Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom (The Mind’s Control over the Body)
Reading (00:24) the Freedom from heading “The Mind's Control Over the Body”
1. R. (04:54) I think it's clear until here, yes? If there aren't any questions let’s go ahead.
Reading continues (05:05) “...As we have clarified above, there are two ways for…”
2. R. (08:06) In other words, to the extent that we can learn through the group in order to be more sensitive to the influence of the Creator on us, that is what he writes. and, also in the path of Torah and the path of suffering the group can increase its influences from the Creator many many times more so that we will be able to feel it in all the different forms of this light.
3. S. (08:54) When we perform in the action of bestowal, does it mean that a spiritual mind clothes in our corporeal body?
R. In the second paragraph in this excerpt: “So is the mind. Although life’s events, in all their manners of cause and effect, are seen and recognized by the mind, the mind is nonetheless utterly incapable of controlling the body, to bring it into motion, meaning to bring it closer to the good or push it away from the bad. This is because the spiritual and the physical are completely remote from one another, and there is no intermediary tool between them to enable the spiritual mind to activate and operate the corporeal body, as has been discussed at length.” So, what are you asking about that?
S. When we perform an action of bestowal does it mean that the spiritual mind clothes are in the corporeal body, let's say like a congress or meal?
R. No. This can't be that spiritual will clothe in corporeal. There are systems that influence one another.
4. S. (10:31) Can I ask two questions? First, what is the meaning of mind of heart? Second, how can we change our intellectual minds to the spiritual minds in the Holy work?
R. From corporeal to spiritual, you can only invert your mind only on the condition that we ourselves can rise from corporeality to spirituality; because wherever we are that's where our mind will be and that is why we need to only care about how our desires and our thoughts will be as spiritual as possible. That’s all.
5. S. (11:55) Our mind constantly performs egoistic calculations either towards the friends and against them. It seems that the Creator is constantly bothering our efforts to connect as if the mind wants to turn the emotion into a phenomena that only it enjoys, so how can we really learn correctly from our feelings?
R. We need only to take ourselves through connection. A person will not be able to research anything correctly himself because then he is in himself there and he has no comparison points for scrutiny. That is why what we need is to engage in connection and in the connection between us and in the connection between us, we will find additional new points towards examining what is happening to us? and from it we will grow; not from one, not from the other but what is between us. Between us. And that will be the correct discernment.
6. S. (13:44) If I understood correctly the mind is the mirror that shows everything that happens in the man's life, so what is that microscope according to this example?
R. A microscope means that I can discern the cause of why things happen.
S. I see, so that it’s a possibility that I can use that mirror to come closer to Him and look at a higher resolution?
R. Yes.
Reading twice (14:40) “The Freedom of the Individual”
7. S. (18:08) So what is the freedom of the individual if we will never receive its other form?
R. Ok, so we'll get an answer. Let's wait a little bit more.
S. Can we understand what freedom is?
R. That is also a question: Is freedom that I am not connected to my sources? but how could I not be connected, how could I not come out of my roots? Of course I do, and what I have in me, it's all in them. You can see even in our life in our eyes, and what is happening after with my freedom throughout our life? I do not experience the same stages as my parents went through for example, with their personality, with their life events; we see that there is something there and we don't really know how to research, but there is something there. That is why the freedom of the individual, what does it depend on? it is the opposite form here. Not what I have from whomever beget me but there is something free that I'm not taking from them, that everything that is in me I am acquiring only from them? Is that true? I guess so.
S. The question is you can see that there is some sort of yearning to be free and to be in its own reason and we see that it leads to a destructive place that a person is not a really free he's actually buried in himself so how can we lose some of this perception that you are clinging to something false in transform to a true reality?
R. True means that somehow you're trying to find something in you that doesn't belong to those who gave birth to you, and by that you're free to develop into something new; to discover in yourself something new. So it turns out that for now you didn't find it. This is how thousands and thousands and billions of people in our world still don't even think how they have something free of their own.
S. This finding that you refer to is actually the group that we come to? that good environment that he speaks of that you need the truth?
R. The group helps. The group helps and reveals it; the group is like an instrument and what is revealed in that instrument has nothing to do with that anymore.
S. Can I see the group like that same microscope?
R. In the group you find something that is for each and every one but different from the others. But you all belong into one ten.
Reading (22:33) “The General Shape of the Progenitor Is Never Lost”
8. R. (24:28) Each and every one is very unique, and no one is similar to the other. That's what happens here. That is why he says in the title ``The general shape of the progenitor is never lost”, that it remains without any change.
9. S. (25:10) I heard that you said that the spiritual will never clothe in their corporeal, so how is the Creator clothing in us, if we are buddies?
R. We are not speaking about the spiritual forms yet, we are speaking about corporeal forms that are in us that clarify as: Matter, forms clothe in matter, abstract forms and essence. So, we still need to scrutinize between those four forms to better clarify to us and between the four forms of the will to receive. That is still before us.
10. S. (26:29) Where is freedom where is our freedom as created beings? I'm going back to the question you answered before so I can understand that our only freedom of choice is to understand and to reveal the uniqueness of each and every one of us?
R. No we don't have choice and understanding our only choice is to work in connection between us and from that connection that we attain we will understand through that like out of a new vessel some new things.
S. How is that freedom?
R. Freedom, Choice who am I what am I from who do I belong to what needs what a creature like me has to give birth to with what?
S. And these questions if they awaken in me is not because I decide for them to awaken in me where am I the one that decides where am I the one that chooses where is that point if I invest in it that will be it that will be my choice.
R. You don't choose your choice you choose to develop towards it or not. But the actual choice is already there it is like from one species one type of corn a different type of corn can’t come out the first kind that is something you don't choose. That's for sure but what you do is it comes; you develop to a choice that is already ready it's not that you choose the choice you choose to reach it.
11. S. (29:25) We see here that more connection is the answer to many questions so more connection in thoughts or more Connected Mind is the answer to many of our questions?
R. Yes actually we have only one thing if we connect meaning in other words we return to a corrected system of Adam HaRishon then it's clear to us that by this we attain everything and understand everything and that is our source.
12. S. (30:15) The essence of the wheat isn't changing but only in the quantity and quality as the result of inner and outer influences, so is it speaking here that with the right intention through the influence of the environment, that's what influences us?
R. Yes, we are establishing the environment that in it we attain the goal. That's why the quality not so much the quantity but the quality of the group of the connection in the group is what determines how we how quick and correctly we reach the goal.
13. S. (31:37) Freedom of choice is to be free from the ego, from our selfishness, so does that mean that when we are slaves of the Creator that is true freedom?
R. If we are the Creator's servants that is true freedom. Because it's not slaves of the Creator, I’ve reached this state that my desire and His desire is the same desire, that between those desires there is not first or second but it’s simply we're both as one.
14. S. (32:47) The source which brings to the individualism a uniqueness of every individual in the change of form that’s described here and they create a new form, so is that what can clothe in a few people because the number of people change in the world?
R. It’s a big question that I can't get into this and scrutinize now. There’s the matter of incorporation between the records. I don't think I can explain it now in an easy way. I don't know how to even approach it now. Thank you for asking such a question, don't forget it, ask a little while maybe I’ll be able to scrutinize it then. Today I still don't have enough room, after that flight, I don't have enough space in my head for it. I don't feel I can.
15. S. (34:38) The text is a little bit hard to understand because it says the source is the first substance of every person and that’s the source that makes us unique. Isn't there, I want to say, a source before that source which is the source of the Creator that makes us not different from each other that makes us all human beings?
R. Yeah, we’ll speak about it we'll scrutinize it.
16. S. (35:32) The question is, what can we discover new from the freedom of the individual? Is it the Creator?
R. Of course the most important thing for us is the revelation of the Creator so we completely reveal ourselves or open ourselves because we discover our root, we discover our development and its whole form because everything depends on Him the Creator, and in this way we develop till the highest state, until His degree the degree of the Creator, and there can't be anything higher than that.
17. S. (36:45) If our work is not something that we choose, how is it possible that our choice to work is the only thing that we choose?
R. I don't understand again, repeat please.
S. If we have no freedom of choice then how is it possible that the fact we choose to work for the Creator that is the only thing that is considered freedom?
R. That is the only form of our freedom of choice, to work together with the Creator for the Creator and there is no more freedom of choice in anything because that's the only root, the central root, to all of creation and we as the center of creation belong to that root to that center, that’s why that's how it turns out that we are aimed to work toward that central point towards that goal just like the root that we came out of and we came out of this root and we're going back to it.
18. S. (39:19) On the one hand that we're told that we actually can't leave our sources, on the other hand there's this command that Abraham leave your country, the place of your birth, to the land that I will show you. So is the intention here only in terms of the ego, to leave what’s known to me my base my source?
R. No, the go and leave your land, meaning that you have to ascend from the degree of Malchut to the degree of Bina that I will show you and there you will be a great nation and close to Me, to the Creator meaning. It’s all in order to raise Abraham with his descendants to the degree of the Creator that as a result of that we’re in a state today before the end of correction.
S. The state of being between the heaven and the earth I have to leave something known. Before, if I want to go through some state and I first grab the other side and then can I leave the first side? If I understand correctly in spirituality we are required to first leave what's known to us before we even attain the other one, is that correct?
R. Correct, because in spirituality you are only ascending through the force of faith the force of bestowal that's why to grasp something there more exalted than where you’re in right now it doesn't work. You only ascend with the force of bestowal the force of faith, Emuna, and when it's faith above reason, if you can ascend in such a way you do if you can, if you can't you remain in such a state.
19. S. (41:55) When we learn this article, it’s not the first time, we always want to do some summary, so I have a whole notebook where it's all written, but I'm afraid to go back to that same point that I’m putting my intellect into it. How to work with this article? It’s an article that gives you answers to all questions but through intellect. How to transform this to the emotion and not to be inspired by it intellectually?
R. You are a wonderful student, what can I say? I personally would try not to delve so deep into something that seems interesting because it fills, you it draws you, it feels you up more than it should and in the end adjust suppresses the mind and feeling, that’s why the best thing is to touch it a bit and let it go and touch it again and let it go and not to study the article and go through all the pages from beginning to end and end to the beginning and constantly being in the article, that’s not good, but to repeat it as much as you can the yes that is something else but to return to it means that you’ve renewed yourself, you’re bit different, you thought and understood things differently and now you repeat it again.
S. My husband is a philosopher who finished the academy, he loves these things, and he's always talking to me saying, let's talk about this and let’s talk more. How can we do it, that he won't receive it from me? How to pass it on correctly to him?
R. I don’t know, he reads Russian and English?
S. No he reads in Russian, he's a regular scientist.
R. I don't know, I really can't say, I still think that you have to read it and to try. As a scientist he understands how to enter a verbal explanation to try to connect things to one another. Baal HaSulam doesn't write in a complicated way so if you flow along with him so in the end you get a good impression of what he wanted to tell you. What else can I say? I am very happy from our lessons, obviously we're going through only just a bit of the material but we’ll try to return to our usual studies.