Entries in the 'World' Category

When The Exile Comes To Its Conclusion

Laitman_003.jpgThe Zohar, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 340: “And it came to pass in the course of those many days.” This was the end of their exile, when Israel were enslaved in any labor. “In those many days,” meaning many days of Israel’s stay in Egypt, when the end has come. And since their exile has come to its conclusion, it is written, “The king of Egypt died,” meaning that the minister of Egypt has been brought down and fell from his pride. This is why it is written about him, “The king of Egypt died,” since descent was as death to him. And since the king of Egypt – their minister – has fallen, the Creator remembered Israel and heard their prayer.

We have to reach a state when the entire Malchut of Egypt, meaning this world, all of its goals, our whole life and achievements, will lose their significance in our eyes. We will feel worthless, unhappy, and transient. We will ask ourselves, “What do I get from all this?” This world will become devoid of any importance to us.

This is called “The king of Egypt died.” We begin to ask ourselves, “Why do I need everything that I have in this world?! What for? What do I get from it?” This state marks the beginning of the exit from Egypt.

Today humanity is starting to understand that it doesn’t have any clear plan of development or goal, and most importantly, there is no purpose in life. We are yet to see the emptiness even in those who are still fanatically devoted to some meaningless goals and don’t realize the worthlessness.

When this becomes revealed, the real wars will be forged, and it will happen out of emptiness, despair, and helplessness. The most dangerous state is when a person sees that this life is empty. While he expects to accomplish something in life, he acts and even battles wars, and thus problems, revolutions, and wars that occur in the world, are purposeful.

On the contrary, when everyone sees that life is worthless and they begin to clash with each other, it becomes a big problem. Then everyone will turn their attention to Israel.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/10, The Zohar

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Spiritual Events Manifest In Our World

Laitman_509A question I received: The whole nation existed in spiritual attainment during the First and the Second Temples. Why wasn’t it possible to go through the destruction of the Temples only in spirituality and to reach the Third Temple without the material manifestation of destruction?

My Answer: All descents and ascents of the souls have to be reflected on the lowest inanimate level – our world. Up until the end of correction, ups and downs of the souls have to go through all layers of the desire to receive, through its entire depth, ending in this material world.

Therefore, we have no possibility to escape events that occur in this world, meaning in our egoistic desire which we feel as “this world.” Our big or not so big successes in the spiritual world, in our relations with the Creator, will always be felt as events happening in this world.

It is impossible to separate occurrences in the spiritual and material worlds because they are the same. A desire to receive with its different layers of Aviut (coarseness) covers the entire depth from this world to the World of Infinity.

A person who is at the bottom of the spiritual ladder raises his MAN to the World of Infinity. Thereby he determines the Light which descends from the uppermost level through all layers (worlds) of the desire to receive pleasure to his rung and further below. When a person exists somewhere in the middle of the spiritual ladder, the entirety of the Aviut of the desire below him is included in his MAN. Then the Light that comes as a response to the prayer goes through a person and spreads out further below to the very end. This is why every person has an impact on the entire thickness of Malchut of the World of Infinity.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, The Zohar

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The Four Corners Of The World

mutual.jpg 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.

Let Me Be Together with Everyone

bees Soon, the science of Kabbalah will be in high demand because without it a person will not be able to survive in the completely global world. It will become increasingly apparent that we have no desires or qualities that match or are appropriate for the world that is currently being revealed to us.

The Light from The Book of Zohar creates a sensation and understanding in us of global oneness. From that, we receive an opportunity to understand this world, to see it correctly through the matrix, which the Light creates in us. Then further, we want the force of nature, which established the global world that is being revealed to us now, to affect us in the same manner and make us suitable for it. We want our inner system to be similar to the system of nature that surrounds us.

Previously, it always seemed to me that I was above nature and that I controlled it. However, now I understand that this is not so, and I want to unite with nature, which is global, integral, huge, whole, and perfect. I want to use its integral force, its oneness. Now, I see that I am the only corrupted element, its only part that is not integral. Only my ego separates me from nature.

So let the force of nature abolish my egoism and allow me to be together with everyone! I see my redemption in this!

When Will We Undo The Spell That Is Our Life?

world Our entire life is a spell, a great deceit. The egoistic desire constantly manipulates us, forcing us to work for it. Meanwhile, we are in love with this impure desire of ours and actually desire to be deceived by it.

It lies to us about the end of our path, promising us pleasure and Light when we get there. And along the way it seems like we do receive some kind of pleasure. Even though we don’t have anything besides empty promises, we enjoy them. We think about what we are about to gain and start to feel as if we already have it in the present. We receive sparks of pleasure and they give us hope.

However, there is no Light behind these sparks because the Light does not descend beneath the Parsa, the boundary that separates the World of Atzilut. The Light shines for us from there and awakens these sparks, making us feel hopeful that we will receive the Light. And this goes on throughout our entire lives.

Even though we are always disillusioned and never see any Light, just the sparks, we have no other choice but to keep looking for them in order to feel pleasure. We hope to enjoy ourselves by gaining a little more money, fame, power, knowledge, food, and sex. And thus, we are always on the path, with all our hopes aimed at the future. But the moment the Light is supposed to come to the spark, it does not come and everything immediately disappears.

This constitutes the work of the egoistic desire: to attract us with promises of pleasure, making us constantly desire it and always being on the path, thinking that we are enjoying ourselves. But we never reach the actual pleasure. We only reach disappointment and everything disappears.

In the material world a person’s entire life is based on hopes for the future and he supposes that this is happiness. He believes that all kinds of egoistic pleasures are waiting for him up ahead and tries not to think about the darkness and death that await him.

However, today humanity has developed to a level where it begins to understand that egoistic promises are groundless. But in that case, what are we to do? After all, we can no longer keep living just on hope! We no longer believe in socialism or a beautiful future where everyone will be happy.

As a result, depression and disillusionment are becoming very common; yet, we have to keep living somehow. As a result, people start to lie to themselves even more. They deliberately enter a drunken stupor in order to force themselves to believe. All the mass media channels work for this sake; it is a universal spell that is kept up by society.

This will continue until the lie reaches the breaking point, beyond which it will no longer be possible to keep going.

How To Use The Opportunity Presented By The Zohar

working on zohar We exist inside our egoism, where we imagine the material world. If we want to ascend from matter to forces and reveal the true picture of reality, then Kabbalists have given us a special opportunity, made possible by the language of branches which they chose for their books. As a result, we have the opportunity to make efforts trying to imagine spiritual qualities behind every word of The Book of Zohar.

By attempting to see spirituality in this way, you express your desire to change, your desire for a certain force called the Upper Light to influence and change you. When it does, you will feel your inner qualities becoming corrected and overpowering corporeality. You then begin to live inside your inner world – the world of forces and qualities of your soul, despite the fact that they are described using words of this world, making it seem like they’re talking about regular matter.

All five worlds from the World of Infinity to our world are similar in structure. They differ only by the material of each world, but not the particular details and connections between them. Essentially there is just one system – the World of Infinity; all the other worlds are the same World of Infinity, but with flawed connections between its parts.

Each world consists of the same parts, which are connected by the same connecting threads. It’s just that these threads grow weaker as they descend from a higher world to a lower one. Therefore, when we read a narration that uses words of this world, we have to aspire to transpose this story onto a higher world.

Even if I don’t receive any real knowledge, but simply desire to make out something higher behind all of these words, it is sufficient to attract Light from that higher world. In the higher world, that Light is Inner Light, whereas for me it is Surrounding Light. This Light will begin gradually correcting me and will help me to ascend (in my understanding and feelings) to the world that the Light comes from. This is how it works.

A Reality Filtered By Egoism

How Can We Stop Being Slaves to the Advertisement Industry 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.

Switching To An Outer Observation

каббалист Михаэль ЛайтманA question I received: When we actualize our desires at the level of impressions, do we cause the material world to become more amicable toward us?

My Answer: We are all made of a material called the “desire for pleasure.” When the Light affects the desire to be pleased in a way that makes it reach the worst state, it considers only itself; it cares only for itself and feels nothing but itself. This “short circuit” creates the picture of our world inside us.

By correcting our desire, we begin sensing another reality that exists outside of this one. When something is sensed through other people’s desires instead of our own, it is called the Upper, Spiritual World, and it is a world of eternal life.

Correction is a process of learning how to sense that which is outside of us as opposed to within. This is a purely psychological challenge. At the end of the day we all want to be pleased and aspire towards goodness. And the fact of the matter is that we will eventually attain infinite goodness, but only under the condition that we “exit” ourselves.

After we exit our self, the material of creation (the desire for pleasure) starts being treated as “myself,” and in fact, is mine. That is when it becomes more amicable toward us.

The Whole World Is Waiting For Us To Make Corrections

bees3 The system of nature is organized in such a way that everything is aimed only at helping the human level develop. This is the only level of the desire to receive pleasure that has freedom of will. Only this level can raise MAN (a request to the Upper Level) and thus take all the other levels along with it (the inanimate, vegetative, and animate) so all of reality will reach the End of Correction. None of the other levels have freedom of will, but they still take part in the same kind of advancement. They will ascend to the level that the human being brings them to.

For example, according to our time in the year 2010, we should have raised our whole world, including all its levels of inanimate, vegetative, and animate, as well as ourselves on all the levels, and the spiritual world on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels (that is, the “chambers,” the “clothing,” the “angels,” and the surrounding souls) ten degrees higher in relation to the Upper Light. We were supposed to make this upgrade in spirit, connection, force, and fulfillment.

Because we did not do this, the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are now pressuring us to correct ourselves. All the degrees of fulfillment that they failed to receive from us exist in them in a negative form. They pressure us on the human level since only we have freedom of will and therefore, we need to hasten the correction. Therefore, natural disasters, catastrophes, and disasters will increase in our world because we are not performing the right actions on the human level. We are not drawing all the other levels (the inanimate, vegetative, and animate) after us.

This is the case in the spiritual world as well as in the material world. Therefore, a person depends on everyone and everyone depends on him.

Be A New Person At Every Moment

каббалист Михаэль Лайтман 001-1

It is difficult to feel and understand what a soul is, yet Kabbalists tell us that a soul is a part of the Creator, who is the quality of bestowal. When the desire to receive pleasure assumes the form of bestowal, it begins to work as a bestowing desire. As a result, it feels similarity with the Creator, as though it is a part of Him.

Every time we feel a change within, we have a new and different soul. During each of our actions of merging with the Light, twenty-five new spiritual Partzufim, or souls, are born. So how is it possible to identify ourselves in the spiritual world? In this material world we identify ourselves by everything we currently perceive as our own, such as by our body parts (the arms, legs, head, and so on). As long as we’re alive, the same body will remain with us now and tomorrow, and the next day, and so forth.

However, what is “ours” in the spiritual world? What remains with us from the previous state if we constantly receive ten new Sefirot and a new depth (Aviut) of desire, with new qualities, a new screen, and new Light? Is there something that remains in order to feel that it’s “us” who advance instead of the birth of some other soul?

The truth is that in spirituality, every day and every instant, you are a new person. Nothing ever remains with you from the past. It is contrary to our material life. In spirituality, everything is constantly renewed, except the initial point in the heart.