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HI Gianni & friends,
I ve only just done the introduction, but – I m confused as to what BESTOWAL really means.
For example, I live near Glastonbury, Uk, where there is a cafe where you can “Pay it forward”, That means I can pay for a cup of tea, or a meal, for one of the towns many homeless people. It gives me pleasure to help someone out anonymously. But for bestowal, does this mean I m not doing it FOR to the street person, but doing it to give G-d pleasure ?
WHY would this please G-d, what is the root cause of His pleasure? Is He pleased because someone in need is being helped, or because I am thinking of Him ? Can I be sure I m not just doing it so He will be pleased with me – because isnt that still self-centred?
That’s a great example, Sarah. In the eyes of society, that’s an act of giving, but since it gives you pleasure, it’s already called an act of receiving because the act doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the pleasure remains outside of me completely. Now, since any act could be one of bestowal, it is wise to not try to implement spiritual bestowal by doing acts that society already regards as giving.
But there’s a much bigger problem. As you indicated, bestowal is only if it’s bestowal to the Creator. Otherwise, it’s definitionally not considered true bestowal. For regular people, charity is just fine. But if I want to reach Equivalence of Form with the Creator, then we need to have a different conversation. Maybe the Creator is in charge of the whole reality, every detail, and already giving to each one what they need – not according to what I think they need but what they need according to the Creator’s Plan, since He knows what the best possibility would be for each one in every moment.
And the biggest problem: The Creator wants only one thing, and this is the only thing He can’t do, and thus the only thing one can bestow to Him. That’s for you and/or others to reach Equivalence with Him, spirituality. That is, you can give to Him by reaching correction and the goal of your life or helping others get there.
In this last point, there is also a problem: you can only help those for whom your help would be a gift truly – that is, those who are willingly studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and thus would appreciate your inspiration and so on.
Wow ! Thank you, Gianni,
So, you also answered my questions in lesson 1 forum. This is really helpful because it shows me that I can make a shift towards people who share this, the basic understanding s of the kabbalah:- that makes me feel better about leaving behind people who have no awareness and therefore cannot, CANNOT understand & appreciate our efforts to bestow.
This simplifies it and frees me up to allow some changes, without feeling guilty about making them. I’m imagining that we should still do charity as before, though?
Just as an aside & to share something that has been a great pointer for me, friends, is the work of Marshall Rosenburg, who began a way of working , called “Non-Violent-Communication”, which I m sure he can only have got from the Kabbalah. All the languaging makes so much more sense, has its full depth, from the kabbalistic perspective,
Externally we are all different. But all our essences are the same, isn’t our essence The Creator himself? Just in a dormant state waiting to be revealed? If our shell is opposite, why do we keep saying we need to correct it? You said it cannot be corrected or subdued. You said it goes against the plan of nature. But this is the plan of nature, for us to have a ego shell so that we can have the choice to either live for the ego shell or live for the essence that is connected to the creator. This focus on the ego needs to diminish. The focus needs to be more on our essence and connection with the creator and his creatures, our fellow. The ego is not against the plan of nature, it’s part of the plan to get us to climb higher up the ladder…isnt it?
What’s missing here is an accurate definition of a Creation. A Creation is something new, not an offshoot. Our true essence is the Will to Receive. We’re not the Creator. There’s a Creator and the Created Being. They’ll remain opposites until the end. However, the Created Being will use that entire Will to Receive, in order to bestow. Yet he will not become the Creator. We become similar but not the same – in that the Creator bestows by giving and we, after many corrections, bestow by receiving in order to bestow. The goal of it all is for us to receive and enjoy, but to enjoy the best thing that can ever be: similarly to the Creator.
Ah yes, I may have worded this incorrectly. What I meant was that our point in the heart being “a piece of the essence of the Creator” (bestow) that we need to develope in order to correct “our” essence of our ego (receive). Then the corrected state being equivalence to the Creator, not that we become the Creator, just that our point in the heart grows to be equivalent alongside our essence ego to receive. Hence our focus being on our spiritual growth rather than the focus being on our ego. Did I get that right?
You’re in the right direction, and I think it’s just a layer of scrunity that is still missing – that that Point is still not the Creator’s Essence. It’s a Point that fell down from the Shattering of the Soul of Adam HaRishon. That is – the CREATED BEING (and if we delve further we’ll see that I’m already using that term loosely, for now), which is not part of the Essence of the Creator at all. Rather, it’s the Will to Receive, as well, but in a form of bestowal: that’s what was shattered; that’s what the Point in the Heart is a piece of.
Though we say “it’s a spark of the Creator, Above” it never refers to His ESSENCE. This differentiation will become important later.
The videos were clear on the difference between the ego and the will to receive . So I now understand: we dont change the will to receive. We change the intention so that the will to receive is still present but now serves a higher purpose to bestow rather that only to receive. So it’s the intention we can change which then redefines the ego as altruism. So now I have a will to receive but also a will to bestow?
Hi, I learnt that Kabbalah doesn’t deal with corporeal things. The only thing that matters not to exploit others. Does this mean that in order to develop spiritually, I don’t need to control myself in anything, as long as I don’t cause harm to others? For example, I can eat a lot of sweets, even if it’s unhealthy, but is it delicious? Can I overdo my alcohol consumption? Can I accumulate pleasures?
Hi Gabor,
You can seemingly do whatever you want in this world. However, the Upper Force has allowed its laws that pertain to the level of this world to be revealed to some extent, even though they’re still not all that clear to us. But we understand somewhat how if I start misbehaving in my neighborhood, being a bad neighbor, then nature has forces, manifested in the form of people’s reactions, all of which had we the full data, could be entirely predicted; just as were you to go to the DMV with not all of your paperwork and evidence ready, I could predict what the lady at the counter would certainly tell you. Some people are naive enough to think that without the right papers, they’ll come out of the DMV with a license anyway – but that’s just their limited knowledge of how the world works, at play. Others think that it won’t affect them if they misbehave on their own street. Still fewer are aware of the hidden forces that tie them to every other human, in every action they do. And even fewer know about how even their every thought and desire affects others, and in turn powerful affects themselves, and that this is the source of all their suffering in life. And of course we are so unperceptive that we don’t even know how all the food and drinks we put in our body shape us. If we learn anything from scientists, it goes into our ears but not into our hearts, and the heart is ultimately what controls us.
In short, there are laws on the level of this world. To the extent that we keep them, we feel good, balanced, happy. To the extent we don’t know how to keep them or don’t want to, we can experience all the worst that this world has to offer, very quickly. A Kabbalist should be as grounded in this world as possible, adhering to the norms, as those are designated behind the scenes by the Upper Force – and then one can start trying to also keep the spiritual laws.
Below is a quote from, “Kabbalah, Science and Meaning of Life”, page 93 (pdf version):
“Kabbalah deals with everything that expands from the Creator
to the reality that He has created, and which He leads to His
desired goal. Kabbalah does not deal with the Creator Himself.”My question is: why does Kabbalah limit its teachings only to “everything that expands from the Creator”, but the teachings do “not deal with the Creator Himself”?
I am asking this question from reading this article by Baal HaSulam titled, “The Solution”; here is the link: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/3812?/eng/content/view/full/3812&main.
In this article, he wrote, under the subtitle, “Contact With Him” (the bold type is my emphasis):
“People imagine that a person who has contact with the Creator is a person above nature… “However, He is not so. This is because in fact, He owns nature. Hence, there is nothing more natural than coming into contact with one’s Maker, for He owns nature. In fact, every creature has contact with his Maker, as it is written, “The whole earth is full of His glory,” and not that one does not know and does not feel it.
Baal HaSulam goes on to write in the next paragraph, “Actually, one who attains contact with Him attains only the awareness. It is as though one has a treasure in his pocket, and he does not know. Along comes another who lets him know what is in his pocket, and now he really has become rich. Yet, there is nothing new here, no cause for excitation. In fact, nothing has been added. The same with one who has been granted the gift of knowing that he is the Creator’s son; nothing has been added in his actual reality but the awareness he had not had before.”
In Light of this Fact that the “treasure” of this “gift of knowing that he is the Creator’s son” is already in our “pocket” – why not just be the person who comes along and “lets him know what is in his pocket”, let everyone come into this “awareness” as quickly as possible? Yes, it is a “gift” that has to be “granted” by the Creator Himself, but why not orient the whole program to focus the attention on attaining this Supreme, Invaluable, Eternal Gift of Awareness as quickly as possible? Instead of this whole process of inversion, 125 steps, etc.? Our Connection with Him just needs to be Awakened – it’s already a Fact. Baal HaSulam himself so testifies.
In this Awareness that our very Beingness is a direct “expansion” from His very Essence – we would immediately feel and know for a Truth that we are Eternally connected to everyone and everything. Our whole egotistic nature of receiving just for ourselves would be seen as the illusion that it IS – In Fact, our every breath is both a reception and a bestowal, simultaneously, to the whole of life. We would immediately and directly know just exactly what to do in each moment, under direct Awareness of our connection with the Creator and all of His Creation, how to both receive and bestow perfectly and harmoniously.
Thank you.
Why doesn’t Kabbalah deal with the Creator? Here there’s only a problem with conveyance of understanding through language. In every place where “Creator” is written, or any name referring to the Upper Force, Kabbalists don’t mean the Creator Himself, called Atzmuto (His Essence). That’s because in the same way physicists would regard anyone philosophizing about prior to the Big Bang as a mere philosopher, so Kabbalists don’t take seriously anyone speculating about the Creator Himself. Physicists draw conclusions – even about “billions of years ago” only from what either people or their instruments can gather hard evidence of. Kabbalists only write about that which they attain as solidly as the computer screen in front of you. Physicists “know” that probably there must be something prior to the Big Bang. Such a force that creates a whole world couldn’t come from nothing. But we don’t attain it. But we understand that that we don’t attain. Kabbalists too first of all attain a spiritual degree. Even this first degree is already seemingly all inclusive, the Creator, the loving force that includes all of reality, creates it, beyond which there is nothing, and we – because in the true spiritual reality objects are separated only by lack of equivalence of form – we merge with the Creator due to equivalence of form with Him. This first degree is as the Final Correction beyond which no greater perfection can be. More than one has vessels to even fantasize about in his wildest philosophical dreams.
And then… it becomes revealed that, no, there is here something more, something I don’t attain, a higher degree that exists. And toward the degree that I’m on now, it is called Creator. Thus, Kabbalists write, “every ‘day’ I have a new Creator.” Kabbalists only write about what they attain in their vessels and not what seems might be beyond their vessels, as from going through this process they learn that speculation about that part that lies beyond is actually not serious.
Please respond to the second part of my question
Thank you Beloved Gianni for your kind and thoughtful reply.I did make a reply earlier this morning, but it di not go through. So I am trying again.
I would like to apologize to everyone for the length of this post, but it is profoundly important and I believe this information below can change the course of your life.
Please understand that I wrote this post and asked this question about why Kabbalah does not “deal with the Creator Himself”, after reading “The Solution”, by Baal HaSulam, under the Subtitle, “Contact with Him”. Here is the link again: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/3812?/eng/content/view/full/3812&main.
Please note that a key paragraph in this article was quoted by one of the moderators of the European Retreat as a kind of “theme” to start the program. So this is obviously extremely important for everyone to be aware of. This is the whole purpose that I am writing this post and asking for your comments and clarification. But you did not make any reference to this article in your response. So I am asking again that you please respond to the second part of my post, regarding this article by Baal HaSulam.
I will quote part of it again (bold type is my emphasis): “People imagine that a person who has contact with the Creator is a person above nature… “However, He is not so. This is because in fact, He owns nature. Hence, there is nothing more natural than coming into contact with one’s Maker, for He owns nature. In fact, every creature has contact with his Maker, as it is written, “The whole earth is full of His glory,” and not that one does not know and does not feel it.
As I mentioned above, the next paragraph was actually quoted by one of the moderators at the very start of the European Retreat, to set the “tone” and the purpose of the Retreat – Please note carefully his emphasis on “awareness“. Baal HaSulam writes in the next paragraph: “Actually, one who attains contact with Him attains only the awareness. It is as though one has a treasure in his pocket, and he does not know. Along comes another who lets him know what is in his pocket, and now he really has become rich. Yet, there is nothing new here, no cause for excitation. In fact, nothing has been added. The same with one who has been granted the gift of knowing that he is the Creator’s son; nothing has been added in his actual reality but the awareness he had not had before.”
Baal HaSulam tells us quite clearly and plainly three extremely important Facts about “awareness”:
First, we can attain Actual, Factual contact with the Creator – but this is Actually just a shift in Awareness – this Treasure of contact with Him is always there, “a treasure in his pocket, but we did “not know.” We were not Aware that we already ARE in contact with Him. Even in this Here and Now moment of our lives.
Second, “another” can come along “who lets him know what is in his pocket.” Who is this “other”? It must be someone who already knows that there is this “treasure” of connection with the Creator “in our pocket”. And what does this person do? He simply directs our Attention to this Fact – then we become Aware of this Fact – we already are connected to the Creator. It is as the scripture quoted in the first paragraph says, “The whole earth is full of His glory,” and not that one does not know and does not feel it.”. We all “know”, and “feel” this connection.
Third, Awareness of Knowing that we are the Creator’s son is a “gift of knowing” this Truth. But what is of crucial importance, and the whole point that I want to focus everyone’s attention on and get your comments and clarification: nothing has been added in his actual reality but the awareness he had not had before.”
We are taught that, our “actual reality” is essentially, that we are the opposite of the Creator, at the opposite end of His Holiness, and we have to invert our desire to receive for ourselves to a desire to bestow to the Creator. But from this article, it looks like what we really need to do is just redirect our attention from being egos, at the opposite end of His holiness – to the Real Truth, that we already have this “treasure” of connection to Him in our possession, at the very core of our “being”.
It is the direct felt and known experience HERE, that once we receive this “gift of Knowing”, we come into this “Divine Awareness” (“Attaining the Worlds Beyond” pg 30), that we Actually are His Beloved Son; then we will only do as He Wills, bring Him as much contentment and joy as we can, by always receiving His miraculous Gift of Love and Life, just to return it with joy and gratitude back to him. We are “saved” from our suffering as egos, and so the whole world is saved. All with just a shift in our “awareness”.
“Awareness”. What does Kabbalah teach about awareness? I did a search for the word, “aware” in all of my Kabbalah pdf documents and books and came up with 212 instances in 32 documents. A search for the word, “awareness” came up with 275 instances in 31 documents. I am still going through all of these references in the KabU books and documents that refer to just these two words, “aware”, and “awareness”, and it is really amazing the profound Truths that Kabbalah teaches.
So please comment on this article by Baal HaSulam, and on Kabbalah’s Teachings about “Awareness”. It seems very plain and clear that Kabbalah does indeed teach about the Creator directly.
I’d recommend reading the published articles of Baal HaSulam to clarify these matters. Especially The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah, The Teaching of Kabbalah and its Essence, and The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy. Because The Solution is an unpublished article. It was for him, written in a way that he could understand what he needed to touch upon later when he puts it together for the public. There is a ton of room for confusion in it. Every word needs explanation. So here it’s the word “awareness”. There’s also the matter of direct perception of the Creator himself.
So, the latter first – you can read about it here: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/31687?/eng/content/view/full/31687&main
And here: https://laitman.com/2011/01/honor-your-father/#gsc.tab=0
So, if you read those, you’ll understand that (1) we do not reveal the Creator Himself, but only his manifestation in our Kli (vessel). This Kli is always changing though it is written that the Creator never changes (“I, the Lord, do not change”). And as my vessel evolves, if I had a perception of the Creator inside it, that changes. That’s why it is written, “Every day I have a new Creator.” This is the matter of there being several different names for the Creator. This is also the matter of “The Whole Torah is the names of the Creator.” Meaning it describes all the states the Kli goes through on the way to full attainment of the Creator. But at the end of it all, it’s still what’s revealed in the vessel as the Creator and not anything outside it. In this, we have all the way to the end, a science, such that the Creator we refer to is only that which I attain as surely as the computer in front of me. Less than that isn’t considered attainment, and in fact, even that is considered less than what Kabbalists mean by attainment. The hard science of our world in fact is far less rigorous than Kabbalah’s standard of proof. And that’s why the science of our world always changes, whereas the letters of the Kabbalists are the same discovered in different places and times, by different Kabbalists throughout in all times.
Now the matter of “awareness”. From the above, we can also understand that Kabbalists do not take seriously mere mental pivots but they respect those pivots as part of the effort to come to the right perception. On the one hand, Baal HaSulam informs us that our whole perception is a psychological matter. But that’s just a way of describing all that I feel and experience as psychological phenomena. If I could truly pivot, with all of my vessels of perception, toward the spiritual world, the world of bestowal, then I would reach what is called “מודעות” (moda’ut), awareness. It shares the root י־ד־ע (yod-dalet-ayin) with the word “דַּעַת” (da’at), knowing. And knowing here is as in “וְהָאָדָם יָדַע אֶת־חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ” (veha’adam yada et-Chavah ishto) – “and Adam knew his wife”. So, must be the awareness of the Creator. It’s knowing, which means truly attaining as if holding it in one’s hand, and nothing less than that.
Except for the perception of the Creator in 5 new, spiritual senses, more real than the current reality we feel, everything else is just exercises. And these exercises are good, and we need to understand and practice them more and more thoroughly.
Thank you again Beloved Gianni for your kind and thoughtful reply.
Again, please forgive the length of this post, but what is being shared here is just totally life-changing information.
It is interesting that you reply that “‘The Solution’ is an unpublished article.” It is indeed published on the http://www.kabbalah.info website. Its importance cannot be underestimated, in light of the fact that it was quoted at the start of the EU Retreat, as a kind of theme for the whole program. And one of my study companions had a link to it immediately when I asked for one. So this article is obviously well-known by KabU students and teachers.
And then, surprisingly, you go on to reply that, “It was for him, written in a way that he could understand what he needed to touch upon later when he puts it together for the public.” Did Baal HaSulam categorize this article this way himself? Do you have a citation for this?
Your next reply was also a surprise: “There is a ton of room for confusion in it. Every word needs explanation.” It was crystal clear to me that Baal HaSulam was stating a profound but totally simple Truth: We already are connected to the Creator, and it’s all perfectly natural. Nothing to even be excited about, as nothing has been added to our reality but the awareness of this fact.
So please do not dismiss this article, but clarify what this article means in terms of Kabbalah Teachings. It is THE SOLUTION to the whole dilemma of the human condition, as I wrote in my post.
In my search of my collection of Kabbalah books and documents in pdf form, for the words, “aware”, and “awareness” I came up with some very exciting and extremely important information. Most importantly I found that what we refer to as “faith above reason” which is the key to all attainment, is actually an awareness of the Creator. Wow! Here’s what Rabbi Laitman wrote in this context:
In, “Attaining the Worlds Beyond”, in the Chapter, “Perceiving the Creator” Rabbi Laitman poses this question on pg. 16, “How much easier would life be if the Creator were not concealed from human beings, but were clearly perceived and seen by each and every one of us!” I will not quote all of his answers to this proposition but the essence is that,
“Just imagine how natural it would be (and also how
unnatural and impossible it is in the present condition of
Divine concealment) to give ourselves fully to the Creator, to
surrender all of our thoughts and desires to Him without
reservation, and to be what He wants us to be.”Rabbi Laitman concludes: “From the above, it should be clear that the only element lacking in our world is our perception of the Creator.” He goes on to write (bold type is my emphasis):
“The attainment of such a perception should be our sole
purpose in this world. This is the one goal we should spare no
effort to achieve, for only when we can perceive the Creator
can we receive His help. This would save us from both the
calamities of this life and from a spiritual death, thereby
according us spiritual immortality without having to return
to this world.“The method of searching for our perception of the Creator
is known as “Kabbalah.” Our perception of the Creator is
called “faith.” However, we often mistakenly believe that
faith implies groping in the dark, without seeing or
perceiving the Creator.“In fact, faith means exactly the opposite. According to
Kabbalah, the Light of the Creator that fills a person, the Light
of the connection to the Creator, the Light that gives a feeling
of unification with Him (Ohr Hassadim) is known as “the Light
of Faith,” or simply, faith.“Faith, the Light of the Creator, gives us a sensation of being
linked to the eternal. It brings us an understanding of the
Creator, a feeling of complete communication with Him, as
well as a sense of absolute security, immortality, greatness and
strength. It becomes clear that deliverance from our temporal
existence and from our suffering (caused by our futile pursuit
of transient pleasures) lies only in our attaining faith, through
which we will be able to perceive the Creator.Dr. Laitman then writes, “The aim
of this text is to guide you through the initial stages of the
path to perceiving the Creator.” Pg. 18On page 29, under the Sub-Title, “Faith Above Reason”, Dr. Laitman reveals,
“Faith, or the awareness of the Creator, must be such that
we feel that we are in the presence of the King of the Universe.
Then, undoubtedly, we will become imbued with the
necessary feelings of love and fear. Until we attain such
faith, we must continuously strive for it. For it is only faiththat will allow us to enjoy a spiritual life and prevent us from
sinking to the depths of egoism, once again becoming
pleasure seekers.Our need to become aware of the Creator must be
cultivated until it becomes permanently entrenched in our
being. It must resemble a permanent attraction towards a
loved one, without whom life seems unbearable.“Everything that surrounds human beings deliberately
dulls the need for Divine Awareness, and sensing pleasure
from anything external instantly reduces the pain of
spiritual emptiness. Therefore, while enjoying the pleasures
of this world, it is vital that we keep them from obliterating
our need to perceive the Creator, as these pleasures rob us of
spiritual sensations.”This whole chapter of “Perceiving the Creator” is profoundly important to all Kabbalah students, especially the revelation that Faith above Reason is Actually Awareness of the Creator.
There is much, much more in the KabU books about the crucial importance of awareness in our Spiritual lives.
I would like to emphasize that what is being pointed to in this post, is that Baal HaSulam and Rabbi Laitman have stated quite clearly that perception of the Creator is the Solution to our whole human dilemma, and that Awareness is the key to attaining this Gift of Knowing.
This has absolutely nothing to do with psychology, mental exercises, philosophizing, speculating, or fantasizing. Actual, Real Perception of the Creator is Actual Eternal Awareness of our Eternal Oneness with the Creator and all of Creation, beyond the ephemeral, illusory level of the human senses and the illusion of time and space. Our Oneness with the Creator is Here and Now. It can be felt and Known. It can only be attained as a Gift of Knowing by the Creator, but it is already an Eternal Fact of Reality. And one can then simply do a 180-degree turn in our attention and focus our Awareness wholly, totally, and forever on Him.
It is as you replied, “and Adam knew his wife”. So, must be the awareness of the Creator. It’s knowing, which means truly attaining as if holding it in one’s hand, and nothing less than that.” Yes, this is the Truth.
So what does Kabbalah teach about, “מודעות” (moda’ut), awareness. It shares the root י־ד־ע (yod-dalet-ayin) with the word “דַּעַת” (da’at), knowing. And knowing here is as in “וְהָאָדָם יָדַע אֶת־חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ” (veha’adam yada et-Chavah ishto)” I would really like to know more about this.
Thank you.
I wrote a reply to your kind response to my question, but it did not appear after I clicked on the “Submit” button. Was it blocked, or was it a technical issue?
In my reply, I asked you to please comment on the quote I gave from the article by Baal HaSulam. Your answer did not refer to what Baal HaSulam wrote.
Thank you.
Hi 🙂
I am still not able to use the kabbalah books correctly.
If I read by myself some parts which are not related to the lesson, I get the impression of a total misunderstanding.
My question so is this: at this early stage as mine, do I risk to get confused by what I read? Is this common?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Elena,
There’s no risk. There needs to be an internal change, and then everything will fall into place and I’ll be able to open any text and know what it’s talking about. This change is only through the Reforming Light that works without me knowing how. The little bit of understanding I have when I read some texts is just for there to be something for me to grasp a bit so that the Light can work on me. There is such a force in nature, and these books position me before it, to the extent that I engage in them.
Now I am in panic! What if I am not able to reach spirituality in this life (given the fact that I am 50 years old) and have to be reborn, and go through all the terrible life experiences to again reach this staring point (if ever) and get stuck in such a loop till the end of time?? How can I ensure to reach spirituality, wake up, in this life?
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