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How doe one correctly apply his ego for the purpose of correction in ones life, to make a better place for himself and for the others around us? Kabbalah is introducing me to an entirely new concept of ego and how it works and I desprately wish to learn more about how the ego functions and what I can do to use it for ultruistic purposes?
Hi Philip,
First, we need to understand what is the ego that we’re talking about.
Our nature is the desire to receive pleasure. It simply means that every calculation we make is to chase pleasure or avoid pain. This is similar to how any other animal functions. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this nature, it’s simply the program by which we function and preserve ourselves.
Egoism is when this program begins to be used in a way that harms others. Not only do I want to receive pleasure, but I want to receive it at the expense of others, at their detriment. This is the corporeal ego.
There is also a spiritual ego. Spiritual egoism is everything that stands in the way of our connection with the Creator. Normal people don’t have a spiritual ego. This is only something that we discover after doing some serious spiritual work.
We’ll learn how to work practically with the spiritual ego in the more advanced semesters. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/true-evil/
Albert @ KabU
Hi teachers, so the fact that we are living now in the most high level of egoism and evil is because somehow God wanted to let the evil grow at the maximum level and then cut him out ?
Hi Alexander,
Yes, you can say that the general level of egoism has truly peaked in our days. But it’s not in order to get rid of it, rather it’s in order to use it to ascend spiritually. In Kabbalah, we don’t work on eradicating egoism, but only on rising above it. This is because we cannot attain high levels of spirituality without the ego. 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
wow, this is really a fine line and suggests we have a choice of how ‘much’ ego we posses and how difficult we wish to make the journey over those mountains. I wish for example to cleave unto the G-d, blessed is his name, in a deeply meaningful way, does this mean that I should build up huge ego in order to overcome it and be worthy of such a connection to the G-d, hallowed be his name.?
Hi Philip,
No, we don’t work on growing the ego. Our aspirations should always be towards something positive, towards acquiring the Creator’s qualities of love and bestowal. If as a result of that work we reveal our opposite egoistic nature, that’s fine. But that’s a side effect and not something we aspire for directly.
Albert @ KabU
Hi,
If i got it right- only the texts from Baal Ha Sulam and latter Kabbalists (Rabash, Rav Leitman) are helping ordinary people to get through Machsom and attain spirituality and the texts from Kabbalists before Baal Ha Sulam are for the people that already have some attainment in spiritualty?
Kind Regrads,
Hi Rade,
You can say that, but we need to put these things into perspective. There have been many Kabbalists and Kabbalistic books written throughout the generations. Although some of those writings still exist today, we don’t really study them directly in our days. In our days we mainly study from the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. This is because egoism grows from generation to generation, so Kabbalah, the method for its correction, needs to get adapted in each generation for that level of egoism. 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 were many different Kabbalists and Kabbalistic books throughout the generations, nowadays 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:Â https://laitman.com/2015/11/the-great-kabbalists-and-their-works/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Albert:
I want to know when one can go the upper worlds, can we change somehow our destiny? can we see our destiny?
Hi Zulma,
The destiny of each and every single person is preset in the thought of creation: to reach complete adhesion with the Creator. The only choice we have in the matter is the path we take to get there: whether by the path of light of the path of suffering.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/01/lets-go-with-the-light/
Albert @ KabU
Hi, it has been said that the Kabbalah is now revealed because humanity has evolved and is now able to receive the teachings of the Kabbalah.
The humanity does not appear to me at all evolved.
Besides the gruesome political constellation, we deal with human engineered climate change and the last technological invention – AI, which can even destroy us.
Where is the development which led to Kabbalah being openly taught?
Thank you.
Hi Shulamith,
Kabbalah is the method by which we can correct our egoistic nature. As a result of this correction we become similar to the Creator, to the general force of love and bestowal. As a result of becoming similar to Him, we reveal Him in practice in our lives.
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
Why i hate you so much, almost always I feel that you (anyone who study kabbalah) think that they are some special people that are the most important thing in this world and they better than anyone and anyone eles are just some animals living their trash lives, and yet i read it to know what is it, even though i dont like it
Hi Elnaz,
We’re all parts of a single system, like cells within a single body. In this integral system, all the parts are equal and everyone is important. So much so that if even a single part is missing, then the whole system is incomplete. Meaning the purpose of creation must be attained by EVERYONE. And if even one person is missing, then we have not yet attained the entire purpose of creation. It’s like a eight billion piece jigsaw puzzle, where if even one piece is missing, the entire puzzle is incomplete. So relative to that goal, every single person is equal and very important.
But in order to reach that goal, there is a certain order of corrections that need to take place. It’s like building a large jigsaw puzzle. First you start with all the corner pieces, and only then do you gradually work your way to the center. It’s the same with our spiritual work. There are those that are awakened to this work earlier and those that are awakened to it later. Those that received awakened points in the hearts are like those corner pieces of the puzzle that need to start the whole process. Later on, due to their good work, they pave the way for the rest of the world to join this process.
So those with awakened points in the hearts are indeed special, not in the sense that they are better than others, but in the sense that more responsibility is placed on them at the current moment. Just like with parents and children, while the children are growing up, the parents bear a greater responsibility over the family. But once the children grow up, they too will take their share of the responsibility of the future generation. Furthermore, you can even say that everything that the parents do is for the sake of the children. Likewise all of our spiritual work is ultimately to benefit the whole world, not ourselves.
As for you being here despite not liking it. We need to remember that “there is no coercion in spirituality” and that “one studies only where ones heart desires”. So you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be here. You’re free to go find another path that is more suitable for you.
Albert @ KabU
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