Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Towards Spirituality Through This World

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 470: …as it is written, “For I will surely blot out the memory of Amalek. “Blot out is above,” “I will blot out,” below. “Memory” means the memory above and below.

“Above” and “below” do not speak of our world since it is not subject to correction; there is nothing to correct in it. This whole world that we live in while staying in our bodies (just like other people) before the point in the heart awakens in us and we find a group through which we connect with spirituality has nothing to do with correction and/or with spirituality.

We are talking about desire that originates from the point in the heart and later on is incorporated in the group (meaning into the assembly of other points in the heart that we have to reconnect together). The Zohar speaks only about this process. The rest of reality that we observe around us bears no relation to correction or spirituality.

We see a huge material world around us, but it doesn’t exist in spirituality. It is given to us only to serve as a basis from which we start our spiritual lives. Relative to the spiritual world, our world doesn’t exist. It is an imaginary reality from which we can enter spirituality independently, by ourselves.

The Creator gives us a point in the heart that allows us to advance. If we put our inner state through a filter that really separates the spiritual (authentic) world from the “unreal” one, only points in the heart would pass through this filter. The rest of this realm would be stopped by the filter and vanish since it simply doesn’t exist.

In other words, our imaginary reality has only one purpose: to allow the points in our hearts to enter spirituality. We have to continue living in this reality until we manage to connect all the points in the hearts into one spiritual realm and thus reach complete correction (Gmar Tikkun). Afterwards, this imaginary picture will disappear.

Until then, our world won’t vanish. In each action of correction (from the first to the last) we have to stay within the “unreal” image of our material world because that’s where we start a new round of correction each time.

It is written about Rabbi Shimon (the author of The Book of Zohar) that before his last correction he identified himself as “Shimon from the market,” meaning that he fell into this world and sensed only this dimension of life. From this world he managed to attain the highest level of correction.

This is the reason why the imaginary reality that we call “our world” is so important: It provides us with a sense of separation from spirituality. Because we sense separation, we independently manage to correct each portion of our uncorrected desires. We do it while staying in this world, which is totally absent from the spiritual realm, “from absence.”

This is why this world is so important. Everyone has to lead a normal life: have a good job and family, study, and comply with whatever this world requires of us. Without this world we will not become similar to the spiritual world; we will not correct ourselves or enter spirituality.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/10, The Zohar

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The Paintings Of My Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that the information that comes into our eyes is reflected on a “screen” located in the hind part of the brain, correct?

Answer: No, it isn’t. Nothing comes into our eyes. There are no eyes, just as there isn’t a “hind part of the brain.”

There is nothing but an egoistic desire to fill itself with pleasure, which is projecting to me that I am “constructed” this way, meaning that I have eyes, a head, arms, and legs. Yet, this is how my will to receive pleasure is painting it for me. Additionally, it paints other objects that seem to exist outside of my body.

Question: So, does it mean that we perceive the Creator as concealment? Is that how our reality is?

Answer: What we see or, rather, feel (we say “see” because sight is our most powerful sensory organ) is the difference between us and the Creator. It is the shadow of our egoistic desire cast on the Upper Light, the white screen.

Therefore, I see only various individual desires, different attributes contained in my egoistic will to receive. In other words, the still nature, plants, animals, and man are the four levels of my desire to feel pleasure (Shoresh [root], Aleph [first], Bet [second], Gimel [third], and Dalet [fourth]), which are presented to me in this fashion on the background of the white Light.

I feel only my desire to fill myself with pleasure. What about the Light? The Light is the background on which I see my will to receive. When this desire becomes like the Light, it will not block the Light from me and I will fully feel the Creator.

In the meantime, instead of Him, I perceive only my egoistic desire. In other words, everything I am surrounded by are parts of my ego.

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From Lesson 6, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/10/10

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A Subtle Inclination Of A Sensitive Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have done a great job! In the upcoming days, weeks, and months, it will become clear to us what a substantial leap we have made. Never before have we raised such questions and spoke so openly about unification that has been the theme of the recent convention. For the very first time, we have tapped upon the essence of our correction, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and our soul.

It has been a truly radical change, and we will never be the same as before. Now we are mutually connected, but we must keep working at it harder and harder, until we get to see that the Creator is filling us more and more by the minute and that all cosmos, including this world, is permeated with the Upper Light, and we are dwelling in it.

All of the worlds where we are bonded, mutually intertwined like a grid-net, are starting to clearly emerge. We will come to that!

There is the time of giving and the time of receiving. Giving from Above exists and has to manifest itself; all we need is just a little bit more sensitivity to feel that the Creator is filling the world, the air between us, and the entire reality. A bit more subtlety, enthusiasm, receptivity, and openness toward the others, and we shall see that we are living the revelation.

I think everyone will begin to feel that it is possible, that it isn’t some fantasy. Rather, it becomes true thanks to our individual efforts in seeking and finding the Creator.

Try to bring out your inner empathy. What is faith? Faith is a sensation of bestowal. The book Faith and Hope says that “faith is a subtle predisposition, the attribute of a delicate and sensitive soul.” It is what we need: a subtle inclination of an empathic soul.

We must get to feel that this Upper Force truly dwells among us. It is as if we are trying to see something and when we finally manage to get a glimpse of it, we become convinced that it exists and are surprised at how we couldn’t see it until now. If you withdraw your glance yet again and lose focus, it becomes harder for you to find it next time, but at least now you know that it is real.

The difficulty lies in getting to see it for the first time. We have to adjust our vision or, rather, our heart a bit.
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From Lesson 8, World Kabbalah Congress 2010, 11/11/10

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A Conman In My Own Right

Dr. Michael LaitmanPerception of reality, as the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, is very subjective. Reality is perceived solely in relation to us and our sensory organs. But outside of them, there is no reality; it doesn’t exist. We receive it as an image on the screen located in the “hind” part of our brain, as if reality exists irrespective of us, on the outside.

As The Book of Zohar explains, I see parts of my will to receive to the extent that it differs from the Light, to the degree that my desire to receive varies from the attribute of bestowal that characterizes the Light.

Our collective desire, the single creature, was initially in the state of “Infinity.” Then it descended from the property of “Infinity” to that of “our world” by experiencing the breaking, meaning changing its property from bestowal to reception.

Through the breaking, this big soul divided into 600,000 individual souls and then into a multitude of parts that ended up in “our world,” an egoistic property. This is why we feel that there are many of us, although in truth, each of us sees only parts of his own soul.

We study that the soul is comprised of 10 Sefirot. They are divided into GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) and AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh). GE contains the Sefirot of Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, and Tifferet, which are the vessels (desires) of bestowal, whereas AHP contains Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut, the vessels of reception.

It turns out that I perceive reality by means of these ten vessels or desires. What I perceive within GE is my self, my “I,” and what I perceive in AHP is the illusory, external world I see outside of myself.

Essentially, I have experienced an internal tearing of the vessels of GE and AHP. I perceive my greatest desires that were supposed to bring me the greatest pleasures as alien, like all of you, for example. You all are the vessels of my AHP. I experience “I,” myself, and everything related to me in GE of my soul. In my ego, I am constantly preoccupied with this specific part, and all my calculations aim at my personal benefit.

I perceive the part referred to AHP as completely alien to me. Moreover, I am willing to use it in any way I can for as long it may serve my benefit. Hence, it looks like I am constantly trying to fool, lie to, and steal from myself, but I am neither aware of it nor feel it.

Later, when a person begins discerning it, he arrives to great disappointment. Therefore, the method of Kabbalah, before anything else, stresses the need to unite, although it must not occur in the corporeal plane (between you and me). The entire method is aimed at the necessity to unify and correct the soul, meaning that I must unify these two parts in my perception.

So now, what I see outside of myself and experience within myself, these two parts, have to become one whole. Then, we will truly see that there is nothing but a person, and what I observe inwardly and outwardly is my “self,” my “I,” or my will to receive (desire).
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From Lesson 2, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

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Is There Anyone Else Out There?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If there is no one besides me, then why do I have to come to the Convention, unite with everyone, and love them?

Answer: You have to start perceiving the true reality in your sensations. Therefore, you have to come and see that we all do exist, and you have to perform all actions so we would “cease to exist.”

Question cont.: But you said that there is no one else here.

Answer: But it is me who said it! And you have to reach such an attainment on your own. You have to prove it for yourself that there is nobody here except for Malchut of the World of Infinity.
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From Lesson 6, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/10/10

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The End Of A Film In A Dark Hall

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe purpose of our entire work is to reveal the Creator. We lack Him. Beside Him, there is nothing else in reality.

The Creator is the all-inclusive force that we are part of, even though we do not perceive it. Our egoistic desire does not distinguish the Creator, it is not tuned into the same wave, does not possess the property that He does. This is why we work specifically on our desire that needs to be changed, redirected in order to reveal the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form.

Right now we see, hear, touch, and smell in our desire. By changing it, we will expand the range of sensations. But this does not mean that we will increase the sensitivity of our senses through additional tools, such as radars, radios, telescopes, or microscopes. We do not increase the sensitivity of the egoistic desire. Rather, we are changing its essence, we switch it over from the internal perception onto the external one and add an ability to detect things that are on the outside instead of those that come inside.

When the desire becomes transformed this way, it expands from the five physical (corporal) senses (sensations) of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch into the five spiritual senses or Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. Now it operates in the opposite manner: It bestows instead of receiving, and we perceive the higher reality in it through the aspiration to bestow.

Even though we are not yet familiar with it, things can change. This is what the people who have already done it and acquired a completely new life tell us.

Right now we live in a reality of five senses, a picture of a world painted by an egoistic desire. But once we switch the intention of perception, we come out from within us and start perceiving the external reality in the property of bestowal, which we acquire in addition to the property of reception that we already have.

This is a new world that becomes revealed to us in the five new senses. It has its own colors and sounds, mind and movements of the soul, that is, it has everything that we have here and much more than that, much more clear and perfect. These are our earthly roots.

This is what we need to reach, what we want to come to. After all, our egoistic desire that operates according to the principle of consumption has already exhausted itself. Our egoism becomes increasingly desperate, and we are losing interest for “the film” that we have already seen and reviewed. We no longer care for this life’s film, and it no longer fulfills us.

The entire mankind is coming to this. Perception turned inwards no longer pleases us. We have exhausted its reserve and now begin to strive towards external perception. Only once we change our desire and switch to the outside from the inside will we see an inverted world, the world of bestowal, as it is said, "I saw a reverse world" (“Olam Afuch Raiti”).
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/10, "Come unto Pharaoh – 1"

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Time Machine

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “BeShalach (When the Pharaoh Sent),” Item 297: When the Temple was built, the Creator was crowned in that crown and sat in His throne, Malchut. And from the time when the Temple was destroyed, the Creator does not decorate his crown, and the delight the light of Bina, is hidden.

There is no time in spirituality, and it’s just a matter of degrees, meaning the extent to which we can move from one degree to another, passing along the layers of spirituality. Therefore, the future, the present, or the past, today, tomorrow, or yesterday, the time of the destruction of the Temple or other times, all of that is just an expression of our place on the same ladder of spiritual rungs. It can be compared to us watching a film and moving our glance from the past to the present and to the future.

The difference between all these states is determined by our ability to identify ourselves with the network of connection between us. The strength of our link to the network determines our position on the ladder, that is, what kind of our connection we can reveal.

Degrees of connections inside the common network are, in essence, the degrees of revelation of the Upper World and the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, The Zohar

Everything Depends On The Person’s Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will the Convention be our exodus from the egoistic Egypt?

Answer: We must be certain that we will, undoubtedly! We are gathering at the Convention, connect together, and realize how paramount it is despite the fact that we may not be attracted to bestowal to the friend and to the Creator.

The condition of exodus is feeding on Matzot (unleavened bread, bread of affliction) specifically in the rich, successful, prosperous Egypt, dripping fat. Exile starts at the moment when you feel it. Return from exile is not a change of residence, but the exit to the revelation of the Creator, discovering the property of bestowal that starts illuminating…in you, in the same very Egypt where you used to be.

Therefore, right now, before breaking free, we must get to feel how we lack spiritual freedom. Then, we will come to the revelation of the Creator and the Upper world, the property of bestowal, in our desire.

Everything takes place within one and the same desire, not by way of moving from one place to another. The very same Eretz Goshen (Land of Goshen), which used to be the most prosperous in Egypt, turns into the Sinai Desert for us.

In the spiritual world, there is no space; everything occurs within the will to receive that undergoes all these states: Eretz Canaan, the descent into Egypt, the good and the bad Egypt (seven years of plenty and seven years of famine), the fleeing from Egypt to the Sinai Desert and, through it, to the promised land. All of this occurs in one place, the will to receive, depending solely on our experiences in it.

When in 40 years we reach the rung of Bina in this desire, then in this desert we find the land of Israel (“flowing with milk and honey”) and the completely corrected state. It all occurs in one place called the central point of Malchut of the World of Infinity. The only thing that changes is how we relate to the desire and evaluate it.

To the extent that we will be willing to include into Malchut the properties of the first nine Sefirot, accordingly, Malchut will receive all kinds of attributes, from the worst to the very best. Everything depends solely on Malchut, our desire to absorb the properties of the Upper One and become identical to Him. Everything takes place solely within the desire of a person.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, “This is for Judah”

Becoming The Producer Of Your Own Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I am the one who creates and projects the film of my own life, this entire reality, then why do people create unpleasant films for themselves?

Answer: Creating a film is not yet in your power. You cannot yet be a producer. You need to rule over your desire, the Light, and be able to determine exactly how they can vary according to strict laws and not just the way you want them to. This way, you gradually build a better reality.

This is your only freedom of choice, and this is exactly why we study the wisdom of Kabbalah. Until you gain power over the film of your reality, the Creator is in charge of it in order to obligate you to create your own film. This is why our entire life and all our reincarnations are meant to “inspire” us to make the proper film, an authentic one, not an imaginary one.

This is what makes the perception of reality in the wisdom of Kabbalah so interesting. It is because this is neither a theoretical study nor a scholastic discussion, but a special method which I can use to really change my world, to escape to different dimensions, as it were.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality” 10/26/10

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Approaching The Reality Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What kind of perception of reality does the Creator have?

Answer: The Creator does not have any perception of reality because He has only one property: the desire to bestow, bestowal. The Creator does not have reality. He is, Himself, the perfect reality.

When we perceive and depict the surrounding reality, we reach the states that become increasingly closer to Him. Therefore, the best form of the world appears when we correct ourselves to the degree that we create or project to ourselves the reality: the Creator. This is the state we achieve.

When we go through all the movies, pictures, and forms during our correction, we gradually, step by step, bring them closer to such a reality in which only the Creator exists, as it is said, “He and His name are one” and “There is none else besides Him.”
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality” 10/26/10

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