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.

Related Material:
Chapter from Book “Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life”: Regaining Consciousness
Chapter from Book “Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life”: The Reshimo

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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!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Religion and Kabbalah Are Opposite
Laitman.com Post: Look Forward, Only Forward
Laitman.com Post: The Peace (Baal HaSulam)
Laitman.com Post: Intention Is Action

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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.

Related Material:
eBook: Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life
Purchase the Print Version of the Book: Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life

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Two questions I received on our perception of reality

Question: If everything in our world is built from ten Sefirot, why are there such great differences and so many species and forms? And why is there a picture that emerges simultaneously at every moment, created out of so many objects?

My Answer: Every picture consists of ten Sefirot: from the force of the Creator (Keter), through our perceptions, to Malchut, which perceives and summarizes the results of the Creator’s influence. See materials on the attainment of reality.

Question: When one starts to follow the path of Kabbalah, what changes in the general framework of all the degrees of advancement toward the root: Does the chain of specific states one goes through in the material world change, or only one’s inner attitude to them?

My Answer: Everything changes, because a person and the whole universe are one whole.

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Two questions I received on our perception of the world:

Question: How can I understand this paradox: On the one hand, we are being treated as one integral system of Adam, but at the same time we feel like individuals? And what about the individual who is incorporated into all the general suffering and woes, which happen to the entire system? How can he go through this path pleasantly and safely? And who is to blame for the fact that this system is so opposite to the laws of bestowal?

My Answer: Everything is built perfectly and logically. What you perceive is not a lousy world, but your own imperfections, your own picture of the world. If you correct yourself, then everything will radiate harmony.

It is because the screen on which you see yourself and your surroundings is your qualities, and in order to change yourself to see the world as eternal and perfect, or in other words, to live in this kind of world you depict, is by acquiring eternal and perfect qualities. This is why Kabbalah has been given to us.

Question: Why was the world created precisely the way it is? Why is there nature, attitude, change in attitude, suffering, pleasure, the will to receive, the will to bestow, etc.? Who needs all this? Why can’t we just enjoy and so be it? What is there to do for someone who has no patience and who doesn’t even have a desire to exist (not in a body or without a body, but to simply not exist)?

My Answer: The soul was created in perfection, in the World of Infinity. It lacks only one thing: the perception of this perfection. The only way to achieve this perception is by comparing the opposites of darkness and light – the absence of perfection and its presence. Its presence is there, but its absence is missing. This is why our world was created; it is the place where we have to fully perceive the absence of perfection, and together with it, return to the world of infinite perfection. There we will feel true fulfillment through these opposites.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: I Saw a Reversed World
Article: Perfection and the World
Shamati Article #34: The Profit of a Land
Lesson: Shamati Article #34 – The Profit of a Land [53:59]
Lesson: Shamati Article #34 – The Profit of a Land [53:59]

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The structure of the world is simple, because it’s perfect, and at the same time, it is extremely complex for the very same reason. Its simplicity needs to be attained, and such attainment depends on one’s similarity to the world and understanding of it.

However, as long as our consciousness remains uncorrected, we will continue complicating the picture of the world, inventing all kinds of theories (like String Theory and parallel universes, to name just two out of thousands). The world appearing before us is the world we, and only we, imagine. We can never understand what it’s like outside us. In other words, we can never understand the world outside of our our sensations and reason.

There is, however, a different world – and we can feel it if we acquire different perceptions or qualities.

According to different sensations, we can imagine the world according to a different reason. Right now, however, we are incapable of reproducing such a sensation within us.

The purpose of this world’s existence and development is to transform into a different world.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Baal HaSulam on the Perception of Reality
Kabbalah Today Article: “I Saw a Reversed World”
TV Program: Perception of Reality – Lesson 1 of 2
TV Program: Perception of Reality – Lesson 2 of 2
TV Program: Perception of Reality – Lesson 1 of 2 (Transcript)
TV Program: Perception of Reality – Lesson 2 of 2 (Transcript)

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A question I received: Why is it that during the period of concealment, you feel as though you’re in a dark room, receiving punches from every direction? It’s as if the Creator is waiting for you to fall into frenzy, or apathy… And all this happens in spite of all the work you’re doing in dissemination and the group. Is this, as the Russian proverb says, “Love her like your soul, punch her like a punching bag” (meaning, “those we hurt the most are often those we love the most”)?

My Answer: That’s absolutely correct, “I love her like my soul, so I punch her like a punching bag,” because your egoism has to be punched out of you, or you punched out of your egoism, so that you’ll want to part with it no matter what. The unpleasant states are precisely the states that push us out of the common egoistic swamp, to the Creator.

“The Creator spares no blows for those He loves” – this is widely explained in Kabbalah, and no Kabbalist hides the fact that “the true path to the rose is through the thorns” (through the thorns to the stars), and not through buying a fifty dollar red string or through meditating in order to relax.

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A question I received: Deepak Chopra wrote that a human organism is renewed every few hours, as well as all the parasites, viruses and diseases in it. Apparently, it’s not a matter of physiology, but programming. Can we use the power of intention to influence our body’s changes, cure serious diseases, and even grow limbs? And another question: If we progress further, can we change the reality around us or our life’s situation? And the main question: Do we need to learn how to do it if it’s possible?

My Answer: Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to a person. The Creator reveals Himself to a person to the extent of the level of correction of one’s egoism to altruism, and love toward people. This world has no miracles in it. Fairy tales are either for children or are the products of charlatans. There are laws; laws of nature. We will learn how to grow limbs, but within the boundaries of these laws. Reality depends on you, on your properties. Take a look at how you can change it: “Preface to the Book of Zohar.”

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