The wisdom of Kabbalah is particularly the science that explains to us how to change ourselves. Then, accordingly, our world turns into a different, upper world in which various changes begin to take place.

Kabbalah tells me that I am situated against the Light, but I don’t feel it. Instead, like in an x-ray picture, I see my own qualities in front of me. In other words, if I see people, stars, or the whole world; all of these are my qualities against the Light.

How do I begin to change at least something in me? I want to make sure that this picture truly is a result of my inner world and that it is not coincidental. So, I begin this game. I change myself in some regard, and the picture around me also changes. I change a little more, and again the surrounding world changes slightly. It truly is an interesting game!

In the article “The Creator’s Concealment And Revelation,” Baal HaSulam writes that to a person who has a particular perception of reality it seems at first that some people are successful, others are miserable, and others are ill. However, after he changes himself, he sees that the same people are completely different. Those who seemed stupid, suddenly become smart, poor people become rich, and successful people suddenly lose everything.

In order to change your qualities and control reality through this, we are given a teacher, books, and a group in the present reality. If we use them to reveal the Light or Creator, the qualities of bestowal and love, we rouse the Light that exists outside of us, and this Light influences our desire, changes it until it becomes equal to Him, the Creator.

It turns out that if I desire to change something, I only need to change myself.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series, “Perception of Reality” 11/23/10

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Our world is situated below the central point of the whole universe, Malchut, directly beneath the end of the line of the Light extending from Infinity (Kav Ein Sof), which “touches and does not touch it.” In other words, it passes a tiny spark of Light to us so that we could somehow imagine the Light and exist. This spark is called “a thin candle” (Ner Dakik).

But, in fact, with respect to the spiritual world, this whole world that we currently feel does not exist! In the picture of the universe, this point is also spiritual rather than material as we imagine it now.

Furthermore, all the subsequent 125 degrees by which I ascend to the World of Infinity vanish after my ascent. However, they are not my illusion; they simply unify, rolling up like a carpet, and remain inside of me, similar to how a person’s whole childhood experience remains with him when he becomes an adult. One can remember his childhood, and therefore understands children.

How else would I be able to understand my two-year-old grandson? This is possible only because I was once a child myself. And although I don’t remember myself at two years old, a child’s state, the whole “Partzuf of two years old” is inside me. If I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t know how to approach a little child from the height of my 60 years of age. I would invite him to study The Zohar and would not realize what else he needs.

However, we are arranged this way from Above, like a computer that holds all of these programs. We operate on the basis of inherent data and images that we awaken and choose from our storage archives.

Yet the reality that appears before our eyes now is a complete illusion. After all, it is projected by our egoistic desire, while this egoistic desire itself is an illusion and doesn’t exist! There is no desire to enjoy for one’s own sake; it vanished during the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph)! And even prior to it, the egoistic intention was not real because as soon as it awoke, it was immediately restricted.

But in order to commit a transgression, you need to repeat it. The first time, you just feel the taste of the previously unknown pleasure. If during the second time you already consciously decide to go ahead with it, then it is called a sin.

Therefore, reception prior to Tzimtzum Aleph was not considered a transgression; as soon as the creature felt it, it immediately resisted it. In Kabbalah our "earth" indicates the desire to enjoy for one’s own sake (“Eretz” – earth comes from the word “Ratzon” – desire). So does the terrestrial globe exist or not? It is my desire that portrays the earth this way for me.

It doesn’t exist, but its picture exists in my desire. And since it is an egoistic desire, it doesn’t exist in the spiritual world! Therefore, this whole world is imaginary. It is given to me as an illusion so that I could begin to be born in spirituality on my own.

The Creator wants us to build ourselves exactly like Him. But where do we begin? We begin with a complete zero, just like the Creator began with “absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). In other words, I’m starting from scratch, with not being in the spiritual world.

Each new degree for me should begin here, in this imaginary world, outside of the spiritual one: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, until the 125th degree. (Remember how before Rabbi Shimon rose to the final degree, he felt himself as Shimon from the market.) That is, every time we rise from “this earth,” this desire.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Sometimes there are states, when a student thinks that he is smarter than the Teacher, that he understands something better, and that he can have his own opinion about inner work. He simply forgets that “the mistakes of sages are constructive, while the creations of the young are destructive.” It seems to a student that he is right from the rational point of view, and the Teacher is wrong about many things, or maybe he is just insufficiently informed.

However, the spiritual differs from the material, and a person who exists in the spiritual cannot be wrong. Furthermore, even if today it seems to you that the Teacher is wrong, this is not the case in perspective. This can be likened to how a child thinks that a tailor is ruining the fabric by cutting it into pieces. However, one who understands that it should turn into clothing thinks: “What can you do? He’s a child!”

A person who wishes to advance needs to proceed with faith above reason in spite of seeing mistakes in the Teacher’s actions since the whole nature is split into degrees, and one who is situated on a higher degree is likely to act correctly. And the evident mistakes of the Teacher are your own mistakes!

Therefore, we need faith. Faith means that I am working with the mind of the Upper One rather than with my own mind. I annul myself before him and accept what comes to me with joy. It may seem incorrect to me on my degree, but when I rise to a higher degree, I will reveal that it is the truth.

Everything depends on whether a person is ready to accept it. While it strengthens some because they understand that it is a good sign and they need to agree with the Upper governance, others cannot cope with their egoism and become more distant from the path and the goal. It is said about this: “Where the righteous go forward, the wicked go back.”

It is impossible to pass to a higher degree if I don’t accept it with faith above reason in relation to the teacher and the group. I accept everything they have and cancel myself, which is called being “Hafetz Hesed,” not desiring anything for yourself; this is the first correction.

From the very lowest to the very top degree, you should always advance by acquiring the level of “Hafetz Hessed” in regard to the Upper degree. This is called advancing with faith above knowledge.

Joy is a sign of faith! You are “happy with your lot,” and you wish only to agree with the teacher, the group, and the Creator: nothing more! You are happy because you are in consent with them, which means that you have reached correction and can go on to a higher degree. Your egoism has calmed down, and now you need to receive additional obstacles in order to correct them and receive the Light of Hochma in them, and this is already much more difficult.

Now you need to begin to bestow instead of just agreeing with the teacher and the group; you need to work with their desire instead of your own. Your desire should serve their desires, and they are always opposite! We need to go through a few inner overturns in our egoism! Therefore, the extent of faith in the teacher determines the height of the student’s degree.
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From a lesson 11/26/10, Shamati

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At present, you are moving ahead, inquiring, wishing for something. Who instills these desires and actions in you? That is what you must find out.

Gradually, as you get to know the unifying force working in the whole of creation, you thereby replace the instruments of your perception: the heart and the mind. You become more responsive and begin to better comprehend what is going on and understand the Creator’s actions.

You suddenly see an enormous world, which is much broader, deeper, and more complex in all its angles and aspects. All of this becomes different in relation to you. But later you will understand that it is you who is changing, and outside of you, everything remains the same.

Later, you will find out that all you are seeing is only the Creator. It is so because there is none else beside Him. And what you see as the world is just your shadow over Him, and it is so until you will have reached the condition when this shadow disappears.

In other words, to reach adhesion with the Creator, we must undergo multiple changes. In your perception, these alterations are called the worlds of Assya, Yetzira, Beriah, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the World of Infinity. These are degrees of your perception of reality that are shown to you in its much more authentic form.

So, what did change? Only your perception. You alter your sensory organs and witness how gradually the Creator is being revealed to you, how the image of the world acquires much sharper characteristics, becomes real, constant, and eternal. It all depends on the place you are observing it from in relation to the Light of Infinity.

Then, you begin to understand that the shadow you saw on the Creator, all of these concealments, the worlds, all of this was for your own good. At least, you saw some silhouettes, a certain drawing that you needed to erase, saw that you needed to become similar to the Creator within this shadow, to make it disappear.
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From a Lesson 11/26/10, Baal HaSulam’s Letter #151

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Our whole work consists of justifying the states that we go through, and then they will seem more comfortable to us. And this depends only on us! After all, all these states are inevitable; all the Reshimot (spiritual genes) must come out, in order, one after another, and be realized until the end of correction.

They are gradually revealed in you in order for you to justify them. And what does it mean to justify them? It means to realize, feel, and understand for what purpose they come, who brings them, why, and in what order.

Thereby you develop yourself, and so much that you begin to include in you the whole creation. This is precisely what the Creator wants from you! This is why He does not give you the final form; you wouldn’t feel or understand anything in it. Instead, He leads you through the whole sequence of actions.

But does this process truly exist? It doesn’t! There is no beginning, no end, and nothing at all! There is one perfect state. The Creator stretches it out from beginning to end, like a rubber band, implanting the ego, the evil inclination, or the desire for pleasure, into His own action. And then you can go through all these states in order, from beginning to end, all the while perfecting your sensations and mind.

This helps you understand the whole process of creation, from two opposites: from darkness – to Light. And if this were one state, you would not be able to differentiate between anything, since you are a created being. You need two states in order to feel and elucidate one against the other.
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From a lesson on Baal HaSulam’s Letters 11/26/10

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Question: You explained that the text we read in Talmud Eser Sefirot and The Book of Zohar describes the forces of connection between us. Can you give me an example of this connection?

Answer: If you were in spirituality, then you would actually reveal everything you read about in the book. You would reveal the forces of connection among us, including their might, character, how they operate, and how they unite together into the net connecting us.

You would participate in the net of these forces and its work, in the illumination of the Shechina. You would see how much you are able to take an active part in it, how much you can add to it yourself. While reading the text, you would see how this entire net behaves.

However, if you do not live inside spiritual attainment, it is impossible to convey this to you. Baal HaSulam writes in his poem, “Whatever your eyes will see, you will see it and no other.”

As long as you do not feel spirituality, you have to read these texts hoping that it will become revealed to you. We read the Kabbalistic texts in the quality of Segula (a miraculous quality), and not in the form of facts.

For example, suppose I am blind and I am listening to a physics professor tell me about optical laws. He tells me how a ray of light splits into several colors. Yet, I am just hearing about it. I do not understand what he is talking about, but only hear that these phenomena exist.

I can keep studying this way my entire life, without understanding what it is talking about. However, if I make special efforts and begin to feel the phenomena I heard about, then they become my life. This is called “Taste and see how good the Creator is.” You have to taste it – to receive these Lights and feel their taste.

The real science of Kabbalah begins only after you have this sensation.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Someone once calculated that there are 3,800 different religions and beliefs in the world, but all of them circulate around two notions: body and soul. Indeed, if we did not perceive anything besides the beastly body, we would exist like animals. It seems to us that we have a soul, some kind of life “beyond the body.” A person wants to know what is the purpose of my life? Why do I live?

Even though we are given these aspirations and questions in order to search for answers within the system of laws of nature, we turn them into mysticism, groundless assumptions, and take them as the foundation for our view of the purpose of life, its end “here” and continuation “there.”

The question of whether our life will end bothers us. This is because we perceive time, and we are not attached to one given moment, as are animals. We think about the future, and we want to know what will happen a moment from now. However, the questions of “What do I live for, and what will happen after I die?” are already above nature.

This is why humanity has invented beliefs and religions: It has to compensate the lack of knowledge or facts with faith, meaning assumptions without proof. We are not even aware of it, but this works on all the levels, in the smallest things, every moment, every step of the way, in every direction and level of life.

I complete every lack of facts with faith, and I think that this is exactly how it is going to be. Sometimes, it happens, and sometimes, it does not. This is how our life passes.

In every particle of our existence, in every part of time, movement, space, and existence of reality, there is an enormous unknown share, namely:
1) The cause, which descends from Above,
2) the consequence, determined from Above, and
3) we, determined by cause and consequence in a narrow gap of the perception of life.

This is why we are obligated to compensate all the unknown with faith. People believe that there is an Upper Force, “a spirit,” which turns into everything that exists, gives it life, and determines destiny. That is, the essence of matter is determined by the “soul” which gives it life.

This is because our egoism wants to think that it belongs to eternity. There is no proof of this, but it benefits us to think this way. The organism’s defense mechanism does not allow us to agree that things can be different.

Otherwise, this life would be impossible. If a person did not feel eternal, if he absolutely felt that his life is finite, he would not be able to live. Imagine that you are told the exact date of your death. This puts a cross on your entire life beginning with today. This is because, from then on, you will continue living with the precise comprehension of your imminent death. A person is not capable of living like this.

The most natural sensation given to us by nature is that a soul, which somehow lived before our birth and will continue to live after our death, robes in our body, and the main reward and punishment is in the future world, and not here. We await our reward for all our current work.

A person does not even need to be taught this. He will think this, regardless. We are not able to part with these illusions, the same way as we are unable to part with our egoism until we rise to the world of truth, not after the death of the body, but after the death of egoism.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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It is impossible to imagine how we would live if we saw ourselves as mere animals. However, humanity has religion (faith) which helps it to curb its egoism somewhat. All these belief systems are based on one idea: the existence of life after death.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah thinks otherwise. It states that there is a state called “death,” in which we exist presently, and there is a different state called “life.”

If so, then it follows that I exist in this world only once, and nothing remains after I die? But what can come back? What do you have that can be brought back? The body dies and loses the force that forced it to move, like an engine that worked before and suddenly stopped. Where did this force go? Do you think that it returned somewhere Above, to “its original place?” No, the molecules just stopped working. Was there anything spiritual in them?

How is it that we suddenly have such fantasies? Yet, the whole world lives with this belief. At least, there is some consolation that there will be something after death as well.

Then, why do Kabbalistic books state that if we don’t correct ourselves during this lifetime, we will return to this world again and continue to reincarnate this way? This is really so; we just need to figure out what this means.

In Kabbalah, faith is attainment. It means seeing and feeling the spiritual world, as it is written: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” I “sample” Him with all my senses in such a way that I feel Him in “all fibers of by body.” This isn’t faith; it is the most real sensation that can possibly be.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Question: If there is no life after death, then why is it written in The Zohar that the soul rises to heaven after death, and angels take it to its judgment, and so on?

Answer: Not a single word of The Zohar talks about the physical body. The Zohar refers to the death of egoism, after which the Upper Forces called “angels” begin to influence it.

They take my desire to receive pleasure from two sides, the right and the left, and lift it “on their wings” (screens) to the first, second, and third “heavens.” This is the name for the different levels of Bina where I increasingly begin to receive more properties of bestowal.

Thus, these “angels” lift me to the “sky,” the common property of Bina. There, I reveal an entire Creator’s palace behind this property. Bina includes the properties of Malchut within it, the receiving desires within the bestowing desires, and thanks to this I reveal the Creator.

However, is it really connected with my material world and the physical senses, the life and death of this animal body? Actually, I only think that it exists; it does not exist in reality.

Does anything really exist behind the image on the computer screen? These are nothing more than electrical signals, forces, and vectors that paint this image for you. In the same way, you are being drawn this three-dimensional image which you perceive as this world.

We already have laser devices which can create three-dimensional images in the air of people around us that speak among themselves. These sensations are a complete illusion. You just cannot touch them with your hand because everything is “in the air.” However, soon, it will become absolutely “real,” just like the illusion of our world.

This is exactly how we see this world although it does not exist. So what life after death can there be? The television got turned off, and that is it: You did not have the desire to reveal the Upper World “in this life.” However, there is no need for the body to die in order to reveal spirituality. There is no connection between one and the other.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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In their books, Kabbalists only write about the soul. They do not touch our world which is below the life line. It is an illusion given to us temporarily so we would begin to awaken from this dream and build a true life.

Now, think how to value your friends who can help you awaken toward a new life. Understand that you are together in a dream, and only a tiny spark that you have been given can help you come out of it. This is similar to the times when you sleep, and you understand that you can wake up if you try. This “clue” that can help you wake up is the “point in the heart.”

When you connect all the points that wish to awaken and demand for the “alarm to ring,” the Upper Force will awaken you. It will pull you out of this dream. Otherwise, we will all just continue sleeping.

The only possibility to reveal the spiritual world is being in this dream. There is nothing lesser than it, lesser than the beastly existence, lower than this illusionary life.

The only thing that will remain after death is what you have attained in the spiritual world while in this life. Where would something else come from? Why does it not exist now? How does your animate body get in the way? Why do you need to suffer now to enjoy later?

We only have what we perceive within the desire to receive pleasure. If, in addition to the perception of my corporeal life, I will also acquire a spiritual one, then I will definitely have it. It does not depend on the corporeal life. There are two types of desires: one is “for your own sake,” and the other “for the sake of bestowal.”

This means that, for now, I will continue living simultaneously in two worlds, and once the body dies, I will continue living just in the spiritual world. The animate body dies and ceases to perceive this reality in its five senses, similar to as if I had lost my hearing now. This way, all the corporeal sensations disappear.

Egoistic desire cannot exist forever; it has a limit. However, once you acquire the desire to bestow, it is eternal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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