The Baal HaSulam Connection: Finding the Creator Within

PART ONE OF TWO

Talk 1

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel

February 19, 2006

Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew

Pri Hacham (Fruit of Wisdom) Articles, page 217, From Within My Flesh Shall I See G-d.

Qualification for the increase of the soul.

As one cannot sustain one’s body in the world without knowing a certain extent of the corporeal, natural knowledge arrangements. Knowledge such as that is a deadly drug and burning in detrimental things, therefore knowing an estimation of what is in one’s friend’s heart, without which he has no right to exist in the material world—just so is one’s soul is without a right to exist in the next world, except when it acquires some knowledge of the nature and systems of the spiritual worlds and their changes, Zivugim and consequences.

What is Baal HaSulam telling us here? To the extent that man controls nature, the laws of nature, by correctly using them for himself, to that extent he measures his life, his essence, and his status, both in our world, as well as in the spiritual world. Meaning, he has to know where he is, the kind of laws that operate on him, how he can operate them for his own benefit. Is it really for his own benefit? Maybe it just seems that way for a short term then he discovers that it’s the opposite. That’s at the corporeal level with respect to our body, when we are investigating and researching, this is what builds all our sciences. It’s the essence of all our sciences.

As we begin to study, through the soul, through the desire to bestow, we begin to learn the attribute of bestowal. The disclosures and the sensations that we discover within this attribute, is called, "learning the spiritual world."

Just as through the five senses, we discover in them all kinds of phenomenon, and feel within these five senses our "I," the environment and the relationship between them—a relationship, which we call the laws of nature. Similarly, out of this sixth sense, out of the Kli (vessel) called " Masach Ohr Hozer (screen and the Returning Light)" or "the attribute of bestowal," we discover within this attribute of bestowal all kinds of phenomena, which are divided into interior and exterior: a soul and its surroundings, its world—spiritual environment. There too, we discover all kinds of interconnections between the inside and the outside, between the soul and its environment, like a person in his environment, in this world. This is what we call the wisdom of Kabbalah. It’s not worldly teachings, but the wisdom of Kabbalah.

By learning what happens within the soul, we then see that this is higher and that it determines what happens at the level of the five physical senses. That’s why we say that this is Upper, and that is lower.

People who develop this sixth sense (meaning the attribute of bestowal), and through it feel reality, discover that their living body, or dead body with its five senses, that sense, this soul as it is called, remains. They remain in it as an eternal reality compared to the physical reality, which disappears and changes from zero to some dimension, then disappears and changes again. Meaning there is a permanent-like state that exists within the soul, and next to it there are wavelike movements that come with additional lower senses, being the five senses called a body.

Life depends on both. It just depends on the kind of life that we are talking about: eternal life, higher life, or a temporary one, a lower one. The rules are restrictive, in the soul and in the body. In the soul there are rules that come from the principle of bestowal. In the body, in the five senses, the rules come from the principle of reception.

The spiritual measure of livelihood in a person depends on the extent to which one develops that Kli, meaning the will to bestow. Through his will to bestow he then connects to all the phenomena in the will to bestow; where in the inner phenomenon of the will to bestow it feels the self, the environment, the souls, the Upper Force, etc.

Where does it discover all of that? Within his own will to bestow. He can’t feel anything outside of it. Just like in each of his senses in our world. This is what Baal HaSulam is saying.

…just so is one’s soul is without a right to exist in the next world [meaning, in the world it senses] , except when it acquires some knowledge of the nature and systems of the spiritual worlds and their changes, Zivugimand consequences.

Where are the spiritual worlds?

This is what the soul discovers as me and what is outside of me.

…and their changes, Zivugim and consequences.

Question: In reception, there is pleasure and pain that operates on a person. What operates on him in bestowal?

Pleasure and pain. Where do the pleasure and pain come from? Pains in me are called pain, pleasures in me are called pleasure, both in corporeality and spirituality. I feel something in my Kli. But with respect to the other person, are the phenomena in my Kli according to what the other has or contradicting to what the other has? If I feel good because the Kli of the other enjoys, then I enjoy not according to my intellect but according to his sensation.

Do you understand what I am buying? I’m buying his awareness. It’s not enough for me, I gave him a kilogram of bread, I see that his stomach is full. No, I have to test his pleasure, the measure of his pleasure, and from that will be my measure of pleasure. I acquire Kelim here, in a degree of awareness in the way that I relate to him—at that level I acquire the Kelim from him. Here I’m acquiring the intellect, the mind, even though it’s working on the physical level. It’s called the corporeality of the friend and is your spirituality. By that you buy spirituality because you buy a measure of his spiritual Kli, his awareness of things in that he enjoys from your giving.

Question: The greater his lack, the more I will suffer? Is that it?

The greater his lack the more you will suffer, and the more you will enjoy filling him.

Question: I acquire deficit and then I suffer from them?

Of course you suffer. First you are incorporated with affliction of the public and then you are awarded the comfort of the public, undoubtedly. This is called "progress in three lines." More questions.

Question: You talked about reality when a person lives in the sixth sense and in this world too .

What does it mean in this world too? He lives in both realities, in the will to receive and the will to bestow. He will then understand that everything that appears to him in the reality of this world is called the will to receive. There is no this world, there is no next world, there’s nothing. I have my will to receive which relates as it appears in the will to receive, and the will to bestow that relates to something that is called the spiritual world. That’s it. What are the worlds? What are the realities? It is where I feel myself and my environment as existing.

Question: There are many stories that a person, having the sixth sense or being in the next world, remembers what happened in this world. How can this be explained?

I'm not going to offer explanations about stories right now. I don’t know whose stories these are. If these are Kabbalistic stories, they don’t talk about remembering or not remembering them. These are situations we experience, and that’s how we call them: the past, present, future. There is no past, present, and future here. According to the Reshimot (reminiscences) that appear in me, I see this reality in a certain way; it reveals itself one way or the other. I then called it "cause and consequence."

It’s so simple, you can’t explain it. Just erase the worlds and this world, see yourself as a point that operates itself in order to receive—all the phenomena in it are called "this world," and when it operates itself in order to bestow, all the phenomena in it are called the "next world" and that’s it. You have those two kinds of emotions that you live in. The fact that you are attached to one sensation and you think it’s rock solid in existence is because you’ve got nothing to compare it with.

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam connect the issue of knowledge and livelihood?

What else do you have besides knowledge? In the knowledge you discover life.

If you erase knowledge, you erase the sensation of reality with respect to a person. I am now detached, unconscious. You tell me whether I'm alive or dead. Maybe someone else can say this with respect to me, but I can’t say it about myself. To the extent that I know that I’m alive even if I’m alive in the tiniest measure, then this is my awareness, this is my livelihood?

Question: At the time of preparation are we already acquiring knowledge about the spiritual world?

Yes. Even now you are acquiring knowledge about the spiritual world and a lot is now changing in each and everyone who is learning and listening, either on the radio, or on television—doesn’t matter where—on any media, here—even if a person doesn't know anything or understand what it’s about.

We evolved on earth in corporeality, from being the savages forty thousand years ago, and this whole period we were nothing more than animals and beasts. It’s just that we had a nucleus that would develop thousands of years afterwards. The same happens with us. There’s something in us that gradually develops in us. Of course all of these things that you’re now hearing, you will come to know and understand them more and more. Even a baby that lives in the entire world, what does it know about the world? It just has to evolve this way gradually, until it knows everything, that’s how we are.

Right now we are in the spiritual world too with everything in it, but it has to appear gradually. So there are a lot of things around you, perhaps you can picture it this way, in this corporeal way, the sense for it gradually evolves.

End of Part ONE

Original Post Link - Finding the Creator Within.

COURTESY: Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute

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