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Ok, so what I think I understand from this lesson is that prayer is not words, but a gut level need that is heard by the Creator – but I wonder after reading in Unlocking the Zohar by Rav Laitman, that we are accustomed to asking for fulfillment when we should be asking for correction – so, are there two types of prayer? The gut level need and prayers with words? Also, I never really paid attention before, but I have noticed that I don’t say a prayer before I consume food or drink – do I say a prayer of thanksgiving? I remember in childhood, I had to say ‘grace’ at the table before eating, and a prayer at night before going to bed, but honestly, they were both just empty recitations without any feeling to them – but should I start practicing this habit – I am still trying to understand prayer because after this short time of studying Kabbalah, it really isn’t what I thought it was or believed it to be – thank you in advance for any insight you can offer-
I would also like to say that it feels encouraging to have the rejection of the Creator explained – I have had a very emotional time since starting to study – I work in the Arctic on 7 week rotations but I like to be up early to study before work – well the internet is really a challenge up here and keeps cutting out in the middle of Tony Kosinec’s videos – I would say a “prayer” asking for the internet to miraculously come back on and when it didn’t, I felt so angry and defeated, after all, wasn’t I trying to draw closer to God – I actually thought to myself, well if Your so great, why won’t You help me? Maybe You don’t want me to study this – but then, because I couldn’t watch the video’s when I wanted, I started reading the Shamati and other writings by Rav Laitman, also Baal HaSulam. I had been working through my lunch breaks at work and would go all day without a break, but due to the internet being so bad at the hotel where I stay while up North, I decided to see if I could watch the video’s at work – and it worked! I was able to watch the lessons so it all worked out – I really don’t understand why I felt so emotional but this lesson really made me wonder if I was experiencing a rejection from the Creator – this lesson gives me hope.
Cyndi,
I’m so happy to read your story and your questions. I hope this response finds you well up there in the Arctic.
So now we have students on all 7 continents! :))
Let’s start with prayer. We are kabbalists so we study and speak about all of these things according to the wisdom of kabbalah. So what is prayer, what is good, evil, sin, etc. all of these things have left a lot of impressions in everyone. However here we need to understand them according to the wisdom of kabbalah. If we bring our definitions from other places we will get very confused.
Prayer is the desire of the heart. That’s it.
If we are dressed very modestly and we are holding an ancient prayer book and reading beautiful, ancient words composed by the sages and all the while we are thinking about what we will have for lunch, so our true prayer is about lunch.
On the other hand, if we are let’s say in the arctic somewhere and we can’t connect to the internet and we have these feelings that we need to be connected, we need to feel, to understand, to be whole, so this is our prayer.There is much we need to go through in this preparation phase to understand ourselves, the forces operating on us and the system we are in…how for example by saying words, a prayer for example with our mouths even if we don’t feel it yet in our feelings, but by this we can accustom ourselves to starting to feel. For example to speak to the Creator during the day and say, I want to be connected to You. Guide me to greater connection to You. Open my heart to love….all of these kind of habits help slowly, slowly to guide our emotions.
Regarding rejection. You discovered this already through your experience. Specifically through the “left rejects” it builds in us a desire.
If we feel fulfilled, then we don’t have room for prayer. We do have room for thanks and gratitude, but not an empty desire.
So we advance according to two legs.
On the left He grows … or we can say nature grows our desire and on the right the light fills the desire, we give thanks for it and then the next degree opens before us and we feel that the darkness is shining even greater. And we draw the light and the light shines in it.
As kabbalists we accostom ourselves to move through these changes quickly. On the other hand, you can see someone in the world who holds a grudge for decades or who wants revenge for 3 generations but for us, between the kabbalists..and keep this in mind, we are doing this work at first between the kabbalists, we go through all of the changes quickly and advance through many “generations” in one life.
Seth@KabU
I have a million questions and simultaneously feel like there is no point in asking them.
That’s not a question so I guess that’s my decision.
Except it’s not my decision, because I don’t actually make decisions.
(Is it just me, or is Tony’s teacup the perfect “vessel shape?”
Is it just me, or is my name hilarious after watching this video?
Is it just me, or is reality getting really really weird?)
Shel,
I see how confused you are in this process.
That’s actually a good sign and it’s very normal.
All of a sudden you found yourself in a place where we are talking about perceiving reality in a different way, that maybe the reality is not what we thought it was.
But shel, when you look at a child in playing with the other children in the yard, the truth is that the parents are watching over them, the truth is that there are boundaries to the yard that they don’t go out of, the truth is dinner will be on the table tonight and they will have no part in making that happen…they are kids and to the kids, they feel that they are playing and there is no other world, they are not thinking about wars in other parts of the world or about the mortgage or about preparing dinner, but nevertheless their reality is valid. More than that the child’s reality, those children’s games are an absolute critical part of each person’s development. Of course a child learning to play with others is not thinking about unemployment, inflation and the military industrial complex.
So towards spirituality, we are just like those little children in the yard.
According to corporeality/material reality we are adults with work and family and recreation, etc.
You need to learn like an expert craftsman to differentiate between the two.
If you do this well, you will advance smoothly and quickly. If you mix up the two you will spin around in confusions and it will take much longer.
Of course we need to try on all the concepts we are learning…who is controlling my thoughts, are my thoughts mine, etc. But mostly in regard to our spiritual study and the work we will do with each other in the kabbalistic environment.
This is why it is so important at this time to study the fundamentals of the wisdom thoroughly.
You are made of a still, vegetative and animate part too. Your body, your organs, your home, etc. Live a normal life.
And in your (still, vegatative, animate,…)…human part, your spiritual part, that is where you make your spiritual discernments.
So sharpen your questions, open your notebook, write them down, cross them out, edit them and develop them. You don’t even need to ask because as you do the work to form the questions you will see that the light enters that vessel and you will start to already understand bit by bit.
The hero is the patient one,
Seth@KabU
Thanks for this lesson. My question is; Why do I feel separated from the creator despite my efforts to reach him, I still feel empty! What conviction can I have to know that that feeling of separation is part of his plan?
Michael,
When we look into space, we see a lot of empty black space.
But today there exists many very powerful telescopes.
If you look at that empty black space with the powerful telescope, you will see billions and billions of stars.
The stars are there, but we don’t see them with our eyes as they are, we need some tool to look through and then we can see the light.
Reality is full of the endless light of the Creator.
How can we feel it?
We don’t even know where it is.
How can we find it, where can we look, what tools do we need?
If you see a newborn baby, he doesn’t know who is his mother and who is his father. He doesn’t know what world he lives in.
We are like those babies towards the spiritual world.
However, for us, we can turn to the Upper One and start to feel that we He is so much bigger than us and we just want to flow with Him, to go with Him, like a parent picks up the child and the child can go everywhere with him.
The advancement on the left line means that we are given a feeling of emptiness. This gives us a place to ask Him to help us because we feel we are helpless without him.
Then we advance on the right line which means He fills that emptiness and we give thanks to Him and we fee wholeness like we lack nothing.
And like this we advance left, right, left right, higher and higher.
Good luck my friend,
Seth@KabU
The only question that comes to me is if Kabbalah ascertains that the evolutionary process of humanity with its intricate personal work overflowing to the collective, is in its last generation (200years)?
Myriam,
We are in special period called the Last Generation, which is really the first generation to enter spiritual development as a collective.
It is the last generation of our corporeal development, it means that now it is time for us to rise.|
In general, years in the wisdom of kabbalah refer to changes of inner states.
Seth@KabU
Hi, From the lesson I understand that if I attribute to myself the decision to know the Creator rather than acknowledging that it is only the Creator that is the source of my decision, that is sin. It seems that I can entertain in my mind a choice between the two. I can envision attributing the decision to myself and alternatively to the Creator. However, with knowledge from the lesson I learn to only focus on attributing the decision to the Creator. My question concerns that thought of attributing the decision to myself. Is that thought the doubt that was spoken about in the lesson? Thank you, Tom
Tom,
You are talking about very lofty things. We are taking a class trip to the World Cup and we see the best players in the world on the field and we understand that simply they are trying to get a small ball into an big net. Easy.
But to get on the field and run for 90 minutes with some of the best athletes in the world. Forget about soccer/football skill, just the lack cardio training would be enough to knock us out, coupled with skill at the sport, and game IQ and the pressure of millions of people watching.
So we are reading what the giant Kabbalist Baal HaSulam, the author of the Sulam commentary on Zohar wrote to us.
Don’t worry, we are not sinning, we are not doing mitzvot, we are like babies who are waking up. And we became little kids and we were taken to the big field and we are hearing about how the big Kabbalists do it.In the one hand you need to do everything in your power to reach the goal. And we’ll learn about this more, at the beginning of each day (day = spiritual state) “whatever is in your hand to do, do.” And at the end of the day, to behave as “there is none else besides You.” Meaning even if I sat on the couch all day and didn’t get up and work with all my might, I’d still receive the same reward.
between these two opposites we build a correct model of our inner world using the system that the Creator prepared for us in order to reach Him step by step.
Keep asking if this is not clear.Seth@KabU
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