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Spiritual Geography
Spiritual Geography
However, we should understand that internally all these forces are the
same and only in our sensations are they portrayed as material objects. In
reality, if we had different sense organs, we would not reveal any objects
around us. We would see something else. We perceive this whole world;
therefore, we can only speak about its corporeality in relation to our sense
organs.
Kabbalah studies the theory of knowledge, of perception. Hence, the main
issue in Kabbalah is finding out what we really are and why we perceive
the surrounding world this way. Subsequently it turns out that we
subjectively perceive reality exactly as it is reflected by our sense organs.
However, this is a somewhat different and very large topic that has
nothing to do with geography. Geography itself is a particular subject that
merely describes the results of our sensations. It does not explain how this
world’s picture appears in our mind; it rather explains of what it consists
and why it has such geographic relief. This may be astronomy or Earth
geography.
Kabbalah also studies Gematria, i.e. the numerical meanings of the inner
essence of forces and objects. The Gematria of the word “Teva” (nature)
corresponds to the Gematria of the Hebrew word “Elokim” (Creator). Thus,
both “Elokim” and “Teva” constitute identical notional concepts. In other
words, Kabbalah views the Creator (or God), the Supreme force or nature
—higher, spiritual nature in its most sublime sphere—as identical notions.
Kabbalah explains how the entire universe originated from this sublime
force and that the universe is attained from below (from our world and
upwards).
While researching nature Kabbalists tell us how this force descended from
above and created all spiritual worlds. Afterwards, by using explosive
penetration, it created a place for our universe and built it all, including
the Earth with its gradual conception of life.
Y. Litvar: Can one say that all of this was taking place due to an
increasingly greater coarsening of forces and energies that were
descending to our world?
M. Laitman: Yes. And one may say it is the worst point of all.
Y. Litvar: Does this affect the world that we see: the land, the seas, the
oceans, the mountains, and the forests? Are all these things also “bad”?
M. Laitman: Yes, since both corals and plants constitute the desire to
retain their structure. Plants have a desire to develop. We observe an even
bigger desire in animals. This inner desire makes them move, grow,
copulate, produce offspring, and so on. An enormous inner force already
acts inside animals. It compels them to develop, while creating a great
number of inner properties, so they develop a character of their own. This
is absent in plants, let alone stones. Each animal already has its own
nature. As I said, no such inner properties are present in either a stone or
a plant.
If all plants of one kind are similar to one another, e.g., all types of wheat
are similar. However zoologists point out that there is a vast diversity even
within the same animal species. There are cows with different characters
in the same herd; whereas in the vegetative world we don’t distinguish the
character of individual ears of wheat. So we notice that in each of these
species more and more individuals appear that differ in quality, quantity,
the intensity of their desire to exist, receive pleasure, absorb, and feel…
Plants and animals are followed by man who feels not only his
environment, but also past, present, and future. He envies others and
evaluates himself with regard to them… He may have everything, but it’s
not enough. He must feel what he is as compared to others. The main
difference between man and animals lies in the way they see others,
which allows man to develop owing to his envy, hatred, and other similar
properties.
The science of Kabbalah associates all forces that are present within us
with the single force called “desire to receive pleasure” or “desire to
receive”. This desire to receive, to support and develop oneself is already
present at the level of inanimate matter. A speck of dust, a pebble, gas,
liquid – why do they exist? They exist because they are sustained by the
spiritual force – their own desire to exist manifesting at all levels.
M. Laitman: Yes. Yet don’t even try to think that this is an evolution in
accordance with Darwin’s theory. There is no evolution at all.
Y. Litvar: So a stone will never become a plant or a man, will it?
M. Laitman: You can also stop doing that with regard to people.
Everything depends on how you perceive the surrounding nature. If one
perceives all of nature as forces that result from the actions of one
supreme Force, as a means for fulfilling a certain task; if in the enormity of
nature one sees certain goals and reasons for all things created and
realizes his own role within this system, then we can relate sensibly and
effectively to everything so as to achieve the goal we set for ourselves.
This truly ideal goal is revealed to man with the help of the science of
Kabbalah. It tells us about the purpose of nature and of man in it. It also
explains why we pass through such life cycles and what our purpose is.
Kabbalah shows man how to reach this goal in a correct, sensible way and
in the shortest time possible during the lifetime in which one learns about
it.
M. Laitman: Yes, he can. Speaking of man we mean not his body (a body
is an animal), but something that exists within us as an embryo, a point of
the Upper force. The spiritual gene, this point originates from the highest
substance, but we can develop it. The theory and practice of its
development is the science of Kabbalah, the science of attaining the most
sublime state.
M. Sanilevich: Our viewer asks: “Is the Earth round or flat? Humanity
used to imagine it as flat. What was the viewpoint of the ancient
Kabbalah?”
M. Laitman: You’ll need to open Kabbalistic books to find out about it.
The first book The book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira in Hebrew) was written
by Abraham 4500 years ago in Ancient Babylon.
In this book Abraham wrote that at any of its levels all nature is created in
the form of spheres. This spherical descending structure is determined by
the supreme infinite force in all of its endlessly diverse yet simultaneously
indivisible properties. When this force starts manifesting and building a
place for our universe and then the universe itself, it causes everything in
our world to manifest similarly as spherical forces, bodies, objects, and
interactions.
Not only in Sefer Yetzira which was written 4500 years ago do you find
these assertions, but also in Midrash Rabah, the ancient commentary
written 4000 years ago and then later in Mishnah and Gemarah, which are
respectively 2500 to 3000 years old. These books describe the Earth as
absolutely round and all heavenly bodies as spheres. They explain
astronomical motions of the Sun and the Moon, describing the phases of
the Moon visible from the Earth, and even explain why the Earth blocks
the Moon from the Sun and vice versa, thereby explaining both lunar and
solar eclipses.
You can enter any bookstore and buy the ARI’s books. 500 years ago he
was writing about things that people discovered in the 20th century – for
example, about the plasmic state of matter. All of this was known to
people long ago.
M. Laitman: Kabbalists wrote how our planet repeatedly cooled down and
heated again under the influence of the mixing layers until a solid crust-
covered sphere was formed. Imagine what they were writing about! They
didn’t describe something flat, but wrote about a crust-covered sphere on
which organic life starts to appear. These people described it in a modern
scientific language although they lived and wrote hundreds of years ago.
M. Laitman: They wrote about spiritual forces and how these spiritual
forces manifest in the corporeal world through our senses, that is, in
relation to us.
M. Laitman: If they write about the corporeal world they specify this in
advance.
Y. Litvar: Why are there mountains, rivers, lakes, and canyons on the
sphere called “the Earth”?
M. Laitman: Of course!
Y. Litvar: Does this mean that absolutely everything in our world, even
five fingers (and not four), eyes, hair and also the color of hair and brows
originates only in the spiritual?
When the fetus begins its development spiritual forces gradually affect it
while controlling the way it forms; then eyes, ears, new organs that did not
exist before start forming. Incredibly, something new starts forming in the
midst of flesh.
M. Laitman: Of course! All of our actions until now and everything that
will happen in the future is predetermined as well. However, none of this
will be shown to you.
Y. Litvar: Nevertheless you said that one could become a Creator.
M. Laitman: Yes. If you start growing similar to this Upper force, only
then will you be able to change and become a Creator. But this doesn’t
mean that “from here” one will be able to observe what happens “there.”
We are used to thinking and acting in our world according to the following
principle: “What will happen if I take advantage of my acquaintance with a
minister and so I’ll do something at his level?” This is utterly impossible in
the spiritual.
In the spiritual you first have to ascend the necessary level for which
purpose your spiritual qualities should correspond to it. In the spiritual,
you first have to ascend to the required degree, and for this to happen
your spiritual properties should correspond that degree. Only then will you
be able to act in accordance with this new level of yours without reasoning
in the way you do now: “How would I act according to my desire!”
M. Laitman: Man needs to change nothing but his qualities. Nothing else!
M. Laitman: The spiritual world exists within the material one. When you
discover it you’ll see that the material world doesn’t exist at all. The
spiritual world is shown to us through our primitive sense organs. As soon
as you start creating additional finer sense organs, you begin to realize
that your previous attitude was merely a minimal level of existence of
spiritual forces.
Y. Litvar: It turns out that while sitting in this arm-chair and changing my
inner properties I’ll suddenly and easily be able to see not the things that I
see now, not this world, but something quite different!
M. Laitman: Yes, through this world you’ll see all the other worlds.
M. Laitman: Yes. All the other five worlds up to the Supernal force, the
Creator. It all depends solely on your qualities. We see and observe
everything in accordance with our inner properties.
If my eye detects certain waves, then I see this cup. If it couldn’t detect
these waves I wouldn’t see any cup just as I don’t see other objects that
exist around me.
They are called spiritual or supreme because they are outside of my
vision, beyond the perception of my sense organs. They transcend these
bounds, my range of perception.
M. Laitman: We can’t see many things in our world. Yet we can’t call all
the invisible and imperceptible forces spiritual. They are absolutely
material. We don’t detect them with our sense organs, but with the help of
measuring devices.
The difference between the spiritual and the material is not in the fact that
I detect it or not. It lies in the fact that material worlds are based on intake
while spiritual worlds are based on giving out.
M. Laitman: There are only two actions in nature: reception and giving,
or the force that attracts and the force that repels or expels. Accordingly,
there are only two qualities: reception and giving.
All forces, objects, and actions (everything that you can possibly imagine)
based on the property of reception, absorption, filling itself is called
egoistical or material. The rest—giving, expending for the sake of another,
sending out, i.e., is directed at an external object. The forces that act this
way are called spiritual. This is the difference between spiritual and
material. It is not because the object is invisible. I repeat, many things in
our world are invisible to us, such as atoms and electricity, this doesn’t
make them spiritual. Our sense organs simply cannot detect them,
although they still belong to the same “absorbing” category.
Y. Litvar: How can it be?! Electricity powers things not for itself, but for
somebody!
M. Laitman: No, that’s how you use it! If you pay attention to an atom,
you will see that its construction is based on absorption and preserving its
set structure. Therefore, you have to spend an enormous amount of
energy to pull electrons away from the atoms and direct them along a
defined path because only then will you be able to use them. To receive
and use an electric current you have to spend much more effort than the
resulting efficiency factor, which will always be negative: 100 calories
have to be spent to create electricity which results in only 10 calories we
can use.
Any process in our world occurs with a negative result because all of our
material forces are based on the desire to absorb. Only spiritual forces
that take energy directly from the Creator and are similar to Him, are
based on the property of bestowal. They suddenly begin to give and
radiate. They do this neither because of inner actions that are material
and egoistical, nor through absorption and subsequent emanation as a
heated body emanates heat, but simply because bestowal is their
property.
Y. Litvar: Does it mean that one day I will also be able to give?
M. Sanilevich: Yet there are great numbers of people who give and work
quite selflessly. For example, there is a secret altruist in Japan… People
suddenly find cash- filled packets at railway stations, in toilets, and other
places. No one found this person. Where does he get so much energy to
give? He must have attained spirituality, right?
M. Laitman: I heard about this case. There are many people who work at
hospitals and many other organizations as volunteers. According to
research, ten percent of all people in the world are altruists. In other
words, these are who enjoy giving. However, they receive pleasure from
giving!
M. Laitman: They bear no similarity to Him. They give and perform acts
of self-sacrifice for the sake of their inner need. This is the form in which
they receive pleasure – by taking care of and helping others.
However, this in no way means that they are spiritual. Their need for
giving is similar to the mother’s attitude to her child. This is an instinctive,
animate, internal, and natural need to give, because this is exactly the
way they receive pleasure. An altruist cannot help giving; otherwise he
won’t be able to receive pleasure!
Yet we speak not of the action itself, but rather about the inner need that
in any case consists in receiving.
The world can be corrected only by elevating man above its level.
M. Laitman: A Kabbalist believes that the only good for the world is to
teach people how to rise above our corporeal world. It is initially defective,
limited, and full of evil. If you wish to change the perception of it in your
sense organs, you should first of all change your sensations by elevating
them to a different, spiritual level. That’s all there’s to it.
M. Laitman: No, you can only become spiritual by studying the science of
Kabbalah, because while studying it you attract certain spiritual forces
that are capable of changing you. When you read about spiritual actions in
a book and imaging yourself at spiritual levels, you thereby draw them
closer to you. This way a certain force affects you from there and you start
changing. Therefore, only the science of Kabbalah (i.e., your description at
higher spiritual levels) can change you. No other forces, sciences, and
actions in our world can do anything similar. Naturally, this has nothing to
do with religion or anything else on this Earth.
M. Laitman: You simply show him that such an opportunity exists. After
that it all depends on how he will realize it.
Y. Litvar: So I buy this book, read it, and that’s all I do? Do I become a
Creator? What is then the meaning of the word “study”?
M. Laitman: No. “To study” means to learn from this book how to change
and become like the Creator. Do you understand what you mean when you
say “to become a Creator”?! Becoming a physicist means stuffing your
head with all kinds of knowledge. Becoming a Creator is not about filling
your head; it is about becoming Him.
Here you become the Creator! Gradually, step by step you ascend 125
levels of attainment; you completely transform yourself and then at each
level, in accordance with your changes, a totally new world is revealed to
you. However, for this you have to change all of your sense organs,
because there is no other way for you to discover these worlds.
You cannot simply read this book. You should read it and realize its
teachings on yourself. Only then do you become equal to the Creator.
Y. Litvar: When I come across the word “study”, doesn’t it mean “read”
or “memorize”?
M. Laitman: Three to five years provided that man tries hard, very hard.
Well, frankly speaking, in practice it may take a little longer.
M. Laitman: This is in fact both the initial plan and the ultimate goal of
creation. The entire universe was created for the purpose of making a
creation that would reach the Creator’s level and merge with Him
(merging implies complete similarity of properties).
The creation was initially created for this purpose, and every second this
purpose is being realized in all the worlds to bring man to this state.
Today we are standing at the threshold of a true realization of this action.
As the world is plunging into a crisis today, it starts revealing a still
unconscious, but already evident need for a qualitative change. Namely
this qualitative change occurring in it of necessity will become a transition
from an egoistic, all-absorbing force to an altruistic, bestowal-oriented,
and emanating one.
M. Laitman: I connect…
Y. Litvar: So by growing more and more equal to this force, which we call
the Creator, do we receive additional powers in our world?
The most extreme thing that may happen to him is when he passes from
his external appearance to a more internal essence, yet his outer shell
remains where it was.
Y. Litvar: This question was really asked by a boy. A child called and
simply shoved this question into our broadcast: “and I thought, I would
like to know about that”
M. Laitman: Why does it get colder as the distance between the center of
the Earth and the poles becomes larger? A physicist can explain this to
you: this happens because the atmosphere grows more and more
evacuated and so on. Why is there snow and ice at the poles? Naturally,
this is because their location with regard to the Sun is at such an angle
that its light is not directed at them… At least this is the situation now.
What it will be in the near future is unknown.
When you begin to study the thirteenth part of Talmud Eser Sefirot you
learn what combinations the Upper forces form: positive and negative,
with all of their secondary properties. You see how something spherical
resembling a head covered with vegetative properties and forces looms
between them. As a result it forms a human face (bearded, unshaved, in
its natural form). You realize that these combinations of the Upper forces:
positive and negative, right and left lines should group according to their
inner properties while descending so that this exact image would be
gradually formed with a pair of arms and legs, a head, and such qualities.
The same occurs when these forces are formed directly by man himself.
Afterwards they descend even further where they start creating objects of
lower levels: animate, vegetative, and inanimate. Thus, by forming it in
combinations, they finally form the Earth in the form familiar to us, at the
same time positioning it properly relative to the Sun, the Moon, and other
planets. We study this in the fifteenth part of Talmud Eser Sefirot, where
the Sun and the Moon pose as Zeir Anpin and Malchut of the World of
Infinity.
M. Laitman: This is their exact copy, just as the functions they fulfill in
our world are identical to spiritual actions. The same refers to the Earth
itself and to its geography.
Take Zeir Anpin of the world of Atzilut, analyze its structure relative to
Malchut, and you will see the exact geography of the Earth, because such
is the correspondence of its inner forces. Rise to Higher objects, Abba ve
Ima, Arich Anpin or Atik, and you will realize how these structures become
transformed in the process of their descent. You will also learn the final
result of all of their combinations.
The same occurs with other structures, when all nature with its enormous
diversity of forces completely changes and ascends to the one single
force. There is nothing random in this, because exactly this combination
should be formed and because everything is determined in nature.
Afterwards, all of nature ascends and out of this whole diversity of forces
very gradually becomes one force.
Why are there two poles? Because there are two opposite forces
equidistant from the third, central one: the equator and this is the only
way they should influence it.
Y. Litvar: You have already mentioned the terms “Zeir Anpin” and
“Malchut.” Nevertheless, is Zeir Anpin a man and Malchut, a woman?
M. Laitman: Yes.
M. Laitman: Yes.
M. Laitman: The spread of people all over the Earth depends on the inner
spiritual force that controls them. If people possess spiritual qualities with
which they feel they are better off together, they unite and settlements
and villages populated by relatives spring up.
Based on their inner qualities and needs people set the rules of their
communal life. If we gather together in cities this doesn’t mean that we
begin to love one another more. This means that we simply find it a more
convenient way to pay for the services that municipal authorities provide
us and nothing else. If I had my way, I would separate myself from the
others in a huge tower and spit on everyone from above. Do you
understand?
M. Laitman: In the spiritual world we are all united into one common
soul. We exist in it as integral parts just like the cells of our body.
Everyone knows his place and everyone knows how he should act in
relation to the whole body so that this body (one common soul) can exist
and be maximally and optimally filled with the Creator’s light.
M. Laitman: Well, the way we usually understand it, neither God nor the
devil exist.
M. Laitman: The same Upper force. Nothing exists except this force.
We had to begin our self-correction a long time ago, but we are still
lagging behind in our spiritual development. Accordingly, negative
influence will increase more and more. Nothing good awaits us ahead until
we start changing. However, as soon as we start changing and becoming
similar to the Creator, we will, to the same extent immediately turn His
negative influence into a positive one.
The Earth differs from the rest of the cosmos in that it has vegetative,
animate, and human nature. When certain spiritual forces influence the
Earth, they affect each of its particles. Therefore, man changes while
moving from place to place. He changes and his destiny changes with him.
Why do we suddenly leave a comfortable place? This is because our inner
properties change, and the inconsistency between our inner properties
and our present state compels us to look for a new place: either you are
forced or you suddenly feel that you have to act this way.
Y. Litvar: Can one cardinally change one’s life and destiny by moving to
another place?
M. Laitman: I don’t think that man can make a cardinal change this way
because he remains the same, but he can make a considerable change.
The only thing that man can do in our world is to change the surrounding
society. Hence, if you transform your society, environment and friends,
there is no real need to move. You can remain in the same place, but find
yourself a different environment and fall under a different influence. This
way you change your destiny.
Y. Litvar: A great number of people assert that there are places on the
earth where man feels comfortable, for example, in India, in Tibet, and so
on. What is so special there?
Y. Litvar: No.
What is bad in it? That is the way people live. Man wakes up in the
morning without an alarm-clock just because the sun rose, stretches his
limbs, smokes a little grass, and everything becomes just fine. He may
wash in a brook (or not), lie down, sit down, meditate, fly away and return
from there. What is so bad in it? Why don’t you want it?
Y. Litvar: I have spent a few lives doing these things! I want to put an
end to it! However, the matter concerned spiritual comfort!
Y. Litvar: Did it initially have such forces? Or did they come with the
arrival of the Israelites?
M. Laitman: Not that they came… The forces had already been there in
their unrevealed form; the arrival of Israelites merely activated them.
Y. Litvar: So the forces that exist in the land act not by themselves, but
only…
M. Laitman: … under influence… But the land is not the point. There is
nothing in the land. One shouldn’t think that spiritual forces exist in some
objects. This is wrong. If we speak about the influence of a special spiritual
force on every inch of land, we don’t think that these forces exist in the
land itself. They don’t exist in any material objects.
Our world is simply permeated with spiritual forces. Permeated! They flow
directly through it in all directions and by combining endlessly in a
multidimensional grid they form our universe with all of its properties.
M. Laitman: No. But you may take it with you, why not?
Y. Litvar: I didn’t buy it.
M. Laitman: When I was in Greece, I saw with my own eyes how they
deliberately bring crushed stones to the Parthenon so that tourists could
pick them up as souvenirs. Can you imagine what would have happened
without these crushed stones? They would have cleaned out all of Greece.
M. Laitman: If you were at the level of these spiritual forces with your
properties, you would be able to s ee them. What does the word “see”
mean? They would be revealed within you. Similarly we see our world not
outside, but inside ourselves. It does not exist beyond us. It exists only in
our sense organs.
M. Laitman: This is not the material world. This is merely a world that
exists in our basest sensations.
M. Sanilevich: Why does man need the sensations of the material world?
Y. Litvar: Man creates an environment and then dies. After a few life
cycles he reappears in the same place again. Is he influenced by the
forces that he created again?
M. Laitman: He is, but this question is too complicated because it alludes
to another question: “How could it suddenly occur to the English to turn
Australia into such a dump?” Here we already touch upon rather
problematic issues – about freedom of will, where it comes from, and
about thoughts.
Israel was once at the spiritual level under the influence of positive
spiritual forces. Man completely distorted these positive spiritual forces.
He transformed them into their opposites (negative forces) and now we
see how they act in this country.
Y. Litvar: Can you put the famous Sefirotic tree, the image of which is
used in all Kabbalistic books, on our planet? Where will Israel or America
turn out to be?