Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Living As One Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanFirst, we have to develop a relationship described as “Do not do to another what you yourself hate,” followed by “Love another as you love yourself.” We only need to determine who the “other” (the friend) is, who I am, and what “do” means. It has to do with a person’s actions relative to the friend, which have to acquire a tangible form in this world in the entire human race.

In the end, such relations will unfold between all humans, which can be called the world of Infinity, and it will signify the final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Here, on this sphere called Earth, among these animate bodies, we will establish the relationships that will be called our infinite soul.

When we reach that point, we will find ourselves in another world. There will be no more need for our experiencing all this materiality, and it will dissolve from our perception. Even now, it exists solely in our perception; all of this reality is but imagined.

This is the only purpose of our existence on earth. This is the place where everything occurs.

Before the fall of the Temple when people lived in spiritual attainment, they didn’t really live in another galaxy or dimension, did they? It is true, though, that internally they lived in another dimension with a different attitude. However, along with that, this world, the still, vegetative, and animate nature still existed, and everybody lived a normal life. They raised cattle, managed property, bore children, had jobs, and paid taxes.

However, the relationships between them were spiritual since all of them lived in mutual bestowal and maintained it to the best of their ability. Each person was important to the degree of their ability to bestow. Judgment was done based on the same principle: from the point of view of how much harm a person has brought on society and how suddenly his egoistic desire unfolded.

This was the way the people of Israel, whom Abraham led out of Babylon, lived up to the fall of the Second Temple. Now, in the group, we have to actualize what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches in practice, meaning that our internal relations should be grounded on love and unity so we may live “as one soul.”

It has nothing to do with external closeness. We don’t need to actually eat from one plate, live in the same house, and keep a collective household. It’s all about internal relationships.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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What Kind Of Changes Are Waiting For You

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When can a person who has started studying Kabbalah be able to say that he is working with his desires?

Answer: When he starts going through “ascents” and “descents.” In these states we start studying how dependent we are on our inner changes. And that is only the beginning. This is how you are being played with by the upper force, even though for now it’s happening in the plane of this world.

That is when you will start being thrown from one world to the other, sometimes being elevated and sometimes being cast down. Then you will feel how inconstant everything is.

Imagine that your senses were changed somewhat so your eyes saw the world through X-rays and you had radars instead of ears. What kind of world would you feel? You would go crazy from the overabundance of information coming at you, from the entire range of waves because you would hear people talking here and there and everywhere at the same time, even thousands of kilometers away from you. You would see through walls and would be aware of everything that happens.

Accordingly, your brain would also have to be developed to the same extent in order to process this flow of information, as well as your nervous system. You would be a completely different being, and all that just if we were to slightly expand the range of our perception in the same world.

Yet in Kabbalah we talk about qualities which we currently lack entirely and a fundamentally different approach. For example, imagine that you started feeling the sensations of other people, dressing like a ghost into one person, then another, and then a third….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/11, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Turning To The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I turn to the group internally?

Answer: Turning to the group is a search: In what way can I picture the whole of reality as existing inside of me, and not outside? Perception of reality is not a brain-twister with which you can interest and confuse others. We are talking about a state which we must reach in practice. I have to reveal that all the things that are seemingly outside of me are my internal parts.

For example, the Torah describes all kinds of different occasions from the lives of various characters, which have occurred in different places. It’s a real theater. I must apply all of this onto my desires, onto the details of my perception. There is no external world, so where is it inside of me? In which parts of me do these characters live and are these actions performed?

This approach builds the right relationship toward my own Kli (vessel), to the actions which the Creator performs within me, and to the states which I need to go through. That is why I must try to find the “external” images within me every waking moment.

I live inside my soul, and all of the "external" images are its parts: forces, actions, and elements of perception. Nothing else exists. Everything is in this Kli. This is the way I try to picture the entire reality.

So, who is setting all of this up for me? Who separates, deletes, draws closer, and connects all of the parts of my desires: the “men” and “women,” “animals” and “vegetation,” and so on? This is when I perceive Keter which builds the still, vegetative, animate, and human degrees within me: Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut.

I live inside of my soul, besides (outside of) which there is nothing. That is why first of all, I need to see the group as my integral part. This is what turning to the group internally is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/10, “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World was in Donation”

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There Is An Alternative!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today there are many new students present at the lesson. What advice would you give them to change their egoistic intention into an altruistic one?

Answer: In our world, we are approaching the moment of truth: We have nothing else to live for. Day by day, the world discovers that its life is empty. In reality, however, we haven’t reached the turning point just yet, and people still manage to confuse themselves and obscure the truth because they have no replacement for their present life.

We have to show them that the alternative does exist, and that we are undergoing a certain process managed from Above. We have to actualize it. It is a unique, benevolent process, a remarkable development, elevating us over life in the body which is approaching death every given second. This is what we should pass on to the newcomers.

We must rise to a new perception of reality. It doesn’t mean that I simply replace “my picture” I see from within the body. No, I don’t “switch the remote” on the external view, but rather I step out into a new reality, cross from one world to the other. I change my attitude in practice, by giving it a new vector: from within myself to outward toward others, or from within myself out to the Creator. In fact, “the other” is a remedy, an intermediary phase that helps me to aim to the Creator.

In general, I can exist in my small will to receive pleasure, perceiving this tiny, frail world. Alternatively, I can break free from it and experience eternal life, the perfect nature, where I live without restrictions in the world of Infinity. The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us this opportunity.

In the previous generations, only a few were able to experience such an internal revolution, the transition from one world to the other. But today, everyone whose point in the heart (or spiritual desire) unfolds can try to actualize it. Starting with our time and on, the entire human race will gradually, step by step, undergo this transition.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Make Yourself A Different World

Dr. Michael LaitmanUltimately, we paint a picture of reality for ourselves when the Light comes in contact with the will to receive, similar to how in our world the light projects a movie upon a screen. Yet, unlike with the cinema, the Upper Light paints the image not on a screen outside, but inside of us, thereby creating a picture of reality on our matter, the will to receive pleasure.

This is why we see a live world and living creatures “in front of us” (this is how we perceive what we sense inside of us), and not the images on a flat surface. Imagine for a moment that you are drawing a little puppy that is running around you. You are creating it; it isn’t a picture, but a creature made of flesh, blood, and bones which has a mind and feelings because it is within your matter (desire). Essentially, this is all we are doing since there is nothing but desire and the Light.

If your desire awakens, rises, and reaches at least a minimal measure of bestowal, it creates new images, new creatures, together with the Light. You see for yourself, as if from aside, how your various desires change on the contact with the Light and create various forms of life. Can you imagine what reality you are living in? Before your eyes, the worlds are changing with their entire content, all of which is created by you.

Surely, you are fully aware that previously, you had also existed in a world being created in your matter. So, a question arises: Am I creating these forms, making them anew, or had they existed before and are just now unfolding in this form, along the growth of my desire and ascent on the ladder of spiritual rungs?

At each spiritual degree, I encounter new forms, a new world. Did I make this new world that I am discovering, or had it existed before me, and I am only now discovering it? The answer is that I only uncover it. But for myself, I am indeed creating it since for me, it lives in my desires.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality” 10/20/10

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A Construction Plan “HaVaYaH”

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: … any spiritual quality equalizes with the corporeal quality like two drops in a pond. Thus, the relationships are of the utmost affinity and there is no separation between them, except in the substance: the spiritual consists of a spiritual substance and the corporeal consists of a corporeal substance.

If your matter works “to bestow,” it is spiritual and you experience spiritual phenomena; while if it is “for self gratification,” it is corporeal. All matter is contained within you since there is nothing outside of man.

There is a void, a “zero,” and inside it, a certain creature. And if this creature has an egoistic intention “for the self,” it perceives itself in a reality experienced within as “this world.” If a person has an intention to bestow, then the entire reality he feels, including himself, is regarded as spiritual. Outside of this person, there is nothing else that exists independently. Everything is present solely within man: either in his egoistic desires or the desire to bestow.

There is no “place” or reality that exists on its own. There is only a Law that has no definite image and is regarded as HaVaYaH (the Creator’s name). If we are corporeal, meaning that we wish to receive for ourselves, then we experience this Law as material bodies living in the corporeal world. And if we are in bestowal, we experience this Law as spiritual worlds and ourselves as souls.

As one so the other, both exist solely within a person, while in reality, both of these concepts are imagined. But we don’t regard spiritual forms as fictitious and illusory since all of them eventually get collected and put together as if folding up into a singular coil. They accumulate in the process of our advancement to finally bring us to the very initial form HaVaYaH that has existed forever, if only potentially.

It existed as a construction plan for a future house, while we have actualized this HaVaYaH as a result of our personal work. We as though created ourselves and the entire creation according to this plan, and the Creator within. We have unveiled the Creator within ourselves, so where has He been until now? We don’t know that; it was Atzmuto, His unattainable Essence, which doesn’t clothe in anything.

We have prepared a place for Him and a specific expression by our actualization of His HaVaYaH in our own will to receive (desire). Hence, everything exists only within a person rather than outside of him since there is neither a place, nor reality, nothing.

A person studying Kabbalah understands where he is, what imaginary reality he is experiencing, how to step out of it to the correct perception, and how to bring this correct perception to the absolutely authentic, perfect form.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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The World Projected By The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Could you please explain all of these forms of connection that The Zohar is describing, or can you give an example? What is the easiest way to visualize them?

Answer: The Zohar describes the forms of connection between the souls: types (lion, ox, eagle, man), Sefirot (Gevurah, Hesed, Tifferet, Yesod), letters (Chaf, Zain, Tav), colors (white, black, red, green), and so forth. When all of a sudden you experience a certain spiritual sensation, this gives you a clear understanding that it is called “the right eye brow,” that another sensation is called “the left eyebrow,” and so on; you feel it.

Suppose I look at person’s face. It evokes various impressions in me: “What a forehead! What eyes!” But they are not a forehead and eyes, but rather, my inner impressions, feelings, a phenomenon in my will to receive pleasure. I am affected in a certain way and it creates an image inside of me. Its name corresponds to the feelings that it evokes in me, but not what it really is.

The same is true in spirituality, only without the image I usually see in this world. Spiritual images exist without my participation. I unveil these forms, forces, impressions, and label them with all kinds of words: “red,” “white,” black,” “bitter,” “sweet,” “sour,” “tall,” “short,” and so on. But all of this exists without a corporeal picture.

In truth, we don’t see the images of our world outside our will to enjoy; we see them inside, just like seeing various combinations of electrical signals on the computer screen which are assembled into a movie. We have to gather all of our desires in similar combinations in order to see that this world, this form of reality that we perceive right now, is, in fact, only imagined. It doesn’t exist on its own; it only exists relative to us because we perceive it that way.

Each of us is a product of the Light’s projection, similar to the forms made by laser projectors. We are all forms, images, depicted by the Light; we just feel as if we exist in some reality, some space. But in truth, there isn’t anything real in these images. It is merely a projection of the forms that appear before me since I am still unable to perceive them in a more internal form.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10,  “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “Yitro (Jethro)”

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Everything Is Relative In This World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In his article "The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy," Baal HaSulam writes: “Even when science reaches its ultimate development, we will still have to regard only the tangible reality.” What “ultimate development” is science destined to reach?

Answer: Science will develop to such a condition when it will merge with the wisdom of Kabbalah and become part of the same movement. In fact, our world is set to ascend and clothe the upper world, having become its indispensable part and included in it along with all our actions and efforts exerted even in the matter of the corporeal world.

Nothing disappears without a trace since everything belongs to one universe, one reality. Therefore, sciences will also merge and join in the wisdom of Kabbalah as its integral part. The wisdom of Kabbalah involves all of creation, and all sciences of our world will be engaged in it.

They are already part of it, and it only seems that they exist separate from it. After all, all laws of our world are the same very laws that govern the spiritual world, though only imprinted in our egoistic matter. If matter works with the intention to receive “for self gratification” at the level of Malchut de Malchut of the world of Assiya, then it results in the corresponding laws.

In the spiritual world, intention “for myself” pertains to the Klipot, the impure forces, where such are the spiritual laws. Here, they come out as material laws, and there is no awareness of the fact that they are based on the intention to receive “for self gratification.”

If we achieve the final corrected state (Gmar Tikkun), then all of this corporeal world is gradually cancelled and dissolves. We sense it less and less, and more of its parts abandon our perception.

We begin to realize how transient and temporary everything is. It is similar to how matter gets transformed from one state to another, when its forms return to their initial state: from “tangible states” of hard matter they become liquid, and then, not a very tangible state, gas, and finally, into a completely intangible one, a zero or a void.

All of this occurs in our sensations, our perception. And if our perception changes, there is no room for ordinary physics which essentially deals only with still matter, while biology, zoology, and medicine study the vegetative and animate levels of nature.

None of our sciences rise above these levels: still, vegetative, and animate. At the human level, there is no “science” any longer in the strict sense of this world; there is merely a recording process of accumulated observations of life and facts as in psychology and psychiatry.

To the extent that this world abandons our sensations at the still-vegetative-animate degrees, these planes will start to “fold up,” by ascending and getting included in the human degree. We will no longer practice these sciences since we will stop feeling these phenomena and counting them as real in the form we see them today.

This entire reality exists solely in relation to us. If all our attributes and sensory organs get transformed, meaning that reality as we experience it right now in these organs of perception changes, then what science can deal with an absent reality? Everything is relative.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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