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I am interested in learning further how to maintain my intention to choose the path of light. I find that my intention feels very strong and already seems to guide me quite well in my life, but there are times that I realize that my egoistic desire to excel at choosing the path of light sometimes guides me back to the path of pain. For example, I try to live by the golden rule and yet there are times that I feel that I give so much of myself up to others that I then become irritable and short-tempered with people that I love. After realizing how I have become irritable and unreliable to those around me, I feel demoralized and may feel tempted to wallow in the pain rather than continue my work on the path of light.
Hi Steven,
We learn in Kabbalah that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. Meaning that we cannot force someone to do spiritual work. For this reason, we don’t do any spiritual work towards the world, but rather we focus all of our spiritual work on others that want to do this work together with us, meaning in the Kabbalistic group. The Kabbalistic group is like our spiritual laboratory. It’s a safe place in which we can practice everything we learn in Kabbalah.
Furthermore, the spiritual work we do in the Kabbalistic group is the foundation of all of our work. It’s like we’re building here a certain nucleus. Once we build that nucleus, we will be able to add to it wider and wider circles of the world, until we’ll come to include the whole world in that connection. But this is gradual work. And until we build that nucleus, we have nothing with which to do any spiritual work towards the world.
So until then, how do we behave towards the rest of the world? We behave normally there, just like everyone else. Meaning don’t make a saint of yourself and at the same time don’t cause harm to others, but just act there the way normal people act.
We’ll learn more about these things in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
<p style=”text-align: right;”>Please can you explain further about the equivalence of form and this is related to the soul and the creator?</p>
Hi Comfort,
According to the law of equivalence of form, in order to come closer to something in spirituality, we need to become similar to that thing. The Creator has the nature of pure love and bestowal while our nature is the opposite: pure reception. So to come closer to the Creator, to reveal Him in practice, we need to correct our opposite nature, for it to become similar to his nature of pure love and bestowal.
It’s similar to how a radio works. That we just need to tune the inner frequency of the radio to match the external wave. Once we tune in to the wave that we want, we right away hear the music that is on that wave. Likewise with us, once we tune ourselves in the direction of bestowal, we will become similar to the Creator and thereby reveal Him.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman: http://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
The corrected form of our desire to receive is called a soul. Meaning that it’s not something that we’re born with but rather something that we develop and attain. Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/05/what-is-the-soul-4/
Albert @ KabU
Hello,
I hope my questions make sense. In the last video of the lesson, The Language of Roots and Branches, we were told that we all have a root above. Is this to say, that there is a person in the spiritual realm that is unique like me? What I mean is, is this root a person with my name, who lives in the city I live in, in the USA, with parents, etc.? Furthermore, because there are 125 steps, does that mean that there are 125 roots of me above, each more and more developed than myself but resembles my current self as I am here?
Hi Will,
The root of our soul is like our place in the system. Just picture that all of humanity are like cells within a single body, each one of us has a certain place in this body, a certain organ that we belong to. Or picture that humanity is an 8 billion piece jigsaw puzzle. Each person has a specific piece that is only his own, and his role is to reconnect that piece back into the general picture.
So our root is our specific place in the system. The goal for all of us to return to their root, to their place. And the process by which we reach this goal, everything we have undergone in our development in the past, everything we’re going through now, and will go through in the future, all of this is dictated by each one’s unique place in the system.
In other words, every moment of our lives is shaped by this root in order to help us to reach this goal. And every unique experience we have gone through is because we needed to go through exactly that for our personal correction.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/10/the-root-of-the-soul/
Albert @ KabU
What is the significance of the 600,000 souls? With 8+ billion humans on this planet where are the 600,000? Who are the 600,000?
Similarly, what about the steps that we descended to this dimensional experience? what is the significance of the 125 steps?
Tony mentioned 613 desires. Where can we learn more about these desires?
Lots of numbers. Are the various numbers significant in any way?
Thank you,
JamesHi James,
Yes the numbers all have their own significance. When a person attains spirituality, he begins to research it, and discovers all these numbers from his research. But what exactly is he researching, what is spirituality?
Essentially we’re always talking about a desire. Our current reality is based on our current nature, the desire to receive. Spirituality on the other hand operates according to a different desire, that of pure bestowal. The different numbers are just a different way to divide up that spiritual desire. This desire can be divided into 613 parts, or 620 parts, or 600,000 pieces, or 125 degrees, or even 10 sefirot.
It’s just like how we can study a person based on his behavior, or based on his anatomy, or based on his external appearance, or his internal chemistry. Ultimately we’re studying the same person, but from different angles. Same with these different divisions, they are all talking about the same spiritual desire but from different angles or a different scale.
So if we are describing the desire as 613 parts, then we’re talking about the number of corrections that need to be placed over the desire. This number is further divided into 248 desires of bestowing in order to bestow and 365 desires that operate on receiving in order to bestow. We’ll learn about this in detail in the more advanced lessons on KabU that deal with the structure of the upper worlds.
The number 125 comes from the structure of the upper worlds. This structure is just a division of the spiritual desire that we need to correct into sefirot, partzufim, and worlds.
The most basic division of the desire is 1 Sefira. 5 Sefirot compose 1 partzuf. 5 Partzufim compose 1 world. There are 5 worlds in total. So 5 worlds each with 5 partzufim each with 5 sefirot equals 125 (5x5x5) steps on the spiritual ladder. This number symbolizes the gap, the delta, between our nature and the Creator’s nature.
Regarding 600,000, this is less of a quantitative number and more of a qualitative number. It represents the strength of the spiritual desire after it’s been fully corrected.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman to see how this number is derived:
https://laitman.com/2010/09/love-and-hatred-of-600000-souls/
Albert @ KabU
I watched the video where someone asked about crossing over to the spiritual. the answer dealt with needing to be part of a group in order for this to take place. I was a little concerned that I would not be able to accomplish this as an individual and how I can be apart of a group of 10.
Hi Sean,
In the advanced semesters on KabU, we’ll learn how to do spiritual work in the group and everyone will receive their own virtual group with whom they can put these things into practice.
Albert @ KabU
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