Philosophy and the majority of people in general believe that the material world was born out of the spiritual one. Indeed, Kabbalah states the same: After the breaking of the worlds and the collective soul, desires lost their screens, became egoistic, and descended lower and lower until they fell into “this world.” This defined our existence in this world and all our senses, organs of perception.

It follows that we “came” here from the spiritual world and no other place. One way or another, corporeality is the consequence of spirituality. The only question is whether the corporeal world completely separated from the spiritual world or does it still have some indirect connection to it?

Neither the philosophy nor natural sciences of this world are able to examine the force of bestowal, being only inside the egoistic desire. For this reason, they have no contact with the spiritual world and can only fantasize about it.

There are “scientific” experiments of whatever is considered to be the “soul,” or an alleged connection to it that can be grasped, which are based on incorrect definitions of the spiritual world. These also are philosophic arguments of people who lack any research instruments and a real connection to the spiritual world, meaning a scientific approach, and they simply assume things.

People can imagine anything. There are no limits to human fantasy. For example, there were observations in the changes of the human body’s weight before and after death. Supposedly, the difference determined the weight of the soul. This is how they weighed the soul. They also registered electrical impulses in the brain at the moment of death, and they considered this to be the manifestation of the soul leaving the body.

What about the different hallucinations in the brain at the moment of a clinical death, the nature of which is similar to dreams? These were considered to be sensations of the spiritual world where the person “rises” and then “returns” back to us as they regain consciousness.

All these fabrications are caused by the absence of a correct definition of the spiritual world. This is why people become confused and think that they can touch the spiritual world and examine it.

However, the spiritual world is a reality that is above our egoistic desire, above our matter. Here is where the problem of the perception of reality arises because people are confused about what matter is. A famous definition states that matter is an objective reality given to us by our sensations. What do I perceive? It’s my desire.

This is confusing to people. They think that matter is solid bodies, liquid, the four foundations:  fire, water, air, and earth, or the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. However, Kabbalists say that matter is desire, and we examine the desire which is, in fact, our own!

This is completely confusing to us. I see a metal pipe in front of me which I am completely unable to move, and I am being told that it is mine and exists within me. Here, people become totally bewildered, and it becomes very difficult to speak with them from that point on.

In other words, it is necessary to overcome many obstacles, until we attain a point of view and definition of all the phenomena which will enable us to view reality together with scientists and philosophers. So far, everyone is in his own niche, which leads to a huge confusion.

The main problem is in the different definitions of “spirituality” and “corporeality.” Most frequently, people assume that culture and different human activities fall under spiritual life. In this sense, dancing is also spiritual.

These incorrect definitions really confuse people and prevent serious conversation. For this reason, first of all, the world needs to be given correct definitions of spirituality and corporeality, life and death, and the upper reality.

This way, we will solve all the problems. The correct definitions need to be firmly engrained in your head, and you should view reality only through them. Then, you will not make mistakes for sure.
[30952]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
By Definition, We Cannot Understand Each Other
All Sciences Examine The Creator
A Scientific Method: “We Will Do And We Will Hear”

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

Question: How does the need for a scientific approach go with the principle of “We will do and we will hear?”

Answer: These goes together very well. “We will do and we will hear” is a pure scientific approach which exists in true science. This is because science constantly reveals phenomena that were previously concealed from us. We had no factual knowledge nor connection to them. All we had was our desire to reveal, develop our perception and abilities, in order to grasp new, additional phenomena, test them on us, on our own flesh, on our senses, and register them. Relying on this data, we gathered a more robust image of reality where we exist.

The same approach operates in Kabbalah. It is a science just like a regular science as it is our aspiration to reveal a new reality. There is no difference.

However, in the regular natural sciences of this world, we are not required to change our senses. We only need to expand them. The research instrument already exists: It is our desire to receive pleasure. We simply must expand it through different microscopes, telescopes, and other tools that raise our sensitivity toward previously concealed phenomena.

The entirety of reality divides into two halves: reception and bestowal. In order to check, examine, and study the reality that is based on bestowal instead of reception, we primarily need to arm ourselves with the corresponding instruments of perception (Kelim, vessels).

It is no longer enough to simply expand our senses. We need to build new organs based on bestowal from scratch. This is called birth in the spiritual world.

In the spiritual world, a different nature where we study the force of bestowal, our ability to test, examine, and register data depends on the expansion and development of our senses. It happens the same way as with our egoistic organs of perception when we build different auxiliary tools.

This is how a higher science called Kabbalah appears. It is referred to as “higher” because it works with the force of bestowal in nature, while the sciences of our world examine the egoistic force of reception.

However, in the end, we discover that there is only one source for both the force of reception and that of bestowal. This is because this division only exists in relation to us; we divide reality this way. However, in truth, they both come from one source: the upper force.
[30955]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
All Sciences Examine The Creator
Getting Rid Of Delusions
By Definition, We Cannot Understand Each Other

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

There is an ancient connection between Kabbalah and philosophy. Philosophy seems to be the foundation of all the sciences. There were no separate sciences a thousand years ago such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and astronomy. A scientist did everything and was even a doctor at the same time.

This general knowledge was called philosophy which translates as “love of wisdom,” knowledge. Johann Reuchlin, a famous philosopher of the sixteenth century wrote, ”My teacher Pythagoras, the father of philosophy, took his teaching from Kabbalists … he was the first who translated the word Kabbalah, unknown to his contemporaries, to the Greek word philosophy.”

The connection between Kabbalah and philosophy, and all the sciences in general is very deep. Really, science is already a part of the revelation of the Creator, His actions, which are not just revealed through the sensations of the body, but through the mechanism in us which is called “man” and already pertains to the human degree, even though this is still a person of this world, nevertheless.

Before its connection to Kabbalah, ancient science was developing on the animate degree. It was only after Kabbalah became revealed to the first man, Adam HaRishon, and developed for twenty generations until Abraham and on, as it revealed the Creator’s actions, that the modern science of this world could appear upon this foundation.

We as though do not see a connection between the one and the other. After all, regular science is built on the basis of the human mind and sensations, an egoistic desire to receive pleasure where we reveal the world, and seems to be disconnected from Kabbalah and the spiritual world. However, in reality, this is not the way it is because it examines the same actions of the Creator, which only become revealed in a different, egoistic matter.

These are the Creator’s actions which point to the connection between the parts of reality. For this reason, even the regular, natural sciences are also a sort of a revelation of the Creator, only on our earthly level.

This is because nothing but the Creator exists in the universe, and everything that we reveal are His actions. Only we can reveal Him in our egoistic desire, and then this is called natural sciences. We can also reveal Him in the desire to bestow, and then this is called Kabbalah.

However, it is revelation of the Creator in both cases. The Creator is one, and He does not divide in two. It is we, the researchers, who divide Him this way, depending on the desires where we perceive Him.

From the Creator’s side there are no separation; all the divisions happen in relation to us. This is how we get the eternal problem of how one thing connects to another and how they influence each another.
[30958]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
A Scientific Method: “We Will Do And We Will Hear”
Getting Rid Of Delusions
By Definition, We Cannot Understand Each Other

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

Question: The theme of the upcoming convention is, “We make it real.” What do we actually have to do to make it real?

Answer: “We make it real” means that we are revealing the true reality instead of the one we imagine through the prism of egoism, the will to receive.

We include two forces: the will to receive and the will to bestow. If we are under the power of the will to receive, and the will to enjoy only gives us a slight life force, then everything we feel, determined by the role of reception, is called this world. But if we reach the state where everything will be determined by the will to bestow, it will be called the upper, spiritual world.

Thus, there are two forces in the world and you determine what you want to feel, in what world or reality you want to be. If your will to receive rules over the will to bestow, then you feel this world. And since the will to receive is limited by the amount of pleasures it is able to absorb inside, therefore our life is limited.

However, if you want to experience yourself in the will to bestow, then you will feel bestowal, and that is already life and eternal, unlimited development. Our presence in the will to receive is real. It exists and we are in it, but it is far away from life because we only imagine that it really exists. The entire realty of the will to receive, its very matter, comes from the will to bestow that is present inside it. That is why it is unreal, similar to a children’s blow-up toy. We get the impression that it is alive, but the air filling it, its entire life force actually comes from the will to bestow; it is not its own. That is why our world is called an “imaginary world.”
From the lesson on 2/18/11, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Conventions, Egoism, Perception, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

We need to unify Israel, the Torah, and the Creator as one (the person striving straight to the Creator, the Light, and the Creator). Each part must strive to unify with the others so that in the end, it could bestow to the Light. It is just as in the beginning, the Light was the one to bestow, having endowed Malchut with the sensation of His love, prompting it to all of the actions that started with the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and unfolded further downward.

But when after all these corrections Malchut returns to the same state of perfection, wholeness, and oneness, in its love and bestowal to the Light of Infinity, we get to see that all of it is just one created being which has gone through all kinds of “hardships.”

These “predicaments” are regarded as the “worlds,” from the word “concealments” in Hebrew. They are concealments on the perfect state of Infinity, in order to withdraw from that sensation of fulfillment and undergo all kinds of inner experiences, impressions, choices, and wars, to construct within an identical relationship with the Light while going through the states of separation from and then drawing closer back to the world of Infinity, and to finally arrive to an embrace, or complete adhesion.

In all of this process, there are infinite details, each of which is linked to the beginning and end of the process. After all, we also participate in this whole entanglement of feelings that Malchut experiences, caused by the collision of the Light and the vessel, pleasure and desire, the force of the Creator and that of the creature. We pass through the same states individually, as parts of Malchut, so that in the end we would experience ourselves as one soul.

After all, there is only one creature: Malchut of the world of Infinity. And every one of us must unify with all the others, having overcome this terrible nightmare and our illusory separation, this concealment of a perfect, eternal state. And then, everyone will see that he or she is included in all the others with their feelings, thoughts, love, and bestowal.

Therefore, we need to do all that we can to expedite our awakening from this dream. It is written that the Creator will bring us back “out of Zion,” meaning that there is a way out (Yetzia) from this reality, from this slumber. Then, we’ll see that we were in a dream-like state and will unify into one soul.

I hope that the upcoming convention will help us make a huge leap forward so that we’ll wake up and feel as one soul.
[38976]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, Preparation for the WE! Convention

Related Material:
From Love To Hatred And Back To Love
Who Decides: Desire Or The Light?
Returning To Malchut Of Infinity

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

When studying The Book of Zohar, we should approach it with the intention to find the truth. Indeed, we don’t see anything of the spiritual world and are totally blocked from the spiritual property.

The Light must come and illuminate to us, as if with a projector beam, where we actually are even now: the properties, the sensations, and the dimension in which we reside. In truth, we are in the only place that exists, in desire that is simultaneously egoistic and altruistic, all in one, as if layered atop of each other. But we don’t see it because it remains in the spiritual world, not in our properties.

We exist in the same space, but with our properties we perceive only the material part of reality. There must come a ray of Light, under a certain “angle,” similar to polarized light, and then, in its other vector, surface, we will suddenly reveal the entire world that exists here as well.

This is why we need the upper Light so much: It has to illuminate and reveal to us the world in which we reside here and now.
[39076]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material
Do Not Forget To Switch On The Light
Coming Out Of The Illusory Lie
Where Is My True Self?

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

In the final state we have to return to where we came from at the very beginning, where we were united together, as one man with one heart. The Creator created only one creature, one desire.

When this desire divided into parts, the separation occurred only relative to us: This is how we feel it. But coming back to the state of unity, we feel as if we were in a dream. We perceive this separation and the entire world, the entire reality except for the world of Infinity as a dream.

By descending from the world of Infinity into this world though the five worlds or concealments (“world” or “Olam” comes from the word “concealment” or “Alama”), we gradually lose the sense of reality, similar to a person who gradually drifts into a dream, until falling asleep completely. And now, in the same gradual fashion we have to wake up from the dream.

However, the only, perfect state exists even now, and we live in it. We only need to clarify that our separation is just a dream and to shake it off from us. It only seems to us that by intending to bring joy and inspiration to everybody we care about others. In truth, it is an opportunity to work with myself. But it’s very hard to wake oneself up, and besides, in that case I will be driven by a small egoistic goal of this world and nothing more.

This is why, essentially, bestowal to friends, uplifting their mood, returns me to that same state of unity. I care about my own soul, aspiring to unite it with the rest of the parts, with all other souls. This in particular is each person’s mission, by fulfilling which he realizes his soul.
[38796]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

Related Material:
Coming Out Of The Illusory Lie
A Lego Made Out Of The Creator’s Pieces
Where Is My True Self?

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

Behind every word or phrase of The Zohar, we have to try to recognize forms of connection between man and his environment. In essence, this is exactly what The Zohar describes. There is nothing more in reality besides the forms of connection between a person and those around him.

Even now, when I see people and the walls of this room in front of me or hear the noises coming from outside, all of these are forms of connection between us. There is nothing besides these forces connecting us, which are forces of desire which appear this way to me in my earthly perception of reality.

In the same way, if we try, then we will begin to imagine other kinds of our connection, other forces which don’t operate inside reception, but inside bestowal among us. Then we will see that in reality, there have never been egoistic connections between us. We felt them like in a dream so that based on this illusory connection, which is opposite to the true one, we would recognize the true connection, the only one that exists in contrast from the illusory life—the desire to enjoy with all of its power.

After all, this desire existed only in order for us to transform it into the desire to bestow. The Creator supports it in this artificial form, but it does not have any real essence of its own. Only the force of bestowal exists in the world.

That is why The Zohar describes all the varieties of the force of bestowal to us, which we reveal in all the various forms, as well as the forces of reception standing opposite them, being the basis upon which the forces of bestowal are revealed in the process of man’s inner war.

This is the only thing we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar, making efforts so the revelation of these spiritual levels will help us and will become revealed in us so we will include them inside of us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: How can one receive from the environment the importance of the intention to bestow?

Answer: Imagine that beside the environment there is nothing. There is no Creator, no property of bestowal, there is nothing but the environment.

We think that there is something else and it appeases us: There is the environment, but there is also the Creator, my own relationship with Him. In truth, there is nothing like that, but only the environment. Either you perceive yourself in yourself, or you can sense yourself inside the environment. It will also be you, but the perfect you that incorporates within of all of your lost pieces.

Beside these two components there is nothing. You are either submersed in your current self or you connect with the environment which you presently imagine as being outside of you: with the group, with the common desire. But that’s you!

In reality, my current perception of myself is conditioned by the fact that my egoism tears me away from my true “self,” and I think that I exist outside of it. It’s totally the opposite! My entire Kli (desire, vessel) of the soul is there, inside my true “self.” It’s just that the concealment acts upon me and I consider it foreign. Subsequently, it will become revealed to me whom I stole from, whom I deceived, or harmed. It was me myself, the people closest and dearest to me!

Question cont.: Under what condition can I receive the importance of bestowal from the environment?

Question: By faith above reason! You are looking for a rational confirmation, for a certain logic which would explain that you appeal to the group and receive support from it. Such logic does not exist. Indeed, if you were able to substantiate this logically, it would be advantageous for you to be in this team from the egoistic point of view, for instance, like in a football team. Here, however, you have no rational support!
[38686]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2011, The Book of Zohar

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

Question: How is it possible to ask the Creator for help and to desire only to bestow, without receiving anything for ourselves?

Answer: This is exactly what we ask for. I ask the Creator to give me the opportunity to bestow, where “to bestow to the Creator” means to bestow to the group because it is written, “I dwell among My people.” This is the same thing.

There is no other Creator. “I dwell among My people” means that He becomes revealed in the group. The common force of the group is called “the Creator.” To bestow to the group as a whole means to bestow to the Creator.

We think about this in the earthly sense and that’s why it seems to us, “What’s so special about the group? What can I give to them? How silly!” But if you really would come out of yourself to bestowal to others, you would reveal the upper reality instead of this world. It’s just that we don’t achieve this.

A question arises: But many philosophic teachings also advocated bestowal to society and considered the voice of the people to be the voice of God? Yet, that is incorrect because they did not use the correcting Light, the inner force that is present in society.

At the end of the day, what does the science of Kabbalah say? You have nothing besides desire. Inside of this desire there is a special force called “the Creator,” which was concealed there from the beginning. You can awaken this force inside of the group if you really want to advance to it, to bestow to the group. There you come face to face with the end results —with yourself, with the group, and with the Creator. Everything is inside of the group, in the bestowal that you acquire outside of yourself.

And it makes no difference whether you bestow to the group or the Creator. Bestowal in the group means bestowal to the Kelim or desires of others, whereas bestowal to the Creator means that you become more included into the common force of bestowal that reigns inside of these desires.

We have to detach from the religious notions, from our inherent faith in some kind of Creator who rules somewhere up in the sky and influences us from there. Look at how much power this stereotype still has over us! But in fact, there is no upper force outside of us! This force is inside of the group, in the connection between us. And there is nothing besides this reality, which you reveal. There is nothing outside of reality.

By delving increasingly deeper into these notions, you start to understand that this is a very materialistic approach.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
A Lego Made Out Of The Creator’s Pieces
The House For The Creator
The Environment Is My Soul

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Philosophy, Q&A, Religion, Zohar - 1 Comment →