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Hi Gianni,
I have few unrelated questions, and I hope you don’t mind me putting them all in one 🙂
1. We are suppose to go through states quickly, in and out, just acknowledging the state and move on. But where is the scrutiny there? I need to dwell in a state for a while to be able to understand and scrutinize. And how do I know what is the next state that I am supposed to move on to, when I can barely understand the state I am in?
2. I’ve read that reaching the Gate of Tears is a one-time event. What does that mean exactly? Where does that Gate lead?
3. In one of your videos, you mention 4 forces that rule the World. Could you please point out somewhere I can read more about that? I was very much drawn to that 🙂
4. I cannot fully grasp the idea of someone who is not a particularly likable person being a bestower. And to be honest, I don’t really like to mingle and talk to people, although I do it since we need to show the love, but I can’t do that for a long time, so I think that could be a solution for me, because I do want to become a bestowed, but at the same time I do want to avoid “human contact” let’s say. And I don’t know what I am asking exactly, so can you please guide me a bit here?
Thank you very much in advance!
1. The state is always a new form of disconnection, isolation, independence – in short, a shattering; and the next state is always a nullification of everything that belongs to the Shattering, in short, to come to There Is None Else Besides Him, all is from one, good Source, and so I too need to become one, and good – so connected and bestowing. I can do that by connected into one with my friends, and then One receives One. That is, we feel Him through being like Him. You’re right that each time it takes time to convince myself that I have nothing besides this to do – almost like trying to convince completely different people of it.
2. There’s nothing to do – I’m still convinced that at least a little good exists in me. There’s no way to talk me out of this. It has to be proved to me, on the flesh, by me trying to really love and care for my friends and open their hearts. I peel back one layer after another until I reach the bottom, that at no depth is there a shred of good in me. This stands before every person, and the difference between people is only in the depth of their understanding that there is no good in them. Because our nature is the complete opposite of good, bestowal – so that it could be inverted to bestowal, and not that it’s bestowing to begin with. I would like for things to be different, that everyone, including the Creator, would love me for what I already am, so that I wouldn’t need to change. Instead, there’s nothing about me that is worth loving, as-is. I require a complete inversion to the opposite of what I am. When I reach that realization, I’m at the gate of tears, where I really ask for this inversion. You see, prior to this, I can’t really ask because I believe that deep down there is already goodness and so I don’t really need to ask.
3. That’s all from Baal HaSulam’s Peace in the World.
4. How lucky you are that you have no interest and even a repulsion when it comes to connecting to others. It means you can only do so because you’re told you must do it to reach the Creator. You can turn to the Creator from that strife having to connect to the friends causes you, and ask Him to let you connect His Kli for His sake. If I’m certainly not doing it for me sake, I’m already halfway there. All I need to do now is turn to Him out of this state.
I was listening to one of those 5 minutes clips from Rav Laitman’s classes that came out recently. I think it was July 17th or thereabouts. In it his students were asking why no one has reached attainment in the organization even though some people have been doing the method for 30 years. I’m asking this because I can’t help but wonder if the system is so scientific and reliable then how come it’s not producing the predicted results. In the lesson the students ask him why he was able to reach attainment in 12 years but no one else has been able to do it. I’ve been mulling this over for a while now. Rav himself said he does not know and it’s in the hands of a higher power. It bothers me. I’m just being brutally honest. The claim is that these books have mysterious influences on us which transform us over time whether we understand them or not. Seems to me like at least some of the people who have had plenty of time to be influenced should now have reached some kind of adhesion with the creator. Is it possible to be gradually attaining? Or does one have to wait until Rav declares you are? These are my very personal concerns. I’m embarrassed to bring them up. Please don’t hate me.
Hi Harry,
These are good questions. That’s because it can take 30 or even 40 years to attain true spirituality. We just don’t understand how sublime this thing is. We’re imagining something small, with our minds and hearts that are not built to be able to imagine it. There’s simply no form like it that can enter our senses or thoughts. 40 years isn’t so long after all, considering that for lifetimes and lifetimes we die like animals without attainment of the only reason we’re in this world to begin with.
Having said that, I don’t think you’re conclusions are so accurate or that it has to take nearly that long. Moreover, it depends which level of attainment we’re talking about. What students ask, and what Rav answers, are a scrutiny. Typically, the questions are for the benefit of the masses of students studying and not necessarily personal questions. That’s if it’s a mature student asking. Beginners ask what they want to know, and that’s fine. But mature students ask Rav questions that they feel the mainstream of our society might need – because they are interested in bestowal upon the society and the advancement of every friend. In themselves though, there are students that are far below the Machsom (barrier), close to it, right on it, and after it. There’s nothing about them that would indicate it and one would be very powerfully inclined to conceal it in every way, so I think speculation is futile.
A person, in the end, without proof except for his Point in the Heart, which tells him “here is the truth, and nowhere else,” he needs to go toward the goal and hold on with his teeth for as long as it takes. After all, if he’s decided that this is the place, then he has no choice but to follow the Kabbalists all the way to the Upper World. Like Rabash told Rav Laitman when he asked, you will not get any further insurance than this. You can search in other places, but in the end, you have to decide on one place, and stick with it till the end.
Hello Gianni,
Recently I feel like I have entered a state of everything I felt i believed about God/Creator is completely dismantling. When I came to Kabbalah I already understood that everything I was taught was fairytale stories (Baptist) but the idea of God has still remained. Now all of a sudden I’m like, who, what is God? Who, what am I praying to? Why am I praying? What is the point of praying? Who is hearing the prayer? I feel like the friends in my group are way too good for me, why am I even with these people? I don’t even know how to connect. And that trying to even connect just causes more hurt so what’s the point. I feel like if I bring all this to my Ten then it will just bring heaviness. So I am stuck with all this and have no clue what to do with it.
Hi Naomi. Well, these are standard arguments of the Will to Receive, to throw us away from spirituality. Each one, we can find in the writings of Rabash. They’re all normal and on the way to the goal. Each is like a boss in a video game and has its approach, and we have to go Above Reason, to connection, regardless of their approach. If I think these are MY thoughts, that’s a problem. They’re forces appearing in me.
Hi Gianni, I am currently reading the book the Psychology of the integral Society. Two questions on that:
1) Which was the intention of this book? Some of it reads like a practical guideline, some a bit like a utopia. So, how to study it correctly?
2) In this book, but also from other ressources it’s mentioned that women would lack the opportunity to unite ;(Topic Boys and Girls, pg 222 and fillows in the softcover book). Which is why this approach in the book is considered to be primarily for boys and men… and there is only a little notion that for girls it might need a different programme. What is the source leading to this assumption and how should I relate to it as a woman? In this book it’s clearly not about the feminine or male sides of each human. Now, does this mean that BB states women due to their genetic code are unable to unite anyways? How shall I justify my work then… being a woman? Do women have a different way to reach bestowal, if they are already considered unable to unite, or is it time to pack up then?
No, rather I have a genetic code by which I’m a woman because of something deeper, the genetic code is just a middleman.
If we’re talking about a person in their basic human nature, then women, based on their completely different inner world than men have, cannot unite, because a woman is like a whole world by herself. She doesn’t truly need any other women. We can come up with a million exceptions to the rule, but in the end, they just clothe upon this rule and it remains eternally. Because a woman relates to the actual matter of Creation, the only thing there is in the Creation: Malchut. Man is something later in Creation, according to his root. And he is more inclined to connection, by nature. That’s why if you have some regular kids in our world, the way you work with them, to bring them to cooperation, if you understand human nature, will be different for boys and girls. There’s no way to give a good explanation of this here. It’s just endless.
Now, back to the spiritual explanation. Everyone starts as a “woman” – the basic matter of Creation without any adornments – I need to become a “man,” Adam, from the word domay (similar) to the Creator. And thus we all have to connect. Man and woman contain both parts (if they have a point in the heart), and need to make dominant the Point in the Heart, to הִתְגַּבֵּר” (hitgaber), overcome my desire of Malchut is to be a man, gevur, from the same Hebrew root ג־ב־ר (G–B–R).
Our bodies are just symbols, copies into matter from a higher level.
I don’t know what the intention of the book was, but it was something the Kabbalist wanted to put into the world, for a future time. For example, tomorrow I’ll be on The Great Transition podcast and we’ll hear some things Rav Laitman said years ago that was vexing at the time, that now we see match very well the reality of AI today. I think this book, though, teaches important things about the natures that exist in all of us, and also about the correction, which will be soon, because we’ll see that there’s no other choice.
Thank you Gianni, this is helpful. I feel I am getting an inner image of what this difference between male and female root. I wish to understand it deeper, to aim the more prescisely, and see where I might be flawed in my perception. Are there any further ressources on that? (I have a book on women in Kabbalah, and read the blog, and listened to New life sessions… but is there anything else). What is striking me is that women actually adapt to the men´s work, supporting them, but they don´t relate to their root specifically. Like in that example of raising girls and boys… if done in an integral way, they owuld need different surroundings. Then how can the women´s work be copied from the men´s work , if nature has designed us in a way that male and female are complementing and not the same.
We can also ask, “How can the created being, which is the property of Malchut, take on the form of the Creator, say, the property of Zeir Anpin?” We don’t go into the individual matter, but into the physics of each one rising above their matter. One who can do it – with the help of the Rav, group, books – is called male. Before that, he’s called female. Of course, each has problems on the way to this, according to one’s spiritual root.
Hi Gianni, I am grateful for this dialogue , … now, I understand that there are similarities and differences in the work of men and women, and there is the male and female part in each of us. Now, how are women supposed to work, what in this wisdom is supposedly their part to fulfill? I am ok to dedicate my life to this… but I am wondering what’s the point of trying to work like the men, if at the same time this is considered to not even work at all? I don’t have a gender issue. And I don’t like if it pops up in the work as such…and sometimes it does… but I don’t have an issue overcoming that. I just wish to give credit to the complementary structures of work of men and women. In order for women to not act like a second rate copy of men, how can they shape their work in accordance with nature to fulfill the complementary aspect of this work? And where is guidance in this to be found?
There’s no guidance specifically on this topic. You found the book, which was from a few comments Rav Laitman made here and there about it.
The Creator made you how you are, and wants your work. He prepared a reward for that work. Now you have to do it.
From my base, which is either a man or a woman, I need to try to connect with my friends, with as much of an intention as possible. At first, I have to do it with less of an intention. Then I am spiritually more in the female state, which means my work is more in nullification, support, heavy dissemination, actions for the sake of a spiritual reward, perhaps I even picture some corporeal reward but at least I’m working in the right general direction; I’m also orbiting the accurate laser-focused target, say, on those outer scoring rings of the bull’s eye: I’m getting closer to the center all the time, but, you know, I’m in somewhat more external orbits and that’s enough for me for now. I don’t yet demand a really internal approach. Internally, I’m trying to pray, but it’s still a false prayer, which is still something, but it’s not from the bottom of the heart, meaning a true prayer that comes out of the recognition of evil, from my true state, something I can truly turn to the Creator with. Also, I’m willing for it all to take a longer time: let it happen tomorrow, next week, but I’m committed to this path for life, so I don’t need to pull into this moment now all the work and prayer I plan to one day do. So, this is more like the work when I’m a spiritual female, but this is just for starters, and there’s no end to the explanation, nor will it ever be a satisfying one.
Both men and women need to perform their general role like electrons in their place and protons in theirs, while trying to connect in their tens, which will be in their own style, but for how they are built on the inside it will be relative Equivalence of Form with the quality of bestowal, the Creator. And relative here is enough for Equivalence of Form, which is the goal.
We can either call Atzilut the World of Correction, it’s usual moniker; or we can say that the world of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya are also worlds of correction. These 3, BYA, are corrections on the way, in Ohr Hassidim without the fulfillment of Hochma. But even this is a sublime beautiful state above anything in this world. It’s not exile, but it’s not the achievement of Purpose of Creation either – because that means to be filled with the Light of the Purpose of Creation, Hochma, and not only with the Light of the correction of Creation, Hassidim.
I’m trying to understand what makes a True Prayer in the work.
Baal HaSulam writes:
“There are three conditions in prayer… [One of them is that] he must believe that he is in the worst condition of all his contemporaries… and if the Creator doesn’t help him, he would rather die than live.” (Shamati 209)But if I feel that low and pray for the Creator to give me vessels of bestowal, isn’t that still egoistic, because I’m suffering and want to feel something better?
How is that not a prayer for pleasure, just hidden in a more spiritual form?
Hi Dave,
There are many prayers leading up to the correct prayer from the bottom of the heart. We need to try to make it as correct as possible. But the main thing is to be always turning to the Creator. We always get an answer: another state, a refined prayer we need to raise to the Creator. If I see that my prayer is not correct, so ask for a more correct prayer, a more correct intention, desire, and so on. All along the way, for each state, we have to ask.
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