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I was reading in Kabbalah Revealed that “Minerals exist so that plants can feed on them and grow; plants exist so animals can feed on them and grow; minerals, plants, and animals exist so humans can feed on them and grow” (p. 87). But Michael Laitman is also teaching that this is the reverse order of the fall, in which humans existed before animals, which existed before plants, which existed before minerals. How was this possible? He just said that humans cannot exist without animals, plants and minerals. Animals can’t exist without plants. Plants cannot exist without minerals. Do you see what I’m saying? By this logic, it would seem impossible that there could be a descent in reverse order when the things it needs to survive did not yet exist. Can you help me make sense of all this?
Hi Dale,
The order of development goes from the still, to the vegetative, to the animate, and in the end to the speaking (human) levels. This same order of development takes place both in our world and in the spiritual world. So I’m not sure where you read/heard otherwise. Maybe you can share a link to the source so I can comment on it.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Peter,
The screen is the intention. More specifically it’s the intention to bestow. It would be nice if we could just choose a screen, choose an intention and go with it. The problem is that our egoistic nature does not allow us to have a clean intention for bestowal. In the best case scenario we can aspire towards an intention of bestowal and through such an aspiration, such a game of “as if” that we play within the kabbalistic group, we extract the force of the light to help us make this aspiration a reality.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/03/building-blocks-of-the-first-spiritual-degree/
For more details about the screen in general, check out the Guest & Host Analogy in Chapter 3 of Attaining the Worlds Beyond: http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/4180?/eng/content/view/full/4180&main
Albert @ KabU
The Path of Light explanation, completely changes my way to see my behaviours, especially those that put myself in connection or disconnection to others.
My understanding is that Consciousness is the super power to activate the mitzva in every situation of suffering. The suffering comes from a condition where one of our qualities need a correction.
Is the simple state of suffering that should makes us be conscious about the necessity to put in place a mitzva?
Hi Maria,
Yes, you can say that suffering is a sign that we need correction. Just keep in mind that the corrections that we are learning about are internal. We perform such corrections through the “Torah and Mitzvot”.
Torah comes from the Hebrew word ohr (light). So when Kabbalists use the word Torah, they are not referring to the physical book, but rather to the light. This is a special force that we can extract, especially through the Kabbalistic studies, in order to correct our egoistic nature.
And when Kabbalists use the word Mitzvot (plural of Mitzvah) they are not referring to corporeal Mitzvot that a religious person performs with his hands and feet. But rather the Mitzvot are the internal processes by which we draw the light and correct the egoistic desires.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2010/11/spice-up-your-desire/
Keep in mind that although these are internal corrections, they don’t cancel out the things we need to do externally in order to take care of ourselves in the normal way. So if I’m hurt, I still need to go to the doctor, take some medicine, etc. Externally, we all need to arrange our lives and take care of all of our problems in the normal way.
Albert @ KabU
Hi, I suppose my question is one of the internal desires and something I have struggled with for a long time.
I understand the concept of needing to correct our desires, but I struggle to understand what ‘acceptable’ desires are (if there are any) and in what way they need to be corrected. For example, I have a desire to have financial wealth (not as much as I used to desire when I was younger) but enough so that I can be free from having to work, be able to live comfortably, travel and help my friends and family financially, if need be.
Would this be considered something that needs to be corrected? I am guessing so, as the quest for it causes me much stress and worry – how do you begin to look at how you correct a desire like that?
Thank you in advance
Hi Sarah, great question!
Kabbalah only deals with our desire for spirituality. Regarding the desires of our animalistic bodies, Kabbalah does not deal with these things. Our corporeal desires don’t have any relation to spirituality, so each person can arrange these desires however is most comfortable for them (of course within the context of the law and without harming others).
So in practice we don’t work on restricting our corporeal desires, we only work on making the desire for spirituality the most important thing. Then naturally the rest of our desires will fall into place. For example, it’s like with an artist that is so involved in his art, that he fulfills all the rest of his desires out of necessity so he can quickly return to his passion. Same with us, when spirituality is the most important desire, then we will be able to properly relate to all the rest of our corporeal desires in a balanced way.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Lisa,
We learn from the shattering of the system of Adam HaRishon that the only thing that is broken in the ENTIRE system of creation are the proper connections between people. In other words, correction does not mean that there is something wrong with me and I need to fix that thing. Rather each one of us is perfect. The only thing we need to correct is our connection to others.
Just picture all of humanity is part of a single system. Like a 8 billion piece jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle (each person) is perfect by itself and does not require any correction. Meaning that we don’t need to recolor any of the pieces or cut off any seemingly excess parts. The only thing we need to do is find where each piece fits relative to all the other pieces.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/05/puzzle-adam-harishon/
So when Kabbalists speak about the 613 egoistic desires that need to be corrected, they are not speaking about our corporeal desires. Each and every single one of those egoistic desires are only in the connection between people. This is why Kabbalists write that “love your friend as yourself” is the greatest rule which encompasses all of our spiritual work, all of the 613 desires that we need to correct.
We’ll learn how to do this practically in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
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