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Mr. Kosenic, you speak of selfishness and you define it as the will to receive, if I am not mistaken. I am a Spanish speaker and sometimes concepts can be different in English ( English is my second language). I will try to explain this: in Spanish egoismo is ” Immoderate and excessive love of self, which makes one pay excessive attention to one’s own interests, without taking care of the interests of others.” which translated into English would be something like “Immoderate and excessive love of self, which makes one pay excessive attention to one’s own interests, without taking care of the interests of others.” I looked in the Oxford dictionary and found this definition of egoism “a person who thinks that he or she is better than other people and who thinks and talks too much about himself or herself.” Well, for me both definitions are quite similar in this case although the Spanish definition seems to me a bit stronger. Now, when you talk about egoism, are you referring to those two definitions as well?
Hi Jehoseph,
We are made of the still degree, vegetative degree and animate degree.
This is called our necessity and it is not praised nor condemned. We don’t speak of ego in relation to our desire for food, sex, money, etc.
Ego is when we want something at the expense of another.
Beyond what I need as a creature in nature, I need a house, maybe even air conditioning, food in the refrigerator, family, etc.
Ego is when on the human degree, above the animate degree, I want on the back of another, I want at the other’s expense.
That is the ego that we will be working with and correcting from in order to receive to in order to bestow.
The Creator manages all of nature including our desires and He gave us this excessive will to receive and it is in order that we will make a correction on it so that we will be able to receive His abundance, in vessels of bestowal.
We need to come to that through our efforts and we don’t enjoy something without a lack and the more the lack, the more we enjoy from the fulfillment. Thus you see how humanity arrived at its current state.
Seth@KabU
Thank you for the lessons thus far.
I understand how there are 125 levels in relation to the 5 worlds on the spiritual ladder, however, I am unclear about where the 620 levels come from? How or where did we derive the 620 from?
Melinda,
I take the will to receive that is revealed in me and transfer it to bestowal. That is called to make a mitzvah.We will discover these desires thus we need to perform 620 commandments, it’s not something with hands and legs, it is only within the desire, it is mainly to correct the heart of man, meaning the desires of man.
These 620 corrections which are 613 plus 7 Mitzvot of our sages. The 613 Mitzvot connect within them into 248 and 365, and these comprise the structure of the soul. The soul itself consists of ten parts, ten Sephirot, or Ten Commandments.
Rabash writes like this, “There are 613 Mitzvot, and in each Mitzva a light of a unique degree is deposited, which corresponds to a unique organ in the 613 organs and tendons of the souls and the body. It follows that while performing the Mitzva, one extends to the corresponding organ in his soul and body, the degree of light that belongs to that organ and tendon.”Seth@KabU
Melinda,
With spiritual vessels we will discover these as spiritual desires which we correct (the light corrects) from in order to receive to in order to bestow.
Seth@KabU
One thing I in particular struggle with, very deeply, is maintaining an optimistic perspective or belief for the future. I feel overwhelmed by the severity of the climate crisis, the seemingly unsolvable conflicts between humans as persons and nations … I’m sure you know what I mean. I understand that Kabbalah teaches the radical possibilities of healing and redemption, and I want to participate in such a collective enterprise of saving the world (more or less, as grandiose as that sounds).
But on a gut level, I’m genuinely terrified. Perhaps I lack “faith” or perhaps the spiritual understanding to perceive a positive world to come. What can I do in times of severe doubt and sorrow. in feeling like somehow we are living at the end of the world and the mass extinction of all who live on it?
Thank you. I have tried to write honestly, even if I sound bombastic in style.
Aoife,
Hi my friend. If you were happy with only football and video games, then you wouldn’t be searching for your soul, for eternal love, so first of all, be grateful that you feel the deficiency in your heart, that you are searching for something eternal, for something meaningful and good.
Next, after your gratitude, take away all of the ‘clothings’ as it were that surround the emotions.
For example, you have a deep emptiness in your heart or your gut and on it, you dress all kinds of stories about the climate and about wars. Of course, that is normal, but for this exercise, imagine that you are taking away all of those garments that clothe on the emotion and just take the emotion, that emotion comes from the Creator, that is a great minus (-). And our work is to add to it a great plus (+).
We can do this, not the animals or plants and rocks who live instinctually , they have choice in life, but only to follow their inner program, but the human degree of nature can do this.
And you know that this planet went through many millions of years of being a fire ball and many more years of being frozen, so these are not new phenomenon, what is new is that now there is a creature, a human who can balance all of the forces in creation, yes, that is what we are learning. And this does not require some kind of blind faith in something.
We need to learn who we are, what forces are operating on us and how we can do something to participate shift reality to all good.
It turns out that precisely from the big (-) and the big (+), we will feel the great upper light pass through us and onto all of humanity, onto all of creation and illuminate it and bring it into balance.
In the meantime, I don’t want to calm you down but I do recommend that you understand that you have found an ancient wisdom that describes all of the systems of nature and all of the degrees that humanity is going through, precisely. So take your studies seriously and pour that emotion into feeling the essence of what you are learning and leave the outside world alone for the time being. It will still be there when you return, but as you start to learn and format yourself to this eternal wisdom, you will start to feel how everything is happening according to a process.
It’s not easy after all to take stardust and raise it through millions, billions of years to a creature who will as it says, be like God, knowing good and evil.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but we are on our way.
Hold on for the ride of a lifetime and be confident that you found a place where there are people from all around the world with deficiencies like yours and we are all going together hand in hand.
Seth@KabU
Hi & thank you for taking questions.
If Kabbalists don’t discuss their attainments, how do we know this is not all a product of human imagination? Forgive the crude comparison – but look at scientology for example. That is a system that has people ascend through levels to attain otherwise-secret knowledge at each one that they can’t discuss with anyone. Yet ex-scientologists have come out and said it’s all nonsense.
Cults around the world use the same tactic & it works because people who are seeking meaning in their life are vulnerable. Any system that has people ascend through levels to gain otherwise-secret knowledge which they can’t talk about (and is therefore non-verifiable) is a common pattern throughout human history. How do you know Kabbalah is any different?
If Kabbalah was truly a science and not a belief pattern, then why can’t anything about the upper levels be discussed? (The answer that discussing attainment will induce envy in others and cause you to lose the attainment is consistent with a belief system and not a science).
This is not meant to be inflammatory -please don’t take it as such. Thanks for taking questions.
Megan,
There is a language that a student needs to acquire in order to work in the wisdom of kabbalah. Take an infant and put her with Einstein and ask Einstein to give her all he knows. In the wisdom of kabbalah, “forbidden” means ‘impossible’.  Everything is according to the vessels. The Light as we are learning, does not change, all that changes is the vessels that we are building.
So what we are doing here is giving you the building blocks and some knowledge to start building your new vessels and you will perceive this on your own, then it is yours.
Here is my advise for you, you are in week 2 of a 5 week class. So the investment is not so big. During these 5 weeks take good notes in your notebook as if you were going to explain what you are learning to the next generation of students. What you want to have in your notebook is the summary of the main point. And you know that famous quote that is attributed to Einstein, something like, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t really understand it (something like that). What you want at the end of each week is to hold something in your hand, something that you try on.
I have dozens of notebooks from almost two decades of study like this. I can talk to you about the will to receive that I feel in me, that I see operating all of the creatures around me. I can discuss perception of reality, how each creature depicts her reality based on her senses, of course the world of a dog, who lives through his nose on the ground is different from a hawk who lives from his eyes in the air, the reality stays the same, but it is perceived completely differently by each creature according to its vessels. And you will learn about the 4 phases of direct light that cascade down from above to below, the blueprint of creation and you will see with your own eyes how our reality develops from below to above according to the same four phases: inanimate degree, vegetative degree, animal degree and human degree…
Etc, etc.
Later after you have acquired the fundamentals and you start working in a group of kabbalists who share the same foundation, then you will start working with envy, lust and honor as you alluded to.
Step by step and test it along the way.
Good luck!!!
Seth@KabU
What would you say of someone who really has no desires. (Not me I’m firmly in 5)
I look through the list of evolving desires to see why they might not be seeking as I am and they seek none of that. Survival needs are not an issue but they have no desire for the others either.
I would say they are clearly beyond the desire for wealth or power and knows these are not the way to find contentment. Yet they are just content and have been the 20 years I’ve known them closely. Not driven for knowledge or spirituality.
They are not spiritual but seem to understand and get anything I have explored and shared without belittling it.
I’m not trying to coax just share, but curious are some people just taking a life out from seeking?
Or just content enough to not move into desires.
Also I’m not saying they should change at all I’m just curious, just as he is about why I am so driven towards it.
Alicia,
I’m trying to figure out why the Creator made mosquitos right now and you’re trying to figure out why the Creator made family and friends who don’t yearn to know the purpose of life 🙂
Much later in our study we will begin to discover how all of the reality that we perceive; inanimate, vegatative, animate and speaking are all projections of my inner world outside of me, like Baal HaSulam writes that if they were not projected outside of me I would have no way to discover myself.
In the meantime, since we don’t feel that my Dad and my Grandma and my work colleague and this mosquito are all parts of my desire, my soul, so we are called that we are in the preparation phase in relation to the ladder of degrees.
Our work specifically now is to stabalize ourselves in this field of forces.
Meaning, who am I? (a will to receive with a point in the heart)
Where am I? (in a field of upper light/bestowal)
Why is life the way it is, filled with such agony? (we are uncorrected, we are receving the upper light in order to receive. We need to invert our intention to be in order to bestow, that is, to receive in order to bestow).So all of this and more to understand and start to feel who we are where we are, etc.
And then we will start working in the spiritual environment with other friends who are learning with us, who are studying and upon whom this same upper light is working in an active way.In short, carry on with your studies and don’t try to convince anyone else of anything.
First let the materials that we are studying work on you, harmonize you with the words of the kabbalists and after start to think how will I be able to communicate this in the most simple, clear way possible that one day “everyone will know Me from the greatest to the smallest” and “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”, meaning, how will we be able to make ourselves into pipeline to bring the Creator’s light to everyone else in a way that is suitable for THEM. We will be those transitions.All this comes later. For now, you have your work cut out for you.
Good luck!!
Seth@KabUThanks Seth,
The mosquito question is probably a more profound one to be sure. Now I’m going to be wondering too.
i guess I was more curious if that was a known about stage, where desire goes silent for a time. Mosquitos
Not to worry I wouldn’t try to coerce it’s more just daily conversation where we share anything interesting from the day. He’s happy so whatever works.
I like your advice regarding the focus re: our work. Thanks
Alicia,
We are in a very big integral system and sometimes you will even see a person who is a very serious student for 15 years and then the Creator plays with him and he starts getting confused and looking to religion, to some physical practice, that by keeping some physical actions, that will lead to spirituality or sometimes the Creator throws a person back to the corporeal world where he just wants a good life in this world and leaves the spiritual path altogether.
These are situations where a person was on the path. You are asking about a person who is not on the path and frankly doesn’t even care about it, he is having a good life and what more does he need.
And all of this exists in the system. There are active parts and passive parts, like in your body, there is the head that decides and the body executes. The hands, even the toes take part in wherever the body goes, but the head is deciding for the whole body. Likewise humanity is built. Most of humanity is called AH”P and those who attain the spiritual system and the light passes through them to the world are called the G”E. We will study all of this later.
Seth@KabU
Alicia,
I’m trying to figure out why the Creator made mosquitos right now and you’re trying to figure out why the Creator made family and friends who don’t yearn to know the purpose of life 🙂
Much later in our study we will begin to discover how all of the reality that we perceive; inanimate, vegatative, animate and speaking are all projections of my inner world outside of me, like Baal HaSulam writes that if they were not projected outside of me I would have no way to discover myself.
In the meantime, since we don’t feel that my Dad and my Grandma and my work colleague and this mosquito are all parts of my desire, my soul, so we are called that we are in the preparation phase in relation to the ladder of degrees.
Our work specifically now is to stabalize ourselves in this field of forces.
Meaning, who am I? (a will to receive with a point in the heart)
Where am I? (in a field of upper light/bestowal)
Why is life the way it is, filled with such agony? (we are uncorrected, we are receving the upper light in order to receive. We need to invert our intention to be in order to bestow, that is, to receive in order to bestow).So all of this and more to understand and start to feel who we are where we are, etc.
And then we will start working in the spiritual environment with other friends who are learning with us, who are studying and upon whom this same upper light is working in an active way.In short, carry on with your studies and don’t try to convince anyone else of anything.
First let the materials that we are studying work on you, harmonize you with the words of the kabbalists and after start to think how will I be able to communicate this in the most simple, clear way possible that one day “everyone will know Me from the greatest to the smallest” and “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”, meaning, how will we be able to make ourselves into pipeline to bring the Creator’s light to everyone else in a way that is suitable for THEM. We will be those transitions.All this comes later. For now, you have your work cut out for you.
Good luck!!
Seth@KabU
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