Corporeality Has No Effect On Spirituality

Corporeality Has No Effect On SpiritualityTwo questions I received on corporeality’s relationship to spirituality:

Question: You’ve said that if people don’t study Kabbalah, it will lead to material consequences such as murder, destruction, and corporeal suffering, and that by studying Kabbalah, we can prevent the suffering. You have also said that the spiritual and the corporeal aren’t connected. How do you explain this contradiction?

My Answer: Spiritual forces operate from above downwards. They create and determine everything in the corporeal world. However, it is impossible to have a reverse effect, from below upwards, and influence the Upper World with one’s corporeal, physical actions. One can, however, influence the Upper World with one’s desires, by becoming similar and balanced with the Upper World to the extent of one’s desire for it. As a consequence, a force descends upon you from the Upper World – a Light that corrects you, making you similar to the Upper World.

Question: Is there a connection between a person’s place of residence and his luck, health, and happiness? How can someone find out where he should live?

My Answer: It doesn’t matter where one lives. It only matters if you live in a physically or spiritually dangerous place, near physical or spiritual criminals, because they influence you negatively. See Baal HaSulam’s article “The Freedom,” section “The Environment as a Factor.”

Will God Want to Repeat the Act of Creation?

Will God Want to Repeat the Act of Creation?Questions I received on a scientific experiment that aims to reproduce the formation of creation: This week I saw an interview with a scientist specializing in quantum physics who talked about a project that he and seventy other scientists from around the world are planning. Next month, they want to reproduce the entire formation of creation with the aim of finding some missing photon. For this purpose they have constructed a 27km long tunnel between Switzerland and France, as well as various tools. The interesting thing was that at the end of the interview, this scientist said that they will succeed only if God so wishes, and if He doesn’t, then they won’t! My questions in relation to this are as follows:

Question: Will this affect the world, climate, pollution, and so on?

My Answer: No. Only our thoughts and desires have an effect on these.

Question: How can a scientist rely on God?

My Answer: Who else should a scientist rely on at a time when science is already showing itself to be the science of its own end?

Question: What do you think they’ll discover?

My Answer: Even if they were to discover the “missing photon,” they would discover thousands more questions behind it, and this would continue forever, because the second part to the world is the upper part, and it’s hidden from them. Moreover, the barrier separating them from it is a spiritual barrier, and this is why it cannot be penetrated with a physical accelerator. One needs spiritual preparation in order to do this, to ascend over one’s egoism with the property of bestowal and love for one’s neighbor. The scientists want to attain the forces controlling our world, and they’ll continue the way they are until they come to understand and feel, as a result of their experiments, that they need to change themselves – the observer.

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Laitman.com Post: How to Make Nature Change
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Great Kabbalists and the Disclosure of Kabbalah

Great Kabbalists and the Disclosure of KabbalahA question I received: Thank you very much for answering my questions and the questions of the visitor’s of your blog. Many things are becoming clear, but for some reason, more and more questions keep arising within me. Do you think that the books of Abulafia, Cordovero, Luzzatto, and others were written in the Kabbalistic language? Have they progressed Kabbalah with their attainments? Maybe they didn’t even know that they were Kabbalists?

My Answer: They were great Kabbalists, and one can only dream of becoming like them! However, if you read Baal HaSulam’s explanations about Kabbalah’s disclosure, you will understand that there were great Kabbalists that received no permission to disclose Kabbalah, and there were Kabbalists who were much smaller than them, but whose souls came from the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light), which gave them the opportunity to disclose Kabbalah. Accordingly, we choose the nearest source to us who was permitted to disclose Kabbalah – Baal HaSulam – and we base our studies on him. Once we study his works, then we can also start understanding the other Kabbalists properly.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Kabbalah Chronicles
Kabbalah Today Article: Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) – 1884-1954