In the News (from The University of British Columbia): “Tactile input affects what we hear: UBC study” Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech, according to University of British Columbia linguistics research. It is well known that humans naturally process facial expression along with what is being heard to fully understand what is being communicated. The UBC study is the first to show we also naturally process tactile information to perceive sounds of speech.

In the News (from Scientific American): “Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind “See” with Their Tongues” A pair of sunglasses wired to an electric “lollipop” helps the visually impaired regain optical sensations via a different pathway. Now, a new device trades on that thinking and aims to partially restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue’s surface to send light signals to the brain.

My Comment: The above confirms what Kabbalah teaches about perception of reality – that the entire world exists inside us; our senses are no more than the display of five boundaries of our internal feelings.

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We don’t realize how interconnected we are, but we are connected with others as one body through thousands of links: through desires, intentions, thoughts, efforts, and everything else. The defining factor of a whole, integral system is the fact that if you change any of its elements, the whole system changes completely. Otherwise, the system wouldn’t be a single whole.

Similarly, being global means being connected from every side, in all properties, and in every way. This connection means that each person includes everyone within him. I am me and others are in me, and he is he and others are in him, and the same is true for everyone else.

However, by carrying out the correction, we don’t correct the system itself; we only reveal the connection that already exists in the World of Infinity. We correct the breaking, which is felt only relative to us. We correct our own vision and our own perception. If we correct the connection between us and begin to understand the system we are in, then we reveal that there are no individual elements.

When we move closer to Infinity, we feel that there are no individuals and there is only one whole. Everything is so intertwined that it’s impossible to separate anyone from anyone else.

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A question I received: We have learned that a person should not look back to his prior states of spiritual development. Having this in mind, I cannot understand how Kabbalists were then able to describe all those states to us. Moreover, we know that some Kabbalists prayed to the Creator to lower them to lower (past) states so they could convey them to the lower ones (us).

Let’s say I wanted to write a book based on real events. The only way to do that is to go back to those states or events and feel them throughout once again as much as possible. Isn’t this the same when Kabbalists describe spirituality?

My Answer: For Kabbalists, there is no time, but only the manifestation of the cause-and-effect sequence of corrective actions.

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A question I received: Since I was a child, there was always one question that brought fear to me in a way that no other question ever has.  This is the question that comes to me when I think about the universe.  The question is, “What is all  of this?”  I have nothing with which to put it in perspective and it has therefore troubled me and brought me fear.

However, since I started studying Kabbalah this question does not cause me as much fear.  Instead another similar question has arisen in me and that is the question, “What will happen after I, or the world rises to its attainment of the Upper world? What is beyond this goal, and if there is something beyond, is this goal really the goal?” This question is perhaps impatient and silly, but it makes me uneasy and I feel that I have to ask it.

My Answer: If you imagine Infinity properly, you will discover that it is the fulfillment of all our desires and thoughts, and because of this we can’t imagine anything else. However,  it is exactly this boundary beyond which something new begins. Reaching Infinity means only correcting ourselves, which is our preparation for something greater we will learn only after our correction.

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A question I received: How can we begin to perceive the true reality?

My Answer: The reality we see only seems objective to us. It appears to be independent of our perception, or of our life and death. We assume that the world we observe is constant, that it exists outside of us and independent of us. We think that it doesn’t get influenced by whether we exist or not.

We reason about it this way: ten billion years before the Earth was formed and man appeared on it, there was the Big Bang – the point that brought our world into existence. That is when time and space emerged. We construct our story upon the axis of time, which we think existed before man sensed it and could talk about it.

We discuss history in the same way.  We say that once upon a time, there was Ancient Babylon, the exodus from Egypt, and all the other events of the past. Today, we can speak about the past and say that some time ago, there lived a man named Baal HaSulam, who wrote books for us which we are reading today.

But in fact, we only reason this way because we are still on the level of the “inanimate spiritual being.” As long as we are on this level, we can’t imagine that everything exists only inside our bodily organs of perception, or senses. As long as a person hasn’t acquired the sensation of spiritual time, he is stuck in the earthly axis of time, and he will think, speak and write accordingly.

However, spiritual time is defined as a sequence of actions, and it begins from the moment one starts to perceive that he is inside a network of forces, the system of Nature (the Creator). There, everything is determined by the measure of your interaction with this network.

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A question I received: What does it mean “that which I do not attain, I do not call by a name?”

My Answer: Contrary to philosophy or our perception of the world, nothing exists on its own in the science of Kabbalah. Everything exists only in my perception and sensation, and this is the only thing I am allowed to speak of.

There is no Creator, no creation, no worlds. There is nothing that can be said to actually exist. I am the only one who senses that it exists, I am the one who thinks, I am the one who sees, and this is the only context in which I can speak of anything I perceive.

I perceive everything through my senses, and everything depends on my relation to it and its relativity to me. This is why we can only speak of that which a person reveals and attains. In Hebrew, the Creator is called “Bo-re” – “Come and See.”  There is no Creator without the creation.

The quality of bestowal is revealed within our Kelim in accordance to the similarity of its attributes with something external which we do not perceive. This we call the Creator, “Come and see what I see!”

I perceive Him in my senses, which have changed due to my evolving qualities, due to the changes taking place within me. I say: “The Creator is within me! Look at the form  I’ve taken!” This form is what I call the Creator.

I don’t point at Him directly; I only speak of His form which is engraved into my matter, and it is this form that I call the Creator. The matter (desire to receive pleasure) has changed its form into the desire to bestow.

This is why we evaluate and determine everything only in relation to our personal attainment and not, in relation to anything outside of us. All the worlds are my Kelim, my vessels of perception, and I only perceive them to be external to me.

I perceive myself inside of my internal desires, but I perceive the world in my external desires since my Kelim are divided into the internal and external. When they merge, I will have ten Sefirot of the soul, the world will disappear and everything will enter me.

At present, I sense everyone surrounding me as external because my Kli isn’t complete, it is shattered. If it was complete, I wouldn’t be able to discern anyone external to me. I would feel everything as the World of Infinity.

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In the News (translated from KP.RU): Both the movie and the book The Secret explain to us that our thoughts are material and all our wishes come true if we think of them correctly. You just need to imagine in your thoughts whatever you want. You may erase the undesirable and everything will be as you wish.

However, there is one flaw, which is that the cause of unrealized desires is in the Universe or in G-d. Sometimes, the scientists gave advice much like an exorcist, “Think positive and everything will be positive!” Then the authors became confused themselves and while trying to figure it out, they shot four more movies.

Their conclusion: There is no reality. Everyone sees only what he knows and wants to see.

Therefore, before any action, it is important to understand what kind of feelings I wish to experience – and then everything will come true!

My Comment: The authors showed how a correctly structured thought becomes realized in life. They realistically imagined the goal and the desirable feelings and that’s why they reached their goal at the box office. (Both, the movie and the book are long time bestsellers). Even Kozma Prutkov wrote, “If you want to be happy – be happy,” as did Dale Carnegie and others. The movie was a result of talented production, but it is empty and incites self-delusion.

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Modern science, biology, psychology and all forms of human research bring us to the understanding that time, space, motion and one’s picture of reality are all relative perceptions and notions.

Many people are beginning to speak of this, and the Internet is overflowing with articles on the subject, with some even being close to the truth. Truly the human mind has come to the very boundary between the two worlds.

Of course, scientists cannot properly envision the spiritual, but the readiness to perceive it is already beginning to be revealed.

This is why it is becoming easier to explain the notion of time in the spiritual. Although at first it appears to be absolute, it is a relative concept, since it stems from one’s perception of life, like the ticking clock or the beat of the pulse. Sometimes time “flies” and sometimes it “drags.”

Spaces are discovered in the cosmos where time stops; there’s even talk of areas where time actually flows backwards. There are stars that don’t emit radiation but rather absorb it.  What does that mean to the flow of time?

Time is a corporeal parameter which can be changed depending on the relationship between mass and speed.

In the spiritual space, the phenomena of time, place and motion exist in their true, absolute form, which, as they become understood, can also be applied to our world.

In the spiritual, as well as in our world, the correct assessment of time constitutes a number of actions that succeed one another. The key isn’t the length of these actions in time or the intervals of time between actions, but only the quantity of action.

Time is assessed only by the quantity of completed actions. If that quantity is high, then a lot of time has gone by; conversely, little time indicates few completed actions.

Man’s sensation of time comes to us from Klipot (egoistic desires). A Klipa draws out time like rubber from the point where cause and consequence (consecutive events) join as one. It divides them and inserts the sensation of an interval between them.

This sensation of an interval stems to us from a Klipa, our egoism, which wedges itself between cause and consequence, which is between occurrences. If we free ourselves of it, then this interval disappears and cause rejoins consequence, merging everything into one instant.

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In the News (from University at Buffalo): “Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs”  In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focused on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The study team employed a technique called “challenge interviews” on a sample of voters who reported believing in a link between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11.

The researchers presented the available evidence of the link, along with the evidence that there was no link, and then pushed respondents to justify their opinion on the matter. For all but one respondent, the overwhelming evidence that there was no link made no impact on their arguments in support of the link.

My Comment: We have to go though many challenges and experiences in life in order to relinquish our previous false beliefs to which we are so accustomed.  We also   must stop believing in or not believing in facts,  but accept them because they are facts, since belief plays no part!

In my dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah, I constantly face this problem of non-recognition. This is because it is uncomfortable for people to break stereotypes since acceptance of facts obligates people to action.

Therefore the breaking of life’s patterns is awaiting us and will give us the strength to rise above laziness and stereotypes and accept facts without believing in them, meaning not adjusting them to fit into our old belief patterns.

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A question I received: In the last edition of “Ask the Kabbalist” there was a discussion about dreams. You told us about your dream, which later came true. You explained that this is realized only during the instant, where something occurs before us, and it is as though we flow after this instant in time. Does the phrase “déjà vu” have any connection to this? Is déjà vu, in fact, a dream that a person once saw?

My Answer: Everything is inside of us. There is no time, but only a shifting in our desires. The present is also a dream, just like all other sensations until we begin to perceive the Upper World, rise above ourselves and our desires, and see them from the Creator’s side, so to speak.

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