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In The Spiritual Path, it says the soul is put in the body, but I’ve also heard instructors say we don’t have a soul, just a point in the heart that we can choose to develop.
Also, isn’t the belief that the Creator has a purpose an a priori assumption that can’t be proved.  If we’re made to receive, why isn’t being egoistic fulfilling the will of the Creator?
And how does anyone know there are 620 parts of the soul. Â How is that arrived at?
Thank you for the fascinating lessons and your response.
Hi Esther, great questions!
1. The point in the heart is the beginning of this thing called a soul. The soul is the fully developed form of the point in the heart. See my response below 63205 to Michael for more details.
2. You’re right, we cannot speak about the Creator’s point of view because we never attain such a thing. Everything the Wisdom of Kabbalah talks about is based on what we can research and experience within our desires. We never speak about what exists outside of our desires. See my response below 126154 to Nicole for more details.
3. The purpose of creation is not simply to stuff us full of pleasure like we stuff a turkey, or to take some drug that’ll make us happy for the rest of our lives. The purpose is to elevate us to the highest best possible state, meaning to become similar to the Creator, to his qualities of love and bestowal. In other words, it’s not enough simply to receive, but we need to develop and become similar to Him.
4. 620 is the number of corrections that need to be placed over the spiritual desire. This number is further divided into 248 desires of bestowing in order to bestow, 365 desires that operate on receiving in order to bestow, and 7 additional desires that are corrected only in the final correction. All of these numbers come to us from the structure of the upper worlds and the Kabbalists that attained these things. We’ll learn how this number is derived in the more advanced lessons on KabU that deal with the structure of the upper worlds.
Albert @ KabU
I recently realized that many things I was taught from my family, school, and society eventually became a reality and my truth because I learned these things.
Now that I started learning Kabbalah, so I have different sensations and thoughts. How do I differentiate these new feelings if they come from spiritual experience or just imagination?
Hi Helen, good question!
We don’t yet have any true spiritual sensations, we’re still in the preparation period prior to the spiritual ladder. But once we start to do real spiritual work, we can measure our progress in our attitude towards other points in the hearts. That I’ll feel how my attitude towards them changes from complete indifference, all the way until I feel them as pieces of my soul. We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
Hello, wonderful KabU team,
May I ask how Kabbalah help one to keep their thoughts elevated above judgement, and focused upon higher ways of living, being and thinking?
Much gratitude and many thanks,
Frankie (Shlomo)
Hi Francis, great question!
We’ll learn in the more advanced lessons that our thoughts are not our own, rather they are the result of the environment that we’re in. It’s like you have a seed in your hands. What will happen with that seed depends on the nourishment it will receive from the environment in which you plant it. Same with us, if we want our thoughts to be focused on higher things in life, then we need to plant ourselves in a good spiritual environment.
Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article the Freedom, here’s an excerpt: “He who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”
We’ll learn about this in depth in the next semester.
Albert @ KabU
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions, dear Albert. I appreciate your response. I know that my question didn’t necessary reflect anything from the ‘Week 1’ materials, but it had been a burning question of mine. I’m grateful for Baal HaSulam, too – I’ve been longing for a connection to a better environment where negative thinking and way of life is not the norm, and where my connection to nature can be nourished and fully explored; I yearn for this, especially.
Frankie
Hi Elizabeth, good question.
Our world is below the ladder of spiritual degrees. Kabbalists call it “the imaginary world”. Since once we correct ourselves, relative to that corrected state this life would appear as nothing more than a dream.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman: http://laitman.com/2010/11/this-life-is-a-dream/
Albert @ KabU
Greetings,
I have a few random questions. In no particular order …1. While I am openminded and drawn to much of what studied so far, I am suspicious of some claims, and reject a couple others (if I am understanding them correctly). I find some of the historical claims questionable, for example. And I reject outright what seem to be claims of exclusivity (“This is the only way to attainment” etc.). So my question is, if I undertake this study and process, but can’t accept or believe in all the claims made, will that affect my progress? Is it an all or nothing deal in terms of belief? Or is practice–whatever that entails–the thing that really matters?
2. The idea that we are all one and that our individual souls must reunite into a single soul or self etc. sounds similar to (but not precisely the same as) the nondualist thread in my faith tradition (hinduism). I’ve always struggled with that–it seems unjust and hardly better than annihilation. As in, “Heck, I feel like me, think like me, experience life as me. I am unique consciousness and self. Any enlightenment, or attainment, or salvation, or whatever that insists I relinquish my very selfhood to merge into a larger Something …I resist.” So …
My question is: In Kabbalah’s version of this evolutionary process where we all reunite into a single self/being/soul … is our individual selfness lost? (Or–if anyone there is a star trek ds9 fan–is it maybe something more like “the great link”?) I know one of the KabU videos uses the metaphor of a cell in a body, which isn’t particularly comforting to me since a cell has no real agency or self-consciousness. So I’m hoping for a clearer understanding of that.
3. One of the videos in this lesson said that the texts of Kabbalah say nothing about this world, but only the spiritual word. Does that mean these courses–if I choose to sign up–have no practical side either? People want to be spiritual, but also have rich and fulfilling lives. To overcome compulsive behaviors, for example. Or to develop greater self-discipline and so on. Does Kabbalah have anything to offer there?
Thank you in advance for any feedback or clarifications you may offer. I’m enjoying the course and KabU quite a lot.
=)
KeithHi Keith, great questions!
1. Kabbalah is a science. You don’t need to take anything on blind faith. If something does not make sense, ask and we’ll clarify it. Like with the exclusivity for example. Kabbalah does not hold the monopoly over spirituality. It’s not claiming to be the one and only method. The Wisdom of Kabbalah is the accumulation of thousands of years of experience from people practically trying to reach spirituality, what worked, what didn’t, etc. It’s not a must to use it, but as you can imagine, it’s a lot faster and easier with it.
2. We don’t lose our selves. If anything, the whole process that we’re undergoing is the process by which we clarify further and further who we are. We learn this from the 3 phases that Baal HaSulam describes in the article Introduction to the book of Zohar. That we were created in the state of perfection but this was an unconscious state, like a baby in its mother’s womb. So we necessarily had to come to the complete opposite state, to lose that state of perfection, in order to once again reach it, but this time consciously.
So even though we return to that initial state of being in complete adhesion with the Creator, thanks to the process we underwent, we remain as two separate things. Baal HaSulam describes this with the candle and torch analogy in the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. Here’s an excerpt:
The reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA [Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya] is that there is a great rule concerning the Kelim [pl. of Kli]: The expansion of the light and its departure make the Kli fit for its task. This means that as long as the Kli has not been separated from its light, it is included in the light and is annulled within it like a candle before a torch.
This annulment is because they are completely opposite from one another, on opposite ends. This is so because the light extends from His self, existence from existence. From the perspective of the thought of creation in Ein Sof [infinity], it is all toward bestowal and there is no trace of a will to receive in it. Its opposite is the Kli, the great will to receive that abundance, and is the root of the initiated creature, in which there is no bestowal whatsoever.
Hence, when they are bound together, the will to receive is annulled in the light within it, and can determine its form only once the light has departed from it once. Following the departure of the light from it, it begins to crave it, and this craving properly determines and sets the shape of the will to receive. Subsequently, when the light dresses in it once more, it is regarded as two separate matters: Kli and light, or Guf and life. Observe closely, for this is most profound.
3. Kabbalah is meant to be very practical. It is the method by which we correct our egoistic nature and as a result reveal in our lives the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Everything we’re learning now is the foundation for that practice. And even the study itself, it’s not meant to just fill us up with knowledge, rather the study is the means by which we extract a special force, the light, by which we can perform all these changes on us.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â http://laitman.com/2013/02/sunbathing-in-the-rays-of-the-reforming-light/
Furthermore, even though we’re learning about spirituality, it does not mean that Kabbalists are like monks that disconnect themselves from the corporeal world. A Kabbalist remains on the level of this world throughout the entire spiritual ladder of development. As such we need to maintain a normal balance on this level as well: to continue to work, take care of our health, families, etc. And in the more advanced phases of our spiritual development, we’ll begin to see how everything we do in our corporeal lives is also part of our spiritual development.
Albert @ KabU
In Kabbalah Revealed Reading, it talks about how Nature is synonymous with the creator and then goes on to say “The term “Creator” does not signify a supernatural, distinct entity, but the next degree that a human being should reach when pursuing higher knowledge…..Thus, the word, “Creator” is a personal invitation to experience the spiritual world.” Does this mean that Kabbalist don’t believe that a G-d exist in the normal Judo-Christian sense? That there isn’t a higher-all knowing power? Do they believe that the creator is essentially a higher state of Spiritual being, like a higher level of conscience? If so, then when the Torah is saying that G-d is talking and telling them Mitzvah and the laws of the Torah, who/what is that communicating with them?
I’ve always believed in a higher power of sorts so this paragraph has rocked me a bit.
Hi Nicole, great questions!
1. Kabbalah is a science. As such, there is no blind belief here. Everything that the Kabbalists explain is based on their research and attainment.
2. Kabbalah differentiate two parts to the Creator.
The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator simply because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.
The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.
So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
3. As for the stories in the Torah, these are written in a type of code called the language of roots and branches. Meaning that it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. As such, these stories are not literal; not a single word in the Torah is speaking about history or our world.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
Albert @ KabU
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