Stepping Out Of The Movie

Question by a Student: You said that world (Olam) means concealment (Haalama). If so, what happens in Gmar Tikkun (Final Correction) when this world "disappears"?

Answer by Dr. Michael Laitman: When I say "disappears" I refer to the disappearance of this concealment, of the feeling that I am in some kind of corporeal world in which exist various objects, galaxies, the Earth, and everything that occurs on its surface, including me and the others. What does "concealed" mean? They are not concealed, but rather you see them the wrong way. When a child watches a movie on the television screen or in the movie theater, he is living it ─"Oh no! This lion will jump at me now and eat me!" And although you know it is a movie, you can also be excited by it like him. This is called an "imaginary world."

In other words, alongside watching the film you can be found in a situation where you know it is a movie and that it only seems to us that we are in a jungle and that a lion suddenly jumps at us and so on. Similarly, today we all live inside a three dimensional movie which is projected around us, inside such wonderland, except we are not aware that this movie is projected to us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us a viewing point outside of this movie. And then you can look at yourself from two sides: from one side, like a child inside the movie, and from another side to look at all of this from outside and see this whole reality as a "force without a body"─ that there are forces that paint such a figure on your screen. The problem is that there is some kind of concealment here which you are not aware of, and therefore you treat this imaginary thing as real. But soon it will pass.

This world will not pass, but rather you will be able to look at it from those two points ─ from the child's point of view and from your point of view. And then you will be told, meaning you will see it in books, "continue to approach our world like a child," and along with that you will begin to develop the new view point.    

Developing In The Love Of Others

A person who is included in a group, who hears, who reads, begins to gradually understand that he must develop in the love of others and not in self-love, and then he begins to discover that he does not want it. Meaning, he already understands that "spirituality" means bestowal, connection with the others, and that precisely there ─ in that vessel in which we used to be connected and felt the quality of bestowal ─ was the breakage. He understands that the quality of bestowal, also called "God" or "the quality of Bina" (intelligence), is the only quality that controls all of nature, and that he must acquire it in order to reveal the Creator inside of him. But when he is told that he must reach "Love your neighbor as yourself" he does not agree to it, meaning he realizes that his nature opposes it.

Nonetheless, the essence of the understanding that he is reversed to this quality is already a discovery. Meaning, one discovers that this God who is entirely a bestower, is the one who created him opposite of Him, as a receiver, in opposition to Him. But along with that, he discovers that he has been given a means by which he can transform himself, correct himself, and this means is called "Torah as correction, that the Light in it reforms him."

And if one correctly utilizes all the means that in general are called "Torah"─ group, teacher, books, study, and dissemination ─ he invites upon himself a unique force called "the Light that Reforms." And that Light already brings him the deficit for bestowal, the desire to truly be like God, like Bina. And then he no longer gets confused thinking that God is a hidden figure which is found in some place, but understands that it is nature's general force, that it is the upper nature, and that attaining Him means to "acquire" that same nature, to attain the state where the "quality of bestowal" controls you.

The Light that influences a person causes the small desire which brought him to ask "What are we living for?" to reach a more accurate, more correct, and deeper diagnosis, until he understands that he must attain the quality of bestowal. At first he feels that there is some charm in it, but he does not want it, and afterwards he already wants it but realizes that he cannot attain it.

And only later on it is "unlocked" for him ─ the quality of bestowal is revealed in him, he "discovers God," and then he can truly bestow to the others, to reach love of others. And in this connection with the others, with all the souls, with all those desires, with the points in his friends' hearts, he discovers his spiritual world, the Upper World ─ a reality that is entirely love, bestowal, above the limits of one's ego which we feel as limits of time, motion, and space; above this life, above those disadvantages and so on.

Treating The Others Correctly

"Bestowing to others" means to be impressed by what they want, like a mother is impressed by her baby's desire and bestows to him what is for his own good. Therefore, prior to everything I must be integrated in their deficit. Meaning, first of all I increase my will to receive ─ I feel what you want and this became my deficit, and I feel his and his and his desire and all of that becomes my deficit etc..

Look at the example that Baal HaSulam gives us to the law "Love your neighbor as yourself"─ if your friend wants a chair, give him a chair. If he wants a pillow, give him a pillow. Meaning, make his desire higher, greater, more important than your own. Therefore, by implementing the law "Love your neighbor as yourself," I buy additional desires, I expand myself, I enlarge my vessel.

We think that we need to bestow. What bestow? I must expand my vessels of reception. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks in a very realistic manner ─ I increase my capacity. While at the same time, I begin to fill these vessels. But when I fill these vessels, do I still feel them as another person's vessels or perhaps as vessels that are already mine? If I connected to them in love, then they are my vessels. Does a mother think that she is fulfilling a stranger? Her baby becomes her vessel, her main internality.

It turns out that I purposely have such an odd approach to the world: that they are all strangers to me, but in fact all the millions  around me are my corrected vessels. If so, what is not corrected? My attitude toward them only is not corrected. If I overcome this attitude and think about them as my own, we are done, I have received a spiritual vessel.