We 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

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - 3 Comments →

Baal 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

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: 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

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: 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

Filed under: Perception, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Time 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

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Baal 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

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

The spiritual reality is above time, motion, and space, in a state that we are unable to imagine. We perceive everything with relation to time, in which we imagine motion, or with respect to motion that we imagine in time. And all of this happens in a certain place to us.

On one hand, these three parameters in which we perceive the world limit us very much. But on the other hand, for now precisely they give us the only opportunity to feel our reality inside of them. If we were not limited by time, motion, and space, then we would not perceive the world at all.

Our entire reality lies inside of the boundaries of time, motion, and space, even though these notions do not exist in reality! Therefore, the world we now perceive inside of these three limitations is called an imaginary world.

But when we begin to develop spiritually, we reveal the true reality in which there is no time, motion, or space. We attain it from our level and higher, meaning by advancing upwards, toward an increasingly greater quality of bestowal, revealing the root that moves toward us from above downward: from the absolute quality of bestowal to greater restrictions in order to be able to reveal itself to us.

But in this reality, there are obviously no changes, not from below upwards nor from above downwards. The entire expansion of the worlds form the world of Infinity, various Partzufim, Sefirot, and breakings, until our state in this world, and our attainment where we ascend up along the spiritual levels, all of this exists only in relation to the person attaining them.

Inside of him, in his attainment, he reveals a reality that seems to have been organized for him before from above downwards, until the level he now reveals. And he ascended to that level from below upwards. However, all of this exists inside a person and is felt in relation to his revelation and self-correction.

In reality, before him there were no actions from the Creator’s end. Everything was completed in one initial act of creation. And it is also something we cannot understand: What does it mean that creation did not exist and then it emerged? After all, that already presupposes the existence of some sort of time, a beginning and end? But that’s just how we describe it using our human language.

These two notions: the expansion of the worlds from above downwards and the attainment of reality from below upwards, create the perception of the world that allows us to exist for now. And the higher a person rises up the spiritual ladder, the greater the gap he perceives between these two meeting points, understanding how relative his perception and he, himself, are.

In essence, this is talking about the will to enjoy that attains itself or its creation by the Creator. All the levels of revelation that are contained inside one, single act of the Creator are revealed to us gradually, one after the other, in order to build the right perception of reality in us.

Therefore, we now need two levels of attainment until they finish developing in us by virtue of our efforts and the desire to connect them together. But in the end they will merge and the entire expansion of the worlds from above downwards and our ascent from below upwards will unite in one point of total unity, which is called Malchut of the world of Infinity.
[46601]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, Shamati

Related Material:
Two Paradigms, Two Worlds
Matter Woven From Desire By Light
The Program Of Development Coded “HaVaYaH”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Spirituality - 1 Comment →

Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit (Inner Reflection),” Item 36: The will to receive is the substance of the essence. … We name the first form in the essence by the name “the first substance in the essence” since we have no attainment or perception whatsoever in any substance.

There are five types of sensations: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. To feel an object as a material one is to touch it. Only by touching it can I be sure that it exists and is material.

The most reliable reality is that which can be touched and taken into the hands. I name something as substance if it reveals itself to me by touch, but in reality, this is not substance. It is simply that I have five organs of perception, and the influence of the Light on my sense of touch creates the illusion of substance in me. If I had no body with nerve receptors on my skin and if I could not perceive the reality I am in through them, I could not feel the material world which I sense today.

What is smell? The influence of the Light on my smell receptors gives me the perception of smell, and the influence on the taste receptors gives me the perception of taste. The same is true for sight and hearing. All of my sensations come through the nerve endings which are located either behind the ear drum or inside the eye.

So, all that we have are the five organs of perception. In the end, they draw for us all of reality: our body and the entire world in front of us. I perceive substance through my sense of touch, while the rest of my senses—smell, taste, hearing, and sight—draw the additional qualities of the alleged “reality” that I and the surrounding world are part of.

The Light draws this entire picture for me. In reality, there is nothing except simple desire, which is being influenced by the Light, giving birth to all of these forms. That is why it seems to me that we all exist as physical bodies.

This is why Baal HaSulam says that “the will to receive is the first form in the essence,” and that we define the first form as “substance” because we have no attainment of the essence. So, there exist matter, form clothed in matter, abstract form, and the essence. Matter is the will to enjoy perceived by us through the organs of touch which are being helped by our other organs of perception.
[45244]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Have You Ordered “The Magic Tablecloth”?
Man Is Born From Inanimate Nature
Don’t Let Yourself Be Bribed When Searching For The Truth