“Ask The Kabbalist” – 13
Posted on March 28th, 2011
Question: What prevents a person from reaching the prayer of society if he already sees that all his intentions are for his own sake?
Answer: The problem is that a person understands that his intentions are egoistic, but he is willing to tolerate that. That’s because he only sees how ugly these intentions are, but he doesn’t understand what kind of harm they cause him. This is the entire problem!
If I simply accept the fact that I am an egoist, then so what? But I have to feel how this is killing me. Only then will I be able to separate from my egoistic intentions. My own ego will separate me from the thing that causes me harm.
So at first, I separate from my egoistic thoughts by virtue of egoism itself. That means Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel closer to the Creator.
[39193]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention
Related Material:
The Garment That Pacifies Your Ego
Let Us Not Demand “Give Me”!
The Path Through The Broken Heart
Question: How does Kabbalah view what we experience while we sleep?
Answer: All of the time when a person is not engaged in inner work and does not exert effort to unify with the group in order to discover the Creator is deleted from his or her life.
But the more effectively we use the time to form a correct intention during our waking hours, the more sleeping hours we will be able to add to it as well. Suppose one hour a day, or 10% of all the time that I am awake, I was thinking about intention and making an effort, then the same 10% of the night time is deposited in my “account” as my efforts.
But the dreaming itself is only the consequence of our daily thoughts. During the night time, all of them must be sorted out, “filed,” and “stored” in the archive of our brain. Therefore, the brain works during the night while we sleep as well, but it processes the data it received during the day. As a result, we see various dreams that partially reflect the experiences and events we had incurred while awake, and part of them is totally abstract, being a product of our unrestricted fantasy.
But there is nothing spiritual about our dreams. All animals also see dreams, not just humans.
[39046]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash
Question: What should I do if am eager to be reformed but am not willing to receive this correction from the Creator?
Answer: These are the states we undergo on the path. When we first come to Kabbalah, we don’t understand where we find ourselves, whatsoever. After all, we are led by the inner developmental gene (Reshimo) that moves about like a charged particle in an electromagnetic field and brings us to a place where we can reach some temporary balance.
Thus we move forth in the force field and end up in the group, the source of the Light. We don’t yet understand to where we came; we simply feel that we found something very interesting to us and that we’d like to hear more about it. But a person doesn’t yet realize what is happening with him or her and what this place is where he finds himself.
All of humanity gradually evolves over the course of its entire earthly history, and from generation to generation, our desire gets upgraded. And now we have reached the last, crucial incarnation. After all, we never previously understood what was happening with us. And only today for the first time, we come close to the realization of our soul.
However, a person gets lost and doesn’t comprehend what is going on with him or her. He doesn’t see that he is in the final stage of a very long and unique process that all of humanity undergoes: There are those who walk in the forefront and those whose time hasn’t yet come but will in its turn. Nonetheless, the real work begins when a person understands that he must work on unifying with the friends.
And this is when he discovers numerous obstacles that he can’t justify. He agrees to surrender to this flow and hatred toward all, while going into endless claims and calculations. And this is the most problematic point which many stumble over and give up—until the next time when they will receive this opportunity once more, perhaps in several years or maybe even in the next lifetime.
Nobody can avoid it since the soul must reach correction, and it has nothing to do with a person’s desire. What he can do is realize what constitutes his free will, meaning to perform this correction now or at some distant time.
Hence, the serious work begins as soon as we feel rejection toward the group. And at this point, a person’s success depends on how well he understands that this is just a game that is played from Above and not a reality.
There is nothing real about our life; even this life itself is a mere game. And the most serious game is when a person gets to feel the rejection and hate from that specific friend with whom he is destined to reach oneness and enter spirituality together!
Those friends who gather with him in the group are the parts of his soul, the closest to him. But he is given a chance to feel hatred toward them exactly so that he demands to be united with them by the Creator. And this is the unity where he will, indeed, find the Creator.
[39055]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash
Question: How can I help the friends who leave the group?
Answer: They need help understanding that all of the evil becomes revealed to us on purpose. Yet, we get stuck on the bad feeling and don’t see anything besides it. We need to recognize the source of the evil: Where does it come from and why, and what inside of me is supposed to wake up through it?
However, when the evil is revealed, a person forgets everything. I admit that I feel the same way despite my 30 year experience in Kabbalah. That’s because a new, higher rung is being revealed, which is described by the verse, “There is no righteous man on earth who did good and never sinned.” First you fall into sin, meaning that everything you had achieved is erased inside of you and you are cast into this world as if there isn’t any spiritual world.
It is written about Rabbi Shimon that before he ascended to the end of correction, he fell so low that he felt as a mere Shimon trading at the market, or a person who falls so low, he feels only evil and has to sensation of the Creator or the spiritual world.
Even if you are at the high rungs in the world of Atzilut, when you are in the gap between them you still fall to this world, to the same animate level as all the rest of the people. And this happens so you may start climbing up again. Therefore, a person needs to receive the explanation that all of our feelings are given to us from above for a reason. If evil and hate toward others are revealed inside him, it is that very Mount Sinai (Sinah, hatred) which we has to rise over. Everything becomes revealed for a certain purpose and nothing occurs accidentally.
What is the point of giving us all kinds of feelings for no reason, such as love for someone or hatred? We all undergo only one process, and all the problems and wars that arise in the world are given solely in order for us to find the place of our breaking and to mandate us to have it reformed.
[39043]
From the lesson on Writings of Rabash on 3/25/11
Question: I will be arriving at the Convention, just like many other people. I want to focus on penetrating inside the internal network of our interconnection. Are there any rules that I should constantly adhere to in my thoughts and internal attitude in order to enter this network?
Answer: The key is to make an effort to feel the internal state that reigns among us all. Make this effort! This depends on the sensitivity of the soul.
It is written in the book Faith and Trust (by Hazon Ish, A. Karelitz): “Faith is a subtle inclination of a delicate soul.” All of these are such ethereal definitions that none of them has a solid corporeal meaning. But in our case, it can be explained.
Everything depends on how much I try, to the best of my ability, without disrupting anything with my own qualities, to enter the common sensation of people who unite together, wishing to feel their internal unity, the state between them. The Creator said: “I dwell among My people.” Inside our unity, I wish to find the Shechina, the Creator is concealed there, since He resides within the good connection between us, meaning in the group that wants to unite.
Even though my friends cannot clearly feel this yet and don’t quite understand why and for what sake they are doing it, they simply follow Kabbalists’ advice, nevertheless through their effort, every person can enter and start feeling the Creator who dwells within “His people.” There, within, resides the state (the spiritual place) called the “Shechina,” which is our yearning for each other. This is the place that the Creator fills, “Kadosh Baruch Hu” (the Holy One, who is Blessed by me, since holiness is the property of Bina, total bestowal that I bless).
Shechina is all the desires that aspire toward each other and reside in the grid of their interconnection, and the Creator is the upper Light fulfilling them. This network desires to bestow, and in their bestowal, the Light of Hassadim, it finds the Light of Hochma, the Upper Light, the Creator.
If a person strives to feel this condition, to experience it, and live in it, he can reveal it regardless of anyone in the world. This is the work that we must try to complete, especially at the conventions, since that is the time to unify with the internal state of the exalted oneness between us.
[39082]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention
Related Material:
The Beckoning Light Of The Future
Everything Depends On The Right Preparation!
Let Us Not Demand “Give Me”!
Question: I have a very strong desire to advance and reach bestowal, but I am totally confused. Where should I turn: within, to the group, or to the Creator?
Answer: A person doesn’t know what the true prayer is. For the time being, he simply feels pressure and doesn’t comprehend what is happening with him and where to turn. Only after a long time, when he reaches contact with the Creator through the friends, does he begin to visualize his appeal, the prayer, correctly.
But for now, it is simply an outcry from the heart. And don’t dread it too much that you are all tangled up and don’t understand; after all, you don’t really know what is going on within you. For now, you register only external changes and corporeal experiences in this outer shell that you are in. But inside, your soul looks like a “matryoshka” (a Russian nesting doll), and each of us contains 125 such internal nesting parts.
At present, you perceive only the very outermost “matryoshka” (shell) which doesn’t yet have anything to do with the 125 ones. But the rest of your inner “matryoshkas” are affecting you as well. And even though right now you feel that you are performing some puny actions (since you don’t feel their results), but by using them, you activate the parts of your internal soul.
Therefore, we need to treat seriously everything we do even when we just seem to sing and have a good time with the friends, and we think that this is something silly. But thereby, you set the whole worlds in motion, like an embryo inside his mother, who determines her entire existence without having any idea of it, or as a newborn baby who doesn’t understand why a dozen of people are suddenly working for him.
So it is with us, while we still don’t understand anything about spirituality. But the moment we at least somewhat start yearning for it, we immediately activate all our inner spiritual systems and all upper worlds!
And so it follows that you are still far from seeing and being able to understand the impact you cause and what you are doing, but it doesn’t matter. The key is to keep doing whatever you are able to do today.
[39064]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash
Related Material
The Garment That Pacifies Your Ego
There Is No Recess In Spirituality
Like A Seed Thrown Into The Soil
Question: Can I motivate myself to unite with the friends by means of fear of suffering that will come in the future?
Answer: Suffering doesn’t affect the point in the heart! It affects my egoistic desire, my “donkey”! But it does not affect the human in me, my point in the heart. A person can only advance spirituality by moving forward out of his own free will.
Therefore, if I don’t develop the inner aspiration to move forward, meaning that I want to build the storage place for the upper Light with the help of the group, then I evolve as a mere animal that is being “kicked,” through suffering. These strikes make me contemplate: Why are they coming down on me, what did I do to deserve them, and why? Then I will probably start linking my point in the heart with the others.
Question: But how do I scare the human in me so I would get it to advance?
Answer: If you suddenly heard on the radio that our country is about to be covered by a radioactive cloud, your “animal” would start shaking at such tragic news. And you can receive a similar from the group.
However, we do not speak about what will happen to us because we do not advance by way of fear. We wish to move ahead by becoming conscious of the importance of the spiritual goal. The importance of the goal is quite virtual, intangible, and depends on how we depict it within. If we keep envisioning the goal as increasingly more exalted, then we will advance in accordance with that.
In other words, I am like a rabbit that runs after a carrot that is held in front of it on a string. Moreover, a human in me holds both the carrot and the string, while my “animal” is chasing it.
[39117]
From the lesson on Writings of Rabash on 3/18/2011
Related Material:
Emptiness Is Our Construction Site
The Solution Is Between Us
Don’t Be Afraid, We’re With You!
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
