Question: What is so bad about science if searching for the secret of life is a natural inclination that evolves in a person naturally?
Answer: We have an inclination to discover the secret of life because our higher source illuminates us. The question is only where, how, and by what means do I search for it? In regular science I search for it through my beastly mind and senses.
Do I mean to find the higher source by physical means? Don’t I understand that He is so high, influential, and detached from the desire to receive, from its loathsome lowness, from its limitations?
The desire to receive, the ego [1], that wants to receive for itself all the time, cannot be complete because it always feels a deficiency. So it cannot be adapted to the higher source. The more that it wants for itself and discovers its limitations, the lower it falls.
For this reason the ancient people thought that the sun was divine, since for them it was the origin of life.
Question: How did Abraham search for the secret of life?
Answer: Abraham went to look at the stars, the moon, and the sun, searching for the force that could be said to be universal and supreme. But this was an inner search.
Question: Didn’t he search for this with his physical mind and senses, as in every science?
Answer: Abraham didn’t rely on his mind. He was searching for something higher, detached from it, and universal. He attained everything, thanks to his soul [2], like the first Adam (man). So essentially he succeeded in attaining everything without a teacher [3].
With us that cannot be because nobody in our generation is able to discover the Creator [4] by himself. There are many people who are sure that they feel the higher power, but in fact, none of them are even close. That is how our generation is, and this is a result of the growth of egoism that causes the decline of the generations.
Our ancestors were in a unique situation called the “merit of the forefathers” because their Shevirah (shattering [5]) was from above in their source and was derived from the system itself. But after our fall, we corrected our own partition, and we have no merit.The ancestral merit existed only until the discovery of the evil inclination, which was called Pharaoh [6].
After Jacob died in Egypt, no ancestral merit remained. Indeed, we could use it, but only through adhesion to the same level, and actually not by ourselves.
Question: Wasn’t Abraham a scientist like every Kabbalist? So why is science harmful?
Answer: Science is like snake venom that can be used as a poison or a remedy depending on how it is used. It is necessary to use it to discover the higher power, where we understand that our ego is lower, and that it is impossible to attain anything of the truth with it. We are limited by our physical senses and the egoistic desire that stands behind these Kelim (desires).
We cannot depart from this desire that obligates us to think, see, understand, and feel only what is for its own good or what can harm it. This means that all perception is directed only towards the desire to receive and we don’t see anything more. Around us there could be whole worlds and forces, but we don’t have the senses to perceive them.
If this is how we are organized, we have no means for searching within us and not with the science which we developed. In this way we will never reach the truth, divinity, or universality.
So in science, there is only what the person discovers in his egoistic Kelim, and so science is also egoistic. That is the way we discovered it and that is how we use it. We cannot use it with any other intent or inclination because all of its development is derived for our egoistic benefit.
[142346]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/14 [7], Writings of Baal HaSulam
Related Material:
Roundabout Path To The Mystery Of Life [8]
The Donkey Rides On A Man [9]
Knowing The World We Live In [10]