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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A question I received: How is it possible that there seems to be an objective reality in this world with external objects and which we can measure?

My Answer: We are used to a life that forms an image of reality based on an inanimate desire to receive pleasure. Similarly, we think that the spiritual world exists on its own and does not depend on changes within us.

This is how we perceive our lives until we begin to sense the relativity of our perception and come to understand that this perception depends on our qualities. Gradually, humanity is moving toward the realization that everything that we see in this world depends on the qualities of the observer.

Quantum physicists speak of the fact that experimental outcomes are equally dependent on the observer. However, we do not have the means by which to measure the influence of thought over matter.

Over time, everything becomes absolutely elusive until we come to the understanding that all things are relative to a person’s qualities. It is not dependent on whether or not one observes or thinks, but rather on the qualities of the person who is doing the thinking and the observing.

At such a point, we transition to being a true researcher from the realm of regular science which is not dependent on the qualities of the scientist. A true researcher is someone who concerns himself with his own qualities first and foremost, and only then proceeds to study matter. That is a Kabbalist!

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A question I received: If we proceed from the assumption that there are two realities, physical and spiritual, it follows that there must be two histories as well. There’s the history of the corporeal, physical world, and there’s the spiritual plane of history, correct?

My Answer: They are the same, because the spiritual plane is the “base” upon which our corporeal world exists. That is to say, our world exists upon a net of forces, which we cannot feel. We call these forces “spiritual” because they are beyond our senses, too subtle to be perceived by them. We simply haven’t learned to perceive them yet. But it is these forces alone that determine everything taking place in the corporeal world, and this world is a reflection of those forces.

Question cont’d: But in science we make derivations based solely on the cause and effect relationships of this world. How, then, does the spiritual world play into it?

My Answer: Think of it this way: a small child walks up to a faucet constructed into a wall, turns on the faucet, and fills his cup with water. He thinks that this is the way the world is set up: he believes that water simply flows out of the faucet in the wall. But what exists behind the wall is beyond his understanding. To him, the faucet is the source of the water.

And that is precisely how our earthly sciences perceive everything that happens to us, as they never see beyond the “wall” of our world. So what actually happens behind that “wall”? This is explained by the science of Kabbalah.

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A question I received: No new system is established in its pure form. In one way or another, it always makes a compromise with the former system, from which it develops. There is simply no other way. Do you agree?

My Answer: Yes and no. We are talking about a completely new level, qualitatively speaking, and therefore it will not develop in the traditional way – egoistically, from smaller to greater. We are talking about a qualitative revolution, which is changing from an attitude of consumption to an attitude of bestowal. People will begin to feel the world by coming out of themselves. They will feel the world beyond themselves. This model is inverse to anything that came before, because it is not built by development on the past.

People will continue to live in the world, along with all of their experiences and culture. However, when people begin to perceive and feel the inner, hidden connections in the world and the inner forms – the forces and souls, then the world will become transparent. The objects and actions of this world will then be seen as inanimate consequences of the Upper Forces, and the Upper Forces, a deeper layer of the world, will be clearly revealed to everyone.

Our current state of crisis is pushing us towards the need to attain this hidden reality, which contains the forces and actions controlling our world. Essentially, the present crisis is but a preparation, making us more able and willing to perceive something cardinally new, due to there not being any other choice.

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A question I received: Modern science has broken through into a dimension that is incommensurable for our current human consciousness. I get the feeling that scientists don’t know what to do with this knowledge because they are only starting to build general pictures of the universe, very slowly, but it is difficult for them to piece together a complete new picture of the universe.

My Answer: First of all, people’s knowledge and feelings are strictly subjective. The picture of reality is always formed within us, and there is nothing outside of us. We are always talking about the models that exist in us. Our world is inside us, and even we are all inside of ourselves.

We don’t know what happens outside, and there is no such thing as “outside” at all. Everything is within a person. If we take away the human being, there will be nothing to discuss because everything we know, everything we discuss, and everything we feel, is perceived within us, although it is presented to us as existing outside.

Question cont’d: Can the picture that physics and synergy illustrate for us provide spiritual elucidation?

My Answer: No, it will only lead to a dead end. A person has to realize that he must correct his desires. That is how he will change his perceived picture of the world. He needs to understand that he perceives reality in his qualities, and unless he changes his qualities, reality will not change!

Reality is the projection of our qualities against the background of white Light. Until we come to understand this, we will continue to wander around in the dark.

We have finished developing in our egoistic desire, in our qualities. All the current theories are finite. The only way to begin feeling the next state is by changing one’s qualities. The world is your subjective picture, your perception, and your own reflection. If you wish to change it, then change yourself. That is how you will change the world.

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