The Steps Of Ascent – Laitman Unplugged
Posted on May 23rd, 2011
It is very hard for us to imagine how a created being that was made by the Light, existed in adhesion with it, and didn’t sense any deficiency caused by being opposite to it suddenly felt ashamed and didn’t agree to stay in this state, restricted itself, and expelled all the Light. What must the creature feel when it sees itself as totally distant from the Light and desires to be identical to it?
The state of adhesion and perfection, which the created being experienced while being in the world of Infinity before the restriction, later on makes it take this road back to Infinity through all the states (1-2-3). And despite the fact that on the part of the Light there are no changes and the Creator never separates Himself from the created being, doesn’t see any flaws or the need for correction in it, the creature itself can’t accept being different from the Creator in any degree.
This marvelous feeling compels the created being to undertake such dramatic steps: to restrict its desire, obtain a screen, undergo the entire process of distancing itself from the Creator, from the Light, and then return back to Him, having completed the full circle. This is how desire acts.
And how can it be that the Light which gives the created being a feeling of their oneness, unity, and the absence of differences between them at the same time evokes in the creature a peculiar type of shame that forces the latter to restrict itself and walk this entire long road away from the Creator?
This feeling of shame has something unique; it becomes a powerful engine that makes the created being withdraw from the Creator, hide itself from Him, just like one person hides from someone that he is ashamed of, to make all the necessary corrections later on. And it’s not so that he may feel proud of himself, but rather so that he could return to the Creator His love that the created being felt emanating from Him when it felt ashamed. These are very exalted notions.
So it follows that it’s worthwhile for the creature to make this horrific full circle, never stopping on this path, giving into nothing, although it could return back to the state of Infinity any time! And still, every new instant it decides again: “No, I am not going to succumb to this infinite pleasure unless I act consciously in it and can feel proud of and respect myself!” Obviously, it isn’t about egoistic pride; it’s about the creature wanting to give to the Creator the attitude that it revealed in relation to itself.
Essentially, in the world of Infinity, the Creator’s love doesn’t commit the creature to anything. The Creator treats it like a father who loves his son infinitely and is willing to bestow everything to him, without any reservation and implying no shame. And yet, the son, while having known the Creator’s love for him, realizes that he himself is unable to love. And it is the only thing that makes him feel ashamed: that he himself is unable to love unconditionally and give to the Creator the same kind of feeling from the point of darkness and separation.
Hence, the son makes a decision to accept from his Father darkness rather than Light and the most horrible blows. He pledges to keep loving Him no matter what, as if he is receiving only the most kindly, true Light of Infinity. The Father’s love is endless and absolute, and hence the son decides to love Him no less.
Therefore, he has no other chance of reaching this state except by walking the path of darkness, which is directly opposite to infinite fulfillment. It’s because above this entire darkness, he can reveal unconditional love.
[43564]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot
All we need is to develop the desire. I remember when I used to own a clinic, one of the workers used to bring Yemenite food with her. At first I couldn’t come near it since I simply did not understand what this was. That’s how different it tasted from anything I was used to. But with time, I started becoming familiar with this food and tasting it, and little by little, I developed an appetite for it.
It’s the same as how a baby is born into the world without having any tastes yet. Afterwards, depending on the customs and predilections of his society, he begins to get used to food and to acquire a taste for it. Without taste, without the desire to eat precisely some specific dish, we would not be able to enjoy it. Of course, it’s possible to eat so you don’t starve to death, but that’s not the same as pleasure. You can receive the pleasures of this world as a bare necessity, but anything beyond that is admissible only if you desire to enjoy—and that enjoyment has to come from bestowal.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes that this requires only a psychological shift. What is that?
Answer: We do not understand how it is possible to enjoy by loving and filling someone you love. “Someone you love” is not just my child, taking care of whom gives me pleasure naturally. Rather, we are talking about someone who’s a stranger, who is alien, distant, opposite, and even hateful to me. This is like food from a foreign country that nauseates me. So I deliberately start developing the taste for it, looking for an approach to it, for closeness and understanding. Gradually the corresponding desires are born inside of me and then I suddenly feel that I love this person.
A question arises: If I love him, then won’t my bestowal to him be egoistic? After all, I will be enjoying it.
That’s true, but my love does not revoke the hatred I felt before. That hatred remains with me constantly and even increases, just like it happened with the students of Rabbi Shimon who write in The Book of Zohar that at first they hate one another, but then they reach love. We continuously advance in two lines, elevating love above hatred, as it is written, “Love will cover all sins.”
Precisely the hatred and love together create the taste, the “juice,” the might of the pleasure. They are like two reigns. If you nullify hatred, then only a tiny material relish will remain with you from the entire height of pleasure, but if you rise above the hatred, covering it with the screen of love time after time, then you end up with a huge vessel that has a huge pleasure inside.
[43755]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/11, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 14: Thus, we have thoroughly clarified that the worlds, the generation, the changes, and the number of degrees, and so on were said only with respect to the Kelim (vessels) that give to the souls, conceal, and measure for them so they can gradually receive from the Light of Ein Sof in them. But they do not affect the Light of Ein Sof itself in any way since no coverings affect the one who is covered, but only the other, who wishes to feel it and receive from it, as said in the allegory.
Baal HaSulam explains also in “Preface to The Book of Zohar” that the entire perception of reality occurs only relatively to the receiver, person, observer. Everything is relative; it all depends on a person’s properties, and according to them, he or she perceives everything as if existing outside of him or her.
Is there reality outside of man? We don’t know that. It’s known from the wisdom of Kabbalah that the simple Surrounding Light exists outside of us. We don’t have any possibility of sensing it from the outside. We are sensible creatures, meaning that we sense what is perceived inside of us. If I sense that something exists outside, I perceive it in all my senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). However, I perceive it inside my sense organ, and if deprived of it, I don’t perceive what exists outside of me.
Our aggregate sense organ is called the “will to enjoy.” It’s divided into five parts, according to the levels of Aviut (thickness) of desire. These levels (Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet or 0,1,2,3,4 accordingly) can be called spiritual or earthly sense organs: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
That is, our desire consists of five parts or five forms of perception: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch as in our world. I perceive something that within me acquires the form of desire, vessel.
This is like “manna” that nourished the people of Israel in the desert. I take this “manna” and taste “barbecue”; the other tastes fish, the third salad, the fourth chicken or cereal. Each receives according to his desires. However, all this is called “manna.”
What is “manna”? It’s something from the sky that has no properties. Who perceives these properties? The receiver does. As soon as I absorb this “manna,” desiring to taste steak, I taste steak. I want tea and taste tea. I want saltier food, and the food becomes saltier instantly. I want it spicier, and it becomes spicier. It’s good, isn’t it? “Make your desire like His,” and then “He will make your desire like His.”
The upper Light existing outside us doesn’t have any form; it has only the desire to bestow. If you want to derive pleasure from it the correct way, He will give you this sensation at once, without problems. Therefore, everything depends on the creature. The form of reality depends on our desires, vessels of perception. That is why we have nobody to pray to, nobody to ask, nobody to turn to, but only to ourselves, to the extent of our corruptness and the ability to become a little bit more corrected.
We’ll feel better to the extent we correct ourselves. In essence, this is the entire process we experience.
[43576]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
Question: Now that the crisis is intensifying all over the world with natural disasters and wars happening more and more often, how should we treat people who have experienced misfortunes considering that we feel their pain when we see what kind of suffering they are going through, but aren’t able to help?
Answer: The crisis is not moving in any single direction. It’s not just an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, floods and tornadoes in America, fires in Russia, or national revolutions in the Near East. These are local events and that is why we worry only slightly when we hear about them, not taking it too close to heart. Our egoistic nature does not allow us to empathize with others any deeper. But if I’m afraid that the tsunami will reach me, then it’s an entirely different matter.
However, this crisis is multifaceted. For now it is being expressed as several separate catastrophes here and there, but in essence it is preparing ground for a fundamental worldwide jolt that will be common and global. This is exactly what people who understand what is happening are afraid of.
This will be a global economic crisis. When economic connections disintegrate in conditions of our total, universal interdependence, it will be a huge problem. This will be an immediate blow to everyone, causing people to go crazy because they won’t know what to do. Let us hope that before this happens we will be able to exert a positive influence on the world and prevent this kind of turn of events.
We shouldn’t think that in order to influence the world we have to enter the mass media or get the world’s leaders on our side. Rather, we are operating internally. We are connected with the world’s inner forces, the global, integral system that operates inside of the world. If we correspond to it and go together with it, then we act according to the laws of nature. We bring the force of unity and love into this system. It comes from us, from the part of humanity that desires a good connection between people.
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11
The holiday of Lag B’Omer (the 33rd day of Omer) is celebrated to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of The Book of Zohar, who died on that day. In the chapter “Idra Zuta,” article “Azinu,” The Book of Zohar describes Rabbi Shimon’s passing in this way: For the Lord bestowed blessing, even eternal life upon him” (Psalm 133). Rabbi Abba said: The holy Light did not finish proclaiming life until his speeches were completed. I recorded it and thought of recording some more, but did not hear. And I did not lift my head because there was a very great Light that I could not look upon. Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Abba stood up and took him away from his place. And the whole house was filled with a fragrant scent. They placed him on the bed and no one touched him besides Rabbi Eleazar and Rabbi Abba. When they carried the bed out of the house, they heard a voice. Then everyone entered and gathered together for the celebration to honor Rabbi Shimon.
The Zohar uses these colorful descriptions because it is written in the language of Midrash (story telling). But of course, it is not talking about his physical death, but the passing of the soul which goes on to the state of the end of correction. That is why this is such an important event and why this entire system, which includes his students, receives such a great Light.
This is not talking about a person’s death, but about the thinning out of a spiritual Partzuf. First the Light comes and dresses into a Partzuf, forming inside it Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, and Otiyot. The clothing of the Light into a Partzuf and its disappearance make the Light fit for being used, and that is how Rabbi Shimon’s soul attains its true action—the last level, the general end of correction. This is what The Zohar describes.
All the other friends, all the souls that depended on him and that resulted from his Partzuf, which became filled with Light and is now freed from it, now receive through it the entire Light that leaves it. They are those who were attached to it, connected to it, and participated in attracting Light when it passed away.
The death of a Kabbalist means that the entire Light he absorbed inside of his soul together with his students, accumulating it with their help for all humanity, is now made free by him and passed to all the other souls. Now this Light becomes like an illumination, like surrounding Light which he gives to others. His passing symbolizes this passage of Light.
That is why we celebrate this day in this way and are happy about receiving this upper Light, which is called “The Zohar,” capable of correcting all the souls, of connecting and elevating every person to the Creator’s level. That is why this holiday is called the holiday of Light—the Light that reforms, the Light of correction. Every person has to ask himself: Does he really use this Light?
This Light has been given to us, but are we using it and are we realizing ourselves correctly? This is called participating in the holiday of Lag B’Omer.
From the program on Lag B’Omer on 5/17/11
Question: Where does the Creator, the upper Light, reside?
Answer: It is said about it: “I dwell among My people.” What does “among My people” mean? Among My people is among those who desire to reveal Me, the force of love and bestowal, to carry out the notion of “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” This is My people, among whom I dwell.
[43542]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011
Question: Based on my teaching experience, I see that Kabbalah reveals the uniqueness of an individual, but it does this in its own way. What’s the secret here?
Answer: My craving for exclusiveness comes from the Creator but in a spoiled form. I realize it through examples: I learn from the world how to be exclusive. For example, I want to be a famous soccer player, follow latest fashion trends, am drawn to wealth, strength, deception, or dream of a career as a mafioso or a university president.
In any case, I learn from the environment which imposes certain values on me. They pull me to what suits me more according to my nature. Each is impressed by something else; most importantly, it is to demonstrate one’s exceptionalness.
Thus, during my development, society dictates bodies of laws to me, and I have to express my uniqueness according to them. I cannot decide anything by myself. For instance, if I found myself in an environment of drug traffickers, I would follow them, dreaming about an exciting career of a drug baron because I wouldn’t see any other examples.
It turns out that in this world, I throw my uniqueness at the mercy of society. It seems to me that I rise above everybody, but in reality, I serve them. Ultimately, I do what they want.
On the other hand, developing spiritually, I receive from the environment the realization of the greatness of the Creator, the greatness of the will to bestow. This is an abstract idea, and I don’t know what it is. Through studying, I receive the Light that Reforms. Again, I have no idea what it is and sense only the result of its influence.
What evolves in me? It’s the point in the heart with its “spiritual genes.” Thus, I develop myself and realize my exclusiveness only in spirituality. Here, everything is decided by the Light that Reforms. I correct only my external form, and my “I” develops within.
If we could recognize our “spiritual genes,” each would see himself or herself in the final state, the way he or she should be. However, a question arises: What is my uniqueness? If it’s already incorporated in me, where am I myself?
I express myself in the realization of my own exclusiveness. I attract the Light to grow a human from my “spiritual seed” and thus acquire an addition to my studies, the coefficient of development: adhesion with the Creator, His form, the ability to be in His place.
Thus, each of us actually realizes his exceptionality in order to become like the Creator, to come to adhesion. I am not growing just in size; along the path, I obtain everything He has, clothe into His garment.
[43309]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Writings of Rabash
Question: What does it mean that each of Rabbi Shimon’s nine students represented a separate Sefira? Can Kabbalists like that exist in our time as well?
Answer: The ten Kabbalists who made it possible to write The Book of Zohar are the ten main Sefirot. Each of them, by attaining the root of his soul, understood that he belongs to one of their main ten Sefirot, and then their inner unification produced such an enormous force that they could fully reveal the upper Light and “splash it out” on us. That is why this book is called “The Zohar,” according to the name of the Light that shines in the upper part of the world of Atzilut (GAR de Atzilut).
I don’t think that today we need Kabbalists of such high stature. They have already revealed everything, have illuminated the entire system of souls, and then all the other Kabbalists joined the same system. This produced an entire corrected net of souls inside of the common system of souls, which are not corrected yet.
Now, if we want to correct ourselves, then it’s enough for us to read The Book of Zohar and as much as we can, with all our might, to try to join its authors, their souls, as well as the Kabbalists who follow them. They became the corrected part in the common system of souls, and if we want to join them, then we will be able to use all of the Lights and forces that operate in their mutual unification. That is how we will be able to use the Light of The Book of Zohar.
Essentially, we have already received everything! There already exists a corrected system of souls inside of the system that still hasn’t corrected itself. We have the book at our disposal and all of the science of Kabbalah in general, which we study by the method of Baal HaSulam. This is enough for us!
It’s clear that there will still be new revelations, we will explain everything more and will better understand what is written in this book. But from above we have already received everything in order to complete our correction.
Kabbalah is studied in a group. And every person in the world who feels that he has to correct his soul and aspires to reveal why he exists, where the root of his life is and its reason, will eventually find his way into the same net—into one of our groups. There he will begin to reveal what we are doing and how to reveal the root of the soul, how to reveal the spiritual system in which we exist, although we are there in an unconscious state for now. So how can we come to realize this system?
When we come to the group and start studying, then at first we see people in front of us. But then, after we have studied for some time, we begin to understand that these are not people, but an internal connecting net that unites us.
For now this system is dysfunctional, but we are trying to reveal a certain connection in it, looking for a force that could correct us, make us one person with one heart, bring us to love for the neighbor, mutual guarantee, and mutual unification.
This mutual aspiration toward one another in order to reveal the connection between us in the unity of hearts brings us to the sensation of that net. We feel that it exists. We suddenly begin to feel that it is present. And then, inside of this connecting system, we see ourselves and all of the great Kabbalists that enter this net as its corrected elements and support it, conducting Light inside of this system, nourishing it by the Light of unification, love, and mutual participation among all its elements.
It doesn’t matter how we sit together: physically or virtually. The most important thing is that we feel together and want to become part of the same system, to join the Kabbalists. And if we read The Book of Zohar, then we pull nourishment, force, understanding, and spiritual sensation from these souls, from that corrected net, just like children pull it out of adults. This enables us to become part of that system ourselves and attain mutuality, connection, and concessions, canceling ourselves and uniting with everyone.
From the program about Lag B’Omer on 5/17/2011
We must properly assess our current state of affairs on the earth. The defects are intended for us to correct them, to use them as a means for ascending into the upper world. Otherwise, what am I living here for? Why am I experiencing all of these troubles and attempting to resist them? I want to overcome them. I am aware of the situation and grateful for the crisis because by correcting it, I will enter the upper world. If not for this crisis, where would I work, where would I change myself in order to rise to a higher level?
We are talking about a means that enables us to improve and correct ourselves. We are revealing the illness, but now, by working on the treatment, we will attain our nature and understand what we lack in order to acquire the Creator’s nature.
Obviously, the crisis is not a reason to get enthusiastic, but the revelation of evil. However, we should have a practical attitude to it. Suddenly I am discovering that I am cruel, greedy, and love to rule over others, that I don’t have a care in the world for anyone else—and I evaluate these revelations as a means on the path. I am happy about the flaws that become revealed because I realize what they are intended for.
That is why we shouldn’t silence or conceal the world’s problems from ourselves. On the contrary, we have to expose them to people, and not in order to scare them, but to cure the illness. We have to show everyone that we have just one way out: to treat the crisis practically, to use it for making qualitative changes.
Then we will suddenly feel that we are doing wonderful work on correction, whose result will be eternal, perfect life. What can be better? We won’t want to remain on the animate level, being born and dying over and over again. Besides, that’s impossible because through our development we have already reached the need to ascend to the next level, into a higher dimension.
We are not just explaining the nature of the crisis to people, but are pointing to its higher goal. The issue here is not that it is educating us and bringing us closer, forcing us to unite. All of these are just means, a ladder by which we will ascend to a new level of being.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
