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When Tony was describing climbing back up the ladder through the worlds by increasing the ratio within us to encompass more and more the will to bestow, it made me think of Jacob’s Ladder. Are these related?
Albertina,
Yes, we will learn more about this in detail later.
Here is a wonderful blog post from our teacher, the kabbalist, Rav Laitman.
Seth@KabU
The perception of spiritual reality is carried out with the development of a 6th sense if I understand correctly. How does this new sense take into account the world below in our inner evolution by taking up the idea of the tree and its branches?
What links are there between this 6th sense which must allow us to develop our connection with the creator and our five senses which make us live in the desire to receive and allow us to exist in the corporeal world.
Guy,
We exist in a wondrous reality.
Even a small bunny has 100s of intricate systems of blood and nerves and respiratory.
We do not have to manage growing our fingernails and digesting our food, each lower degree is managed by an upper intelligence.
Our main focus is on the degree above us, the speaking degree.
The five senses are the foundation upon which we can measure, like a fulcrum, to leverage ourselves to the next degree.
Seth@KabU
Inner change creates exterior change – as within so without. I can understand that to change our inner state from a ‘Will to Receive’ into a ‘Will to Bestow’ is a practical step to perceive our exterior reality from a different “lens” with the chance at grasping the “bigger picture”.
But how does this perception coincide with a perception of the higher realms which are beyond the 5 senses & perhaps even incomprehensible to the intellect? Even yet, what are higher realms?
And are they dimensions we can experience / visit through the practical wisdom of Kabbalah?Dominique,
The reality that we depict is a result of our 5 senses which limit the infinite light and allow some data to enter and then our mind makes an apporximation of some reality. You can google opitcal illusions and see how the mind does a lot of work constructing our reality and that our mind does not just show us “exactly” what is outside of us but fills in a lot of the blanks.If you take a cat to a concert with you, you can be very emotional listening to the music but the cat sitting in the same seat as you will not experience the emotions you experience. It is not because the outer reality is different, but the inner reality of you and the cat are different.
Each creature depicts the world around it according to its signature will to receive profile. A crocodile has a unique will to receive and due to that he goes about living his best crocodile life, he’s not worried about his retirement account or his next vacation or what the neighbors said about him, etc.
For the kabbalist on the speaking degree, the law of love your friend as yourself is not some moral adage. Within the group of kabbalists the friends work to exit their egoistic framework and enter into the desires of the other, this is a means to the end of experiencing reality outside of the ego.
We will learn about this in depth later in the course.
Seth@KabU
I have this interpretation in my mind: I am stuck in a black box with five holes. I need to center myself in a white circle within the black box and open my soul to receive all the bits and pieces from the universe that will siphon into the tiny holes. I can then reassemble all of this information and allow it to expand to the confines of my black box. Is this correct?
Laura,
It’s a very interesting and fascinating situation that we are in.
First of all, we learn that the Light is endless, that it fills reality in all directions evenly and eternally.
But our experience is opposite from that. Even the greatest pleasure we feel starts and ends. Even if our stomach was endlessly craving food, our body would get tired and we would stop enjoying.
So how can we feel something eternal when all we feel is so limited?
So the Creator specifically gave us the will to receive.
Specifically from this oppositeness we can as if measure and feel the Light. In that empty vessel is the place where the Upper Light can dwell.
In the material reality, we have devotion, but that devotion is in order to reach some goal.
In spirituality it is not like that, in spirituality, the devotion is the goal, the yearning, the vessel that longs for the Light is the goal, for in that yearning vessel the Light can fill and the vessel will not be extinguished, unlike a corporeal desire that is extinguished when the filling enters.
Seth@KabU
Marie,
You can take a seed from an apple tree and travel all around the galaxy with it. You can come back to Earth and take it on vacation and bring it to work, but until it is planted in the fertile soil, with the right conditions it will not develop into an apple tree.
Similarly our egoistical nature needs to go through a transformational process similar to being planted in a good environment with the right conditions.
We will learn about this in upcoming classes.
Seth@KabU
I think I gather that when we are occupied with the will to receive we are more likely to that which satisfies a desire to continue to receive. How does one turn their attention to that which cannot be sensed? Do we become more discerning about what we receive as a way to express our desire to become more like the creator? Or maybe develop and become more aware of the desire already expressing itself? How does one begin correctly and on target?
Jimmy,
Excellent.
The answer to your question is as King Solomon wrote, “as light excelleth from darkness”.
How are we to see something that has no form. How can we touch something that is not made of matter?
But what do we have? What did the Creator create? He created the will to receive.
As much as we can reveal it operating us, to this same degree we can be in touch with Him and ask Him to add his besotwal agains what we revealed.
In all of the lower degrees in nature, this happens naturally. Water absorbs as much salt or sugar or dirt as it can and then the liquid becomes saturated and cannot absorb any more.
Or an animal in the wild gets hungry and eats until it is satiated.
But with humans, we absorb desires from each other, this is by design so that our vessel will expand, but until that vessel is corrected, that vessel wants to receive for itself and we want to devour ever thing and everyone for our own benefit.
Even the 10% ‘altruists’ among us who prefer to do good deeds over bad deeds, they do it because it would pain them not to, they do it because that is what their ego dictates, to protect them from shame or to give them a feeling of meaning, but 100% of everyone is operated by their will to receive.
So all of the lower degrees in nature balance the deficiency and the filling.
However on our degree of nature, the deficiency constantly expands. There are eastern methods and religions that teach a person to limit his desire and by that avoid suffering, but the wisdom of kabbalah aims to bring us to adhesion with the Creator, with His abundance and for that our vessel must grow, our will to receive must grow.
And it is upon us to enter a group that will all the time advertise to us the connection with the Creator so that we can draw upon us that Upper Light that will balance the negative force that reveals and grows in us.
Seth@KabU
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