The Zohar, Chapter "VaYechi (Jacob Lived)," Item 808: When Jacob was gathered, the moon illuminated and the craving of the upper sun, ZA, awakened toward her. This is so because when the sun, Jacob, awakens, another sun, ZA, awakens. ZA clings to the Nukva, and the moon—Nukva—illuminated from ZA.

All of this is talking only about a person who attains spirituality. All sorts of changes take place in a person because his will to enjoy is constantly renewed through the uncorrected qualities that are revealed and their subsequent correction, showing a person various forms in the general, unchanging, spiritual state. Everything is constant except me, and inside me – everything changes.

However, as Baal HaSulam explains in the article "Preface to the Book of Zohar," we perceive the world with the help of a "camera" which projects the picture of reality for us on a "screen" in the back of our brain. This is why it seems like everything happening inside of me exists on the outside.

It turns out that I see the surrounding reality as a projection of the inner chaos of my desires, thoughts, and the connections between them. In reality it is not chaos; it only seems this way to me because I do not know exactly in which order my inner Reshimot surface inside me.

However, when they awaken in a specific sequence, then I see the changes in the constant Upper Light. These Reshimot suddenly conceal this Light and reveal it in different manifestations, depicting it in different "colors," giving it various forms and images. Meanwhile it seems to me that all of this is happening on the outside, even though all of these Reshimot are awakening inside. That is how The Zohar describes the processes happening inside us.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/10, The Zohar

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Question: What is a thought?

Answer: A thought is the awareness of what I am feeling, what the reasons, purpose, and consequences of my feeling are. A thought is what exists inside the desire, in the sensation within the desire. A thought without a desire is a philosophy; it is groundless. There is matter and the form that the matter takes. There is a perception of the form and the thought of “why the matter feels this way.”

Question: Do all of us need to be “like one man in one opinion or thought”?

Answer: We need to reach a state where our desires will become mutual, common, and integral so there will not be a difference in our thoughts, desires, and the Lights which permeate through us as one Light. At the same time, however, everyone will also feel their separate lives, just like an organ inside a body: A heart operates differently than the lungs, but they share a common life inside one body, above the impressions and sensations of every organ. And this higher life that they all live is called Elokut (a spiritual life).

Each organ has a separate life, each participates within the general system of the body, and there is also the mutual life of the entire body. Everything is interconnected, and nothing cancels out the other, nothing disappears, not hatred or love, as nothing disappears in spirituality.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about the correction of the relationship between the broken, egoistic souls and us needing to restore the connection between them and lift the souls from the ruin. Obviously, all of this is taking place inside a person, as “everyone measures the world according to his own flaws.”

But only we, being uncorrected, see the ruin. It is similar to modern physicists who claim that by looking at the universe we change the processes taking place within it. Physicists are starting to discover that we influence reality even with what we see or think.

One might think: “How can something possibly change only by looking at it?” It is a typical response, similar to when we break something and say: “I didn’t do anything, but look what happened.” Essentially this means that physics has acknowledged that “everyone measures the world according to his own flaws,” just as the wisdom of Kabbalah says that we don’t see the world as perfect because we ourselves are flawed.

To the degree of the breaking, we see only ruins around us, but to the degree that we become perfect, we see perfection. Hence, all concealments originate in us, inside the breaking which conceals the World of Infinity from us. And the wisdom of Kabbalah explains our advanced states to us: how to correct ourselves and see an increasingly perfect world.

The more you correct yourself, the more perfect the world in front of you will become.
[23454]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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If I perceive all disorder taking place in the world and in my life in the light of bestowal and not reception, then everything works out and suddenly falls into places. However, if I view it all egoistically, I see multiple problems and a solid line of suffering. Start treating everything with love, and the whole picture will suddenly get pieced together and unify.

Imperfection lies not in the external world, but within me. The entire world is just my shadow (copy), and only my attitude toward it needs to be corrected so as to see the world as perfect. Everything I see in the world as negative is a sign of my own flaws, no matter what it is related to: the still, vegetative, or animate nature, and especially the relationships between the friends.

If I accept, by way of faith above reason, that the whole group, the friends, and the world are perfect and only I am not, then I begin thinking solely about my correction. I lack only connection with them, and therein lies my correction until we all become one whole. This is what is called the love of others.

In other words, I can start working! We were given an illusion that we exist in this world in order for us to start our journey toward unification. However, we are not ready yet to work with the entire world, so we have the group for this job. The group reflects my corrected state, according to the saying, “The group today is you tomorrow.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: Is it true that one can love another only in relation to the desire for spirituality because in this case I am not required to fulfill another person’s corporeal desires? After all, I clearly see that now I am not even willing to share a piece of meat at the table.

Answer: For now, it is enough for us to unite in our desire to attain the Creator, but later, you will feel as though you are sitting next to your little son at the table. Would you be able to grab his piece of meat and eat it? This is how you will treat the whole world.

But why is this necessary or what will you receive in the end? We usually forget the answer to this question, that is, the purpose of bestowal, and this is why this action feels so artificial to us: You will feel similar to the Creator and will bestow pleasure to Him, after having attained such a great correction.

Currently you have no need for this at all, and that is why an act of bestowal looks forced and unreasonable to you. There is only one goal: similarity to the Creator. It only seems to you that the world is suffering, that there are poor and unfortunate people. But once you correct yourself, you will see that they are all rich and happy, intelligent and healthy (see Baal HaSulam’s article “The Creator’s Revelation and Concealment”).

We can’t comprehend what an illusion all the suffering in the world is. Each person is being shown an ugly world on purpose so he can feel how much he needs to correct in order to see perfection. We see how everyone thinks differently and has his own opinion, but where does it come from? It is the result of everybody seeing a different picture of the world because there is no picture or form: Everything is revealed within the properties of a person.

When I start unfolding the truth, I realize that behind all the pictures of the world, which appear before my eyes like mirages in the desert there stands one Thought which is projecting the reality that I currently see. And this form is so vague, like Fata Morgana that soars in the air and is constantly changing.

I can steer my way through all these fantasies and the unknown only by leaning on the group because it constantly corrects my focus toward the truth. The truth is the attainment of the single force that governs all of the Fata Morgana. Having attained this force, we can understand how it creates all of these forms and why, we become one with it, and work together with it to reveal the true picture of this world.

It is written: “A man will give anything to find the truth.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, "The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings"

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Question: If I justify the Creator and accept everything as good, how am I going to know whether I have fallen into illusion and self-deception?

Answer: Justifying the Creator is not some unfounded declaration but the result of a whole series of actions. In its concluding stage, I appeal to the Creator with a request, and He fuses links all the details and causes of the previous experiences together.

The picture that I have started to detect amidst the blur and confusion is finally beginning to emerge, and it acquires clarity and interconnection. I reveal myself and the entire world as a group, and I reveal the Creator as the primary source.

And now, having attained this oneness, I see that everything had been done for my benefit and advanced me on the path. Thus, I justify the Creator not forcefully but “according to the results of examination” when I reveal the true status quo.
[#22809]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/10, The Writings of Rabash, Article 38

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The reality in which we exist has no time. All of the changes of time, space, actions, and everything that happens to us including our own transformations are all based on our changeable sensations, while nothing changes outside of us. We would not feel any changes without the changes in our desires and intentions.

In reality there is nothing but the desire with intention and opposite to it, the Upper Light that remains at absolute rest. As this desire changes, it experiences different forms and shapes. Presently, we are experiencing the sensation of ourselves, and this is also the desire that perceives itself this way.

This desire goes through different states, one after another, in the order of cause and effect, from the beginning of its development to the end. This entire development is only realized in relation to the desire; there are no changes outside of it.

Therefore, the entire wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about the way the desire perceives its reality: the location of this desire, why it is there, and who it is connected to. This is its entire life. The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals to us all of the events that happen to the desire, explains this entire process and especially the last stage of the desire’s development.

This last stage is a conscious step, when the desire develops together with its intention and they attain a state where they begin to perceive their own reality. A certain force arises in them, a special property of perception, which enables the desire to rise over it and watch itself from an external and objective point.

Then the desire establishes that it actually exists; it changes and moves towards something, existing in connection with someone unknown for now, and there is a purpose to its development. It begins to think about the future state which it does not yet see.

All of this happens because the so-called “point in the heart” develops in the desire on the last stage of its development. From this moment on, the desire begins to identify itself more and more with this point; it connects with it, values it, and moves outside of itself more.

In other words, instead of paying attention to the things that the desire has or doesn’t, to the degree to which it is filled or empty, it begins to see fulfillment or its absence as the means to identify itself more with the point above the desire referred to as the screen or intention, Creator, or unity. This is how the desire develops.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/29/10, Shlavei Hasulam, Article 25, 1991

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When I develop my point in the heart into a whole spiritual vessel, within it, I begin to sense the concealed part of reality. That is when I begin to truly identify myself with this newly revealed part of the universe. I feel that I live in this new dimension and receive a greater impression from it than from the corporeal world.

I begin to perceive sensations in my spiritual body, the soul, much more strongly than corporeal sensations (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch). And even if my body dies, I do not feel it as a loss for I now sense a much more powerful reality, one that is eternal and perfect.

This is what we must come to. This is why it is said that the Torah “frees from the angel of death.” To the degree that we rise above our “undertaker” (our egoistic desire), we free ourselves from the very notion of corporeal death.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, Kabbalah Learning Approach

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Question: How can I tell whether I am reading The Zohar with the right intention?

Answer: You have to think about the conditions of revealing the Creator. The condition is equivalence of form, which means that inside of my desire to enjoy I will reveal the desire to bestow, the intention of bestowal, or an aspiration for bestowal.

I am waiting for my inner program to change from reception to bestowal so that I will start perceiving the different forms of bestowal that are coming to me. And this is the only thing I want.

Right now I am in an ocean of spiritual information, but I cannot perceive any of it. I lack the program to perceive it. However, if I aspire to it and desire to acquire it, then I advance and come closer to understanding it.

Everything I read in The Book of Zohar are actions of bestowal that take place in reality. This is the only existing reality, whereas our material reality exists only in our subconscious. It’s an illusion that we presently exist in.

The true reality is above this subconscious level, this imaginary reality, and it operates according to bestowal. Reception inside the desire does not even exist other than in our "dream."

Therefore, I desire to ascend above my sensations to the true reality.
[22421]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, The Zohar

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Question: What is the difference between perceiving The Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot?

Answer: They use a different language. It’s impossible to understand The Zohar unless you discern the right picture behind every expression in it, with the picture being clothed in your desire or intention.

If I read an exciting novel that talks about the discovery of new lands, then I already have ready-made internal images of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. Out of these forms I create a picture that the author describes, and the pictures we imagine are similar.

On the other hand, The Zohar describes adventures we have never experienced taking place in a world unknown to us. If I don’t have these spiritual forms (qualities and actions) inside me, then I don’t even know what I am reading about, as if it were written in a language unknown to me.

In contrast, Talmud Eser Sefirot describes more concrete qualities, actions, and events, where there are only two operating forces or desires: "for" and "against." In essence it is talking only about two qualities: bestowal and reception, which exist in different interactions with one another. We can imagine them as forces of attraction and repulsion, as well as their interaction.

Of course, this is simpler and less confusing than the descriptions of The Zohar. Talmud Eser Sefirot constantly shows us the need for the screen, the force of bestowal, whereas The Zohar projects pictures of the Upper World onto our matter (desire).

It’s as if there is a movie playing somewhere very far away and I cannot make it out. As I try to see it, I ask myself: Which instruments or tools do I lack in order to bring this picture closer and feel it? This aspiration evokes the influence of that far-away picture upon me. If my aspiration is magnified many-fold through my environment (the group), then I really feel this picture coming closer.

Yet, the redemption comes from The Book of Zohar because it contains the most powerful Light that Reforms.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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