From the perspective of right consciousness our feelings of connection are genuine. From the perspective of left consciousness we are fooling ourselves. The middle way is to work mostly with right consciousness but also in measured directed times with left consciousness
This reminds me of Rebbe Akiva who was flayed alive, yet was happy that he was finally able to recite Shema truthfully. He was in the worst sort of physical suffering, yet saw it as good. This makes no sense to me, but maybe I’ll get there someday.
Is it possible that divine providence offers me the option a and b (not c or any other) in the present moment for teaching me whatever i need to learn? So I would better not "waste" time in regreting there is no option c...because the limitations are for a good reason? I learnt to not wrestle with possibilities (i have quite of a magic mind, i believe everything is possible at all times..) yet if i need to act or decide something right now, i feel "constrained" by the higher teacher to do so in the limits, not in the possibilities. This is still challenging and quite painful for my ego, yet, listening to you, i realize I can trust today much more than yesterday in divine providence even if i have 0 clue why this and not the other possibilities that look way better in my..mind..
As i understand freedom..we have free will, but we do not have 100% freedom of choice. Right now, i have available and i can act on option a or b, yet c is not available for me in this moment or i cannot act on it. In this context, i am free to choose between two options (the minimum needed to be free..) yet, i am not completly free as i do not have access to ALL options or/and i cannot choose/act on those. I am free and not free at the same time 😅 and i am responsable at all times, yet not 100% (i do not believe any individual is 100% responsable on anything..because again, we are not free 100%) I live a more responsable life since I took on this perspective and less heavy of unnecessary guilt. And, am able to give far more grace to people..
Why love in our consciousness has always to do with sacrificing something? Why is that the only pure love? In my mind there is a possibility of sharing my abundance (not only material...) with other and that decision and act of sharing without an agenda is pure love. In my perception, love does not need to mean I sacrifice something valuable, that much I love you. It can mean I have plenty of .... to give and I choose to give and we are both carefree and happy (no pain involved...) We love the stories of selfless love, but aren't our minds rooted in poverty (not only..material) when we feel we sacrifice something..and doesn't the act of sacrificing something betrays our poor mindset? Only those who believe they are poor and miserable act selfish and inflict pain in others (who then will perceive themselves as victims and so on) If the One is the one who we try to emulate..is He sacrificing ANYTHING? In my oppinion, no. It is even ridiculous..yet, He might choose to "sacrifice" something just so that we, the lower beings, can grasp love and selflessness...I agree it is a practice that can elevate a soul, I disagree to be a reality of pure love and the reality of the Infinite one. He gives because he has infinite of..I might feel more appealed to emulate that perception of infinity of ... to share with others rather than keep myself in the mentality of sacrificing or else is not a true service..I am not sure I can express my thoughts properly For finishing my red string, if I share from my infinite bag of good things..is not I who gives (so the ego can boost) I actually just make the statement I am abudant and you are also abundant because the One is abudant and from Him we got both this. Sharing my abudance is not giving..because it was not mine in the first place. It was His...and, trough faith, I make the bold statement (trough sharing the abundance) that I and you are abudant, not only me, not only you..but He/She/They, the One from which all things come
Yes. I hear what you are saying. Some thoughts: When we love we don’t feel our giving is a sacrifice - it is our pleasure to give. We are happy from the happiness of who we love. In harmony with what you express it says in the Zohar that if we feel our giving is a burden then our love has more to develop. With regard to “sacrifice” love means we are happy to give things that we would not be happy to give if we did not have the love. Although we give joyfully to who we love, making effort to give when it is hard for us is part of our spiritual work to develop our love
The idea of "knowing as receiving" is instinctually counter intuitive. I know that when I follow the logic of the book it makes sense - instinctively it's a hard pill to swallow.
Yes. We learn that one aspect of our desire to receive is wanting to understand everything. When we love and are giving we believe and don’t need to understanding everything
It is in human condition to look outside for a..mashiah. Yet, if we did not reach mashiah inside, we will never have a mashiah outside to accomplish world peace and so on..maybe i am wrong. I will be shown if i am wrong, surely
No matter how different two people seem to be..they will always find bridges between them. Always. If they want, of course. If not, they remain indeed two separated worlds, walking their own different ways. Couldn't be the same with God? The separation is only apparent, superficial and only in the human mind...in reality..there is only oneness, essence. My thoughts on this
I would believe that the food is more pleasent because the most important human is in the room. And the most important human is the one i love the most..I would believe sharing the pleasures of this world (food) with the one i love brings the fulness of life to the table..
Shalom! I've heard about Kabbalah since I was a teenager, yet, every time I tried to "touch" it, it seemed unrooted in anything I was familiar with. I keep feeling a "call" in every life season and I feel kabbalah follows me around 😅 so here I am. Very grateful to find these videos. I have a sensitivity to wordings, voice tone and face characteristics of the people who present something spiritual and i can read through you kindness. Thank you and Be much blessed in giving and receiving
There are different levels of suffering. There are sufferings of our desire to receive and there are spiritual sufferings of feeling unable to truly give and love and feeling disconnected from God
I see that a later lesson probably covers this, but since Baal HaSulam's Matan Torah quoted here mentions them, what exactly does Baal HaSulam mean when he talks about "Torah and Mitzvot"? Is there a simple answer?
4:20 "When a person or society is not mature enough to be interested in holy books and spiritual teachers, suffering comes to show the worthlessness of materiality and the preciousness of spirituality." It would appear that this is also evident on a national level, if one takes even a cursory look at current events.
Finding people who are working on themselves in inner work, even within family and friends, is very difficult. Until we find or form such a group, how can we "practice" alone?
A lot of Torah and mitzvot, spiritual learning and spiritual practice, can be done alone. Also working together with spiritual companions is a very important aspect of spiritual work and something to strive for
Reb Noson of Breslev said that one should pray and cry out to Hashem to find the tzadik of the generation. When we find him, pray and cry even harder to find him.
"Ideally, a spiritual teacher is someone who has already attained the state of true giving and attachment to God." We don't want to be in the position of judging anyone's attainments. Even if we would, how could we tell who is attached to God and therefore a worthy teacher?
Good question. This is something we need to pray for. A guideline is what is written at the end of this principle: "While it is ideal to seek out a spiritual teacher who has already attained devekut, we need to be happy with what we have. We want to learn Torah from someone who can guide us in our inner transformation towards unconditional love and pure giving. We want to learn from someone striving to overcome the ego who does not want to receive honor or anything else from others, but rather wants to give to others. A spiritual teacher teaches about giving and emuna, and is also a living example of humility, loving-kindness and doing for others. Someone who is on the path of Torah and mitzvot, who aspires to attach to God, who knows how to properly teach the inner spiritual wisdom of Torah, who is working towards inner transformation, and who is constantly striving to nullify the ego to attain love for others and the desire to give - is someone we can learn from."
But my desire to overcome it is nowhere near strong enough to do so. I'm still not clear on how to build the desire, but I suppose the answer is in the coming videos.
We develop our emuna and desire to give though spiritual learning, spiritual practice, spiritual teacher and spiritual companions. This is the work of our lives
Yes. Our spiritual work is the process of developing awareness of our self centeredness and cultivating a yearning to transcend it. When we are blessed to attain this we will not lose ourselves but rather find our higher selves
Emuna is something we can work on cultivating and developing. We need to make a lot of effort to think that everything is for the good, and act accordingly. In the end, however, only God can give us the ability to believe in God. Emuna is given to a person who asks for it, and needs it, and wants to serve from love. Wanting emuna precedes receiving the emuna from God
I am reminded of when it was decreed in Shamayim that the Baal Shem Tov would lose any eternal reward. He become ecstatically happy and said "now I can truly serve Hashem without any thought of reward!"
7:20 So, this whole big effort is to even reach the first level? That is disheartening, because it really seems impossible to ever reach even that starting point. But if our successes are always thrown to the ground, and only later revealed to us, is it ever actually possible to have an understanding of where we are holding?
There are countless levels and we are all in the process of attaining them. Although until we reach an extremely high level we don’t know where we are holding in the big picture, our work is to increase our awareness of where we are holding now
So how do we make God the most important, when in reality the ego is fighting back and undermining it all? In other words, what can we do to "awaken ourselves to the presence of the exaltedness..." ?
spiritual learning, spiritual practice, spiritual teacher, spiritual companions and actively trying to contemplate the exaltedness of God whose presence we are in
The question “What’s the purpose of this spiritual work of giving?” is the question of the Rasha on Seder night. The question “How do you know there is God?” is the question of Pharaoh (Shemot 5:2)
