Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #34

https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/ALlyoveA

Reading #34 (00:35 ) “To prepare His creatures to attain the aforementioned exalted degree…“ twice

Reading #35  (03:28) “In phase one of the will to receive, called still...”

1. R. (04:31) In other words the will to receive it determines what it feels in what area around it can feel and how it names every one of those feelings in other words what the world is what the will to receive itself because above its own borders it cannot attend so for itself it is not existent that is why they will to receive in the form of the still its world is closed in the borders of the still like we seen with babies. They have their own limited world; they do not see beyond their own world and that is enough for them and that is how they exist and we are the same. We are in our world with our limitations. We determine the limits of our world, and we said that beyond that there is nothing. Just like we used to think that the Earth is flat, then we later on thought that the entire universe is like a sphere and that there is nothing beyond it and that is the border and so on and so forth and that is what we think of all of our world only to the extent that we can attain. and hopefully soon we will be able to open up these borders and then we will be able to understand in what world we truly are.

2. S. (06:32) He writes here that in order to prepare his created beings to obtain their exalted degree he wanted to do by the order of the order degrees, what is this order for degrees? I understand the still vegetative, I understand these degrees but why are they needed?

R. Just like we see the children developed by their degrees on their own, first grade, second grade, third grade in kindergarten, in  school, in the university. Similarly we can see every single person that is how they grow? What are you asking?

S. Within us, within humans too? There's still vegetative and thinking?

R. I don't know what you mean with these words; still, vegetative, animate and speaking? These are four levels of attainment.

S. In man’s development there’s still, vegetative, animate and speaking in our development in Kabbalah?

R. Yes.

S. There are these four degrees until you evolve in spirituality? Can you explain what is the still and what he's talking about in terms of the beginning of man's development?

R. In every attainment and every detail of attainment there are these four degrees.

S. Okay, what is the still in the person, in the human?

R. The still is when the person feels that this is what exists, even before he moves, even before he sees the inner qualities of this thing that it is included within in some form of special connection with mutual bestowal. He perceives this thing in and of itself.

S. The peak of our development is the speaking?

R. Yes, that is the first development.

3. S. (08:55) Do all of these four degrees or four levels have to always emerge or at some point do they all become the speaking degree?

R. All of humanity and everything that it attains, it gradually is transitioning to the highest degree, and we are all included in the Creator: all of us.

4. S. (09:47) We talked about these degrees, and I have a question: are we already still?

R. You could say that we are already still.

5. S. (10:07) He always talks about the worlds, upper worlds, lower worlds, corporeal, spiritual worlds. Can you help us place ourselves, what are these worlds and how to look at it correctly?

R. According to our will to receive, which is evolving, he shows us every time these new limits, these new borders of the reality that we perceive. These limits we call worlds. Within these limits because our structure is included in four levels of the development of the will to receive: first, second, third and fourth, we perceive the world, what does it mean the world? The environment that we perceive that seemingly exists all around us, we perceive that in four degrees; first, second, third and fourth; one, two, three, four; this is how we perceive it. That is it. 

Now because we are according to the degree of the Creator, we are detached from one another, that once we used to be as a single body and now we are many small bodies. So each and every one of us feels, attains the other world; the other reality. Our goal is to return again to a single body that we are all adhered like little, small pieces of plasticine, that we are adhered together again and not in the small pieces, and that we in such a way need to feel one new reality, the real reality that has in it the upper force that governs it. And that there aren’t many forces that every part would feel and that is our work; that is our goal in development.

S. When he talks in item 35, regarding phase one of the will to receive, where is it in the corporeal world, this phase one? How do I begin the work there?

R. We start our work from the state that we are in. We have nothing else to do and this is how we rise with our attainment, to the extent that we can connect between us. Please understand what is happening here. We were one piece, one body, we were divided through an explosion into many pieces. Now to the extent that we try and return, we begin to feel, to receive the feeling of a single force and the recognition, the understanding, the attainment as a more and more unique force in all of our history. 

All of our reality, of today's reality, with all of these problems, all of that is to bring us to the awareness and understanding that we have to be united; united together. And that is what nature is pushing us towards. Then to the extent that we come closer to each other, that we feel that we have to be more and more united then accordingly we will begin to understand the inner force that governs us and brings us closer and fulfills us. And this is how we will attain the true reality.

6. S. (15:48) From the perspective of perception of reality, if we were separated, we started as one and then we were separated in perception, in sensation. We live in this separated reality on all levels. How do we still have some common basis, how do we see the same things even in the spiritual reality? How do we have some sort of a mutual agreement, that this is the color red, this is zebra, this is a chair? How does this agreement take place?

R. It is not that agreement, we belonged to a single sensation, understanding that is it. Now when we became distant from each other in the Big Bang, we became distant relatively and not largely. We still remain within a general perception. We all understand where we exist, by what and so on.

Now, when we start connecting among each other, that is what we need to correct. That the main thing that happened to us is that we got a different will to receive in each and everyone. That mainly in that there was this breakthrough, this division that the will to receive now in each and every one is different and is in the state of antagonism, one towards the other. Our desires no longer connect, they don’t feel that there's something mutual between them and this is what determines all of our reality in this world. 

What we do in it if we connect together, then we return to the same reality as we had before: there is nothing more to correct. That is it. That is why we connect according to what the wisdom of Kabbalah says that we need to determine these tens and through the tens we will feel to what extent we can profit when we connect and the ten is the smallest structure that gives us the understanding of connection. And from that we reach the correction of the world. That we begin to understand that if we connect to a ten and there we are included together and we add this to that, that to those, then we begin to attain a new reality that did not exist before and that is how we are advancing and growing.

S. That is exactly what I wanted to ask. On the one hand you say we are not connected, broken. Each one is in a different desire, sees a different reality and so on. On the other hand we are in a ten in this world and we seemingly do have many points of contact. I can come to a friend, speak to him, we understand each other seemingly.

R. Through the egoistic desire.

S. So we are connected through the egoistic desire?

R. We are connected in our egoistic desire that we understand one another that I understand the other to the extent that my egoistic desire allows me. 

S. If I say I'm thirsty for water, the water I'm thirsty for and the water the friend is thirsty for, it's the same water for us, we have some connection around that water because it's an egoistic fulfillment we want?

R. Yes, yes.

S. Where are we not connected?

R. That you want to pass it on one towards the other in your desire and not the actual water.

S. In this is bestowal the intention that we're connecting and then if we're connected in the intention then what's communicated is also changing?

R. What's been already given, that's the fulfillment? You want your fulfillment to be like his fulfillment and his fulfillment to be like your fulfillment; so you connect in the fulfillment.

S. And all the things that we connect around today, eating and drinking water and eating together, we're not connected egotistically around them?

R. No, of course it's egoistic still but these external actions we are slowly, slowly we are coming closer and we're beginning to think differently.

S. What's the difference between the egoistic connection we have now. That seemingly I can sit with the friend and we enjoy and drink the same and eat the same and seemingly connect around something but Kabbalists say no that there's a deeper connection to that. What is that deeper fulfillment?

R. Connection through this fulfillment is connection in my desire that I want to connect to your desire to that same fulfillment and alongside with that receive it in one mutual Kli, that you and I connect together in our own inner vessel.

S. Which does not exist in each and every one of us but only in the connection between us?

R. Only together, yes.

S. And then this Kli is new and the fulfillment in it is also new?

R. Yes.

7. S. (23:00) This is a follow-up question on the four degrees: do these four degrees have to each time branch out to another four degrees meaning from the still there's also another still vegetative and animative and can we hasten these degrees?

R. No, we don't need these formations of the degrees we need the opposite, we need to connect all of these degrees together to more inclusive degrees. We don't need to work on forming these degrees on slicing them and slicing them and slicing them up more and more, no we need the opposite, we need to connect all of these degrees together in order for it to seem as the true form of reality, of the world. It is not divided into thousands of states but that there is only one state which is the will to receive and in the will to bestow which is the Creator and in that they are coming closer to each other.

8. S. (24:43) The new reality is that a collective thing that cannot be described by the experience on the individual level but only at this sum of the collective like a new emergent system, is that what we are aiming at and becoming?

R. Correct, that is what we want, to connect ourselves together in order to see all of reality as one. There is no more than one Creator and one person and one man and everything is as one and then the Creator and the person connect together as one to complete adhesion.

9. S. (26:17) About the phases of development, is there a connection between the 13 years and the still vegetative and animate until we come to the speaking degree?

R. No, there is no connection.

S. How can I explain to myself the difficulty in connecting with friends despite the urgency and all the explanations we receive every day?

R. Don't explain anything for the time being, move forward because you are still confused even 13 years you're going to interpret and that is incorrect.

10. S. (27:17) The still degree for instance does it have an end or it keeps expanding so that the four phases of direct light keep giving birth to new discernments in it?

R. The degree of still, well you want to say this the more we penetrate the study then every single item is divided into four more and each one of them is in for more and so on and so forth. There is something there of course, it can be examined but we don't want this, we want to reach the Creator which is the general single force that fulfills all of reality and that is why we need to feel all of reality as one, and it's fulfilled by one Creator. We discover this image as a single image and if we want to see the details then we can see it, but for that we do not need to come out of this general image.

S. How can we connect a structure that keeps expanding and renewing? How can we connect a structure that keeps renewing, changing, and expanding? The creation always expands four levels again and again so we have the ability to connect that?

R. We need only to connect in our connection. We attain from ourselves the maximum amount of precision and then we see reality in its true form and that's it, we don't need to do anything with the external reality we need to form corrections upon our qualities.

11. S. (29:58) Recently there is this new definition of connection that it's less the closeness between us as we are now but more of the canceling the partition between us. Is this a depiction of the ego or is a more accurate definition of connection? Is it simply canceling the partitions between us more than getting closer the way we are now?

R. Canceling these barriers is not in Hitkalelut?

S. It's like there's some space between us, it's like the partition disappears but I don't feel like those closeness, I don't think that's accurate.

R. No, first of all that's not an accurate definition and I don't see any room for it.

12. S. (31:15) Throughout our studies you emphasize many times that the Creator is the totality of everything, so it turns out that man is like the degree of totality with respect to the animate level. What does it mean towards the ten or with respect towards a baby in the animal world, what does it mean that as man we are the totality?

R. I don't know where you get these things from.

S. If we connect between us we build the Creator between us right so we move to some inclusive degree, so in the same way I'm asking whether as man do we reach a degree of man every detail every individual includes the animate level?

R. Every degree in it includes all the lower degrees.

S. What should we do in respect to the previous degrees?

R. Nothing, they're included within us.

13. S. (32:42) In order to perceive the true reality is it that we just have to change the importance from the corporeal reality to the spiritual reality?

R. No, nothing is important to us, the only thing that is to connect in such a way that we can see the world from our connection.

14. S. (33:24) You said that we evolve as a result of some shattering and distancing or the big bang, can we say that this big bang is a result or revelation of the shattering of Adam HaRishon?

R. Yes.

S. But then when the development of the whole corporeal world happens, is it with the Creator in it some thought?

R. Of course and everything that happens there is the thought of the Creator which governs everything.

S. In order to explain this to the broad public, in the force that collects the atoms and molecules there is an additional force that a person doesn't discover but it unifies all those foundations. But humans got used to seeing this corporeal result of the shattering. How to learn to detect the inner force that works?

R. That can be done only according to our method, the force of the Creator we cannot attain. That is what all the scientists are discovering now that they see that the processes they can write them down, and even find relative forms of connection relative not true but nothing other than that because they do not attain that single force that activates everything. We cannot even talk about the fact that there is like a general motive that belongs to everyone, but it cannot be revealed.

S. Where is that acting activating force that generates all the movement?

R. It exists in every place the Creator fulfills everything, there is not a definition that from here to here it exists and no more, it exists everywhere.

S. It's not clear how to explain this to a person?

R. You won't explain it to another person and understand that you will not be able to explain to someone else. You cannot perceive it, the fact that there is a force that fulfills everything you cannot. What will you get from saying it to him? You can explain it, but everyone’s’ heard it.

S. It's not hopeless, there is hope, there is a thought behind the whole plan and end goal to this development and that is what we explained. You spoke to a Quantum physicist and explained that approach.

R. It is relative, I also taught in the academy in The Institute of philosophy in the Russian Academy of Sciences where I received my doctorate. I was in all kinds of places of scientists, but it doesn't matter because they have a different method. And that is why they cannot internalize it, they cannot.

15. S. (28:33) If we begin to see the world through our connection we go into a single flow, if we begin to see the world through our connection see it through our connection, seeing that it is a single flow. There are other kinds of connections we have to see how we are partially connected and completely connected in different forms of connection?

R. It doesn't matter, it's all in the same system, there's nothing new here.

16. S. (39:36) Can we say that the 13 years is a limit of something in corporality?

R. There is nothing like you said there isn't 13 years, you need to understand that it is simply a point that it says that it has no relation to our physical bodily existence, that in any spiritual measurements. You can attain 15 years, 25 years and still in spirituality you can be in completely different calculations. I asked very precisely to Rabash and that is how he answered me.

S. But still it's some point of calculation that we take into account regardless of the number, what is it considered, some point of crisis?

R. This can be a turning point only in the development of the physical body that is it.

17. S. (41:23) What does it mean that we need to perceive reality through our connection?

R. That if we connect between us then through the connection between us we will see the world in its true form. What is the state, this degree, this value in relation to the spiritual worlds.

18. S. (42:20) What is hard for people to accept here?

R. We spoke there regarding these degrees. What does it mean that a person is age 13 that he attains his development, listen to it again if you want.

19. S. (43:05) What should be our approach to reaching the Creator, should we see all these forces as operating between these forces?

R. Yes, we need to scrutinize this.

20. S. (43:55) Is working on our qualities is what will help us discern and detect the four phases or there will also be states where we can make that comparison of these four degrees from our perception and only then correct our qualities?

R. True.

S. Is it both?

R. Right, to compare ourselves to the four phases and then already enter more internal scrutinies.

21. S. (44:45) How can we use this still vegetative animate and speaking, it is divided but it's actually a flow of development. How can we use this to come to this single image and from the single image and bridge it to this inner feeling and this inner impression?

R. Of course it should, also our inner sensation needs to change and come to a new realization, we need to try, we need to be in both worlds, in this world and in the spiritual world and both of them we need to be acquainted with.

S. Do we need to identify these four levels?

R. We don't need to they awaken in us and they teach us what we need to be not that we are directing ourselves but that spirituality is directing us.

S. It's because we are reading the Zohar and we go through these states automatically, we don't have to take care of this knowing that there are these four levels, so how do we work with these levels?

R. Yes, they exist in us because they include within them the higher degrees from every small degree, a higher degree grows and that is how we evolve.

S. The point is to wholeness and that we are aware that they are a whole feeling of connection that we perceive through our connection?

R. Yes.

S. Through this perception and togetherness of our wholeness we have these forces, impressions, and emotions working on us and then we can work further?

R. Yes.

22. S. (48:05) Should we aim ourselves towards love like the whole system in order to love every little piece in this system to advance, what is love then?

R. I am willing to accept upon myself all of reality and I want to have the force of love and connection to everyone so I will be able to correct everything and to fulfill everything and until the final corrected state.

23. S. (49:09) Can we say that what we call the development of the will to receive is actually revelations in bestowal?

R. Yes.

Reading item number 35 again (53:11) “In phase one of the will to receive called still..”

24. S. (54:19) When we look at the still we look at it as a part of the human? Or do we look at the still as some kind of foundation?

R. There is the degree of the still because also in our world there is still objects so in spirituality too there's the force of the still, it has no motion on its own accord it cannot beget anything.

S. Can we see the...?

R. Stop with your philosophy. Still that is like a rock or a piece of land it doesn't matter what. It doesn't have any motion of its own accord because it does not have a will to receive more than holding itself and what it is and to remain that way.

Item number 36 (55:55) “The vegetative is added to it which is phase two of the will to receive...”

Item number 37 (57:08) “Atop that comes the animate category..”

Item number 38 (58:05) “Above all comes the human species..” 

25. S. (59:57) It says that in the text that the sensation of others only exists in man, where is spirituality and of other levels if there is no sense of others?

R. In the spiritual degree the sensation of others is the sensation already on the degree of the Creator not human beings but the Creator.

26. S. (01:00:35) All the degrees that exist in the material world, our brain our thought, we have some outcome of the desire which is our intellect and still it's a beastly intellect, how do we connect on a spiritual level if we have no intellect we have nothing?

R. You cannot attain that, you cannot, we are not capable from our corporeal mind to understand where is the spiritual part in us. It’s very simple.

S. But in unity we can?

R. If we can attain the correct form of connection between us there we will reveal it.