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hi, it’s great to study kabbalah. It’s great to learn all these things,I have never seen something like this before. Now I am taking the first steps into kabbalah´s experience, I think it’s time to get in touch with my innermost fears,which are getting into a group of people that aim for spiritual attainment.
The first time I tried to reach spirituality just shot me in the face. I was hurt, I started to feel guilty, ashamed, and started to hate my body, I had pain over parts of my body, people who I was getting acquainted with betrayed me, tried to make me feel part of a thing, which I thought was spiritual, but just brought me problems and suffering.
Now I want to try again,see if things can be different, maybe this time I am right, in choosing kabbalah, maybe this time I can reach the goal of my life, but I still feel weak, I still feel suffering, confused, trusting for me is difficult. I want to get better, I want to try again.
I know I’m late, this week is over, but I’ll post my question anyway. Who knows, somebody may be able to explain to me what I don’t understand…
In this week’s Knowledge Check one of the questions was about which of three possible answers (one, two, or all three) is true. The second of the three options read:
“From the outside, the activities of a Kabbalistic group may appear to be the same as any other social club, but they are actually experiences that help grow one’s knowledge of spirituality.”
The first and the third were true, and I had them correct, but I also think this one is true, but it isn’t. Even after being told I had it wrong, it still seems true to me. What have I misunderstood? What about isn’t true?
I’m sure I’ll figure it out some time. See you in week 2. 🙂
Hi Jack,
I’d have to look at the entire question and the lesson it was based on, but if this one is false it’s because the activities in a Kabbalistic group do not exactly grow one’s knowledge. They grow one’s spiritual desire, their vessel, in which the Light can enter and from this I get spiritual knowledge.
Hi Gianni,
I’m sorry to be so late in responding.
The week’s Knowledge Check went like this:
“Tag the statements that are true:
1. There are many components (or activities) one undertakes when part of a Kabbalistic group – including lessons, workshops, meals, Yeshivat Haverim (gatherings of friends).
2. From the outside, the activities of a Kabbalistic group may appear to be the same as any other social club, but they are actually experiences that help grow one’s knowledge of spirituality.
3. Activities in a Kabbalistic group enhance all of the concepts that we have already learned about, such as drawing the Reforming Light and building an intention for bestowal.
4. All of the provided statements are true.
I thought all the statements are true, but the second statement isn’t, and therefore the fourth statement isn’t either. The 1st and 3rd are true. I don’t understand why the 2nd statement isn’t true as well.
But I’m sure I’ll figure it out along the way. 🙂
HI Gianni & Friends,
On 8th March 23, you answered Rae by saying “the ego’s job is to waste our time until we die”, or, until we make a free choice to………….what, exactly? I completely identify with this, and every night when I review what I’ ve done, I see I have wasted my time. SOOO frustrating its also comic. ( I imagine I m talking about it to the Creator, and He just laughs -it s funny, but also a very serious/deadly game if its probably terminal ) BUT – if you now say this is the job of the ego, why? Isn’t the ego s job to want to receive pleasure ? So how & why is it working to stop us making the choice to do the spiritual work. ? AND, most importantly, can you please describe/explain what making this choice means we have to do.? I mean, I m following this course & engaging with it.
What am I not understanding? I really don’t want to continue doing this UNTIL I DIE ! Maybe its to do with a real prayer, so how do I get from here to that?
Hi Sarah,
It’s simply because the ego has vessels for corporeal pleasure only. How will you get a snake to enjoy Mozart? He doesn’t have vessels in which to feel it, let alone enjoy it. The ego has vessels for this world. You want to enter an Upper World? And you want me to agree to work for it? Work is suffering. I’ll work for pleasures I can perceive in my vessels. Therefore, all you can do is invest as much as you can into the one thing that isn’t that ego, which is the Point in the Heart. It is the starting point of a vessel that can enjoy the spiritual worlds. All of them will grow out of it and be perceived in it. Its water is our books and lessons, nutrients are the friends in this group, and its sunlight is the Upper Light that one can draw during these activities.
This is next level! I’m feeling the detail and the intricacy of these texts. There’s lots of study time attributed to week 1 of this course, so much so for it’s taken a little longer to complete.
I’m interested to know what your thoughts were on this quote from Chapter 2: The Boundaries of Joy?
In this world there are only two tragedies.
One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s FanMy take home is that Oscar’s talking about the corporeal, as no assumptions made to higher?`
He’s right. If I don’t get what I want, and I’m sure that I can’t have it, my ego covers it for me, concluding something to the effect of “we wouldn’t want that anyway.” That’s called, “One doesn’t lust after the daughter of the King.”
If I want something and don’t get it, but see it as reasonably obtainable, it shines for me in the future as Surrounding Light.
If I attain any desire, and I don’t have a spiritual Screen already, a short-circuit occurs between my gaping desire and the Light (pleasure) trying to enter like when the forces in a lightbulb connect without a filament. This is tragic because I’ve had to exert to obtain the pleasure, I’m now empty, but not only. My desire has doubled. I now have a double deficiency.
On the other hand, I’ve exhausted one in a finite (but exceedingly long) queue of desires I still hold hopes of receiving from. Of course, it would be better to jump to the work in the other direction, bestowal over reception – as this is a more pleasant way.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t philosophize about an outside quote but this one is apropos.
Hi, Julian in The Last Generation video, said that we need to correct the roots in order to see that correction in this world, the world of branches. Does that mean that the roots are rotten? And where are the roots, in which of the 4 stages were they created or appeared?
As I had this idea that we, as branches, are the Will to receive, and the Roots are the Will to bestow, and the line between them (the Earth surface) is the screen that needs to become permeable so we can receive the Light… And if so, the roots are already perfect as they are the Creator; but if they need to be corrected, they too are not the Creator… so what are they?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Zorica,
The roots are in Keter, Phase Zero, or Shoresh (root). These are the roots of the Kelim (vessels).
What we see in our world are just branches, and we can’t work with them like you can’t work with a holagram based on some sequence of zeros and ones. It’s no use to work with the imaginary images; you need to work with the zeroes and ones: reception and bestowal.
The terminology being used in the lessons and readings is getting more dense. Is it important to try to memorize all of the new terms, or just keep absorbing what I can and continue on?
Thanks Gianni! But I still don’t understand what does “correcting the roots” mean. You correct something that is not ok, and them being in Phase Zero, mean they are already perfect. Or…?
The roots are OK; I’m not OK. I’m fallen, several worlds down from the roots. The roots ensure that my correction will take place. Either I will rise to the world of roots, which by itself entails my correction, or I will go through phases of correction that, according to the roots, clothe into materials of this world. I’ll suffer greatly if I go through corrections this way. In fact every pinch we feel is from corrections we didn’t make. Rising to the roots requires rising above my egoistic qualities and clothing in upper qualities. Then, above my qualities, I agree with the Upper Force, and then my correction is pleasant.
Just keep absorbing what you can. You don’t remember because you only remember what you have some feeling of. Even numbers have a certain feeling. And if there’s no feeling, you can’t remember. Moreover, to tie two things together you need to develop a feeling of their connection – this is an even higher thing.
So, in short, the feeling will develop by the Reforming Light that one draws during the study, and the understanding will follow from the feeling.
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