A question I received: Isn’t the Surrounding Light mysticism?

My Answer: Who can explain how a child matures and becomes an adult? Why doesn’t he remain the way he was yesterday? We simply got used to seeing that this happens, but actually, we have no explanation for it.

Science can tell us what stages a child has to go through, as well as which stage comes first and which comes next, but it is unable to explain why this is so. It can explain what happens within matter, but it doesn’t see the cause that exists outside of matter, pushing it to develop.

The answer is that a child is affected by the same Surrounding Light that affects all other parts of nature, including Kabbalists. Every person has to go through many reincarnations in order to eventually reach the final goal. This is why the Upper Light acts within matter and creates vegetative, animate, and human nature from inanimate nature. Otherwise, all matter would remain dead and invariable.

However, the purpose of this matter is to develop. The Upper Governance is also present as a force in our world, but none of the sciences suspect this. This is why I left science. I wanted to learn: where does the force of life come from? Is it inside atoms, molecules, cells, or their subsystems? However, science doesn’t explore this, and therefore, what use do we have for it, if it can’t help us discover the most important thing and doesn’t even try to find out what it is?

The Surrounding Light is the Upper Force, which cannot be captured by any physical instrument. We only see its consequences or effects, such as the way a child develops year after year. This is evident to us.

The force that takes us from one stage to another is called the Surrounding Light. However, this is only true in relation to a person who attracts this force on his own, consciously, wishing to develop. On the other hand, in our world this Light causes the natural evolution, following a path called “in due time.” The train of evolution crawls along slowly according to its own speed, and the Upper Force operates within matter, pushing it ahead toward the goal.

If you enter the spiritual world, you will be able to investigate every stage of evolution – even the age of the dinosaur, if this was your area of interest, since all previous forms were predetermined. They were obliged to form by a certain combination of the quality of reception and the quality of bestowal.

It was only recently that we developed to such a state where we can attract this force of life, the Surrounding Light, on our own.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

The notions used in the science of Kabbalah differ from anything we are accustomed to in our ordinary life. In Kabbalah, “the Creator” is a force of bestowal, the universal force of Nature. We exist in Nature, in the Creator, and we have to ask Nature for help to rise above our own “knowledge,” above the quality of reception.

A person wants to receive for his own sake and to fulfill himself with everything that seems attractive. At a certain stage however, he starts analyzing himself and then sees that his never-ending strategy for self-fulfillment is futile. He grows tired of the pursuit, feels that it’s fake and that it leads nowhere. He realizes that there is something higher out there than constant thoughts of how to fulfill oneself and being enslaved to these thoughts.

A person then comes to a place where he demands that the Creator replace this quality so he can start living above his nature and above his body, which controls him and forces him to receive. He begins to set other goals and seek new horizons, since he now desires contact with the Upper Force, the force of bestowal.

He wants his inner emptiness to be filled by that Force, to receive the answers to his questions from that reliable, eternal and perfect Source. He needs to feel that he is doing things that are truly worthwhile. One realizes that prior to this realization, he  was mistaken and was thrown around from one desire to another. But now he desires the authentic knowledge about life and about the world in which he lives.

However, he still lives in a body, not in the soul, and one’s “animalistic” mind thinks only about the bodily needs. In order to receive an answer from the Creator, one needs to open up a new desire above the body, above one’s “animal.”

One has to reach a higher dimension and establish a connection between his spiritual “I” and the Creator – the eternal Force that governs him and everyone around.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The Zohar: Raise your arms up in prayer, since we are about to reveal the order of the World of Atzilut: GAR de-Arich Anpin, called Keter, Mocha de-Avira (the membrane in the brain) and Mocha Stima (the hidden mind), as well as how they rise to the unknown head of Infinity, which is the most elevated and concealed.

Therefore, let us pray for the Creator to welcome our revelation of these secrets.

We exist inside Infinity. Regardless of our degree of attainment, the lower degree cannot perceive the Upper Degree; it cannot feel and grasp it with its mind. At any point of our spiritual ascent, the next state is always infinite and boundless in regard to the lower one.

I am limited by my range of perception. The Upper One is greater than me and does not fit into my Kli (vessel of perception). So how can I perceive Him? I can do it only by requesting for my soul to be expanded, so that I may acquire qualities similar to His. Then I will be able to reveal Him and acquire a connection with Him. The whole connection between us and the Upper Degrees is realized only through our request.

This is exactly how we advance in our regular lives: A child is always asking a grown-up for something, and the grown-up must in turn provide the child with what he considers beneficial to the child’s development. However, the little one doesn’t even know what is beneficial to his development. If he only acts using his own wit, using the mind of his degree, then he will advance by the path of suffering, by making mistakes. And only after many failed attempts will he reach an understanding that he only has to ask the Upper One, and He will know what to give him.

Therefore, everything is achieved through the power of prayer. However, prayer is not what we imagine it to be in our world! Prayer means that I desire to become more giving, to come out of my egoism. In addition, this has to be my sole desire; this is the only thing I have to ask the Upper One for.

However, this goes against my egoistic nature, and therefore, if the Upper One does not prepare me for achieving His degree, I will never be able to reach it on my own! Through my prayer and exercises, I become more and more similar to the Upper One. This continues through all 125 degrees of my spiritual ascent, until I attain my complete correction: equivalence to the Creator.

Now we can understand what is written in The Book of Zohar: If the soul does not receive knowledge about the world to come, then a person cannot enter it and exist in it. After all, without having this knowledge about the quality of bestowal and how to realize it, he will not be able to live there.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The only thing that our world needs is the revelation of the Creator. Then, our world will become the spiritual world, and all the forces of the spiritual world point to only one thing – their Master.

Even in our world, light and darkness, as well as all their different shades and any other pictures we see – everything depends on and comes from the sun. Without the sun, there would be nothing but utter darkness.

The same is true for the spiritual world. Essentially a person reveals only one thing in addition to this world – the Upper Force, “There is none else beside Him.” But this force shows us all kinds of pictures and qualities of the Upper World.

What we reveal is not the actual Upper Force, but its manifestation and governance over the network that binds all the souls. That is why we never speak of the Creator’s essence, but only of His giving quality.

However, a giver must have someone to give to; He must be in a place where His giving can be revealed. He cannot reveal Himself, but only His actions with respect to someone else. Therefore, the Creator can only be revealed where He acts and governs – in matter, the desire that He created, which is the souls that are connected to one another. And the stronger their connection, the greater is the Creator’s revelation.

He created our matter and resides within it. On our part, we are brought to a Kabbalistic group where we must reveal unity. Once we reveal that unity, within it we will reveal the Creator, the force that unites us.

There is nothing else for us to reveal. We can never attain the force in and of itself, but only its manifestations – the matter and form of bestowal that it assumes. It’s similar to how in our world we only attain matter – the desire to enjoy and the form it assumes.

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

We are now beginning to study The Book of Zohar, so let us speak about how to go about the study. You don’t have to read the text. It’s enough to just listen to it and to let everything being said go through you. Let it happen inside you while you aspire to feel the picture that The Zohar is depicting for you.

Maybe you won’t understand any of what The Zohar is telling you, as if it’s talking to you in a foreign language. Still, your greatest desire should be to know what it is talking about. And indeed, it is telling you about you and your life there, in the Upper World! By aspiring to imagine your existence in this other world with the help of this incomprehensible text, it will simply happen. Out of nothingness, total emptiness and numbness, new sensations will start awakening inside you. These will be your reactions to the words of this book.

The Zohar is written on two levels or in two languages. One language describes certain events using images of your world, the world familiar to you. Meanwhile, the other language that speaks parallel to it leads you into spiritual concepts. You are being shown two worlds that are parallel to one another. However, these are only two levels of perception that exist relative to you. In reality, there is just one perception and one picture, which you divide in two for now.

In order to enter the new world, you have to imagine and feel that additional, spiritual level of perception which is being described. These two levels have to exist inside you one parallel to another. Meanwhile, you have to aspire to ascend from the material description to the spiritual one.

The teacher does not have to explain anything. The student has to consume the text and open up all the “entrances” in order to let the text flow through him freely, like an expansive, tranquil stream of water. You should be expecting and waiting for the new sensations and picture to form in your perception.

You shouldn’t envision any physical images or actions. The text of The Book of Zohar is a journey deep into the soul, and its words have to elicit direct sensations of what is happening inside you, inside your qualities and forces, and eventually, your relationship with the Creator. This has to take place in the deepest place inside of you.

Filed under: Zohar - 1 Comment →

A question I received: Does a person attain the spiritual roots in the process of his studies?

My Answer: In the process of one’s studies, a person attains many things with his mind, but this does not pertain to the attainment of spiritual roots. To attain the spiritual roots means to reach the quality of bestowal. This is not knowledge, but reception of corrected, new qualities.

Right now I have 613 material desires. When I turn them into spiritual desires, 613 desires for bestowal, this means that I attain my spiritual roots. I attain the “I that bestows” instead of the “I that receives!”

The Upper World is revealed in me in my corrected qualities. The spiritual roots are my qualities, and right now while seeing this world, I perceive my own self which is the picture that exists inside of me. The combination of all my qualities and the unification between them is what I call this world.

In my inner scheme, there are many connections, signals and impressions, all of which I call my world. When this scheme begins to work according to the principle of bestowal, achieving the very first degree in all its elements will mean that I have reached my spiritual roots.

The connection between my former state, when I felt the world in my material scheme which was unified for the sake of reception, and the scheme that is unified according to the program of bestowal, is called the language of branches. It is due to this language that I begin to understand how the Creator created the spiritual levels and all the degrees of ascension.

Rather than acting on a flat surface, in only one single plane, I understand what is happening between the different layers and how the descent or the ascent is occurring. If I study only one plane, I can only be inanimate, vegetative, or animate within that plane.

However, if I study the difference between these layers or planes, I will discover what I can use to further change myself. In other words, the language of branches is a means of rising higher and higher.

It does not speak to us on a flat surface, like the languages of this world. Instead, it explains the differences between this world and the spiritual, the connection between the root and the branch. I am not just studying the spiritual world; I am studying both of these worlds together, one against the other.

In this manner, I get to know the Creator’s actions. After all, the most important thing is not the layer itself, but what is between them. This helps me understand how I can change myself, rising higher and higher every time. This is what we need to learn from the Teacher.

(From the lesson on the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,”  10.29.09)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - 1 Comment →

Our world does not pertain to the spiritual world; therefore, there is no need to correct it. While living in this world, I discover a point in my heart – the embryo of a spiritual desire. I need to extract it from the other desires, expand it, and correct it in a way that will make it possible to reveal the spiritual world within it.

Our world remains the same. Until the very end of a person’s spiritual correction, he should feel this reality without trying to correct it with his own strength. Why? Because it is impossible to do so! History has taught us this through every step of our development.

With this attitude towards our world, the science of Kabbalah differs from other sciences, spiritual and corporeal methodologies, belief systems, and religions. In other system, people direct their efforts within the plane of our world, which is not where they should. Our world will only change for the worse due to those actions, since it does not become truly corrected and more time passes by.

Yet if a point in the heart awakens in a person, by following the path of Kabbalah, he begins to widen his point in the heart until it encompasses the sphere where he perceives the Upper World, the Upper Dimension. He begins his ascent from this central point, acquiring a screen and the Reflected Light, which is the force of bestowal.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Point In The Heart Is A True Miracle
Laitman.com Post: How To Develop Your Point In The Heart
Interview with the Future: “The Point in the Heart”
Soul, Screen and Delight [01:23] Play Now|Download

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

In Kabbalah, prayer is called MAN, and it designates a state where a person’s desire is aligned with the Creator’s desire. When this happens, the desire of the lower level becomes incorporated in the desire of the Upper Level, and they are executed as one desire.

If the lower level desires only one thing: to become like the Upper Level, then the Upper Level will immediately respond to the lower one’s plea. The Upper One is always ready for this, and when the lower one produces the right request, it simply opens the door to the current of Light descending from the Upper One. So, reaching the right request constitutes all of our work!

The world does not understand this principle. People think they can do something on their own. The entire world revolves only around the desire to be fulfilled, which is their only desire, the only thing they live for and the only thing they sense. People do not feel the forces that operate them and this is why it appears to them that they can change things on their own, using their egoistic desires. But in fact, people can only change things for the worse because while they are distracting themselves with such attempts, they neglect the corrections they should be making.

It is imperative that we understand that we are the direct outcome of the Light’s actions. Only the Light can change us and the world. So, I don’t have to search for a force within me that will help me to change. I have nothing and no one to turn to but the Light! I have to feel as though I am “stuck” to Him, like a drop of semen in a mother’s womb.

As I rise spiritually, I do not become independent of the Light either. I remain completely stuck to the Light and completely dependent on It. And  I will continue to “stick” to It more and more until I merge with It completely.

Therefore, if I want anything in me to change, be it my thoughts, feelings, or states, then, I have to demand these changes from the Light. The only thing I can do myself is exude my request to the Light.

If a person learns how to always demand changes from the Creator, then he will be successful in everything, and it will take him the shortest time possible. Our biggest problem is that we forget that the only thing that acts is the Light.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Suffering is pushing man towards entering a higher dimension and to waking up from this sick, deformed dream where he feels himself as existing in a shattered reality.

He can look back and understand that by causing harm onto others he was only hurting himself. If he only knew then what he knows now!

He looks back and sees that those parts of reality that appeared foreign to him and which he only wanted to exploit, are in actuality, close to him and more importantly, are parts which he considers as himself.

He will see that the part which he sensed as his own “I,” in actuality, isn’t at all important. This is because the force of desire that is revealed in his external parts is many times more potent, and they become most important to him.

He sees that everything was deception and that by hating and exploiting all that surrounded him he was only harming himself. It was all a big mistake.

These revelations help him advance until he reaches full equilibrium with the entire universe being revealed and he begins to identify with it.

In coming to know that he belongs to this vast universe and that the universe belongs to him, he reveals the Upper force which fills everything.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Alienation And Separation Are Nothing But Illusions
Laitman.com Post:By Changing Yourself, You Change The World
Laitman.com Post: Open The Door To The Spiritual World
A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: Correction Starts with Me.”A Chain of Souls”
Attitude [03:10] : Play Now|Download

Filed under: Suffering - No Comments →

A question I received: The science of Kabbalah explains the law of roots and branches. Knowing the laws of this world helps us in our everyday lives. But how can knowledge of spiritual laws help us? I am referring specifically to the law of roots and branches.

My Answer: The law of roots and branches is the main and most important law in the entire science of Kabbalah. According to this law, everything that happens in our world comes down from above in a unilateral, absolute order.

It is written: “There is not a blade of grass that has not an angel above it that strikes it and tells it to grow.” Angels are forces, and any action, thought, desire, event or occurrence, from the most elemental particle to the biggest stars and entire galaxies, is managed by an Upper Force.

This force divides and within it, is included a number of forces on the various levels of the inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. These are physical and biological forces that influence all levels, with all of them coming from Above.

This is why the law of roots and branches is very important. With the science of Kabbalah, and learning the law of roots and branches, we can rise from the branches of our world toward the roots. We will begin to see our world as transparent and behind every object, we will see the force which manages it and brings it to action.

A person will begin to sense where his thoughts and desires come from and why things happen to him and to others. He will begin to see how a net of forces acts on this world and how it playfully and through various wavelike movements, organizes everything that occurs here for us. In this way, a person begins a dialogue with this Upper Force, with the root through which its own force operates everything in our world.

A person begins to understand where he can step in and have a dialogue with the Creator who is behind these forces, in order to respond, participate, change and consciously intervene. This is the only place in this entire net of forces that acts on him from the inside and out and where he can actively participate.

Although we are not conscious of it, we are inside of a picture prepared and formed for us by these forces. I have to come to understand how I can actively take part in this picture. In other words, how I can control my fate.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Peek Into The Backstage Of The Show Called “Life”
Laitman.com Post: How To Read The Torah
Laitman.com Post: Besides Kabbalists, Everything And Everyone Are Angels
A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: “Like Roots and Branches”
Shamati #92: “Explaining the Discernment of Luck”- Lesson

Filed under: Spirituality - 2 Comments →