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Dear Gianni,
What is the difference between a prayer that a thief in hiding prays to not be discovered and how my prayer should be? He is also praying with urgency and from the bottom of his heart, maybe even more than me…
I, too, can want fervently, but I only know how to want egoistic desires, so when I am asking the Creator to save me from this narrow place, how is my prayer different from his?Thank you ❤️
Hi Gianni,
I’ve been thinking that when I am in descent, I can feel and describe all the nuances to the tiniest detail (that I can see at the moment) and how they are connected and flow from one to another, but it’s impossible for me to do the same in an ascent. In an ascent, I am blank, although I feel good and fulfilled, I am blank, no nuances, no discernment, nothing… and after a short while, I feel lost. So, I am starting not to be very fond of ascents, I feel foolish.
Can you please help me figure this out?
Thank you in advance!
It should be clear, and even if it isn’t, it will get clearer. But an ascent isn’t necessarily when I feel good. Ascents and descents are entirely detached from my feeling. An ascent is when I move toward the Creator through the friends. A descent is when I’m moving away. If a good feeling is moving me away from them, then I’m in a descent; if a bad feeling is moving me away from the goal I’m in a descent.
Hi, Gianni, sorry, I accidently posted this in the wrong thread…and the question was too roughly shaped… so I put it here again:
What is a description and truly the meaning of a friend in Kabbalah that allows to open up deeper layers of connection and work on them? I have been thinking about this for a while, and as the topic comes up again now, I thought maybe to ask . I understand it’s important not to repeat the patterns of relationships we find in corporeality, but if I stick to your allegory of the dojo dojo … which usually I do, because in general it helps me a lot to restrain myself more and stay focused in the work… in terms of the definition of friends and connection it confuses me.
me… If I simply maintain the attitude of a working environment or a sports club…whoever is there to train with, it’s fine as long as everyone sticks to the rules… I suppose it’s really good to get the work started, helpful to build a functional circle, to maintain the text work… but then…how do we get to deeper layers of connection if we limit ourselves to this? How do we make sure we develop real love of friends, and not a reading circle? How do we get to bestowal if we keep everything in the virtual realm of a lab, ignoring any corporeally induced pain/state towards each other? Would that not be using the friends… as training partners… rather than really wanting to be for them, care about them, wanting to bestow to them? I used to train Karate and Judo… and it was easy basically to work with any partner… due to the rules. But it equally meant, no connection needed. Now, I feel training „love of friends” in a spiritual dojo is of course truly something different… but if we shut out all the parts that come from corporeality, what remains? And how can we be true in our work if we pretend whatever the friends go through, needs no place there? This might be a too one-sided interpretation of the dojoallegory, but I did that, because this is the point where I don’t get a clear understanding of the work and of implementating love of friends , while sticking to the allegory at the same time.
I answered you there. I understand, it seems all there is to me is my corporeality. “That’s the real me, and that’s how the friends will really get to know me, and then we can have a deep connection. Not just a superficial one over Zoom, based on texts.” And I explained why it’s the opposite, even though I may feel that corporeality is the main thing about me and thus the deepest parts of me I can share.
If it’s my group of ten, and for example, my mother-in-law was in the hospital recently, and I shared that with the ten in relation to how it was going to affect my spiritual work due to how it would revolve my corporeal life. My friends understand the emotions of our world that would accompany that, I didn’t need to go into it. Nor did I share the play-by-play of all the goings on with the medical care, etc. That wouldn’t bring the friends closer but overbalance things toward me, and corporeality.
Hi Gianni,
At the last two Congresses, I started noticing something that really got me thinking. I see many Tens close to each other, but very inconsiderate of the others around them, and that can only be because they got close as people, like a tight social group, not a spiritual one; and probably that trap is there for everyone, so how to avoid it? How to make sure we come closer as a spiritual Ten, not as a regular social group? It’s really nice to become close socially too, but the emphasis here should be on the spiritual, and I for one have issues with that and don’t know how to handle that…
Thank you in advance!
Hi Zorica,
Whatever’s in the group, I have to say is my perception, received upon my invitation to the Upper Force that I came here asking for such inner work. That said, there is also naturally confusion that I think here I’m supposed to be friends with everyone and behave the way I would with corporeal friends: I just need to really befriend them, and so on. When in fact the relationship should be more professional, like in a karate dojo or something like that. Meaning, although “the moves” in our case are between the hearts, in bonding, love, and integration – all of it should be very thoughtful. My ten especially is an echo chamber into which I should only put things that relate directly to the spiritual goal as written by Rabash. It’s not a place where I come to “be myself”, “express myself”, “air my grievances” or receive psychological support. The ten is only an amplifier for the things I need to increase. That obviates expressing doubts, sorrow, despair – in other words, anything corporeal.
Question from us/ the friends : What if before one arrived to the study of Kabbalah they came to truly feel that there is “None Else Besides Him” and sees Him in all things seemingly outside of ourselves, why then do we need the friends/the ten? How can this be that we can only feel His greatness with the ten when we felt it before even coming here? Thank you .
Hi Gianni, …what is a description of a friend in Kabbalah that allows to open up deeper layers of connection and work on them? I have been thinking about this for a while, and as the topic comes up again now, I thought maybe to ask . I understand it’s important not to repeat the patterns of relationships we find in corporeality, but if I stick to your allegory of the dojo … it sounds like pretending to open one‘s heart in a limited surrounding of virtual expressions, related to text work… that‘s it. But why is it called “friend”then? And what’s the moment of deeper connection if we keep everything out and just tell ourselves, we are in a working environment?
We keep everything out except our Point in the Heart, the point of aspiration toward the spiritual goal – that is the ‘friend’. It’s not the person who several things happened to, and all his preferences, and with whom you can have a beastly connection, which we might think is a “deep connection” – but that’s a shallow, beastly connection from which nothing spiritual can come.
It’s not only pretending but acting that awakens the Point in the Heart, rises it above the other desires, and brings us to identify with the Point in the Heart. Thus, it’s a lie that brings us to the truth. The friends are the Points in the Heart, which have nothing but the aim ‘yashar kel’, direct to the Creator.
In the light of the prayer we are working on at time – some (old) questions, trying to find out to whom do we have to pray to and whom do we mean when we say Creator:
1. In the Genesis is said God created first heavens and earth, and it was dark and His spirit hovered over the waters. Afterwards He made the Light. In the Tree of Life ARI speaks about the Light before the emanations were emanated and creatures created. As far I understand the worlds and the creatures are made by the Light as its creation, but is not the same thing like is said in Genesis when is said “heavens aand earth”? Can the order of creation be taken as it is said in Genesis? (unfortunately I couldn’t read our sources, because Bereshit of Torah has no english translation)
2. If yes, the Light is the creation of the Creator, which created at its turn the worlds and the creature trough absence. But the Light is a creation which was created, not the Creator of everything. Is the Light the soul created by Creator and the corporeal body and the matter is a vessel created by the soul/light? A text part in TES, the explanations there, brought me once to this picure.
3. In todays lesson we heard about Atzmuto being the attained and the souls being the attaining. Is Atzmuto equal with the essence of the Creator? Is Atzmuto who made the Light? I heard many times we don’t speak about His essence because we don’t attain and don’t aim it. Actually we are the Light, if we identify with it and have its form (not the beastly one). This would mean, that when we pray, we pray to ourselves. To our root of the soul, which is us. And when we bestow, we bestow upon ourselves. We’re still traped in egoism, but on a higher level, and then we will not have anyone who might “operate” us, because we are allmighty. Then we are the ones who are good and do good. Can’t believe it!
1. Of course, these speak of the same process.
2. At the end of the day, you’re asking about Atzmuto, which we don’t and can’t speak of. It’s not because it’s ‘forbidden’ but because it will turn out that with whatever we imagine, we won’t even be reaching as high as the Creator that Kabbalists speak of. We’ll just be confusing ourselves.
3. No, we still are not the Light, and we never become the Light. We remain the Will to Receive. We only become Equivalent to the Light in the form that the Will to Receive takes. In the end, there is still the Creator and Created Being, and in this, the Plan of Creation is completed.
follow up: if the Essence of the Creator made the Light, and since the Light is consequently the Form of Expression of the Essence of the Creator, so the Light carries the Essence of the Creator in it, and we aim to achieve equivalence of form with the Light, calling it our Creator – so it means we will achieve equivalence of form with the Essence of Creator too, or not? If yes, why do we say we will not have equivalence of form with the essence of Creator we will not achieve it? Thank you
In all of the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no Atzmuto. It’s just that after a Kabbalist attains the 125 degree he feels there is something else, which he cannot attain, so that’s called Atzmuto. All that we attain is that we definitely do not attain that. We don’t know, perhaps when all of humanity attains, each one his personal correction and we become one thing, after that there are additional degrees for us. But that’s just “perhaps.” Gmar Tikkun is the 6000 years. We know, from Baal HaSulam that there are also the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th millennia, which aren’t written about. And that’s still not Atzmuto! If Gmar Tikkun is unimaginable, so the 7th millennium, we’re just making fun of ourselves to try and fantasize about it, let alone beyond that.
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