How to Change Yourself and What to Change Yourself Into

How to Change Yourself, and What to Change Yourself IntoQuestion for ML: The science of Kabbalah and a very strong desire on my part have helped me come out of difficult crises of my illness (of the endocrine system). Again and again, I am thankful for seeing that bearded man on TV during on another brutal night, in agonizing pain, and all because of my upstairs neighbor’s suggestion. This has saved my life. But how can one who suffers from a physical illness perceive exalted impressions? Maybe there’s some form of relaxation, which prepares the body for such sensations? Where in Kabbalah can one find the part that connects the head and the body? Where is the practical side of it? I can’t imagine that it’s only words and nothing else.

My Answer: The only thing controlling us and our bodies is the Upper Force. If we want to change something, we can only change it by becoming like, or desiring to become like, the Upper Force. By doing so, we replace our state with His. The reason He makes us suffer in our present state is only so that we would ask Him for such a change to happen.

Religions are Expressions of Culture, Not Absolute Higher Knowledge

Religions are Expressions of Culture, Not Absolute Higher KnowledgeA Statement: The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, wrote a book on “How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations.” According to Rabbi Sacks, all religions should be recognized as genuine. Of course, fundamentalists anathematized the book, and charged Rabbi Sacks with heresy.

My Opinion: All this happens because people consider religions to be “genuine,” possessing absolute higher knowledge, instead of an expression of culture and peoples’ way of life. Religions were invented by people. There’s no reason to credit them as being anything more than clubs, which people turn to for psychological help in our unstable lives. There’s good in them, but nothing divine or genuine!

Article by Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” (note that in this article, when Baal HaSulam says “religion,” he means Kabbalah)

Perception of Reality

Perception of RealityQuestion for ML: People identify themselves with their body. Take a human body and an apple. The person eats the apple. The matter of the apple is transferred to the person, and he calls it his “I.” But we see that it’s no more than particles moving through space.

There are an invariable amount of particles in the world that continuously change location, thereby creating an illusion of time progression. Oxygen particles enter my lungs, my blood, my cells – does that make them part of my “I”? The same particles that just yesterday I called “air”?

Where do we start and where do we end?

My Answer: Everything you’re saying doesn’t exist. There is only my desire, a component that senses itself. Within my desire, I feel constant changes. They depict a picture for me, which I call “world.” Within this picture, I sense the existence of what is similar to me, and what is “other”: matter, vegetation, animals… That’s what my desires sense; that’s what I sense.