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In terms of the different levels of existence, is there any movement between levels? Is there anyway that animal level “moves up”? Or am I being too concrete? Do the lower levels have what we could understand as souls that also change, develop, and progress?
Hi Jill,
“Up” or “down” in spirituality is referring to bestowal and reception. Going up means reaching higher levels of bestowal, while going down means becoming more egoistic or reaching higher levels of reception.
With regards to bestowal, the still, vegetative, and animate levels are already fully corrected and in balance with nature. The only reason why we sometimes see a lack of balance on those levels is because their balance is disrupted by the uncorrected human ego. So when we correct that egoism, their levels will return to their natural balance. Furthermore, when we fully correct ourselves on the human level, the lower levels will rise together with us.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2016/01/chernobyl-is-flourishing/
https://laitman.com/2015/09/where-is-the-upper-world/
Albert @ KabU
Do we go through the experience of concealment to revelation with each desire? It seems to me when I am possessed by a desire to receive for myself and I ask for guidance from there is no one else besides him and i eventually am able to transform the desire to receive with an intention to receive not for myself and I enter a revealed state. A place where I feel connected to everything and everyone as if it all is part of me and that I am both giver and receiver. Then a new desire comes and the process starts over again with more concealment. The revealed states are beautiful but don’t often last long and I feel separated from them more often than not. Thank you
Hi Juan,
Yes, the desires awaken in us gradually and we need to work with whatever is awakened in the moment.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/09/compliance-with-the-613-mitzvot-commandments/
Albert @ KabU
is it (also) because there is None Else Besides Him that I Love my friend as myself? Because my “friend” is another (simulated) “part” of the 10 Sephirot and we are imitating the reality that Everything is The Creator?
From the past classes , understand that this work of kabbalah is the work of spiritual upper world instead of this physical world, and our spiritual purpose would be getting closer to the creator.
But at this moment we are in the physical world and bounded by it, no matter how our 5 senses perceived / what desire level we are in, we are still bounded by the physical reality. I want to spend more time to study or take spiritual acts. But physical block me e.g. my mum office work or annoying colleagues consume my time and I have less time to do spiritual study.
Another example is, we say share with others with love and treat each other as myself… But sometimes I don’t have the way / resources to share. E.g. my friend is looking for job opportunities but I don’t have openings for her.
So how can we jump out from then bound and becoming like the Creator, if we still live in the physical world?
Hi Sarah,
1. At the beginning of the spiritual path, there are a lot of tendencies to isolate ourselves from the world. So what you’re feeling is normal. 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). 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.
2. We learn that “love your friend as yourself” is a great all encompassing rule of our spiritual work. It is essentially the path through which we come into contact with the Creator. But who is a friend? When Kabbalists use the word “friend” they are not referring to our corporeal buddies. A friend, in the spiritual sense of the word, is someone that is close to me spiritually, someone that shares the same spiritual goal as me. In other words, a friend is someone with an active point in the heart that is together with me on the spiritual path. This is why the spiritual work of “love your friend as yourself” is primarily carried out in a Kabbalistic group.
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.
Albert @ KabU
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