You can tell me about a thousand interesting things that are going on, but I don’t accept them as real if I don’t see and know them for myself. Help me get to know and feel these things. I’ll be ready to listen only if you are going to expand my organs of perception and not my imagination.

If you want to give me a telescope or a microscope, I’m willing to accept them. I’m ready to develop a new sensory organ, but only if it remains within the realm of my rational and critical analysis.

This is the kind of scientific and realistic approach that Kabbalah talks about. However, thousands of years ago, an “error” occurred: The Kabbalists taught the future Greek philosophers the correct scientific approach, but these students stepped outside of it. They didn’t want to go against their egoism and use the science of Kabbalah for their own correction. They thought that they could examine the world without correcting themselves. This led to the development of philosophy.

This doesn’t only pertain to ancient Greece. This is a simple human approach. Almost anyone will say: “Why should I correct myself when I understand everything!” But this is impossible. First, one must reveal the state he’s in. Then, only in this degree, is he allowed to discuss it.

Religion is also based on this approach in the sense that it doesn’t require self-correction. You carry out some action, and all is well. You believe that you’ve established a connection with the Creator. This is called spiritual exile. It’s the “spiritual” form of existence without any real sensation of it. Thus, it is said in regard to this period: “We were like in a dream.”

Kabbalah calls upon people to return to the proper way of approaching reality, to go from philosophy to science, from religion to love and bestowal, and toward obtaining a new organ of perception by which a person will see everything for himself.
[31519]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: If imagination interferes with a scientific approach and leads to religion and philosophy, then how can there be imagination that helps with scientific research?

Answer: The imagination that helps us is not an abstract form separated from matter, but a form of the upper one clothing onto us. Every informational gene, Reshimo, has two parts: information about “today’s” desire (Reshimo de Aviut) and information about “tomorrow’s” Light (Reshimo de Hitlabshut).

For example, there are a couple of Reshimot, Gimel de Aviut/Dalet de Hitlabshut, “3/4.” When I realize Reshimo “3,” I will be able to receive the form of the upper one from the degree “4” within it, and this is referred to as creative fantasy. I do not receive it for realization, but only as an example.

Reshimo de Hitlabshut suggests a new future form to us because it is always a degree higher than our current state. These are “memories” that have stayed with us from the expansion of steps from Above downward, and now we can ascend because of them.

Man operates like a machine. If we have these informational genes, Reshimot, then we are able to work due to them, but if we do not have them, we can’t. If one’s entire memory were erased, he would not consciously know how to move a finger. Have you seen the helpless behavior of newborns? They are not able to make even the smallest conscious move.

Everything only comes from Reshimot, and if I am able to correctly realize my desire (Reshimo de Aviut) on my degree, then I will be able to receive the degree of the upper one which clothes onto me (Reshimo de Hitlabshut) as an example. The fantasy helps us work on this basis.

This is not an empty fantasy that has no grounds to it, but a real form which is meant to manifest.
[31531]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: Why is there such resistance to learning Kabbalah on the part of the religious, Orthodox world?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah became revealed thanks to Adam (“the First Man”) 5,770 years ago. He wrote a book about it entitled Raziel HaMalach (The Angel Raziel). This teaching continued through his students, and twenty generations later, there came Abraham, a sage who lived in ancient Babylon.

Abraham worshiped stars, spirits, and trees and made idols until the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed to him in the global form. He wrote about it in Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation).

Abraham led his disciples out of Babylon and into the land of Canaan. He organized a Kabbalistic group out of them, which lasted until the very fall of the Temple. All of them lived interconnected as a global, integral society, as one man with one heart. However, 2,000 years ago, at the time of the fall of the Temple, they fell from brotherly love into unfounded hatred.

This event was what is called the “fall” since they fell from the global world into our human egoism. That is how they lost the sensation of the spiritual world, the upper dimension, and started to feel just as all of us do now, meaning as existing only in our world, each one separately, egoistically.

Instead of living in the wisdom of Kabbalah and the collective, integral system, they began to experience only our world, as people still do today. At that time, Kabbalah, which is wisdom, attainment, knowledge, and spiritual science was replaced by religion and religious faith. After all, the spiritual world disappeared from their view.

This is the form we exist in to this day. Religions such as Judaism sprang up, which gave birth to Christianity, followed by Islam. All of these religions exist because the spiritual, global, and integral world is hidden from us.

However, as it unfolds, there will be no place for religions. They will become the cultural traditions of a nation. This is why there is such resistance between Kabbalah and Judaism, which has continued for the last 2,000 years.

Religious folks hate Kabbalah because it explains to them that they live in the dark and don’t understand where they are and what they are doing. However, there will come a time, and specifically in our days, when we will have to rise from the level of blind faith to the level of spiritual knowledge.
[35040]
From my lecture in Paris 2/1/2011

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We are using the Kabbalistic method to correct the part of “Israel” as well as the part of the “nations of the worlds” in us. They help one another through disturbances as well as support, and thus, they work together.

People have to understand that everything that happens is for their good. Everything that becomes revealed along the path must be revealed in that exact manner and a person should only arrange himself the right way in relation to all the elements: the teacher, the books, the group, and the Creator. That is how one should advance.

We have to understand that the realization of the goal happens when all the components come together. People must not deviate from this unification by increasing the importance of one component over another.

Some people prefer to only strive towards the Creator, which is where religion comes from. For religious people, the Creator is on top. All their prayers and hopes are directed towards Him, while love for the neighbor is secondary.

Others concentrate on the teacher and fall into Hassidut, worship. For them, the teacher is more important than the friends and the Creator. Others yet concentrate only on the friends—a good society is the most important thing for them. As a rule, this is impossible in our groups because we study the Force that awakens hatred between us so we would strive toward the true correction. And this is why we cannot just be good friends the way other communities do.

Only an equal attitude towards the teacher, the study, the friends, and the Creator enables us to attain the goal.
[35377]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

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“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “And Jethro Heard,” Item 73: A black hair that is not yellow sometimes succeeds and sometimes does not succeed. It is good for partnering with and for exerting with it for a short time, not for a long time, since for a long time, he will think thoughts. And to not part from him, he is good for a short while. He will succeed in the Torah if he exerts in it, and others will succeed in him. He has no secret for a long time, his heart is narrow, fear in his enemies. His enemies cannot overcome him….

As it is written in The Zohar, when a person does not have a clear perception of the spiritual world, he understands The Zohar literally. He is convinced that this Book is full of miracles and secret knowledge and that one can use it to read his fortune, predict the future, distinguish good and bad people, give everyday advice, and make money with it.

On one hand, this is incorrect. Material explanations of these texts serve as the basis for all confusions. On the other, when we look at this through the perspective of thousands of years, we see that people will not attain the truth without these confusions. They must become confused and “un-confused.” This way, they will acquire knowledge.

For the last two-thousand years we existed within the religious framework, and we had to live this way. This applies to all of humanity with all its beliefs and religions. We must go through this entire confusion because without it, we cannot connect together the properties of the Creator, Bina, and the properties of the creation, egoism, Malchut, on the level of the lower Malchut, egoism of our world.

What do all the beliefs and religions represent? They represent a certain spark of the spiritual world which needs to be introduced through force into our corporeal world, the desire to receive pleasure, and it can only be introduced in this form. It needs to be made into a mixture in the egoistic desire, Malchut.

The manifestation of the three lines of the Light, the descent of the three Klipot (shells) to the level of our world, was the reason for the origin of all the beliefs, the three religions, the multitude of spiritual methodologies, amulets, and so on. All of them are dictated by the desire to succeed in our egoism, Malchut, in this and/or the future world through Bina, the upper force, which allegedly exists in religion (spiritual practices).

However, without these “spiritual” activities, humanity would not be able to exist in the combination of Malchut and Bina, even on the level of our world. Bina must enter Malchut and give as well as absorb from Malchut everything it can.

After the end of the mutual inclusion of beliefs and religions (Bina of our world) into human egoism (Malchut of our world), the process of analysis, selection, separation, and correction begins. This is happening in our time when people begin to analyze the essence of religion from this mixture.

Those who joined Abraham had figured this out back in ancient Babylon; the rest are figuring this out now. This is why The Zohar, written with a language like this, can evoke absolutely different opinions depending on who is reading it.
[31609]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/2010, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Can you please explain what the right way to work with the Light is?

Answer: The right way to work with the Light is very simple. The difference between Kabbalah and religion (and all other methods) is that religion asks the Creator for Him to change and to become better, while Kabbalah says, “The Creator is absolute and only you can change.”

The Creator is Light, meaning the only force in the universe inside of which we exist. This force is unchanging and absolute. Therefore, the only way to work with the Creator is very simple: The more similar you are to this force, the more it influences you, and the less similar you are to it, the less it influences you.

This works by a very simple formula. If you studied physics in school then you have to know it: The influence of any source upon an object that is placed in the field of its influence is inversely proportional to the distance between them squared. When I come twice as close to the object that influences me, then its impact on me is four times greater. That is how things work in the physical world and it is the same in the spiritual world.

Therefore, if you come at least a little bit closer, you will see that the Light’s influence on you is squared. That is how we work with the upper Light.
From the 3rd lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: From the Kabbalists’ point of view, what is the role of religion and other practices in the modern world?

Answer: Religions originated from the concealment of the upper world from us. Everything is concealed from us: the present, the future, what will happen tomorrow, what happened before our life, and what will happen after it. Religion is based on the lack of knowledge, on faith in something.

Kabbalah has nothing to do with it. It is a science. It absolutely does not operate with the notion of faith. It is a method of developing an additional possibility to perceive the world that surrounds us. But at the same time, Kabbalah expresses its opinion on events around the world, the reason for the development of beliefs, convictions, and religions.

In our world there is a total of 3,800 different methods, convictions, beliefs, religious practices, and so on. They appeared because we do not know what is happening and we exist in an unpredictable world. We do not see a connection between us. We do not see the reasons behind the events or what is about to happen to us around the corner. We do not know anything.

This is why people develop a need to somehow find out, or if that’s impossible, then to at least protect themselves, get some kind of insurance, a guarantee, if possible. And here arises the possibility for such religious methods. Essentially, these are psychological practices that provide us with comfort.

Naturally, there will not be a place for religions once we reveal the upper world. And this is why religions usually are not very fond of Kabbalah, the real Kabbalah, which works as a science because it reveals the things that were unknown to people.

But on the other hand, religions are necessary. They have appeared in us and exist in human society so that people would develop, so that they would think that something bigger and higher exists. Religion is a preliminary action, a preparatory stage, to begin to enter the upper world. For this reason, after several thousand years of different religious practices, there comes the time when people develop the need for an actual understanding of the world because nature simply does not leave them any other possibility.

Right now we are entering such a degree of resistance of nature that it will obligate us to attain it. We will find ourselves in such an unpredictable state, where we will not know what will be happening the very next moment. It is impossible to exist this way. We see that we are already destroying the family unit, we do not want to have children. Humanity is already moving towards a state where there will be nothing but drugs to get away from reality.

In other words, we are coming to a state where we must see the entire picture. Only then will we have the energy to have a reason to live, create, exist. Today we do not have a bright tomorrow of this kind. We have come to a level which is followed by nothing else but the revelation of the next degree, the next dimension.
[33810]
From Lesson 3 in Moscow 1/16/2011

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Question: Unfortunately, I was brought up to believe that the Creator is an old man sitting somewhere in the sky. Now that I study Kabbalah, I understand that this is a false perception. How can I get rid of these childhood stereotypes?

Answer: This isn’t related to one’s childhood. Humanity developed such myths a long time ago. It is natural for us to imagine the existence of something in this way. Stories have been told from generation to generation about an existing force which people associate with images that have arms and legs, all according to one’s understanding.

The Creator has no image or form. The Creator is Nature, and since both words have the same numeric value, they represent the same object. The Creator is the general law of Nature, and Nature is a force. We are forces as well, even though it seems to us that images, matter, and nature exists at the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Just as we see various images on the television screen, we see everything in this world exactly the same way. We imagine it in our heads.

The image of the Creator as an old man in the sky is a grave mistake and creates a warped perception of reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed, and even Judaism didn’t explain to people who the Creator is. This led people to believe these myths. Similar beliefs still exist among the nation.

We associate things with the Creator that we would normally associate with people in our world: If I give Him something, then He’ll give me blessings, or if I give a dollar, then He’ll give me two. We think that if we bribe Him, we’ll get better treatment from Him and life will take a turn for the better.

However, with each passing day it’s becoming increasingly clear that our relationship with the Creator has to be built only in the direction of our correction. He demands but one thing from us: to be one man with one heart and love thy neighbor as thyself.
[32771]
From the Introductory Lecture “Why the Creator is Hidden” 12/14/2010

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In “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 4, Baal HaSulam writes: “The Creator puts one’s hand on the good fate…. And one’s choice refers only to the strengthening.” The Creator leads a person to the friends and the study, and the rest is up to him. Don’t expect that someone will do your work for you. It is your job to sort all the tools and arrange them correctly.

“But I don’t understand anything! I can’t study, don’t know how to relate to the friends, and get confused in internality and externality.” You can complain to your mother, but it’s pointless to complain to the law of creation. It is just as pointless as arguing with the law of gravity.

The Creator is the law of nature, which is absolute bestowal. If you are in sync with it, you feel good, and if not, you feel bad to the degree of your inadequacy. As a matter of fact, both the former and the latter correspond to the level of your development. Similarly, in our world, we treat little children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly differently with respect to their age.

Imagining the Creator incorrectly, we attribute to Him some human qualities and feelings that characterize us. We keep trying to “convince” Him hoping that He will change his mind. It is the most serious flaw produced by our egoistic nature.

Since the beginning of time, people have been making the same mistake: They transfer their attributes onto the surrounding world. We demand an expected reaction even from our domestic pets. Generally, we expect to find similarity to ourselves and correspondence to our imagination in all levels of nature, including the speaking level.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah radically differs from all religions and belief systems. It is written: “The law is set and cannot be broken,” “I did not change my HaVaYaH.” The Upper Light remains at absolute rest, and all changes take place only in the vessels. I either ask the Creator to change or know that I must change myself.

My prayer is “tied” to myself. To pray means to judge myself and change. This is the only way I may cause a different response from the unchanging law. This is the whole point. Religions don’t talk about the transformation of man; they suggest that I should “bribe” the Creator by performing mechanical actions or passionate prayer. People hope that it will help them, although human history proves the opposite to be true.

Kabbalah maintains that you are the one to change and nobody else. Continue to appeal to the Creator as you did before, but only for a different reason: This is His will, and you are doing it against your own desire.

You stand before the Light. By changing yourself and becoming similar to Him in properties, you begin to perceive His influence that previously remained outside of your senses. You become a vessel for the Light and grow until it fills all of you.

To anticipate the Upper Light doesn’t mean to whistle for the wind. Make an inner move toward Him, wish to change, and it will affect you. All changes that we observe in the Light are changes within us.
[30067]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/2010, “The Creator Created the Evil Inclination, and He Created the Torah as a Spice”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: And as King Solomon could not prevent Asmodeus from sitting on his throne, pretending to be him until he arrived in Jerusalem, sages of Kabbalah observe philosophic theology and complain that they have stolen the upper shell of their wisdom, which Plato and his Greek predecessors had acquired while studying with the disciples of the prophets in Israel. They have stolen basic elements from the wisdom of Israel and wore a cloak that is not their own. To this day, philosophic theology sits on the throne of Kabbalah, being heir under her mistress.

Greek philosophers studied from the prophets since Kabbalah was open for everyone from the time of Abraham. However, they could not ascend to the height of spiritual attainment because this demanded huge efforts. That is why philosophers only took the external part of this wisdom; that is, their aim was not to correct human nature, but only to acquire knowledge.

The first sign by which you can distinguish a Kabbalist is to see whose student he is. It is impossible to receive spiritual attainment without being a devoted, close student of a true Kabbalist. Although being a student of a genuine Kabbalist does not yet guarantee spiritual success, at least it is the first necessary condition in order to reach it.

The second sign of a Kabbalist is that the methodology which he is offering must be directed only toward correcting man’s egoism. This is precisely what sets Kabbalah apart from the ancient Greek philosophers (religions, beliefs, spiritual methodologies, and so on). They stole the external shell from Kabbalah (discourses on the upper worlds, the world to come, reward and punishment, and so on) and started to use and develop it egoistically, in order to manipulate rather than correct human nature.

These are the two main signs that differentiate a Kabbalist from a non-Kabbalist. Furthermore, not just philosophy but all methodologies in general, including the scientific ones, employed by man in hopes to correct the world and attain a better, corrected, and more or less bearable life eventually demonstrate their falsity.

It may not manifest in the scientific conclusions themselves, but in the assertion that in this way, it is possible to correct the world and bring happiness to humanity. Until it is as clear as day, regular people in whom a special urge toward spirituality (the point in the heart) has not yet awakened will not treat Kabbalah seriously.

Thus, only a person who studied from a recognized Kabbalist can be one himself. A true Kabbalist also offers a method for correction of egoism, not all kinds of “miracles” or physical actions with the help of which one supposedly receives reward or punishment from Above.

In other words, this is neither religion nor a belief system, neither philosophy nor theology, and not even the natural sciences of our world, but a method for correcting our egoism with the purpose of attaining unity and love. This method can become revealed to the masses only after humanity becomes convinced that all other methods cannot lead it to salvation.
[32536]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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