Baal HaSulam. The Meaning of Conception and Birth (The Birth of the Happy Humanity)
1. R. Well, let's hope we are already there. The “Birth of the Happy Humanity” sounds so beautiful, so great, it’s the last generation, the generation of the final correction, please.
Reading Chapter 5 “The Birth of the Happy Humanity”
2. S. (04:13) To what extent can we, I resemble the nature of the Creator, the upper nature, the upper world, because the examples here are external? Like animals or…
R. So if we can learn in our state from the wide world before us, in spirituality we have nothing to learn from, we don't feel we can't resemble anything, you're right. In the meantime that's what he's talking about. Meaning that what we have left to do in life is just to learn from nature and so let's see how to learn from nature correctly, gradually. And it is possible that if we delve into nature we will also begin to learn from nature how to connect between us, not just how to put together pieces of wood or other things, but people. That we can connect into some more holistic structure and then we will achieve something more meaningful through human connection, we will see. In the meantime we heard what he said which is logical and we see it, that this is how the world works.
S. I remember how you told us once or explained that the upper world is revealed or revealing the possibilities to man, and if man could reveal the upper world he would implement?
R. But the upper world cannot appear to you due to the lack of vessels you have to feel the upper world. We are in the upper reality. Please, you want it, it's all around you. There’s heaven, the final correction, all the degrees, you just don't feel them. They are right here, literally. How are you going to discover them if you don't have vessels for it? And the vessels are the level of equivalence of form, the level at which you can feel it. How can you discover it? You could say why didn't the Creator create vessels of bestowal for me so that I could also feel the other part of creation, right? That’s impossible because vessels of bestowal cannot appear in you without your work, your agreement, your desire, otherwise they won't be vessels of bestowal. It's a contradiction in terms, meaning one definition contradicts the other.
3. S. (07:42) There is no limit in these fulfillments. Technology is advancing, we’re advancing with it but how can we take this technology from the physical world to the spiritual world? How can our ten advance together with this technology?
R. We don't need to think about this now. To the extent that you will advance in spirituality you will feel how much and what you need to take from corporeality. I don't think that we are going to need all of the corporeal actions, that we're going to take them with us into spirituality. Because in spirituality we have other qualities, we have desires that have no coordinates of time and space and motion and so this whole corporeal development we're going through now is not going to help us in spirituality. It advances us in a corporeal way, we are advancing more and more to the understanding that there is a spiritual world that is above time space and motion.
But it's not that the phenomena of science and wisdom and then knowledge can put us into spirituality, no, you’re not going to need that. This whole corporeality we're not going to need it. We need new vessels, we're going to need vessels of bestowal. These are the vessels that take us into a new realm, a spiritual realm where there are no limitations of speed, space and time. So we're not going to need Newton's physics or Einstein's physics, we are not going to need spaceships or other devices or even the knowledge and imagination from the corporeal world, we're not going to need it. It’s just a completely new and different world and all our science, all our knowledge is what we've got from this world. We won't be able to use it there.
S. That is actually the biggest problem, right?
R. We don't need to break anything, we just need to follow what Kabbalists advise us to do together in prayer towards the Creator, receiving new qualities and a new realm opens up to us, and there we exist, that’s it. It's a different dimension, it's a spiritual dimension that works according to spiritual laws. So relax, we don't need to break anything. There will come a time and that's how it will happen.
4. S. (11:19) Where do we struggle to get the quality we need, in efforts or in internal analysis?
R. Our whole problem is that we are in the will to receive and we need to rise above it to the desire to bestow. And all of spirituality is felt and is revealed in the will to bestow that is upon the will to receive. We don't leave the will to receive alone, we to rise above it. It’s still in us as a foundation on every degree, in every spiritual attainment and then when we uplift upon this corporeality. As much as we're able to rise above it, to that extent we attain spirituality but the corporeality remains as the foundation.
The will to receive gets bigger and bigger if we want to ascend to greater degrees, until we bring all the will to receive that the Creator created and upon it all the will to bestow that we attain from Him, from the Creator. In that way we supposedly attain two worlds, a big will to receive and the big will to bestow. And in this we come, and all of our feelings are in the gap or connection between this compared to that, what God created, what we attain, the will to bestow upon the will to receive. And it can’t be one felt without the other, just as we also learned today, right? That the light and the darkness, the advantage of light from the darkness, we cannot see one without the other, there is always a relation between them. Only in that relative manner can we reveal anything. That’s how we do it.
5. S. (13:49) How can you explain, he says all of our success is in front of us in creation the way it is, and all we need is to emulate it and follow it. So the question is what does he mean, what is the reality that we are emulating?
R. We're in the whole complete reality. It’s like when weaving, it’s made of lights and vessels from bestowal and reception, light and dark and we need from this reality from this fabric that is weaved in such a way it's like a net; you need to understand this net, to feel it. You need to see the qualities in this fabric, in what way it is weaved, the way the Creator weaved it, the way He made it, the way He built all kinds of forms in it.
Not a superficial form but on all kinds of other forms, as fabric exists on it and upon it we live. So we need to take these two forces of reception and bestowal and we need to try and connect between them, to understand this weaving to understand these laws of nature of the higher nature. The lower nature we will attain that anyway. and this is what we are actually trying to attain by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.
S. So everything has been created, invented, everything has been made already. So what is our role in this world basically?
R. Through us we want to discover the force of reception and bestowal, that they will connect. And in us, we are in the center of the creation. We will be as the Adam that includes inside him the positive force supposedly and the negative force supposedly. It's all connected in us and we are built from this weaving of these two forces. The correct form that we reveal in ourselves, that we include these two forces that is called the form of Adam that resembles the Creator. This form I can’t tell about or explain, I don't even have words for it. But obviously we're not speaking about our corporeal form as we are now. But the spiritual form I can’t say, it is wholeness, perfection, in all connections, in every little step.
S. So the only thing left for the person is that we have to do the work?
R. Yes everything is ready and prepared for the work.
S. Meaning the Creator is not going to do it, He didn’t do it and only we have to do it.
R. He already did His work now we need to do it ourselves in order to acquire the vessels to understand and feel and discover reality, otherwise we will remain in darkness. We are now like embryos in their mother. So is He in the world? Yes, he's alive but he lives on the account of the body of the mother nourishing him and doing everything for him. He doesn't live on his own right, that is how we are right now. All of this reality, this big reality is taking care of us in such a way until we wake up and start identifying with it and working with it in a mutual way.
6. S. (18:50) What does it mean the Creator wants my agreement?
R. That you accept creation the way He made it, you come to state that you understand it, you feel it, you accept it the way it is. You thank Him for making creation in such a way and not in a different way, with all the bad things that you discover that are against your ego. That you understand that what you're left to do here is to correct your own nature in order to receive your ego, and then you will become a creature that resembles the Creator which is called Adam. On the way to such a form you will need to correct yourself by connecting to other still, vegetative, animate and speaking in reality, and then you reach a state that you are the complete, full Adam.
7. S. (20:12) Are corporeal states influenced from our spiritually corrected states?
R. Yes or no, but obviously they are ripe for what we need to go through right now and we don't exactly understand what we need to go through. That's why we don't understand those states that we are affected by and we're in, and we have to perform them or implement them. But there’s work here that is called the work of connection in faith, that we constantly need to yearn for the connection between us.
8. S. (21:22) You say that we should learn from nature. I look at the Sun and I am impressed by how it emits light and not just for humans but for all the other systems. I see the Sun as an example of love unconditionally because there is no conditions or limitations in the giving, not good or bad, it seems something like the ten. So in terms of learning from nature on this level it’s teaching us that in the collective as in the particular, the ten is the mechanism that unifies. In this case corporeality, it leads us to the understanding of the spiritual idea? Does it lead us to understand the spiritual idea?
R. No. We can’t learn about the spiritual nature from the corporeal nature; there is no ability. Because it’s two opposite things and in their oppositeness we can’t learn. Just like he says about the carpenter that build something on four legs because he sees four-legged animals and so on. That is something we can learn, but spirituality we can’t learn about from our world in any way, in any way.
S. What I wanted to say is that in observing nature it enables us to reach the limit, the place where we need another stage of entering spirituality. And not that we learn to just look at nature but it shows us how small I am and beyond that enables me to go into the other realm which is the spiritual field.
R. I will tell you where the mistake is. If we would advance exactly according to the corporeal material development, according to Darwin or laws of nature that are before us, so maybe we would advance in such a way. But our development happens according to the spiritual plan, that we need to reach a state where we discover our lack of abilities to do anything in this world, that we cannot succeed in anything. We build and destroy, build and fall, the world around us and ourselves. And it's not in order for us to advance and later on to reach some spiritual development, enter it and keep developing, no, it doesn't work in such a linear way.
But it works according to different rule, that we need to be despaired from the relationships between us. And only in that way we can reach a state that we will stand and cry to the Creator that He will help us, that He will take care of us, that we are willing to surrender, that we understand that our will to receive isn't worthy of anything and so on. Meaning not by the development of mind and feeling and wisdom in a gradual way, that we reach a spiritual gate and then we go through it and enter spirituality, no. Specifically through the recognition of evil, that we need to know the evil in our nature in our will to receive, and then we need to destroy and rise above it. And only in that way, we build ourselves in a spiritual degree.
9. S. (27:01) Just about this issue that from the corporeal nature we don't learn anything, from mimicking nature what we observe we don't learn anything about spirituality?
R. Nothing. You see how humanity constantly fails again and again on the same states? That they get blows and you can't learn anything from it. Also we constantly think that in our states, even in my corporeal state I see as much I make a mistake and why am I doing the same thing? I just do it again and again. Till when? We think that according to our reason there will finally be an end to this. No, there won’t be an end.
These actions don’t connect, they don’t connect, that after a thousand times I’ll get smarter, I won’t get smarter, only under the condition that I connect to the upper force. But the corporeal actions, look how the world is suffering. Look how creation is suffering. There is no correction to the degrees of suffering they’re going through, no. But it can only happen if we are connected to an upper system. That’s why humanity can suffer in such a way. If not for that part of humanity called Israel that is already connected to the spiritual degree, only needs to discover the connection and to draw itself into there, but if not for that humanity on this small Earth would be revolving until eternity. There is no chance and no correction. The correction is only that there is connection with the upper force and then from it we….
S. Towards connection, that the general law of nature is connection, all of evolution is towards connection, the whole story of the balance in nature of things we can learn from this about corrected relationships or not?
R. You see how much we were learning? We are still only learning this in order to develop the bad things. We don't have anything here that's directed towards the correction of man towards the pleasure of man but only for the pleasure of ego. Cars, planes, all kinds of things. Look at all the kinds of foods and life and this and that and all in order to fill our egos and to give it temptations. Nothing bad but just in order to develop weapons and new wars. We see there is no end and there won’t be an end. Humanity thinks come on after all we went through, how can it be that we’ll still enter such states of wars? No, we can't even make a calculation as much as we’ll suffer because the ego shuts its eyes and we go again and again into wars and fighting with each other and look what we're doing! We could have had heaven on Earth a long time ago but what are we doing? We're going according to the will to receive and it has completely different degrees of importance. The main thing is to control, to rule, and you see how each one wants to rule over the other and by this we’re developing weapons first of all.
S. The Kabbalists can learn about spirituality from corporeal nature?
R. No, there's nothing to learn. It's supposedly an example, something he already knows about.
S. So when a Kabbalist looks at corporeal nature he doesn’t learn things from it?
R. Yet he sees it, it's moving according to spiritual rules. That is why we should not expect that we will ever reach some kind of decision as Baal HaSulam says that we will say to our troubles enough. Only the condition that we understand we have to take care of our spiritual development, and in different way, no.
Reading (32:59) “Reality and the existence of reality deny one another.”
10. R. (33:42) Where our ego is mixed in, that’s the whole thing, where our ego is involved.
Continues reading (33:50)
11. R. (34:18) So what is he saying, he is explaining that there is a cascading from above downward and then we have an ascent from below upwards. And those two paths have to be connected and resemble one another. We in our sorrow, we're not doing what we are supposed to do. That's why all that cascading from above downward we accept it in a negative way. That's why it comes against our existence. That now again we are entering some stage in our corporeal life that is very difficult in all the world. Not to think that only the ones at war will feel bad or ones who didn't build all kinds of industry for themselves like Japan or South Korea, but everyone will suffer because the world is becoming more and more connected, unified. That's why nobody will have it good in an absolute way and also in a relative way compared to the others. But our development has to bring us to a state that we will feel connected between us in a very difficult way, and that is why we all will suffer, we will all suffer.
In the states that are revealed now and connecting and coming towards us we will discover that everyone feels bad. Not that somewhere there is a war and somewhere else there is lack of work and somewhere there is no bread, but everyone, everyone will eventually see it. I don't know exactly how it's going to be revealed, but we will see in each and every state, every bad state will be revealed around the world, just like the pandemic or something. That’s how it is going to be revealed because we are already connected, we are already in the last generation, that is why we will need to discover it practically. What else do we do today?
12. S. (37:38) When we attain the degree of Adam what is the next thing we need to do after we have achieved the level of Adam?
R. Not do anything, the degree of Adam is the highest degree in our development. That we all together reach one structure called Adam, the first Adam we say sometimes but Adam. And by this we reach identification with the Creator and by this we finish our correction. What happens after that, the degrees, we're not told of that because they are above our corrections. That we rise above them in those degrees not by the corrections but by all kinds of other forces, I don't know what it is. Kabbalists don’t write about it; they only write about until we need to correct ourselves.
S. When we achieve Lo lishma ?
R. We need to work in Lo Lishma then work in Lishma and to keep going at it until Gmar Tikkun, that everything will be in order to bestow. That is actually the work.
S. What is the work to move from Lo Lishma to Lishma?
R. Lishma in order to bestow, Lo Lishma in order to receive. We need to rise from the states where we can’t work in order to bestow or in order to receive from these states to a higher state, that everything is done in order to bestow through the group towards the Creator. In such a practical way it happens.
Conclusion: I think we learned a lot of things. We scrutinized in the first part and in this part. I am happy that all of the Baltia group is there before us, right? Healthy and happy. And we will see you in the afternoon, everybody together.