Questions I received on pity, being judgmental, dreams, and the love of fairy tales:

Question: Why do we feel pity for puppies, kittens, elderly people, the crippled, and so on? What is pity?

My Answer: Always start at the beginning, from the initial premise – we are egoists. Therefore, our pity is egoistic. It’s one’s sensation of suffering, or the fear of suffering.

Question: I often get into the situation where the minute I’m judgmental of someone and say “I would never do what they did,” things suddenly take a turn so that I end up doing exactly what I thought I’d never do. When I’m judgmental of others, I end up in the same situation as them.

My Answer: It is written: “Don’t judge others until you are in their place.” You are being shown who you really are. You should learn about yourself from others, since you only notice all the negative things in them because you also have the same properties.

Question: Dear Rav, what happens to the thoughts, desires, and especially the will during the hours when the physical body rests?

My Answer: They are uploaded into the system in one’s brain that sorts them, and then into one’s memory. At this time one may experience them in the form of dreams, which are removed from reality and therefore the situations in them are fantastical.

Question: Are there people who meet and stay together forever? Does one have to realize something very important to deserve such happiness?

My Answer: We are becoming more and more egoistic. In our time people are realizing their inability to love and be faithful. This is happening so we will realize that it’s necessary to correct egoism, and then we will deserve happiness. Two people with a well developed egoism can meet and stay together forever only in our dreams.

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Perception of the World

(Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” item 34)

With our sense of sight we see a great world before us,

And all its wondrous filling.

But in fact, we do not see all that

Except in our own interior.

There is a sort of a photographic machine in our hindbrain

That portrays everything that appears to us,

And nothing outside of us.

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A question I received: According to Kabbalah, everything in this world is perceived by our five senses. But what about the other things that are in our world and we can sense them, but without the five senses – like thoughts, ideas, information, and dreams? What are they and are they also under the rule of the ego?

My answer: Everything is sensed (perceived) only in our egoistic desire, regardless of how it gets there – through our five senses or from our conscious (or subconscious). The latter is also formed by the perceptions of the five senses. As Baal HaSulam writes – everything we imagine appears in our imagination only because we have sensed something similar to it in the past. Our imagination can only add and expand on this. Otherwise we would not be able to imagine those things.

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A question I received: In the “Introduction to the Book Tree of Life” Rabbi Chaim Vital describes many aspects of the Kabbalah of the Ari. He writes the following about the Ari: “He was able to speak with reincarnated souls. He knew all the secrets of all people, the roots of their souls and all the details of their past lives. He was able to speak with the dybbuks (translator’s comment: this probably refers to evil spirits that possess people and need to be exorcised), as well as to correct them and drive them out of the bodies of the people whom they possessed.” My question is: What are the “dybbuks”? I couldn’t find this word in any of the study materials available today. It probably refers to one’s inner forces, doesn’t it?

My Answer: That is absolutely correct. This refers to man’s inner forces, since everything that exists is inside us in the form of forces, desires, and thoughts. See Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” item 34. Nothing exists outside of man. We perceive the world as being outside of us, but in fact it is only a projection of our properties onto the white Light. It says in The Book of Zohar, “All the worlds are inside man,” but man perceives them on the outside in order to feel the Creator as being outside him and to attain similarity to the Creator. To the degree that he attains similarity to HIm, he will start perceiving everything that happens “outside him” as happening “inside him.” Today in our world we are beginning to attain the fact that our perception is absolutely subjective – that it happens inside us.

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Questions I received on perceiving the common soul and the Upper World:

Question: Everyone and everything is inside of me. The Creator is all around me and inside me. Once you understand that everything is inside you, you start desiring to unite with everything that “surrounds” you. So far so good. However, this means that I will be doing everything only for myself, since even a chance passerby is actually inside me. So in reality I actually want to correct everything for myself and not for others?

My Answer: A person certainly discovers that everything around him is part of him, and is incorporated in his egoism. However, this only happens when one aspires to come out of his egoism and be inside others – inside the environment. First he acquires the property of Bina, bestowal, “not for one’s own sake”; and then, once he is above this property (Tshuva mi Iraa, Hafetz Hesed), he attaches everything to himself and makes everything a part of him. Then he perceives all the souls as his own (Tshuva mi Ahava) and receives the entire Upper Light into this united Kli.

Question: How do we know that the Upper Force is the only one, and that what we will feel after the Upper Worlds are revealed is not our imagination or an illusion?

My Answer: We will know this by revealing the Upper World in our soul and comparing the two worlds. Everything in spirituality is attained inside us – just like we attain this world. We draw our conclusions only from our attainment of the Upper World. The science of Kabbalah is based exclusively on Kabbalists’ practical experience.

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We exist in a sea of information. We are floating inside it like croutons in a bowl of soup. Everything and everyone is inside the soup. There is no time here, and that’s why it doesn’t matter whether you are watching a live broadcast or a recording of the lesson – because everything and everyone is inside this sea of information, including Abraham, Rashbi, Moses, the Ari, and Baal HaSulam. Whether you are part of the lesson in “real time” or not is only a psychological impression of a person who hasn’t yet come out of the boundaries of our world.

For example, when a person doesn’t know that the lesson isn’t being held in real time, then he watches it as if it were. It’s because this information doesn’t get old. And it doesn’t matter what time of day or night one studies, because everything that we study immediately enters and becomes revealed in the entire universe.

This information has never been revealed to man, and it is becoming revealed only now, with the help of the united group. This force already exists in the field that we must fill – in the entire volume of the World of Infinity. And we fill it. And then the rest of humanity also exists in this information, because they exist in the same field that we are adding our information to.

We are doing this, because following the Restriction, only a thin glowing line passes from Infinity to this world – to the center of the universe. Everything besides this thin line is empty space, and we fill that space with the work we are doing.

This is why the sensory and rational information that we extract already exists in this space. And all the people, regardless of their location, or whether they want it or not, are already spinning around it, in harmony with it.

There is a good example of this in nature. Have you ever seen a flock of birds fly in the air, and suddenly they all make a turn together? How do they know that they need to turn? It’s because they receive their information from one place. And it’s the same with all parts of nature. Physicists are already discovering that the field of gravity spreads immediately and that elementary particles immediately inform one another about any changes happening to them. Everything we learn already exists “around us” – so just tune in to it and become filled!

This is why there is no time and it makes no difference when you watch the lesson. You get in touch with the spiritual information that has already been revealed in this space – and this information exists there for you.

(Taken from the lesson I gave on 06-27-08.)

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Question: You said that time doesn’t exist. Then do the past and future exist?

My Answer: What exists is a sequence of events. They take place in us as sequential revelations, the realization of Reshimot. As they sequentially follow one another, they create the sensation of time – of the past and the future. However, this is a subjective sensation that’s inside us, and it takes place quickly or slowly depending on one’s efforts.

It is impossible to skip over anything, because all the Reshimot have to manifest one after another. When a Reshimo is realized, it depicts inside us a picture of our relationship with the Creator. This picture is called “the world,” and it consists of “me” and “what surrounds me.” To the degree that the Reshimot become realized, one begins perceiving one’s surroundings as part of him.

Question: Sometimes the clock shows that five hours have gone by, but I feel like it’s only been five seconds. Who should I trust, myself or the clock?

My Answer: Obviously, you should trust the clock. Next time the same five hours may seem like five days to you.

Question: When a person with psychic abilities predicts the future, what does he see – the future or the present?

My Answer: For him it’s the present.

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Two questions I received on whether spiritual correction requires observance of physical rituals:

Question: You say that it’s possible to attain spiritual correction without physically observing the commandments of Judaism. Maybe you’re just saying this out of your concern for Kabbalah’s dissemination around the world? Or maybe what you really mean is that people can’t understand these commandments by simply reading them? If you can’t publish the answer on the blog, I would like to receive a private answer.

My Answer: The Creator created the will to receive pleasure with an intention “for one’s own sake,” and this is how we find ourselves in this world. We were created this way in order to correct our intention to “for the sake of the neighbor or the Creator,” on all of our 613 desires. This correction happens under the influence of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif, which descends during the study of Kabbalah.

This bears no relation to the observance of religious rituals. A person can attain correction and spiritual attainment without physically observing the commandments, or rather – the traditions. This is true for both Jews and the nations of the world. Moreover, every person can keep his religion, because religion is no more than a nation’s cultural framework. Kabbalah only teaches us about the intention “for the sake of the neighbor,” how to love and bestow to others – and nothing else.

Question: You’re all about spirituality and the love revolution. But what about connecting the root with the branch? After all, the still, vegetative, and animate levels are also levels of the will to receive. You always speak about the internality without any externality, and this confuses me. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that the internality should be preferred over the externality. But it looks like Bnei Baruch gives 100% of their attention to the internality, and 0% to the externality! This is difficult and confusing. Why not make a small change and pay a little more attention to the externality? Why not combine both parts? Dedicate 90% of your attention to the internality, and 10% to the externality. This will really help everyone! What do you think?

My Answer: We at Bnei Baruch actually do this – we follow the traditions. But do you really think that all the people in the world – who are now approaching correction – have to observe the physical commandments of Judaism, even if it isn’t their tradition? In the article “The Future Generation” Baal HaSulam writes that every person can keep his religion!

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Yesterday I went to a museum called “A Dialogue in the Dark,” where the visitors enter a completely enclosed hall that’s absolutely dark inside. Our guide explained that when a person is in the dark, he starts perceiving the world differently – not through the sense of sight, which normally gives us 80% of our information, but using the other senses. And they somehow compensate for one’s loss of eyesight.

Similarly, in order to develop the spiritual sense, we have to realize that we are in the dark. That is to say, we have to feel that we can’t make our lives good in this world using our five bodily senses, and that even when we have all of our five senses, we are still left in the dark. This is the feeling we must attain in order to desire to develop the spiritual sense. And that’s exactly what’s happening today to all humanity – it’s gradually realizing that it is in the dark.

Our sight is an internal vision; we perceive everything inside us. It’s possible to depict the same picture by transmitting electrical signals to the brain. What’s important is that one perceives the internal picture on the screen that’s on the reverse side of the brain. So what’s the difference if I have eyes or not? The important thing is that the picture is formed in my consciousness, and the same could be achieved by developing other senses and additional qualities.

That’s why I asked our guide – who wasn’t born blind (since one who is born blind can’t compare one picture of the world with another) – whether he has been able to develop his remaining senses [Read more →]

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A question I received: I’ve heard you say something like no civilizations of the past are seen in the “revealed.” Does it mean that everything scientists are now finding (in support of a theory of the earlier civilizations) appears in our senses as a reality that we ourselves are demanding? In other words, the external forces react to our demands by creating more new “decorations.”

My Answer: You’re absolutely right! As a result of the descent from spirituality, when the desire created by the Creator reached its lowest level, it perceived within itself what we feel as “me” and the world surrounding us (as external to “me”). The processes and the internal changes started being perceived as time, space and movement (again, external to “me”). This is how a person perceives that something had already existed before he appeared. But who actually sensed it? Without senses, nothing exists. Everything exists in our imagination, in our senses. Read the article “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” item 34.

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