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Homework #4
I am choosing this text from the source: Attaining the Worlds Beyond pp 144:
It Reads:
“We need not worry about receiving pleasure, since as soon as this correction is made, we will immediately feel the pleasure. Thus, we should concentrate on the task of correcting our desire to receive pleasure—our vessel.
This can be likened to the process of acquiring an apartment. We should not worry about how to get it. The concern should be how to pay for it, and how to earn the money needed for it. As soon as the financial aspect is arranged, we will own the apartment.
Therefore, all the efforts should be concentrated on the money, not on the apartment. The same can be applied to perceiving the spiritual. All efforts should be directed towards creating the conditions necessary to receive the Light, not on the Light itself. When we focus on cultivating altruistic thoughts and desires in ourselves; then we will feel the spiritual pleasure immediately.
I’m choosing this passage because it is timely. We’re learning about the big 3 things we need to attain any kind of spirituality — the topic of the last couple of lessons. Our adherence to the teaching of the Rav, and the feelings we get from the books combined with the desires and efforts of the group over time will create the conditions we need to create the vessel needed to receive the light and that the light will come naturally. We need not chase after the light itself, but focus in equal measure on the 3 great sources of light.”
If I feel this correctly, it gives me great hope and joy because I am in the best place for me to be to develop spiritually. The creator, by no accident, brought me here to these specific friends that I cannot help but Love as his creatures. To Love the creator I love them because he is behind them.
P.S. I am just a child in this work but like any child I know who cares for me. It has been said that words of wisdom can come from the mouth of children, I pray that the creator will bring this child of his wisdom to share that will elevate the group.
Homework Assignment Lesson 4
Each friend picks an excerpt from our sources, shares it on the Grad Environment Forum, under “Young Group Discussion”, and leaves a written explanation, or a recorded one, for why he chose it and what he felt from the text. Make sure to space out your posts throughout the week.
RABASH, Article No. 6 (1984), “Love of Friends – 2”
If several individuals come together with the force that it is worthwhile to abandon self-love, but without the sufficient power and importance of bestowal to become independent, without outside help, if these individuals annul before one another and all have at least potential love of the Creator, though they cannot keep it in practice, then by each joining the society and annulling oneself before it, they become one body.
For example, if there are ten people in that body, it has ten times more power than a single person does.
However, there is a condition: When they gather, each of them should think that he has now come for the purpose of annulling self-love. It means that he will not consider how to satisfy his will to receive now, but will think as much as possible only of the love of others. This is the only way to acquire the desire and the need to acquire a new quality, called “the will to bestow.” And from love of friends one can reach love of the Creator, meaning wanting to give contentment to the Creator.This is one of the excerpts that we currently read in the morning lessons in preparation for the upcoming congress. We read this one today and it feels to me that it is expressing the core of our work in the group, that I am so grateful to experience together with all of you, dear friends!
Home work assignment #4 .
Baal HaSulam Shamati 7. “A Habit Becomes a Second Nature” in the Work?
I heard in 1943
By accustoming oneself to something, that thing becomes a second nature for that person . Hence, there is nothing that one cannot feel its reality. This means that although one has no sensation of the thing, he still comes to feel it by becoming used to that thing.
We must know that there is a difference between The Creator and the creatures regarding sensations. In the creatures , this is the feeler and the felt, the attaining and the attained. This means that we have a feeler who is connected to some reality .
However, a reality without a feeler is only The Creator Himself. In Him, “there is no thought or perception whatsoever.” This is not so with a person; his whole existence is only through the sensation of reality . Even the validity of reality is evaluated as valid only with regard to the one who senses the reality.
In other words, what the feeler tastes is what he considers truth. If one tastes a bitter taste in reality, meaning he feels bad in the situation he is in, and suffers because of that state, that person is considered wicked in the work, since he condemns The Creator, as He is called “The Good Who Does Good,” for He only bestows goodness to the world. Yet, with respect to that person’s feeling , the person feels that he received opposite from The Creator, meaning the situation he is in is bad.
I chose this excerpt because I relate to it greatly . Slowly I am coming to understand that I cannot see the spiritual root from the branch in all the situations in my life. I have had a wicked outlook on life for as long as I can remember for as long as I have been alive and breathing. My perception of the world around me became my reality and my reality became a void of darkness of distrust , anger , resentment and feeling so utterly alone in the world like it was me and only me against everyone else. There was no room for any truth . This excerpt reminds me that He in fact , is The Good That Does Good” always . Not just on a random time of year or on a certain day. Everything I receive is from His goodness. While I still struggle with the wickedness inside me and perception of reality. I know that through prayer and the help of the Rav, the friends and the books I will slowly evolve and change . My thoughts will change . I will perceive reality through a different lens. The lens of The Creator.
Homework # 4
Study of the 10 Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 1 is the text that best explains to me what we are studying and I’ve been working on summarizing it so that others may more easily understand it. It feels like giving.
“Before the emanated beings were emanated and the created beings were created, an upper, simple light filled the entire reality… [It] had no Rosh (Head, beginning) or Sof (end).” A restriction occurred and a circular, vacant space was created with a single point of light at it’s center. The light in this point then withdrew but an empty space remained. This point/empty space is where it all happens.
Within the empty place a complete partzuf will exist containing the “Light of Hokhma” (a light that provides a complete filling) clothed in (surrounded by) the light of Hasidim (mercy, spirit associated with breath, air and wind). Initially the incomplete vessel contains only its clothing, the light of Hasidim (empty air) waiting for the Light of Hokhma (abundance) to fill it.
A spiritual vessel of reception represents the desire and yearning to receive the abundance/light of Hokhma. The extent of this desire and yearning is the measure of what the emanated being receives.
The light in Ein Sof is defined as; He (Ein Sof) is One and His Name (the Will to Receive) One. It is a simple unity without separation, meaning without disparity of form. In Ein Sof there is no difference between Bestowal and Reception. Our Distance from the Emanator defines how different we are in our will to receive from the perfect state of reception which is only for the benefit of the Emanator. This difference causes the Emanated beings to become separated (not One) and the Emanated Beings acquire their own name while there is no change in Him, Ein Sof, the Emanator. This Disparity of Form (between us and the Emanator) is the Cause and the Reason for the Creation of the Worlds. The empty point contains the Soul of the Emanated being which is able to invert this Disparity of Form between Bestowal and Reception through work in Torah and Mitzvot (good deeds with the correct intention) to bestow contentment upon the Emanator. This process is called adhesion or unification of the Spiritual Vessel of Reception.
Initially the Spiritual Vessel of Reception exists only in potential and contains light of Hasidim (empty air) waiting for the light of Hokhma to fill it. The same process applies to all of the souls that exist and are destined to exist. This vessel goes through 4 Phases to reach completion.
Phase 1: The Light of Hokhma expands from the Emanator to the Vessel containing only the will to receive. This process is initiated by the Emanator.
Phase 2: Restriction occurs where the Malkhut (receptiveness) diminishes her will to receive the light and abundance from the Emanator. A dim light of Hasidim called will to bestow is extended from the vessel due to what is a yearning for adhesion (equivalence, Oneness – not Separation).
Phase 3: This dim light of Hasidim from the soul of the emanated being joins with the great Light of Hasidim from the Emanator and intensively expands.
Phase 4: The light of Hokhma in the vessel reawakens and draws more Light of Hokhma and more Light of Hasidim from the Emanator. This leads to a permanent yearning for both Hasidim and Hokhma. The Partzuf and the Vessel are then in a state of Completion (Sium). In this phase reception is no longer inferior to bestowal.
These 4 phases are called the expansion of the upper light – where the light containing both the will to receive and the will to bestow has departed from the Emanator and acquired it’s own name. The complete expansion of the light is dependent on emanated beings yearning (force/action) to receive the abundance. This yearning can only arise out of a lack/deficiency and the emanated beings own strength so that he awakens toward the will to bestow and extends the light of Hasidim towards the Emanator and within the empty space in Phase 2.
The light of Hokhma is considered the emanated being’s self and vitality whereas Hasidim is a light only for correction and completion of the emanated being. The 4th phase resembles the Emanator restricted himself to the middle point in Ein Sof where there is simple unity, however the light in Ein Sof is immeasurable and boundless whereas with regard to the emanated being there is a vessel which has walls, boundaries and measurement of the light contained within.
Phase 1 is considered to have the least will to receive and is called the most refined. Each progressive Phase paradoxically contains a greater will to receive and is considered to be less refined, meaning more light can enter.
The restriction of the light to the middle point occurred because the Emanator wished to create the worlds, meaning he wished to create a form of reception that was meant only to bestow contentment upon the Emanator. Because this reception is only to bestow contentment to the Emanator it is equal to the upper light from the Emanator and in complete adhesion with him. This form of reception can continuously increase without producing any disparity of form. It is described as a state in our world where a gift provides equal pleasure to both the giver and the receiver.
Homework Assignment Lesson 3
Relationship to one’s spiritual teacher
The role the teacher has in our spiritual path is to aim us to the Creator and by doing that we must annul ourselves before by absorbing the messages he is conveying to us. To accept it with a wide open heart, like a baby.Documentary “Into truth”
My impression is that the importance of the goal is very important to him and he is making sure to fulfil it.
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