We are discussing the topic of perception of reality in order to gradually orient ourselves in the right direction. After all, everything depends on intention. There are many people who study Kabbalah, and in particular, there are currents that have nothing in common with it.

The science of Kabbalah is intended for the correction of our nature, and the more we correct ourselves, the more we feel the upper force, reveal the upper world, become included in it, enter it, and rise above our material life. This is called “liberation from the angel of death” because we stop feeling completely dependent on our body! We rise above our animal, biological body to the degree of general nature.

I do not feel pain from cutting my nails or hair, because my body belongs to the animate level, while nails and hair belong to the vegetative level, one degree lower. And from the height of the animate level, I do not feel any loss from the loss at the vegetative level. In the same way it will happen when I rise from the animate degree to a higher degree, to the degree of Man.

“Man” is not us today. “Man” (Adam) comes from the word “similar” (Edomeh) to nature, the Creator, light. And when I become such a “man,” I will stop feeling loss from what is happening in this material life. Therefore, the science of Kabbalah is called “a remedy against death.”

Let us hope that we will attain such a degree and begin to experience spiritual life today. It all depends only on our inner efforts. Let us try to connect our inner points and appreciate this special state.
[40042]
From the International Kabbalah Congress 4/1/11, “We!” Lesson 2

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We have no other means of advancement, no other lever by which I can move forward, except the influence of the environment. If all of me, completely and entirely, is concentrated within myself, what force can direct me the other way, from inside outward? I have no such forces within me.

All my forces act “for me,” “for my own sake.” How can I create the opposite action “for the sake of others (the neighbor)”? Where can such a force of nature be obtained?

For this purpose, the soul has been created in a divided state, in two parts: myself and the surrounding world. We are given a single freedom—to choose what is more important. If you want to attain spirituality, organize your environment so that it becomes more important to you than yourself.

In truth, this is not an external environment, but my own soul, my AHP, the “garments” and “palaces” of my soul’s Kli. It only appears to me as being outside.

Envy and the desire for honor draw you to the environment, to the parts of your soul. Organize them artificially so that they influence you.

From our level, we are given a psychological approach that is inwardly spiritual. By connecting with these desires (Kelim) that supposedly surround me, and by seemingly using my envy and desire for honor, I am essentially drawing these desires back to myself, so that they are connected with me and define my system of values.

So where do envy and the desire for honor come from? From the breaking of the soul into two parts—myself and the world.

Wishing to use the “help against him” (against my ego,) I activate these external desires of mine so that they, in turn, influence me. Later we will reveal that we are working only with ourselves, with our desires, with our qualities, and that everything was arranged this way from the beginning.

But without organizing the environment, there is no (and never will be) another force capable of “taking me by the ear” and directing me toward my true desires, toward the soul. There is no other force in the world.

Suffering can only make me more sensitive so that I will want to seek a solution. But the solution will be the same—to place myself under the influence of the environment.
[12059]
From Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/10

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There are two opposite worlds in the creation: the material world, created by the desire to receive, and the spiritual world, created by the desire to bestow. The desire to receive pleasure is a central quality of the material world. Our world is given to us in the sensations of the five senses, consisting of this desire, and the human mind helps us to interchange it.

There is also another state that we can create while being in this lowest of the worlds by beginning to change its nature, its matter from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal. And then we will see matter in a completely different form, a different appearance, a different plane, matter that works outside of itself, for bestowal.

There is no such quality in our world, because everything that I feel here, I feel because it enters my sensory organs. And the spiritual world is arranged inversely, in a state where I exit myself and feel everything outside of myself.

But it is not clear to us how it is possible to feel something outside of yourself. If I see something, it exists in the space that my sensory organ attains, includes, and feels. But how can I feel what it does not feel? In other words, a person has a threshold of limitations in attaining the world in his sensory organs.

And the spiritual world is attained and takes shape in our feelings that work according to the principle of “outside of ourselves.” For this, a new sensory organ is created that senses the other: I feel what is in him, what he feels. This can be done only when a person acquires the quality of love.

In our world, love is self–gratification from food, sex, family, children, no matter what. We love these sources of pleasure because they evoke a special arousal in us that we feel as something pleasant.

But true love implies loving not myself and in myself, but an object outside of me. And then it turns out that I can feel what he feels. If I acquire the ability to feel something outside of myself, then this is called acquiring a spiritual quality, the quality of bestowal, true love, when I can love what another loves and not what I like. This is the difference between one world and another.

It is difficult to speak about this because it constantly eludes beginners. But gradually, by overcoming all kinds of obstacles and difficulties and by carrying out our exercises, we can reach a state in which we truly begin to feel what the other person loves or does not love without any regard for ourselves at all!

But how can this be done without regard for myself? And here the science of Kabbalah says that it is necessary to make some corrections, additions, and preparation. This means that I make a restriction on myself, what is called Tzimtzum, and do not include in my feelings, in the heart, mind, and thoughts, anything that is in me.

I rise above myself and become absolutely neutral, as if I personally do not exist, and only someone else exists. I enter into him and feel him in himself the way he feels himself. It is exactly here that I have the opportunity to rise to the level of a spiritual sensor, a spiritual vessel (Kli).

This is achieved through training, which is very simple: I sit together with my friends, and engage in each trying to annul himself before the others, to get out of himself and try to enter into them.

This is a special practice that is carried out with the help of a force called the upper light. If we strive to connect with one another above our egoism, then a special upper light truly descends upon us, an altruistic force that allows us to exit ourselves. And then we create, outside of ourselves, a common field in which we exist as one unified whole.

This practice is called a workshop. With the help of such workshops, we draw the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) upon ourselves, which lifts us above our nature and gives us the opportunity to integrate into each other. It is then that we begin, through others, to feel the upper world, a new space, the quality of bestowal and love, the quality of being outside of oneself, above oneself.
[181498]
From Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/21/16

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We are all puppets, deprived of free choice. People circulate in this world, in material, “animal” life.

Meanwhile, their egoistic desire grows until it reaches special states of despair that are directed toward the revelation of the embryo of the soul, the point in the heart.

And perhaps not a point in the heart, simply suffering sends a person into search, and then he joins those in whom the soul has already “broken through.”

Within the common cauldron, desire continues to simmer, and at a certain stage a part of humanity acquires the possibility of free choice. This means that people act, so to speak, independently of the Creator. They are freed from their egoistic desire, and it is entirely and completely in His hands.

I acquire freedom from my egoism and become independent of it, that is, independent of the Creator who governs it. Together with others, we turn into independent acting beings; we want to understand and realize what is happening ourselves and to take part in the process ourselves.

I do not want the Creator to govern me—I want to act exactly as He does, but of my own freewill. Through this, I come to know His work, His actions, His goals. My “profit” lies in the fact that I become similar to Him, become a human (Adam), and perform exactly the same work that He performed over me.

In the end, all the benefit here is that I give pleasure to the Creator. There is nothing else besides this.
But there are also people who do not possess a soul of this type. Their souls can only join the development to one degree or another. As they become what is called “dust under the feet of the righteous,” they receive illumination and spiritualization through this, they understand the importance of the process, and they also acquire their soul.

Likewise, in our world there are leaders, “those who lead,” and “those who are led,” those who simply live their lives without questioning them. They constitute 99.9% of the population who earn their bread and do not feel a lack of anything more. However, in unity with everyone, each will reach his or her root in the common Malchut.

Through interconnection we all feel ourselves living in one world. Of course, great scientists, philosophers, and thinkers understand it far better than a street sweeper or a market trader who knows only how to sell watermelons and watch football on television. There is no need at all to despise him, he is not guilty of anything; it is simply that his desire has such a structure and acts in such a way. Another person, however, needs to attain the world from the height of Malchut of infinity, otherwise he feels unrealized.

All the difference between them lies in the desire that the Creator created and awakens to life. Everything comes from the Creator. And therefore the thinker must understand that in his realization he is in no way higher than the trader. For the circumstances do not depend on him at all. Thus it turns out that in this sense they are completely equal, because all their accounts are signed by the Creator.
[41714]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/28/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Acting Mind”

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Our world is a copy of infinity, only at the smallest level of sensation. We perceive and feel reality only to an insignificant degree; we are as far as possible from complete perception.

It is like a person with poor eyesight who sees almost nothing without glasses. He barely distinguishes those around him, even though they stand right next to him.

Drowsy, blurred sensations, a tiny fraction of clear awareness of infinity—this is what our world is. Yet we always reveal a complete picture, just as each fragment of a hologram contains the entire image.

Even at the lowest degree, I observe the full spectrum of reality to the extent that I can see it without “glasses.” The better these glasses are, the clearer the picture becomes.

We exist in an unchanging state; we simply feel it according to the clarity of our perception. The clearest, most unclouded perception is the world of infinity.

To approach it, we must first correct our tools of perception (Kelim), to reveal a bit more light within them. And in order for that to happen, they must become similar to the light.

The advice of Kabbalists helps us in this correction, and when the light is revealed, we discover a “treasure” or rather, a deposit, a new layer of reality that was originally “placed” into our account.
[5120]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 10/2/09, Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book From the Mouth of a Sage“

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I am locked inside my own shell that separates me from the Creator who is outside. I am a slave; I cannot break out on my own. Every moment a force is working on me that automatically returns me to myself, to the egoistic center.

How can I make myself pay attention to what is happening outside so that I understand that this too is me and that there, outside, I exist together with the Creator? That is my true reality, there I am beyond my animal, and there is my soul, outside of that egoistic “me” by which I currently define myself.

These are two forces acting in nature. And I need to arrange things so that the second, centrifugal force acts on me just as naturally, instinctively, and inevitably as the first, the centripetal one.

Let it seize my mind and heart and forcefully pull them outward!

Let it compel me to think about others and care about them! I need this because without it I will not find my soul.

And here the power of the Kabbalistic group helps me. Only it can convince me to step outside my own circle and to pay attention to what is “outside it.”

And when I change my orientation from “intra” to “extra,” I stop worrying about the body and begin to care for the soul. I understand that the external reality that seemed foreign to me and completely indifferent hides within itself the real me!

This outer circle is in fact much more precious to me than the inner one because there lies my soul, which is eternal. And the inner circle is nothing more than the animal that is allotted some 70 years.

But the concealment does not allow me to see all this. And when I begin to understand it, I am astonished at how the Creator pranks me.
[12061]
From Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/1/10

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Our world operates according to the desire to receive pleasure; that is, every part of creation instinctively makes an internal calculation about what is most beneficial for it, according to its understanding, inner makeup, inborn qualities, upbringing, and the influence of the environment. We are incapable of acting otherwise.

We are not even aware of how much each of us is locked into such an egoistic calculation every single moment. And even when we perform some merciful act, it is only in order to gain something through it; otherwise, we would have no motivation to act that way. This is how all of nature functions, from the smallest atomic particle to the most educated and developed human being.

But there is another intention: for the sake of bestowal, not for one’s own benefit, but for the benefit of the other. This is the anti-world, anti-matter, the complete opposite of everything that exists in this world.

There cannot be even a thought about oneself there; such a thought has undergone restriction (Tzimtzum) and is cut off. Everything is governed and moved solely by concern for the good of the other.

So how can we approach such a vision and such calculations? Naturally, this is not within our power because no such force exists in our world. We must draw it to ourselves from that other, opposite reality that exists beyond the boundary of the spiritual world called the Machsom.

But how is it possible for that force to reach us at all, if everything operates according to the law of equivalence of form, and like connects with like? Yet there is a special force called “the light that returns to the source,” “the light that reforms,” or “surrounding light,” that can shine on us to the extent of our yearning to be in that opposite world.

It helps us even if our yearning is false, even if we do not understand that world or feel it, as long as we have at least some relation to it, a single point of contact with it, the “point in the heart,” a spark of the spiritual world.

If we work on this spark, then to the extent of our efforts, the spiritual force shines upon us and turns these efforts into “spiritual flesh” around that point, which begins to grow. Until it becomes a complete spiritual vessel through which you break through into that very anti-world, and then you find yourself in the “opposite reality.”

The request for the force that brings changes—for the light that returns to the source, that corrects our intentions from egoistic to bestow upon the other—is called prayer. And to the extent of our yearning, our demand, our persistence, this wondrous force acts upon us and carries out changes within us.
[37159]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/11, Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Charity to the Poor Makes the Holy Name, in the Work?”

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Question: What is spiritual rest?

Answer: It is said that there is no rest in this world nor in the world to come. We must constantly move forward without interruption. And when we attain complete correction, that is, when we finally rise above our egoism into the absolutely full attainment of the upper world, then everything will indeed come to a state of complete, eternal rest.
[222929]
From Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/19/17

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Every soul is connected to the world of infinity by a chain, a ladder of spiritual degrees, with a gradual weakening of the lights and the Kelim (vessels). The moment I establish a connection with infinity, I awaken this system. In fact, it exists within me, and only seems to be external to me.

There are two in the universe: man and the Creator, and it is necessary to somehow give man the sensation that he exists outside the Creator so that I may understand what separation from Him is, opposition, distance, rapprochement, and adhesion with the Creator. Therefore, I was deliberately created in such a way that I perceive reality as divided into what is inside me and what is outside.

Then it becomes easier for me to understand what “I” and the Creator are, what breakage and connection, an unconscious state and concealment are, or conversely, what approaching Him and adhesion into one whole are.

The Creator throws out everything that I feel within myself, and it turns out that my perception is divided into two: the inner, which is everything that I receive, and the outer, what I give, but without the correct intention. Thus, the external world is my Kelim that are deliberately presented to me as alien and foreign so that I may understand what bestowal is. If I begin to relate to them as a part of myself, then I will understand how distant bestowal is from me and how opposite and undesirable it is!

Try to love your neighbor as yourself; it is not simple at all. I cannot. And this means that I cannot bestow, I cannot draw closer to the Creator. No wait, I do want the Creator! But how do you want Him? You must demonstrate it, and this is precisely the only correct way.
[8847]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/10, Baal HaSulam, Preface “Foreword to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: In The Zohar lessons you explain very subtle, hidden, one might even say secret things.

Answer: They are secret and concealed from our senses because we are too coarse and unable to discern them. That is all!

This does not mean they are a mystery. They seem like a secret to me because they are concealed from me, imperceptible to me.

I have to sharpen my perception, make it more precise and capable of differentiating finer gradations of properties. Then I will suddenly start to sense a completely different, true depiction of reality, in a higher resolution.

For this to happen, we must introduce the property of bestowal into our perception. By sensing it, we will sense the upper world.
[20834]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Book of Zohar, “VaYechi”

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