Entries in the 'Perception' Category

What Will I Take With Me?

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Will my soul remember everything I learned in this life? Will I continue to learn Kabbalah and come to the group again in my next life?

My Answer: The only thing that a person takes with him from this life is the spiritual path that he went through; this does not vanish. After all, in regard to spirituality, we are, and continue to be in the same reality, but it is slightly hidden from us.

I am constantly situated in my soul, in spite of the fact that I don’t feel it, I continue to work with it and go through different states. All this occurs in my eternal soul. The fact that I now see physical bodies and this world around me is a “mirage” of my spiritual state.

If I work internally now, then I will begin my next reincarnation from a higher spiritual state, and I will come to a Kabbalah group faster and will be more successful in my studies. The entire previous path will remain within me in the form of spiritual genes (Reshimot); it doesn’t vanish. In the spiritual world nothing vanishes at all; things disappear only in our world because this whole world will eventually vanish. In the meantime, nothing that I have acquired through my egoistic desire remains, since the desire itself vanishes, only the external clothing remains.

Every time the soul goes through a new reincarnation, it builds an environment for itself according to its ability and the necessity to correct itself. Why do I exist in this environment and not a different one? It is because my soul requires this. No calculation is performed in regard to the bodies; they exist in connection with each other, in this world, in all of the situations that are necessary for the soul’s correction.

Meanwhile, the body is not taken into account. Actually, it doesn’t exist at all; it is a virtual illusion that presents itself to us in this form. In actuality, only the soul exists, but we are unable to feel it. And its development clearly determines what happens to the bodies.

Therefore, in the end of “Preface to The Book of Zohar” Baal HaSulam writes that only the correction of the souls will help us correct our world and perceive this corporeal life as more kind. All the offenses that occur in this world are a consequence of the necessity for the soul to be corrected. At the same time, there are no actions or corrections in this world: changes are only possible through the soul.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/10, Article “Which Degree Should One Acheive?”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: When It Was Time To Depart The World
A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: “Recycle until You’re Ripe and Ready”
The Open Book: “The Purpose of Reincarnation According to the Zohar”

Upwards Through The Steps Of Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Tetzaveh (Command),” Item 114: There are five abstentions on the day of atonement—eating, drinking, bathing, lubrication, wearing shoes, and intercourse—to be assisted by the five upper sides, HGT NH, which the day of atonement, Bina, brought out, and which are her gates.

Since we must transition from the perception of reality in the egoistic desires to the perception of reality in the desires of bestowal, the authors of The Zohar (like all other Kabbalists), tell us about the various corrections we must make in our desire; we move from one rung to the next, in order to further advance each of our five senses toward spirituality. All five senses are connected with each other, and for this reason we always have a spiritual Partzuf, meaning a definitive perception of reality with limitations.

In order to transition from the current perception of reality to a more advanced one, we must increase our desire and attract the Reforming Light to it. In this way, we will build the next Partzuf that is our self on a higher level. We do this by opening more and more of the senses, the perception of reality. This is the way we advance.

All of the obstacles that the The Zohar describes, such as the “scapegoat,” the “five prohibitions,” and so on, are solely limitations. We perform these limitations according to the Kabbalists’ recommendations, and as a result, we come to corrections faster. After all, they tell us in advance what is worth doing on every step, in order to direct oneself to the perception of reality on a more complex, inner, and deeper level. Then, without fail, we advance with greater speed and certainty.
[15113]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: When Seven Are Stronger Than Seven Billion
Laitman.com Post: The Science Of Coming Out Of Yourself
5 Minutes of Light: “How to Measure Spiritual Advancement”

Send The Scapegoat Into The Desert

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Tetzaveh (Command),” Item 102: …When it was said, “Fetch two he-goats, one for Me and one for that delator, the Sitra Achra, so he will think that he has eaten from My own meal, and will not know of the joy of our other meal. He will take that part,” GAR of the left, which is sent to the desert, to the place of ruin, to give him back his dominion, meaning to the middle point of the ruined world….

We read in all the Kabbalistic books about actions that we need to do in order to reveal the real world by having proper vision and perception. For example, when I don’t know where I am, I try to make my senses more acute, I clean my glasses to clear the fog before my eyes. I try different things to help orient myself to the strange place that I can’t make out.

Kabbalists give us the same kind of prescription: the things that we need to do in order to clear our sensory channels: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch (five Sefirot), in order to orient ourselves in the new space and to be able to discern it. This is why The Zohar tells us that if there is a disturbance in our perception, the so called “GAR of the left,” then we need to stop using it, and “send it to the desert.”

In other words, The Zohar describes the way we are to work with our senses and what we need to do in order to become closer to the proper orientation in the space where we exist. Essentially, the entire wisdom of Kabbalah only speaks about attaining the perception of a new reality instead of perceiving this imaginary world.

After all, we’re not actually going anywhere, we don’t fly or move, we remain in the same place and state. We simply keep perfecting our senses. This is why Kabbalah is called the science of reception, the science of perception (in Hebrew, the word “Kabbalah” comes from the word “Lekabel” – to receive).

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Learning To Focus On The Spiritual World
Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life: “Regaining Consciousness”
ARIfilms: “Physical and Spiritual Connections”

The "Dirty" Filters That Obscure Our View Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe exist in a system called the only creation, Soul, or Adam. This system was created by the Creator. We are connected within it by permanent ties like the organs are in a body. Our mutual connection is filled with the life of this system: Light. The system is called the World of Infinity because everything in it is boundless and perfect.

In the World of Infinity, all of its parts are bound by love and filled with Infinite Light. However, the Creator covers this infinite world with reductive filters, one after another, as if spoiling everything. It is similar to drawing a beautiful picture and then placing a dirty, plastic film over it which mars the view of the picture. Then, with additional, successive layers, through 125 layers of plastic wrap, the original picture looks even dirtier. These are the 125 layers of reducing the properties of bestowal and love that connect us in the system of the World of Infinity.

We are located in the outermost layer and don’t perceive the preceding ones at all. Thus, within our layer, the system of connection is completely ruined. Instead of feeling love that binds us in the World of Infinity, we hate each other, don’t perceive our mutual connection, and are separated, divided, and broken. From this lowest state, the Creator wishes to bring us back to the very first, which is illuminated and good, so that through all these layers, filters, and worlds (“world” in Hebrew is Olam, concealment) we return to Infinity.

Therefore, the Creator calls and awakens us. Previously, He developed us through egoism so that we could understand and feel more, and manage our lives better. However, when we reach a certain maturity, the Creator begins to advance us qualitatively. It isn’t enough for us to evolve by increasing our egoism anymore. Now we have to become similar to the Creator in our attributes, to receive an equivalent type and form of desire, and not just cultivating it as during our previous history. This is why our current state of development is so special.

By making an effort to align ourselves with the innermost layer, by becoming strongly connected to each other, we draw the Light of the Creator, which shines on us from afar as the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). We become corrected in it in order for love and bestowal to reign among us.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/10, Shamati #16

Related Materials:
Laitman.com Post: Learn To See The Light In Bestowal
Laitman.com Post: Viewing The World In The Distorting Image Of My Soul
5 Minutes Of Light: “The Creator’s Revelation And Concealment”

This World Is Just A Starting Point

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator did not create our material world. It exists only in our imagination because we are within the boundaries of our egoism. The moment we transition to bestowal and begin to acquire bestowing desires, the Upper reality (in which we in fact exist and develop) will reveal itself to us.

The lower layer of this material world will continue to exist for it has to constantly provide us with the freedom of choice in attaining spirituality. In this world we go to work or go to buy groceries, yet we know that we have a permanent place of residence, our home and family. The same thing applies to spirituality: There is a place where we permanently exist. We climb and descend spiritual steps, but the lowest level of existence (our world) is always guaranteed to us.

This world is illusory and doesn’t exist anywhere except in our imagination; it’s a basic point that allows us to act on our own for the sake of bestowal. The Creator shows all of us the same movie, thus allowing us to exist within the same reality. That is the reason why the most advanced Kabbalist and the most feeble-minded, silly person perceive the same material world.

It goes without saying that an intelligent person sees our world a little differently and understands more, but in general all of us see the same picture. It makes no difference whether a person possesses specific properties because it doesn’t have anything in common with spirituality.
[14767]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Matrix Of Our Reality
Laitman.com Post: The Animate World Versus The Human World
ARIfilms: “Kabbalah and Our Perception of Reality”

Shaping Our World View To Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why do 90% of the obstacles I get pertain to my physical body (I’m hungry, I’m tired, and so on)? After all, corporeality is far less important than spirituality and contains only a small spark of life.

My Answer: You’re asking why we weren’t given the opportunity to work with spiritual desires, lights, and screens, instead of the corporeal ones. But to the extent that you begin to view the world in waves of bestowal, you naturally stop noticing this world. It stops being the determining world for you. You continue to exist in this world and connecting with people, but without this world being connected to the spiritual world, it loses its meaning. It is merely a consequence, a reflection, of the spiritual worlds that project reality to you.

There is a special technology that projects three-dimensional, holographic images in the air via laser beams. They make all kinds of figures appear in empty space. In a similar fashion, this world is presented to you in illusory images, for this world is but an imprint of what exists in spirituality.

It is our egoistic desire that projects this world for us. For the time being, it can only exist in this form that does not disappear until the very end of correction. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai could be sitting here with us and he would be seeing our corporeal world despite being fully corrected himself. Indeed, this world will only disappear from our senses following the general, final correction.

This world pertains to the general desire to receive pleasure. It is an egoistic desire, yet it is not against the Creator. It is simply a desire to lead an animal life and receive pleasure.
Therefore, it is not considered criminal and does not require correction. You simply need to use it like an animal and shape it into a desire to bestow – the soul.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Shifting From Illusion To True Perception
Laitman.com Post: Break Through The Dream Of This World Using The Book Of The Zohar
5 Minutes Of Light: “Language of Roots and Branches”

The Holographic Picture Of The Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator demands of our souls to unite. Our distancing from each other and feeling as strangers constitutes the entire corruption. The correction, on the other hand, lies in perceiving ourselves as being parts of a single body. Yet, if we simply perceive ourselves as parts of a body working together, it’s not enough.

I have to become incorporated into everybody, they have to become incorporated into everybody else, and so on till infinity! It resembles a holographic picture where each element contains all the others in itself.

We are still unable to imagine this sensorially because we are opposite to such a picture. The breaking of the vessels resulted in us feeling completely separate from each other. We can’t even understand how it is possible to incorporate into each other when there is no “I,” which unites with all the others and becomes a single whole.

When our points in the heart unite, this illusionary reality of physical bodies fades away; only our desires remain. The more correctly each of us attempts to imagine our unification, the closer we move toward the true picture of reality, the only one there is. We only have to draw closer to it and reveal it. This is how we gradually heal ourselves from all these material illusions that envelop us.
[14875]

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Even A Kabbalist Has To Take Part In “The Theater Of Life”
Laitman.com Post: The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist: “Concerning Love Of Friends” – 05.23.10
Kabbalah Moments: “My Soul”



Magical Binoculars

A question I received: How do you manage to understand what is written in The Zohar? Could you share your secret?

My Answer: I see rather than understand. I simply see. Let’s suppose that you and I are standing together, and I have binoculars while you do not, and maybe even your eyesight isn’t so great. You ask me, “What’s here? What’s there?” I see through my eyesight, and if it’s not enough, I look into the binoculars, the telescope, or the microscope.

In other words, I have a means of seeing, and I tell you about what I see. Meanwhile, you do not see it. It is something completely new for you – something strange, which may or may not exist. It is all unclear, confusing, and unfamiliar to you.

Therefore, you need to acquire these devices: “binoculars,” “telescopes,” and “microscopes.” And in order to acquire them, you need the Upper Light. These devices are the screen, which helps you see a new, Upper world. We merely need to rouse the Upper Light on us, and the most effective means for this is mutual study in a group using Kabbalistic sources.

From the Sunday Morning Zohar Lesson 5/23/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Game: Stepping Into The Unknown
Laitman.com Post: We Perceive The Creator According To Our Own Qualities And Desires
5 Minutes Of Light: “A Scientific Approach With New Tools”

The Spiritual Principle

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Can we take the spiritual principle that you have attained and apply it in a new Internet space?

My Answer: The spiritual principle is the perception of the Creator. You must lead a person to that. To do so means to instill in a person a strong necessity to communicate with the others and thereby step out of oneself. As soon as a person starts perceiving others as himself, he will immediately discover the Creator outside of himself.

Why do we need a society? It is to practice exiting ourselves. The Creator is beyond me, but I don’t perceive Him. The surrounding society, on the other hand, is within me, but the Creator purposefully made it look like the society is something external. In truth, it only seems so; I only feel that everything is outside of me.

However if I “glue” this imaginary picture, both its external and internal manifestations within me, I and the surrounding world become one whole, and in this way I prepare my perception to grasp what is outside of me. When that happens, I immediately and naturally discover the Creator because except me, outside of me, there is only Him.

Then where are these worlds, where is all humanity? I discover that they are all within me and have always been there. They existed externally for the sole purpose of enabling me to tune myself like a musical instrument, as a new organ of perception, to feel the Creator. This is why I was given the sensation of myself, which is divided into two parts: me and the world. But in reality, this world doesn’t exist outside of me at all.

When we find a way to tell this to people and show them the necessity of such self-tuning, they will understand why Kabbalah teaches us to “Love the others as yourself.” It is solely for the purpose of bringing us to the perception of the Creator, the Source of ultimate goodness and perfection.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: “Come And See” A New Reality
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual World Is Above Reason
5 Minutes Of Light: “Spirituality, A Change Of Perception”

Ascend To A Higher Dimension

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen the souls unite together, a person discovers a new reality. Currently we experience ourselves as living in this world, which is at the level of individual existence; each part is disconnected from the entire organism. Yet, despite the fact that all these parts are alive and

aware of their individual existence, there is a difference between a body that is whole and a body whose parts are disconnected.

Right now, each disconnected individual is receiving a lifeline and life support, like an organ extracted from the body for transplant into another organism. Consequently, they are like “ready-for-transplant organs” on life support, which ensures they don’t descend below the animalistic existence. These organs perceive themselves as living in this reality. That’s who we are.

If we, a group of such organs, desire to unite and we ask for it, then our collective desire (the prayer called MAN) draws from Above (from a higher level) the force that unites us. Subsequently, in our unity we perceive the spiritual reality, as a body whose organs begin to connect with each other.

Thus, the entire organism experiences a different life, not the existence each of them once lived separately by striving to survive on its animalistic level. We ascend from the animalistic level of existence to a new level called human.

The sensation of this collective life of all “bodily organs” (the collective soul) is called the spiritual world. We will no longer even be able to perceive the previous existence as life because we’ll no longer live to survive, but instead will support each others’ lifeline. The Light gives us a completely new and different reality.

Our previous life on the animalistic level will look extremely low and undesirable. We’ll need it solely in order to absorb the desires of others who are still living in our world as animals; these are the desires that haven’t joined our connection yet. Gradually they will also begin to ascend. However, once having attained our spiritual life, this lower level will be unnecessary since we will all have ascended to a higher dimension.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Unity That Cannot Be Broken
Laitman.com Post: Are You Ready To Run?
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Last Generation”