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I want to share a song which concludes week 4 of the course for me.
It is an expression of my heart and a prayer towards the Creator. At the same time, I pray that all of humanity may start praying to the Creator like this.
Every Step You Take by Stacey Ryan: https://youtu.be/LHfXM3J_P74
I want to share that many of the concepts I come across in Kabbalah connect with my own experience that I have tried to make sense of all my life and with all the strength I have during the past 2 years.
First, is the statement that preparing for a lesson is at least as important as the lesson itself because “it adjusts the heart’s frequencies to the frequency of the lesson”. This feels exactly like something I called “symbolic decisions” in the past. Since it feels the same, I am pretty sure that it is the same.
Secondly, I have always talked about “the quantity of light emanating from objects, teachings etc.” I tried using this as my compasse through life, but it didn’t work out well because it never made sense to me why one thing glows brighter than another. Kabbalah puts this in the correct context.
Thirdly, I read in week 4’s interactive topic that the light and the vessel came into being together. However, if the Sun shines continuously, why is space dark? Because as physical light needs an object to be reflected by, a desire that is fulfilled with direct light is automatically annulled.
Then, I read that if Direct Light hits a Kli, a kind of proverbial short-circuit is created. This reminds me of something I always called “short-circuit of excitement” that I have come across many times in my life. The last time this happened was when I tried reading The Zohar 2 months ago. I get so excited that I cannot hold this excitement anymore and therefore I am thrusted into a different direction with full-force. Usually, I then run into a direction which, frankly, always yields much fruit. Since I am only feeling this faintly, I am not sure if it is actually the same thing.
Although I am still only in the middle of week 4 and I am currently fighting my body to read the recommended reading material “eradicating egoism”, I want to share a song that has found me recently and perfectly describes what I feel in week 4. It is an expression of gratitude towards the Creator. Why? I think it makes Him happy, when I am grateful.
Magic by Kimyan Law: https://youtu.be/QGzoj2SOCE4
Week 4 is different for me. In Week 3 I felt how big my vessels are and how the “reforming Light” simply filled those vessels. At times, I felt tremendous joy, while my vessels were being filled. The more saturated they got, the less pleasure I felt, until it vanished altogether. In week 4, however, my vessels do not seem to be anywhere close to being able to absorb the “reforming Light”.
In fact, paying attention to the lectures is rather difficult. I have to fight not to fall asleep (not because I am bored, but because my mind rejects the information so hard that it wants me to go to sleep). I opt to practice “force him, until he says I want”.
So, my question is, is it important to stay with a lesson until I feel that I have understood a significant portion of it or is it O.K. to simply keep studying with a proper intention, even though I feel like most concepts have completely went over my head? I would find it very relieving, if I knew that all the concepts will be discussed again and again in later lessons, until, eventually, it finally clicks and I am like “Ohhhhh” (now I have attained it).
Also, currently, while studying, I always hold a mixture of the intentions “in order to merge with the Creator” and “in order to transform my qualities into the altruistic qualities of the Creator”. Is this the correct intention? Is it the same, if I study the texts with the intention “in order to give joy to the Creator?”. Are all three intentions the same or do you recommend a specific intention while studying?
I am a little confused because on one hand I am told that I should hold the intention of “attaining the same level of the teachers” while studying. At the same time, however, I am also told that I should build a screen over each of my desires. An intention that cloths the reception of pleasure with the intention “in order to bestow”, so that the pleasure I receive is simultaneously an act of giving.
Hi Andreas 🙂 Fellow student here.
I have only recently started learning about Kabbalah. Before that, I worked quite a lot with this “inner purification process” that you are talking about. There are many concepts around this in other spiritual paths. They talk about inner blockages etc. and that life will always try to solve those blockages. In the process, old memories and painful emotions come up.
However, what I have found is that the best way to deal with this process is to “simply let it happen”. There is nothing really for us to do to help this process along. In order to be able to “simply let this happen” my mind created all sorts of systems, stages that the inner blockages go through, so I would have some kind of gauge. To know where this purification process is at the moment and where it is headed.
Since Joseph (the instructor) talks about distractions, meditation helped me a lot to deal with distractions and to keep my mind focussed on a single intention. However, at its core, everything you do while meditating is setting a specific intention (for example watching the breath), and as soon as you notice that you have become distracted, you appreciate your mind for telling you about your distraction (positive re-inforcement) and then you set the intention to bring your attention back to the breath “firmly, but gently”. You can apply this principle to every “object of meditation”.
So, if Joseph suggests that you keep your attention on the texts and lectures instead of your nostalgic memories and emotions, then that’s that. I just want you to know that it can be hard to keep our attention stable (on anything). In the end, there is nothing else to do then to just bring your attention back 100 times, a million times to the object of your meditation, and by that you train the mind’s ability to stay focussed.
As far as I have understood, in Kabbalah this will draw the “reforming Light” upon you and therefore actually speed up your progress tremendously. So, previously I thought that there is “nothing to do about the purification process”, but Kabbalah seems to offer a different, faster, much less painful path to us, which does not speak or think about any “purification process” at all.
I, for one, am excited to try out the Kabbalistic approach. I had gotten pretty deep into this “inner process of purification” and it helped me a lot, but it was also tremendously painful. In the end, all it did, was prepare me for the Kabbalistic approach. Perhaps, you don’t have to go through the same painful experiences as me by focussing on the “inner purification process”. Perhaps you do.
Thank you very much for your answer.
I am not so sure about the inside/outside the group thing. I have sometimes stumbled across the phrase “working ten”, so I imagine that we will form a smaller, tight group with which to study in later courses.
I can imagine that this provides possibilities that are impossible outside a “controlled environment” as you put it.
However, for now, I trust my intuition. I do feel that it takes a certain time and preparation to re-adjust the heart’s frequency to Kabbalah again, after having spent time with friends (even when those experiences are one of the most loving experiences I have ever had).
I will take from this reply that envy can be a motivating force, so even if it creates more suffering for others (initially) it still accelerates their process.
I once heard Gil Shir saying “you will feel what’s what and go from there”. Even though this is only starting and difficult sometimes, I want to trust my intuition nevertheless.
Every day I am confronted more and more with envy. I think that this is one of my next big Reshimot. So, I would like to know, if Kabbalah has anything to say about envy specifically.
Right now, I am always leaning back and forth between self-protection and the protection of others. I try to avoid envious people, and if I have to interact with them, I try to avoid any topics that spark envy within them.
From experience I know that if you are envious of someone and you feel that this person has pure intentions (i.e. is still warm and friendly towards you), the envy hurts even more. So, I don’t even want to be friendly to envious people because I do not want them to feel the pain of envy.
As I said, this seems to be a Reshimot for me, and every day it gets a little harder to deal with it. What makes it even more confusing for me is that there are people who I dearly love and that dearly love me, but they are hit with this envy and they do not know what to do. I felt how a specific topic sparks intense envy for a friend of mine, but around this specific topic there is still strong love. So she doesn’t seem to know what to do either.
I would love to get ahead of this Reshimot, so it does not have to manifest as a “physical ordeal”, but rather it is experienced as a “voyage of discovery”, a “spiritual treasure hunt”.
