A question I received: Who is a person’s worst enemy in the spiritual work?

My Answer: The worst enemy is the person himself, his qualities, which are opposite to the Creator! They are revealed to us gradually, to the extent that we can oppose them. Otherwise, we would be paralyzed and unable to do even a single inner or external action. Therefore, the concealment is revealed to us incrementally, showing us that we really do not exist as some individual!

A small piece of truth is revealed to me only to the extent that I am able to hold onto the Creator. In regard to all other thoughts, desires, and qualities, I am not shown just how much I am controlled from above. It is instilled in me that I seemingly determine everything on my own. In other words, only gradually is it disclosed to me that I actually do not exist – I am just a puppet, whose strings are being pulled!

However, to the extent that I am able to annul myself before my environment and the Creator, and use my freedom of choice, I am granted independence. An opportunity is revealed to me to build more and more minor parts of my independent personality – until I ascend in all my magnitude. This means that I will exist in adhesion with the Creator – in the opposite desire, but in the same intention.

It turns out that we never come out from the authority of the Upper Force, but progressively the concealment diminishes according to our willingness to adhere to the Creator. It is as though a curtain draws apart in front of me. At first I am in pitch darkness, where I think that I exist and have independence. To the extent that I will be able to tolerate the fact that I am helpless, to endure this inner blow, this shame, and to adhere to the Creator, the curtain will be drawn apart more and more for me, and the concealment will fade.

Everything depends on my sensations. The state itself does not change – only my perception changes.

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The Zohar, Chapter “BeHukotai (In My Statutes),” Item 45: “I will never again curse the ground on account of man.” “I will never again,” meaning I will not give addition to the litigants to destroy the world, but only add as much as the world can bear. It is written about that, “then I will [chastise you] more,” meaning add what the world can bear.

This describes how we advance. The whole process consists of Malchut rising to Bina and then descending back from Bina. Then it rises to Bina again, and descends back again. All these movements, these oscillations, are meant to give us sensations.

After all, we cannot feel our reality in Malchut or in Bina; we can only feel it in the connection between them. We feel reality in the coefficient of their connection; that is, in the changes of Malchut’s inclusion into Bina and Bina’s inclusion into Malchut.

More simply, we feel ourselves only under the condition that we move between Malchut and Bina. When the relationships between them change in us, then the variable correlation between Malchut and Bina also changes in us, and it is these changes that we perceive as life.

Conversely, if this correlation ceases to change or becomes still, we would feel this as death. In this state, all the sensations and gradations of qualities vanish. Therefore, on one hand, we feel life in the process of change of Malchut’s inclusion into Bina, and Bina’s inclusion into Malchut, and the unifications between them. On the other hand, this gives us heavy and unpleasant sensations, and the lack of patience. However, this is precisely where we feel life. Therefore, in order to live, we are forced to survive. We are unable to part with life and so we prefer movement.

In spirituality this movement reaches a state within which we reveal the Creator. It is the state, from which life comes to us and provides movement, strength, and the changes in the connections between Malchut and Bina and in the ascents of Malchut into Bina.

When we reveal Who does this, Who creates these changes, and for what purpose all these changes occur in us, we rise above these movements, above the changes in us, and we merge with the Giver of life. Thereby we begin to feel at rest. After all, we then feel that this movement is necessary for creation, and without it creation is unable to feel the Creator.

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The breaking of the common soul really was a great thing. Through the breaking, the Creator gave us an opportunity to exist and express ourselves. After all, if the parts of the common soul weren’t distanced from one another, we wouldn’t be able to build the Creator’s image and perceive ourselves in relation to others. We would simply dissolve within the Light as it is impossible to distinguish anything within one unified object.

The creation can’t exist within one whole; we can only exist when there is us and something else. Our perception results from the distance between us. We can’t attain anything in absolute light or in complete darkness.

For this reason, the breaking gives us the opportunity to attain and experience existence. Otherwise, if we were to find ourselves in absolute and total darkness, we wouldn’t sense anything and we wouldn’t be able to feel that we exist. This is because all of our senses are based on perception between two opposites, such as sound versus silence or scented versus unscented. If there were “silence” in all of our senses, we couldn’t perceive ourselves.

So, the breaking happened precisely to give the creation the opportunity to exist and perceive itself. This really is a divine patent. We fill the space where the breaking took place. We fill the empty space between the parts that seemingly appear to be distanced from one another with the Light. In reality, however, it was the Creator who disappeared from the single whole in order to give us the opportunity to reach that same unity independently.

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As long as we exist in the perception of this world alone, we cannot understand that it is imaginary. Right now matter is the only reality we know, and we don’t feel anything else. Yet, our objective is to start to clearly perceive the world on two levels: the material and the spiritual. Then we will understand that one of them is imaginary. This doesn’t mean it does not exist; “imaginary” means it is a reflection of the true form, whereas the second, spiritual form is the real thing.

There is something that’s authentic, and then there is a reflection of it, like in a mirror. You can’t say that the reflection doesn’t exist. Moreover, it is precisely the reflection that enables us to come to the perception of the true, spiritual form.

One never perceives the spiritual form separately, by itself. On the path of correction, a person continually develops a greater spiritual perception of the forms of the Creator, but he reveals them within the imaginary form of this world. Therefore, we cannot detach from it until we ascend all 125 degrees of the spiritual ladder.

Along the entire path of correction, on all the phases of attainment, one’s spiritual perception constantly grows stronger while being based on these two forms: the imaginary and the real. The imaginary form is only called imaginary. But do we really imagine our world? After all, we live in it – this is our current reality.

The true reality is the realm from which forces, decisions, and facts come to us, while only their reflection exists in this world in order to help us attain the true reality. When we begin to attain it, we call this world “imaginary.” Yet, it isn’t some non-existent fantasy, but is necessary for us to discern spirituality.

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The Zohar, Chapter “Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah),” Item 201: “And the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to the God who gave it.” When the Creator created Adam, He took his dust from the place of the Temple and built his body from the four directions of the world. And each of them gave him strength. Afterwards, He poured over him the spirit of life, as it is written, “And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Then he rose and knew that he consisted of above and below, and then he adhered to the Creator and knew the upper wisdom [Hochma].

The four spirits of the world are Hochma, Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut. They are called the four corners of the world, and they are also divided into the right and the left lines: Hochma and Bina; Tifferet is the middle line with Yesod at the end of it, followed by the place of adhesion with Malchut. This is how everything is divided into the right side, left side, and the middle, and the top and the bottom. Such is the structure of our soul, within which we reveal reality.

Even now we reveal our reality within our soul, but we call it our body only because this soul is small, uncorrected, and acts egoistically for the sake of receiving pleasure for itself. But in reality it is the same structure, the same desire, since the Creator only created one desire and not several. However, it is merely revealed to us to a very small extent, in a very uncorrected, tiny form. What we perceive within it is called “this world.” We must reveal this desire, make it bigger, change it slightly, and make it similar to the Light. Then, in it, we will perceive the soul or life in the future world.

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Any concepts that exist in the world are divided into the degrees of HaVaYaH, according to the four stages of direct Light – in any quality, influence, definition, and in any division. This separation can be spread onto all of reality:

· The stages 0-1-2-3-4 “Shoresh-Aleph-Bet-Gimel-Dalet,”
· HaVaYaH “the tip of the letter Yod-Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey,”
· Sefirot “Keter-Hochma-Bina-Zeir Anpin-Malchut,”
· Senses “vision-hearing-smell-taste-touch,”
· Partzufim “Galgalta-AB-SAG-MA-BON,”
· The worlds “Adam Kadmon-Atzilut-Beria-Yetzira-Assiya,”
· The Lights “Yechida-Haya-Neshama-Ruach-Nefesh,”
· The four natural elements “fire-air-water-earth”….

Our prayer should always be generalized: a prayer of the society, for the society, a prayer of many. It should contain all the levels, all the degrees, a full HaVaYaH. If a person merely screams about something, this is not a prayer. His request should contain his understanding and sensation, the past, the present, and the future. If he makes an appeal in precisely this manner, then his prayer will truly be mature and ripe, and it will be awarded a reply.

Baal HaSulam’s book Beit Shaar HaKavanot represents this precise, general approach, a global view of creation and all of reality. Instead of discerning small, individual details, it explains how to unify them. Talmud Eser Sefirot is an analysis, where the common whole  is broken up into parts, and Beit Shaar HaKavanot is a synthesis, where the parts unite into one whole.

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A year or two down the line we won’t even remember how we used to exist any differently and how the wide public did not share our opinion. People will soon begin to clearly understand that the science of Kabbalah reveals the hidden part of reality to them, and that it is necessary to reveal this part of reality in order to attain a healthy and correct life. In addition, it will become clear that this revelation takes place by virtue of a miraculous force, rather than pure knowledge.

Using a purely scientific approach, we can only reveal nature on our level of perception, where our mind and feelings are operating. On the other hand, the science of Kabbalah miraculously reveals new levels of desire within us, in which we perceive a new reality. I expect that in the near future, we will witness this understanding and sensation being revealed in the masses. We will see this happen very soon.

Anyone that participated in the Zohar Convention 2010 went through tremendous changes, overcame many inner levels, and reduced the time of their development. Some people did not take part in the Convention physically, but they joined us virtually and thereby received the same ascent. Some people were distant from us (in their desire), but they were also influenced by the Convention. Even those who were not connected to us at all and didn’t want anything still received an influence because we are all part of one common system.

No one can avoid participating in this event because we all live in one, single reality. Therefore, when we hold such an event, it affects the whole world, even the people who hate us and are far away from us, as well as those who are close to us. It affects every person without exception, and it has an even greater affect on those who hate us than on those who are indifferent. Therefore, we will soon witness great changes in all layers of society.

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Because the science of Kabbalah only talks about what exists inside of us, it is called the inner Torah, an inner wisdom. In reality, our bodies and all of this matter do not exist. Therefore, this world is called an imaginary world. As soon as we begin to perceive reality correctly, we begin to feel that all this exists only in desire. Our desire gives us various levels of sensation that exist as the inanimate nature, plants, animals, and human beings. However, all this is actually different phenomena within the desire.

We need to realize that we live within a matrix of sensation in which everything exists exclusively in our sensation. This means that there is the desire to receive pleasure which perceives the phenomena that occur in it. Therefore, it is important for us not to forget this since this approach to the perception of reality, that “everything depends on me, rather than on what is outside,” directs us to our inner correction.

We perceive ourselves in our desires on the background of white Upper Light. Everything is on the background of the Upper Light. The World of Infinity is merely the white Upper Light. We don’t see ourselves there because we reach the same state, perception, reality, and qualities as the Light.

Meanwhile, the 125 degrees by which we descended from this state are the degrees of greater and greater distancing from the white Light, on the background of which we see ourselves. Therefore, everything we see around us is our desire which includes the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels. These are the 4 levels of Aviut (coarseness of desire) in all its various inner forms, and which are the measures of our difference from the white Light.

These pictures are in fact our reality which presents itself to us in the form of this world. Thus our constant effort to reveal true reality, to unite with the true picture of reality, forces us to correct and perfect ourselves; and in doing so to see that we are all connected together.

The more we unite with each other and tune into the white Light, we advance toward our eternal and perfect life in the World of Infinity. And all these phenomena which we see and perceive to be outside pass like a dream. In actuality, we live only inside white Light.

This fundamental point in the science of Kabbalah is extremely important, since it separates the science of Kabbalah from all the philosophical teachings, religions, faiths, and different methods. The science of Kabbalah tells a person that he needs to correct only his desire, to make it similar to the white Light. No physical external actions have anything to do with it.

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Our egoistic desire filters reality to suit its purpose. In effect, there is a filter before us through which we see the world. In other words, we don’t see the world, nature, society, and people objectively the way they really are; rather, we merely see what is profitable for our ego in every object, namely by what is either beneficial or harmful to it. Thus, out of an infinite reality, we sense only its minuscule part called “this world” because our ego cannot perceive anything more than that.

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The science of Kabbalah tells me that reality does not exist outside of me. All of reality exists inside the person who observes and feels it. Outside of me there is nothing. The problem is that we’re not accustomed to this perception of reality.

I was born perceiving reality through my body’s five senses. This is very limiting, and it’s hard to relate to the world differently. When I begin to realize that my reality depends on the qualities inside me, then it forces me to examine them and determine what they should be. I realize that I must correct them in order to create a true, unchanging, eternal reality inside myself. This is a true reality, but I must live in different states, different levels of false reality, before I can reach it.

Kabbalists tell us how to achieve a true perception of reality. They tell me that I am the one who determines my own life. If I start to look at life according to the perception that “everything exists within me,” then I can place the whole outside world inside me. Then, I will never die because the whole world will remain within me and I will continue to exist inside it.

So the perception of reality, which at first seems to us an abstract philosophy, something virtual and unreal, becomes a matter of “our life and death.” If I am able to change my qualities, my perception, everything that I presently see and sense as existing outside of me, then I begin to perceive and sense the world as my inner phenomena, my unchanging, eternal, perfect existence, and nothing will have changed, disappeared, or perished. By changing my perception of reality from external to internal, by placing it inside me, I ascend 125 degrees of the perception of reality, and reach a state of complete connection with eternity because I perceive it all within me.

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