Workshop In A Circle And Practical Kabbalah – Part 3

Gathering of Friends

Question: Sports training is conducted under the guidance of a coach on the football field or in the gym, the study consists of reading textbooks, listening to the lectures and making notes. What is the basis of the workshop in Kabbalah, is it based on people’s conversation with each other?

Answer: The workshop is built on a conversation between people, but it is conducted on the basis of special texts written by Kabbalists. Each time, a new selection of excerpts is chosen according to a particular topic on which the basis of a workshop is built.

The workshop is not a simple discussion because it is not very important what people say. The guide can even ask them to talk together at the same time. What matters is not what they say, but what happens to their heart, to what extent it wants to join the group in order to bestow to it, connect others, and reveal the Creator. That is, it is not the words that are important, but the inner aspiration of a person toward the ten.

There is a special kind of a workshop that is called the gathering of friends. It involves not only ten, but a large number of people, as if many tens are connected together. Let’s say that there are eight billion people in the world, which is eight hundred million tens. This is also kind of a workshop, but more like a meeting.

The gathering of friends is a more general action that obeys the same laws as the workshop. At a gathering of friends, we do not engage in clarifications, but speak about positive things, such as our progress and achievements, the greatness of the friends, the teacher, and the Creator, the greatness of our goal, and our ascent.

The gathering of friends is always conducted in the “right line,” that is, without any criticism in order to raise the spirit in the group. Usually the gathering of friends are held in a large group with many people and all the tens are connected together into one circle; they sit together and feel as one ten.

Question: What is the purpose of such a gathering?

Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no more than HaVaYaH, that is, ten qualities. Therefore, any number of people in relation to the general assembly will always be like ten.

Question: What is the most important condition of a successful gathering?

Answer: The gathering will be successful if all of us want to feel ourselves connected. However, at such gatherings we do not discuss our deficiencies or any topic that can separate us or cause a rift between us. Everything is aimed at strengthening the greatness of the Creator and the group.

If we leave such a gathering filled with the sense of the greatness of the group, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the teacher, and the Creator and feel ourselves the happiest, it means that it was successful. This is not a psychotherapy, we really are telling the truth without being insincere.

We simply help each other to rise to the height of the group by this platform that the group creates for us, as if on an elevator. No matter at what level a person is, the group lifts him. The gathering of friends is an elevator, which upon entering, one can rise to the “second floor,” “third floor,” and even to the roof.
[214926]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/20/17

Workshop In A Circle And Practical Kabbalah – Part 2

Question: What is the meaning of the workshop, discussions in a circle, as a method of practical work widely used in Kabbalah?

Answer: A “workshop” is a joint action of ten men or ten women who perform exercises according to the recommendations given in the Kabbalistic sources or under the guidance of a teacher, like athletes under the guidance of a coach. Only these are not physical exercises, like in sports, but internal ones based on inner efforts to connect with each other to such an extent that inside this connection the Creator will be revealed.

It might seem good if this could be realized in one action. However, usually this requires a lot of exercises for many months or even years. Such an exercise with an aim of creating a special connection between us, inside which we will be able to sense the upper force of bestowal and love, is called a “workshop.”

There are many different types of workshops, but as a rule they are held as a preparation for Kabbalah lessons. During the workshop, we check connections between us, how much they correspond to the nature of the Creator, bestowal and love. Once we reach such bestowal and love for each other during the workshop, or conversely, we cannot reach them, but discover our oppositeness to each other—we move to studying.

Then through the study, we demand from above the force of bestowal, the Light that returns to the source, that is, the force that exists in the Creator. This is called the study of the Torah, about which it is written, “I created the evil inclination” that separates us in the ten and “in addition to it, I created the Torah, the Light that returns to the source”.

It turns out that if we study Kabbalah in the ten in order to get closer and connect with each other, then we can use the force of the Torah. During the study, we learn what it means to be connected, how spiritual objects (Partzufim) and worlds are built, what the ladder of spiritual degrees is, and how all this connects together and joins us to itself.

In this case, we attract a special force to ourselves called Torah, Surrounding Light, or the Light that returns to the source, which influences us and brings us closer to each other.

In this way, we build a network of connections in which we eventually reveal the special phenomena called the manifestation of the upper force, the revelation of the Creator.
[214910]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/20/17

Workshop In A Circle And Practical Kabbalah – Part 1

Question: The method of Kabbalah allows us to change a person’s nature so that he will start caring for others instead of himself. To implement this technique, workshops in the circles, roundtables, are used. What is a roundtable?

Answer: The roundtable is a group action in which men, women, and children participate. Kabbalah is a method of revealing the Creator by the created beings in this world, and this is only possible when there is an equivalence of qualities. It means that we must acquire qualities that are similar to the upper force and then we will be able to reveal it, like any locator should be ready for those phenomena that it is designed to discover.

For example, a smoke detector is built in order to react to smoke rather than a sweet, bitter, or sour taste. So here if I want to reveal the upper force, I must form the sensory organ within myself that is similar to the nature of the Creator that I do not have yet. Then I will be able to find the Creator, like a bloodhound that got the trail. All I need is a sense of smell to discover where He is hiding.

Kabbalists say that the Creator hides between us. If we have kind, good relationships between us and there is mutual aid and love for friends, as if we are one man with one heart, it means that we indeed want to feel ourselves as one whole.

In this aspiration, we begin to feel, like a dog with its nose, the presence of the Creator. We do not look for Him somewhere in other worlds and spaces, but connect with each other more and more in order to find where and how we can reveal the Creator.

It is clear that once we build friendly relations between us we will reveal the upper force inside them. The network of connections between us that are as kind as possible, up to love, is called Shechina (Divinity), because we want to discover the presence of the Creator within it, which is called Shochen.

Therefore, there is no need to move to another space; we just need to correct the network of relations between us to mutual love, bestowal, embracing, and unity to such an extent that we will become so close to each other internally that within this connection the Creator will be revealed. The only thing we need to worry about is our unity, and everything else will be revealed within it.

In order to build such a special connection, we work in a group of ten people who want to reveal the upper force. If they implement the advice of Kabbalists, they gradually reveal this force.

It is desirable that such a ten gather every day to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and also to try to connect all the friends together through talking about unity, reading Kabbalistic articles, and performing all sorts of exercises.

All this is in order to build such relations between the friends within which the network of connections between us will be revealed. This network already exists, but we need to pull it out of concealment, like a net from depths of the sea. As fishermen drag the fish out with the net, so too will we pull the Creator out with this network and reveal Him.

A workshop in a circle is an action that allows us to become similar to the qualities of the upper force. This is the entire practical wisdom of Kabbalah that speaks about the ascent of a person from the bottom upward.

There is a part of Kabbalah that explains the structure of the universe that descends from the world of Infinity downward. Its other part teaches how from this world to rise back to the world of Infinity and reveal the Creator. This work is done through the workshops in the circles.
[214705]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/20/17

The Book Of Zohar, The Main Book Of The Wisdom Of Kabbalah

A person exists in the world in a certain volume where he is born, develops, and lives. During his lifetime, many questions may emerge in him, such as: What am I living for? What is the meaning of life? Is there a Creator? Could it be that the Creator is nature? Does life just go by and end?

We know that nothing happens in nature without a cause and that everything develops within a process of cause and effect, but we still do not understand what ultimately happens to us, what the reason of our existence is, and what the outcomes of our lives will be. When a person has such questions as these, he arrives at the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The main book of the wisdom of Kabbalah is The Book of Zohar that describes all of the transformations a person undergoes and provides complete answers to all of the above questions. But The Book of Zohar should not be used as an ordinary guide in which a certain chapter engages in the meaning of life and another in the goal of creation. The Book of Zohar is not an encyclopedia. It was written according to a totally different principle. It is not an ordinary, scientific book although what it contains is absolutely scientific. It is based on a science that operates in a different way.

The science we know in our world fills and charges our brains and minds with various data that we can analyze and come to different conclusions about. But The Book of Zohar is studied in a different way. Studying The Book of Zohar has nothing to do with the intellectual level a person is on or may be on. It has nothing to do with filling the mind with different concepts and with questions as to whether a person can act according to these concepts. The Book of Zohar expands the framework of a person’s perception so that he can see much higher, wider, and deeper than in our world. A person receives knowledge of the upper force.

This information is initially perceived as a higher sensation from which a person begins to extract knowledge. It is like when children, on the level of our world, compare different experiences between them: I tried it, I did this, I got this; they accumulate information regarding cause and effect that helps them understand and attain our world. The same thing happens in the process of attaining and understanding the upper world. It is only through our practical work that we comprehend the management of our world and how our world affects the upper world, etc.

The Book of Zohar puts us in a special state. To the degree that the study is done properly, when I read it, and most importantly, how I read it correctly, a person prompts and summons a special Light upon himself, a force that expands the borders of his understanding, attainment, and feeling.

When a person feels, perceives, and attains these borders and compares all of the different data, new dimensions, levels, understandings, evaluations, and values of this totally different world inside himself, then a new science emerges inside him called the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is the science of the control system of our world because our world is based on a person’s sensations of oneself and the world around him.

When a person tries more and more to spur and summon the Light in order to reveal the upper world within himself, he feels it inside himself, attains it, and the connection between the two worlds becomes clear to him, that is, the connection between the world we are living in now and the world that is personally revealed to him. At the same time, he reaches a state whereby the two worlds exist in him with mutual cooperation and he operates between them.

At the same time, by using The Book of Zohar, a person begins to discover a tool for understanding new definitions, names, and feelings. Now he attains the world in two dimensions, beyond the frameworks of time, motion, and space. Most importantly, a person restores the connection with the upper force of management, mutually influence each other, and eventually become partners. The Book of Zohar enables us to achieve all of this.

This is the reason that a person begins to understand that the main thing is to spur and summon the upper force unto himself so that it will teach him more, fill him more, expand his horizons, and create totally different definitions and understandings within him. A person who exists in both our world and the upper world at the same time has to understand the connection between the two.

The Book of Zohar teaches a person how to manage his feelings and what the connection between the feelings associated with the upper world and the feelings associated with our world is.
[210677]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/12/17

Where Is The Truth?

Question from Facebook: Does somebody know what is true and what is not? How can it be determined if each person has his own subjective opinion?

Answer: On what are these subjective opinions of a person based? What does he know and understand in this world? He does not know anything from the day of his birth until the day of his death. He is always confused and barely exists, like the most miserable creature. He is more damaged, unprotected, and stupid than animals.

Comment: But you live in the country where each resident has his own opinion. This is what they say about Israel.

Answer: But what is it? If each one has his own opinion, it means that no one has a true one so there is no one to reckon with and no one to take into account. When each one has a different opinion, this is tantamount to zero. Thus, one can continue living with his own opinion.

Question: Where is the truth then?

Answer: The truth for a person and human society can only exist if we try to imagine human society in a form of a ball, completely closed, imbued only with the good forces of all concerning everything.

One single integral good force is the truth, and everyone who participates in it as much as possible with mind and heart understands and feels it from within. In other words, based on the feeling of commonality of absolute connection and love, one attains this truth. Only in this way it is possible to receive it.
[215585]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/7/17

To Attain The Upper From Our World

Comment: In original sources it is written,“There is not a blade of grass below that does not have an angel above that strikes it and tells it, ‘Grow!’”

Answer: It is actually so. Everything that occurs in our world, materializes according to specific direction and influence of the upper world.

But we are not able to trace these influences. We cannot say which root, which force of the upper world, influences our world and what specific effect this force wants to realize. We don’t see the upper world; we don’t understand its program, its influence on us.

From the lower world, the upper world can be attained only if we will gradually come to resemble the nature of the upper world; there is no other way. Until we understand the entire, complex, system of influence on us from above downward and reveal it from below upward, we will not attain anything.

The law of root and branch points to the fact that there is a connection between the upper root and the lower branch: in each atom, in each action, on all levels of inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human matter, in thoughts, in forces—in everything.

But we do not observe this connection and cannot say which root is the cause of which effect in our world or how we can make some kind of changes in the root from the effect in order to improve the end result and its impact on us. This is actually the subject of study for Kabbalists.

The science of Kabbalah studies this interaction and offers practical advice and techniques for how to bring oneself to congruence with the upper root so as to be able to affect it and receive from it a desired response.
[215146]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 7/9/2017

How Does One Respond To Something False?

Question: How does one react to an insolent and cynical lie to which you feel completely powerless? How do you behave in situations like this?

Answer: First of all, I try not to deal with a person from whom I have heard something false any more.

If we are in particular business relationships in our world, it is preferable to stay away from those people. Likewise, I don’t need to feel hatred or hostility toward that person or try to take revenge on him.

I deal with the Creator because He is the one who arranged this situation for me through that person. Therefore, all of my actions are directed only toward arranging a relationship with the Creator so that He will not send me “gifts” like this anymore.

Question: Why should I not continue my relationship with this person? After all, the Creator is telling me about these things through him and I work with them.

Answer: No. If this is done through a person like this, then it means that according to his nature, according to his role in the world, that is what he is like.

Question: Does this mean that it is not a Mitzva (commandment) to suffer?

Answer: You should not suffer! You should immediately try to clarify how the Creator is relating to you at every moment and attribute everything to Him only.

Question: So, does that mean that in our world we should act as is customary, according to the laws of our world? If someone lies to me and this is harmful to my business, for example, should I go to a lawyer, file a complaint in court, etc.?

Answer: Certainly. On the inner level, you understand that this is the Creator and that is where you work. But in the outside world you act according to what is customary here. What this means is that on the level of our world you are also trying to correct these mutual relationships. So, you go to a lawyer.

Question: By taking someone to court who insolently lied to me and caused me harm, am I correcting him?

Answer: In one of Baal HaSulam’s letter it is said that the Creator provided all the laws for our world so that with their help we would approach the higher characteristics. And what we cannot correct internally, we perfect in our world through external actions like these.
[193499]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/1/16

The Concept Of True Freedom

Question: The wisdom of Kabbalah gives an understanding that there is no freedom at all in our egoistic world. Freedom is the quality of bestowal and love that I must acquire. But it seems that by taking this obligation upon myself I become unfree according to our earthy perception. Are you saying that this acquisition is freedom?

Answer: When I am responsible for others and I have an opportunity to bestow, to fulfill, to love, and to help them, then I am free. I am free in this expression of desires.

Freedom is the fulfillment of one’s desire. In our world, there cannot be the fulfillment of our desires because we do not chose them. Both the desires and their realization are imposed on us by the Creator.
[214805]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/2/17