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I was just blown away by Rav Laitman’s quote at the end of this lesson.
“We receive spiritual desires directly from above. To feel them we need a special sense called a screen.”
Our default position from birth, before we realize the Point in the Heart and feel the need for the masoch, is to extract pleasure from our five senses. The word pleasure I would define simply as any sensation that registers and confirms the continuance of my existence, either in my body, or in the body of potential offspring. Such sensations were programmed into us by Nature as a kind of incentive to keep reproducing physical bodies. Without this program for constantly pursuing conatus (as the philosopher Spinoza put it), organism would lack the motivation to pursue life, liberty, and pursuit of bio-genetic existence.
From earliest memories, starting with Mother’s breast, we have been sucking pleasure only from the body like marrow from a bone, and in knowing these pleasures, confirming and re-confirming the sovereignty of the ego.
It never even dawns on us that there might be a Light from Above which is the actual source of the inexhaustible joy of knowing that I Am, an unadulterated joy of which somatic pleasure is but a pale shadow. Like some deep sea creature who has never seen sunlight, so that the only light it knows is the dank bioluminescence of the anglerfish’s esca, we draw energy from the spurious glow of our own senses, never imaging that there could be such an astonishing and majestic source of infinite radiance as the Sun.
The deep sea angler has no chance of surfacing for sunlight. Luckily, human beings are blessed with the capacity to rise above the bathic depths of our somatic enslavement and to bathe in the infinite pleasure the noetic Light of the Upper World.
This whole set of notions is just redolent with analogies to Western Civilization’s favorite myth, a story told by Plato in his Republic about the myth of the cave. Whether Plato knew the Kabbalists of his time, or the Kabbalists told Plato about the true Light of the Upper World as that which cast the flickering shadows in the cave (of the body) is not important. What is important is that, as Kabbalists seeking world harmony and peace with all men of whatever culture, philosophy, and faith, we have a sacred duty to connect with Platonists and other fellow travelers who draw inspiration from these archetypal truths, and to create dialogue and fraternal relationships with them so that, together, we can lead those who still dwell in the utter darkness of egoism to the Light.
People like us, with strong noetic sensibilities, who sense the inner Israel (or, in the case of Platonists, who feel the kiss of the upper Sunlight) are so few in this world, and the ignorant and unenlightened are so many, that it behooves us to come together in a solidarity of Wisdom to redeem the world by becoming bearers of the Light.
“As soon as man acquires this sense he begins to feel pleasure through it. The pleasure is called ‘The Supreme Light.’ It enters our desire to enjoy it through the screen.”
It is clear from this passage that our only hope for transitioning from being purblind creatures whose only outlet for confirming our delight in Being is the physical body – along with its senses, and the ego-structure that crystalize around this somatic fountainhead of pleasure – to becoming creatures who draw divine delight directly from The Supreme Light, is the installation of a device – called in Hebrew masoch – which is nothing more than the intention to return delight back to the Supreme Light by enjoying and being grateful for the gracious Upper Light, rather than greedily feeding off of the scraps of reflected bioluminescence of the body’s five senses, like the Prodigal Son in Jesus’s parable was reduced to eating the husks and scraps meant for the swine.
Many great Wisdom traditions also encourage their practitioners to install such a screen of intention in their minds, as a kind of sheath by which the will can be directed toward higher sources of spiritual nourishment. In the Buddhadharma, there is an intention called Buddhi by which the luminosity of the Supreme Light of Awakening is recognized and allowed to penetrate one’s consciousness.
“The desire to enjoy Supreme Light is called ‘soul.’ The light as a source of pleasure is not felt unless a man acquires an additional sense capable of picking it up.”
What a joy is was to discover that there is a faculty within me that is not one of my five senses, a faculty which actually allows me escape the confines of the flesh, rather than be imprisoned by them in this little, black box that is me. What a radiant hope I now have that I have the possibility, through a very simple (though still quite difficult) inner toggle illuminate the house of my soul with the true Light of creator rather the creepy neon glow of my five corporeal senses.
This is actually a Wisdom I have known from a young age, though I was never able to articulate it as succinctly as Rav Laitman. The way that the books and teachings of Baal HaSulam, Rav Laitman, and the teachers and books of Bnei Baruch have expressed this concept, which I have always intuited but was never able to express fully, had been a Godsend in my life.
Of course, there are complementary teachings in the great wisdom teachings of our sisters and brothers in paths that run parallel to the Kabbalah. I think of the nous of mystical Christianity, the already mentioned Buddi of Buddhism, the ‘magnetic center’ of the Gurdjieff work, and the lub of the Sufis. All of these paths I have practiced and derived enormous benefit from. I can guarantee you that they would be faithful partners and good friends – perfect pairings – to the Kabbalistic methods.
Concerning the Supreme Light: I would not dare insult your intelligence and education by listing all the countless wisdom traditions of the world with whom Kabbalists could find common cause in our adoration and longing for this Supreme Light. Suffice it say that the affinities are profound and abiding, probably because it is only by virtue of all of our pursuing this Supreme Light that humanity will ultimately build a new world of peace, harmony, and friendship.
I will only make one last important comment about the importance of this Supreme Light in uniting all of traditions in a great Symphony of Wisdom, with the Kabbalah as the Great Conductor of the orchestra. This is the poem by the Sufi poet Rumi, who succinctly portrays this Supreme Light as the essential truth illuminating all of humanity’s great wisdom ways:
“The lamps are different.
But the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain’s lamp shop,
Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own hold fire,
The Light streams toward you from all things,
All people, all possible permutations of good,
evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.”
~ Mevlana Rumi (1207 – 1273)I am blown away by the thought that anything could be better / more fulfilling than strawberry shortcake with whipped cream and sauce…..(just kidding 🙂
More seriously, this lesson really got me thinking about self-worth, & critically questioning the delusion that one is only of value when one is constantly giving to others, people pleasing etc. Because now, it seems that’s just being stuck on the egoistic shame-based levels where the creature refuses to receive anything from the Creator. The next higher level is when you start to let a bit of the Light in, knowing that Accepting the Light is valuable in and of itself because it’s living up to one’s nature  & serving the Creator’s desire to bestow. So that was insightful.
What I also personally find valuable in this is that, unlike the 10 commandments (there’s another #10!) where the instructions are (a) half about the relationship between humanity and God, and the (b) other half about the relationship with one’s fellow humans, my understanding of what Kabbalah is trying to communicate here is that it is also important to not neglect cultivating a more enlightened relationship to oneself. Denying one’s own fundamental human needs is not the higher path. Rather, just adding a filter of spiritual intent onto that (in order to attain the ultimate purpose of bestowal) is the higher path.
What gave me a new perspective was that the thought that people change according to what ‘fase’ they are in going toward Malchut. It made me realise that I can have expectations of people which people cannot give. But I am also in a ‘fase’ that i need to receive it. It might sounds strange. But for me something suddenly made sense.
The notion, or understanding that there is a path that leads us from darkness to light, from ignorance to conciousness, from unreality to reality and that we only (only?) have to feel the need to choose for that path.
This was beautiful visualized in the lesson by the reshimot (remembrances) of former inner states which can lead one back on the track (the ascent)., from where we came. Indeed back to the future.
I am nothing but an intellectual animal who is indebted to God and God expects so much from me. I feel sad because I feel that I’m not doing my best enough and it’s really demoralizing. I realized how minute I am in this whole cosmos. Just like a specter of sand in a heap of sand. Just like a thread in a woven sweater. I feel insignificant but my hope is that I am part of something bigger and God needs me to comprehend that fact and adjust myself to receive 100% so as to give. I’m blest.
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