11/23/2009

Finding the Creator Within - Part II

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PART II of TWO

Question: Baal HaSulam writes in another place that the level of knowledge indicates the level of man's development. If follows that someone more knowledable is more alive than others?

He writes that a beast feels. It’s not aware, it feels. There is a difference. That is the difference between man and beast. What is inside man is the difference.

Question (cont.): What does it mean that there’s someone who’s more alive or less alive? What does it mean, more alive?

To be more alive means to know the reasons. That’s the whole learning, the awareness, to know the reasons, the circumstances, the formation, and the constituents.

We discern three periods in the body. The first from the time one comes to the world, when one has no knowledge, and all the knowledge that he needs for his sustenance, comes from his father and mother, and he lives through their keeping and wisdom. This is the state of Katnut Aleph (the first small state).

It's clear, right? He’s supported by the Upper One; he receives everything from the Upper One and is dependant on the Upper One; and knows that the Upper One provides everything. In other words, he’s aware of the fact that he is under the supervision of the Upper One.

The Bet is when he grows and acquires some knowledge and then he watches things that harm his body with a common guarding, both by the power of his parents and by his own power. This is KatnutBet (the second small state).

Now he becomes like a partner to the Upper One. Where by belonging to the Upper One, in return the Upper one gives him an addition that he still needs. What is the difference between the first state and the second state? In the second state he can already provide some part of the knowledge to himself. Where does it come from? From learning, from accumulating it, from bringing them from the example of Abba ve Ima, from the example of the Upper One. All of these steps are done consciously with a person, because we’re talking about spirituality here. In the other section he says "so exactly is man’s soul" and then he explains "three periods" even those as we discern in the body, but, it’s in the body of the soul.

Question: Is this the Ibur(conception)and Yenika (sustenance )?

Baal HaSulam divides it differently.

The Gimel is the state of Gadlut (adulthood), when one acquires sufficient knowledge for life to be guarded in the right measure in order to exist. Then he exits the authority of his mother and father, and acquires his own leadership; and that’s the Gimel (third) state which is a state of Gadlut.

I would answer your question, this way. There is no state of Ibur, because in the state of Ibur he cancels himself with respect to the Upper One and has no Rosh (head) at all. Here he’s talking about degrees of knowledge that he acquires from the Upper One. In the first degree he knows that there is an Upper One who guards him and he cancels himself with respect to the Upper One. But he is approaching the second degree. You understand what he’s saying, "that all the necessary knowledge for his sustenance through his father and mother, he exists through their keeping and wisdom."

It’s not that he cancels himself. He cancels himself with respect to their actions upon him. It’s more like Yenika or, you might also say both, Ibur and Yenika. Whereas the second is already Katnut, let’s say after two years, we see that Ibur and Yenika are actually two phases which are one phase. What does he get in Yenika? He gets the same blood that he did not receive at the time of the Ibur. This blood, which he did not receive at the Ibur rises up to Halav (milk), and thus the embryo through the passage that is called milk, once more makes blood out of the milk and turns it into meat. By that Ibur and Yenika, are like one thing that he receives from the Upper One, in a way that he is inanimate with respect to the Upper One.

But in Ibur, it is inanimate with respect to the Upper One in all of the Sefirot, meaning he cancels himself. In Yenika he cancels himself, but he also cancels himself not in all of the Sefirot, but, say, in just some of them.

He already has some freedom, but freedom in what? He doesn’t determine anything. He’s not similar to the Upper One in anything, he’s still not Katnut, when he learns from the Upper One. Yenika is when he participates in his own sustenance, in his own growth. But it’s still without a Rosh, and after Yenika comes Katnut, which is a gradual learning from the Upper One, a copying of forms on himself. Then he’s participating with Abba ve Ima (father and mother)—them a little, him a little, them a little, him a little—until he comes to Gadlut, where he acquired all of these forms from them, and can exist without them.

"Existing without them" means that he has the same Rosh andthe same Guf (body). It is because in spirituality, if you have similar things, then they are as one, then he has no opposite reality from the mother and father but he is exactly like Abba ve Ima, incorporated in them. When we said he has his own reality and that he acquired all the corrections from them, it’s a sign he came together with them. It’s the opposite of what seems to us in our world, because he reaches equivalence, Dvekut (adhesion) and then they are interconnected.

It is the same with the respect to the soul, one reincarnates until he acquires the wisdom of truth in completeness. Without them, the soul doesn’t reach its fullest measure. And it’s not that knowledge at one’s hand increased the level of the soul, but it is an intrinsic nature in the soul that it is not granted to its own action to grow before it acquires the knowledge of the spiritual nature.

This means that it is impossible without studying. First there is just mere study, the way we are studying today and then each person is learning it within one's own physical body. Without it, it’s impossible to enter spirituality. It is because spirituality appears in the Kli of a person to the extent that the Kli isscrutinized, to the extent that one sees it and all the connections in it, the attributes and relationships between them. To that extent, he feels livelihood in the Kli, that’s his life, that’s his world. There’s nothing else.

It’s like vision: if my vision is undeveloped, which is connected to the intelligence, then what can I see? You can say that a baby sees the world too. But what does it see—less than me? How many details, how many components can it see in his picture? With respect to the baby, the thought process, the wisdom, that is all acquired slowly. The extent that the wisdom is acquired we know how to use the senses. That’s what Baal HaSulam says:

It is also with respect to the soul a person reincarnates until he acquires the wisdom of truth in completeness.

Why acquire the wisdom of truth? I need it now. Now, let's say I reincarnated maybe thirty-forty times and now I have to reincarnate again? Isn’t it enough? What do I need it for now?

Yes, now the reason for the incarnations is to obtain the wisdom of Kabbalah, how to receive all the disclosure of the attribute of bestowal.

Without them, the soul does not reach its fullest measure. [And it is everyone’s duty to reach the root of his soul.] And it’s not that the knowledge in one’s hand increased the level of the soul, [Knowledge itself doesn’t do it.] but it is an intrinsic nature in the soul that it is not granted through its own action to grow before it acquires the knowledge of the spiritual nature. [Meaning the knowledge in of itself does not mean anything. But it grows through knowledge and] The growth of the soul depends on the extent of its knowledge.

Again, there’s an understanding of the operating of the soul and following it, there’s actual operation of it and then in the correct operation, what fills it is one’s world. That’s how it is tested. But how the soul is operated, is taught in the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is not an intellect, but we’re talking about knowing the relationships among attributes in a person. Not theoretical attributes: "I heard, I saw, I picture this and that." It’s all fictitious; it’s all abstract forms, G-d forbid.

We’re talking about a person examining, researching, and doing everything, practically, within his own attributes. When he arranges them correctly, each time more and more, and then comes to the maximum situation, whereby he has a perfect picture, and there are no examples from the Upper One anymore and in any way, that gives a person the knowledge that he’s reached his root—the end of his correction. Until then, he’ll have to continue reincarnating in a physical body too, even though actually he is evolving in the spiritual vessels of the souls.

Why does he have to do it? Because in each and every situation that the soul experiences, there are situations where he exits or replaces these states, drops and falls in his spiritual consciousness and even falls into corporeal consciousness, and then again returns to spiritual consciousness. He needs a permanent physical basis that is always there, like Shimon from the market. That is why there’s a reality in this body, even when he begins to correct the soul and identifies himself with that.

Question: First, Baal HaSulam said that it is not one's knowledge that makes his soul grow, and now he says that the growth of the soul depends on the level of its knowledge. It is not clear, he writes that i s it not the knowledge itself, but it is the reason for the action?

Knowledge about how to put the Kli together, about its formation, meaning how to mix correctly my desire to receive, the Masach (screen), Aviut (thickness); knowledge of how to work with two lines, how to put together the third line, and what I receive in the third line—this knowledge of Him, of His filling is called the "attainment of the Thought of Creation." So we have knowledge of how to operate the Kli, and of the attainment that I receive, as a result of operating the Kli correctly.

Question: Doesthis attainment mean knowing about the next state?

Absolutely not. In between two degrees, you have a complete cessation, it’s like a cut. We have cause and consequence, it is connected. It’s like from the degrees of vegetative to animate, from monkeys to people: they’re as if adjacent but in between them you have a cessation. After falling into an abyss, we then again ascend to the degree of a person.

Question: Can we see such states for example, as Shimon from the market who is a great Kabbalist or a genius at the university who is as at the level of the baby. Are there such situations?

What do you care about this or that, so you’ll see people?

Question (cont.): Evolutionary wise, is there a connection between the evolution of the brain and…?

That’s another question. Does the developed human brain say anything about the inner evolution of the soul? No. "Knowledge in the gentiles—believe; Torah in the gentiles—do not believe." 'Gentiles' is the will to receive; it has knowledge. You know how many smart people were in the world! You think there was only Einstein, a Jew, and that's it? There was Copernicus, and Galileo. These were great people in their philosophy, wisdom and understanding reality at its depth. It seems primitive to us, but they were very great minds. It has nothing to do with emotional development of the point in the heart, at all. It’s a completely different mind.

By the way, I don’t want to hurt you guys, I don’t want to offend you, but the people that come to Kabbalah that are not necessarily very smart or with a very developed mind, not at all. These are pretty ordinary people. I would say non-descript people. It has nothing to do with that. Excellence, in this world, is entirely dependant upon attributes, completely different attributes from spirituality. Don’t ever relate these things to one another. It’s not a question of the scientist or an actor, or whatever. It’s Shimon from the market.

Question: Does the point in the heart evolve after the greatest desire to receive? You said the mind is a tool for the desire. Would you agree that the smartest person is egoistic and as a result of that he is the closest to spirituality, to spiritual development?

I’ll tell you. Being smart stems from incarnations that a person has experienced, and the wisdom is in the Kli coming to a state that it sees that it is a waste of effort, there’s nothing to enjoy. The evolution in science, technology, medicine, art, music, in whatever—in all of that, people still feel that they have something to enjoy.

Again I’m looking at things from what we see. If we see, that a person is not evolving, perhaps he is in a state where all he cares about is soccer, going to the bar and just his friends, or whatever. Perhaps he’s not evolving because he’s already given up on evolution and that’s why he doesn’t want to learn it. That’s why he doesn’t want anything in life. He agrees to something life compels him to do, to go and do something in which he doesn’t have a choice, only to live. So superficially you can’t say about a person that his will to receive is still developing and he is at the level of an ordinary worker, or that he hasn’t activated his mind more than that, or maybe he’s already given up on all those big things, and is already at the level of the worker. He just carries on in life.

It’s difficult; we can’t see it from the outside, only according to the results. He comes here and then we see that he can’t fulfill himself in a different place. So he comes here and doesn’t go to Tarot cards or other fortune tellers. Also in his inner hunch, in his actual maturity, he doesn’t believe things that cannot be held in your hands. He demands a realistic, genuine solution.

Question: Can a state be attained by a stupid person?

'Stupid' meaning an ordinary person or someone not normal?

Question (cont.): Stupid as to intelligence.

Yes. I wouldn’t say he’s 'stupid' because the mind does evolve according to the desires. If his desires are so ripened that they say him, it’s pointless to do anything in life, then the person is not that developed in his intellect. Maybe he hardly finished school, and didn’t even go to a university. He feels, understands that he doesn’t know that much about the world. He doesn’t get what people want from him. Quite the contrary, he has an inner preparation to operate a different Kli. He’s not an idiot. He doesn’t have such deflections that come from a flaw in his sensation or intellect. He can be pretty strange compared to others, but normally these are ordinary people.

Look at your friends. They are common folk. It’s an example. You don’t need to look on the site for something or to go, to jails, to find someone, but these are the most ordinary people. They were looking here and there, thought they could realize themselves in someway or they didn’t have a choice went to something to realize themselves, and in the end, ended up being here.

Question: What does this despair come from?

The despair comes from the inner Kli. It doesn’t see before it any source of pleasure ahead. Why doesn’t it see? Because the source of the pleasure, after all the scrutiny, is in the vessel of bestowal. It shines for the vessel of bestowal; for me, it is totally dark. I don’t know, I don’t see, I don't want, I don’t feel any pleasure in it. After I evolve and despair from the pleasure of the will to receive, the pleasure in the will to bestow doesn't appear. Otherwise I would run from it like a thief, from within the will to receive. But darkness and despair appear before me. It shines a little for me, in order to draw me there, so I don’t drop into death. I do have some pulling of surrounding Lights from there. It’s like a ray of light through the cracks. But it still shines from afar, from a Surrounding Light.

Question: In concern to the discernment of smart and stupid, we should ask with respect to what? If I'm asking with respect to this world, then if someone is stupid, he should go to the university. If I’m asking with respect to the attribute of bestowal, someone who is stupid with respect to the next world, what should he do in order to be smart?

If he goes into a society and is lucky enough to submit himself, then he’ll progress very quickly. He’ll take their sensations, their intellect, even if he just brings them tea and coffee, if he doesn’t have any brains to do more than that. There are people here who work in the services, they build, they do things because they say, "I don’t have the brains to study." It doesn’t prevent them at all from progress.

Whatever exists in the general Kli pours from one to the other, just like that. To some extent they have to be here and hear about why or where to, what is the reason, what is the goal in general. All the other items that we discuss, wisdom, intellect or reason, all kinds of theories, clothing in the world, no, there’s no predilection toward it. They want to belong, it doesn’t matter how they belong. As Baal HaSulam says about the last generation, you just have to agree that you want to be with them. "Guys whatever you want me to do, I’ll do." And that’s enough. You have to accept him, you can’t reject him. For them it is a legitimate position.

And a person who grows in spiritual desires, grows also in his corporeal mind. He begins to understand the forces, particular desires that build his physicality, the animal in him, his humanness too, of course. He becomes smarter. Previously he was more stupid than everybody else, an idiot, an ordinary person. Idiot comes from the word ordinary. To the extent that he evolves in spirituality his ability for corporeality evolves too. Then he catches on to things more than any other smart guy.

Its growth depends on the measure of its knowledge. The reason is that if she could grow without the knowledge it would be harmed, like a baby that doesn’t know, and has no strength to walk. If he could walk on its legs, it would put itself into flames.

That’s obvious, because we progress from Kli to fulfillment. Hence, if I couldn't build my Kelim, desires, attitude correctly, according to the congruence between the Kli and the filling, I’d be harmed by receiving the disclosure of the attribute of bestowal before I was ready for it, (being) in equivalence of form with it. It would be harmful because then it would burn me, and I would run. Corresponding to an insufficiently corrected desire, it would be a terrible blow. Then I would be harmed; I’d break.

We learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah that the cause of the breaking was that the Kli was not intended to the disclosure on the attribute of bestowal in it. And because of this mismatch between the preparations on the part of the Kli and between the attribute that appeared in the Kli, the gap between the preparation and the corrected state that should be, that will appear, this is what caused the breaking. If I’d been shown that right now the kind of Michael I have to be, I would just freeze, because they would show me some angel Michael, the way you have to be at Gmar Tikkun, in such a way that it’s doomed from the beginning. That’s called the breaking.

You have to understand what it means that the Light appears in the Kli. When you get the real corrected picture of yourself, it knocks the wind out of our sails. That’s why he said that he would put himself in a burning fire—it’s like the burning flame of shame. First you need the preparation for the appearance of the attribute of bestowal, and accordingly as it appears, you feel in it a sigh of relief, tranquility.

Question: What are incarnations and how do they prepare the soul to receive the attribute of bestowal?

Physical or spiritual incarnations? In spirituality, every situation from beginning to end, every sinusoid when you first drop and then you rise up again—all that is called "an incarnation." Or are we talking about a physical life?

Question: The physical too…

How do they prepare it? Each time they add information from an exterior awareness to the inner awareness, whereas the inner and outer awareness are connected. When I leave this world, all acquired knowledge moves to the preparation of the soul. It’s like a seed that rots in the ground. What is the connection between the previous plant and the next plant? The conveyance of this information without the exterior form. From plant to plant, is as if it’s the same plant, but for us it is a difference between two degrees.

It’s in between two degrees: physical, when one is born, as well as spiritual when you also have a spiritual preparation for it. Because when you die, you stop feeling reality in the five senses, there is no difference between the mind that acquired reality in the five senses and the brain that acquires reality in the sixth sense. It’s the same Kli, except to us it seems like it goes through five physical senses.

We’re not a body either. It just seems to us that we are built this way, as is the corporeal world. Corporeality by definition in the wisdom of Kabbalah is in order to receive. Hence, by losing the five senses it is not the body that loses it. Rather, in the awareness, the inner point that doesn’t feel the reality through the five senses, it seemingly goes back to that one root, which develops.

What is our world and the sensation of the five senses? It is the same Kli of Ein Sof, only at its existence on a minimal level. This also that brings up the question, how can it be that at the same time I feel reality in five senses and in the sixth, the soul?

We see how Kabbalists attain both of them together. What kind of duality is it? What’s happening here? Why? How can that be? One Kli is divided into two such layers, is divided in some way. The thing is as it is said more than once, that in this general Kli there’s a part that can’t be corrected. This is called "this world." That is why the greatest Kabbalist is still sensing this reality. This does not bother him, because he doesn’t need to correct anything here. All of the corrections are among the souls. This is like a preparation.

Question: What do we need the five senses for, why do we need this exterior clothing?

In between reincarnations and each and every discernment, you have a measurement or a basis, from which you measure where you are in every state, and where you will be in a state where spirituality is temporarily removed from you. You have an unchanging reality that is not spiritual, called "this world."

You just have to understand what this reality is. It is just given to us for our existence, if you don’t have spirituality, you exist this way, you just feel self-existence. If you do have spirituality it suppresses this world, it doesn’t disappear but you feel yourself there. You see that here there’s nothing to correct, no actions are needed here, and you should be only completely oriented at Ruach (spirit). In this world we have no reasons, no results, no circumstances—all of the religions are a game with regards to this world. Everything we have here in this corporeal world is just so you exist until entering the spiritual world.

Whether in the corporeal or the spiritual worlds, there are ups and downs. In some ways you are here, you enter spirituality, then you exit. So when you are in spirituality it is possible to come back here to this world and then leave again.

If you use this reality to build spirituality over it, that's correct. That’s what you need to use.

Question: In your book, A Thousand Tips for a Good Life, there is a section there that says that there are reincarnations without a purpose. Contrary to what was said by Baal HaSulam in his writings.

I don’t know. I have to see it. They’re not tips for a good life in my book; they’re tips for a life.

Question: So how come we keep falling back into this world?

No, no it’s not about that. When we fall and rise it’s for the purpose of rising. G-d forbid that we should be in a permanent state in spirituality if it’s not Gmar Tikkun. And also in it too, you don’t remain permanently; there’s a lot of development, such evolution, it all flourishes. Are you trying to say that there’s a permanent state, which is a minimal state, the Katnut (smallness) and to that there’s an addition for Gadlut (adulthood). That’s with respect to other souls. With respect to yourself, it’s questionable what state you’re in. I can’t get into that right now. It’s a separate lesson.

Question: You say that at the end of every degree there’s going to be an abyss. What is the next phase after the abyss? The tiny bit after the abyss—what is it?

Malchut of the Upper One becomes the Keter for the other lower one or vice versa. Keter of the lower one becomes Malchut of the Upper One. You were great as a worker now you’re small as a manager. Then you’ve finished all of your Gadlut the degree of the first class manager, you want to become second class manager; you start there from zero too. The Gadlut in a small level becomes Katnut on a greater level, and in between you have the abyss.

What is the abyss? Everything is erased from you. You have to start over, because every level has a complete new awareness, you see a different picture.

Question: You have the Reshimot from the previous incarnation. What is the state of abyss?

You don’t, there’s nothing to rely on. You build it from scratch, in this world. You drop lower down and build yourself higher up. That’s how it is. Otherwise you’re working in your vessels of reception.

End of Part II of TWO

Original Post Link - Finding the Creator Within.

COURTESY: Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute

Copyright © 2006. Bnei Baruch. All rights reserved.

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About

Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (1884-1954) is known as Baal HaSulam (Owner of the Ladder) for his Sulam (ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar. Baal HaSulam dedicated his life to interpretations and innovations in the wisdom of Kabbalah, disseminating it in Israel and throughout the world. He developed a unique method to the study of Kabbalah, by which any person can delve into the depth of reality and reveal its roots and purpose of existence.

Baal HaSulam’s two major works, the result of many years of labor, are Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), a commentary on the writings of the Ari, and Perush HaSulam (The Sulam Commentary) onThe Book of Zohar. The publications of the 16 parts (in six volumes) of Talmud Eser Sefirot began in 1937. In 1940 he published Beit Shaar HaKavanot (The Gatehouse of Intentions), with commentaries to selected writings of the Ari. Persuh HaSulam on the Zohar was printed in 18 volumes in the years 1945-1953. Later on Baal HaSulam wrote three additional volumes containing commentaries on The New Zohar, whose printing was completed in 1955, after his demise.

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