Question: How can I rise above time?

Answer: In order to rise above time, you need to tell yourself that you do not have a next moment—everything is in this instant. You should live this way; there is only one instant. In each moment, you do not transfer yourself into the next one, but at this instant, you start and finish as if life is really ending.

Then you suddenly feel that this same moment begins to expand and there are an enormous amount of actions, thoughts, and deeds in it, but time disappears.

After all, time does not exist; it is our subjective feeling.

Question: What, then, is the future?

Answer: The future is completely unrelated to time. The future is what happens after the action I now perform. It is a different dimension in which the axis of time is nonexistent. After all, the axis of time assumes that regardless of whether or not I exist, whether or not I do something, time passes independently of me.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, however, says that this is not the case. It states that you must give up such an attitude to life and decide that only you create your own states. If you do not create them, then time does not move, nothing passes by itself from one moment to the next. If you did something in this instant, it is then called “a moment,” and each subsequent moment carries out in this manner.

We live in the world which, according to Kabbalah, is considered illusory and imaginary. The main lie we live in is that we exist in time.

Therefore, Einstein indeed made a revolution by declaring time a subjective concept, with nothing absolute about it that would happen with or without a person.

Time is a person’s inner sensation. If we rise above our egoism, then there is no time.
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From the Talk on the subject of “Time” 2/5/18

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Question: Do we have the opportunity to comprehend the universal mind and learn how to correctly perceive, respond, and build our behavior in society and society itself?

Answer: If we look only at our life and at our limited possibilities and properties, then the future “does not shine” for us.

We see what is happening in the world: egoism grows and people indulge in it, no one is going to limit it and cannot do so, and no one can manage the world intelligently.

If there are some great personalities who understand this, their influence on society is so small that the chance of coming to a world correction is almost zero.

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks of very interesting and rather revolutionary things. It explains that there is nothing outside. All that I observe and everything that appears to me—are my internal properties. Absolutely everything is inside me. But I see this as inanimate, plant, animal, and human nature that is outside only to be able to feel more, because I cannot see this inside of me.

If I begin to know the outer world as my inner one, to expand my participation in it, and to relate to the world with good connection and love, then I begin to feel these qualities in myself. They come back to me from the outside.

I perceive them in myself and thus I understand that, in addition to my true consciousness, i.e., a large information field, there is nothing outside, and I exist with respect to it. And all other creatures, including humans, exist only in me as my internal properties.

When one starts to get insight into this, one understands that there are no contradictions here—you just see other people who have certain properties and seem to exist, like you, but in reality you are one in one whole mind.

According to Kabbalah, humanity will come to a state when they will be convinced that they are under threat of destruction. But people cannot destroy themselves because it contradicts the general development program. Thus, people will understand that they have to move into such a relationship that will give them the opportunity to begin to feel themselves existing at the next level —not only in the power of reception, but in the power of bestowal.

And then between these two planes—the lower (egoistic) and the higher (altruistic)—we can exist in such a way that egoism will be directed to the benefit of love and bestowal because we need to feel others and know what to give to them and how to be with them in the right communication.
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From KabTV “Together on the main thing. Alexander Zhdanov,” 11/24/17

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There is no time. A change in states gives us the sensation of time. I would not feel time if the state were not changing. Time is the number of changes that we notice.

Time can drag on, or it can fly—it all depends on a person’s inner sensation of the changes happening inside him. As soon as there are no changes, time disappears.

There is a mechanism unraveling inside of us that constantly awakens new qualities within. In them, I feel as if the world around me is changing. But really the world does not change—I am the one who changes. Stars explode, people run around, everything around me is bubbling with life, but these are all qualities changing inside of me according to which I perceive reality.

People believed that time does not depend on us. But then Einstein came and stated that time is relative. If I move at a speed that approaches the speed of light, then time can speed up or slow down. It can even stop because time is not fixed from above; it depends on the observer.

Kabbalah says that time is the number of actions taking place in my will to enjoy. I can accelerate time or decelerate it. Everything depends on me, on my subjective perception. A Kabbalist exists simultaneously in two degrees of perception of reality: the corporeal degree, through the five physical senses, and the spiritual degree. Therefore, he exists in two realities until he reaches his final correction.

Time is a change from a corrupted state to a corrected one. Therefore, if we try to attain unity in every state, it means we accelerate time. Time is not measured by the number of seconds, but by the change from one state to the next. Therefore, a unit of time can be a minute, an hour, or a year, but it is the same unit: from descent to ascent.

By changing the connections between us, we influence the upper world and mold it into a certain form. The external form is the projection of our changes, and reflects the state of our ten. The more we connect inside the ten, the closer, kinder, and friendlier to us the external world becomes. And when we quarrel with each other, the external world grows distant and menacing to us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 13

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The world is the Creator clothed in everything that we see in front of us: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and people. In fact, there is no world; there are these four levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human that are within a person. A person sees himself and nothing else, his inner qualities on the background of the upper world.

If a person is working to avoid being opposite to the upper Light, he stops seeing himself against the background of the Light and attains equivalence of qualities with it. Then the upper Light, the force of bestowal and love, clothes onto the person who turns into Shechina (Divinity).

The Creator wants to reveal Himself, wants to help. He always supports a person, but He cannot agree to reduce a person’s efforts. It is through efforts that a person must discover all the differences between himself and the Creator, develop his sensations, and reveal the upper reality. A person builds himself between concealment and revelation. Therefore, the Creator can yield and help him in everything, except where one needs to make efforts.

The world seems dark and menacing to us because for the time being we see our own egoistic nature against the background of the white Light. If we make efforts to reach similarity with this Light, unity, and love, then we will see not ourselves, but the Light itself.

Therefore, we need to relate to the world as to the Creator’s desire to reveal Himself. He just demands efforts from us to turn the disturbances into support and help. The disturbances show these places where we are still unequal with the upper force, until we turn all the enemies into beloved friends.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/18, Lesson on the Topic: “The Creator Desires to be Revealed,” (Prep For World Convention 2018)

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Question: In Kabbalah the concept of a Machsom (barrier) is mentioned many times as a border between the physical world and the spiritual world. Why do we call the Machsom a psychological barrier? Is it related to psychology?

Answer: Kabbalah deals with changing our perception of the world we live in. If I have lived in this world for a number of years, then I already have a kind of record of this information. That is, I adapt to this world using all my senses. They acquire a particular direction, a certain way of perceiving and reacting to this reality.

My perceptions and reactions are related to each other in all five senses and form a single image that is imprinted in my mind and memory, which I can use later.

A picture pops into my mind and I compare it with what is already stored in my memory. This comparison gives me a particular result. I cannot even say how I get to know this world. It is simply living within me and is portrayed outside of me. That is today’s psychology.

What does the wisdom of Kabbalah do? In addition to feeling our world in the usual way, like all animals perceive it, Kabbalah makes it possible for us to undergo an internal transformation. I start perceiving the world not through the quality of reception where I am constantly thinking about how I can benefit from everything I see and how I can distance from anything that is unpleasant and strive for anything that is pleasant.

My egoism immediately divides everything that I experience into two categories: pleasant and unpleasant. If I perceive something as pleasant—an emotion, a color, sound, shape, texture, no matter what it is—I am drawn to it. If I feel something is unpleasant, I avoid it. This is why I perceive a three-dimensional world rather than a flat one. Egoism automatically classifies everything and then produces a picture of the world, only in itself. If something does not make an impression on my desire, I don’t recognize it nor can I feel it.

It seems to us that we see the world around us objectively. But we only see what our desire, our egoism, responds to, and according to this reaction, we perceive everything either positively or negatively. This is what makes it possible for us to discern objects that they represent.

They say that there is nothing outside of us except the upper Light. So, imagine that the upper Light, acting on egoism, evokes impressions and reactions within us. This is how we exist. This is the picture we receive in our normal egoistic images.

But there is another opposite picture, which can be obtained through an altruistic perception rather than our egoistic perception when I don’t want to perceive everything according to my egoistic vision, but want to see things as they exist outside of me.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, only the upper Light exists outside of you. There are no inanimate objects, plants, animals, or humans. So how do I see and feel everything? The egoistic desire has depth consisting of four layers: inanimate , vegetative, animate, and human. Through them, we perceive everything.

If you want to perceive them in an opposite form, rise above your egoism and work on love for sensations that are opposite to your current ones. Then you will feel and experience completely different sensations. These opposite feelings will no longer appear to you as people, animals, plants, or inanimate nature, but as the appearance of the Creator, the Light in your desires.

You can adapt to a perception that is outside of yourself, above yourself—above Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) and above the Masach (screen)—in the quality of bestowal, and you will see the same desires but in an opposite form through the Ohr Hozer (reflected Light). The totality of the desires that are in the Ohr Hozer creates the image of the Creator for you. You will see your integration with Him.

To the extent that your desires can be closer to the qualities of the Creator, an image with volume appears within you, and you perceive the Creator—the quality of bestowal, of love—because you have created these qualities within yourself.

Question: So at present, we get a flat picture of the world and it only seems to us that it has volume?

Answer: No, it varies according to various egoistic characteristics. Everything that exists in the world are your egoism and the upper Light. The upper Light is formless and constant. But egoism constantly moves either within its egoistic parameters or the opposite, within altruistic properties of bestowal. Therefore, you feel either our world or the upper world. And this doesn’t depend on whether you are living your beastly life or not.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17

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Question: Spirituality is beyond time; past, present, and future don’t exist. From what point does a Kabbalist make a prediction?

Answer: There is no connection between one and the other! Spirituality is a state where you come to a higher level, where a person begins to work on his egoism and builds everything above it. Therefore, in the Kabbalist’s perspective, time doesn’t exist because time is one of the parameters in an egoistic system. However, if the calculation “for my sake” or “not for my sake” ceases to exist, then the parameter of time disappears. Everything happens precisely according to Einstein’s theory; you go beyond the limitations of time, space, and motion. But only beyond egoism.

This doesn’t exist within egoism. Therefore, we exist within time. When you say “spirituality,” don’t try to squeeze it between us. It exists only for people who go beyond the material framework and acquire completely new Kelim (vessels) for perceiving reality.

Question: But doesn’t a Kabbalist make predictions that come from spirituality?

Answer: No. I am not talking about spirituality, only about our world and those people who are in it.

Question: So in what way does a Kabbalist’s prediction Kabbalist differ from others?

Answer: It isn’t different. Physicists make predictions, so do philosophers, and so do I. I am simply pointing out we can expect nothing good based on egoism because it develops and is the basis of our life.

Question: Somehow you must start with alternatives for a solution. What will happen if humanity begins to get closer to the law of altruism?

Answer: If it starts; it is very difficult to believe this. But if they begin, then certainly all events will begin to change according to the changes of humanity.

Question: In Kabbalistic sources it is written that everything is determined. If a third world war is programmed and we suddenly begin to relate to each other well, could it not happen?

Answer: It wouldn’t happen.

Question: But doesn’t it have to happen according to the program?

Answer: Why must it? Nothing is programmed except for the conclusion! But when it will happen and in what way you will reach it is not determined by the system. Therefore, a person has freedom of choice, which exists from beginning to end. It is given to a person with the recognition of evil and with his ascendance to the good. According to this, a person seems to sweeten time.

Question: Does this mean that there are several options for development?

Answer: Every option is before you at every moment. You move a bit in a good direction—the world becomes better. Move a bit in a bad direction—the world becomes worse. Everything depends on the connections between us. We need to resemble the global law of nature that includes the entire system within it. And when we also build a global system of interconnection and interdependence, then we make ourselves similar to the general law of nature and feel comfortable within it.

And when, on the contrary, we follow our egoism, which distances us from each other with hatred and all kinds of calculations, then we oppose the general law of nature and ultimately get what is.

Question: What is the mechanism of the connection between people?

Answer: It is the simplest law, the law of equivalence of form, equivalence of characteristics. We live in a sphere that is absolutely altruistic, called the “Creator” or the higher general nature. The more we resemble it, the more we feel comfortable. And to the degree that we differ from it—then we don’t.

Similarity to nature is expressed by the fact that we must make efforts to assume the mutual laws and relationships that exist in the higher nature. These are the laws of bestowal and love. In this state I perceive all as parts of a single mechanism within which we simultaneously turn in complete harmony with each other. Then it is good for us—no one inhibits anyone, no one is pulled forward against his will, and we are all in an ideal state.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/24/17 

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Question: Natural self-love, as a survival program, should not disappear, but above it a completely different love is being built, a spiritual love?

Answer: No. As a result of our existence, we should not think about ourselves at all. We must create a society in which everyone will receive what is needed.

In the future, people will stop thinking about themselves, even in the lowest strata. All will receive what is needed for life and care only about how to rise together in connection with each other, higher and higher in the attainment of the real world. After all, now we are in a dream. We do not see the real universe. We do not see where we exist.

We live inside ourselves because our egoism closes us inside ourselves. The still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature are the four stages of our desire, within which all kinds of actions occur, and we feel them as the world unfolding in front of us. But in fact, it does not exist. We feel it all inside ourselves, in our sphere.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/15/17

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The Creator initially made the creation perfect because there are no restrictions in time, place, and the performance of any conditions for the upper force.

But with respect to us there is a concealment so that we can attain, reveal, study, and imagine these conditions, the law “There is none else besides Him, the good that does good,” that is, absolute perfection, and become like Him.

Therefore, until we reach the end of correction, all this reality is only represented in our sense organs. And beyond us, there is only the world of infinity where the beginning of creation and its end are not divided. The Creator doesn’t need any means, actions, or intermediate states between the thought and its realization.

We should always envisage ourselves relative to a perfect state although we fail to reveal it, envision it correctly, or even imagine it.

But we must constantly remember that we are always positioned against perfection, each time discovering its shortcomings in small parts to the extent that we are able to resist it and get closer to perfection.

Therefore, any state is welcome. We need to bless it and learn how to properly resist it according to spiritual and material laws, which are also established by the will of the upper force. Therefore, by fulfilling them, we can correct ourselves until at the end of each given state we decide that “there is none else besides Him.” From this one concludes how one should treat all troubles: from health, to external, social, family problems, trying to relate everything to “there is none else besides Him” and in a general way, correct one’s attitude. After all, everything depends only on our attitude: the way we look at reality is the way it appears.
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From the 1^st part of  the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 1/8/18, “Lesson on Topic: “Living in the Reality that, ‘There is None else besides Him’”  (Prep for Convention 2018)

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In today’s world (i.e., in what seems in our sensations as an external reality), our egoism—the qualities opposite to the Creator—rules. To the extent we correct our desire in the direction of bestowal, we will see and agree that the world is ruled not by egoism, not by Pharaoh, but by the Creator.

Everything depends only on us: we change the evil ruler into good. All our work is to reveal the governance of bestowal and love instead of the governance of egoism. This depends on the person because the entire world is a reflection of one’s desires, as it is written, “Everyone judges according to his own flaws.”

A person’s task is to correct his desire so that it does not prevent the Creator from filling it in the same way He fills all the rest of reality. For this, I should not feel myself as separate from the Creator. It is a matter of our perception of reality, which we must correct in order to feel that “The whole earth (desire) is full of His glory,” meaning that the Creator reveals Himself in all of a person’s desires.

Our uncorrected desires that are opposite in form to the Creator are revealed within us, and we need to try to replace them with the principle “There is none else besides Him.”

A person is not capable of doing this alone. He can only imagine it. If he wants to really achieve correction, then his desire should become similar to the Creator, to the qualities of bestowal and love. Therefore, we need to work together with others so that the Creator will rule in the common desire.

This is how, over and over again, we correct more and more of the uncorrected desire that is revealed from the shattering. Through connection with friends, we achieve connection with the Creator and thus correct reality until we see that all of it is filled with only one force and “The whole earth is full of His glory.”
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/18, “Life in Reality: There Is None Else Besides Him”

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We know from the wisdom of Kabbalah that all of reality is inside a person. There is no body that we see ourselves in; there is no “our world.”

Everything we feel in our five sensory organs exists only inside our cumulative organ of perception called the desire to enjoy, and within it, it seems to us that we exist in this illusory reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah calls this reality, which we imagine, imaginary.

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” item 34 “Take our sense of sight, for example: we see a wide world before us, wondrously filled. But in fact, we see all that only in our own interior. In other words, there is a sort of a photographic machine in our hindbrain, which portrays everything that appears to us and nothing outside of us.

“For that, He has made for us there, in our brain, a kind of polished mirror that inverts everything seen there, so we will see it outside our brain, in front of our face.”

All kinds of phenomena occur in my brain and in my heart. All of them fall on the lens and this lens projects what is inside of me outwardly. Then I see people and all of nature (the inanimate, vegetative, and animate) in front of me—the whole world. But what am I seeing? I see what is happening in me.

Each of us does this. If I address someone, I am turning to some-one who is within me who now ostensibly appears before me.

This means that I must correct myself and my attitude to the Creator. But I cannot do this directly to the Creator; I can only do so through the picture that appears before me. This is how we act.

But a person is integral—everything is within him.

In the article “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator,” Baal HaSulam explains how the world that appears before a person changes depending on the person’s qualities. A person changes his inner qualities and then their projection outside changes. According to this picture that his qualities project through the lens outwardly, he can understand how much he is correcting them.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/17, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Concealment and Revelation – 1”

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