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I had a video conference with two Toronto TV stations - one in Hebrew and one in Russian. I found that Israeli television outside of Israel is exactly that - “Israelis outside of Israel,” or in other words, the greatest and most primitive egoism in the world. There are many primitive egoists, but only theirs is both great and primitive at the same time.

Nevertheless, it appeared as if they too are starting to ask questions, have doubts, and feel desires “above the stomach.” Canada, Australia, and similar countries squeeze everything that’s human out of people, and all that remains is an animalistic aspiration for a full stomach and a peace of mind. You can see this with every person who enters that environment.

One’s environment determines one’s destiny - whether he will go through life worrying only about the comfort of his animate body, until it finally dies, or he will actually think about something besides this. By no means does Kabbalah encourage people to deprive themselves of anything or to suffer. It only explains that a society which eliminates a person’s questions about the meaning of life, turns him into an animal.

But to be frank, lately even the “bourgeois” are beginning to ask questions about the meaning of life. In the past they couldn’t even comprehend the possibility of someone asking such questions, and would look at anyone who spoke about it with a blank, dumbfounded gaze…

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Two questions I received on the role of knowledge in spiritual advancement

Question: In order to advance, do I have to know what state I’m in and what spiritual level I’m on? And in general, how important is it for my spiritual development to have knowledge about the spiritual worlds?

My Answer: Knowledge doesn’t matter at all. However, it does help you connect to the topic (the correction of your soul). Nevertheless, the most important thing is to attract the Light of correction, and this happens during the study of authentic Kabbalistic texts. Item 155 of the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot explains that the Light descends to the degree one desires to understand what is being said in the text, even though one doesn’t understand anything. This means that a person is trying to understand what the book says about him and his state. It’s because a Kabbalistic text includes all the states of all the souls, and every soul is able to find “its own frequency,” the frequency at which the common soul, the Creator, is speaking to it.

Question: You said that a person who advances in Kabbalah does not have to turn to books when it comes to realizing his freedom of choice, and that this is something he has to do inside. My question is: How do you keep an inner account with yourself if you don’t have the forces for it inside you? You said that a person should turn to the society when he wants to realize his freedom of choice.

My Answer: Baal HaSulam speaks about this in one of his letters. He writes that if you desire to figure something out inside you, then just be alone with yourself, without books. This way you will feel yourself and the result of what has happened to you by studying Kabbalah. You will be able to find yourself, your path, something that’s yours, instead of what others have said.

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Two questions I received on how to connect spirituality and regular life

Question: How does the spiritual world influence and enliven our world, if the two worlds aren’t connected? Do they have a “cause-and-effect” connection? If so, then why isn’t our world also perfect and eternal?

My Answer: Our world is governed entirely from above. And every day we are becoming more and more convinced of this, because no matter how we try to change things, nothing goes according to plan.

The only way we can influence the Upper World (from below upwards) is to evoke (ask for) an acceleration (but not a change) of the process of our correction (by studying in the group and disseminating). We will perceive this acceleration as if evil and suffering are replaced by goodness and pleasure.

Question: Why does a person have to separate the spiritual part of his life from the regular one?

My Answer: It’s necessary to separate the two worlds. However they aren’t separate in and of themselves, but only relative the person who attains them. Outside a person, there is only the general Light. Once a person attains the Upper World, through it he sees our world, and he is no longer confused about the origin of everything that happens and about the connections between all parts of the world. But if he starts attaining the Upper World from our world, then he will get confused and start seeing forces through objects. He will do the same thing that the religions and faiths do – start thinking that there is spirituality inside the objects of our world, worshiping material objects such as trees, lucky charms, red strings, holy water, or predicting the future. This is why Baal HaSulam writes that one first attains the Upper World, and only after such attainment, one starts researching (from the Upper World) the descending forces that form our world, and the phenomena in our world.

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 Physical and Spiritual: Play Now | Download

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A question I received: I’ve heard you say something like no civilizations of the past are seen in the “revealed.” Does it mean that everything scientists are now finding (in support of a theory of the earlier civilizations) appears in our senses as a reality that we ourselves are demanding? In other words, the external forces react to our demands by creating more new “decorations.”

My Answer: You’re absolutely right! As a result of the descent from spirituality, when the desire created by the Creator reached its lowest level, it perceived within itself what we feel as “me” and the world surrounding us (as external to “me”). The processes and the internal changes started being perceived as time, space and movement (again, external to “me”). This is how a person perceives that something had already existed before he appeared. But who actually sensed it? Without senses, nothing exists. Everything exists in our imagination, in our senses. Read the article “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” item 34.

Related Material:
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 Kabbalah, Science and the Perception of Reality [09:56m]: Play Now | Download

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A question I received: What would you say to a person who knows the answer to the question “Why do I live?”

My Answer: The question “Why do I live?” always and constantly leads a person from action to thought, and from thought to the next action. In general, a person always lives for something, he always wants something in the next moment.

For most people, the question about the meaning of life exists only within the span of our world. As such, most people work to achieve all sorts of goals in our world, goals such as food, sex, family, wealth, power, honor, fame, and knowledge. Most people find meaning to their lives in such goals.

However, after the person has achieved all that, and within each and every person, the question about the meaning of life common to all needs to arise, rather than how to fulfill ourselves during the seventy years of the body’s existence. This question also has many answers from many different “spiritual” methods and religions, but these will all gradually become irrelevant because of their inadequacy. Kabbalah is all that will remain, and the answer it provides is the following: “The meaning of life is to attain our root, the source from where we came – to attain the Creator. Our greatest aspiration - our innermost part that becomes revealed after everything else – is for the Creator, because that is where we came from.” Read Baal HaSulam’s definition in “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

Therefore, to answer your question, if there’s a person who knows the answer to the question “Why do I live?” I would ask him “Did you discover it by attaining the Creator, by becoming like Him?”

 

 What Is the Essence of Kabbalah? [04:32m]: Play Now | Download

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Two questions I received on the masses’ participation in the method of correction

Question: Please let me know whether I understand you correctly or not: You’re saying that there will be a very small quantity of people serving the Creator through studying the science of Kabbalah in comparison to the whole of humanity?

My Answer: No. Everyone needs to understand that there is a method of attaining happiness. Until everyone comes to this understanding, then no one will actually achieve it. That’s the condition. People subdivide into four groups according to their natural development and the size of their desire. Those with the largest desire are Kabbalists, and those with the smallest desire are people who will merely understand that they need this method for survival; that they need to join the rest and do everything like everyone else, like in a herd. It’s the same way as the masses operate today, according to social influence and advertisement.

Question: You have described the main mass of society (99% of people) as being “individually and socially passive.” These are, apparently, people who don’t ask questions about the meaning of life, i.e. people without a point in the heart. Are all such people just flesh and bones made for the herding, or can they all be “awakened” in the foreseeable future for spiritual progress?

My Answer: Every single person has free will. The only difference is the extent to which one’s free will becomes realized within oneself. However, according to one’s soul, each one needs to completely and independently realize oneself. There are leaders and there are followers, but all are conscious!

Related Material:
Part 1A from eBook Interview with the Future: A Hidden World
Chapter 12 from the eBook The Open Book: Four Degrees in the Development of the Desire
Article: Freedom of Will

 

 Do We Have Free Will, or Is Everything Predetermined? [05:14m]: Play Now | Download

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A question I received: In the beginning of the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” where Baal HaSulam refers to the science of Kabbalah by the word “religion,” why does he write that “the second generation has almost completely slipped from under our hands”?

My Answer: In my opinion, he means that with the opportunity to return to the Land of Israel, we also have the opportunity for common spiritual correction and ascent. Moreover, the fact that we’re not realizing such correction means that the exile from spirituality has ended, all the souls have intermixed, but we are late with our correction. This is making the two new generations, which have arrived since the full end of the exile (late 19th century - early 20th century), ask the question about the meaning of life, which remains unanswered.

People are leaving religion, which supported them during the period of exile, because they aren’t receiving answers to their new questions. Only Kabbalah can provide such answers, because it provides answers on the essence of life, governance, the essence of the Creator, and the reasons and purposes of our lives. That such questions remain unanswered spawns more and more crises in all areas of life, which then becomes a general crisis concerning the negative influence we have on our environment. How do we fix this state of affairs? There is only one way to fix it, and that is by changing human nature. This is what the method of Kabbalah is for, as it is the method that guides such a change.

 

 Kabbalah and Our Times [04:04m]: Play Now | Download

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A question I received: Whenever I recommend Kabbalah to someone, I do it on the basis of my personal sensations and experience. I feel a loss for words because I’m talking about sensations that can’t be put into words. The more I study, the more I realize that this is such an intimate path, and that this inner path can only be explored by someone asking “What’s the meaning of my life?” – one who has come to strongly feel that there’s no fulfillment in the material world. I find my meaning only from sensing clearly that this world has nothing more to offer. So how can I spread this to the entire world?

My Answer: Many people feel that the world has nothing more to offer them, so help them!

(Continuing the question) I think that the only thing I can do is give people the exalted words of Kabbalists, and nothing more than this - that they’ll touch whoever they touch. I understand that this is something we need to do, but I don’t know what to do about not being able to say anything about it.

My Answer: Imagine that you’re speaking to the person’s point in the heart, their desire for spirituality.

Another question I received on the topic of dissemination: I understand the “top of the pyramid” concept, where the smallest minority of people in the world have the highest quality of desires, i.e. those for spirituality. But at the same time, all the other levels of the pyramid are needed too. So what is the purpose of dissemination? Is it only for personal progress past the Machsom?

My Answer: In our era, personal progress is impossible without all souls moving toward unity as one whole. The entire pyramid has to be pulled upward. When you acquire the property of love and bestowal, then you disseminate for the sake of those whom you love.

 

 What Is the One Thing We Want from Our Dissemination of Kabbalah? [03:03m]: Play Now | Download

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A comment I received: I watched a lesson you gave recently on the Internet, where you talked about your blog for a few minutes, and I felt like you described exactly how I feel as a reader. Most Internet users can’t read Internet posts longer than a paragraph, or even a few lines. At most, the reader quickly scans the text, thinking, “Too many letters…” and moves on to read the comments.

My Response: My blog was created with a clear purpose - to explain Kabbalah. It’s not meant for arguing with anyone. However, some people may not be ripe enough for it. A person needs to have gone through all desires, one after the other - from bodily desires (food, sex, family, shelter), to social desires that arise under society’s influence (wealth, fame, respect, knowledge). Once a person has reached a state of realizing that none of these desires can bring about fulfillment, the point in the heart (the desire to fulfill the soul) awakens. This process takes thousands of years and many reincarnations.

Therefore, it is useless arguing with people who haven’t ripened yet. They still feel fulfilled by religion (a “deal” they make with the Creator: “I’ll do whatever You commanded me to do, and in return You’ll give me fulfillment and reward in this world, and the world to come”), wealth, and so on. I simply ask all such people to leave us, or to study a little bit at a time. However, everyone who is disappointed with life and who doesn’t see how to find fulfillment, is invited.

An ancient text says, “Someone by the name of Ptachia came to our village, stayed for a while, and left, and with him also the empty people…” The name Ptachia derives from the verb Liftoach, which in Hebrew means “to open.” This person knew how to open the higher sources of fulfillment to people, because Kabbalah is the science of fulfillment. And the empty people who left together with him were those who desired to be filled by the Upper Light.

And he took them to the desert, so that they would discover even more emptiness within themselves. This is because the initial disappointment and emptiness that a person feels when first coming to Kabbalah are insufficient for fulfilling the person with the Upper Light, both in the quantity and the quality of the emptiness.

Look at what Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” items 1 and 2, about a person coming to Kabbalah:

1. At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah since the ruin of the Temple to this generation. It lies heavily on us and arouses fear of Kabbalah being forgotten from Israel.

However, when I begin to speak to anyone about the study of Kabbalah, his first question is, “Why should I know how many angels are in the sky, and what their names are? Can I not keep the entire Torah in all its details and intricacies without this knowledge?”

Second, he will ask, “The sages have already determined that one must first fill one’s belly with Gmarah and Talmud. Thus, how can one deceive himself in that he has finished the entire revealed Torah, and lacks only the wisdom of the hidden?

Third, one is afraid that he will miss out on something because of this engagement, as there have already been incidents of deviation from the path of Torah because of engagement in Kabbalah. Hence, why do I need this trouble? Who is so foolish as to place himself in danger for no reason?

Fourth: Even those who favor this study only permit it to holy ones, servants of the Creator. Not all who wish to draw close to the Lord may do so.

Fifth, and most importantly, “It is a conduct in our midst that when in doubt, do as the people do,” and my eyes see that all those who study Torah in my generation are of one mind, and refrain from studying the hidden. Moreover, they advise the ones who ask them that it is undoubtedly preferable to study a page of Gmarah instead of Kabbalah.

2. Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so dearly and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it that enjoys them? Even more precisely, to whom do I give delight?

It is indeed true that historians of all generations have already grown weary contemplating it and particularly in our generation, when no one even wishes to consider this question. Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvitingly, pecks at our mind and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy to flow mindlessly in the currents of life as yesterday…

This blog was created for those who do not want to drown in the currents of life!

My Current Mood: loved

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It’s obvious that there is something special about the children born today: they are especially egoistic, shrewd and intelligent. They want to know “why” they have to do something an adult tells them, and only then do they agree to it, i.e. if they agree at all (usually they don’t!) They’re a completely new generation, with no desire to “succeed” in life, i.e. in our understanding of the term. First they need to prove to themselves that life has meaning. Otherwise, isn’t it better to just escape into drugs, various pleasures, and their own virtual world, rather than put in all sorts of efforts? What’s the point anyway?

We can’t handle them. We can’t restrain their egoism, and we can’t answer their questions. For these reasons, adults use all the means at their disposal to try and tame the new generation - in particular, to tame their hyperactivity. Hyperactivity, however, only seems hyper to adults. It’s quite normal for the new generation.

Many children regularly have permanent damage inflicted upon them through the use of addictive medications, such as Ritalin. These medications cause up to 70 side effects, including suicidal impulses, psychoses and arrhythmia, which parents aren’t warned of beforehand. Such medications are registered as narcotic substances, and are therefore considered as being dangerous drugs. At any rate, the practice of teachers who force parents to prescribe their children with Ritalin, under the fear of their children being expelled from school, is unacceptable. (There is another opinion that Ritalin is not a drug, because it doesn’t cause “withdrawals,” meaning one does not become physically dependent on it.)

Parents themselves can no longer manage their children, and are ready for anything! For example, according to the New York Times, when New York State authorities decided to stop the use of electroshock therapy on problematic children, they were confronted by the parents who insisted that electroshock isn’t actually cruel, that it teaches children to behave.

Kabbalah tells us that we live in a unique transitional period of reevaluating our evolution. In Ancient Babylon, where our evolution began, we made a decision to evolve egoistically. This decision was in spite of Abraham’s advice, who called for humanity’s altruistic evolution. And so we started evolving egoistically, under the influence of egoistic forces. Today, we are discovering that we have come to a dead end. We realize that we have positioned ourselves against Nature (the Creator). Kabbalah, Abraham’s testament, is becoming revealed to the world as a method for a different kind of existence: one that is integral, filled with love, and in balance with Nature. Kabbalah tells us that suffering will force us to accept Abraham’s way of existence, but that we don’t need to suffer. We can change our civilization by recognizing the oncoming global crisis and putting the wisdom of Kabbalah to use.

Are we wise enough to make the right choice?

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