09-Who Am I?

?Who Am I

Baal Hasulam

I feel and I know

That I take up space

In the world

–

And that I am solid

And warm

And that I think

And other such manifestations

Of the operations of my essence

–

But if you ask me

About my own essence

From which all these manifestations stem

.I do not know what to reply to you  

10-Freedom of Will

Freedom of Will

Baal Hasulam

I sit, I dress,
I speak, and I eat.

I do all these
Not because I want to sit that way,
or talk that way,
or dress that way,
or eat that way, But because others
Want me to sit,
Dress, talk, and eat
That way.

It all follows
The desire and fancy of society,
Not my own free will.

Furthermore, 

In most cases,
I do all these against my will.
For I would be a lot more comfortable
Behaving simply,
Without any burden.

But I am chained
With iron shackles,
In all my movements,
To the fancies and manners
of others,
Which make up the society.

So you tell me,

Where is my freedom of will?

13-Perception of Reality

Perception of Reality
Baal Hasulam

With our sense of seeing

We see in front of us

A huge world

Filled with wonderful things.

But in truth

We do not see all of it

Except in our own internality,

Meaning in the back of our brain

There is something like

A photographic machine,

That depicts to us

Everything that we see

And none of it is outside of us.

14-Senses of An Angel

-
Senses of An Angel

Baal Hasulam

If we look at a table

With the sense of feeling,

We feel that it is something hard.

The same with its length

And its width,  

Everything is

According to our senses.

But it does not mean

that the table looks like it,

To someone

With different senses.

For example,

To the eyes of an angel

When it looks at the table,

It sees it

Through its senses.

Hence we cannot determine

Any form according to an angel

Because we do not know

Its senses.

15-The Five Senses

The Five Senses

Baal Hasulam

The sense of hearing is but a force of striking

of some essence on the air.

And the air that is rejected by it

strikes the drum in our ear,

and we hear that there is

some essence in our proximity.

The sense of smell is but air

that emerges from the essence

and strikes our nerves of scent,

and we smell.

Also, the sense of taste

is a result of the contact

of some essence

with our nerves of taste.

Thus, all that these four senses

offer us

are manifestations of the operations

that stem from some essence,

and nothing of the essence itself.

Even the sense of touch,

the strongest of the senses,

separating hot from cold,

and solid from soft,

all these are but manifestations

of operations within the essence;

they are but incidents

of the essence.

This is so because the hot

can be chilled;

the cold can be heated;

the solid can be turned to liquid

through chemical operations,

and the liquid into air,

meaning only gas,

where any discernment in our five senses

has been expired.

Yet, the essence still exists in it,

since you can turn the air

into liquid once more,

and the liquid into solid.

Evidently, the five senses

do not reveal to us any essence at all,

but only incidents and manifestations

of operations from the essence.

It is known that

what we cannot sense,

we cannot imagine;

and what we cannot imagine,

will never appear in our thoughts,

and we have no way

to perceive it.

Thus, the thought has no perception

whatsoever in the essence.

Moreover, we do not even know

our own essence.

18-The Son of A Rich Man in the Basement

The Son of A Rich Man

 in the Basement

Baal Hasulam

A rich man had a young son.

One day, the rich man had to travel

far away for many years.

The rich man feared that his son

would waste his wealth by poor judgment,

so he exchanged his properties

for gemstones, jewels, and gold

And built a cellar deep

in the ground,

where he hid all the gold,

the gemstones, and the jewels,

and he also put his son in there.

He summoned his loyal servants

and ordered them to keep his son

from leaving the cellar

until his twentieth birthday.

Each day they were to bring down to him

every food and drink,

but absolutely no fire or candles.

They were also

to check the walls

and seal every crevice

so that no sunlight would penetrate.

For his health,

they were to take him out of the cellar

each day for one hour

and walk him through the city,

but carefully watching

that he doesn’t run away.

On his twentieth birthday,

they were to give him candles,

open a window for him,

and let him out.

Naturally, the son’s affliction

was intolerable,

especially when he would walk outside

and see all the boys

eating and drinking merrily

on the street,

without any guards or fixed hours

while he was imprisoned

with few moments of light.

And if he tried to run,

he would be beaten mercilessly.

But he was most upset

when he heard

that his own father had caused him

this affliction,

for they were his father’s servants,

executing his father’s orders.

Naturally, he deemed his father

the cruelest of all the cruel

that ever lived,

for who has heard of such a thing?

On his twentieth birthday,

the servants lowered down to him

a candle,

as his father had commanded.

The boy took the candle

and began to look around.

And lo and behold,

what did he see?

Sacks filled with gold

and every royal delight.

Only then did he understand

that his father is truly merciful,

and that all his trouble

was only for his own good.

He immediately understood

that the servants would certainly

let him out of the cellar,

and so he did.

He came out of the cellar,

and there was no guarding,

no cruel servants.

Instead, he is a noble man,

wealthier than the wealthiest

people in the land.

But in truth, there is nothing new here,

for it becomes revealed

that he was so very wealthy to begin with,

but in his perception he was poor and destitute,

oppressed in the pit all his days.

Now, in a single moment,

he has gained tremendous riches

and rose from the deep pit

to the top of the roof.

26-A Matter and It’s Opposite

A Matter and It’s Opposite

Baal Hasulam

It is known that

nothing appears in its true form,

only through its opposite,

“as far as light excelleth darkness.”

This means

that everything points to another,

and by the opposite of something,

the existence of its opposite

can be perceived.

Hence, it is impossible

to attain something in complete clarity

if its parallel is absent.

For example:

It is impossible to estimate and say

that something is good,

if its opposite is missing,

pointing to the bad.

It is the same

with bitterness and sweetness,

love and hate,

hunger and satiation,

thirst and saturation,

adhesion and separation.

29-The Opinion of The Minority

The Opinion of The Minority

Baal Hasulam

The truer and more developed views
are never in the hands of the collective in authority,
but rather in the hands of the weakest,
that is, in the hands of the indistinguishable minority.

This is because every wisdom
and everything precious
comes into the world
in small quantities.

Therefore, we are cautioned
to preserve the views of all the individuals,
due to the collective’s inability
to tell wrong from right among them.

30-Four Manners of Perception

Four Manners of Perception

Baal Hasulam

When you say that a person is strong, truthful, or deceitful, etc., you have the following before you:

1.   His matter, meaning his body;

2.   The form that clothes his matter-strong, truthful, or deceitful;

3.   The abstract form. You can shed the form of strong, truthful, or deceitful from the matter of that person, and study these three forms in and of themselves, unclothed in any matter or body, meaning examine the attributes of strength, truth, and deceitfulness and discern merit or demerit in them, while they are devoid of any substance.

4.   The person’s essence.

31-Love of A Father For His Son

Love of A Father For His Son

Baal Hasulam

A father constrains himself
To show his little darling child
A face of sadness
And a face of contentment,

Although there is neither sadness
Nor contentment in him.
He only does this
To impress his darling child
And expand his understanding,
So as to play with him.

34-A Pin In The Eye

A Pin In The Eye

Baal Hasulam

It is like a person
who is walking on the street
with a little child,
and the child is crying bitterly.

All the people on the street
are looking at the father and thinking,

“How cruel is this man
who can hear his son crying
without paying any attention?

The child’s cries
make even people on the street
feel sorry for the child,
but this man,
who is his father, doesn’t.

And there is a rule,
‘As a father has compassion
on his children.’”

The child’s cries made people
go to his father and ask,
“Where is your mercy?”

Then his father replied, 

“What can I do
if my son,
whom I keep like the apple of my eye,
demands of me
to give him a pin

so he can scratch his eye
because he has an itch in his eyes?

Can I be called “cruel”
for not granting his wish,
or is it for mercy
that I will not give it to him

so he will not poke his eye
and remain blind forever?”