“Things That Come from the Heart, Enter the Heart”

Shamati #25: Regarding things that come from the heart, enter the heart. ...The thing is that when one hears the words of his teacher, he immediately agrees with his teacher, and resolves to observe the words of his teacher with his heart and soul. But afterwards, when he comes out to the world [to a different environment], he sees, covets, and is infected by the multitude of desires roaming the world, and he and his mind, his heart, and his will are annulled before the majority.

...He mingles with their desires and he is led like sheep to the slaughter. He has no choice; he is compelled to think, want, crave, and demand everything that the majority demands. In that case there is only one counsel then, to cling to his teacher and to the books [on the internal level]. This is called "[Being nourished] from the mouth of books and from the mouth of authors."

A person who is born and lives in this material world develops in an environment that's far away from spirituality, and obviously he cannot understand anything on the spiritual path. Even if he has an aspiration to spirituality, this point is immersed in the egoistic desire, which is surrounded by the egoistic society. Therefore, it does not have any chance of developing correctly.

Only a person who makes his way into the right environment merits spiritual development. This is an environment which has a teacher and a group that carries out the teacher's advice. Besides, this group must study the authentic Kabbalistic sources, but this is already a result of how they accept the guidance of their teacher.

Therefore, the bottom line is that the group's development depends on the teacher, the Rav (which means "big"). To the degree the students are able to cancel their opinion to his opinion, that is how they will develop. That's because the spiritual environment is based on the teacher's opinion, thought, and method, as well as the recognition of the teacher's authority.

A necessary condition for the student is to constantly check who and what determines his opinion. After all, he is under the influence of two forces and must always decide that the teacher's opinion has greater force than his own opinion. And if he does not feel any struggle and resistance, it means he does not perform this verification at all and instead thinks that everything is fine just the way it is.

Sometimes a student goes against his teacher's opinion and thinks that he has a better understanding of how he should act from the point of view of his logic and reason. That is, he does not annul himself. But nullifying oneself means that he goes against his desire, against his logic.

If he endures in this resistance, it means he chooses the spiritual path and progresses on it. But if there is no opposition and inner struggle, then a question arises: Maybe he does not even understand that he is always following his own opinion, all the while thinking that he is advancing correctly?

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/25/11, Shamati

Seeing the World through Glasses of Desires

The Zohar, Chapter "Truma (Donation)," Item 4: ... Jacob, who was whole, brought love in both worlds, meaning he married the two sisters, Leah and Rachel, the two worlds, Bina and Malchut.

Question: Which of my inner desires are called sisters?

Dr. Laitman's Answer: A person contains the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of desire. The entire world that I see is my desire, divided into many particular desires, each of which forms a certain earthly image in my perception.

We "see" our desires. We look inside ourselves, into our desire that is divided into parts, the objects of the world. We see the world in three dimensions, as if we are looking through 3-D glasses. And we don't even feel that we are in this virtual reality because we don't have anything to compare our sensation to. That is why it seems to us that we exist in the authentic world.

That is, we perceive something inside our desire, but it seems like we see it outside, in front of us. However, if besides this world, we would see a different reality, then we would discover that the reality of this world is relative. Parts of my desire depict images of inanimate objects, plants, animals, and people. However, these are not people who appear before me in this world, but my desire on the human level, which divides into many parts and I see each part of my desire in the form of an image of some person.

I also have desires on the animate level and therefore I see different animals in this world. Moreover, there are desires that are present in me now, as well as ones that were present in the past or that will surface in the future. This is why I see a developing world, extinct kinds of animals, or new species that suddenly appear in front of me. This means they surface in my consciousness and disappear. And the same thing happens on the still and vegetative levels.

There is no world. These are just my sensations inside of my desires when certain Reshimot (informational genes) come to the surface, replacing others, and by perceiving the realization of my Reshimot in this way, I feel that I live in them-in essence, that I live in the world. This is an internal movie that is projected to me by the constant Light, which awakens Reshimot that replace one another.

In the process of the Reshimot's development (where a Reshimo [singular form of Reshimot] is an informational record in my memory), a part of them depends on my willingness to process new Reshimot, while part of the Reshimot awaken on their own. This entire process of development, which happens by itself, is called "Beito" (in due time). But if I want to accelerate it and am able to, this path of development is called Ahishena (accelerating time).

However, in any case we are only talking about Reshimot that awaken in me, which I perceive as the world, myself, and the entire process of development.

From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/25/11, The Zohar