[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Timothy, great questions!

The world is a reflection of my egoistic state. Meaning that I don’t experience some objective reality, but I experience something through the lens of my ego. Furthermore, to the extent that I correct this ego, to that extent the external reality will change as well. It’s like I have these dirty glasses through which I see the whole world as being dirty. The moment I clean my own glasses (correct myself) then I’ll look at the same world, but now it’s clean and perfect.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2014/04/in-neutral-gear/

But what about the other people? Do they exist or not? Essentially all that exists is one soul and we are all parts of it, like cells within a single body.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2012/05/from-multiplicity-to-unity/

As for correcting myself vs correcting others, when I do my spiritual work, I correct MY part that is found within everyone. So I don’t actually correct the others and I don’t do the spiritual work instead of the others. For more details, see my replies #57588 & #58059 to Maria below.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Ali,

Each person is unique and feels the world through his/her uniqueness. As such, it’s impossible to compare how one person feels spirituality with another. We simply don’t have the tools to compare feelings. But we can say in general that everything that we feel, stems from our desires. When our desires are uncorrected, egoistic, then we feel this world. If we correct the desire, for it to operate in the direction of bestowal, within that corrected desire, we feel spirituality.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/05/what-is-the-soul-4/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Aoife,

In general, it’s not recommended to talk about Kabbalah with those that are not on the path. It’s impossible for a person without an active point in the heart to understand these things. It just leads to unnecessary arguments which ultimately harms both them and you.

It harms them because we naturally try to justify ourselves, to prove our path to them, or even to force our path onto them, which violates the rule that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. It’s like forcing a 5 year old to do something sexual, which they are clearly not ready for. It’s an extreme example, but you understand how such things can mess a person up for life. Likewise when we try to force this path onto others that are not ready for it, it can mess them up spiritually for a whole lifetime.

Or these arguments can harm you. When we argue with someone, on a subconscious level, our opinions begin to mix. Their doubts will become your doubts. And your desire for spirituality, the most precious thing that there is in life, will weaken more and more. So the best thing to do when outside of the spiritual environment is to act normal, just like everyone else. And when speaking with people outside the path, talk about the normal everyday life and not about Kabbalah or spirituality.

And if you think someone is interested in Kabbalah, instead of arguing or going into any explanations, simply give them one of the beginner books as a present or send them a link to the course. This is the safest approach.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hello,

I’m not an expert in eastern teachings, so I cannot comment on that. But in general, most spiritual methods, religions, philosophies, and even sciences in one way or another stem from the wisdom of Kabbalah. Either as a stepping stone for a person to develop through until his point in the heart awakens (such as many eastern traditions), or from an attempt to copy and implement this wisdom (like what early philosophers tried to do, which later on turned into modern sciences), or as a side effect of the concealment of this wisdom (which is how the modern religions and spiritual paths emerged).

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/11/the-origin-and-purpose-of-eastern-teachings/

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Nicole,

1. I’m not an expert on religions or Judaism, so I cannot comment on that. But we need keep in mind that Kabbalah and religion are two separate things. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:

Kabbalah is the method for correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.

This wisdom gets passed on ward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.

These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.

At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.

From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/

2. There is a rule in Kabbalah that “there is no coercion in spirituality”. So unless someone has a desire for this, you cannot force it onto them. Although we do disseminate Kabbalah and the need for uniting humanity to the whole world, we do so in a very light way so as not to breach the above law of no coercion.

Furthermore, we need to keep in mind that ultimately it’s not we ourselves that will awaken humanity with our own egoistic strength. Rather it’s the Creator that does this work. We only spread this information on a large scale, as if to plant the seed in humanity, but we’re not the ones to finish this work. In everything we do there, we need to leave room for the light to finish the job. We’ll learn more about this in the more advanced lessons.

Albert @ KabU

[Albert – KabU Instructor]

Hi Duke,

You are right, the relationship between the Creator and Creature is not always clear. This is something that gets clarified throughout our entire spiritual journey. Essentially all of Kabbalah is the process by which we correct ourselves and thereby reveal the Creator, getting to know Him more and more on every spiritual degree. All the way until the very end of correction in which we reach complete adhesion with Him.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/

Also keep in mind Kabbalah is a science with clear limits of what we can and cannot study. Kabbalah differentiate two parts to the Creator.

The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator simply because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.

The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.

So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.

Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/12/the-holy-names-of-bestowal/

Albert @ KabU

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