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Michael Laitman, PhD

Chapter 2.12 – The Body at the End of Correction

Will we retain our physical body after the end of correction? Kabbalah never speaks of the physical body because it is simply not a part that needs correction. There are no changes in the body except for its aging. Only the will to receive pleasure needs to be corrected. Our bodies are only flesh; they need sleep, physical pleasures, food and rest.

They have nothing in common with the internal, spiritual correction. That is why the body doesn't change when the soul changes. Even our characters remains the same. My rabbi was still running around at the age of eighty. He just didn’t know how to take things slowly. That was his character and it never changed.

In our current state we are unable to imagine what the world will look like when our souls are corrected. Our body will lose their meaning. Will there still be a universe and everything around us? Will we bear children? Will we live and die?

Today our lives are filled with agony and pain. We cannot begin to imagine how the physical lives we live today can be filled with spirit at the end of correction.

Diseases are a consequence of inner corrections and should vanish once the corrections are done. It is the correction until the end of the 6,000 years that we are talking about. We cannot discuss or explain the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth millennia, just as we cannot explain what it means to remain without a physical body when our life in this world is through. It is also impossible to explain how the body does remain after the end of correction, because all our situations are branches that exist as a result of their spiritual roots, and past the end of correction that connection is nonexistent.

We do not correct the will to receive in and of itself, or the egoism. We correct only those parts of the desires that have connected and mingled with altruistic desires during the breaking of the vessels. That is why we cannot see the full picture of suitability and equivalence of form at the end of correction. If we would actually feel it, we would be completely healthy every Shabbat (Saturday) and no one would die on that day. It is impossible for us to picture a perfect state.

We do not get the answers to our prayers and requests from Above at the time we make them, or even near it. It can happen months later. A Kabbalist can feel spiritual states of Shabbat or a holiday on weekdays too.

For example, if my soul connects with someone else’s, then the question I had will present itself in that person's emotions, while for me the question might have already been replaced by another. These perpetual changes are called "reincarnations of the souls." We cannot understand how these jumps occur or why, but there is a certain degree of spiritual attainment that once there, reveals how souls bond and separate. It can be compared to a welling forth, a continuous flow, transition from place to place and from one soul to another. But there is no accurate definition for it.

There is a collective and an individual part in every one of us. The collective part remains unchanged, while the individual can and does change. As soon as one wants to receive something from the Creator, and that someone is in a state of seeing the Creator’s face, that person's soul is ready to receive the Light of the Creator, and instantaneously and naturally receives it. The spiritual world is different from our own because every desire is immediately answered.

Baal HaSulam writes that the attribute of Malchut that is clothed in the worlds is called the “self.” That attribute spreads down to the world of Assiya, where it is felt as an independent entity. The self always remains, but its form is corrected. When one corrects one's self, one immediately begins to feel the Creator.

The breaking of the vessels played a major and positive role in continuing the process of correcting the desires. Without it, we would always remain in the still, vegetative, and animate degree and would never be able to make even the slightest connection with the Creator.

Our body experiences a variety of sensations. The spiritual body contains no emotions. Instead, there are Sefirot, which are completely different from emotions. I cannot say that my vision is a consequence of my spiritual vision, called “wisdom” that reflects the sensation of a certain Light that is clothed in the appropriate spiritual vessel.

For example, using the screen, I can feel the Light of Haya in a vessel that has Aviut Aleph (first degree coarseness). There is a field of waves around us, and each sense perceives waves of different wavelength. The same thing happens in spirituality; there is a special kind of Light that enters its appropriate vessel. However, there is no connection whatsoever between the animate emotional system and the spiritual sensation of the Light.

We correct our left line through the right line, thus building a middle line from the both of them. The middle line renders a possibility to equalize with the Creator to the extent that we have corrected ourselves. That completes the job of that specific degree.

Afterwards, we reenter the left line and must again correct it with the right, thus building the middle line, and again we receive a certain portion of the Light of the Creator, which in turn makes me just a little more like Him.

The process repeats itself when that degree is also completed. It might seem dull from the outside, but that is the way to climb the spiritual ladder. It is a perpetual process of intermittently acquiring desires and fulfilling them. This is life, and it is a magical feeling indeed! It is like a very intense hunger and satiation experienced simultaneously.

The maximum intensity of the utilization of the right aim over our desire in each degree is also the bridge through which we pass on to the next.

Our time in history is a transition period toward spiritual evolution. Every soul can absorb only as much as its own level of development makes possible. We must not pressure people to study Kabbalah, because if they are not interested, it means that their time has not come yet.

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