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Dear Gianni and friends,
On a more personal level, I m finding the opposite of closer connection to several people in my life right now.
I feel less desire to be in contact with people who seem inconsiderate. Is this something I need to look at within myself- where I am inconsiderate ? Or, in fact, is it a sign of greater discernment ?
In the past, I have found that sometimes I ve had to let go of something completely before there is room for something better to enter my life. To be clear, I have had to abandon a different spiritual path, judging it for its own worth, without knowing what would come next, before I found the Kabbalah.
Does the same rule apply to both sets of circumstances?
No, with wisdom – basic corporeal wisdom – I learn to distance from those who are oriented away from the goal of my life and introduce only those who are drawn to that goal. With the exception of family, work people, and neighbors, I have no moral obligation to others. I should only keep the ones that I enjoy. But that’s not Kabbalah, that’s just being purposeful. That goes for people and other things too.
HI Gianni & friends,
Question 1) I m wondering about the “Desire to be like the Creator” , Julian said ” to want the status of the Creator”. That is – to be like G-d , and my question is – isn’t that Ego-ic, it sounds like there may be a competative edge ?
Question 2) Alternatively, since the Creator is Endless Light, the Ultimate One-ness, is there possibly a step missing, ( ie:- Adam HaRishon ) since its roughly the same as a person with this desire seeking to become obliterated, absorbed into One-ness. Surely it would only be possible to become ( part of ) the Creator, since to be LIKE Him would still to be separate, which in fact isnt possible. .
Good questions, Sarah. But the truth is that I can’t want to be like the Creator once I learn and feel what that means. I was built with senses that are innately at odds with that venture. So, it’s a fixed game. It’s known that I’ll believe this venture to be egoistic; it’s known that I’ll discover that it’s actually something my ego can never desire; it’s know that I’ll need to, thus, have a group around me that will inspire me to go toward this goal nevertheless since this is goal of life and I’ll have to do it eventually whether in a pleasant or unpleasant manner.
To your second question – no, the ego is as infinite as you think the Creator is. It’s a boundless desire commensurate with the boundless pleasure He wishes to bestow. So, we must only correct it so it can do so.
Dear Gianni,
I love this, its so exciting to be able to discuss it with you – my deep gratitude for such a gift !
I think you are saying that this is a game above reason, then ?
That the voice of my ego is not going away any time soon, & I have to deal with it. By an act of choice, & with the support of my group of 10, we will be discovering the results of our behaviours – & that to do so is the work of Kabbalah, which is essentially experiential in nature. ?.
Is that right? Thank you !
Dear friends and instructor,Thank you for all these clarifying questions and replies stated in this forum, I found answers to my own questions too.
I have read the novel-parable of Semion VinokurThe battle of Abraham”, and it helped me a lot to get an approach to the purpose and the method of Kabbalah, and the problem of our egoistical mind-set and its social and historical consequences, which can not be arranged by ourselves.
Is there any other book written by the senior instructors of KabU or by Rav. M. Laitman to go further in the next episodes of the life and writings of Abraham?
I have also started reading “The secrets of the Eternal Book” (right now I’m reading about Noah and the Ark).
Thank you very much!
Best RegardsDisclosing a Portion is a book that explains the Torah from the kabbalistic perspective. The Kabbalist is a great novel by Simeon Vinokur about Baal HaSulam. I think the first book you mentioned is one of a kind.
I like the idea that the current ongoing crisis( is that an oxymoron???) is in some way a necessity to push the world to creativity and solution.
I recently read a book/course called Big History: Its really a history of the world from the Big Bang onwards incorporating science, history, statistics, ….multi disciplinary.
What stood out was this : tribute taking states, nobles/ aristocrats/warriors of most historical systems that extract resources by force from merchants and agrarian peasants ..hate those people …they look down on them and feel superior! ( these are the foundational operating systems of most of the big world empires )Interestingly this strikes me as exactly the same mechanism that I felt after a lifetime in Nursing.
Many people resent and hate you simply for caring, they see you as a fool, a person to be exploited …weak.
It is hard to feel compassion for such people and this is where i get stuck …loving my neighbour as myself when my neighbour is such a person.
I gave it a good go for 40 years !!!!
I feel if this is the core of Kabbalah Im going to be in a lot of trouble trying to fulfil that basic tenet .
Any advice on overcoming that difficulty?Hi Molly,
You don’t need to jump to fulfilling this tenet in your daily life. Because there’s a force called Upper Light that does have the power to bring us to see the whole world through a different lens. It’s not a psychological twist or something. It’s another previously non-existent sense. Like a snake that can suddenly hear a symphony as we do. Then we’ll see all the parts of reality as the bass, drums, marimba, violin, etc. On their own, I didn’t understand why they’re needed – like just tasting the salt if a dish by itself. But when this lens lets me feel and see the whole, all will be in perfection – always was. We just need to advance simply, and quickly towards the goal of life and it will be revealed.
In four phases of direct light, everything seems quite reasonable to me, except for the last phase, the Malchut. In phases 1 to 3, the Kli goes through a gradual process of development, it receives, then wants to bestow, then learns how to balance these two things and arrives at phase 3, where the balance seems to be found. But how come then it immediately transforms to Malchut, a completely egoistic Kli? What happened to phase 3 that justifies this abrupt transformation and makes it forget the long process it went through stages 1 to 3?
Hi Julia, sorry for the delay. Everything happens in an orderly evolution, but we don’t discuss every detail here. This is a broad overview. And that’s the correct way to learn: first a bird’s eye view, then zooming into further details.
Generally, the same logic by which Bina decides to receive just a bit, applies to receiving the whole lot. The Upper Light only wants her to receive. She also wants this. If she doesn’t receive, He’s not happy, she’s not happy. So, she decides to receive all the Light. Problem is, you are not the same desire after the Light has made an impression, departed, and returned. Let me give you cigarettes at times of my choosing. Even if you currnetly find them disgusting, I can get you to a state where you think of nothing else. The first one, you’ll want to almost throw up. The fifth cigarette, you’ll feel you sort of like it but could give it up, no problem. You can say that Bina is like that, when there’s still a bit of the nicotine circulating in your blood somewhere. You think you’ll be fine without it. Once it’s completely gone, you have receptors in your brain that are waiting specifically to be filled by the nicotine. You’re already a fiend, and don’t yet know it. Similarly here, when Malchut receives all the Light she had in Phase 1, it’s not the same Light. It’s immeasurably more powerful. Like you’re no longer the same person who despises cigarettes, or the person who likes them but could totally give them up, Malchut is not the same desire that was able to make various seemingly altruistic calculations.
Thank you for your answer. It explained a lot. However, I would prefer if you didn’t project addictive behavior patterns directly on me. It is wrong for many reasons. Doing so, you can cause a damage to a person and harm a person psychologically. If you need to make an example, you can use the words “one”, “someone”, “a person”, implying someone else, a third party, but not your direct opponent. This would be a much healthier way to interact, which would allow your opponent to understand your example without taking a risk of being harmed.
Instead of making your interaction style less toxic, you suggest your opponent to wear a gas mask for protection. It’s not about how anyone is built, it’s about projecting patterns on your conversation opponent and imprinting those patterns on their psyche. It’s quite a well-known thing. I believe a little bit of a psychological awareness added to Kabbalistic knowledge would only strengthen the competence of a Kabbalah instructor.
Julia, we’re not opponents. In fact, I don’t consider any question directed at a particular individual. There are a range of possible questions that students have along the way to the spiritual goal, and each students goes through them in their own way. Therefore, each answer is directed at all students who might read them. Whoever reads it, the answer will be true for them. According to Kabbalists, we’re all the desire to receive, like a certain computer model, and it’s construction is universal – though the Point in the Heart that is next to this desire to receive, is unique. So there’s nothing personal here, nothing directed to you as an individual.
The word “opponent” means the person on the other side of the conversation.
This is exactly the point. When you say “you”, you imply the person that reads the comment personally. When you say “I” you imply yourself personally. This is how the language and the psyche work. If you do not want to direct your comment personally to an individual, you should say the words “one”, “a person”, “someone”, implying a third party.
If you do not want to hurt people, do not direct them comments personally (using pronouns “I” and “you”), if those comments project detrimental patterns on them. For example, do not say that “you” personally will give “me” personally cigarettes and for some unknown reasons “I” would agree to take them from “you”. You have absolutely no reason to expect this type of interaction to happen between you and me personally.
I do not not how to explain this thing more clearly than I already did.
Why do Kabbalists teach that ‘we’, ‘you’, and ‘I’, all of ‘us’, are Actually, Factually, in Truth, separated from the Creator by our inborn ‘will to receive’ when the Kabbalists themselves tell us that this illusion of separation all a “fantasy” of the Creator?
The paragraph below is from, “Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life”, page 33:
“In this state, when an individual in our world wants to discover the Creator, the desire will seem to come first. Thus, a person will be able to give to the Creator out of free will, and this will constitute one’s form of free giving. You might say that from the perspective of the Creator it is nothing but a fantasy, and that the Creator really runs the show. Although this is true, it does not diminish the fact that from the perspective of the creature, the concealment of the Creator enables the creature to feel independent.”
It is obviously True then, from the writings of the Kabbalists themselves, that this whole scenario of a separation between the Creator who Bestows, and His Creature who only receives, is Actually just a “fantasy” from the Creator’s “perspective”. “the Creator really runs the show.”
So the Creator sets this whole illusion up as His own “fantasy”, that His primary and essential Quality is “Bestowal”, and then He creates a creature opposite to his essential Quality – with essentially a “will to receive”; He then plays out this whole game: of inversion of our will to receive to a will to bestow, climbing the 125 steps, Torah and mitzvot of 613 “correction”, and the final “adhesion” to Him – all in His own Mind, His Divine and Perfect “fantasy”.
So “the perspective of the creature”, in the multitude of “shattered” fragments, is Actually the Creator’s “fantasy”, and not a Fact at all. He remains Eternally and Everlastingly ONE. “the concealment of the Creator” from the creature, is Actually a “concealment” that He, Himself, places in His own Mind, as a part of His “fantasy.”
So why does Kabbalah teach, on the one hand, that this is all a “fantasy” of the Creator’s, and then teach, as Fact, that the Creator’s ‘fantasy” is Real? Why not just teach the Actual Truth, that the Creator is Eternally ONE, that our seeming “individual life” is Truly an illusion, that there is none else besides Him? Why all this elaboration on the illusion, the inversion, the 125 steps, etc.?
Why not just teach techniques that the seeker can implement to point their Attention directly at this “fantasy”, to look within their own Beingness and become directly Aware of the Reality of the Creator as what I AM?
Thank you. Blessings to all.
I didn’t hear from Kabbalists that there is a method like what you’re describing in the last paragraph. I’ll “look within” myself (which is 100% desire to receive, the opposite of the Creator) and “become directly aware” of the reality of the Creator (impossible because all those concealments were intentionally created by Him, and He didn’t provide in nature a secret key to be able to skip over them – as they have an essential purpose) “as what I am?”. This is not the case. I’m not the Creator, we’re the opposite of Him, the Desire to Receive, and it isn’t the truth that ultimately we find out that we’re Him. The end state is Creator & Creature, the Creature having overcome all the concealments, but in so doing (just as the completion of homework is not the end goal but what the child becomes out of completing it) we become similar to the Creator. We remain separate but similar in quality and then we’re together with Him as partners.
But your question is very similar to your last question, the essence of which was: why does Kabbalah contradict itself. If you have time and interest, I address that in this session on Psalms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiJ9OsfFKKQ&t=543s
Thank you Beloved Gianni, for your kind response. I can see clearly now, based on your response above: “The end state is Creator & Creature”, and, “We remain separate but similar in quality and then we’re together with Him as partners”, that Kabbalah is not a complete teaching. This is definitely not a criticism at all, but just an observation. Separation, in the way Kabbalah teaches, is definitely a “fantasy”, not the “end state.”
But, It is all in the Creator’s Will, and His Will is Perfection. All teachings are His Will, and everyone who is participating in any school of religion or Spirituality is simply carrying out the Creator’s Perfect Will for them. It’s all good, always.
Blessings to all.
Correct. In the way you’re speaking, the method of Kabbalah is not a complete teaching. In some places – in the Zohar, for example – there are some hints as to what happens after “the final correction” but Kabbalah does not teach about them. Kabbalah only teaches about what is in front of the student to do practically.
Dear Gianni, Thanks again to the Creator for this great Kabbalah Teaching and these uplifting and informative forums.
You say that the Zohar gives some “hints as to what happens after, “the final correction”, but Kabbalah does not teach about them.” Perhaps, but perhaps not. In one of the books, “Attaining The Worlds Beyond”, I read that True Kabbalah Knowledge comes directly from Above, and fills all the senses and the intellect simultaneously. But this only happens to those who have already experienced it. Reading the books will not do it alone. Even doing all the practices taught by Kabbalah correctly and diligently will not do it. Ultimately it is the Creator who Reveals Himself to each of His Creations, in His time and in His Will.
This is why, ultimately, the whole idea that ‘you’ and ‘I’, and all of ‘us’, have any control or choice over this ultimate Revelation has to be abandoned. In another path, this is called the “delusion of doership”.
The next step after the final correction is just Oneness, not adhesion. Because the final state is not a state of ‘you’, and ‘I’, separated over ‘here’ and the Creator over ‘there’, no matter how ‘tightly’ we are adhering together. And this is never a “doing” on ‘our’ part. It happens when it happens, all according to His Grace. ‘You’ and ‘I’ may diligently study Kabbalah, or any other Spiritual Teaching, for many lifetimes, and not get this Final Revelation of Oneness with the Creator. And, there are instances of very coarse egotistical people suddenly becoming totally spiritual. His Will, not ours.
This does not in any way imply that studying Kabbalah and applying the principles and practices of “free will” taught here should be given up. It just needs to be always in the fore of Awareness that, as quoted above, “the Creator really runs the show”.
Blessings to all.
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