Entries in the 'The Creator' Category

Taming The Donkey

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I get to the point where I receive every feeling at every moment correctly?

Answer: The most important thing is to be detached from yourself and try to adhere emotionally and mentally to the Elyon (Upper One). I want to see myself as the Creator sees me.

Why do we love little children? It is because they behave honestly and naturally, without hypocrisy. A child wants something, he grabs it. With him, everything is simple and open, in other words, within one layer of behavior: As he feels fulfillment from nature, that is how he acts. Adults make all kinds of calculations, so they cannot tolerate themselves or others.

However, when we look at a child, we immediately see what motivates him and what directs him. We see his character. After all, he behaves very simply and in the present. This is one-dimensional behavior, behind which nothing is hidden. That is how we must look at ourselves from the point of view of the Creator and how He created me, fulfills me, and changes the Reshimot (Reminiscences) in me at every moment, thanks to which I constantly discover myself in a new situation and in a changing world.

The Reshimo defines who I am inside and how I receive the world. I must constantly realize the Reshimo as if “There is none else besides Him,” the good and that does good. In relation to my inner state, the outer world, and in relation to everything, the unity of the higher providence is revealed.

If I try to look at everything that is happening through the eyes of the Creator as much as is possible, then thanks to this, I begin to learn and become like Him, like a child imitating an adult. Apparently, the child receives no benefit from this, but in spite of it all, he wants to be like the adult. This is also how we grow.

The main thing is to divide the two layers of the skin: that which is connected to the flesh and the outer layer. We then acquire a more objective view of ourselves from the side.

All advice is derived from here: accepting the opinion of the environment, the opinion of the group, instead of my own opinion, and adhering to a friend and making my desire like his desire. In forma like this, we gradually begin to separate from ourselves and see ourselves from the side.

I ask the Light to influence me and give me understanding, feeling, and recognition of the need to do something with myself. I also want to change.

A beast adheres to the Reshimot that arise within him and realizes them without any external request. This is called instinctive, natural behavior on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate.

If I want to get away from this behavior and look at what is happening to me from the side, I begin to examine my behavior and change it. Here, I need the Light that Reforms; I need the group. This is the point from which I begin to develop on the level of Adam (Man/human), the first point from which Adam begins to grow in me above the instinctive, beastly behavior.

It could be that I continue to act under the influence of my instincts because I have no possibility of being released from them. However, I constantly try to see myself from the side, like a person who walks next to a dog and holds him by a leash.

In the meantime, we see that the beast manages the person. However, he consciously lets his donkey do this so that, in the meantime, he can teach it. When we train a wild animal, first of all, we do what it wants so that it will get used to the person next to it, and after that, we are able to mount it and gradually begin to ride it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Perpetual Fire Is A Call To Action

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book Of Zohar, “Tzav”, item 50: It will not go out. Of course the fire of Torah will not go out, since a transgression does not put out the Torah, but a transgression puts out a Mitzva, and one who commits a transgression puts out a Mitzva, which is called “a candle.” Thus, one puts out one’s candle from one’s body, meaning the soul, of which it was said, “Man’s soul is God’s candle.”

If a person sins in spirituality, he might extinguish the fire of the Mitzva (commandment) as a result. But his ego and the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) will still bring about the appearance of the candle, the connection between the Creator’s attributes and a person’s attributes. Then a person’s attribute will gradually be corrected in accordance with the Creator.

This state is often mentioned in the Torah, like in the story of the Maccabees, for example, who found only a small jar of oil that lasted for eight days, although logically, it should have been only enough for one day. This means that the perpetual fire symbolizes the continuous yearning for the goal, continuous connection, and continuous understanding, just like the perpetual fire that is lit in memory of those who are no longer with us.

This is the eternal memory that should be a call for action for us. We have to guard this fire in us and be in a continuous contact between the Upper Light, the Creator, and our egoistic desire. It is because the Light illuminates because of our desire, which gradually wanes and serves as fuel for the Light.

The Creator (the Light) appears only when we can ascend to His level and turn ourselves into a burning fire. Until then there is no Creator and this is the reason He is called “come and see,” Bo-re.

When we try to change ourselves into the attribute of love and bestowal, steam rises from the oil through the wick and the candle is lit. Then the form of the candle is not only the Creator’s form, His attribute, but also the person’s form, the form of Adam (Man/human), who resembles the Creator, since now they match and are in adhesion.

As a result, the element that doesn’t burn by nature begins to burn. Without it there is no fire, but it appears only when it yearns to reach an equivalence of form with the Creator. The Light actually appears as a result of that, because without it, there is no upper level and no upper world.

The spiritual world appears when we create it inside us from the materials we have. First it is the group that yearns for connection in order to discover the attribute of love and bestowal in the connection between them. If such an attribute awakens between us, then as  a result of the compression between us, the pressure, and the desire to connect, there is an ignition. Then the Light appears, which is the Creator’s image that appears between us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

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Tuning In To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Sometimes we say that the Creator is inside us, other times we say that He is in the connection among us. How can we link these two notions?

Answer: There is no dilemma here. How can the Creator be found? How do we regard and evaluate ourselves? What makes us consider ourselves good or bad, strong or weak? For that, we need an external measurement tool, a standard against we can measure ourselves.

In order to be able to measure ourselves, we should see the properties of those around us and compare our qualities with theirs. To direct ourselves correctly, we have to maintain numerous liaisons: remote and close, hateful and benevolent. We should deal with opponents and well-wishers, that is, all of humanity.

One target is insufficient to reach the goal. It is essential to tune oneself into connection with the Creator. For that, we need to involve all of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature. If we manage to set our minds correctly and if our behavior is absolutely right and positive, we’ll definitely attain the Creator.

All these properties are inside us. It is possible to attain the Creator only by relating to all four levels of nature positively since the Creator is the sum of kindness, love, and bestowal.

Question: When you talk about positive self-orientation, I instantly imagine the vastness of humanity, nature, stones, skies, and the entire cosmos. Is this a feasible task?

Answer: Reaching a correct mindset is very easy. You have to convince all your internal properties, the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, that all that surrounds you is saturated with mutual love and is the best possible way of existence. If you succeed, if you manage to correct the properties that seem external to you, you will attain the desired state.

Question: Does it mean that I should work with things or people that are hostile to me?

Answer: Your enemy most clearly demonstrate to you your own imperfections and negative properties. It is called a help against you. With their help, we advance.

Question: It is said in the Torah: If someone comes to kill you, kill him first. How should we relate to this?

Answer: As soon as one finds a quality that one is unable to overcome, no matter how hard one tries to deal with it with love, understanding, and a sense of unity and yet fails to correct it, one must kill it. This is a correction. We kill our own property that is impossible to improve when it rises against us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/08/14

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Assembling The “Puzzle” Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As far as I understand, during his lifetime a person must discover something eternal, the higher force. How is this felt?

Answer: It is felt that the person discovers a network that connects all of us together, which means humans and things below them, the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, all of reality that is known and unknown to us, the systems and sectors of the entire creation, the entirety of nature. He discovers how this reality exists according to the single law of equivalence of form, reciprocity, unity, Arvut (mutual guarantee) as a single whole system. And the law that operates within this system is called the Creator.

This is truly a scientific discovery and there is no faith here, as there is among the religions, or bowing down before a higher force that dominates us, and that’s all. On the contrary, we must recognize and attain it.

This higher force that created us wants to be found scientifically and consciously so that we will become His partners in creation. He leaves work for us within that immense and powerful system that we discover so that we will complete this system through our efforts.

This is similar to how we give a puzzle to a child. We assemble the picture together with him, making it possible for him to add these or other parts to it. And then a complete picture emerges for us.

That is how it also is with the Creator; the comprehensive force of nature leaves us this “puzzle” with a few empty places. As we complete them, we begin to understand the depth of the entire creation, its essence and eternity. This is the most basic thing; we rise above temporal existence and our misery to a level of a perfect and infinite life.

This is precisely what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, how to become aware and attain the higher force and become partners with Him.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/18/15

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Discovering The Origin Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that in our time every person needs to become a Kabbalist, as it is written, Jeremiah 31:33: “…’Know the LORD’; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them…” and  Isaiah 56:7: “…for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” What does it mean to be a Kabbalist?

Answer: Every person must have a revelation of the Creator, the higher force.

Question: What is this higher force?

Answer: This is the general power of nature. We don’t find it now because we operate only according to a single sense, the desire to receive and enjoy.

Question: Is it possible to discover this power scientifically?

Answer: From all the observations within our senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching) we create the physical sciences. But a richer knowledge is hidden in the wisdom of Kabbalah, because in it we don’t just discover the phenomena around us but the origin of life itself.

And then we can answer these questions: from where, why, and for the sake of what goal did the higher force create us? What do we go through in our lives from the moment of our creation until today? What is expected for us from within? We can disclose the entire way that is before us and see where something might harm us and how to correct it.

Question: When you talk about the origin of life, do you mean only the creation of the world or also what happens in my everyday life? What does it mean to discover the origin of life?

Answer: A person who discovers that he is connected with the higher force sees how much that higher management influences all of humanity, the entire environment, his family and himself, and in this case it becomes possible to organize our lives correctly.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/18/15

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The Method For Discovering The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have always felt that some kind of higher force exists that moves everything. But we don’t feel it clearly, and of course not everybody feels that it exists. Why isn’t it revealed? Is it hiding from us?

Answer: That is what is written, “…a God who conceals….” (Isaiah 45:15). But the problem is that we must be adapted to the discovery of this higher force, the Creator.

Of all the forms in nature in which we live, we perceive only a small fraction, a minute fragment of all of nature, depending on how much enters our five senses; seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. By expanding the range of absorption of these five senses, with the help of all kinds of different instruments, we feel a bit more, we see greater distances, hear other frequency ranges, via the radio, etc.

To perceive the higher force, the Creator, we also need to expand our perceptive apparatus; otherwise we don’t identify this force. Likewise, around us exists a multitude of natural phenomena that we cannot recognize.

So there is a method called the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Kabbalah is from the word “reception”), which helps us to receive, to discover, the higher force. And therefore, it is also called the secret wisdom because everything that was hidden before our involvement with this method becomes revealed.

So when a person is involved with the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, it expands his senses in the right direction towards discovering the Creator, discovering the higher force. The person begins to feel it and then all of his questions are resolved. He understands why he is alive, how to live in the right way, what it is possible to achieve in this life, and his life begins to be happier, because he no longer lives like a poor blind person dwelling in total darkness.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/8/15

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Complete Freedom!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “BaHar” (On Mount Sinai), item 85: …“And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’” “And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant” is the degree of slave, left line, Malchut. “Israel” is the degree of son, right line, ZA. When they are included as one, it is written, “In whom I will be glorified.”“

The two lines: the left, the level of the slave (Malchut), and the right, the level of the son (Israel), have to be united and glorified, which means to be revealed.

On the one hand, we have to totally submit and enslave ourselves to the upper leadership. We can say, of course, that now He governs us and that we are totally enslaved to Him and cannot do anything without Him, but this is the attribute of a bad slave.

The left line has to be loyal to its master by stating, “I want to be His slave. I want Him to govern me internally through the desires over which I have no control.” This is my freedom. My freedom is in choosing whether to remain under the domination of the Master or to leave Him. I choose His domination because I cannot feel any freer than when I am under His leadership.

Later, when I ascend higher, the level of the slave enters to the level of the son. The difference between the level of the salve and the level of the son is that I do everything my Father desires and not my Master. Now I want to carry out all His actions consciously, even if He doesn’t force me to do so. And, even if He didn’t know about it, here I work without connection to Him, and am like Him.

These two states have to be clearly felt by a person and then the third state appears between them, the middle line, when I am neither a slave nor the son. The middle line doesn’t exist in nature and is created and appears in the connection between the right and left lines, giving a person a feeling of complete freedom. It is like being in a vacuum, where the first condition of the slave doesn’t operate or have any impact on me, but neither does the second condition of the son.

I can totally disconnect myself from any connection with the Creator and be independent in all my actions, desires, and thoughts. Complete freedom!

This is what the thought of creation is all about, which is bringing a person to the feeling of freedom that leads to his choice of the state to be where the Creator exists and to yearn for Him. If I yearn for that myself by 10%, 15%, or 20%, I gradually turn myself into that exact image, the same replica, and to that extent I am called Adam, a human being.

I disconnect myself from the Creator in the middle line because otherwise I have no freewill. This isn’t an illusion of freedom. I need to feel that I am totally free. Moreover, this feeling comes against a cacophony of all kinds of egoistic desires, urges, and temptations. Pride, envy, the desire to do whatever he wants, and to be the master of the universe grow in a person.

Imagine that you are immersed in water and on the surface, instead of clear water, turbidity from the bottom suddenly rises, and it is all yours, the waves of your egoistic thoughts and desires. It is actually on this background that you begin to make a human being out of yourself.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/18/14

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From One Jubilee To The Next

Dr. Michael LaitmanA new cycle of selling the land begins after the jubilee. I can sell it to someone for 10 years, to someone else for 20 years, and so on, until the year of the jubilee when the land once again becomes mine.

I cannot sell it anymore since this land cannot be someone else’s property until the jubilee year. A person feels that he is a stranger, a foreigner on the land and that the land isn’t his but  belongs to the Creator who was only renting it to him. The reason is that the land symbolizes our desire.

Question: What does that mean on a more internal level of understating? How can I sell my desire?

Answer: You can do whatever you want with it in order to get the right crop from it, but you should know that eventually you have to return the corrected desire to the Creator in the form of bestowal. The jubilee symbolizes complete compatibility with the Creator. The jubilee is common and shared by the whole nation. Everyone knows about it; you cannot cheat anyone, and there is no need to present any documents. This is the way the counting of the land has always been done: from one jubilee to the next and at which time everything goes back to the beginning.

Comment: This is felt as a very deep point and everything is very complicated. We, who exist in this dimension, find it hard to understand.

Answer: If you are connected to the Creator, the general force of nature, and you know that you are subordinate to Him, nothing is complicated or difficult.

Today, we begin to feel quite sharply that we are governed by nature and that we have no choice. We don’t control things and all our naive notions that we are the masters of nature and that we can take anything we want from it by force are gradually fading.

We are like small children who, without mom and dad, begin to realize that we have been left alone in a giant sandbox not knowing what to do next and that we have corrupted it to such an extent that playing in it is impossible. All the kids’ games are over; it is time to grow up.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/13/14

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Desire Is A Person’s Only Image

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus,” 25:6 – 25:7: And [the produce of] the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to eat for you, for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you, And all of its produce may be eaten [also] by your domestic animals and by the beasts that are in your land.

Everything that belongs to a person, to his vessel, which is made of the parts of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels, divided horizontally, vertically, and upwards, has to be included in his work. He has to prepare his desires so that they are ready to be filled with the Upper Light. A servant, a maid, cattle and beasts are all parts of a person.

When we reach that state, we will see that all the other parts of nature (the still, vegetative, and animate), which we feel externally to us, will be filled with the same Light and it will be clear that they are not external but all exist inside. We will discover that our external and internal world is one whole, general world. This means that my animate part and the whole animate world that surrounds me, my vegetative part and the whole vegetative world that is external to me, the part of the still nature in me and the whole universe, are actually one unique whole.

It turns out that the one, unique human figure that we create when we fully connect includes all of creation inside it, which we feel as one whole. There is no division into I and others. Humans, animals, plants, and inanimate nature all become one unique desire in which the concept of the one Creator is attained, which is the one force of nature. This is typified by the seventh millennium.

And the Creator’s attitude to this—the attainment of the thought of His creation, the plan, His actions, His main initial desire to create the created being in His form and image—is already the next three thousands: the eighth, ninth, and tenth. Then it is all locked into one unique whole that is not divided into thousands of years, and the created being enters another dimension, which we know nothing about. But he exists, since we have clues to that in the writings of great Kabbalists, but nothing more.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/13/14

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A Sabbath Of Solemn Rest In The Seventh Year

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the following refer to? Leviticus 25:3 – 25:4: You may sow your field for six years, and for six years you may prune your vineyard, and gather in its produce, But in the seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor shall you prune your vineyard.

Answer: All six years of working the land are six years of correcting our desire when we constantly work on it. And in the seventh year the corrected desire will be filled with the Light of the Creator.

Then we don’t need to do anything since the Light fills the general desire and connects, weakens, and dominates it in such a way that the main thing for us is not to interfere.

Which is to say, all the actions that are incumbent upon us must be directed in such a way that we don’t disturb the Creator from sinking into us, filling, connecting, and placing us together as one single package in which all the characteristics of the Creator on the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking are connected by the one and only Light into a single whole.

And this is called the seventh year, which is the year of solemn rest. Therefore, this is called Shabbat (the Sabbath), the freedom and cessation from work. But actually there is very strong inner work, only it is directed in the opposite direction as I nullify myself and don’t do anything, making it possible for the Creator to act.

At the same time, I am together with Him in full accord and unity with Him. I work, but my work is summed up in synchronized action with the Creator, and this is very complicated and difficult.

So I must prepare myself for rest so that all of the density of the ego, the entire six years during which I corrected it, will bring me to the seventh year, the year of solemn rest, the year of the Shmittah (letting go).

After that will come the eighth, ninth, and tenth (millenial) years, which correspond to attaining the level of GAR, the levels of Bina, Hochma, and Keter. In them I attain the mind of the Creator, His plans, and He, Himself. This is the highest level, which is called the secrets of the Torah.

What is meant by the secrets of the Torah? After I attain the seventh millennium, all of my images, the entire apparatus of my understanding and consciousness is so transformed that only then will I be able to understand what the three upper levels symbolize: the eighth, ninth, and tenth millennia.

Question: Is it possible to say that the six years of working the land are plowing, elevating, and transforming the ego?

Answer: Yes, I transform the ego like we transform the ground when we plow it before sowing. The spiritual seeds of the person cannot grow if he doesn’t transform his desires (the ground). This is realized during the six years, and in the seventh year the fulfillment happens through the Light of what was planted.

Question: Is it only then that the sprouts appear?

Answer: No, they come out every year. It is just that during the six years (Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod) I work the ground in such a way that in the seventh year, all that I attained in the work, that I dug into my ego, is ready to be filled by the Light.

So the Light realizes this without my actions. I now finish my work through opposite actions since  I must help the Light do this from its side and not from the side of the ground.

Question: What does “fulfillment by the Light” mean?

Answer: When the desires of the person completely transform to be similar to the Light in quantity and quality, he then feels that the Light is found within him.

In fact, the Light was always in him, except now the person begins to feel it because he prepared his senses, his understanding, for this. He sees that even before then, he was in the world of the Creator, and that everything was filled with Light, “there is none else besides Him,” but now he feels it and discovers it. This is the seventh millenium.

So Shabbat is called a sacred day because it is the sum of all of the immense work that a person passes through to attain the Creator, to discover Him within himself.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/13/14

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