Laitman.com » Perception

The Wisdom Of All Wisdoms

admin.bb — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:19:14 +0000

Question: How can I convince myself about the urgency of spiritual work if we constantly lose the direction and strength on the way?

Answer: On the contrary, I must constantly worry for the correct direction and strength for the work. We only need to clarify these things according to the laws of creation, and this is what we learn.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a wisdom that includes all the wisdoms. It investigates the one general nature. But humanity, in the meantime, doesn’t understand that it exists in this global network. It exists in darkness and is immersed in complete unknowingness.

In order to clarify the surrounding world, humans divide it into separate parts and match them to the scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, etc. In this way we have “scratched out” nuggets of knowledge from the mountain of darkness we are in.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, on the other hand, explains each field in terms of one law. It doesn’t refute the general, traditional sciences. All the laws that we discovered with the help of traditional sciences belong only to a small area of our perception, in the egoistic desire, which is opposite to the nature of creation. Therefore, we must understand that in Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction), when this desire disappears, we will find other laws that transcend time, movement, and space. There is another physics and chemistry; everything is different. This reality exists only temporarily, until we enter the real and wide perception of the world.

Our entire world exists only so that we will exit it and find independence. It gives us a base, a beginning point, central and independent, and disconnected from the Creator. It is farthest from the world of Infinity, the most deeply immersed in darkness, but it is specifically from this point that we begin our advancement.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

The First Barrier To Eternity

admin.bb — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:17:45 +0000

It is hard for a person to overcome the “barrier” (Machsom), an obstacle, and adopt the approach that Kabbalah teaches which is so contrary to his habitual, egoistic perception. But if he rises above his egoism to bestowal, love, mutual responsibility, and guarantee with respect to the fellow person, it would mean that he has acquired spiritual power.

If he really were able to rise above himself, it would mean that he is above the restriction because he diminished his egoism and achieved a spiritual attitude towards fellow man, spiritual perception, the upper world.

A person does not understand and does not feel that through this path he can reach the eternal, perfect upper dimension instead of the limited reality, which he now feels. All this is quite close to us, and that is why it seems so simple and primitive: Any love towards the other, which we instill in our children is to prevent them from fighting with each other.

This is the first obstacle, which takes years to overcome. But we have to understand that each stage of spiritual work requires time until we learn and accept it. It depends on how much a person can be included in the group, through which he accelerates his development.

If he is impressed by others and strives to absorb as much as possible from them, enters the group with the eyes closed, then he begins to see how effective this tool is. In this way, he can get the desire of the higher dimension.

A spiritual vessel is built by the quality and quantity of relationships with others. The quantity is determined by the fact that eventually a person must unite with all souls because all together we make up one soul: Malchut of the world of infinity.

And the quality is determined by the fact that he must unite with them through complete reception and bestowal, so that everyone’s desire is linked with the others like a cogwheel, and turns all of them; everyone depends on him, and at the same time, he depends on everyone else.

Connecting in this form, everyone is transformed into an integral part of the overall system. Everyone depends on him and he turns everyone, but he turns them according to the overall program, their collective desires, and everyone’s individual desire. This is the perfect system that we must achieve.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/12, Writings of Rabash

Getting Acquainted With The Universal Mind

admin.bb — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:06:34 +0000

Question: What is the meaning of “revealing the design of nature”: Does a person see, hear, or feel something?

Answer: As man becomes similar to the surrounding nature, he begins to treat it in a positive manner and to understand its design, feelings, and thought. He begins to see that nature, which created everyone including him, man who possesses a higher mind and feeling.

By the way, many speak about this, people who are close to nature, who grew up and developed in it, for example the Bedouins in Israel who live in the desert. They perceive nature, its breath.

I have spoken with many people, who have spent many years in the desert, the tundra, and the jungle with apes. They told me of amazing sensations, when the perception of nature, its design, and its mind suddenly begin to communicate with the person, and he begins to perceive that he exists inside mother nature, inside an enormous wise system. He suddenly begins to speak, communicate with it, reveal its matrix, its plan, and identify with it, and a certain union between man and nature appears which raises him to the next level of development.

The understanding of the common design of nature and the ascent to its next level, the level of controlling our own lives, is the purpose of the modern stage of development.

Question: In other words, we see certain new relationships and they become more obvious, more natural. But nature itself remains the same? Or does it also change?

Answer: I am not speaking about the still, vegetative, and animate nature. I am speaking about nature, which bares itself before man, reveals itself, and he discovers a certain enormous common universal feeling, mind, and design. Man reveals this.

When he connects to this, he begins to feel that he is on the next level of development. In other words he gains the understanding of all processes, the view of the world from beginning to end, its design: Why our Universe developed, where it came from, what there was before the Big Bang, what happened after (since our Universe has obviously existed for a certain amount of time), and the perception of the Universe, how we perceive it outside of our five physical senses, through a universal mind, a higher heart and mind. As man attains this, he begins to understand that his entire lengthy historic process of development was in order to reach this level.

Many sciences speak of this. Terminal problems, which appear in every science come from the fact that further development of sciences is directed specifically in this area. Consequently, scientists will not be able to reveal anything without upbringing, without being transformed through an integrated relationship with nature. This is why all our sciences are in a crisis.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #7, 12/14/11

Above The Black Abyss

admin.bb — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:37:18 +0000

How can we imagine the upper state in which the Creator reveals to you that He loves all those that hate you and hates all those that love you, including yourself? It seems that it brings you no good and that there is nothing worse than that. Before you are Pharaoh, Bilam, Balak, Amalek and Hitler all in one and you know how to overcome this because this also comes to you from the Creator, although indirectly.

The more we advance towards love, the greater the obstacles we come across. You overcome them and the “angel of death” becomes the “holy angel” in your eyes.

Question: I don’t understand this state. After all, the Creator is still perceived as good and benevolent. Do I see it together with the suffering of others and my own suffering in the past?

Answer: You see all the suffering that is in reality. This is a horrible picture: monstrous suffering, not one gram of pleasure, not a day of rest, only pain and suffering for thousands of light years. The suffering is everywhere. There is total emptiness in the desire to receive, not here and there, not from time to time, but one hundred percent suffering.

This state is called the illumination of the Shechina, and above it, you reveal the good and the benevolent. Otherwise, how would it be possible to discover Him? If the Creator just brings you goodness, then you discover Him in egoistic vessels. But if you discover Him in the full depth of the black abyss that is in front of you, then He is discovered in your vessels of bestowal that are aimed at bestowal.

Furthermore, you will see that He is good only towards those who are as bad as He is, and bad towards those that are good, in contrast to Him. This is how it will seem to you.

Our work is only in rising above the vessels of reception. If you see that the Creator’s actions do not match bestowal, it appears to you intentionally as an obstacle on the way, above which you have to rise.

Question: And what do I discover after this ascent?

Answer: The desire to receive, the general vessel of Malchut of Ein Sof, in a totally empty form: darkness, despair, worry, and fear, the dreadful trials of Job, and you fill it with the Light of Hassadim and with love.

Question: That means that after having corrected myself I feel good, no matter how much darkness is revealed to me. And now I look at the past and what do I see? Have I suffered or not?

Answer: This is already the next level, which you have to determine. In Gmar Tikkun (End of Correction) you don’t see that you’ve suffered of course.

Question: And what is the suffering that I feel now?

Answer: Now you are not the same person who will attain Gmar Tikkun. Eventually you will not recognize yourself in your present state. The feelings that were left behind are not you.

Question: So what am I now?

Answer: Something virtual.

Question: So what do we need all the present states for?

Answer: You feel them in order to prepare yourself, when you do everything that is in your power. It says: “I have exerted and I found.” You are getting ready until you find, until you rise above the Machsom (barrier), until then, the real “you” doesn’t exist.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

When The Upper One Lifts You Up In His Arms

admin.bb — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:10:45 +0000

Question: During yesterday’s lesson, I felt a great heaviness. Afterward, I went outside and I was so lost that for a long time I didn’t understand where I was. How is it possible to go through and process states like these?

Answer: Indeed you know that we must go through spiritual birth. Birth is complete reversal, like a revolution. A person has to go through a certain number of states through which he acquires a new vision: He sees everything in a usual way, like others, and together with this, he sees the other side, as well, the reversal. And this is what happens not only once, but several times.

He has to get used to detaching himself from his animal nature and existing without perceiving the world through his body. It is not mysticism but special work that we let the Light perform on us. We don’t know when we will fall into these states; it is difficult to predict and locate them in advance. But it happens in order to give you enthusiasm, a feeling that it is possible to see the world in a way not according to what you are used to.

If a person works intensively with authentic books, attracts to himself the Light that reforms, and tries to connect with the group, then he goes through states like these. There is nothing special or dangerous about this. It doesn’t cause any unwanted results, but it is done only in order to accustom the person to see the world and all of reality in an objective manner.

The objective manner is the same form that I clothe. Objectiveness in itself doesn’t exist. Even the Creator, as it seems, is not objective, since He sees everything by way of bestowal, while we now see everything through our egoism. But in order to teach us to see reality from two points of view, they are transferred to us through exercises like these.

In our corporeal world there is no “division” like this since we never leave this one world, which operates according to the principles of egoistic reception. Thus it is impossible to explain to someone that there can be another perception. They see it as sophisticated psychology.

But with us it happens in a materialistic way, since we change our substance with others. When the reforming Light operates on a person, it gives him a foundation that is called the desire to bestow. And the person already begins to see the world through this desire.

And in the meantime, it happens not only at the expense of the person himself, but also simply teaches him, shakes him up a little, and awakens him, like a grown-up who lifts a baby in his arms and the child suddenly sees a new world from above. One that is big and wide. He, himself, asked that he be lifted and held up in order to feel grown up like everyone, and even more than that, since everything becomes visible in front of him.

But does he deserve this height? No, we are those who lift him and want to show him that something else exists besides the childish perception, in order to awaken a desire and urge in him to attain it.

And the exercises of this kind are sometimes given to us from above, with the help of the surrounding Light. Usually they happen suddenly. In these exercises there are sometimes states that are incomprehensible to us, and thus they aren’t pleasant and they confuse us to a great degree. The person totally doesn’t understand how it all can turn upside down and is alarmed because he doesn’t know what is happening to him.

They simply want to show you now that there are other forms of perception that exist, different than the forms that you are used to. In this world there exists something other than what you felt the last few tens of years of your life. It happens this way with everyone.

We go through these kinds of states, until we get used to them. In the beginning, they are considered as exceptions and incomprehensible to the extent that you don’t know what to do with them. Afterward, you already get used to the existence of this inversion. You even begin to identify it in the friends when they lose balance and experience passing from state and state.

Thus we advance. You get used to it and anticipate that the inner states will change as quickly and frequently as possible, because through them you formulate acquaintance with reality. After all, all of reality is within you and depends on your state.

Thus we progress until the Machsom (barrier), where really a true change occurs. And everything that happens until then is designed to prepare for this. Get used to it!

You should be happy that you already have begun to feel yourself as something other than a beast, and that fundamental and highly qualitative changes are occurring in your attributes, in the perception that the Light that reforms brings you. No one is hypnotizing you, but it is simply the real beginning of feeling changes within.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, Shamati #148

Coming To The Lesson With A Request For Life

admin.bb — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:25:19 +0000

Question: If we prepare all day long for the lesson like for a meeting with a king, where it is possible to come with only one request, how would tomorrow’s lesson look?

Answer: You would receive a very great Light. You would feel how much it gives you. Through the material studied, you would begin to feel the spiritual system that bestows upon you. Dry lines (of the text) would be resurrected. They would acquire depth and transparency and create inner volume in everything. It would become clear to you that our entire world is flat, like a picture on the wall. And behind it, you would suddenly see a new dimension, a system that moves the whole picture and assembles its parts. When you feel the importance of the goal, you will begin being in it.

But in the meantime, we belittle the goal, reject it subconsciously, thus, of course, it is distant from us.

In any case, we must advance forward, and first of all to be concerned about understanding its importance. Even if we are advancing now, we must always pass over to the left line for critical clarification and see that it is not enough. With each day we must add efforts to the connection, and only to this.

Besides that, we must thank our friends from all over the world who perform dissemination and distribute explanatory materials. We need to support them in their work, it really helps us all very much.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

When The Light Is Present But Doesn’t Correct

admin.bb — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:40:25 +0000

On the spiritual path a person discovers terrible egoistic desires which show him how deeply he is in receiving. Then his attitude towards others is described as mistakes. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot“: “With this we understand the words of our sages: that one who repents from fear is rewarded with his sins becoming mistakes.”

First the egoistic desires are revealed to a person as sins, and now he passes them to the level of mistakes, to an easier level. On the whole, the correction is always gradual: First we raise the desire to the level of Bina, and then to the level of Keter. First, in the level of Bina, we neutralize the desire.

We cannot bestow with it yet, but at least we don’t let it cause harm. At the same time, we are in single concealment, while before we were in a double concealment: “that the sins one makes extend to him from the reception of Providence through double concealment.”

If both the face and the posterior of the Light are concealed, I am in a double concealment. Then I have to sin because I am under the control of my egoistic desire, the desire to receive in order to receive, until a Light appears from Above and corrects my desire.

But there are states in which the Light is concealed. It is present, but it doesn’t correct. This is single concealment. The presence of the Light still makes me fear to receive: it is as if it warns me, guards me, and keeps me on the level of mistakes, but not sins.

But if the Light is totally concealed and doesn’t deter me, then I lose control and am under the domination of my egoism, which does whatever it wants with me.

On the whole, I am between the force of bestowal and the force of receiving. The account is very simple: Which of the two forces pressures me more strongly? If the force of the Creator, the force of the Light, influences me more strongly, then I will undoubtedly bestow. But if the force of the Light is weaker, then I will undoubtedly carry out the orders of my egoistic desire and move on to the level of “sins.”

It is the same with us: If society, the police, or the family hold me and prevent me from doing bad deeds, then I am okay. But if there aren’t such restraining factors, I begin to “go wild.” One way or another, there is no choice: A person is under the influence of one of the forces.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Drawing the Creator’s Image When He Is Concealed

admin.bb — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:38:08 +0000

Baal HaSualm, “Introduction to the Study of The Ten Sefirot“: Since His Guidance is not revealed, it is impossible to see Him but only in concealment of the face, from behind, as one who sees one’s friend from behind and might doubt and think he is another. In this manner, one is always left with the choice to either keep His will or break it.”

Because the Creator is concealed, He allows us to have doubts, and hence, the opportunity to perform actions. If the Creator were revealed, we would all be His slaves, “robots” that would perform His desire unconditionally. His revelation would oblige us to do that automatically. After all, there would be no “break” between us and the Light, which is what enables us to resemble the Creator independently.

But the Creator brings us the feeling of concealment: He doesn’t just hide, but lets us feel that He doesn’t exist. In this case, we can carry out His desire as if He exists, and we act in His place. Thus He allows us to complete His actions. For us it is an opportunity, a place to work and take pride in the fact that we can fill our doubts with His Guidance.

But where can I find the power to perform this work, if He is concealed from me? I have to understand that the concealment is a kind of “black light” that builds a special form in my desires and thoughts: the hidden contours of the Creator, which I want to complete.

If this form were revealed to me, I would carry out His desire submissively. So how can I create the Creator’s form inside me, so that it will oblige me to act while He is concealed? I have to build His image inside me and only then can I carry out His plan.

And so gradually, a person builds inside him the Creator’s image. And the Creator shows him more and more how deeply and in what manner He is concealed. Thus we advance until we build everything the Creator wants. Then we will resemble Him according to the equivalence of form.

So the point is not to actually carry out the Creator’s desire. Our desire to receive and all the different ways to receive are a means. The point is in building the Creator’s image inside us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Understanding His Providence

admin.bb — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:53:00 +0000

We are in a state of concealment, and we must understand that we are in concealment. A person is born and lives in this world in a state of total detachment from the true reality. He doesn’t know where he is and whether there is anything besides that. If there is, can it be seen?

When we feel the presence of something, it could be that it is hidden or revealed. So, the concealment is part of the revelation because I already know about the existence of something that is hidden. This means that people who are in a state of concealment are already on the way to the truth, although it is concealed from them at the moment.

This is already an advanced state because ordinary people don’t feel that something is concealed from them.

We go through four phases: double concealment, single concealment, Providence of reward and punishment, and eternal Providence.

As far as the two concealments are concerned, it isn’t detachment any more; neither a state of unconsciousness. In double concealment, I know that I am detached from reality and that I don’t see that the Creator determines everything that happens to me. In single concealment I feel that my life depends on my being in front of the Creator. But something that brought me to concealment instead of revelation depends on me.

So in a double concealment, I determine that I am detached from the Creator, and in single concealment there is contact, but I don’t perform His desire.

In the next phase, the phase of revelation, I receive reward and punishment according to the degree that I perform His desire. The punishment is eventually also a reward, because thanks to it, I advance. It shows me where I still have to correct myself, that is, where I am “behind” the present level, because a person is not demanded to do something that is beyond his power.

Eventually, I move on to eternal Providence after having corrected all my attributes, and I reach total mutual understanding with the Creator.

All these states were meant to make us understand the Creator’s Providence. This understanding is the sign, the means, the basis for all our success and wellbeing. If I know that I receive blows for some reason, it isn’t meaningless sufferings anymore, but a punishment that will do me good, or the good itself. Everything here depends on the level I am on and on my attitude towards the punishments.

It could be that as a result of the blows on my egoism, I will feel so happy that I will rise above these feelings and enter a state of Hafetz Chesed. So I have nothing, but I don’t suffer. Apparently this is impossible? Where is the envy, the lust, the honor? Everything remains below, but a lot of work is required in order to reach that.

So we gradually go through the phases of concealment and revelation, and go up the levels of the spiritual worlds. It is about individual discernments, about a person’s internal states, but it is clear that they are realized only if I try as hard as I can to be incorporated in the right environment. Otherwise I won’t be able to rise.

Sometimes it is hard to tie all the internal work with the work in the group. But actually, it isn’t a problem, I should only check and connect these two components more carefully. All the work is in the group; all the feeling is inside me.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Decide Who Will Rule over You

admin.bb — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:43:04 +0000

We have to go through a long process of clarification. From the beginning of creation to its completion, all we do is clarify how we can be pleased relative to the giving force, the source, the Creator.

We go through some of our clarifications unconsciously, without our sensations and understanding, as a preparation to the states that will follow and will require our understanding and feelings. This is in the same way a small child grows or any other development happens. You have to go through several steps and all kinds of calculations and remain in them for quite some time until you start sensing that there is a new level of sensitivity, comprehension, and clarification, and you ascend to a next level.

Later, the novelty of a new step as if is erased and slips from our memory: We get used to it, and as we know a habit dulls the flavor. Over and over again, unconsciously we try to break through and move ahead as much as we can until new sensations arise and we arrive at new conclusions.

The major discernment is who will rule over us: the Creator or Pharaoh, the staff or the serpent? Obviously, on the surface each of us is ready to rise to the level of the other bestowing nature. But how do we get there?

That’s where the struggle between the Pharaoh and Moses or Aaron within a human being takes place. It happens within a person. The dispute is over for whom do I strive? When I am told that no matter how hard a person tries, it won’t help, why should I bother trying?

On the other hand, it is said “No one can help me except myself” and “I have labored and found!” The problem is that a person is unable to realize that changes have to be of an internal nature and have to occur from within. Only due to inner changes does a person enable himself to make a new round of calculations.

Any change totally depends on the mercy from Above: it will either happen or not. But we still have to continue working, and our job is to find mercy in the Creator’s eyes that gave us this support.

In fact, it really proves the phrase: “I labored and found!” That is, our request is not a request per se, but rather a test of the intensity of our work that is split half and half. One half is completed by us, which makes the Light, the other half, comes from Above and makes the correction.

The staff must not be dropped to the ground because it will turn into serpent, which means that we shouldn’t give up on our knowledge; on the contrary, we have to hold it up high. “Faith above reason” stands for the work that we perform with our intellect to the best of our capacity letting the Light manifest and correct us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/12, Shamati #59

The Lens Through Which You Can See The Creator

bb_admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:55:40 +0000

Question: Can one remain in the sensation of the material world and attain spirituality at the same time?

Answer: A person who attains spirituality does not lose anything in his sensations. On the contrary, he feels this world much more as a source and motive to enjoy.

The spiritual world means that you attain the reason why you are alive. Then this entire life in the reality that you feel in your body, called “this world” is also worth it.

The spiritual world is the Creator. By collecting your previously dispersed and broken attitude to others into one, relating to them as to one whole which is yours and dear to you, you begin to reveal the Creator within that attitude.

Through this entire world, like through a focusing lens, I focus all of my attitude to it – in love, unity, and connection, and in this point of focus I find the Creator.

It’s as if many rays (forms of my attitude) enter this lens (the group, humanity), come out of it, and focus on one point (the Creator).

Therefore, nothing disappears, but on the contrary – I use this entire world. Without it there is nothing for me to do. Until the full correction (Gmar Tikkun) I have to be in this world, and if I didn’t finish the correction, I have to return to the same reality, to its observation.

What does “this reality” mean? I return to the same qualities of perception, to the same desires that I did not finish correcting. And then I once again see a certain reality, feeling this world the same as now or maybe somewhat different. But I have to see reality in the intention to enjoy, in my flawed receiving desires, which I still retain, until I correct all of them. Then this reality disappears because it becomes unified.

Look from aside at this entire reality, which appears before us, and at the spiritual reality. We have to see the will to enjoy and how much we feel in it – for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal. According to this, we are in one reality or another. And our life cycles are like a change of Partzuf, one after another.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/12, The Zohar

Why Do I Need All The King’s Treasures?

admin.bb — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:50:05 +0000

The Zohar tells of how the upper Light operates and bestows on us and builds from all of our attributes something that is similar to the Creator: not of our flesh, but from our inner essence that is called, “mind” and “heart,” from all of our thoughts and desires that constitute the person’s “I.”

I don’t know what He needs to do with them. In the meantime, all my desires and thoughts are involved with what I see before me in order to benefit myself. This is the way the ego, which stands behind them, operates.

And the Light that arrives during the reading of The Book of Zohar doesn’t leave me anything from the previous thoughts and desires, but begins gradually to give me other values, yet at the level of the state that I am in. And then later, it begins to detach me from the present reality, as each time He performs some changes in me. On occasions, I rise above this reality and then on other occasions, I again sink within it even more.

Thus, through all kinds of exercises and changes, He helps me stop being dependent on this reality, until eventually it isn’t important to me if I am in it or completely separated from it. And I can use all these forms just for the sake of one goal. Even if I were given all the King’s treasures, and even if I am a poor person living in the forest without even a shirt, it isn’t important because I am dependent only on the intention, something more exalted than my state. I agree with it and want it, above everything that can appear in my vessel (Kli) of reception, both in thoughts and desires.

If I arrived at such a state, thanks to the exercises, that is the work of God on me, and from this moment onward, I begin to see what the The Book of Zohar speaks about.

We hope that with each day and with each moment, we will enter such a state where the Light reaches us, the upper force, which will begin to change us and to raise us above all the desires and thoughts so that we will begin to be dependent on the Giver that bestows upon us.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, The Zohar

We Don’t Judge According To The Feeling

admin.bb — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:46:56 +0000

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” (50): However, before that, when the writing speaks only from the perspective of one concealment, the text ends, “they will say in that day: Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?”

In other words, a person feels that he has no connection with the Creator because he lacks the equivalence of form with the Creator, and as a result he feels bad. It could be that he made a lot of money in the stock market and that everything is fine, but he feels bad because he has no contact with the Creator, meaning that he lacks the equivalence of form with the attribute of the general bestowal called the Creator.

“This means that they still believe in Providence of reward and punishment, and say that the troubles and suffering come to them because they do not cleave to the Creator…”

This means that I understand that I am bad, that I didn’t bring about the correction, and so I was “punished.” I have sunk into concealment. But on the other hand, we can also see it as a reward because I feel a negative response and thanks to that I can correct myself. This means that I have to “kiss” the stick that helps me be aware to how low I deteriorate. Otherwise I could deteriorate without even feeling it.

So the difference is in how I judge: according to how I feel my present state, or according to the state itself, as is. I have to determine the state as bad in relation to the required correction of the desires in which I am not adhered to the Creator. These vessels are broken, and the evil can be felt in them in a different way. I may feel bad because I am empty, and I may feel bad because I am detached from the Creator. I can also feel empty and feel good about it because I feel the shattering that way. Finally, I may feel bad because I feel the detachment. In any case, I feel that I am detached from the Creator.

So everything is determined according to the present state. It doesn’t depend on you and you can’t randomly jump from one state to another (like the arrows in the drawing). Rather, you have to examine what you have: “Do I feel good or bad? Suppose I feel good, what do I feel: detachment from the Creator or a connection with Him? Detachment: Does it bother me? No, I feel good. But can I still see the evil in this situation? Not at the moment.”

You should determine your accurate feeling and your attitude to the real state. This is the inner clarification of the state you were given. Then you feel the demand: “How can the group and the reforming Light and the other means help me correct my attitude?” It’s impossible to correct a good feeling or a bad one, or the state of detachment. The group can only correct my attitude to the situation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/12, Shamati #1

Secret Security System Connecting The Hearts

admin.bb — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:43:15 +0000

Question: What does a group that enters spirituality look like?

Answer: On the outside there are no special signs. Everyone seems like ordinary people. Inside will be everything we read about in the Kabbalah books. You will see the same faces, but you will treat them differently.

You will feel the internal network of connections among you. This is what creates the place where the spiritual world is revealed. It is as if you’ve received a flashlight, you turn it on, and in that light you begin to see stones, trees, animals, and people: a whole world.

This shining flashlight is your good attitude towards all the others, the mutual guarantee that you feel towards them. In the mutual guarantee that stems from you, you begin to discover the upper system and to see that in it, right there before you, there are trees, animals and people, which you didn’t see before.

But all the inanimate objects, plants, animals and people are not corporeal like in our world, but are spiritual. This is the picture that is revealed to you. They are the same familiar faces, but you discover the internal connection among them.

Many years ago I saw a movie about a diamond theft. The robbers sprayed a special spray and in this mist they began to see the laser beams that activate the alarm if someone crossed the room.

So it is as if you are also spraying a special spray around you, like a cloud of emotional attitude, of sharing, of a sense of connection and mutual guarantee, and in it you discover the laser beams that connect us to one another and see how they pass and tie everyone.

You discover this relationship, and see how it operates and manages everything. You understand what really motivates everyone.

Now, you see that everyone is moving, but you don’t understand which forces are moving them. Then you suddenly begin to feel, both physically and internally, how a hand enters the puppet and begins to move it from one place to another. This is revealing the governance and upper Providence.

Accordingly you learn how to adapt yourself to the system of this Providence, just as the movement of a good horse is adapted to the desires of the rider.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, Shamati #174

When We Remember All

admin.bb — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:14:09 +0000

Question: A person forgets a lot, banishing much to oblivion, leaving behind unfulfilled beginnings and uncorrected defects. How can we avoid oblivion on the spiritual path?

Answer: Now it is impossible. Only in the end will all of the separate events be collected and lead to the collective correction, called “Rav Paalim u-Mekabtziel”. After accumulating all of our vessels, they will simultaneously unite in a unified state, and then this action will be accomplished. It will sum up all of the generations of the many billions of people and will collect all of their affairs into one. This is when the time of the full correction will arrive, which will unite all of us into one desire, perfect, and filled with the Light of Infinity.

Until then, we are forbidden to perceive the past because we would not be able to endure all of the things we had experienced. We do have the fortitude needed for that, in other words the screen (Masach). Today we would not be able to justify the states we have experienced.

That is why we tend to oblivion. We switch off from time to time. This periodic “blackout” is actually no more than switching between two moments, between the day yesterday and the day today, between the past and present lives, until finally they will be all gathered into one.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 1/17/12, “Course to Be A Man, Human Development”

To See The World Through The Eyes Of Women

admin.bb — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:09:32 +0000

For tens of thousands of years until today, we have been developing by the will of fate and practically have achieved little. Psychology, the science about man, his nature, and inner world, is only about a hundred years old. Prior to its existence, we did not consider it necessary to study our behavior and we developed like animals by chance. Only now, we feel the need for knowledge about human beings, society, the environment, how to create it, and how to organize our life correctly.

The very concept of “life out of the body” sounds like mysticism, but has nothing to do with it. It means developing the ability to look at oneself as from the outside, seeing the world through the eyes of the other person. Doing so, we acquire an ability to understand each other. And that’s exactly what we need to be able to do.

It is nearly impossible for men to look at the world through the eyes of women. But almost everyone lives in a family and understands the need to create one; otherwise, we would become extinct like dinosaurs. We are obliged to have children and raise them. So, it is important to understand the psychology of the opposite gender and know not only how to live properly, but also how to enjoy this life.

By becoming included into each other, we find the other half of the world. We are built like this. And this is called a “life out of the body”; that is, we obtain an additional perception from outside. So far, I developed egoistically inside my body and tried to fulfill my desires as much as possible and to take into account the other person’s knowledge, opinion, and views as little as possible. Today, the crisis, which involves the whole world, obliges me to become part of the other and accept his point of view, his opinion, and his inner world. And then, I seemingly exit myself and become part of other people. Thus, I acquire the desires and thoughts of all humanity, all its possibilities, as if I leave my own body and attain the ability to feel the entire reality.

Here, the old era is giving way to the new one, a completely different perception of reality. Now, I have an opportunity to see and feel the reality not within my narrow perception, but through a collective feeling and understanding accumulated by all of humanity.

If I become closer to all other people and am raised in a society presented in all its breadth and diversity, then I acquire the ability to see life in the whole spectrum of sensations and perceptions rather than in my individual one. After all, now I include all people, and my palette of the world becomes much richer.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode #3, 12/29/11

Don’t Torture Yourself

admin.bb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:53:25 +0000

You shouldn’t torture yourself because of your qualities or the bad things that you did or do. After all, it is the Creator who “trips you up” and arranges all the different states for you. This is how He brings you to the recognition of evil and actually does all the work. And you, instead of revealing the truth, reprimand yourself for your actions.

Question: But if you don’t pay attention to these things, isn’t it like running away from the struggle?

Answer: It isn’t a struggle at all. You are like a donkey in front of which an obstacle has been placed: He doesn’t understand how it can be bypassed, and tries to break through it. There is no point in that.

We have to rise above all the actions and feelings, above all the imaginary calculations, and through the group, connect with the Creator. It is the only way to reach the right decision. All the rest is a game, the show of life. It costs us great pain and suffering, but this is our evolution: It is impossible to avoid the mistakes here before we discover the opportunity to rise. One day it will happen.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

It’s All About The Converter

admin.bb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:16:20 +0000

Question: When we speak about evil, what exactly do we mean by the term “evil?”

Answer: I discover the Creator as the source of evil and at the same time I understand that I see Him that way because of my bad qualities. So, I understand that it all depends precisely on my attributes.

There are three things before me: the Creator, my evil, and desire. Can I think about the Creator as the good and the benevolent? After all, I feel bad and see troubles and darkness. Still I determine that the good is Above and the evil is inside me. The reason is that in the middle there is something that turns the good into evil.

I feel it in my bones that this is what happens. I am made of these three discernments, and they are in my feeling and my understanding. Such a state is called “double concealment.” In the spiritual space it is the furthest level from the Creator, and everything before it belongs to the beastly level.

It is important to remember that these things already exist in me: I feel the Creator as good and benevolent, I feel my own evil and I can’t get rid of this feeling, and I also understand the fact that I myself corrupt the Creator’s good attitude when I feel it as bad. If we annul this mechanism of turning the good to evil, if we correct it, I will certainly feel the goodness.

Then there is a question. What is the goal: to feel good or to not curse the Creator? From here on the clarification begins: Why was I given the bad feeling? What should I do with it? If I annul it, I will deny myself the option to be corrected. It is by being opposite from the Creator’s goodness that I can reach His good attitude in order not to curse Him.

This means that I use the evil on the way to goodness. Does that mean that now, when I feel bad, it is actually in my favor, and that it is actually what is good for me? So what am I correcting?

Question: Eventually I understand that I don’t correct anything, and what’s more I am very far from any correction.

Answer: True, you discover yourself more and more, and that’s very nice. This is already advancement.

Question: But at the same time I discover that I have no power to change anything.

Answer: This is the truth, this is already a revelation: You reveal that you cannot correct anything, that you are all evil, and that you are a “rag.” And this is great. Did you want to feel that you were a hero?

You discover the truth thanks to the upper Light and you should be thankful for that. This is how the addition of the Light reveals the evil in you. Then you go to the group in order to receive the power to discover your evil more qualitatively than before. First you felt bad and you blamed the Creator and wanted to get rid of this feeling. Then you acquire the mind of the group and realize that you shouldn’t get rid of the evil, but rather it should be turned into good.

You understand that in order to do that you need to change your attitude and not the feeling. It turns out that you have to work on your attitude towards the one who seems to be sending you the evil.

Then you aim your efforts at that “converter.” You work with the intention and the feelings change by themselves.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Candy For The Diabetic

admin.bb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:52:36 +0000

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a “righteous” person is a person who justifies the Creator, understands the reasons and the essence of his state, and can clearly cut his state into slices of cause and effect.

At the same time he can be in a state of double concealment from the Creator. How is that possible? The whole point is that the concealment and the revelation are determined only by one’s attitude towards the Creator as being “good and benevolent.” It doesn’t matter if I feel good or bad; what’s important is how the Creator is revealed to me. It is important for me to reveal Him as good and benevolent, and not to enjoy His goodness egoistically, because they are two totally different things.

Suppose I have diabetes and you give me a candy. As far as my natural love for sweets goes, it is good. But according to your attitude, it is bad. So it all depends on an internal criterion with which I assess it. What is sweet for the egoism may be bitter if we look at your attitude.

Therefore, to discover the double concealment is to feel all these discernments: I rise above my desire to receive and look at it from the side. Then I see that there is an egoistic intention in it that feels good, while in the desire to bestow, in the intention of in order to bestow, I feel bad. This is the double concealment of the Creator.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Death: The Fee For Development Of Egoism

admin.bb — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:44:18 +0000

Pure desire without intellect represents an original form that is derived from the root. If desire strives only to maintain itself without any other desires, it is called “inanimate.” It doesn’t change, but rather always wants by all means to preserve its existence one hundred percent as it is and continually resists any changes whatsoever. That’s why it’s called “dead.”

On one hand, it’s the most powerful force that keeps inanimate matter in its form and because it is inanimate, it is stronger than anything else. On the other hand, it has a deficit because it doesn’t develop at all, nor does it create any advanced form!

A plant doesn’t possess as much force for self-preservation as inanimate matter; it is weaker. But it does have an addition; it is able to change! It develops, alters, and grows. On the other hand, it still cannot remain eternal; that’s why it “acquires” life and death.

There is no choice, there is a price for the opportunity to continue developing. If you don’t possess stony steadfastness, but rather allow yourself to change, you go from edge to edge, from life to death; there is no other option. In other words, our development happens at the expense of immortality.

For a lifeless stone, life and death are the same. For a plant, life and death are different since plants can sense life. This is the root of any sensation, pleasure and affliction, one against the other.

Animals are much farther from inanimate nature; they undergo dramatic changes and experience tremendous growth. They acquire a higher intellect that accompanies their desires; so, during the process of development, animals acquire diverse forms. Naturally, animals are subject to an array of external and internal influences. Compared to inanimate and even vegetative levels, animals have a much more complex organization. Of course, animals sense their mortality very strongly as the difference between life and death.

The added ability to use intellect for analysis constitutes a distinction between human beings and animals. As opposed to an animal, a person has developed to the extent that he recognizes “time” in his brain: past, present and future. People can bring time closer by including it in desire. All of a sudden, we start envying someone who lived a thousand years ago or someone who will be born two hundred years from now.

We observe that at a human level, intellect enhances desire. The work of intellect upon the desire is directly related to the Light; actually, it’s the only work we ever do. The more we work on clarification and expansion of our desires, the more advanced we consider ourselves to be compared to our past, undeveloped states: inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking levels within the human stage.

Naturally, humans sense life and death, the Light and the darkness, even more strongly. We become more dependent, delicate, sensitive and constrained. But this is the payment for our development.

At the time when our development at simple levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate and speaking) is complete, we approach the Creator’s level at which we gain new senses, a different kind of intellect and an alternative developmental force, all three components together, which we didn’t have before.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/12, The Zohar

Staring Into The Mirror

admin.bb — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:25:09 +0000

In the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” Baal HaSualm explains that the part of our brain responsible for our perception of reality is built like a photographic machine through which I see the world divided. I feel myself as a kind of body and see everything else that exists as outside of me. So all of reality is divided into two parts.

This, of course, is a lie and there is no such division. But the point is that there is a Creator and a created being, and the created being should attain the Creator as a result of his development. Attaining the Creator is possible only by observing Him from the outside, and so the created being has to feel that he exists separately from the Creator, standing opposite to Him.

Then by comparing the two opposites, the created being checks and understands the inverse attributes, realizes that he is opposite to the Creator, realizes that he is evil and that he needs correction to become similar to the Creator and to reach adhesion with Him. Thus he raises the level of “human” in him.

In order to allow a person to assess all these attributes, understand, get to know, clarify, and correct his perception—reality is divided into two so that it seems to a person that he and the external world exist separately.

This, of course, isn’t even close to the truth. The assumption that a person exists and the Creator is outside Him, outside the world of Ein Sof, is also not true. But such a feeling is necessary so that we will add our exertion to building our vessel and attaining the understanding and revelation. Then it will be a “human” who built all this out of his free will.

It is like giving a child challenging games and puzzles so that he will work and thanks to that grow, understand, see, try, make efforts, and build himself. The same happens to us with the dual perception that makes us sense ourselves and outside of us, the world.

All our work is to make efforts to connect the two parts into one whole picture called “there is none else besides Him” and “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” This means to sense myself and the external world as one, and to understand that first I have to care about the external world and only then care about myself. After all, I will have to provide only what is necessary for the existence of my beastly body, and I have to try and see all the rest, all the external world, as most precious, my soul.

Then I will reveal that the external world is also me. It is because I treated it as something opposite to me that I hated, rejected and tried to stay away from it, that enabled me to learn about myself, about my nature, and about the “evil inclination.” I had a chance to fight all its fine attributes, the unperceivable, the coarse, and cruel attributes and by that to attain the Creator.

After all, in every incidence of hate towards the external world, there is a need for the Creator’s help in some way. So my rejection of the external world and my decision to connect to it, the power I receive for that from the Creator, and the unity I attain, all bring me to adhesion with the Creator.

So it turns out that there are actions of connection with the external world and there is the acceptance of this world, the feeling of unity or the Creator. By the creation of this division of me and the external world and the “neutral zone” (“Klipat Noga“) between us, I get help from the Creator—a state that is already partially prepared to attain the connection with Him because of this false perception.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

Working In Circles

admin.bb — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:33:29 +0000

The group is part of the external world for me, but I can’t work with the whole world at once to get a response from everyone and measure myself in relation to the world. The world cannot support me along my path because it doesn’t have the same goal I do. It has all kinds of different goals and doesn’t know where it is headed.

So I find a group, a part of this external world that I can connect and work with to clarify things. Indeed, on one hand it is foreign, a part that is external to me, but it is close to me according to its goal, perception, and studies. So it is worthwhile for me to connect to the group in order to get power and support from it. I see that with them it will be easier for me to advance.

Eventually I begin to understand that this isn’t a group of people, but they are the very parts of my soul that I need to collect and add to myself. Or perhaps to the contrary: I need to exit myself and to find myself within them rather than in my present “self.”

Then, together with the group, we want to expand our relationship with the whole world into a wider circle. This circle does not share the same goal; it has different aspirations. This is my more external part.

The parts of my soul called “root,” “soul,” “body,” “attire” and “hall.” “Root, soul and body” are the internal part, which I feel as myself, the “attire” is an external part but it is adhered to a person, and the “hall” is the more external part.

And so I play with the group as the external part that is closest to me, that is ready to join the same purpose. I don’t see it as a group of people but rather as my desires that are only dressed up in these masks that make faces at me. But I understand that I must connect to them because it is there that I attain the goal. If I exit my ego and become incorporated in them, there I will find the attribute of bestowal.

But we can’t just work among ourselves on our connection. We need to work together on something external. This external thing is the world. But here too, my desires seem to oppose me; these are my seven billion different desires that are showing me that they don’t belong to me. My ego separates me from them and blinds me, confuses me, and obliges me to perceive them as foreign and opposed to me.

I must work with the world, but it is much more difficult than working with the group. After all, at least I have something in common with the group: a goal, studies, and common processes. In the group it is as if I am in a kindergarten, in comfortable conditions that constantly help me exit myself.

But the external world has no conditions that help me: There everyone is against me. The only thing that ties us together is a collective problem, although it seems to us that we are headed towards different goals. The world by running away from pain eventually has no choice, it will reach the same goal that I see as good and desirable. So I should relate to all the circles around me—the group and the rest of the world—as to myself. They are only presented to me by the Creator in this opposite form so that each time I will learn to work with a more external circle. I perceive the inner circle, and together with it I begin to work on the more external circles.

We cannot worry only about one another. Like a young couple: How long can you look at one another before you get to know each other and become used to one another? Then they need to have a child so that they will both take care of him!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/12, Shamati #36

The Forbidden Secret Is Open To Any Baby

admin.bb — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:12:21 +0000

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam write in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” about the forbidden part in the wisdom of Kabbalah: that Kabbalists can reveal what belongs to “Flavors of the Torah,” but cannot disclose the part that belongs to the first three Sefirot or the “head of the Partzuf?”

Answer: Even if Kabbalists tell about something that is “forbidden,” we won’t understand anything. It is like talking about anything next to a baby without needing to be careful because the infant still will not hear or understand anything anyway. He doesn’t connect the words he hears to any meaning. Just like when we read The Book of Zohar, single words are understandable, but for us they add up to senseless sentences

“The secrets of the Torah” are not information that is carefully hidden from us. It is simply our brain, which at the moment is on an ordinary beastly level, cannot perceive them. So for us it remains a secret, as does all of reality. Please, it is all revealed to you, look! Do you see anything? Who is to blame that you don’t have the means to perceive? Develop them and you will see reality. It is the same when it comes to the “secrets of the Torah.”

We study in “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” about what belongs to the head of the world of Atzilut, the head of Arich Anpin, and we know that there are the parts of RADLA (Reish delo Eiyada), parts of its “brain” (Mocha de Avirah, Kruma de Avirah) that are concealed from us in the upper Light. But we study everything that belongs to the “flavors of the Torah” and not its “secrets” in this system. The difference is that the “flavors” relate to the thoughts of the created being and the “secrets of the Torah” relate to the Creator’s thoughts.

There would be no point mentioning all this, if there weren’t people who claim that it is forbidden to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because it is a secret. There are no secrets in it; on the contrary, the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals reality to us! It doesn’t reveal some “forbidden secrets”: In order to reveal the secrets you have to reach them yourself by preparing your vessels, your desires, your vessels of perception. If you prepare all the desires that belong to the seven lower Sefirot (ZAT) in the full height of the spiritual ladder, then you begin to discover their upper part (GAR). You will be ready for this revelation and will discover this secret yourself.

Every degree of the 125 degrees is divided into two parts: the upper part and the lower part (GAR and ZAT). The lower part of each degree can be attained and it is a great virtue if a person attains it because then he discovers the actions of the Creator as good and benevolent. The Light that dressed into the head of the body of the spiritual Partzuf is called “flavors,” as it says: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

But we don’t discover the upper part, the head of the degree yet. It will be possible to discover it after its lower part, the “body,” is corrected. Even the head of the lowest level, Malchut de Assiya, is a secret for the time being. We can speak about everything that belongs to the “bodies,” about everything that belongs to the created being, to his work and to his correction, but it is “forbidden” to speak about the “secrets,” about the heads of all the degrees, meaning that it is impossible to speak about them because we cannot attain them at the moment and it will only confuse us. It is because we begin to discuss an area that we cannot perceive. There are no cells in our brain and no channels that can perceive this upper dimension. But gradually we develop and come closer to its perception.

“Not to reveal the secret” means: “not to put an obstacle before a blind person,” but to let him advance gradually until he can see. Just as we gradually teach children and let them develop, this is how we should also develop ourselves.
[65946]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Did He Really Leave Me?

admin.bb — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:04:28 +0000

Question: What does it mean to proceed by the path of bestowal?

Answer: If the goal of creation is to bring pleasure to the creatures and the Creator is a positive force that does good, and only this is the essence of His treatment of us, then why do we need to pray for Him to do good to us?

Everyone screams out to the Creator, “Do something good to us!” But that is ridiculous! Why beg a kind person to perform an act of kindness toward me? He is already doing good; He cannot do anything else. After all, it is written that the Creator is benevolent to the good and the bad alike. He never changes His attitude, as it is written, “I did not change My HaVaYaH” and “the Light exists in absolute rest.”

That goes to show us that it is not worthwhile to ask Him for good. Yet all prayers, all requests, and psalms are composed by Kabbalists, people who exist in spiritual attainment. Then why did they pray, “Help me, save me, do for me”?

These are pleas to form the desire “Help me correct my perception!” That is called “the work of the Creator,” while for the Creator bestowing to us is not work, it’s pleasure.

My work is to ask for the right desire or vessel, and His work is to create this vessel. In other words, it is request for readiness to accept the fulfillment due to which we achieve adhesion rather than a request for a pleasant change.

The word “prayer” is translated as “self-judgment”; it is the creature’s request to be changed. When I ask, “Why have You forsaken me?” has He really left me? Or do I say this only in regard to my own perception within which I feel that He has left me and I realize this myself? In essence, I ask for Him to correct my sensation so that I would feel that He did not leave or become distant from me.

A prayer is a request for correction of our desires, and all this is called work for the Creator rather than fulfillment itself.
[66470]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/12, Writings of Rabash

A Bonfire That Shouldn’t Be Extinguished

admin.bb — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:06:04 +0000

Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: The yielding due to satiation causes no grief. Relinquishment out of despair is full of pain and sorrow, and can therefore be called, “partial death.”

If we rise to a new desire, to a new level of awakening, we feel a growing despair and eventually die. We don’t die in the physical sense which is expected in any case, but the point is that our spirit is extinguished.

On the beastly level the spirit dies together with the body, but while the body lives, we can find a source that will allow us to rise anew each time, a new awakening. In it we feel life, livelihood, to such an extent that we become detached from the physical existence and its dependence on the body and begin to live in an awakening that is detached from corporeality. These become two different things for us, as it says “you shall see your world in your life.”

Thus a person acquires new vessels, desires, to feel life. This begins from the descents: When a person doesn’t feel life in the vessels of bestowal, he considers himself dead. Then he changes the reason, the vessel of awakening, from receiving to bestowal, and thus gets rid of the spiritual and the physical “angel of death.”

Spiritually he moves on to the vessels of bestowal that do not belong to our world. There is no death in them when the biological body dies; it ceases to feel the livelihood connected to it when the time comes for it to disintegrate and to return to the basic materials it’s made of, as always happens. But at the same time, a person acquires an awakening in the vessels of bestowal in which he feels life and the force of livelihood. After all, he can always add something to these vessels.

As a whole, the feeling of life isn’t measured by a person’s present desire, but rather by the addition to the desire, by an acceleration coefficient. So a person should always be like a “bent old man” who seems to be looking for something he lost. I should constantly worry about losing the yearning for the goal. If a person performs this work, then he is young in soul. Otherwise we become “children who have grown old,” who retire without maturing.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, “The Freedom”