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The kabbalists say that the only source of free choice is in the environment, but is it really? because don’t the other 3 factors influence what environment I want to be in?
Hi Ben,
Freedom means rising above our egoistic nature. As we learned in this week’s lesson, we do this by building for ourselves a strong spiritual environment.
Baal HaSulam talks about this in the article, the Freedom. He writes: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death.
Throughout the article he explains how our current egoistic nature is that angel of death. Meaning although we are technically alive and surviving, relative to spirituality, our life is considered death. True life is within a completely different nature, that of bestowal. In order to reach freedom from our current nature, we need to choose and build a spiritual environment for ourselves which will influence us with the importance of acquiring the quality of bestowal.
For this reason, the Kabbalists equate our main freedom in life in choosing to be influenced by a spiritual environment. Not just any environment, but specifically a spiritual environment, since only through the spiritual environment can we get the importance of coming out of our egoistic nature and only through that environment can we draw the light that can help us to actualize this.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/10/bestowal-should-become-fashionable/
And yes, you’re right that our initial choice of the spiritual environment is not up to us. 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. Only 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
What determines the awakening of the point in the heart? And if it happens and you don’t listen to it… being too anxious, too preoccupied or whatever… will it go back to sleep or will the pressure just increase? I know there is no coercion… but will it just get back to rest? And if that development towards spirituality means so much effort in order to stay on the middle path and the goal is attainment of spirituality, and connection, but you are not supposed to outwardly share the wisdom… because no one around you will benefit from coercion… how to deal with the growing distance in the beforehand seemingly fullfilling corporeal relationships if the awakening and work leads to more awareness of the importance of connection, but you cannot reach that connection in your corporeal relationships? In other words, if you are not lucky enough to have people with a desire for Kabbalah around you, won’t this process make you feel even more lonely than before when you were just an isolated ego but connected corporeally to other egos?
Hi Verena,
1. All of humanity is part of a single system. Within this singular system, 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.
2. If a person does not realize their point in the heart, that too is part of the process. Just like that jigsaw puzzle example, if you take a piece and try to find its place in the puzzle, but after examining it, you realize you’re not yet ready for that piece, so you place it back down for later. Although you did not use that piece, but at least you sorted it out, so that too brings us closer to correction.
3. It’s forbidden to coerce people, it’s not forbidden to share this wisdom. If you’re able to do so in a gentle way, without getting into arguments and explanations, but by simply sharing a book or sharing a link to the site, then it’s perfectly fine to share it. And if you have a desire to do more, after you graduate from KabU, there will be opportunities to get trained and join an official Kabbalah dissemination project.
4. At the beginning of the spiritual path, there are a lot of tendencies to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. But the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see that we don’t need to isolate ourselves. Even Baal HaSulam and Rabash were not living in isolation in some Kabbalistic environment, rather they had normal jobs, families, and lived in a typical neighborhood of their time. How then did they attain such high spiritual levels? By tapping into the strength of the spiritual environment.
So if we build for ourselves a strong spiritual environment, then it will influence us even stronger than the corporeal environment that we’re in. But this is not a one time choice. Building and strengthening the spiritual environment is our constant work. As we progress, our ego will grow more and more, and the corporeal environment will pull us more and more. This is done purposefully so that this resistance will force us to build an even stronger connection to the spiritual environment, and thereby reach an even higher spiritual level.
It’s just like with a bodybuilder. If he lifts only a 1 pound weight all the time, he will not get very strong (this is equivalent to us living in isolation or closing ourselves in a small community). In order to grow, that bodybuilder needs to constantly increase the resistance that he’s lifting. So the more we advance, the more we’ll begin to see how the everyday problems, experiences, work situations, etc we undergo in the regular society are a necessary part of our correction. That we don’t erase these things, but above them we need to stay connected to the spiritual environment. And this will determine the level of our spiritual attainment.
We’ll learn how to do this practically in the more advanced semesters of KabU.
Albert @ KabU
I have understood that there are properties within each seed that will determine what can grow out of it. Also I have understood ,that we are all fractals of the „one soul“. Now ,I am wondering about the essence of those fractals…do all fractals have the same essence, and thus the same development to follow up, or do the fractals have complementing essences, and thus may follow different pathways, like cells in a body, which form different organs complementing each other and creating a functional body systems… ? In other words… are we finally all the same, and complement each other only in that we are at different stages of development? Or are there complementing essences?
Hi Verena,
We’re all different. So cells in a body is a good way to look at it. That despite our differences, when we connect together, we experience spiritual life in that greater body.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/
Albert @ KabU
Can I say if my partner raises concern about the amount of time I spend studying Kabbalah , I am not in the right environment?
Hi Mo,
Not necessarily. It could be that you are indeed spending too much time studying Kabbalah.
We need to find a good balance between our corporeal lives and our spiritual aspirations. Without a good balance in our corporeal lives, we won’t be able to advance in spirituality either. This is called “no flour, no Torah – no Torah, no flour”.
Meaning a Kabbalist continues to exist on the level of this world throughout the entire spiritual ladder. So I cannot just turn into a monk and disconnect from this life and only focus on spirituality. On the other hand, if I only focus on corporeality, then I’m no different than an animal.
So the important thing is to find the right balance between the two: to take care of all of one’s normal necessities: to work, take care of the family, health, etc (this is called flour) and to set aside some time on a regular basis to focus on spirituality (this is called Torah).
And in the more advanced stages of our development, we will see how our day to day life helps us with our spiritual development.
Albert @ KabU
I am very happy and grateful for the teachings of the course, but I have some questions:
1) When will we have the group of 10?
2) With how much time of study and participation in the group of 10 will I be able to gain some drop of perception of the higher reality?
Hi Renata,
1. In the advanced semester we will go in depth about the spiritual work in the ten. It is at that point that everyone will receive their own group of ten with whom they can put those things into practice.
2. We learn that “there is no time in spirituality”. Reaching it does not depend on time, but only on the right desire. If we build the right desire, within it, we will right away reveal spirituality. If not, then even if a few thousand more years were to pass by, we would still not reveal anything. It all depends on us, on our efforts to build that desire.
Albert @ KabU
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