5 Minutes Of Light From The Daily Kabbalah Lesson: Intention While Reading Kabbalah Books
Posted on September 17th, 2009
In truth, all development happens by means of the Light, which is concealed from us. And even though everything is done by the Light alone, when this takes place in our egoistic development, we don’t know anything about the Light and are not connected with It in any way. Therefore, when a person develops, he becomes more distant from the Creator, because he understands that he can do without Him. After all, where is the Creator in our world and how is He present in all that I do?
This is why the era of Enlightenment took place, when people left religion. But now, after all our development, we are revealing that we have reached emptiness. After studying and understanding this world, we now see that it is dirty and horrible. But the most important thing that we have come to understand is that the more we develop and the more efforts we make and despite becoming smarter and more skilled in some ways, things just keep deteriorating and the world becomes worse. So by developing the world, we have only made it worse, not better.
This is why people are reaching a point of despair. But this is not enough, and the Upper Force will not allow humanity to run away from it all through drugs. Together with all that is happening, the point in the heart is surfacing in people, and it is pulling them to further development. This is where we come up against a problem: on one hand, this point is egoistic, because it’s the reverse side of holiness. But even though this egoistic point is a result of the breaking, it can be turned into an altruistic point. We can turn it into a “drop of semen,” which will become a spiritual embryo.
As for the rest of the ego – this entire world – I cannot make it spiritual since all of it is inanimate matter. So, in order to develop spiritually, I then come to the group and the Kabbalah books, but still remain in the same place like a donkey, until I finally “get it”: I need an Upper Force, the Light that returns one to the Source and then I begin to demand It and plead with the Creator to become revealed to me and to correct me.
Therefore, our earthly development is over. All the cultural and scientific development has reached an end. People will now feel that it’s impossible to do anything new in these areas – it has exhausted itself.
A question I received: How did Marx derive the Kabbalistic principles if he wasn’t a Kabbalist? Was he an altruist? Is there a fundamental difference between his principles and those of Baal HaSulam?
My Answer: Kabbalah is a science. Its laws are the same in the whole universe and in all the worlds. They are laws of the interaction between the Light – the quality of bestowal and love, and the desire – the quality of reception and enjoyment.
Kabbalah studies these laws from their origin, the World of Infinity, the highest world. It then studies their descent along the 125 degrees of the five worlds, ending with our world. These things are scrutinized in all the Kabbalistic books. Therefore, Kabbalah is the physics of the Upper World.
We research our world using our five senses and mind, and then we synthesize the data we gather, which gives us the corporeal sciences. Likewise, Kabbalah reveals how the forces from the Upper World closest to us descend into our world and become forces of our world. And in fact, Kabbalah then turns into the corporeal sciences. (See the articles, “Kabbalah as Compared with Other Sciences,” and “Kabbalah as a Root of All Sciences”).
In its earthly transposition, the Upper Force is expressed as the physical and chemical laws. That is to say, It manifests on the “still” level of our world. It also becomes expressed as the biological laws, on the “vegetative” and “animate” levels of our world. And finally, It finds expression also as the laws of social and economic development, on the “human” level of our world.
Many sages of our world, who were not Kabbalists, studied our word and thus reached an understanding of the principles of Nature (the Creator). Marx was one of them. By studying humanity’s historical development, by researching modern society, and by using statistics of politics and economics, he gained the correct understanding of the direction in which every human society develops: toward unification into one whole.
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The Path of Kabbalah: Chapter 3.1 “Altruism”
In the News (from The New York Times): The point may soon come when there are more people who want to write books than there are people who want to read them. …companies that charge writers and photographers to publish are growing rapidly at a time when many mainstream publishers are losing ground. Experts state that for every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there’s two that should have been published.
My Comment: Baal HaSulam, article “Time to Act”:
Prior to the development of the printing industry, there were no false books as there were no writers who were irresponsible, for the simple reason that an irresponsible person is not famous. Therefore, even if one dared to write such a book, no scribe would copy it, as he would not be paid for his labor, which was quite expensive.
But ever since the printing of books has become popular, and writers no longer need scribes to manually copy their books, the price of books has been reduced. This has paved the way for irresponsible writers to publish whatever books they please, for money or for glory.
Therefore, the knowledge of the public has been greatly corrupted. In addition, there is an atmosphere of disregard for books: people think that a quick scan of a serious book in their leisure time is sufficient to master the wisdom.
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In the News (from Science): American microbiologists have created a synthetic microbial system, wherein altruistic microbes that produced a resource beneficial to the public, at a cost to themselves, nonetheless benefited the most in the end, despite losing the competition to egoistic bacteria in each separate population. The affluence of the altruists is attributed to the statistical effect known as “Simpson’s Paradox.”
My Answer: This is taking place on an animate, egoistic level. This is not the altruism that’s above egoism, but rather one that helps egoism to continue existing in conflicting situations.
The altruism that Kabbalah speaks of, and the one we must attain, is above egoism and it utilizes egoism as a basis. This is only possible under the influence of the Upper Light, and only when one consciously uses one’s egoism, instead of the natural egoism of the animate body.
A Kabbalist’s body works by the same egoistic principle as the body of any animal! The confusion stems from the fact that all the books of the Torah, including Kabbalah, use the word “body” to allude to the body of the soul – or in other words, one’s desires. After all, the desire is the only thing that was created; it is the entire matter of creation.
In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “His Empire in Tatters, German Billionaire Takes Life” Adolf Merckle, one of Germany’s wealthiest men, committed suicide. Mr. Merckle’s body was discovered Monday night near train tracks… In a rare interview last month, Mr. Merckle told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he had survived “many so-called stock-market crashes” but that he “couldn’t calculate a banking and financial crisis of this dimension.”
My Comment: He’s right: there’s never been a crisis like this in all of human history, because the current crisis is “qualitative.” It was caused by the human society’s opposition to Nature. Society has become global and interconnected like a “small village” where everyone is completely interdependent (“the Butterfly Effect”). However, our mutual egoistic hatred destroys all the connections. The effect of broken connections in a single system manifests as a crisis in the system – a crisis in all areas of our activity.
The crisis will not end until we find a solution – a way to be together, united by bonds of bestowal and love. This is what is required of us by the system that we have found ourselves in. We cannot escape these closed connections. We will have to observe the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We can do this through suffering (as we always have) or by realizing that it’s necessary (the method of Kabbalah). The choice is ours.
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Baal HaSulam Article: “Introduction to the Book, The Tree of Life”, Item 4
Three questions I received on the spiritual desire:
Question: First of all, thanks for a great Congress at Blackpool which I thoroughly enjoyed. Which prayers should we be saying as potential Kabbalists? I have watched the children’s lesson on prayer but cannot find the answer. Is there a particular prayer book we should use?
My Answer: A prayer is the heart’s desire. One should do all that one can to make his heart desire the goal of creation – the revelation of the Creator.
Question: Why does the Creator want us to need Him?
My Answer: Because He is the quality of “bestowal and love” within us. And this quality creates a sensation – within us – of an eternal and perfect life.
Question: You say that a person needs to feel a “deficiency.” What kind of deficiency are you talking about: spiritual or corporeal?
My Answer: This means that you must reveal that you don’t love others, and reveal it in such a way that it will suppress your self-love. It is as though you ascend on top of the mountain of your egoism through love for others, and to this degree, the Creator will be revealed to you, or rather, in you.
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Questions I received on smoking, evil, hell, and great desires:
Question: Does smoking interfere with spiritual development and the study of Kabbalah?
My Answer: No.
Question: Is the existence of Kabbalah related to the existence of evil?
My Answer: Kabbalah was given to us in order to transform evil to goodness.
Question: How can you explain it when a person desires to absorb everything that exists and constantly strives to feel the Creator?
My Answer: He is aspiring to the goal of creation!
Question: Is there a belief in Kabbalah that one who blasphemes God can go to hell after death?
My Answer: Hell is shame that “burns you up.” Everyone has to go through it in order to reach Heaven – the feeling of similarity to the Creator.
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Lesson on the Article: “Attaining the Unity of the Universe”
In the News: (from TNS): “Online news is ‘highly trusted’ by two fifths (40%) of those polled” Online news seems to be globally widespread with an average of two fifths (40%) across all 16 countries in the report trusting online news, while traditional press is decreasing (39%). 10% of respondents trust blogs, Wikipedia (24%) is as highly trusted as newspapers.
My Comment: In the future, as we will try to minimize our actions and expenses, the printing industry, including books, will become replaced by the electronic industry. The informational sectors of the Internet, such as Wikipedia, will become more objective and will gain people’s trust. But for the time being they are ruled by egoism, envy, competition and prejudice.
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A question I received: You are a scientist, Kabbalist, philosopher, and practice religious observances, but your explanations of evolution are unclear. Do you agree with Darwin’s theory?
My Answer: According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, one of nature’s principles is, “the fittest survives.” However, this theory worked only during the initial stage of life’s development, when the simplest organisms were developing and before they began to unite into complex bodies and distribute the functions between separate organs in a body.
Darwin’s theory can justify any method of enslavement, exploitation, and extermination, which are all done to provide maximal enrichment and safety for specific individuals. This principle justifies our actions when we wage a battle against everyone else, and when we wage a battle against Nature, taking away everything we possibly can from It, draining It of all the natural resources.
Today we find ourselves globally and integrally connected and interdependent, and we cannot continue to behave “according to Darwin,” in a battle for survival. Just like the biological forms of life, humanity has already gone through the stage of the egoistic battle for survival, and now – when it has revealed its interdependence, it must recognize the need for everyone to unite into one whole. And this no longer happens according to Darwin!
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