Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Mythology And Children – Laitman Unplugged

Tell Me Who You Are, And I Will Tell You What Your World Looks Like

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything occurs within a person. On the spiritual path, he starts realizing that there are no forces outside of him. The forces of nature, the strength of the group, everything is within him, and he treats it all as relevant to himself. In this case, the group enters, the friends’ forces appear within, and the person sees more clearly that everything depends on the degree of his qualities.

For example, this weekly chapter of the Torah (“Mishpatim”) tells us about judicial precepts. It prohibits marrying under certain circumstances, laying with beasts, stealing, judging unfairly, and so forth. All of this refers to the internal “lawsuit”: A person must build correct relations with his “beast,” “thief,” and “another’s wife.” Everything is within.

While arranging the forces of my soul, I continue to see the external world, but at this point, I realize that the forces of all external objects reside within me. I come to such a conclusion, becoming more aware of how my attitude changes and draws the real picture within me. I start viewing the external world as a copy, a projection, of my inner properties. It is I and only I, within myself, who changes the picture of the world by altering combinations of forces, properties, and desires.

I become more and more aware that this picture is formed and painted solely by me. As a result, its entire image changes as well. There is no other; this is the only way I see it.

A person works within with his desires, intentions, thoughts, and attitudes. This is precisely how Kabbalists advise us to relate to everything we have within. A person breaks himself down into 613 parts, desires, and sees that his inner world, as well as the outer one, does change. As soon as an attitude changes, so does the world.

Everything is now inside a person, and he finally sees the authentic picture. Time after time, he asks for the new forces of bestowal in order to reach the true form to the best of his ability.

One always has only one instrument to ascend to the next rung, his environment: the teacher, Kabbalistic texts, and the group. He constructs a place out of them where he receives the forces to change and the form of change, advancing therewith.

Thus, gradually, thanks to this work, all the enormous desire for pleasures transitions to the area of the property of bestowal, in parts, piece by piece.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Enjoy Every Moment Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf life passes, and there are good and bad states in it, then the entire wisdom lies in our ability to enjoy the unpleasant states as well. This is what we call life wisdom: How to treat what is bad so that to see in it either our attitude to, preparation for, or part of a good state.

In fact, it is truly so, similar to feeling hungry before being satiated or tired before getting much desired rest. It cannot be otherwise. There has to be “darkness” before the “dawn,” as it is written: “And there was evening and there was morning.”

For example, I enjoy the thought that soon I am going on vacation. Then part of this vacation I am experiencing already, right now, although realistically it hasn’t started for me yet.

Then I start thinking: “Do I really need to be on vacation? Or, can I start enjoying it right here and now even more than when it starts?” And indeed, when we actually go on vacation, we don’t enjoy it as much because we enjoy the anticipation of and preparation for it.

That’s what the wisdom of life is. When we use it, we always live in beautiful illusions and enjoy each moment. And this is an authentic approach since we never get fulfilled within the desire. Everything lies solely above it.
[33503]
From the Talk with Rachel Laitman, before shooting a TV show 1/19/2011

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Everything Depends On The Observer

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we accelerate our advancement?

Answer: It is very difficult. I know through my own experience. I think the only possibility is through luck

. The mind does not work here, and nothing will help. Here, what is needed is called “good fortune” or luck, “Mazal” in Hebrew.

Or more simply, cancel yourself, turn yourself into a small cogwheel, a mechanism within the group: “I will do everything like my friends say; I do everything they want, with less of my own thoughts.” Take some kind of work and perform it automatically, without activating your feelings or thoughts, just invest yourself in it, and cling to your friends. That helps.

But overall, it is very difficult. Properly incorporating yourself in the group is the passport to success. You do not need anything else. Once you tune yourself into the group, you discover that it is completely corrected, that all the worlds exist in it, and the Creator is inside it.

Your friends do not even feel this, but once you cancel yourself in relation to them, you begin to discover it among them. And suddenly you see: “Holy smoke, where am I? Our world turns out to be the world of Infinity? Where did all the negativity go? There is none of it here! Everything is beautiful, in absolute perfection.”

This is how you see the world once you correct yourself. This is why in Hebrew “world” is “Olam,” from the word “Nehelam” (disappearing). It is relative. Just like the theory of relativity, everything depends on the “user,” the observer.
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From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Peace Between Us Is The Creator Between Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah describes sensing desires and the Light that fills them. Their gradual manifestation in relation to us builds spiritual worlds. The first in line is the world of Assiya with it being a small sensation. We perceive our mutual state not as dynamic; it is rather stationary and hence, it is called “still” nature.

Subsequently, we start to slowly realize that the states are mutable. It turns out they have their own dialectics and development. Thus, we transition to the vegetative degree which is characterized by consumption, secretion, and growth. We begin to feel the dynamics, our participation in the process. While sharing the same space with all the other desires (souls) and the Light that fills them, we can already exercise our influence.

Then, we feel the states at the animate level within this space. Now we can act autonomously and move from place to place. A plant, despite the fact that it can grow, is stationary, whereas an animal grows, moves, and bears living offspring. Thereby, we practically reach a condition similar to our world. Suddenly, we start feeling alive, existing in our world, but only in the property of bestowal.

Later on, the time comes for the next property. It unfolds when we learn this entire space so well that we start sensing its entire plan, Nature’s plan, from beginning to end and engage in it. That is the point when we get truly familiar with the primary thought regarded as “the Creator.”

We study all this in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Infinity, all of them are the attainment of the space in which we exist. As we attain the spiritual worlds, our world with its corporeal affairs remains in our perception. It exists until we have reached complete and absolute knowledge, wisdom, and oneness with all desires and the force that fills them. Afterward, when we reach the last level, the world of Infinity, everything in it starts to interconnect and falls together; the space folds up.

And all of this is based on the prayer of the many. This means I never stop at a personal perception of what is happening with me. Having caught myself at the initial, egoistic analysis, I must straighten myself up and place myself in the right position.

To accomplish that, I make a preliminary analysis of any spiritual action: I realize that I am within all the others and that the Creator evokes hate in me, in the group, toward the others on purpose so that I can rise above it and with His help arrange everything correctly and well. I perform a calculation: Why do I need everything to be structured well?

I draw the Creator and evoke Him to appear and reveal Himself, up to a state when there is absolute peace between us, when we are as one man with one heart. We need the Creator not to install peace between us like a mother who is supposed to show up so the children don’t harass each other. He instills quarrels in us so we may call on Him and force Him to reveal Himself among us.

And when we finally achieve peace between us, it signifies that the Creator has really revealed Himself between us. And if we are still experiencing some tensions, it means that we haven’t yet revealed Him enough between us. In this way, we climb the 125 rungs until we fully achieve this.
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From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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Working In Sync

Dr. Michael LaitmanEverything depends upon the environment. It has to make me more sensitive to the challenges that the upper force, which exists between us and motivates each of us toward integral unity, constantly sets before me.

On one hand, I can be very keenly, very perceptually tuned to its finest vibrations. On the other, under the influence of the surrounding environment, the society that I belong to, the group, I can comprehend how to react to its influence correctly. This is how we should act all the time.

The Creator changes me to a certain degree, so I start to feel the environment and myself a little differently, and I harmonize to it accordingly. And then it is He again, then I; His action, my action again. It becomes like ascending using two legs. This is how we move forward by way of the inner attuning of our “instrument” to a dialogue with the Creator.

If we perceive Him correctly, we start working in sync, which is exactly what is regarded as “the work of the Creator” since it is He who works. As to us, we just need to react and tune ourselves in correctly. We don’t have to do anything except to build a correct environment for ourselves: the Creator on one side, the group on the other, and me in the middle, automatically reacting to everything.

I myself cannot influence me, just as I cannot work on myself; hence, what is needed here is the collective prayer. Don’t focus on yourself. Who am I to focus on myself? I cannot do anything with myself, can I? All of our life demonstrates that we ourselves cannot change, no matter what we do.

What we are is what we will be unless we start changing ourselves under the influence of two reasons:

  1. The Creator, the integral force that fills all space between us.
  2. The group, all the others except for me. They form particles filled with the Creator, inside which I reside.

Essentially, I have to find harmony with the other particles. They are harmonized with each other and the Creator, and only I in relation to them am not in balance, in the correct state, or integrated. This is what a person’s job, his attuning himself to the group, is.

While I am moving closer to it, I start feeling the upper world. I feel the Creator’s presence not somewhere “out there,” but between us. In the void between us, where all these “elementary particles” (our desires) are, I start feeling everyone’s desires, while the Light is between them.

The force that fills us, the integral desire consisting of individual interconnected desires, is called a Kli, vessel, or Malchut. And the Light that is revealed between us in our shared aspirations toward spirituality is what we call the Upper Light or the Creator. That is what we feel, and that is what the upper world is.
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From Lesson 2 in Moscow 1/16/10, “A Prayer of Many”

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A Ray Of Light In Pitch Darkness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why did the authors of The Zohar write using very earthly language in some places, which only confuses us, as if it is talking about our world, and in other places they wrote using the language of Partzufim and Sefirot?

Answer: The language that was created as far back as Adam HaRishon contains several Segulot (miraculous qualities). Why are they Segulot? It’s because we do not understand what the spiritual world is. We do not attain it and cannot imagine it correctly. We cannot formulate any of it before ourselves in any form.

It is initially clear that all of our notions, even ones of this world, are totally false. Like blind people, we are all trying to advance by feeling our way around, not knowing what we come up against and what is happening. All of our reminiscences and imaginary pictures are incorrect and false.

We are in such a dark state that we have never tasted the taste of truth. Not even a weak ray of Light has ever penetrated into this pitch darkness in order to even slightly illuminate any details of the world in which we exist, as well as the connections between us.

That’s why a question arises: Is it possible to speak to these creatures at all? It’s even worse than digging up worms in the ground and trying to tell them the Torah. That is not a joke! The difference between us and the spiritual world is much bigger than between us, living creatures, and a worm in the ground, which is also a living creature.

You differ from the worm by the size of your awareness and cognizance in the same darkness where you both exist. However, you and a person who is in spirituality are separated by opposite perception—an abyss that is impossible to even imagine.

Adam HaRishon was the first person who revealed the fact that besides our state, there is a source, the spiritual world, the true reality, whereas we are in total darkness, like worms in the ground who have never crawled to the outside and do not know that a different world even exists. Therefore, we have to be given at least the end of a rope that we could grab onto.

Thus, those who attain spirituality starting from Adam HaRishon invented what seems like all sorts of stories. However, they are not stories, but a system connecting us to the world and the souls that attain spirituality, to the connection between them and the Light that is in them.

Right now we have no idea what is the meaning of any of these words—not about that world, nor about the souls, nor the connection, nor the Light—nothing! Yet they traced a certain connection from the state which is unknown to us, and we have no idea what that connection is either. But they did it in order to somehow connect that state to us. And if we use that connection by following their advice, it gradually influences us.

Therefore, it’s absolutely irrelevant to ask why they wrote using one kind of language or another: one that’s more sensitive or rational, one that’s clearer or less clear. We can only get confused by the descriptions that seem more earthly and closer to us.

There is only one opportunity to come closer to The Zohar: to connect with one another as much as possible. To the degree we unite through efforts to be above our ego, we give these spiritual states the opportunity to be revealed. But as long as they aren’t revealed, we will not find out what they are. It is written, “I saw a reverse world.” You will see that the spiritual world is completely not what you were able to imagine.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, The Zohar

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Behind The Words Of The Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When The Zohar speaks about man, does it refer to the desires?

Answer: According to The Zohar, “man” is a property similar to the Creator. Clearly, this only refers to the desires. This is because the image of man standing before us does not exist in reality. This is a trick of the imagination.

Let’s say that you see an image on the computer screen. Does it exist in reality? Something exists in the computer’s memory, and all the actions happen there. But in order for you to see what happens in the memory (which is there only for your knowledge and for the connection with you), there is a screen where you see a certain demonstration of something that exists in the memory. But the actual original image is there, inside, in the form of electric signals, forces that exist in different combinations with each other.

You see the external symbols of these combinations which are very limited and strictly specific because you are unable to perceive them otherwise. After all, you cannot live in a computer’s memory, understand, and see whatever exists there.

It is the same with The Zohar. Its authors convey to us a certain spiritual impression, which at this point we are able to hear only externally, imagining it somehow in our uncorrected, limited perception. But this vision has nothing to do with the actual spiritual image, concealed on the inside, behind the external forms of the letters, words, and images, which arise in your imagination. The authors of The Zohar have something completely different in mind.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah is everything. There is nothing beyond its boundaries. It includes man and his entire world, no matter where he is. All of this exists none other than in man’s perception, whereas our study of plants and animals through zoology, biology, and botany is only a study of how man perceives them. In fact, these are all certain forces which are expressed this way in relation to me.

Even the Creator, I study only the way He becomes revealed in relation to me. Through all reality I reveal Him as the root. The attainment of this root is the goal of the entire research. The entire universe developed precisely in order for man to reveal the Root. All of reality is the means to establish a connection between man and the Root, the Creator.

The Creator is not some religious symbol, but the root of everything, the One who controls everything, the primary cause and source of everything that exists, as well as the goal. It is written, “I am the first and I am the last.”

The root means that everything begins from Him and He determines how every event will occur. And everything will eventually conclude with Him as well. It is written about Him, “The One, Single, and Singular” and “There is none else besides Him,” who is good and does good.

But it is impossible to research reality with the help of the science of Kabbalah without first changing oneself. Only a Kabbalist can be a researcher in this science because he reveals it upon himself. It is impossible to research it as an external observer, the way other sciences do.

For example, I once studied metallurgy where we used to take metal samples. We would heat a sample, cool it, test it under pressure, and check the influence of different additions and alloys. Yet I remained the same person who researches the metal. And I would throw out the sample and take a different one the next day.

However, in Kabbalah you have to be inside of the test sample yourself! You have to take on its qualities. You don’t just learn to understand them a little and feel them from outside, the way we usually experience the things we research. In Kabbalah you have to be inside matter itself, take on the same form, and according to this correspondence you will be able to understand it.

When you build its full model inside yourself, only then will you be able to check and research it. You research yourself! The Creator (Boreh) means “Come and See” (Bo – Reh). I do not see anything on the outside. The Creator is inside of me. To the degree of our equivalence, which I have attained, I say, “This is the Creator! This is my God.”

Every person has to come to know Him, “From the smallest of them to the greatest.” But to do that, one must be willing to change his nature and replace it with the Creator’s nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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A Painting With White Spots

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is an unfolding Reshimo (a informational gene or record)? What exactly gets revealed to us?

Answer: It is impossible to explain because a Reshimo is a complete picture of the future which unfolds within me. At the end of this entire chain of Reshimot, there is my one last Reshimo that represents the world of Infinity.

Now, one of these states leading me on this path to the world of Infinity is becoming revealed. It is programmed with all the data except my mandatory effort and the screen. When I supply them, this Reshimo becomes realized and transforms into the true picture of reality.

Since this Reshimo includes in itself the entire picture of reality except for my own effort and my
anti-egoistic screen, it turns out that the Creator, who exposes a desire for my participation in this Reshimo, conceals Himself in it. It’s as if He is showing me a picture of reality with unfilled, left out intervals, in which I have to complete Him with my participation.

I cannot actualize a Reshimo in one go; it requires a number of actions, quite a lot at times. In the end, I must completely reveal the degree of similarity and lack of correspondence between us. Therefore, a Reshimo is structured and unfolds in such way as to not just bring me to the completion of this picture; it also must supply me with what I lack.

While I fill in the picture, I add all of the Creator to the point that has initially unfolded in me. After all, our goal at each rung is to become equal to the Creator.

I realize my Reshimo as though I am working and filling in something within me. Thereby, I elevate (fulfill) myself to the level of the Creator at my present degree. It is a multifaceted process that eventually leads me to perfection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011,  “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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