Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Time Stops When You Do

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does the exit from Egypt occur in the darkness, late at night? Is it not tied to time?

Answer: As time passes, there are no changes in spirituality. Only the animate body grows along with its earthly desires. Meanwhile, there is no time in spirituality. If you performed no action, the time stood still.

In the spiritual world there is no axis of time, meaning the axis where our actions get deposited on. Time in spirituality is the amount of actions, the chain of causes and effects that you have realized.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Feeling The Depth Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we know what desires we need to correct?

Answer: Everything becomes revealed along the path. We don’t know what it is all about, but there is an order to the actions a person must carry out, as Baal HaSulam and Rabash explain to us.

They were the two last Kabbalists who created a method suitable to the souls descending into this world in our generation and detailed all our work regarding the soul’s correction. By correcting it we reach revelation of the Creator; the reality and the world unfold before us—it is happening here and now.

All the worlds, souls, and upper forces, everything is right here, but we don’t feel it. We must cultivate a sensory organ within, discover our desires as deeply and widely as possible, give them definitions, feel changes in them, and arrange them so as to discern all their peculiarities and components.

We must feel the entire depth of the existing reality so that our impressions and sensations would merge into one image regarded as the Creator, the upper force. Similarly, we attain the authentic reality as we rise along the steps of the five spiritual worlds, where in the world of Infinity everything unifies as one whole.

All that we attain on the path, we attain in small doses, as individual parts, after which everything merges into an integral form. This is the perfection we are to achieve.
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From the Lesson on Weekly Torah Portion 2/10/2011

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The Gate To The Book Of Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are many stories in The Book of Zohar that are written in allegorical language (Midrash). They are seemingly describing people and angels (the forces of nature), animals, and plants, which is because the Book’s authors wished to explain all levels of creation to us: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Baal HaSulam prepared four introductions to The Book of Zohar:

1. “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha)”: It is a scientific preface where he explains the structure of the worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot, and the interaction of the Lights and desires (vessels, Kelim).

2. “The Preamble to the Sulam Commentary”: It is connected to the above mentioned preface. Here, he also explains how to work in the three lines, with Lights and desires, if only in a more particular form, closer to each soul.

3. “Preface to The Book of Zohar”: In this introduction, Baal HaSulam explains the perception of reality. He describes how we transition from our ordinary, corporeal perception of reality to the spiritual one, when we start perceiving reality through this world, which becomes transparent, and see the forces working in it instead of the external picture of the world.

Similarly, when we look at the computer screen, we see a certain image. But it exists only pertaining to us since we created this screen and this method of projection on purpose. In reality though, it is merely an external manifestation of information stored inside the computer, on its hard drive. If we could read information directly from the disk, we wouldn’t need to retrieve it onto the screen and read it from it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the instrument that allows us to enter the internal, concealed part of reality and see not the external form presented to us at the moment, but rather the internal activity: the forces working behind the scenes of the familiar image of the world.

In this introduction, Baal HaSulam also explains that our perception of reality is divided into four components: the essence, the abstract form, the form clothed in matter, and the matter itself. Until the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), we attain only our matter (desire) and form that this desire assumes: either an egoistic or altruistic one. We cannot know the abstract form and less so the essence. Thus we advance to the final correction.

Hence, the wisdom of Kabbalah gives us a very serious warning not to indulge in fantasies, but rather to be realistic and use a scientific approach while striving to discover the spiritual world in a sound, tangible form.

4. “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”: Here, Baal HaSulam explains various problems a person faces in his or her questions about who we are, what our essence and role in this world is, why the Creator created us so flawed, low, and despicable, why we must walk this entire long path and become equivalent to Him, and so on. In the beginning of this introduction, Baal HaSulam asks these questions and answers them further on.

And in the end of the introduction, there is a very special, well-known, and widespread part where he writes about our correction in our days. There he explains that the world is divided into inner and outer parts. People who feel they belong in spiritual attainment are regarded as the inner part of the world. It is they who must unify among themselves and use The Book of Zohar to draw the Light that Reforms to themselves.

By doing so, they will become the spiritual source and the spiritual center of the world. Having the spiritual force, they will be spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah, and the whole world will get to feel that they have something exalted: knowledge, wisdom, the correct, common sense approach to what is happening in the world, and the answers to questions about it.

The world will begin to understand that these people reside at a much higher degree than all scientists and the so-called great leaders of this world since they possess the knowledge of the forces that act and transform our world in such an unpredictable way.

Then, after resistance and confrontations, the world will still begin to feel drawn to these people and recognize in them the upper force, the upper wisdom. And thus, in the end, the whole world will arrive at correction. After all, correction is basically performed between the individuals who are regarded as the inner part of the world, the ones with the point in the heart, while the rest of the world will only join in and cling to them, just like today in the world the masses live their daily lives while the world is ruled by a handful of others.

And thus, as Baal HaSulam explains in the end of the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” the entire humanity will keep developing until the world unifies together, all become as one whole, thanks to the same Book of Zohar, and reaches the same very ten primordial Sefirot that Rabbi Shimon and his nine disciples wrote about.
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From Lesson 4, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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Why Is It So Hard To Perceive Spirituality?

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe answer is simple: It’s because spirituality is opposite to us, to our essence, to our egoistic nature. Egoism rules over us; we wish to fill it. Hence, out of everything that surrounds us, we only see what we want to see in our egoism: something pleasant or, at most, threatening.

This is why a person who wants to reveal the upper world, to discover what surrounds him but remains undetected in his egoistic perception, needs to reconstruct himself. For this reason the environment is so critical for a person: It helps to rebuild one’s perception, to attune oneself to the importance of perceiving what is unpleasant to egoism, opposite to it. Then one will be able to witness a wide world that has always surrounded him or her. It is called the spiritual world because it is above the egoistic one.

It seems to us that our views are the result of our experience, but they are the upshot of the accumulation of information convenient for our egoism. And it makes no difference what they say, the truth or a lie: For us the truth is what coincides with our opinion—egoism.

We always look only for what supports our opinion and reject what opposes it. Ultimately, we form ourselves and do not wish to change. Only suffering, the attempts to find the meaning of existence, and a strong spiritual environment, the group, will help a person to become objective, to replace the egoistic perception with the environment’s opinion. And then the upper world that has always existed around him will open for him!
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From The Virtual Illusion To The Spiritual Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear friends!

All of us together experienced the unforgettable minutes at the WE! Convention that was held in New Jersey. With each convention our connection and the sensation of the entire world group becomes clearer and closer.

But at the same time, there is a need to see and hear all of us simultaneously on one common screen as if we are located all together in one convention hall. I ask all of you to think about this because then we will succeed in creating a program that would be able to accept all the groups and present everyone as if they are together, hearing and seeing the same thing.

We have to create this virtual illusion among us. It will help us to quickly reach the total, spiritual unification of everyone into one desire and one thought, to become one man, Adam.
Dr. Michael Laitman
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A Kaleidoscope Of Changing Worlds

Dr. Michael LaitmanEven to study Einstein’s theory or quantum physics, we need a new approach with another kind of math and other phenomena. The principle applies all the more so to the spiritual world, where we need additional sensory organs and our standard five senses and our mind, which operates by the same scheme, are insufficient.

Our animate sensations are limited, but which way are we to expand them? We must develop the point in the heart into a new dimension. Then, next to the familiar human being of this world, a new creature will emerge.

We already have its root within us. Now we only need to draw the upper Light, a special energy which will cultivate this seed, this spiritual gene, into an additional human being whom we will call man. Kabbalists also call this a soul.

When we identify ourselves with it, from its qualities, continuously changing as a result of our work, we will begin to attain the world pertaining to this new creature, deliberately developed by us in order to investigate the upper one with its help. It will be called our soul existing in the spiritual world.

And this additional human being can continue developing gradually until it spans the entire universe. It possesses unlimited sensory organs, desires, and opportunities!

We are born animals, and the expansion of our sensory spectrum is limited to telescopes, eyeglasses, and the like because our mind does not change but works precisely according to its nature. That is why we still pertain to the animate level, whereas “man” is the spiritual entity that we will build beside ourselves. In it, our entire perception may change.

It will change so greatly that from state to state, from one spiritual degree to another, we won’t even recognize ourselves or our world which will suddenly be revealed to us! Each time we will suddenly become somebody else, not the same as even a moment ago, unable to recognize the world around us, for everything will be brand new!

Indeed, as opposed to this world, all my senses—the mind and the heart—will be changing. They won’t simply grow; rather, they will completely replace the system of coordinates, the entire perception, to the extent that whoever is at a lower degree cannot possibly understand the upper one.

Just as here we work with our senses so as to reveal nature, the same principle applies in spirituality, and it is also called a “natural science,” except here nature is lower, corporeal, whereas there it is higher, spiritual. But the scientific method remains the same.

Obviously, the scientists of this world won’t accept this because they work only in their five corporeal senses, and so they will not consider it a science. Naturally, if someone is limited by some tiny sphere of perception, only willing to accept that and nothing else, there’s no use in arguing.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/2010, “Body and Soul”

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Reveal The Truth For Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I only see my desires, how can it be that I notice desires that I don’t want to detect whatsoever?

Answer: If we only saw the desires we want to see, we wouldn’t be able to reveal the truth. I develop only because our reality divides into good and evil, truth and falsehood, me and others, me and the group, enemies and friends. In essence, this division into opposite qualities stems from the Light and desire.

The Light is the quality of bestowal, the Creator, good that does good, and His complete oppositeness is the point of desire to receive for oneself, for one’s own pleasure. As these two opposite qualities, which are the only elements existing in nature, interact and exert influence over one another, the desire accumulates different impressions.

These impressions are called “worlds,” and all that exists in the spiritual forces and in our corporeal world originates from this tiny point created by the Light. This point received an impression from its oppositeness to the Light, and it is this point that we must return to its opposite state called a “drop of unity.”
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 11/23/2010, Perception of Reality

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Teaching Children The Perception Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I told my three year old son that everything that surrounds us exists within man. He asked me: “Does it exist inside my body?” And I didn’t know what to answer him. How can we explain it to a child?

Answer: It is forbidden to talk about these things with small children. We can discuss the correct perception of reality with nine year old children, by giving them the information in small portions since their internal and external perception of reality contradict each other.

This may induce a conflict in the child since his brain is not sufficiently developed yet and can’t perceive two parts as being both opposite to and connected with each other. All other things can be discussed at younger age.

It’s advisable to consult with us on such matters. We have collected a great deal of children education material; a big department is working on it; twice a week I hold talks on education, which provide answers to such questions.
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From Lesson 2, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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Everything Depends On The Right Focus

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe do not realize that our entire worldview passes through the prism of human society. The difference between the animate level and our, human level lies precisely in the fact that we build an environment.

We used to live in herds, just like animals. But then we started organizing special relationships among us, arranging people according to a hierarchy, and distributing functions. Our development thereby took on a social character even though it still unfolded egoistically, naturally, instinctively, by nature’s command. Yet we were becoming human.

We cannot even imagine what it would be like to live completely alone, without any memories of human society. In this situation a person would live by himself, on the level of an animal.

From this it is clear that we do not perceive reality the way it is, but through the environment. Society has raised me, endowed me with habits and models dictating how to look at what is happening, how to evaluate things, and how to accept everything that I see. My mind and feelings are programmed according to the value system that society has conditioned me to have over the course of the first 20 years of my life. I do not see the world the way it is, but the picture imposed on me by society.

Likewise, in the spiritual society we have to give a person our view of the world, funneled through the prism of love, the aspiration to bestow to others instead of personal benefit. Bestowal has to acquire the greatest importance in every person’s eyes.

At the same time a person’s worldview will still be built on the program “installed” in him by society. This is natural because it is the only way he can look at the world. A person by himself is just “an observation point,” whereas the analysis and understanding come from the norms of society, which tells him: This is important and this is not, this means one thing and that means something different. It’s as if we build a matrix in front of a person through which he sees the upper Light. Otherwise it would be impossible to see it.

On the other hand, right now we observe the upper Light through the matrix of human society. This is our world.

Thus, we have to become maximally included in the group, using the materials of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. That is how we build a new vision of the world inside of us. This is seen very clearly when looking at beginners. They come to the lesson or lecture as if they were coming from another world, but gradually they adopt a slightly different direction, a different perspective, and different values. Gradually we come closer to them and they change their point of view, the “polarization” of their picture of perception. In the same world, a different form of being comes through before them.

Then the lecture ends, the connection with me becomes severed, and everything disappears. Next time they return defocused again, with a distorted “resolution.” At every lecture it takes time to focus them anew, to bring the details that diffuse in their eyes back into one.

I am unable to do this all of the time. You have to focus on your own by uniting so that every mutual action will constantly keep you in the spiritual focus. It has to become focused a bit more and then a bit more, as if you are adjusting the resolution on binoculars by turning two lenses so they would come together on the spiritual goal. When you achieve this, you will immediately reveal the spiritual world.

Everything is determined by the love between friends. This is the “focus” that enables us to see the Creator. The friends bring together my feelings and mind in one direction, toward love for the neighbor, and then demand that I look only at them and that I think only about how to help them. I constantly concentrate on this and by means of the group I focus my attention into the thinnest line. That is how I reveal the Creator.
From the 5th lesson at the WE! Convention 4/1/11, Purpose of the Group

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