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I’m fascinated by the fact that Kabbalah is the basis for religion. I assume that in the earliest days the knowledge had a different name (if it had a name at all).
I get the impression that Kabbalists and students of Kabbalah cannot, or should not, talk of their personal experiences of spiritual growth, as it will affect the expectations and experiences of the newer students on their personal journeys.
Is this correct? We shouldn’t ask questions like, How does it feel?
Hi Chris,
That is correct, we don’t speak about our personal attainments. Kabbalists don’t share their personal revelations with anyone, since people are not yet corrected and this evokes negative envy, which ultimately harms both parties.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/05/do-not-trigger-fire-upon-yourself/
The exception to this rule is with one’s spouse. Since the spouse is essentially considered an extension of ourselves, like one’s other half. But even then, it should be done very gently, without violating the rule that “there is no coercion in spirituality”.
As for questions like “how does it feel”. Each person is unique and feels the world through their uniqueness, so it’s impossible to compare how one person feels spirituality with another.
Although we can say that whoever reaches the same spiritual degree will experience the same things that are found on that spiritual degrees. But nonetheless, each one will experience those things through their own uniqueness. Just like two people can be riding in the same car, one person can feel hot while another can feel cold.
And if we’re talking about two different spiritual degrees, then their experiences are light years away from each other. This is because every new spiritual degree comes with a completely different set of values and way of thinking. What was valid on the previous degree, becomes false on the current one. What we used to value previously, becomes worthless. This is called “what is waste for the upper is nourishment for the lower”.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/01/rising-to-a-new-degree/
Albert @ KabU
Hi, what are the fragments of Malchut? Where is the key to decode the great books? Is it learned gradually, or is it listed somewhere to start the connection to the material of interest? I was watching Geographical Kabbala and I am fascinated.
Hi Rebecca,
The fragments are us. Essentially all of humanity are parts of a single system, like cells within a single body. This connection between us is currently concealed or fragmented. It’s as if this body is under a state of anesthesia and does not feel itself as one body. Our job is ultimately to reconnect this system back together, starting from a small Kabbalistic group, until we’re able to expand this connection to cover the whole world.
We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/
We’ll learn how to interpret a few of the stories in the Kabbalistic books together throughout the semesters, but the true key to unlocking that code is not something learned but rather something that comes with spiritual attainment. Without spiritual attainment, we cannot truly understand these things. It’s like a blind person that is trying to study colors. He can learn the wavelengths behind each one, the different feelings they all evoke, but ultimately he will never truly understand colors. But if this blind person was to undergo an operation and gain his sense of sight, how easy and simple it would be to teach him colors. We would simply point to it and say “this is red”.
It’s the same with the language of roots and branches used in Kabbalistic books. It’s currently impossible for us to truly grasp that language. But once we gain our “spiritual sight” we would pick these things up very easily and naturally.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/12/the-spiritual-decoder/
Albert @ KabU
When a person finds himself involved in various teachings and mystical organizations thru out the years, is that a result of reaching ‘a point in the heart’ or is that just one following their curiosity about various things?
Hi Mikel,
It could be both. It could be curiosity or it could be the point in the heart ripening and pulling him to a few places to see if anything resonates with him.
Check out my reply to Frederick below for more details.
Albert @ KabU
Week 1 explains that a person is drawn to Kabbalah when the desire for life’s meaning—the “point in the heart”—awakens, often after ordinary forms of fulfillment no longer satisfy. How can a beginner distinguish a genuine spiritual awakening from temporary dissatisfaction caused by personal difficulties, and how should we work with this desire correctly without neglecting our family, career, or responsibilities in this world?
Hi Frederick,
When the point in the heart awakens, it does not let a person enjoy life. Meaning that even if a person is rich and has no problems at all, if his point in the heart awakened, he would feel life as empty and unable to find satisfaction in it.
Furthermore, the point in the heart is like a piece of metal in a magnetic field. When it awakens, it begins to pull us in the direction where we can satisfy it. So if a person simply feels bad but continues to tolerate it, that’s not yet a real point in the heart.
But if he feels bad and begins to search through different methods, that’s already the beginning of the point in the heart. And when he finds what his point in the heart is looking for, he will feel what he’s learning as strongly resonating with him.
This is why we the Kabbalists tell us that “there is no coercion in spirituality” and “one studies only where one’s heart desires”. Meaning it’s up to each person to feel for themselves if the place they found is what they were looking for.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2011/06/aspiring-to-a-point-of-equilibrium/
As for working correctly with the point in the heart, you’re right that we need to find a good balance between our corporeal lives and our spiritual aspirations. Without a good balance in our corporeal lives, we won’t be able to advance in spirituality either. This is called “no flour, no Torah – no Torah, no flour”.
Meaning a Kabbalist continues to exist on the level of this world throughout the entire spiritual ladder. So I cannot just turn into a monk and disconnect from this life and only focus on spirituality. On the other hand, if I only focus on corporeality, then I’m no different than an animal.
So the important thing is to find the right balance between the two: to take care of all of one’s normal necessities: to work, take care of the family, health, etc (this is called flour) and to set aside some time on a regular basis to focus on spirituality (this is called Torah). And in the more advanced stages of our development, we will see how our day to day life and obligations also help us with our spiritual development.
Albert @ KabU
Where do the misconceptions come from? For them to be so prevalent there must be a reason for the confusion?
Also, is it a case of they have nothing to do with the subject so are irrelevant, or that it is inherently harmful to incorporate other beliefs?Hi Oliver,
Authentic Kabbalah has been around for about 5800 years, but it’s been concealed for the past 2,000 years, so people don’t really know what it’s all about. Just picture a 2,000 year old game of telephone and all the distortions that would spring up as a result.
Furthermore, during this time of concealment, humanity was not yet ripe for Kabbalah. So Kabbalists themselves would put up barriers around this wisdom and push people away from it. Let’s put this into perspective:
Kabbalah is the method of correction of our egoistic nature, thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Why was it necessary to conceal such a wisdom? Because egoism was still not yet fully developed. 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.
It’s just like the 5 stages development of a disease within a person. First a person is healthy. Then he is sick, but he does not feel it. Then the disease spreads to the point that he starts to feel pain and symptoms of the disease. This then pushes him to go to a doctor to get diagnosed and find the cure, and etc.
2000 years ago, egoism was still on a very low level, there was no need to correct it. Starting from the days of the Ari, egoism already grew to a certain extent (and technically the prohibition on Kabbalah ended there), but humanity still didn’t feel sick, on the contrary the ego was the main driving force of all of our development. Then from around 1995 egoism peaked and began to show itself as bad, like a cancer that begins to kill the host body. This is the peak at which there was a true need for the cure. Which in essence is what the Kabbalists have been waiting for all these years, for the desire, for egoism to fully ripen.
Albert @ KabU
Hi everyone! There is one question that keeps spinning in my head. The complete bestowal means that you don’t put limits towards other people’s attitudes or behaviors that are not good for you? How can you manage those types of situations where your limits are necessary? Are those limits some sort of will to receive pleasure as well?
Thanks you in advance for the reply and for this amazing course.
Hi Simón,
There are 125 degrees of spiritual bestowal. Ranging from bestowal in order to bestow, in which we restrict our egoistic nature and focus only on bestowing. All the way until the highest degrees of bestowal in which we tap into our egoistic nature in order to bestow even more.
Keep in mind that we practice this type of spiritual work primarily in the Kabbalah group. The Kabbalah group is like a lab where we practice manifesting the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. In the group we build a strong connection with other points in the heart that are together with us on the spiritual path. This becomes like a nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world. Meaning that until then, with the rest of the world, just act normal.
Albert @ KabU
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