state we are in. When the desire becomes capable of developing a reaction to the upper Light, that is, becomes more sensitive to these blows and raises its sensitivity towards them, it wishes to no longer receive them, resists them, and intends to push the Light back one way or another, hit it back. This is called a “screen.”

And then by virtue of my resistance, opposition, and clashes I begin to attain Who is doing this to me, what for, what He wants from me, and what I can attain through this. This is our entire work: the desire to receive pleasure and the blows, clashes with the Light.
[46823]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Screen Is Your Contribution To The Spiritual Reality
Work With Resistance
Matter Woven From Desire By Light

The Light, So Unfathomable In Essence

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words”: Question 14. What is Hitpashtut (the spreading of the Light).

Ohr (Light) that stems from the Maatzil (the Emanator) to the Ne’etzal (the emanated being) is called Hitpashtut of Ohr. In fact, the Ohr Elyon (the upper Light) is not affected in any way by that. It is like lighting one candle from another, when the first is not lessened by it. The name only indicates the reception of the Ne’etzal.

There are no different Lights in the Creator or the creature. The Light does not exist on its own. The Light is the impressions of the creature on the fulfillment that existed in it previously.

When the creature suddenly feels this fulfillment in some particular way, it is considered that the Light enters it. The Light “shines” to us in so far as we react to it, to the degree of our ability to sense It. And if we are not capable of this, it is considered that we have no Light, and the Light goes out, departs.

We talk about the Light as if it goes in and out, about Lights that “swing” the vessels, perform some actions. In reality, the Light does not alter its effect on a desire. Desires are organized in such a way that they continually update informational genes (Reshimot) against the background of the constant Light. And therefore, the desire (vessel) reacts differently and feels as if the Light flows through it, changes, excites it, or goes out.

All of that is a consequence of our incorrect perception of reality that will accompany us until the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun). We will always feel that changes take place somewhere outside. Similarly, this is how we imagine this world existing somewhere outside us, although it is all inside.

Relative to the Light, we also say that the Light acts on us from outside, rather than saying that informational genes are constantly working in us, taking turns one after the other. And through these new genes, I sense the Light, meaning that I react to it in new ways.

The Light itself does not change at all: It is completely invariable. There is no division into five or ten Lights, or that the Light is entering or exiting the desire; everything exists only in the perception of the vessel to the degree of its impression on what fills it. The creature’s sensation of its fulfillment is called the Light.

We talk only about matter and form clothed in matter. Matter is the desire to enjoy. And as to the form clothed in matter, we call it “Lights,” “properties.” We talk about nothing else except these two concepts, neither an abstract form nor the essence. That is, the Light is the impression of the vessel on some unknown fulfillment. How does the vessel know that there is something inside it? It knows according to the results….

Similarly in our world, if I suddenly come down with a fever, I go to a doctor, and he says that I have a virus. But how does he know what happened to me? He checks external symptoms that point to some internal processes.
[46732]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Have You Ordered “The Magic Tablecloth”?
Matter Woven From Desire By Light
A Process Called “The Light”

Division Is Relative, The Truth Is Whole

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What lesson for my work can I take away from the fact that reality is relative?

Answer: Reality is relative with respect to the one who attains it. Presently, I’m revealing some kind of reality, which appears to me in my desire and is called “my world.”

In my world there is a concealment “from above downward,” which I reveal, and my attainment “from below upward.” This division forces me to achieve a state where my movement “from above downward” merges with the movement “from below upward” into a single whole to the greatest possible depth.

In other words, I must aspire to make my attitude toward the Creator from below equivalent to the Creator’s attitude to me from Above. This is portrayed in the example with the guest and the host. If we equalize completely, that means we’ve achieved the deepest kind of connection, Malchut of the world of Infinity.
[46658]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/2011, Shamati #166

Related Material:
Everyone Is A Point, Everyone Is Infinity
Worlds That Move Toward One Another
The Pendulum Of The Upper Worlds

There Are No Mistakes, But Only Revelations!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible not to make any mistakes on the spiritual path?

Answer: To tell you the truth, we do not make mistakes. We reveal the uncorrected desire, which in reality is also not impaired, but is intended to provide us with a contrast, a difference between two opposite states. Otherwise we wouldn’t feel any state.

Therefore, we never have mistakes or any kind of mishaps. The opposite state has to become revealed. We are creatures, and are unable to perceive any phenomenon by itself. We can only feel it my measuring, evaluating, and perceiving it in relation to something else. There has to be “me” and “what I feel,” one object compared to another.

It is impossible to feel any phenomenon by itself because that would be the Creator before He made the creation, when it is even impossible to say about Him that He is good and does good. For whom is He good? For whom does He do goodness? After all, goodness can only be evaluated compared to evil that already exists.

Therefore, we cannot even talk about the essence of the Creator the way philosophers try to reason because we do not have the capability to perceive it, nor the words to describe it. Creation starts with being opposite to the Creator, at least slightly removed from Him. This “slightly” gives creation its own status, the sensation of one thing opposite another—black against white, “the advantage of the Light is from the darkness.” Then there is something to talk about.

We don’t even know how a phenomenon can exist by itself. Can you possibly create some kind of form that does not have any distinctions, boundaries, characteristics, and shades of color—anything? You are unable to perceive that kind of thing. This is something we don’t perceive. If there are no shades or distinctions present, then we do not perceive.

After all, all of our senses, like the five earthly senses, are built on the fact that a certain influence hits my nerve endings, and then I receive some kind of impression: visual, auditory, tactile, taste, or smell. I need nerve endings, there has to be a collision, a striking, and mutual interaction between two opposites—and then I perceive. If there is no striking, then there is no sensation. When do I begin feeling the Creator? From the striking (Hakaa), the collision between the desire and the Light.
From the lesson on 6/24/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Worlds That Move Toward One Another
Matter Woven From Desire By Light
Regaining Consciousness

Time Is The Intensity Of Actions

Dr. Michael LaitmanTime in spirituality is a number of actions applied to the creature. Indeed, even in our world where we live by the clock on the wall and navigate by the sun, the moon, and the globe, we still have a personal sensation of time dictated by the intensity of actions.

Sometimes, time freezes and doesn’t move in our eyes. On another occasion, it flies with supersonic speed. Time is our personal impression that depends on the number of transformations occurring in us. Therefore, time per se doesn’t exist.

The number of changes we are supposed to experience within us from this moment to the end of correction is regarded as 6,000 spiritual degrees or years, 2000 + 2000 + 2000. Alternatively, it can be viewed as the three worlds of BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya), which we must raise to the world of Atzilut.

Ascending to the world of Atzilut is what we call the flow of time, step by step, from one year to the next. A “year” (Shana) is a transformation (Shinuy), the same circle, a revolution, only at a higher degree.
[46403]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/19/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Time = Motion = Place
The Spiritual Calendar
Spiritual Development: From Embryo To Person

Is Time Mechanical Or Alive?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words”: Question 16: What is Time? It is a certain sum of Behinot (phases) that derive from one another and are mingled with one another by an order of cause and consequence, such as days, months, and years.

There is no time. There is only a sensation of changes that cause us to experience the flow of time. In spirituality, it is evident, whereas in corporeality, it is camouflaged. This is why many phenomena, effects, and transformations get intermixed in the corporeal world and seem not to be directly connected with spirituality, meaning not dependent on our effort and advancement.

Hence, in the corporeal world, time is not alive and flows “mechanically,” separate from our inner transformations. However, in the spiritual world, time is an internal sensation of the changes that a person is going through.

Therefore, corporeal and spiritual time have completely different meanings. Spiritual time can flow faster or slower, contract or expand, depending on the number of changes occurring within a person. In the material world, time depends on the point where we are. If we moved to another dimension, we would experience a different time there.
[46409]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Spiritual Time and Movement Explained by the Source Texts
Stuck In The Earthly Axis Of Time
Kabbalah Moments: Time