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Hi Patricia,
Yes, this follows the saying that: the Creator puts man’s hand on the good fate and says “choose this for yourself”. Meaning He awakened your point in the heart and brought it to a good spiritual environment in which you can nourish it. After that the rest is up to you.
So what needs to happen for me to start actualizing my free will here? After all, the point in the heart is seemingly forcing me to be here. If so, then this desire needs to be taken away from me little by little, and there I begin to reveal more and more the place of my freedom.
This is similar to how we teach a child to ride a bike. First the parent holds the child completely. Then as the child learns to pedal and balance himself, the parent lets go a little, then a little more and a little more, until the child continue to pedal without the parent holding him at all.
So we too need to learn to continue to do this work even when that initial desire for spirituality begins to disappear or when the ego grows and begins to pull us into many different directions. When that happens, we’ll feel a need for mutual work in the group, the spiritual environment. On one hand when I fall into my ego, they need to pull me out, and on the other hand I need to help pull others out when they fall. This is why Kabbalists have always studied in groups (physical or virtual).
We will learn more about this in the more advanced semesters on KabU, where you’ll receive your own Kabbalah group with whom you can practice these things.
Albert @ KabU
In regards to the requirements of having the proper friends etc to achieve this, how can I begin to find like-minded others? I have never heard of anyone in my large peer group interested in studying Kabbalah. Or is there something I’m not understanding very well?
Thanks!
Hi Scott,
You’re right, such people are less than 1% of the world, chances are you won’t find someone like that among your corporeal acquaintances or family members.
So where do we find such people? We can find them here. KabU is essentially a place where people with points in the heart come to learn about Kabbalah. Every semester hundreds of students from all over the world start this process. For those that choose to continue their studies with KabU, in the more advanced semesters, they will learn about spiritual work in a group, and be given their own virtual Kabbalah group with whom they can put all these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Gabor,
Kabbalists explain to us that there is a goal of creation. This goal is preset, we have no choice there, we must reach it. If we don’t reach it in this lifetime, then we, (or more precisely our point in the heart) will continue to reincarnate again and again until we fully reach that goal.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2015/06/what-happens-to-the-soul-after-death/
Baal HaSulam explains it briefly in the article “The Peace“, here’s an excerpt:
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The Wheel of Transformation of the Form
First, let me present the view of our sages concerning the unfolding of the generations of the world: Although we see the bodies changing from generation to generation, this is only the case with the bodies. But the souls, which are the essence of the body’s self, do not vanish, to be replaced, but move from body to body, from generation to generation. The same souls that were at the time of the flood came also during the time of Babylon, and in the exile in Egypt, and in the exodus from Egypt, etc., until this generation and until the end of correction.Thus, in our world, there are no new souls the way bodies are renewed, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate on the wheel of transformation of the form, for each time they clothe a new body and a new generation.
Therefore, with regard to the souls, all generations since the beginning of creation to the end of correction are as one generation that has extended its life over several thousand years until it developed and became corrected as it should be. And the fact that in the meantime, each has changed his body several thousand times is completely irrelevant because the essence of the body’s self, called “the soul,” did not suffer at all by these changes.
And there is much evidence pointing to that, and a great wisdom called “the secret of the incarnation of the souls.” And while this is not the place to explain it, because of the great importance of the matter, it is worthwhile to point out to the uneducated that reincarnation occurs in all the objects of the tangible reality, and each object, in its own way, lives an eternal life.
Although our senses tell us that everything is transient, it is only how we see it. In fact, there are only incarnations here, and each item is not still and does not rest for a moment, but incarnates on the wheel of transformation of the form, losing nothing of its essence along its way, as physicists have shown.
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Albert @ KabU
I once heard in one of related videos that the people of Israel spread through the world to spread the point in the heart and I wondered is it hereditary?
If it is, What if I developed in some point in spirituality and never have children. How Will it still reincarnate?Or was it just the matter of spreading their ideas?
Hi Amirhossein,
It’s not directly hereditary. We can see it on ourselves. After all, how many people in our family have active points in the heart? From the hundreds of people in my family circles, I’m the only one interested in studying Kabbalah. It’s the same for most people with active points in the heart.
Albert @ KabU
Is there any clarification available on identifying where we are driven by the will to receive’s calculation ?
Where as in what areas of our life (everywhere…) ?
Where as in our mind, heart ?
Feeling confused.
Thank you.
Hi Cat,
Our nature is the will to receive pleasure. Meaning that we’re constantly calculating how to get more pleasure and less pain. This calculation permeates everything that we do. Every single action, either consciously or unconsciously, is motivated by chasing pleasure and avoiding pain.
Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article The Freedom, here’s an excerpt:
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Pleasure and Pain
However, when we examine the acts of an individual, we will find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook, since Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain.The living creatures have no freedom of choice—to choose pain or reject pleasure. And man’s advantage over animals is that man can aim at a remote goal, meaning agree to a certain amount of current pain, out of choice of future benefit or pleasure to be attained after some time.
But in fact, there is no more than a seemingly commercial calculation here, where the future benefit or pleasure seems preferable and advantageous to the agony they are suffering from the pain they have agreed to assume presently. There is only a matter of deduction here—where they deduct the pain and suffering from the anticipated pleasure, and there remains some surplus.
Thus, only the pleasure is extended. And so it sometimes happens that we are tormented because the pleasure we received is not the surplus we had hoped for compared to the agony we suffered. Hence, we are in deficit, just as are merchants.
And when all is said and done, there is no difference here between man and animal. And if this is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force drawing them toward any passing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces without asking their opinion in the matter.
Moreover, even determining the type of pleasure and benefit are entirely out of one’s own free choice, but follows the will of others, as they want, and not he. For example: I sit, I dress, I speak, and I eat. I do all these not because I want to sit that way, or talk that way, or dress that way, or eat that way, but because others want me to sit, dress, talk, and eat that way. It all follows the desire and fancy of society, and not my own free will.
Furthermore, in most cases, I do all these against my will. For I would be more comfortable behaving simply, without any burden. But I am chained with iron shackles, in all my movements, to the fancies and manners of others, which make up the society.
So tell me, where is my freedom of will? On the other hand, if we assume that the will has no freedom, and we are all like machines operating and creating through external forces, which force them to act this way, it means that we are all incarcerated in the prison of Providence, which, using these two chains, pleasure and pain, pushes and pulls us to its will, to where it sees fit.
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Link to the article The Freedom: https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/4AtF9tGS
Albert @ KabU
Thank you for the links to reading sources and blog posts that you often include in your answers to people. I am finding them to be very valuable.
My question in regarding praying for help with our spiritual development. In “Our Only Prayer Should Be To Have The Correct Desire,” Rav Leitman makes very clear what to pray for. I understand that very clearly. I’m not sure, though, how personal or impersonal to make it. In some parts of what we’re learning, the Creator/creation is described as an impersonal system. But, sometimes Rav Leitman and Baal haSulam make it seem like we are to approach it with more of a love connection (which is how I tend to feel it). Can you please clarify this for me?
Hi Lora,
The Kabbalists tell us that there is no one closer to a person than the Creator. We exist in Him like an embryo within the mother. The main thing is to constantly turn to Him, to constantly be in connection with Him.
Check out this clip from Rav Laitman for more details:
Albert @ KabU
I am struck by the thought that everything is happening now, the past, the present and the future- in other words, we have attained freedom and the collective soul has come back together as one and yet, inside of time and space it is still shattered and on it’s journey up the ladder –
Hi Cyndi,
Baal HaSulam explains this in detail in the three state model in the Introduction to the book of Zohar, from item 14. You can learn more about it from there: https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/ALlyoveA
Also check out this blog post from Rav Laitman on the topic: https://laitman.com/2014/01/from-perfection-to-perfection/
Albert @ KabU
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