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Hello,
I have two questions.
The first is this one :
1) Why this ancient wisdom of Kabbalah was unrevealed for all many times ?
The second is this one :
2) How to start to feel the upper worlds in our life ?
Thank you !
Hi Frédéric,
1. Kabbalah is the method by which we can correct our egoistic nature and reveal the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. There are 5 levels of egoism that need to be corrected. Throughout history, as the level of egoism grew, accordingly Kabbalah was revealed in a specific form that will help correct that level of egoism.
For example: if you compare Kabbalah to a medicine that can cure a rare disease, obviously you can’t take the medicine before you’re diagnosed with the disease, but once the disease actually manifests, you can take the medicine and be cured of it.
So in our days, now that the full level of egoism has been revealed, Kabbalah became fully revealed.
2. Revealing the upper worlds works according to the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that to feel the upper worlds, we need to become similar to them, to the qualities of love and bestowal that reside there. This is just like how a radio can pick up an external wave, when we tune the internal frequency of the radio to that wave.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
I have to admit that when I first started learning about Kabbalah, it sounded a lot like Eastern religions to me. I don’t know enough about the Zohar to compare it with the Bhagavad Gita, but the concept of reincarnation is one of the first things to stand out to me. Also the idea that we are all connected, all one, seems apparent in both traditions. I do see that there is no monastic tradition in Kabbalah as in the east, but besides this, what else is the difference between the two?
Hi Belinda,
I’m not an expert in eastern religions, so I cannot comment on that.
Here’s a link from Rav Laitman’s blog about some general differences between Kabbalah, religion, philosophy, and science: https://laitman.com/2011/01/kabbalah-and-other-sciences-philosophy-and-religion/
Albert @ KabU
When it is said that we exist in a “totality” of which we currently have a very limited perception of, does that imply that after we die, and the soul is freed from the physical body, that we would have greater perception- specifically, can the soul of a loved one who has died be aware of their loved ones still in their physical bodies?
Hi Nerissa,
Our physical bodies are not preventing us from perceiving the whole of reality (or spirituality), it’s our egoistic nature that is preventing us. This is because perceiving spirituality works according to the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that to perceive spirituality, we need to become similar to it, to the qualities of love and bestowal that reside there. This is just like how a radio can pick up an external wave, when we tune the internal frequency of the radio to that wave.
But as long as we have not achieved this type of change, as long as we have not corrected our egoistic nature, which is opposite to spirituality, then we will continue to return to the level of this world again and again, until we achieve that change.
As for the soul, there are different levels to this thing called a soul. In the beginning, we all have an animalistic soul, meaning a certain force that enlivens our animalistic body, similar to any other animal. But the human level of the soul is not something we have by default, but rather something that we acquire by correcting our egoistic nature. In other words, each one of us has a human soul in potential which we call the point in the heart. If we correct that point, out of it, we can build the full level of the soul. If not, that same potential continues to reincarnate again and again until it gets corrected.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
https://laitman.com/2015/06/what-happens-to-the-soul-after-death/
Albert @ KabU
I had some questions relating to Kabbalah though not directly related to the preparation materials which I listened to/read them all anyway.
One was from the book ‘Jewish Meditation’by Aryeh Kaplan. The author states at some point, and I am paraphrasing, that the states of mind attained by kabbalistic meditation may cause such elation that the student may not want to return to a normal state, and in fact these ecstatic states are why many other nonjews practice kabbalistic meditation, which turned it to idolatry. What are your thoughts on this? How important is it to maintain a code of discipline or morality, whether derived from judiasm itself or from another source, to success in attainment through this proccess ? I can certainly see where he is coming from, there are many new-age meditation schools that are not rooted in a strong disciplined structure and so there are more opportunities for people to fall astray. One big example is sexual abuse but there are others like indulging in drugs, alcoholism, etc.
Just wanted to add to this, in terms of personal relevance of morality, it’s more important for me to think about things like relationships and family. Much of religion is about getting married, and having children. What if a person just wants to serve community without those things? Does it still make sense to learn Kabbalah for personal reasons or would that be considered selfish?
The second question is: Is intellectual Kabbalah superior to kabbalistic meditation techniques? And why does the emphasis of the Revealing Kabbalah course preparation materials seems so focused on understanding the nature of reality through gaining knowledge. What role do meditation, visualization, and other practices have in Kabbalah?
Hi Dana,
1. I’m not an expert in other methods, even other methods that call themselves “Kabbalah”. So I cannot comment on what they do or teach there.
As for morality, it depends on your goal in life. If your goal is to reach the revelation of the Creator, this is possibly only when we practice connection and bestowal with other points in the heart in the Kabbalistic group.
If you practice this anywhere else, in the best case scenario you’ll build some good relationships, in the worst case, people will think you’re weird or try to take advantage of you. But either way it will not lead to the revelation of the Creator.
So generally, with the rest of the world, it’s best to just act normal, like everyone else. Meaning don’t make a saint of yourself and at the same time don’t cause harm to others or break the law, but just act the way normal people act.
2. The goal of authentic Kabbalah is to correct our egoistic nature in order to become similar to the Creator and reveal Him in practice. Things like meditation help to calm us down, but ultimately don’t correct our egoistic nature, so they are not a part of the authentic Kabbalistic method.
Likewise with knowledge, we do need a certain fundamental amount of knowledge to practice Kabbalah, but beyond that the Kabbalists tell us that “it’s not the wise that learns”. Meaning that we’re not learning this material simply to acquire knowledge, to store it in some box in our brains. After all, if knowledge was the path to spirituality, then a supercomputer loaded with all of the Kabbalistic texts would be the most spiritual being in the world. But obviously this is not the case.
So why do we study if not to gain knowledge? Because through the study, we draw the force of the light. This force has the ability to correct our egoistic nature. As a result of that correction, we reach spiritual attainment in practice.
See my reply 466214 to Aliona below for more details.
Albert @ KabU
Shalom and thank you for answering my question in advance, I have two in fact. My first question is about the ties between Kabbalah and Jewish people. There is emphasis that Kabbalah is not related to religion and is not to be only studied by jewish people, which I understand. However, all the main Kabbalists seem to be also Jewish (varying degrees of religious, but mostly so) and from the research I have independently done, Hassideism, which is a branch of Jewish religious tradition is built on the learnings/ texts of Kabbalah. Can you explain a bit more about this inter-relationship. My second (unrelated) question is about whether Kabbalah teaches us anything about embodiment practices? I mean, if we take the quote – “when we let heaven descent through us, the temple rises” more literally and see that it actually closely correlates with lost teachings of ancient priestesses, who through ritual and descent into the body and surrender were able to reach the Divine. Does Kabbalah have any reference, or practices of the wisdom of the body or is it a mental science (that you contemplate and embody externally with you actions, rather than internally through your body? Thank you and I hope the questions make sense.
Hi Aliona, great questions!
1. Kabbalah and Judaism are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed onward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
2. I’m not an expert in other methods, so I cannot comment on what is taught there. As for what we learn in Kabbalah, attaining spirituality works according to the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that to perceive spirituality, we need to become similar to it, to the qualities of love and bestowal that reside there. This is just like how a radio can pick up an external wave, when we tune the internal frequency of the radio to that wave. We’ll learn how to do this in practice in the more advanced lessons.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
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