The Lights Of Kabbalah Books

Excerpts from the Book Interview With the Future Author: Rav Michael Laitman, PhD

What Should One Go Through In Order To Obtain Spirituality? Question: What should one who is looking for direction do? Answer: At first he should only study. Question: Is it possible to describe the way from beginning through the end of correction? Answer: It is nothing like the present, where we come to a certain individual in order to accelerate his progress in a 173 of 263 Interview With The Future

right direction, because of a possibly bad collective evolution that might occur. It is about a person who comes to this way naturally, because he feels bad, and he is done looking for pleasures in this world and begins to search beyond. Suddenly, his soul demands more than the heart of man, which is the desire for worldly pleasures. This is the point when the point in the heart, the spiritual gene awakens. It begins to claim its own. It has already developed to the point where a person begins to feel it vise-e-vies his other desires. At that time he begins to feel attracted to something seemingly nonexistent. It seems that there is something beyond wealth, honor, power and knowledge, but he cannot find it. It is then that he begins to search. This is when he arrives at Kabbalah, or other methods, as he finds comfortable. In Kabbalah, there is never pressure or acts against other methods, because a person must find his way by himself. It is forbidden and impossible to force it on him. There is no coercion in spirituality. A person may come for two weeks, a year or two and then leave. He cannot be forced. He follows his own soul, the waves that come to him from his soul. It might be that he satiated himself, and now he misses other things. There is no pressure and coercion, and if a person comes to us, we usually accept him. He comes, sits down and begins to study. The curriculum is simple and consists of two parts: the first is more emotional, comprised of articles and letters that speak of the way the soul evolves, much like heart to heart talks when we speak of how a person feels if he is on the way, but doesn’t feel he is progressing. The second part consists of the wisdom itself, the structure of reality, the worlds, Sefirot, and souls. It explains how things are inside the souls, by what laws they operate, and how a person can come inside them and what he can change. Things are very well defined in the study itself. The definitions are exact; there is math, tables, charts and numerical value calculations as well as other things we 174 of 263 Interview With The Future

find in any ordinary science. It is also possible to learn from them how things can be expressed, what formula to use in order to express the inter-relations and the connections between the worlds, to make it more than just words, but something very accurate. And not only accurate, but accurate for each and every soul, directly influencing it. The group has its own laws. Membership in the group necessitates participation in various things such as teaching Kabbalah. During the study, there is the aim to draw special forces from above. We study texts that were written by Kabbalists such as Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai and the Ari, who were at a certain degree of control and awareness of reality. When we read those texts, we can ascend to the level of the author. You do not say this to a beginner, but in fact he can already (especially if he is in a group that is experienced in that) bond with that power, the degree the writer was in. Then, a force pours down on him from above, a light that begins to accelerate the evolution of his spiritual gene – the root of his soul - even further. The evolution through the light continues until the point evolves to an entire ten Sefirot. The point seems to inflate, and when instead of the point there is now ten Sefirot, it is considered an entire structure, the body of a soul, a vessel. It is in this vessel that one perceives reality. Reality consists of all and all ten Sefirot. One’s small vessel is also comprised of ten Sefirot. Hence, he can feel respectively what happens in the entire reality. The rest of the way is a further opening of the soul and inflation of the ten Sefirot to the size of the entire reality. Thus, each person must come to be as great as the Creator. Question: After a person attains those ten Sefirot in the first degree and crossed the barrier, does he begin to rise in the worlds? Answer: Before one attains the first ten Sefirot, it is still not considered degrees, because living the way we are is 175 of 263 Interview With The Future

still not a conscious evolution. It is not considered an ascent in degrees. A person rises in degrees and worlds only after he increases this vessel. Out of the first ten Sefirot, which is the nucleus, one begins to grow like a fetus in its mother’s womb, by adding corrected desires to that vessel. The addition of each corrected desire to this vessel is called a Mitzvah. The process of increasing the vessel from its first degree, called the “barrier,” to its final degree, called the “end of correction,” is divided to 125 degrees: five worlds, with five Parzifim (plural of Partzuf) inside them, and five Sefirot in each Partzuf. One hundred and twenty five degrees, that’s what the soul must go through. The same way can also be divided to 620 degrees, each of them called Mitzvah as well. When a new degree is attained, new (unlimited) egoism is added (left line), and opposite it (from the right line), new strength comes to correct this egoism to altruism (middle line). This furthers the evolution. Any act that develops a person from degree to degree is called correction in three lines. All the practical Mitzvot in our world are seemingly a corporeal replica of things that a person must do in spirituality. However, in this world, the replica has no consequences, hence they are only signs. From the moment one opens a book, he begins to change dramatically the management of reality toward him. He enters a completely different approach toward the spiritual forces. This is what the Kabbalists want every one to go through.

„According to the goodness in the person than the evil is revealed.“ Rabash (Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag)

„To the extent that he yearns to spirituality than accordingly light comes and shows him, how he is not in bestowal. According to the strength that person reveals that he’s willing to foreward to the advance ... than he’s corruption is revealed. So, you can correct it in advance! To correct more, more, more and more layers of my desire that are revealed...The correction of my ego – to the extent I corrected, I see spirituality.“ Excerpt from Rav Laitman Preparation lesson, 21. Sept. 2009

„Middle Line is the middle of Tiffetet“ Note from lesson: Right and Left don’t reffer to places. Right reffers on Light of Hassadim. The Left reffers on Light of Hochma. They are opposite to one another. They can not be one without another. The nature of vessels of reception are opposite. The difference is on intensity of desire. Keter and Hochma are pure vessels.“ Excerpt From Rav Laitman’s Morning Lesson, Preface to Sulam Cimmentary, item 27, lesson, 22. Sept. 2009

Recognition of Evil

Question: Does a person find more evil as he evolves? Answer: Yes. The Creator created this evil on purpose. There are forces (also called “angels”) that are placed 176 of 263 Interview With The Future

inside man as evil forces. They appear in us in negative forms so that man will make a positive use of them in his labour. That is precisely how man studies the laws of reality. He learns to lead it and then takes an active part in it. Question: How does one detect the evil in him? Answer: A person cannot see himself as evil as long as he has not attained the screen and the returning light. Question: Is this an intellectual recognition of the evil? Answer: Not at all. It is not about things we call evil in our world, like robbery, stinginess or suspiciousness. Those are not considered evil, egoism, or will to receive. The actual will to receive begins only from the barrier and up. It is born as the left line in man, as a force that wants to act against the spiritual law. That will constantly pushes man to break the spiritual laws, which are the laws that guide reality. At this stage, one must examine and understand what the consequences of breaking the law might be, or what would be the outcome of keeping it. When he sees everything and understands everything, he decides – No! He chooses to keep this law in a positive way. That decision corrects his soul and joins the forces that he has corrected to the collective management of reality. Every thing that exists in what we call our beastly nature does not count before we cross the barrier and enter spirituality. They are below that line. Our entire life in this world is not a part of the spiritual world, the Mitzvot, the sins none of them count. Hence, before we cross the barrier, we do not exist in the spiritual sense. You can see it in all the charts and tables in Kabbalah. All the spiritual worlds end in the barrier, in this line called “the point of this world (Olam Hazze). Our 177 of 263 Interview With The Future

world is below that point because the Kabbalah does not relate to it. We have no grip of spirituality in our world; we are below the spiritual line. Question: Does a person see his desire in himself or in the things around him? Answer: All the processes take place inside man. Even now, in our world, we perceive only the world inside us, though we think that we perceive something outside us, we in fact perceive only what happens inside us. Question: Does one feel like he is separating from the world at the end of correction? Answer: One’s work is not with our world, with other people, or with the spouse and children. Those are mere companions, outer clothing. Spiritual states are completely internal. No one around the correcting person feels this person is acting on a spiritual level. Everything happens internally, but the consequences are beneficial for all. Question: How does it happen that a person sees something that he never saw before? Answer: He acquires a screen for that. Question: How does this process work? Answer: Light comes and hits the screen. A person begins to see more and more parts of reality depending on the size and strength of the screen and the returning light. It is much like our ordinary senses function. If my eardrum is missing, I cannot hear the noises around me. I can only do that if I have an eardrum and if it is sensitive enough. The sensitivity of the screen depends on its coarseness on the one hand, and on the sensitivity on the other. The sensitivity is the measure of its spiritual refinement. 178 of 263 Interview With The Future

Therefore, the screen must be as thick (coarse) and egoistic as possible, and at the same time be refined and corrected as possible. That, in fact, is the goal. Accordingly, a person perceives more and more of reality until it is fully included in him. Question: How does he build his screen? Answer: He receives the coarseness of the screen from the left (the measure of the egoistic desire), and the forces of refinement he receives from the right. As a result of these two things he builds his individual screen, his middle line. The middle line in you is what you build from the negative and positive put together, and that is the “human being” in you. Question: How does one decide what to do, and what is the thing that makes one decide? Answer: If one of the forces is more powerful than the other, then there is no longer any choice here, the choice is made (regardless of the force being positive or negative). Only if the forces are equal one retains the free choice. Question: Is the positive force what makes us evolve? Answer: Regrettably, our world is developing through the negative force. We run forward from troubles, pushed by them from behind. The positive power does not pull us ahead, hence the many pains in our lives. The decision can only be made when one is perplexed and cannot choose which way to go – toward which line. Then he must cling to the upper one, find what is called the NHY (Netzah, Hod, Yesod) of the upper one inside him. There is always a part of the upper one inside us, because the upper degree is in us from the start. All the degrees are built like cones that sit one on top of the other. 179 of 263 Interview With The Future

The lower part of the upper degree is always inside the upper part of the lower degree, while its lower part is inside the lower still degree. Thus all the degrees are linked together, you can feel what is above you, and through the upper one feel even what is above it. Question: Once he has examined and saw everything before him, and made a decision, there is only one thing to do: leave his entire degree and take on a new one. Is this how I activate my ordinary desire? Answer: No, you adopt the desire of the upper one only after you realized your own degree entirely. Question: Can’t we understand that process using the terms we have today? Answer: You can never understand the process with your own mind. That’s the wonder of it. When you are in a certain spiritual degree, you cannot understand a higher degree with your own mind. If you have enough wisdom to bring you this far, only to this degree, then how can you choose? That is why the question of how to choose is irrational to begin with. So after you have examined everything inside you with your own mind, in your awareness, all the negative and positive, the phenomena and consequences and the properties, you come to know your own degree. But what do you do with it afterwards, how can you know what to do if it’s above you? Only afterwards the upper one in you begins to show itself. And then you perceive him with your will. When that happens you are ready to leave everything and hold on to him with your desire, just like jumping off a cliff. You will do anything if only to receive the reason of the upper one, you cling to him like semen in the womb, nullifying everything only to stay in the womb. There you begin your growth. And then the process of internal growth begins, 180 of 263 Interview With The Future

the nine months of conception, and then the two years of infancy, the thirteen years of smallness and finally the adulthood of the soul. Question: Does a spiritual birth lasts that long? Answer: Today, it can be a matter of months, weeks or even days. Question: Is it up to me? Answer: You are told that to begin with, nothing depends on you; accept the speed, the acceleration. Question: Every time a person comes to a point where he has to understand the degree he is in, should he be completely desperate with it? Answer: You always work out of desperation. Question: But I happen to know a different situation Answer: You are lying to yourself. Man is only a will to receive. Even when the will to receive wants to give, you are still only partially in that degree, and nothing more. In this degree you can already see that you have realized yourself to the fullest, and now you have an even stronger desire to be above that corrected state, this corrected state in the spiritual degrees necessitates you to grow even more.