Playing on the Spiritual Path

We're happy you have joined us again in this place where we dedicate our time to developing our point in the heart together, attracting the upper light and to please the Creator. That's the intention we hope to have in our hearts. The fact that we are many people together helps us bring these thoughts closer.

Our topic for today is playing on the spiritual path. And we can't help wondering what this has to do with the wisdom of Kabbalah that helps us research reality in great detail and human nature. Our Rav was just here in the studio right before the lesson and was happy to see everything going on - we are passing on the blessing he gave us to succeed in this lesson. Rav always said that the wisdom of Kabbalah is a science - so what does playing have to do with it? It has a very big role on the path - and we'll try to get into this topic in a very serious way.

We love to play - and that is actually the means to develop. All our development is actually through playing. You've probably heard the term - Life is a game. Even scientists say that our cells in our body also play since they're yearning to developed to something more advanced. The main goal - our future state - requires some acts to get there and they're all called playing. In our spiritual development, all the acts that we do are playing.

We don't really understand who the Creator is. We say love and bestowal - even when we reach attainment there is more attainment. All these things that bring us to the final goal - the aspiration to the future - is called playing. So today we'll talk about developing through playing. Some people think it has to do with imagination - but when we get into it deeper we'll see how it really helps us on the spiritual path. If we come out of ourselves perhaps something new will emerge. We urge you to open your hearts and allow this playing to influence you.

Clip 1: The game is all-encompassing

The game is supposedly all-encompassing, every action that elevates us to a spiritual level is called "spiritual play", all the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only of how to play from the desire to receive towards the Upper Light and receive from the Upper Light impressions, powers, intentions so that it elevates me to an even greater level towards the Light, that is, it raises me more and more, this is the means.

Therefore, although we call it a game, and do not use this word that much, it is the most serious, useful and central thing. Michael Laitman

We heard from our teacher that playing is a means that allows us to go from the existing state to our desired state. We use it as a means for spiritual advancement. Our goal is to reach adhesion with the Creator through equivalence of form - this is all very abstract. There is also our current state - and there is a big gap between these two.

Our entire life is actually a game. Without even thinking about it I adopted all kinds of behaviors from them - it all seems perfectly natural. When I'm playing cards or football it's clear that I'm playing. But here we have to zoom out to see that it's a game. First of all there are rules to the game - it's really important. Without those rules it's impossible to play. Everyone needs to be aware of them.

If we're developing through playing then we need to know the rules. The Creator is playing with us but we don't know how to play with him - so we play with the friends. This is why we need to be in small groups - so we can learn the rules. We can't just do this with random people in the street - they're not interested and are not aware of the rules. That's why we need our environment. For the last two months we've been learning the principles of building a spiritual society.

There is a law - there's nothing new under the sun. We're working toward a future state. But for the Creator we're already at the end of correction. The rest of the world is doing it in an instinctive way - we're trying to do it consciously. That's why we say there is no freedom of choice - the path is clear, that we need to reach equivalence of form with the Creator - all we can do is accelerate the process. Through playing we awaken forces that help us develop in that direction. We need to correct our intention from a will to receive to a will to bestow. The game we're talking about is how we advance. How does it actually happen? Mainly in our ten. But in many lessons Rav says a person can also play with himself, by taking on a role it influences us.

In the following clip Rav is talking about the transition from a certain state to the desired state:

Clip 2 - Play as a means to move from a state to a situation:

This means called play, which is a transition from the current state to the desired state, which is not even desired yet, so the transition, the means to move myself from a state to a situation, is called play. And so I need to be an expert in this and each time improve, how I do it with myself. And from the perception of reality we see that if I do it with myself, then the whole world changes accordingly.

I begin to give values, weigh everything according to what I change and therefore in fact play for me is not that I adapt myself to the world, but that I thereby change, improve, correct the world.

It turns out that play, if we know how to play, how to change the situations, is the most beneficial thing for realizing our goal, therefore it is actually at the center of our actions. And we really need to describe ourselves as little children who change every time, we ourselves, and through this the world changes. We must not see ourselves as adults who do not change, but rather the opposite, as much as we are constantly in change, through this we see that the world is changing. Therefore, we always remain children, young, full of life, full of change, and only in this will we see our progress, our movement. Michael Laitman

Rav says it's worth playing so that we'll stay young - if we do that we look lively to those around us. He says it all depends on our perception of reality. By playing our future state it's like we're dressing in that state. We're attracting the light that reforms that helps us get to that state.

The goal is always revelation of the Creator. We need to use play as a means for revelation of the Creator, based on the rules that the Kabbalists defined for us. And all this happens in our ten. We need to play to get from our self-love to love of others, and from there to love of the Creator. That's exactly what this playing is about. Why is it called playing? Because I know it's not true. I can say to a friend "I love you" - and we both know I'm playing.

Just as I do at work as a CEO, I may say something to an employee to motivate them to work better.

A girl likes playing with dolls and if her mother asks her to look after her little sister she refuses. What can we learn from this? Real life is one thing but playing is on a different level.