There are two forces in nature: reception and bestowal. These two forces depict pictures on our desire to enjoy like on a computer screen. They project the picture of the world that consists of me and everything around me. As Baal HaSulam writes, in the posterior part of our brain there is a screen through which we perceive a picture of the world.

This picture is created with the help of two forces: a receiving (left) force and a bestowing (right) force. The combination of these two forces on my egoistic material depicts the whole picture of reality for me. I feel it, I see a picture, as it were, and it seems to me that this picture, this reality, exists outside of me. I, myself, project my inner picture in front of me. This is how I “see the world.” It’s as though I retrieve it from within myself and project it outside.

Why am I built this way? Why do I see my inner world in an external form? It is in order for us to treat it egoistically with neglect and hostility. Thereby, we receive an opportunity to study our inner world and to correct ourselves.

If I sensed it as being inside of me, I would never be able to correct myself because I would relate to everything in a positive manner with goodness, but solely in an egoistic manner. But now, since my ego comes out to the outside and I feel that it is foreign, I relate to my “external self” like to a foreigner, egoistically in a negative way, rather than positively and like it is my inner part. Therefore, I have an opportunity to understand what “external” and “internal” mean for me.

The world was split into two parts: me and the others. I cannot convince myself that something which exists outside of me is my own. I am given an opportunity to see my inner essence in the outside picture: “Come and see who you are and how you treat those around you. This is how you are inside.” You say, “Look how ugly this one is, how lazy that one is, how dumb another one is! I hate them so much!” Meanwhile, all these qualities are yours and not those of others.

These revelations help me. Otherwise I would never be able to relate to them, to completely reveal the “evil inclination” (egoistic desire, hate for everyone) and later to understand that these are my inner qualities that are projected on the outside.

Then I begin to understand how the Creator helps me by giving me such a perception of reality: to see my insides on the outside. I begin to understand how much this helps me, and that without this, I would be completely locked within myself and I would never be able to understand what the “I” is. Meanwhile, there is something here, “something in me that I do not consider to be me.”

Therefore, our entire work boils down to the unification of our inner self with our outer self, with the outside world, and particularly with the group. We can practice with the group. After all, when I begin to work with the group and try to treat the friends like myself, I see that I am incapable of uniting no matter how much I try to convince myself that all this outside of me is also me. I can’t even treat a small part of humanity, the group, whose goal is close to my own, like myself. I can’t relate to it above my egoistic mind.

In this regard, I begin to see this egoism like something that was artificially created by the Creator, particularly for its annulment. However, I am unable to do this on my own; I can only desire it and then ask the Creator for the disappearance of it (egoism). Why should I ask? In order to receive a connection with the Creator!

“How can this be?” Understand that they are you! Treat them with love, since they are parts of your soul!

“But I can’t!” They are your friends, your neighbors. They are advancing to the same goal as you! What separates you after all?

“The force of the breaking separates us. The Creator placed it as an obstacle, and I cannot overcome it.” And then you ask to correct this in particular. You ask for correction and incorporate the whole world into yourself.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Unique Range Of Each Soul
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Love For the Creator & Love For The Created Beings”
ARIfilms: “Kabbalah and Our Perception of Reality” – 2 of 2

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

The Creator Is Absolute Good
Questions about the post “Kabbalists On The Purpose of Creation, Part 1”

Question: Quote: "And because He has no will to receive, He is fundamentally devoid of a desire to harm anyone; it is as simple as that." Is the will to receive causing all of our problems? Aren’t we created to be receivers and won’t we remain this way since there is no Giver without receivers? How do we dispose of these contradictions so that the will to receive would give no reason to inflict harm on anyone?

My Answer: We need to correct the egoism to its opposite and continue to receive but to receive for the sake of bestowal.

Question: Quote: "Furthermore, it is completely agreeable to our mind as the first concept, that He possesses a desire to bestow goodness upon others, meaning to His creatures." It is impossible to agree with this since many do not have this kind of perception. We can only suppose that it is so. Baal HaSulam says that we should "accept it with our heart." How do we do this practically?

My Answer: We need to engage practically in correcting ourselves so as to become similar to the Creator. We do this through studying Kabbalah systematically and by engaging in the group. No one is suggesting that you should agree with it; Baal HaSulam suggests that you reveal this.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (“Pticha”) – Item 1
Laitman.com Post: The Kind Healer Of Hearts
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Is A Patent For Infinite Pleasure
Spiritual Search: "Our Desire to Receive is Equal to the Creator’s Altruism"

Filed under: Q&A - No Comments →

The Creator Is Absolute Good
Questions about the post "Kabbalists On The Purpose of Creation, Part 1"

Question: Right now I see the Creator as good that does good, even though I often scold  Him and believe that He is unfair to me and others. In the next moment, I can see Him negatively again. Is my ego painting this picture for me? How can I ask for MAN (prayer)?

My Answer: Study the articles of Rabash together with us. He is the only Kabbalist whose articles describe all the spiritual Laws in detail, as well as the states that a person goes through as he attains them.

Question: I quote: “The Creator is absolute goodness.” I want to feel the Creator, bestowal, all the time, but how do I feel it and to whom do I bestow? On the one hand, bestowal is absolute good, but on the other, it is simply a blind law. If we are desire, which is matter, and we must become similar to the Creator, what exactly are we supposed to become? By becoming similar to the Creator, we will turn into a different matter, a different substance, so what will we feel?

My Answer: You should know that there is no answer for this question. You will find your own answers through attainment. Answers to spiritual questions come only to the extent of your entrance into the spiritual quality of bestowal. This is possible only through a systematic and practical study of Kabbalah. All theorists will remain with their questions refuting Kabbalah disdainfully in an effort to justify themselves. All of your questions have already been answered on this site, so read up!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Muse of A Kabbalist
Kabbalah Moments: "Seeing Goodness"
5 Minutes Of Light: "What Is The Creator?"

Filed under: Q&A - No Comments →

The Creator is  Absolute Good
Questions about the post “Kabbalists On The Purpose of Creation, Part 1”

Question: “…He is fundamentally devoid of a desire to harm anyone.” Then why do I see people suffering.

My Answer: To the extent that people are opposite to the Creator’s quality to bestow and love, they perceive all the goodness that comes from Him in the opposite form, as evil.

Question: Are all events prepared by the Creator and sorted in the set of acquired habits for the soul?

My Answer: All the events are deliberately determined by the initial and final states of every soul. However, they are perceived by the souls as states ranging from extreme suffering to immense pleasure, depending upon the similarity of the souls to the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Does The Creator Get Angry?
Laitman.com Post:The Upper One Doesn’t Err
Shamati #50: “Two States”

Filed under: Q&A - 1 Comment →

From the articles of Rabash: Malchut’s guidance is called “Chukat” (corpus juris/code of laws). But it is only the law of the Torah, not the Torah itself. This means that in order to attain the Torah, we have to accept the laws it bestows on us. Otherwise, it is impossible to receive the Torah. When a person accepts Malchut’s governance over him, he is called Israel.

We all are the desire to receive pleasure. This desire is similar to a mountain, hill, or a pile of sand that has no form. From this “sand,” with the help of water (Hassadim), we must build a shape in the likeness of the Creator much like we are able to shape the sand on the seashore.

This is our work, the process in which we build the correct form from shapeless “sand” as we study the qualities of the Creator, copy them, and mold ourselves from it – called “chukat” (the code of laws). The forms that we acquire ourselves are called “chukat.”

Ultimately, the cause, effect, and the forms of bestowal that we are building, one by one on the foundation of the will to receive, will all join together. Nothing disappears in spirituality; the foundation remains, and ultimately this construction will transform into an image of the Creator that we create by ourselves.

It follows that the creatures create the Creator. This is written in The Zohar. Therefore, all the great laws that we receive from the Light, along with the revelation of the Creator, exist for us to realize them on our own.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/14/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Who Can We Call A Creature?
Laitman.com Post: All Of Creation Is The Creator’s Game
Article: “The Creating Mind”

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

A question I received: How do we recognize the "Moses" inside us?

My answer: The "Moses" inside a person is the closest point to the Creator or the point of contact with the Creator. If a person advances in a correct manner, he takes care of and protects this point as if it were his most precious jewel. After all, it connects him to the Creator.

"Moses" is the quality that is closest to the spiritual world. All the other points strive to the spiritual world only at some times, under certain conditions, on different levels of Aviut (thickness of desire), and due to various reasons, whereas the "Moses" in a person is truly devoted to the goal.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Everyone Can Ascend To The Highest Level
Laitman.com Post: Acquiring The Real Perception Of The World
5 Minutes Of Light: "The Meeting Point Between Creator & Creature"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

A brief summary of the weekly Torah portion of “Chukat,” Part 1: The nation of Israel continues to wander around the desert and comes to Kadesh, which is situated in the desert of Tzin, where the nation begins to complain about the lack of water. Moses and Aaron turn to the Creator for advice and He tells them to ask the rock to give them water in front of the whole community. However, instead of asking the rock, they hit it. This angers the Creator, and He sentences them to die in the desert, and not to be among those who will bring the nation to the land of Israel.

A question I received: If the Creator gives us the point in the heart and takes us through all the states Himself, then why does He get angry?

My Answer: Obviously the Creator creates all the problems for us right from the start. He gives us obstacles every step of the way, no one else does. In the cruelest manner, He first performs evil, and then yells, punishes us, and later makes a suggestion: “OK, do it differently that will be better for you.” However, while we are in that “better” state, He once again makes it even worse for us and punishes us once again.

Why does He get angry? This wrath is correction. A person feels the Creator’s behavior inside himself; this is the way we are arranged. We cannot correlate this feeling to the Upper Force and to what happens inside It. After all, nothing happens in the Creator; He exists in absolute rest.

However, since we still don’t exist in a completely corrected state, our reality is separated into “me” and “outside of me,” “me” and “the world that surrounds me,” “me” and “the spiritual world,” and “me” and “the Creator.” However, everything that is seemingly external to me is in essence me; for the time being, it just seems to exist outside of me.

Therefore, the Creator’s behavior, which is presented to me in various forms, is really only the way I imagine Him through my own qualities. If I correct myself, I will see that love, nothing except love, comes from the Creator. But, while my external desires are not corrected, these desires bring me either a sensation of an evil world or a sensation of an evil Creator.

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/14/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Revealing The Creator’s Goodness
Kabbalah Moments: “The Creator’s Attitude”
Unlocking The Zohar: “How To Change Reality”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: Why is it written in the Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 55, that a person who attained “open Providence [that is, revealed the Creator] is certain that he will not sin again”?

My Answer: A person is certain that he won’t sin because he has corrected, with the help of the screen and the Reflected Light, all his desires to receive. He rose above them and now can proceed further. He needs “the Creator to testify” for his correction in order to continue working with his desires to receive and start using them for receiving in order to bestow.

I need an additional general force which is called the testimony of the Creator. Now I have to open my Pandora’s box that contains all my desires and begin to clarify in which of them I can receive pleasure and thereby delight the Creator. This is a totally new tendency, which has never existed before. I have never done it, and now I have to taste pleasures in order to delight the Creator much like a guest who partakes in the feast to satisfy the host.

In order not to err, I have to collect the unique, new forces provided by the Creator’s testimony. Otherwise, I shouldn’t even touch and start disclosing my new receiving desires. I need an additional assisting force. And “When He who knows all mysteries will testy that I will not turn back to folly,” I will be able to begin correcting my transgressions.

In this stage, transgressions have already turned into mistakes, and I should feel better, as it were. I have already corrected half of the receiving desire, and it is fully filled with the Light of Hassadim. Now I have to begin working with it in the three lines and introduce a little bit of the Light of Hochma into it.

This means that my transgressions have become mistakes. I am going to receive in order to bestow, but I already possess the intention “in order to bestow.” I only need to very carefully add reception to it.

When we attain such a high spiritual level, we will realize what this work is all about.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Greatest Reward Is Not Seeing It
Laitman.com Post: Is Concealment Hiding Within Me?
5 Minutes of Light: “Perceiving Through Bestowal”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “VaYigash (Then Judah Approached),” Item 129:  When the firmaments and the animals, meaning the Nukva, are corrected so that everything is one Merkava for this man, ZA, it is written, “And Joseph prepared his Merkava [chariot/structure], and went up to meet Israel, his father, to Goshen.” This is a Tzadik [righteous], Yesod de ZA, called “the righteous Joseph,” who tied and united his Merkava, the Nukva, with the firmaments and the animals.

Here The Zohar speaks about the desire created by the Creator, which begins to resemble Him, His actions. The Creator is the source that shows the desire to enjoy (that He created) His actions upon it. The Creator influences the desire to enjoy in a variety of ways, and, by perceiving these forms, the desire starts developing from them.

The desire perceives the Creator’s actions in six different directions (four directions of the world and up-down) as well as through a variety of colors, tastes, smells, temperatures, and so on. In essence, the Light emanating from the Creator affects the desire to enjoy and it receives certain impressions.

In accordance with the sensations experienced, the desire ascribes different names to these impressions and defines them by various forms. These phenomena do not exist outside of the desire to enjoy since we are unable to perceive anything outside of our desire. For example, we can say that there is simple Surrounding Light; however, we can only talk about certain phenomena when they’re already within the desire, when the desire already senses them in one way or another.

The Zohar explains the structure of the systems, that is, it clarifies how the desire to enjoy is impressed by the Light and how this determines the desire’s structure. Each time the desire receives an impression from the Light, it acquires a specific shape, which is how the Light leaves various imprints on it. The desire to enjoy is like a living sculpture with a myriad of internal and external forms and systems.

That is why the creature represents an extremely complex system that originates from the influence of the Light upon it. The direct influence of the Creator on the creature means that the creature goes through all His actions and acquires forms in accordance with the system “from Above to below,” that is, directly from the Creator.

There is also an opposite action when the creature says: “Stop! From here on I will operate the system on my own. I want to be similar to You. It’s enough. I’ve already received all the impressions and Reshimot, and now I want to work independently. I want to operate the system that You imprinted in me, in the way You do it. I want to become as giving as You are. I want to bestow to You!”  This is called “work from below to Above.”

From the Evening Zohar Lesson 6/9/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Let The Light Shine
Laitman.com Post: Opening The Way To The Light
ARIfilms: “Development of Desires”

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

A question I received: What is “faith” before crossing the Machsom (barrier to the spiritual world)?

My Answer: Before a person crosses the Machsom and enters spirituality, he has no faith. The concept of faith in Kabbalah is totally different from what is customarily referred to in ordinary life. In Kabbalah, all of these concepts are defined at a completely different level.

Faith is sensing the Creator. If I sense the Creator, I believe in Him. Note how different it is from what I thought before. In our regular lives faith is something that we don’t see or know, but believe in as though it actually exists in reality.

Kabbalah says that this is not faith, but merely a fantasy. Kabbalah relies exclusively on realistic, true inner sensations: To the extent I feel the Creator, I receive the strength to work against my ego. One force against the other; positive against negative. This is what we call “faith above reason,” that is, faith above egoism and the sensations within it. I rise above all this because I am able to use the Upper reason and sensations. Yet if I don’t have them, how can I work? Based on stories told by someone else?

This is not what we call faith. It’s a game people play in this world because they don’t know of a better way to reassure themselves. To attain faith, we have to reach revelation. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the creatures, and this is called “faith.”
[15514]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/10, Shamati #50

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual World Is Above Reason
Laitman.com Post: Upper Logic
Kabbalah Moments: “Faith Above Reason”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →