Where Is The Turbulent Ocean Of The Future Taking Us?

We Cannot A question I received: What will happen in human society when people reach the minimal level of existence in spirituality, which is bestowal for the sake of bestowal? How will they begin to think about and feel each other? What will change in such a world?

My Answer: I believe that we can already see changes in the world now. The world crisis is beginning to force us to reject the overindulgence and it shows us that it is much more comfortable to be content with a middle class level of existence. The craving for excessive overindulgence is fading, as evidenced in young people over the past few dozen years.

Humanity is beginning to reveal more qualitative needs. Instead of gold they need honor, instead of honor – power, instead of power – the meaning of life, the realization of the fact that we can find satisfaction only in our connections with other human beings. Overindulgence doesn’t give us this satisfaction.

Life itself teaches people, and economic power will bring nothing but disappointment. People are seeing that all of this comes and goes. After all, mankind’s development throughout history is akin to swimming in some turbulent ocean of the future, where huge waves thrust some countries upward while throwing others into an abyss. Everything changes so quickly, countries rise and fall, similar to how for example, we are now witnessing the decline of America and the rise of China.

People see that power comes and goes and great civilizations collapse – Babylon was replaced by Persia, then by Greece, then by Rome. On its own this does not teach anyone anything, since people do not learn from the past. However, the desires (Reshimot) are renewed, and they develop us so that we come to demand new qualitative fulfillment and perceive new needs.

A Kabbalist Creates Worlds When He Speaks

balanceWhen a Kabbalist speaks, he creates worlds, since speech is the outer expression of our inner attainment. This explains why our level as human beings is called the “speaking” level. As correction happens at this level of desire we begin to attain properties of the Creator. This kind of attainment cannot happen at the “inanimate,” “vegetative” and “animate” levels of desire in the spiritual world.

Only after we attain the ability to “speak” can a soul connect and bond with the Creator. That’s why when a Kabbalist speaks he builds the worlds; he constructs links between all desires, properties and intentions. My 613 desires tie me to 613 Correcting Lights that fill my corrected vessels. This is how I sense unity with the Creator.

All this happens at the final “speaking” level where we gain the ability to correct ourselves. Only at this stage can the creation feel opposite to the Creator and only at this level can the creation attain similar properties to the Creator. This level is called “Adam” (from the word “adome” meaning similar).

The “Shocking” Truth From Rabash

rabash_small Rabash has prepared a “shock” for our time. Gradually he has uncovered that the most important thing for a human being is his essence and his attitude towards life. Gradually he has disclosed that everything depends on the desires of our heart and our relationship to the truth.

These concepts are in opposition to the routine practices of religious traditions and blind obedience to the commandments, which is typically the behavior of many religious people. We must separate our habitual behavior imposed by our upbringing (“Girsa de-Yakuta”) which makes us feel guilty if we don’t follow our regular routine and that of real prayer, which is a cordial, genuine and conscious call to the Creator for correction.

Judging people by their clothes or their actions does not lead us to an understanding of which person is closer to the Creator. Is it someone who senses emptiness in his life, or someone who seems to have all the answers and wears the clothes (way of life) of someone who is close to the Creator?

The Creator demands that we make corrections in our hearts. That doesn’t mean that we have to neglect any religious traditions, but the distance between a human being and the Creator is measured by the intensity of our aspiration to attain properties similar to His.

A Spiritual Ladder Anyone Can Climb

Einstein on Religion It’s important to understand what a tremendous job Baal HaSulam did when he revealed the wisdom of Kabbalah. If he hadn’t done it, it would be impossible for the masses to attain spirituality.

Common people who do not possess extraordinary souls, as chosen Kabbalists do, would not be able to advance were it not for the methodology discovered by Baal HaSulam. This methodology connects the lower branches of our world with the roots of the spiritual world, the last step of the ladder with the first step of a higher level. Moreover, he actually teaches us how to grab hold of the next step.

When a person enters spirituality and starts climbing the ladder, his soul begins to guide him. But what should a person without a soul do? What if a person still doesn’t have the desire to bestow which connects him to the higher level? How can he proceed?

For that, Baal HaSulam wrote his commentary, which serves as a tool to connect branches with roots, the material with the spiritual. He explains how our current state (the lowest step) is interlaced with the higher root of the spiritual world.

He provides explanations from the point of view of philosophy as well as psychology and other sciences, and speaks to us through the languages of Tanach (the Bible), Talmud, and Hagaddah (tales); but mainly he gives clarifications by using the language of Kabbalah. Essentially he combines all the possible ways of explaining the spiritual world which we are capable of understanding. He uses all four levels of our desires in the material world to build a portrait of ourselves and our world. Thus, he connects everything into a single methodology.

This is where the strength of a great Kabbalist lies. He “organizes” all the different levels of information presented by his predecessors about the structure of our universe, and thus eliminates confusion. Our studies are based on this systematic material about the degrees of the parallel spiritual worlds.

This is particularly evident in the “Sulam” Commentary to The Book of “Sulam” CommentaryZohar, which carries our attention away from clear concepts and brings it toward those that are unclear. But at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to connect both of them, thus allowing us to progress.

The commentary is a guide that leads us from reasonable, obvious examples towards understanding more complex concepts. That’s why Baal HaSulam named his commentary “The Ladder,” since it allows a person to adapt to higher steps of the ladder and make his way up.

Heal The World

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JavBC4HfW6s]

Does Feeling Happy Mean You’re Mentally Ill?

perfectIn the News: (translated from MediaPortal.ru): Sergei Litvintzev, a psychiatrist in Saint Petersburg,  has suggested that Russians who feel happy are mentally ill. In fact, 72% of the population in the Russian Federation consider themselves to be happy.

Dr. Litvintzev noted that feeling happy without any reason is a well known symptom of some mental disorders. For example, “People with the manic syndrome feel euphoria without any reason,” he said.

My Comment: Indeed, maybe it’s really better to feel this way. But humanity’s growing egoism will eventually eliminate the feeling of happiness in us all.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Is There Such A Thing As A Formula For Happiness?
Laitman.com Post: The Self-Delusion Of Happiness Is Empty And False
Laitman.com Post: Learning To Understand The Creator Is The Key To Happiness
Kabbalah Today Article: Cracking the Happiness Code
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Perceiving the Creator”
Video: Why Am I Never Satisfied? (4:37)

Public Lecture At The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center

laitman_2009-07-28_lektzia_bk_0767_wOn November 17, I held another of our public lectures at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center. The topic of this lecture was Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center hosts public lectures every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Israel time. The lectures are broadcast live on our TV channels “YES-66” and “HOT-66” as well as on the Kab TV website and are translated live from Hebrew into English, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and Turkish.

Watch the lecture| Listen to the lecture

Correcting Our Souls In Order To See Reality

Laitman_2009-04_9109_w Kabbalistic books don’t contain even a single word that alludes to corporeal objects, places or even qualities that can be observed in this world. When we read phrases like “the Temple wall” or “man,” we must not imagine a wall in Jerusalem or a person in our world. Our world is an imagined reality, and Kabbalistic books do not say anything about the corporeal world.

The spiritual world has no names, and that is why it is described using the language of branches. For instance, the excerpt: “And his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives” means that the World of Infinity will spread (be revealed) and touch our world in the entirety of our desire.

The notion of “our world” also alludes to what we do not presently feel. The world we perceive is not defined in spirituality whatsoever, which is why it is called imaginary (Olam HaMedumeh). “Our world” or “this world” that’s described in Kabbalistic books is the last degree of the spiritual worlds. It is only our point in the heart that can be called a “point of this world,” because it is the last point of descent from above downward. If we tend to its development, then through this point we’ll be able to “ascend” back from below upwards.

We will then have the ability to perceive the world through the point in the heart, rather than from our corporeal senses. We will understand that this corporeal (illusory) life has been given to us as a temporary existence in an imaginary world. However, none of the Kabbalistic books (including the Bible, the Tanach, and others) ever actually mention this world.

The Bible doesn’t even speak of morality, despite what many people may think. It doesn’t speak of what I am to do with my animal body, but only of the correction of my soul. For example, the laws of the ritual bath (Mikveh) allude to the correction of the “body” (desires) by the qualities of Bina (water).

The laws of Kashrut (preparing food) tell us how to prepare one’s “animal” desire so it will be fit for being consumed by the “human” inside of us, or in other words,  how to elevate one’s vegetative and animate desires to the “human” level inside of us.

Sacrifices in the Temple (Kurbanot) describe the process of drawing closer to the Creator (Kurban means “sacrifice,” and comes from the word Karov – “one who is near”) or how to utilize the desires of all levels to resemble the Upper Degree, and how to change one’s intention towards the Creator from “for one’s own sake” to “for the sake of bestowal.”

In our language, all of these writings appear to describe bread and meat burning atop an altar, or water and blood flowing from it, but in the language of branches, the subject is the correction of one’s intention. So don’t bother building any stone structures, but instead focus only on correcting your soul! Through these imaginary “corporeal” images, we must learn to see the spiritual forces behind them.

Our Lives Are A Waking Dream

waking How do I know what is happening in the world around me? Something hits my ear drums, goes through my nervous system and produces electro-chemical processes in my brain. These processes cross reference each other and I then decipher this information and compare it with what’s already stored in my brain. All of this happens in order for me to be able to distinguish sounds, make words out of them and eventually understand the meaning behind them.

There are many processes taking place in our brain to allow us to acquire “outside” knowledge and receive impressions from it. We understand these systems because they exist at various levels of our desire to be fulfilled: inanimate, vegetative, animate and human. This is where electrical and chemical reactions take place as well their deciphering and cross-referencing.

All of these processes contain a desire to be fulfilled; everything takes place within that desire. Our subconscious filters information before it ever enters our thought process. Any unfavorable information is filtered out and we pick up only the desirable information, although that can also include frightening things.

We “belong” to our desires and that’s why we perceive a distorted picture of reality. However, we are not aware of these defects and only see the ready-made picture that our subconscious filters.

That is why we cannot uncover the spiritual realm in our current state. Our current perception only depicts pictures of our material reality. We have nothing to compare those pictures with and therefore no one realizes where we actually are. We don’t even sense ourselves – it’s as if we’re asleep.

Moments From The Daily Lesson: Emptiness