Entries in the 'light' Category

Bans on Occult Advertising

Bans on Occult AdvertisingNews Story: Lawmakers Press for Bans on Occult Ads

“Fearing for the ’health of the nation,’ lawmakers are trying to curb the amount of occult advertising in the media. A new bill slated for its first hearing in May hopes to ban advertising for healers, witches and anyone offering occult services without proper registration.

‘People are going to these healers who don’t have a license, who don’t have any right to practice,’ Petr Polonitsky, an aide to Duma deputy Vladimir Medinsky, one of the lawmakers behind the initiative, told The Moscow News ’We warn people that this is fraud, but they still go.’”

My Comment: On the one hand, this new bill calls for an applause, but on the other hand, it would be better if such advertisements were everywhere, so people would realize sooner that nothing will help them and that all problems stem from our egoistic nature. We will then start referring to our egoistic desires as Yetzer ha Ra (evil inclinations), because they make us feel bad. Moreover, we’ll want to replace them with desires that make us feel good, Yetzer ha Tov – desires to love and bestow. We’ll reach such an understanding either through suffering or through Ohr Makif – the Light (Ohr is Hebrew for “Light”) that descends while studying Kabbalah.

Related Materials:
* Myths About Kabbalah – Kabbalah is commonly associated with red strings, meditation, magic and many other things. This page aims to clear up commonly associated myths about Kabbalah.

Talmud Eser Sefirot – A Study Only for Attaining Revelation

Talmud Eser SefirotThe more you study TES (ed. abbreviation for Talmud Eser Sefirot), the more you understand what it is talking about. Every several lessons you suddenly understand something new, which changes the way you previously perceived and thought of matter. You’re able to understand things on a different level and project this differently onto everyday reality and the group.

A question I received: What difference does this make, if the only thing one needs is for the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) to take him through the Machsom (barrier)? Why does one need his understanding to change? After all, he can’t benefit from these changes, since what he understands comes from the will to receive, which is uncorrected and has no screen.

My Answer: You’re right. Everything that one attains through the mind, without feeling it, everything one attains in one’s uncorrected senses, without the intention to bestow – has no importance when it comes to spiritual attainment. But it’s important before he attains spirituality, because it helps him connect with the material in different states, when his senses aren’t working. And when one’s senses are working, he should try connecting them to the material that he studies. After all, TES speaks about your corrected state, and by studying it, you aspire to attain it with all of your organs, to actually enter it.

Let There Be Light

Let There Be LightEvery person’s soul is like a mirror reflecting sunlight.

A light beam descends, reflects off a soul, and withdraws into space.

Humankind, the civilization of egoists, is like a vast mirror array, reflecting light in different directions, making a sea of chaotic light.

However, merge the reflective light beams to be as segments of one immense parabolic source, and what do you have? At first, it looks like all beams are aimed differently, but as a whole, the light beams aim a common light at a common center. Their correct merger sparks a critical temperature, brings about a new substance – plasma – and bursts into flames.

And this is how each person’s light arouses the fire of love among friends. Their unity with one another, together with their aim at a common goal, produces a new state that’s unimaginable and unreachable using our common sense: adhesion with the Creator, an ascent to the Creator’s level. Such a state is unimaginable prior to achieving it, because it’s created only when everyone unites.

According to legend, Archimedes also set enemy ships on fire by aiming polished bronze mirrors at them. His contemporaries were so stunned by this phenomenon that even today, thousands of years later, people still talk about it.

It’s All for the Best (But We Can Get to It Faster)

It’s All for the Best (But We Can Get to It Faster)News Stories:
* Food Prices Rising Across the World – Food Crisis Looming
* Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why
* Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace

Apparently, we should get used to these headlines, as we’ll be seeing more and more of them, coming from all directions. Only then we will understand that there are no direct methods that can stop or even delay this downfall.

The only thing we need to do is balance ourselves with nature. Some say that we need to restore this balance; however the problem is that it had never existed in the first place. While our egoism was still small, this lack of balance wasn’t that dangerous. And even if we wanted to, we could never compensate for it, as we didn’t have any means to do so. [Read more →]

Can Identifying the Chemical Pathways and Brain Structures that Generate Religious Experiences Lead Us to Spirituality?

Can Identifying the Chemical Pathways and Brain Structures that Generate Religious Experiences Lead Us to Spirituality?A letter I received:

Shalom Rav Laitman,

Scientists explain that so called religious experiences, the sensation of spirituality can be explained by neuroscience and the structure of the brain. They are identifying the chemical pathways and brain structures that generate religious experiences.

Sony is building a new technology called, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which sends a magnetic wave of activity through the brain. Depending on the wave’s frequency, it can either accelerate or suppress processes in the areas it sweeps over. These magnetic waves can generate all kinds of sensations, but the most intriguing one is the religious experience. Tested subjects claim that they met God.

Can Kabbalah ensure us that we will not experience fake sensations of the Creator?

My Answer: It’s impossible. Anything we can do to ourselves can only suppress or arouse sensations within the limits of our egoistic nature. Moreover, anything that is higher or spiritual (the Creator), exists in the qualities of absolute love and bestowal. Therefore, only by attracting the influence from Above – the Upper Light – can we correct our egoism, and turn it into altruism. And furthermore, only to the extent of such a correction within ourselves will we be able to perceive the Upper World, the Creator.

Kabbalah Today Publication – 13th Issue

Kabbalah Today Publication - 13th IssueThe 13th issue of the Kabbalah Today publication is now available.

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Editor’s Note
More Real than Reality TV, More Connected than the Internet
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Anything but Survival
The game show, Survivor, is an excellent example of how not to behave in order to survive in our world. But are we – people of the world, stranded on planet Earth – really that different from the contestants on Survivor?
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To Be or Not to Be?
Death is one of the most unsettling, yet fascinating, phenomena we all face. At one point or another, it touches the lives of each of us, forcing us to ask profound, seemingly unanswerable questions.
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Facebook – What’s All the Fuss?
The obsession with Facebook expresses a deep rooted desire within each of us—to feel connected with everyone. But does the largest virtual community really deliver the new and improved social world we seek?
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Tom, Jerry and Our Children
Today, even Tom can’t help us teach good values to our children. Not to mention Jerry…
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Extras – Why Does Love Always Hurt?
Love always hurts us, because in our world, love is based on the needs of the ego. Whether we are aware of it or not, our love always comes with the calculation: “Is it worthwhile for me or not?”
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“Light” – the Kabbalistic Meaning
The word “Light” brings all kinds of positive associations to mind. But in Kabbalah, Light is higher than anything we can imagine – it is, in fact, a quality of the Creator Himself.
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Living the Spiritual Dream World
We all begin our lives perceiving and living in this corporeal world, until one day we discover a unique desire for something new and different, mostly called “spirituality.”
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Kabbalah: User Manual
What’s it All About?
Although we often feel like isolated individuals and see a world of schisms, Kabbalists say that we are all interconnected and interdependent.
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Israel Isn’t What You Think It Is

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Michael! As far as I understand, God’s decree to come to know yourselves only applies to the people of Israel? Here’s the quote: “This means that every man from the nation of Israel is guaranteed to ultimately acquire all the wonderful attainments with which the Creator intended to please every creature in the Thought of Creation.” Why then are you preaching Kabbalah around the world? Am I missing something?

Answer: After the exile from the spiritual level (which happened in the beginning of our era), when Kabbalists attained the Light and mixed with the nations of the world over a period of two thousand years, the sparks of that Light, which was present only in the souls of Kabbalists, have also spread into the souls of the nations of the world, as it is said: “Israel has gone into exile so as to unite with the souls of the nations of the world.” This mixing takes place through existence on the egoistic level, which is common for all nations, and not through mixed marriage as some may think.

Today, this mixing of egoism and the sparks has been completed, and all that’s left for us to do is correct the egoism of every person who has a spark of Light, and ascend to the level of the Creator. This happens gradually, in those who already ask themselves the question about the meaning of life. These are the ones called “Israel,” which stems from the words “Yashar” – straight, and “El” – the Creator, that is, “Straight to the Creator,” according to their aspiration. Obviously this no longer has anything to do with nationality.

War Will Erase Everything

War Will Erase EverythingStatement: Preparation for war is well underway. Crises in national debts broke out before the first and the second World Wars, and they are accruing again today. Both the United States and Britain are accumulating exterior debts of 2 trillion dollars a year. Such debts cannot be returned, and no one is planning on returning them! So what are they thinking?

If we, however, look at the present actions of western politicians as preparations for a large war, then their actions look rather reasoned and purposeful. Even Norway accumulated a debt of $469 billion for population of 4.6 million, even though there was absolutely no need for it! Besides, 7 billion people living in our planet is way too many! Even if a quarter of them remain, the planet will breathe easier…

My Response: The basis of the world – is egoism, fulfillment. The lack of a method to control it leads the world to war. The evolution of egoism under the influence of Light took place even before the appearance of matter – in “the Four Phases of Direct Light.” This formula is called the “principal four-letter name of the Creator” (HaVaYaH). Any phenomenon in the worlds develops according to it. [Read more →]

Adam – We Share One Common Soul

Adam – We Share One Common SoulOriginally, one soul of Adam was created, which divided into 600,000 souls, each of which divides into a great number of sparks.

However, the spiritual doesn’t divide into parts. Therefore, in reality there exists only one soul of Adam and it is contained wholly within each individual. The soul is divided into 600,000 parts by man’s egoism.

Initially, egoism expels and distances the Light from the soul. But if the ego undergoes correction through the study of Kabbalah, then the common soul shines in it.

Therefore, there are various circumstances with regard to the person:
1. He feels his individual soul and doesn’t understand that it is – the common soul,
2. Corresponding to the level of unity with the souls, the Light of the common soul shines within him,
3. When egoism is completely corrected, he feels that his soul exists in everyone, and the common soul shines for him to the fullest degree, as it does in Adam.

From here the three periods of man’s spiritual growth are created:
1. A spark of the soul,
2. The individual soul – perceives itself to be a part of the common soul, which brings about a feeling of lovesickness,
3. Approaches perfection in bestowing to the Creator; connects to the common soul. [Read more →]