Entries in the 'correction' Category

We Are Discovering A New World

Laitman_702_02Our actions in the science of Kabbalah are similar to those of scientists. We are discovering a new world; we are correcting ourselves, and in the process of making these corrections we learn and continually evolve alongside the corrections and within them.

That is why nobody can know his future degree until he attains it. A person does not advance along a clear, open path. Nothing is revealed! Whatever a person reaches was always concealed and unintelligible until the last moment. This is how we advance.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/10, The Zohar

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The Virtual State Of Kabbalah

Laitman_912A question I received: How will the method of correction and dissemination of Kabbalah change when the entire world is transitioning toward a virtual connection?

My Answer: We need to quickly build a system of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah through the Internet, a system that will exude warmth and give a person a feeling of universal connection. This system needs to teach us how to be connected with one another, and to provide virtual education for both children and adults. Presently our Learning Centers focus more on theory and intellectual development, but now we need to put greater emphasis on educating and “forming” a person.

A spiritual connection is when I feel another person within me as my inseparable part, even closer than a mother feels her child through her maternal connection. A spiritual connection is even tighter.

A virtual connection is a stepping stone to the spiritual one. Additionally, we need to accumulate a certain might by uniting together a multitude of desires. Indeed, our success depends on a global awakening, and the primary means of achieving that goal is the Internet. It was created for this very purpose. The Internet didn’t develop in order to disseminate sales or other petty nonsense, but to create a connection between people. That is the purpose of the world-wide web.

This connection may only be one of love. Therefore, as soon as we begin to create this web and wish for these electronic cables to transmit a feeling of connection and love, we will understand how to properly construct it.

Subsequently, humanity will feel that the Internet is changing, that is possesses an Upper, spiritual force, and it will truly become a web covering the world – a spiritual web, and not simply a means of conveying information or reaping profits. The Internet will cease to use people for profit; instead it will be used to elevate people to a new degree.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/10, Article “Exile and Redemption”

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On The Waves Of Spiritual Attainment


A question I received: What does knowledge give us if while reading The Zohar we can’t remember anything a moment later?

My Answer: Knowledge does not give us anything. Today I know something, but tomorrow I forget all about it. Why do I forget? If my desires (Kelim) change, then tomorrow, within my new desires, I won’t remember what I knew before because I am no longer inside my previous desires.

I can convey knowledge from one level to another only through sensation. Our states include a wave-like process: knowledge – sensation – knowledge – sensation. Suppose I have just corrected my desires on some level. According to this level of correcting my desires, I acquire some knowledge and sensation of reality, a realization of where I am, on what level and in what world.

Then a new desire comes. The previous level disappears and I am immersed in darkness. What remains with me? Everyone knows that when the sensation of darkness comes to you, then all the previous sensations disappear and you can no longer work with them. However, if you begin working with this new level, this new darkness, then your efforts evoke a new Light that comes and corrects you. You then go on to a new state where you have a deeper understanding of the previous knowledge based on the new, higher knowledge.

Therefore, you should never take knowledge into account. It will always be there and it will always enter the corrected desire. The most important thing is to correct the desire. Then whatever needs to be revealed in it will be revealed, but there’s no point worrying about that.

This is why the people who study correctly leave the lesson without remembering anything. They just go away with a general impression. This impression is recorded in their senses rather than their understanding. It remains in the sensory, not the mental, memory.

I don’t look down on reason at all. In fact, I am drawn to knowledge and serious study. However, when a person studies through the point in the heart,he does not remember or understand what he studies until his sensations develop sufficiently and he starts to understand with his feelings. He then understands “what he is feeling.”

It turns out that what you study for years disappears and the “results of the study” are not apparent. The results should not show in your knowledge, but in the correction of your qualities by the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif), meaning in your qualities.

This is very different from studying at a university, where a person studies for four to six years and then becomes an expert in some field, and then writes a dissertation for another several years. Where is the clear knowledge of a person who studied Kabbalah for ten years? What has he gained? It seems like he has nothing to show for it. That’s because every day he is born anew, in new qualities, until he attains revelation.

When he attains revelation, then it is recorded on his level. Then, in states of ascent he really has mastery of the material and possesses knowledge. But in states of descent, he is in the dark and only his experience holds him up. (See Baal HaSulam’s article, “What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work.”)

One has to understand that until we reach the Final Correction, the states vary a great deal and we should only consider the height or level of correction. Knowledge will always accompany a person according to his degree.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/10, The Zohar

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While The Wheel Is Spinning

By going through such spiritual states like the “New Year,” each time, a person reaches some part of the final corrected state. We cannot reach the Final Correction at once; rather, we attain it in portions, time after time. Thus each year the state of the beginning – the beginning of the year – returns. This continues until the corrections accumulate and the common and final End of Correction occurs.

Like a spinning wheel, we return to seemingly the same corrections again and again until they accumulate and we reach the final corrected state. It happens precisely as in a bicycle when its wheel seems to be spinning around its axis in the same place. Yet in reality, due to this spinning, the bicycle is moving forward because the outside conditions change.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 4/7/10

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A Stream That Irrigates Our Souls

Dr. Michael Laitman The Zohar. Chapter “VaYaera (And the Lord Appeared),” Item 424. …The fruit of the actions of the Creator is from that river that stretches out of Eden, meaning ZA and the souls of the righteous. In other words, its deed is the souls of the righteous. And this is the fortune from which all good blessings and timely rains pour out, as it is written, “To water the garden.” It trickles and waters from above downwards because sons depend on this fortune and on no other place….

All our degrees of ascension and correction depend on “fortune” (Mazal) – the Lights that come from above “in drops,” one after another, and seep through the beard of Arich Anpin from his head. And since they come in intervals, we have an opportunity to correct ourselves.

Corrections occur to us step by step, time after time, due to the fact that the Upper Light comes to us in small portions, since a person is incapable of freeing himself from his egoism immediately, in one leap. This is impossible, since egoism is our whole nature!

Therefore, heaviness of the heart comes to us, we overcome it, then it comes again, and we overcome it again, and so on; “drop by drop” we receive correction. All this is due to the revelation of the drops of the Light of Hochma, which are delivered to us by the stream (Zeir Anpin) that flows out of Eden (Bina) and irrigates our souls.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/10, The Zohar

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On The Threshold Of Final Redemption

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled),” Item 432: And now that Divinity needs correction, to bond with her husband, ZA, that redemption of Egypt must be shown to contain four redemptions. And with the awakening of the Mochin of the exodus from Egypt, she is corrected to bond with her husband because she has become liberated from all four Malchuts.

Shechina (Divinity) must go through four exiles which will be followed by the final redemption, the exodus out of the final exile. Malchut comprises four layers of the desire to receive pleasure. Thus, each time she must reveal a greater egoistic desire and exit out of it, meaning to use it for the sake of giving; and then once more reveal an even greater desire to receive pleasure, and again correct it with the intention to give. And so on four times over according to the structure of Malchut of Infinity. In so doing, we will conclude her correction, and she will be completely corrected.

Presently we stand on the threshold of the final redemption. The greatest desire to receive pleasure, which is being revealed today in the souls, must be corrected with the intention to give. And then there will be no more exiles.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/10, The Zohar

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Foundation Of Spiritual Corrections

Dr. Michael Laitman The Zohar, Chapter “VaYaera (And the Lord Appeared),” Item 360: “He will keep the feet of His holy ones.” It writes “His holy ones” without a Yod [in Hebrew], which means a holy one, Abraham, with whom the Creator always went, so that others would not be able to harm him. “But the wicked ones are silenced in darkness.” Those are the angels that the Creator killed on the night when Abraham chased them.

The quality of Hesed (Abraham) is the foundation of all other corrections. It’s the first quality that becomes revealed in egoism during its correction. This is why we consider him to be the “father of the nation of Israel,” meaning that he is the father (foundation) of the nation (all other corrections) of Israel (Yashar-El, leading a person straight to the Creator).

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/6/10, The Zohar

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And There Was Evening And There Was Morning, One Day

Laitman_074 The Light’s revelation in the spiritual world is called “day.” Hence, “morning” is followed by “noon” and the afternoon prayer. The desire to enjoy grows inside of a person and he feels that he passes through various states. The “daytime hours” go by until this new egoistic desire grows so strong that the Light begins to be restricted and the sun begins to set. The person no longer has a sufficient amount of the Light of Hassadim in order to retain the Light of Hochma. His desire to enjoy has grown before receiving corrections.

As a result, “evening” sets in when he no longer can discern the desire to receive from the desire to bestow or the light from the darkness; everything is mixed together. He enters a “recumbent” state when Rosh-Toch-Sof (the head, body, and extremities of his soul) of his spiritual Partzuf are on the same level. He makes no calculations as he’s incapable of any.

The only thing he can do is maintain his “still” level and so he “goes to sleep,” which is a state that is very close to death. It’s in that state of “night” that he re-attains “unity,” the bond between souls and their union with the Creator, so that the Upper Light upholds him even in descent.

From here, we need to draw conclusions as to how to prepare ourselves for darkness at this preparatory stage before reaching the spiritual degrees. This is done by binding ourselves to the group, the Kabbalah books, and the study to form as many connections or “support blocks” as possible. When we make this correction, the “night” will end and “day” will begin anew.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 04/04/10, The Zohar

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Revealing Our True State

Dr. Michael Laitman Spirituality is the quality of bestowal that is revealed in the bond between souls. This is the only thing the Kabbalists write about, as there is nothing else. There is no other reality.

We exist in a universe and the space between us is filled entirely with bestowal. This whole system with all its internal connections is called “the Creator.” And every one of us who wants to uphold this system and observe its laws is called the “creation.”

Presently we are not creations, and we do not pertain to the Creator’s system. Indeed, a creation is one who desires to be connected with others. He wants to actualize the system just as it exists from the standpoint of nature, which is concealed from us.

We currently exist in this system and observe its laws 100% of the time though we are entirely unaware of this fact. Even now, we exist in a completely corrected state called “1,” which is a state before the descent into our world.

Everything is already working perfectly but only from the standpoint of the Creator. We have lost perception of this state and must now bring ourselves to consciousness: To desire to return there and reveal our true location and function. The return of this system to this previous state depends on our desire, preparedness, and efforts.

Then we will reveal the same state wherein we already exist, but this realization will enable us to feel it as state “3.” It will appear to us as clear, deep, and full of perfection. This state is 613 times greater than the original state. We only need to correctly understand this system and ourselves within it so as to begin the work of revealing our true state, our true life.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/2/10, The Zohar

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In Search Of My Soul

Dr. Michael Laitman A question I received: What desires within me belong to the "stony heart" that will be corrected in the very end during the final correction?

My Answer: All desires which are discussed in the wisdom of Kabbalah, such as GE, AHP, and the stony heart, are our broken desires. We were once connected together through them, but this connection broke apart. These desires are not at all directed to the fulfillments of this world.

In fact, the broken desires which exist between us are actually the absence of connection between us, but we don’t feel them whatsoever. Do I really feel that I’m disconnected from you, that I miss this connection and it’s broken? Do I really regret that I hate you?

We don’t even sense the desires which require correction. For now there is nothing to correct since we don’t see what’s missing and broken. This is why none of us have desires belonging to the soul except for the single point in a heart (in those who already have it awakened). It becomes the beginning of our soul if we start discerning our connections requiring correction within it.

At the same time the ordinary human desires have no relation to our connection with other souls. This is why we don’t have a soul yet, but only material bodily desires which are not related to the soul.

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