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Is there any specific books you would recommend reading to someone studying kabbalah for the first time. I have watched quite a few videos introducing me to the wisdom and am eager to learn more. I absolutely love this site and am grateful for the structure of the course provided. I am trying not to get ahead of myself that way I can absorb all I can in the process.
Hi Tristan,
Yes, there is a recommended reading section accompanying each week’s lesson.
https://kabuconnect.com/lessons/recommended-reading/
There are three recommended books for this course:
Kabbalah Revealed and Attaining the Worlds Beyond are there to give you a solid foundation in the Wisdom of Kabbalah. It’s good to read through these books from beginning to end a few times. We’ll be learning from them mainly in the fundamental stages of Kabbalah.
Kabbalah for the Student on the other hand is a textbook of primary sources. This is an advanced level book which we’ll be studying from throughout our entire spiritual development. It can be a bit challenging for us without the proper foundation of the previous two books. So for now, it’s best to just stick with reading the recommended reading materials in that book. After you get a good foundation, you can read through that one as well. And in the more advanced phases, we’ll study articles in that book together and in depth.
Albert @ KabU
I understand the importance of killing the ego to become altruistic, but if done for the purpose of receiving reward or avoiding punishment, isn’t it still egoistically driven?
Hi John, great question!
Yes, the ego is tricky like that. Even the process of working on it is done egoistically. And that is okay. After all, we were created with this nature on purpose. And just like a PC cannot just reprogram itself to run as a Mac, we too cannot just change our nature by ourselves.
So no one is demanding of us to be saints, no one is demanding of us to have superhuman strength and to conquer our ego. Nope. All that we need to do, and all that we’re capable of doing actually, is just to try. That’s it. We just need to try to be above the ego. We don’t need to succeed, we just need to try. Such efforts are enough to extract the reforming light and it’s the light that ultimately makes all the corrections on us. Our work is only to extract the light, especially during the Kabbalistic studies, and it does all the rest.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/03/building-blocks-of-the-first-spiritual-degree/
Keep in mind that the Kabbalistic method is not about suppressing or killing our ego, rather it’s about rising above it. In fact the more we advance, the more our egoistic desires grow. They turn into a type of mountain that we climb over. The bigger the desires, the higher we can climb, and the higher the spiritual degree that we can attain. On the other hand, if we were to eliminate our egoistic desires, then accordingly, we would only be able to attain a tiny degree of spiritual attainment.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
Thank you, Albert, for your timely and thoughtful response. After I asked the question I began reading the book, Kabbalah Revealed, in which Rav Laitman provide an answer to the same question. I thought to myself, “What an elementary question, I asked”. I had one of those “Duh!” moments. I was well prepared, therefore, for your answer confirming my understanding. I appreciate you and everyone there assisting us in this climb.
Is it bad that I don’t really have any questions right now? as you have answered all the current ones I did have.
Hi Hensy,
That’s perfectly normal. We go through many different states on the spiritual path, many ups and down. Sometimes we’re overflowing with questions and sometimes no questions at all, etc. It’s fine.
The most important thing is to just keep going, to keep placing yourself under the influence of the spiritual light and it’ll balance everything out.
Albert @ KabU
Regarding something that was said in one of the course prep videos, about reincarnation and how not everyone has a soul. Once a person has created a soul, do they experience reincarnation? Is it possible to lose a soul once you start to create it?
Are we creating a new soul, or are we connecting to the soul we all share? If we create our own soul, does it eventually merge back with the soul that we all share?
Is the purpose of all of this essentially reproduction? Creating copies and then making them conscious? (Like how we hope to one day create AI that is conscious?)
When the process is done, are we at a state of the giver and the receiver, both whole and conscious, like two perfect counterparts? Or does the process repeat and create more than just one giver/receiver?
Thank you so much for your time and work!
Hi Shel, great questions!
1. The soul is a type of desire. Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure. The soul is the corrected form of this desire, when it’s operating in order to bestow. By default, no one has this corrected desire, so no one has this thing called a soul, only a soul in potential that we call the point in the heart. If we develop that point, it can turn into the soul. If not, this same potential continues to reincarnate again and again until it gets fully realized. After it’s fully realized, there is no need to reincarnate again to this level.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/06/what-happens-to-the-soul-after-death/
2. You can say that we’re all parts of a single soul, like cells within a single body. From this perspective, then we’re not creating something new but rather consciously returning to the root of our soul, to our place in this common system.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/the-root-of-the-soul/
3. Yes, you can say that at the end of the process of correction we become consciously connected.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2019/04/the-purpose-of-creation/
What about after that? After that there are further degrees of development, but they are currently beyond our tools of research, so the science of Kabbalah does not talk about it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/what-happens-after-the-final-correction/
Albert @ KabU
Why did kabbalists consider it necessary to conceal the spiritual knowledge of the Torah and Zohar using the language of branches? It would seem that more of humanity could correct their collective desires if the knowledge of the upper spiritual worlds was not hidden.
Hi Aaron, great question!
Spiritual development is a gradual process. If a person is not ready for it, even if you put the entire wisdom in their hands in an easily accessible form, they will not be interested in it. You can even see this for yourself: take one of our intro books and give it to a few friends and family members. If they don’t have an active point in the heart, even if they are suffering greatly in life and can benefit from this wisdom, they wont find anything special in it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/11/only-people-with-the-point-in-the-heart-can-feel-that-kabbalah-is-the-salvation/
Furthermore, if a person is not yet developed enough to have a spiritual need for this wisdom, their entire inclination will be to use this wisdom in an egoistic way. Similar to how people want to abuse science for egoistic purposes: to make money, weapons, atomic bombs, etc.
For these reasons, the Kabbalists typically concealed this wisdom from the masses and waited until humanity ripened enough to have a true need for it.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/12/true-kabbalah-without-mysticism-or-myths-part-1/
Albert @ KabU
To my personal knowledge, there are two general kinds of problems that we are dealing with on a daily basis.
The outer problems that are related to our physical needs like making a living, relationships and so on, and the inner problems that are related to our minds…
In many of eastern modalities they say that we are not our minds and that our true self is actually pure consciousness and so forth… Are we also to learn how to calm our minds in Kabbalah?
Hello,
Not quiet. We learn in Kabbalah that “there is none else besides Him”. This means that everything that we experience, every single life event, every desire and thought that awakens in us, it all comes to us directly from the Creator. So we don’t work on eliminating these things, but rather learn to use them as means for building a connection with Him.
We’ll learn about this in the upcoming lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/12/there-is-none-else-besides-him/
Albert @ KabU
It depends on the context, sometimes attaining is synonymous with achieving. At other times it points to the “ultimate degree understanding” as Baal HaSulam explains in the article “The essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah“. Here’s an excerpt from it:
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Kabbalah uses only names and appellations that are concrete and real. It is an unbending law for all Kabbalists that “Anything we do not attain, we do not define by a name and a word.”
Here you must know that the word “attainment” [Heb: Hasagah] means the ultimate degree of understanding. It derives from the phrase, Ki Tasig Yadcha [“Your hand shall attain”]. That means that before something becomes utterly lucid, as though gripped in one’s hand, Kabbalists do not consider it attained, but by other names such as understanding, comprehension, and so on.
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Albert @ KabU
Hello Albert,
Thank you for your time! It sounds interesting. There are many voices in my head from the previous teachings but I am trying not to compare though it sometimes inevitable.
I once also had heard that there are two main so-called voices coming to us… one if from the Light and the other is from The Noise if I recall correctly, but if there is none besides Him then whatever else is nothing but some imaginative story or explanation, right?
I am so excited to know this being that is called Him as soon as possible! Thank you again!
It’s a good idea not to mix spiritual methods. It’s like following two different GPS systems at the same time. One leads you to the goal through the west highway, while the other through the east highway. If you follow both, you’ll just wind up going in circles.
As for our thoughts, they all come to us from the Creator. Baal Hasulam writes about it in “Pri Chacham Sichot. The Secret of His Name”. Here’s an excerpt:
“All the thoughts that enter a person’s mind are the act of the Creator. That is to say, it is not what a person feels, that he draws them from some place or that they originated from him. This is false, the biggest lie. Rather each thought, the smallest of the smallest, the Creator sent it to the mind of man, and that is the motivating force of man and of beast and of every living thing.”
Albert @ KabU
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