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Hi
I have a question. Where is the right place to ask questions coming from the study of recommended books that are not related to the lessons and material delivered here?
In “Kabbalah for Students” chapter “Introduction to the study of the ten Sefirot” Bal HaSulam talks about lo Lishma and Lishma. Also, about the path of Torah/Mitzvot and the idea of living a miserable life through penance, and mortification to become worthy of receiving grace and light to live the rest of your life in this world and other worlds, happy and fulfilled. A few pages later, he quotes two Kabbalists that if one spends 3 or 5 years on the path with no results, they should quit and resort to the “Wisdom of Kabbalah”. Also , in the first weeks, Tony discussed the path of Torah and Mitzvot as concepts in Kabbalah. Now I have two questions:
1- Why anyone, in their right mind, should try the hard way and if after spending years in it gets no where, switches to the Wisdom of Kabbalah? Why not starting from Kabbalah to skip both the idea of mortification and hard life and the disappointment that might follow?
2- Does Kabbalah, at any stage, include or recommend thirst, hunger, sleep deprivation, and acts against the basic human needs as a practice?
Thank you
Hi Farzin,
No, there’s never a bait and switch where you find out that you need to deprive yourself of basic needs. Spirituality rather necessitates you to walk and chew gum at the same time, meaning manage this life and spiritual life distinctly. We don’t like to hear that because the highest spiritual method should obviously cover the life I’m familiar with, in addition to the worlds above it; but only in this way you reach what’s up above. You’re advancing spiritually by your internal spiritual work, and by doing everything normally, relating to your necessities in this world as necessary because you need to live in this world to reach the Upper World. Relating to life in this way is already a very different, more spiritual approach. Through it, even regular life starts belonging to your spiritual advancement.
In the past, for a variety of reasons I’ll lave aside, the only way to reach spirituality was by literally training oneself to not feel pleasure. Like if you stop eating sugar for a couple months, you’ll find that you have no enjoyment in it. So, people who wanted to come out of their Will to Receive would accustom gradually to not receiving, literally. Kabbalists made corrections in the system of souls so that instead of this, one can come to the quality of the Creator, which s bestowal and opposite to my Will to Receive – through th Reforming Light we draw during the study of Kabbalah.
In truth, this Light exists in all writings by those who wrote to us from above the Barrier to the spiritual world. But in the generations, say, thousands of years ago, it was immediately clear that the Torah, for example, was not about this world, but words to tell about the Upper World. No one in our times can read it that way continuously. That’s why reading only that is to put your spiritual advancement in slow-mo, like you slow a movie down a 1000x. So you advance. The problem is, at that rate, the spiritual goal is so great, profound, such a fundamental inner change, that you don’t have time to reach it while you’re alive. Therefore, Baal HaSulam lets you know that if you want to try that route, go ahead, but know that within 3-5 years of study, you should see a sign from Above that you’re on the right path. This is an unmistakable sign, which can’t be described. I’d say that even on the path of Kabbalah, one can expect this sign. It’s just that if you’re trying to reach it by the Torah alone, and you’ve hit 5 years, you can be sure that you need the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Hi
In his video “What is a prayer?” Gill said that an egoistic prayer wouldn’t be answered. Now, being made of the material “the will to receive”, how can any of our prayers be answered? I pray for something like health, or even spiritual growth and attainment, and it won’t be answered because it involves me? Let alone stuff like money, prosperity etc. How does it work, really?
Right. Because the teacher already put in the classroom what would be perfect for the lesson he wants to teach me and I want to go play outside instead. I can cry for that, but he’s going to wait till I calm down, and give the lesson. I can tear up or even throw chairs at the teacher. Afterward, I’ll do the lesson. Tomorrow the same lesson awaits. The next day, it awaits. He’s patient.
This stuck with me but i dont know hwy, i dont have a super specigic quetsion around it, is it true that literally everything that isint bestowal is negative? like when i recive pleasure from eating an ice cream? “But man’s will does not tend to accept the termination of its being “the owner,” nor the necessity to give up control over man.
This condition was also made by the Creator so that man would hate his receiving nature. Why? Because it contradicts the giving nature of the Creator so much, that man would want to eradicate it.
It is only because of man’s recognition that everything opposite the Creator is negative that we finally surrender and plead before the Creator. The Creator did this initially so that our desire for Him would be complete.”
Regular desires for food, sex, family are considered “neither praised nor condemned.” Animals have those and can have them in complete harmony with nature. So, in what you need for your body, you’re like an animal. The body is an animal with nothing spiritual about it. But anything beyond food, sex, family – in normal, healthy amounts – I need to consider whether I could put my desire and efforts toward more spiritual things.
Studying this week’s material, a question popped into my mind. It was said that we should want to elevate our group without wanting anything for myself. Only from a point of bestowal (or maybe I got it wrong).
Even if I could do that, there is an ulterior motive: raising others without putting myself into the equation to get elevated. If that’s the case, I’d be in the equation from the start, only pretending to bestow, while my act is driven by the very desire to receive more. I never could reconcile these two. Could you help me out, please?
It only seems that way in theory. Because once I start trying to do that, I see that I have obstacles in the way of it. My ego doesn’t agree to it and the Creator places guards in front of His palace so that I won’t enter. See for yourself. The purer my desire to bestow, the more cunning are the guards placed before the gates. This is actually because I can only enter with a completely pure intention. But I must come with each relatively more pure intention, get rejected, and try again. Each time, I make an adjustment, with the help of the Surrounding Light. I knock on this door until I enter.
There is all this teaching about knowing Kabbalah works because of the past people who experienced it. Can the teachers in this program talk to their experience with it? I am definitely feeling that resistance in prayer and I keep wondering if I am doing something wrong. Is my ego too big, is my life too unstable, or maybe everyone just passes the buck onto some soul that keeps reincarnating and that is the only person who will ever achieve the state of Bestowal while the rest of us go on chasing something unattainable.
No one’s ego is too big. One has just a little to overcome, but that overcoming is tailored to the person, to be the one thing they can’t do. And it’s exactly what they must do, their correction. I have to do this in the right combination of my efforts and understanding that I need help from an Upper Force, and turning to that Upper Force.
About the insurance for the spiritual path, I have to give the same thing Rav Laitman got from Rabash when he asked, “how do I know I’m in the right place?” And Rabash said, you won’t get an insurance policy. “Go and see what’s out there.” And he pushed Rav Laitman to go and check some other places to see what possibilities there were. That’s all the assurance you’re going to get. Kabbalists don’t say “I know it works, I guarantee…” Nope. That’s taking away people’s free choice. So, they’re not interested in providing that kind of confidence.
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