The Book of Zohar, Introduction to the Book of Zohar, Article “The Night of the Bride,” section 138: This stems from the fact that man cannot perceive obvious evil from the Creator, as this would greatly undermine the creatures’ perception of the great and perfect Creator, for the Perfect one cannot create evil.

Therefore, to the extent that man feels bad and evil, and denies the Divine Providence, a veil immediately falls over him, and the sensation of the Creator’s existence disappears. This is the worst punishment in the world!

Hence, the sensation of good and evil in the Creator’s governance gives us a feeling of reward and punishment. This is because he who exerts efforts not to lose faith in the Creator‘s existence and governance, even if he tastes evil in His governance, is rewarded with finding strength to not lose faith in the governance and good purpose of the Creator’s “evil” influence. But if he had not yet merited the opportunity to exert efforts in believing that the Creator pursues a definite purpose by sending him unpleasant sensations, he is punished with remoteness from faith in the Creator and the sensation of His existence.

From here it is clear where reward and punishment and concealment and revelation come from, what the conditions are for a person to merit to this, and how he builds himself when confronting a bad feeling, a feeling of suffering.

It is impossible to cry and say, “Thank you very much.” To the degree that you are not accommodated to the Light, you feel concealment and so condemn the Creator. It follows that we have no choice; if we want to approach the Creator and bless Him, we must reach revelation.

From concealment, whether we want it or not, we are always compelled to curse Him. So only the Kabbalists, who attain the correct intention and transform darkness into Light, bless the higher power. And to that extent, they are in adherence with Him.
[136479]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/01/14, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
Pain Relief Through The Importance Of The Goal
Affliction Is A Test For Love
Don’t Despair In His Kindness

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work, Suffering, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: We hope that you will tell us the secret of the complicated stories in the Torah.

Answer: An oral explanation is not a revelation. Everything is attained only in practice. We were brought up to believe that this would reveal all.

If we live in the same world that the written sources tell us about, then they do reveal something, but only to the extent that we know this world. If they tell us about a world that we don’t know at all and everything in it seems strange, then can the written sources explain anything?

It is merely an explanation that tells us that the upper world surrounds us, like a sphere within a sphere, and we are inside it, and that it constantly manages us in every aspect, each and every one of us and all of us together. I need this information only in order to understand how important it is to start engaging in it and to reveal it.

Today we don’t even understand what is happening in our world, and we feel more and more confused with every day that goes by. If we don’t attain the upper world, its influence on us, the way it operates, and its goal, we will be like blind kittens unable to do anything about our fate and will exist as if in chaotic movement. We will live a meaningless life, lost in oblivion, and will float in the current again in the same initial condition because we have not corrected anything and have done nothing to receive new feelings. We also have not developed any additional senses, and so everything will start anew.

First a person has to see that he is managed by the upper world, a world of strict laws. Living in our corporeal world, we only know some of its laws, but we have no idea what the laws of the upper world are.

If a person understands that he is in a rigid set of physical laws that operate on him, that he can influence them and discover the dual connection to the extent that he perceives and understands these laws and is able to manage them, then it will be a great step forward. People will at least know that they can regain their sight and not flow blindly in the current of life, or to put it more bluntly, not life but death.

Question: So a person should try all this himself?

Answer: That’s not enough. Sufferings are needed. If I understand that something operates on me, but I think, “Let it operate while I wait,” it is like a movie where the outlaw is sentenced to hard labor in order to teach him to work, but he allows the work manager to influence him, saying, “You will influence me while I lay down and rest.” But when he is beaten he cries out, “Oh! Mother!”

It is essential that there must be afflictions, even minor ones. We actually want the minor suffering and the great understanding, since together it will enable us to move forward.
[135550]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/18/13

Related Material:
The Eternal Book
Shedding Some Light On Creation
Love As The Law Of Nature

Filed under: Perception, Spiritual Work, Suffering, Torah - No Comments →

Question: There are various levels of concealment. Why is it that we sometimes go through states that are so painful that we cannot think of anything besides the pain and thus detach from the Creator?

Answer: At times, the work can be done in the state of concealment; sometimes it is not so. It depends on the type of concealment. It so happens that every now and then, all one is going through is just physical pain. The Light impacts this person’s desire and demonstrates a lack of health and tremendous physical suffering.

According to the physical affliction, one remains at the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels. One does not, as yet, ascend to a speaking level. In other words, the Light illuminates to this person only the first three stages but doesn’t reach the fourth level, since the fourth phase is a human state; i.e., a state when a person has already established a connection with the Creator.

If the Light embraces only the first three levels, one feels pain and nothing else. However, if the Light illuminates one additional level (the speaking level), one starts understanding that the origin of one’s pain is the Creator. In other words, this person stays in concealment because he senses affliction instead of benevolence. And yet, to some extent one attains some degree of revelation because one realizes that the Creator is the origin of one’s suffering. It means that one can already deal with one’s troubles.

Everything depends on the Light. When the Light stops working, people turn into animals. When the Light shines, even a little on us, we become just slightly similar to human beings, to the people that we will become in the future. At least we establish some connection with the upper governance.

Are we able to control this state? It is possible only within the group; nothing else will help. If one is used to being a part of the group, then even if one becomes subjected to this kind of the Creator’s impact and even if one doesn’t feel anything except pain that in one’s eyes is not connected with Him in any way, with the help of one’s friends, one can quickly wake up and connect with the Creator.

If one is not a part of a group, one will inevitably fall under the power of pain and severe problems, nor will one be able to advance until the Upper Force takes pity on him. This natural developmental program continues working and continuously modifies the states we go through.
[134595]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/14, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Sign Of Pain
Why Doesn’t The Creator Hear Me?
From A New Perspective

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work, Suffering - No Comments →

In the News (from RH Reality Check): “Focusing on finding ways to save premature babies, Japanese professor Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara of Juntendo University, has successfully gestated goat embryos in a machine that holds amniotic fluid in tanks.  On the other end of the process focusing on helping women unable to conceive and gestate babies, is Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu, Director of the Reproductive Endocrine Laboratory at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Cornell University. Quietly, in 2003, she and her team succeeded in growing a mouse embryo, almost to full term, by adding engineered endometrium tissue to a bio-engineered, extra-uterine ‘scaffold.’ More recently, she grew a human embryo, for ten days in an artificial womb. Her work is limited by legislation that imposes a 14-day limit on research project of this nature.  As complicated as it is, her goal is a functioning external womb.”

My Comment: As long as we have not reached the intention to do everything for the sake of the whole of humanity, above our egoism, all we do brings us to the deepening of the crisis and increased suffering.
[133338]

Related Material:
An Embryo: A Stranger Or One’s Own, From The Earth Or From Above?
An Embryo Develops Itself
Psychology As A Mirror Reflecting The Development Of Ego

Filed under: Crisis, News, Science, Suffering - No Comments →

Filed under: Evolution, Laitman Unplugged, Society, Suffering - No Comments →

Filed under: Laitman Unplugged, Spirituality, Suffering - No Comments →

Filed under: Laitman Unplugged, Suffering - No Comments →

Filed under: Evolution, Laitman Unplugged, Society, Suffering - 1 Comment →

Question: How can I become more sensitive to the fact that I am a component of the integral system?

Answer: This sensitivity develops when a person tries to devote more and more attention to his connection to the group. He checks himself whether he sees the friends as his beloved children, whether he has sweet thoughts about them, and whether he wants to feel their suffering as if it were his actual, physical pain.

A person must try to increase his sensitivity and his attitude and decipher the concept “as yourself.” It isn’t easy since a person manages to do that for a moment and then, the next moment, he falls and is detached from this feeling since our ego doesn’t want to suffer for the whole world. However, a person still advances time after time.

The Masach (screen) he acquires helps him to share everyone’s suffering and at the same time, justify the Creator and rejoice. The spiritual Masach works that way, giving a person the endurance without lowering his sensitivity to suffering. Thanks to that, he can experience very deep feelings that can be both good and bad.

In our work, we either sweeten or cover up our suffering through the mind, through the thought that many suffer from the same things that we do and that it isn’t our personal pain. In a time of war, for example, when many are killed, it is easier to bear the loss. It isn’t by chance that it is said, “Misery loves company.”

That’s the way it is in our world, but in spirituality, it is impossible to reduce your worries this way since you feel everyone as yourself. However, the Masach brings you closer to the Creator. It is absolutely impossible to advance if you don’t identify with the Creator since your perception becomes very sensitive. The depth of the good and bad feelings in your soul is unbearable, and they overflow beyond the boundaries of this world.

Although there is also such terrible suffering in our world that can drive a person mad, our sense organs cannot bear that. So, only in the connection with the Creator, in the Light of bestowal, can you be so greatly impressed that it exceeds the boundaries of the corporeal world. Thus, the connection is an essential precondition for the spiritual revelation.
[104956]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Sensitivity to the Creator
The Soul is The Tool For The Revelation of the Creator
It All Starts With Gratitude

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Suffering - No Comments →

Question: A person who begins to study the integral method goes through difficult states since his ego receives blows. If these states are necessary, why does it happen this way?

Answer: You cannot leave the ego or leave Pharaoh if you don’t feel the blows. This is why we say that Pharaoh brings the children of Israel closer to the exodus from Egypt, as it is written: “Pharaoh has brought the sons of Israel closer to our Father in Heaven.” They feel the blows on their ego and understand that they cannot stay in it and cannot leave it, and, so they feel helpless, saying, “So, what can we do?” Then, I feel another blow and another, and I realize that I need the Creator since only He can take me out of there by holding my hand.

Then, they connect to the Creator and advance, if they don’t leave the integral education and understand that it is all done, first of all, for them and not in order to educate anyone.

When I receive blows and shake inside not knowing where to run, only the group can help me. If it wraps me and warms me, I will not fear the blows. I immediately begin to understand that I need to adhere to the group. I need mutual guarantee. I need the Creator, and, then I discover everything automatically. One little “ouch,” a little prick, and I already understand everything. However, this is only if you are around friends, including the women.

The men begin to understand that they need the women’s support, and, especially stability. Women contribute to softening things.
[104724]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/7/13

Related Material:
In The Center Of The Universe
The Way Of The World Group
Pharaoh: The Creator’s Faithful Slave

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Egoism, Group Work, Integral Upbringing, Mutual Guarantee, Q&A, Suffering - No Comments →