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Can I please get a sincere response? This is a sincere question. So far, I have seen nothing but cosmological models and ontological/metaphysical theories. At what point does the wisdom of Kabbalah become practical? Is that even taught in this forum? I came to Kabbalah as a sincere and true seeker without expectations, tabula rasa if you will. While I find this system interesting and can personally identify and recognize some of its aspects as truth, I’m yet to see how this system can be utilized to improve my life. Every culture has developed a system and it’s my personal belief that if there is any empirical truth it all points to the same end. My problem is that with all my years of study I’m still just as stupid and miserable as I always was. Please give me some hope that Kabbalah can uplift me, and that there is a practical teaching to go along with the theoretical constructs.
Jeff,
Our goal is to attain Godliness. “Attainment” [Heb: Hasagah] means the ultimate degree of understanding. It derives from the phrase, Ki Tasig Yadcha [“Your hand shall attain”]. That means that before something becomes utterly lucid, as though gripped in one’s hand, Kabbalists do not consider it attained, but by other names such as understanding, comprehension, and so on.We are right now in a field of endless light there is nothing that changes on the side of the light. We are before a set table filled with all of the delights. Imagine a cat sitting in a movie theatre. He just does not have the vessels to perceive the nuance of the acting, the visual effects, the musical score.
And even a human. Take a child to the opera and he will sit there bored while the adult next to him can go from tears to laughter from the depth of emotion.
So all of our work is only to acquire vessels. This takes time and much effort.
This is the secret of the matter of the exile in Egypt, that the children of Israel needed to go down into that darkness in order to acquire vessels, to acquire a need for all that the Creator wants to give to them.What you are studying now is invaluable. Your are beginning to organize your inner life and discover what is the matter that we are made of, what is the system that we find ourselves in, what forces are acting on us and where can we make a spiritual move.
Stupid…this doesn’t matter at all. It is not the wise who attains.
It depends on the desire of the heart which develops slowly over time.
Miserable…this is a good state, that you are not satisfied with the what the world has to offer and you need more.
Take notes from each lesson, squeeze the juice out it, write down a few sentences from each lesson. What you understand from it. Just a few words, the essence of what you got. Do this from week to week.
You found a true method passed from teacher to student unbroken for thousands of years.
You found what you are looking for.
He put your hand on the good fate, now you need to take it.
I look forward to hearing how it is going as you progress. We will have many more degrees of ups and downs to go though. The righteous falls 1000times and rises. That is our way.
Seth@KabU
in behina aleph, when the thing felt it couldn’t be a giver and then felt a lack, does that mean that it was filled completely and then like what–did the vessel get bigger or did it leak so that it wasn’t completely filled anymore?
in behina bet, does it reject the light completely and cease to exist? or is it still filled but makes a discernment? (or even more confusing is it the same as behina gimmel???)
why doesn’t the creature become perfect in behina gimmel if it has learned to receive in order to bestow? (why only “20%”?)
in malchut, why is this an independent desire, distinct from the previous phases that are all controlled by the creator, when it is the creators purpose that it should happen?
Michael,
All of this is taking place before there is time and space.
We are learning it in a sequence in order to build a in us a structure of reality.
These four phases plus the root phase come from the 4 letter name tip of the Yud – Yud – Hay – Vav – Hay.
And after the four phases, there comes the partzufim, sefirot, the spiritual worlds and the degrees of the soul. All of this comes from this same structure.Think of the four phases like a line of computer code that just sits there until the last line which executes the code and runs it. There is no phase 1 without the root phase and 2, 3, 4 after it.
I don’t relate to your questions because they are not really speaking about what is happening here. Listen to the lesson again with this explanation.
As for “20%” this is only an example. It could be 18% or 33%.Seth@KabU
I feel that at Behina Dalet we are in our ego we are not grateful or appreciative of our desires or wants it fills the vessel with darkness, then as learn to appreciate (light) what we have can we begin to be grateful (light)and share/give to others(sunshine/awareness). Then, we feel the pleasure of giving changes our perspective we learn that it is not about me, we, us, but includes them, the kosmos of all Creation.
I don’t really understand the screen clearly enough to see how that helps me in my life.
Im wanting to transform to giving, to altruism, but i dont understand how to move from ego to altruism in my day to day life.
What am i missing?
RDB,
Sunlight travels millions of miles through cold and dark space.
When it finally hits the spheres around the earth and the earth itself, they light up and warm up.
Similarly, spiritual light is all around us, filling up the space. In order to perceive it, it needs to hit something. Since it is spiritual, it needs something spiritual to strike. Spiritual light doesn’t react to the ozone or to rock and dirt. The spiritual light can strike the spiritual screen.
But this is just technical information, the most important is to come to feel all of this.We have a small problem. We need some way to feel where is the place where I can make a spiritual action, a giving, altruistic action. It is not clear.
So there is something special here in the wisdom of kabbalah (reception). We discover that I am made of a matter and the nature of that matter is a desire to receive pleasure. I don’t have a choice, this is how I am built, this is how I live and not only me, all of reality is just degrees of the desire to receive.
I live my life thinking I can do something good, that I am a good person. It takes a long time until I discover the truth. The truth is that I’m a liar. The truth is that all I do, I do in order to benefit myself. But when I discover my nature of reception for myself, this is the first spiritual truth that I “attain”. Now I understand that according to my nature I can only receive and I discover that I need the help of the Creator, I need the force of bestowal.
By this I start to build a vessel for the light of bestowal to fill me.
And there is no light without a vessel.
Good luck on this great adventure,
Seth@KabU
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