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Hi!
In the lecture, Tony told about 125 steps (levels) that are described in specific books. Do these books bear a resemblance to the Old Testament?Tks.
Hi,
Yes, there are a lot of Kabbalistic books that have been written throughout the generations, including what is called the “old testament”. Keep in mind that Kabbalistic books are written in a type of code called the language of roots and branches. Meaning that they use words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details:Â https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/
Albert @ KabU
Hello, KabU Team,
There’s a passage on the text book “Kabbalah: Then and Now” that I found unsettling. It says that ‘we developed science and technology to control the Creator and to protect us from Him’, as if they were ‘opposed to Nature’. It suggests that science and technology didn’t bring us wealth, health and safety.
Well, but statistics show otherwise. In fact, people from all over the world are here right now, alive and vaccinated, connected to this amazing Web platform studying Kabbalah (science of the Upper worlds) thanks to science and technology (of this world). It seems contradictory. Maybe you can clarify.
Thank you.
Tiago
P.S. – I’m a computer scientist. Perhaps this is why I found that text passage unsettling.
Hey Tiago,
I can’t recall exactly the context here, but I’m imagining the concept of successful egoistic development is more important than success in rising above the ego. This isn’t to say that exploring this world and learning to “control” it for our own benefit hasn’t seemingly brought us great fortune, but the game isn’t to create and design a world that contributes to our egoistic development. This is merely a stepping stone on the path towards developing man on the speaking degree. It’s a necessary step nonetheless, but to dwell in this stage for longer than we need will turn the fortune into misfortune. We’ve already been lagging behind for a while now. Meaning, all of the abundance and “good life” that science and technology have allowed is only poisoning us, confusing us, separating us etc..
This is all towards good though. Just like humanity always learns from mistakes and improves upon them, here too we’ll soon exhaust this perception of reality and see we’re incapable of functioning within our ego which only brings us to destruction no matter which way you look at it. This is something humanity needs to see and more importantly feel, since without it there will still be hope that some new technology will save us from ruin. It’s this despair which will open the door for for approaching the correction of the human being. Instead of a corrupted human inventing corrupted tools, correcting the root of every problem in existence gives us a chance to see these “problems” were only there for us to discover the root (our ego) and therefore the goal which is adhesion with the Creator – or in simple terms – a good life.
If we’re busy inventing and created, we’re not interested in looking for the Creator. This is our nature. It’s only when things go awry are we able to look for solutions, just when we’ve run out of solutions – for instance now when every problem we have is interconnected and interdependent on other points of collapse that all that remains is a global solution – are we able to look at the chaos from a different perspective.
This is “protection from Him” we saught after before no longer offers us such since the whole world is beginning to look for something greater than wealth and abundance. Of course this excludes those who do not have health and safety, their priorities are for survival which restricts the need for a higher fulfillment on the “spiritual” level, but in general, we’ve had generations of wealth and abundance now and we see from it we mainly get depression.
The internet, medicine, science…all of it needed to develop, it’s not that it was “incorrect”, but it’s when you bring the human element into the equation where you see it’s all headed to collapse. Defense and military drive or corrupt technological development, healthcare is only important when there’s profit, social networks AI breed hate and division and focus on profit. It’s the reason or purpose for these technologies are all wrong. When the ego is in control, the only motivation can be for the ego – for self-benefit. When self-benefit brings us to our knees, we’ll need to have a new motivation, a new force that will balance us and help us work for the common good. That’s when we’ll be needy of the quality of nature, of giving and bestowing that needs nothing in return. When we feel we have exhausted the ego, we’ll be desperate and willing to begin correcting the quality in us that only brings us harm. Baal HaSulam writes of a 3rd world war and even a 4th but also writes that it’s not necessary if we’re able to take the cues from nature before we completely surrender to its blows.
Thanks!
Chris
#1. In this study, is it possible to make certain connections and understand things too fast, and get “the bends” in a spiritual sense, like a deep sea diver coming to the surface too quickly? How does one remedy this kind of a situation or make the best of it?
#2. Any tips for making spiritual awakening as safe as humanly possible for myself and the people around me? This is powerful stuff we are learning here.
Hi Jonathan, great questions!
Kabbalah is the method by which we correct our egoistic nature. There is nothing really unsafe about studying authentic Kabbalah. Although we do go through many ups and down on the spiritual path. This is normal. The important thing is to just keep going, to keep placing yourself under the influence of the light and it’ll balance everything out.
So the best thing is to set aside some time to regularly return to the Kabbalistic sources, weekly lessons, videos, books, etc. Such habits of returning to the source of the light will help us get through all of the different ups and downs on the path. Aside from that, we should continue to live our normal lives. Maintaining a normal corporeal life is an important part of this balance.
Albert @ KabU
I know that this question is a bit off topic. What is the role of the Sefer Yetzirah in the study of Kabbalah?
Hi Felix, good question!
There have been many Kabbalistic books written throughout the generation, including Sefer Yetzirah, but in our days, we focus mainly on the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, since their books contain the light that is most suitable to correct the level of egoism of our generation.
Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this: Kabbalah is the method by which we correct our egoistic nature and as a result, we become similar to and reveal the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. Egoism grows from generation to generation. As such, the method for its correction needs to be adapted to the level of egoism that is found within each generation.
For example it’s like in medicine, if a person has a headache he can just drink a tylenol and that’s enough to fix him. But if it’s not just a little headache but something cancerous, then that tylenol won’t do anything for him but he needs a completely different regime to heal himself. This is why Kabbalah gets adapted in each generation to the level of egoism that is currently found in that generation.
So although there have been many Kabbalists from the past generations and they have left behind many books, we usually don’t focus on them. In our days we mainly learn from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, since their writings contains the light that is most suitable to correct the egoism that is found in our generation.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details on Baal HaSulam and Rabash: https://laitman.com/2015/11/the-great-kabbalists-and-their-works/
Albert @ KabU
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