Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

The Method Of Ascension

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe go through numerous lifetimes, remaining only in egoistic desire. Within it, we live and develop. It is our reality in this world. Essentially, it is only the point in the heart of each of us that undergoes incarnations while the bodies belonging on the animate level simply are born and die.

Finally, after many lifetimes, the point in the heart starts doing its work. After all, the material desire has completed its development and has nothing else to do; it lost interest in trying to fill itself and doesn’t see an exciting future ahead. All of this helps the point in the heart to bring a person to the question of the purpose of life, of a more exalted existence than the material journey from birth to death. This is the beginning of the spiritual process.

In nature, there are two forces: the will to receive and the will to bestow. The spiritual world is the world of bestowal, whereas the corporeal world is the world of reception. How then do we unveil the world of bestowal? How do we enter it?

My point in the heart must face egoism which halts it. Yet, the upper force that expands from the integral network of mutual connection brings me to the group, the studies, and the teacher. Now, I have to work with the environment so that my will to bestow may rise above the will to receive. Having accomplished that, I will ascend to my first spiritual degree. It is grounded in egoism, but its essence is in bestowal.

The stages of ascension are as follows: 1) My egoism is increased to match the point in the heart, 2) I have to trust that even if these forces are equally strong, I can reconcile them by having elevated my point in the heart with the help of the group and having chosen the value of bestowal over the value of reception, and 3) This is regarded as faith above reason.

Later on, the process repeats: I receive greater egoism, which is confronted by the point in the heart that has also grown, thereby ascending to the degree number two. In this way, we climb the ladder of spiritual rungs, step by step.

[32099]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
While Crossing Into Spirituality
Ascending The Rungs Of Bina
Efforts And A Finding

Kabbalah And Other Sciences, Philosophy, and Religion

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe key difference between Kabbalah and philosophy is that philosophy engages in abstract matter, while the wisdom of Kabbalah deals solely with form clothed in matter. Hence, philosophy is detached from reality, while Kabbalah is tied to it as is any other science.

However, while the regular sciences study reality perceived in the egoistic desire, Kabbalah explores reality sensed in the altruistic desire. Reality is perceived in the very same desire to receive pleasure, yet in the first case, desire “wants” to enjoy for “its own sake,” while in the other it is “for the sake of bestowal.”

This desire has two forms of existence. Science that studies the behavior of the desire which strives to absorb and receive everything into itself is called material, natural science. “Material” means that it acts with the egoistic intention.

Science that studies the actions of the desire to receive pleasure which aspires for bestowal is called Kabbalah. This form of existence of matter is absent in our world; it can only be found in the upper worlds.

Hence, it is clear that the wisdom of Kabbalah is opposite to the material sciences for it explores the opposite behavior of matter, which makes all of their laws and principles cardinally different. Yet, they both use the same scientific approach of relying only on obvious facts.

Accordingly, as the materialistic science studies the levels of egoistic matter, which exist in this world, so does Kabbalah use the same realistic, scientific approach to examine the existence of spiritual matter at the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature, which act in bestowal in the spiritual world.

But the study method can be either scientific or religious, which is based on faith. And if so, it is religion, not science. Accordingly, if this non-scientific approach based on pure faith is applied in our world, it turns into “philosophy.”

To summarize, matter could work either 1) for its own sake, or 2) for the sake of others. In both cases (either in the upper world or in our world) a scientific method can be applied, meaning the method that relies on experience, reason, obvious facts, and the study of form clothed in matter. In addition, another approach can be used in both areas, which studies abstract form: philosophy and religion.
[31534]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Everything Is Relative In This World
Everything Depends On Definitions
The Dawn Of Philosophy

http://www.laitman.com/category/philosophy/

Teaching Children Spiritual Perception

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You have said that when properly taught, the new generation will naturally transition into spirituality without sinking into egoism. How does this fit with the notion that man comes to Light from darkness as he reveals the evil within?

Answer: We exist in a very large system of souls that was created by the Creator. Now, instead of it, we feel our physical existence and broken interconnection. There is only one reason for this: our inadequate and faulty perception. And this is why we need to find out and learn how to transition to the correct perception.

If we were to come to Kabbalists at a young age, they would have given us the education that we as children should have received. To educate means to accompany a child as his desires grow and impulses take over due to the changing Reshimot which unfold in the process of his natural development, and provide him with the means to manage them, properly arrange them, and weave them into the correct attitude towards the world.

Today we teach our children to exploit the world, to enjoy it egoistically, and to use everything and everyone. Instead, we need to teach children an altruistic and friendly attitude towards the world, teach them love. This way a child simply receives a different education method from us and no more than that.

“How will his evil inclination manifest?” The evil inclination does not go anywhere; it keeps growing, while we provide children with the appropriate means to correct it. So why am I teaching adults, who are also transitioning from the animate to the human degree, when I can be working with children? Today, all of them are born with inescapable questions about life. There is no need to wait for them to grow up and become full of animate desires. I can immediately teach them to be human.

Parents must provide their children with education one way or another. And if my goal is bestowal and love of my neighbors, then would I really teach my son anything else? Of course, I will teach him the things I value.

Our duty is to provide our children with a method that will bring them to the human degree. We clearly see what is happening in the public education system. And this is why we naturally need to do everything we can to ensure our children receive spiritual education.
[32072]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Children Perceive Spiritual Meaning Naturally
Children, Be Kind To The Teacher
Unique Spiritual Material

There Is An Alternative!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today there are many new students present at the lesson. What advice would you give them to change their egoistic intention into an altruistic one?

Answer: In our world, we are approaching the moment of truth: We have nothing else to live for. Day by day, the world discovers that its life is empty. In reality, however, we haven’t reached the turning point just yet, and people still manage to confuse themselves and obscure the truth because they have no replacement for their present life.

We have to show them that the alternative does exist, and that we are undergoing a certain process managed from Above. We have to actualize it. It is a unique, benevolent process, a remarkable development, elevating us over life in the body which is approaching death every given second. This is what we should pass on to the newcomers.

We must rise to a new perception of reality. It doesn’t mean that I simply replace “my picture” I see from within the body. No, I don’t “switch the remote” on the external view, but rather I step out into a new reality, cross from one world to the other. I change my attitude in practice, by giving it a new vector: from within myself to outward toward others, or from within myself out to the Creator. In fact, “the other” is a remedy, an intermediary phase that helps me to aim to the Creator.

In general, I can exist in my small will to receive pleasure, perceiving this tiny, frail world. Alternatively, I can break free from it and experience eternal life, the perfect nature, where I live without restrictions in the world of Infinity. The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us this opportunity.

In the previous generations, only a few were able to experience such an internal revolution, the transition from one world to the other. But today, everyone whose point in the heart (or spiritual desire) unfolds can try to actualize it. Starting with our time and on, the entire human race will gradually, step by step, undergo this transition.
[32086]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Teaching Children Spiritual Perception
A Speech At The Alternative Medicine Congress, 10.27.10
True Reality – Laitman Unplugged

Catch "The Good Fate" By The Tail

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I have an egoistic desire and a spark of bestowal, then who am I?

Answer: You are the middle, you stand between them as the deciding force which shifts the scale. If you cannot arbitrate bestowal and receiving within you, their conflict will force you to do it, if only by way of suffering, through internal and even external wars. On the other hand, you can use the wisdom of Kabbalah which explains to you how to go through this process quickly and consciously.

Question cont.: What determines my choice then if I am in the middle?

Answer: It is defined by the environment that you have been led to. The Creator, so to speak, “places a person’s hand on the good fate,” but later on, you yourself should become rooted in the group and begin working with it.

If you are sitting at the lesson right now, it doesn’t mean that you have found the right environment just yet. You haven’t found the essential tools yet: not the teacher, or the group, or the books. You received them from Above, but you haven’t shifted the scales yet.

To do so, you must literally dig your teeth into the means you were given and use them correctly. You need to employ them every second by checking how and what else can be done. That is what constitutes your choice.

Egoism constantly pushes you away from it, disconnecting you from the teacher, or the group, or the books, and distracting you with doubt and disdain. And if you overcome these difficulties, you advance.

Let’s see if you are a real man. After all, “man” in Hebrew (Gever, גבר) means "overcoming" (Hitgabrut, התגברות), which allows you to raise one’s spark over all obstacles.
[32089]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
The Middle Line
Light Through The Cracks In The Wall
Putting Together Your Partzuf

Children, Be Kind To The Teacher

Dr. Michael LaitmanSpiritual education is much quicker at developing the receiving desire in children. Egoism grows and restores balance as we provide children with the means of bestowal, which help manage it. As a consequence, seven to nine-year-old children develop aspirations and abilities absent in people at thirty or forty.

Our body does not play any part here; its changes are insignificant. A person is judged according to the soul’s shifts and changes. We are yet to see how the egoistic desire in children grows according to the degree of correction that the soul is able to provide. Nature, the upper governance, always keeps this balance.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES), Part 9 and further describes the maturing of the soul: the periods of conception, nursing, and maturity. A child will be able to go through these stages before completing high school.

Indeed, why should a boy not become a “man” at thirteen and acquire the Masach (anti-egoistic screen), in other words, begin his work of overcoming, receiving for the sake of bestowal in a mature state (Gadlut)? He will then have control over all of his desires by twenty and will come to the end of correction by the time he turns seventy.

To a certain extent, this is the way it occurred during the times of the Temples. Children received a corresponding education, and it is written that from Dan to Beersheba, there was not a single child who did not know the spiritual laws.

Here everything depends on the environment. For example, if we were to organize a commune and raise our children there, would they not grow, studying the properties of reception and bestowal, and learning to work with them?

Even today our children are soaking in the spiritual education, regardless of the “viruses” that schools are infecting them with. They have a different approach; they know how to analyze the world and themselves. Besides, they do not repeat what they have heard or learned, instead they actually speak in “first person,” they make independent observations, and draw their own conclusions.

Sit a child like this down with a professor of some sort and you’ll see that there will be no conversation. And the child will not be at fault.
[32103]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Teaching Children Spiritual Perception
Children And Free Will
Teenage Rebellion Is The Leap Into Spirituality

Hot Air Balloon Flight To Freedom

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the Light of Hassadim and how is it brought about?

Answer: When with the help of the Surrounding Light that Reforms I cultivate my point in the heart, it becomes my setting to bestow to the Creator. I acquire this ability. The Light of Hassadim releases me from egoism, and I rise above it. It is as if I received a hot air balloon that lifts me off the ground and I can fly!

The Light of Hassadim is the Light of Bina, the Light of freedom. I break free from my egoistic desire, as if exiting Egyptian bondage and becoming free from the rule of my ego. I rise above it, and it no longer burdens me. I am no longer bound by any egoistic qualities that make me steal, lie, and hoard; I withdraw from it all and become free, as if watching the whole world and myself from above, soaring in the air. This is the kind of freedom given by the Light of Hassadim.

The Light of Hassadim expands horizontally rather than vertically because it doesn’t depend on the level of desire. It is similar to a “generous spirit”: “Here I am, ready to bestow to everybody, without being ruled by my will to receive. Take all that I have; I don’t mind! I am connected with the Creator; I am united with Him and don’t feel any restrictions on my egoism; it has no power over me anymore.”

If a person steps out of egoism to such a degree, while ascending in the Light of Hassadim, he frees himself from the angel of death, rising above it.
[32114]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/2011, “Explanation of the Article, ‘Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah’”

Related Material:
On The Path To Faith
Did You Wait For Redemption, The Light Of Hassadim?
The Light Of Hassadim Is All We Need

Children And Free Will

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Since a person has to realize his freedom of will, could we be taking it away from the children by teaching them Kabbalah from an early age?

Answer: We are specifically teaching them how to use their freedom of will! States keep changing, egoism grows, the surrounding society changes. Every moment a child needs to make a new decision about who he wants to be with, how to treat and perceive things, and what he needs to do. If they keep relating to the changing environment correctly, they will develop very well.

Everyone knows about the teenage crisis, when everyone revolts. We need to use this wonderful quality and never repress it. It will help children make an easy leap from corporeality into spirituality. We only need to properly prepare the children prior to this age so that the coming-of-age years (12-15) would become their years of spiritual ascent and entrance into the spiritual world.

For this reason, children need to be educated ahead of time in a way that would help them realize what they have learned in practice later. Nature intentionally lays this period of inner explosions in our genes: on the levels of hormones, egoism, and the desire for power.

This is the age for working with a person in order to raise him or her into spirituality. They start “growing old” afterward. Beginning with the age of 20, people start moving in the direction of the cemetery. They “enter life,” end up in an ordinary society, and become concerned only with providing for themselves in the corporeal world.

A child needs to be educated from the age of six or seven so he would acquire an opportunity to act in a correct manner, grow up, and become “big” in the spiritual sense before he enters adolescence and grows up. We must not miss the childhood years; otherwise, it will be too late!

It would be the same as beginning to teach grammar at twenty. Imagine all the opportunities this person would miss in his life. But in our case we are referring to the fundamentals of nature, which need to be instilled in a child. We teach him to properly organize all his desires and qualities.

This is absolutely essential, and this is why we are so concerned with creating an educational system according to the method of Kabbalah.
[32000]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Related Material:
Teenage Rebellion Is The Leap Into Spirituality
Light Assisted Education
Why Personal Freedom Is Essential

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.10.11

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What is the Feast of the Groom”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Donkey Driver,” Item 81, Lesson 2
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 54, Lesson 30
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy,” Lesson 11
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Kabbalah Moments: The Ego Not You