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Kabbalah: The Bnei Baruch Association – Kabbalah Education & Research Institute.
Kabbalah Revealed
Kabbalah as a
Modern Science
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by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD.
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Many people are not quite sure whether Kabbalah can be considered a science.
Even if it is considered a science, is it a natural science that investigates the nature of the surrounding world, like physics, chemistry, or biology; or is it similar to semi-sciences like philosophy and psychology, etc.? Or perhaps it is a special science, that can’t be submitted to traditional classification and that requires from the researcher not only knowledge, but a special property not given at birth.
We regard a science as a research of the surrounding reality, which can be registered, repeated, reproduced. As we research the world in our five senses and with the help of the devices that broaden the range of their sensitivity. Kabbalists maintain that studying according to the method of Kabbalah allows one to acquire the sixth additional sense (screen or soul). This additional sense allows Kabbalists to explore the perceived disturbances, as we do, using our five basic senses. Kabbalists register, analyze, and summarize these perceptions into a single system. These observations, as well as the observations in natural sciences, have been conducted through many centuries and have been confirmed by hundreds of researchers-Kabbalists. The difference between the Kabbalist and non-Kabbalist researchers lies in the fact that the Kabbalists research the reality in the additional sense, which can be acquired by anyone who desires it.
On the other hand, the scientists have lately discovered that the picture of the world is completely subjective, is fully determined by the observer. According to the famous postulate of Niels Bohr, a researcher doesn’t observe the surrounding world, only his own reactions to it. If this is so, all the natural sciences can be defined as the knowledge that the person attains in his or her innate five senses. Kabbalah is a supernatural science, because it can only be comprehended after the person acquires this additional sense.
It is somewhat unusual to suddenly find out about a potential opportunity to acquire an additional sense and to receive in it some complementary information about the world, which one is normally used to feel in his five senses. Yet, as soon as the person is ready to accept this supposition, all the rest looks quite natural and the research of the world in the additional sense will certainly be called a science.
The Kabbalist’s attainments are real, repeatable and reproducible both by him and by others. In actual fact, all the Kabbalistic books represent the means of tuning the sense of perception and describe the perceived information. This is similar to the account given by a physicist or a chemist. Anyone can repeat the same experiment and receive similar results.
From this we may conclude that Kabbalah is a much more real science than the others, because it initially takes into consideration the fact that the person’s attainment totally depends on his senses.
Mastering a sense that perceives the surrounding reality in accordance with its own properties is absolutely new for the person. This elevates him to a higher level of attainment, turns him into a researcher, because by changing his properties he perceives absolutely new pictures. All of them are quite real, and only the gradual adjustment of this sense reveals the differences between them.
Due to misunderstanding of what the Kabbalists feel and attain, people erroneously attribute to them: various miracles, sorcery, manipulating with supernatural forces; use of red bracelets, exorcisms, “holy water” and other kinds of witchery.
From the aforesaid we clearly see the mistake of associating Kabbalah (the science of the surrounding reality) with religion, mysticism or any other sphere of human activity.
Introductory Lesson on Science and Kabbalah
Given by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD at the
Tel Aviv Educational Center "Nekuda SheBalev"
July 18, 2004
Science and Kabbalah is a vast and complex topic. It is difficult to cover this complex subject fully. I have been engaged in science and Kabbalah for many years, but only in recent years have I discovered their points of intersection. The region of contact between them began to emerge 70 to 80 years ago, when scientists who were studying atomic particles discovered their dual nature: sometimes we see them as particles of matter and sometimes as waves.
It depends completely on us (i.e., on the researcher using some device) as to how they are perceived, analyzed, and studied. Questions began to arise: do waves and all matter around us have a certain form, or is this matter “the way we perceive it?”
This dilemma struck scientists: what is our world really like? Indeed, if we use other devices, we will perceive not matter, but waves and some types of plasma or energy.
In recent years scientists began to discover things that have long been revealed in the science of Kabbalah: beyond man there is no reality that can be perceived and researched in any other way than by our sense organs.
As is well known in Kabbalah, the surrounding reality is the Upper Light, some force field. The picture we perceive depends on the viewpoint of our analysis and on the correspondence of the perceived reality to our properties, conditions, and interpretations.
We perceive our world depending on our senses, much like a holographic image changes depending on the visual angle. The science of Kabbalah explains it in the following way: there is no difference between the spiritual and the material. If a person understands how he perceives the corporeal picture, in what way it appears before him, it will be much easier for him to pass to spiritual perception. Indeed, the same man perceives both worlds.
The science of Kabbalah says that the will to receive is the only material of creation. This desire demands to be fulfilled. It feels the fulfillment in accordance with its properties. If the will to receive is small, it feels only its own life, its own existence. We see this in the example of the inanimate, vegetative, and even animate life on a simple level. If the will to receive is large, it develops alongside itself a mental system, which helps it to fill itself. There exist a heart (will to receive) and a mind beside it.
The bigger the desire grows, the keener the mind becomes in its search for ways to fulfill the desire. The more perfect a creature is, the more perfect these two parts of it become. The will to receive reaches a state where it can perceive the entire reality, i.e., receive all the fulfillments that are its due (whereas at the previous levels only partial fulfillment is possible).
If the desire for earthly pleasures prevails in us, then our mind is busy looking for ways to satisfy that desire. Desire has its certain inner properties, and the Light that fills it creates the general picture of the world, of reality together with the desire.
Reality is not something that is before us or something that exists beyond us. It completely depends on our properties. Our reality consists of two parts: the revealed and the concealed. It is divided into inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels; into solids, liquids, gases, all of which correspond to our properties. If we change these properties, our reality will change too.
This is exactly as in atomic particle research: if we look at atomic particles from one viewpoint, we see them as matter; if we look at them from another point, we see them as waves. Everything depends on how we look at it. The same goes for us: if we changed ourselves, we would see a totally different reality. Where we see a solid body today, we would see a completely different picture, e.g., transparent waves or some other properties – in accordance with our own characteristics.
With the crisis in science of 30 to 40 years ago, scientists realized that science could not continue to develop while at the same time disregarding the properties of the researcher. That is why, nowadays, as science approaches the peak of its development, scientists find themselves at a dead end.
Science has always maintained that we perceive the world in accordance with certain formulas, regardless of who does the research. All of a sudden, the whole of reality was shaken, when it was discovered that everything depends on how we change. Thus, the connection between science and Kabbalah began to be manifested. Only 20 to 30 years ago it was utterly impossible to talk with scientists about Kabbalah because they could not comprehend its approach; now they have begun to listen, and admit that everything depends on man and the whole of reality is illusory, an imprint of our own properties.
All of our sensations and actions exist in the world that we imagine, while reality per se is non-existent. If we change our viewpoint, meaning our properties, we will see waves instead of matter, and vice versa, matter in place of waves. This can be compared with the scientists’ discovery of elementary particles in the last 30 years of the past century.
Today we can talk with scientists and together address the world with a new explanation of its design. This is a revolution in human perception, and its results are enormous and extremely important. Everything depends on us; in essence, everything depends on man’s inner state. The entire system of this world’s laws, the connections and comparisons, the seeming relationships between parts of the world, all of that depends on us.
There is no objective reality. If this is so, we need only to know how we ought to change and how we should look upon the abstract and static Upper Light so that it would manifest itself to us in the most optimal way. This is precisely what Kabbalah deals with.
In contrast to all other sciences, Kabbalah does not speak about the research of matter beyond us. It initially and simply states how a person should change so that the world he perceives will change as well. In essence, this is what the science of Kabbalah addresses.
Today’s picture of the world seems appalling to us. The world is in blank despair. This leads to drug addiction, crisis in the family, and crisis in society as a whole. None of this happens because the world was designed this way. It is but a copy of our growing desire, which is what forms our picture of the world by projecting itself on the Upper Light’s properties.
A few years ago, when I started to establish contacts with scientists, I discovered that they are ready to accept this approach. They realize that the future development of science depends on it and are ready to cooperate. Kabbalah is the science of the future. It will form in people the correct attitude towards the world.
In the past we used to believe that this world existed by itself, regardless of us. Today scientists agree with our method of world research. They realized this as a result of their experiments, from their investigation of reality. They “shifted” the perception and the causes of external events and made them internal.
The world will not change by itself. The world is the Upper Light that is absolutely static. We read about it in the latest scientific articles. For example, astrophysicists assert that the universe constitutes one single thought that acts intelligently and purposefully. Ecologists have arrived at the conclusion that our planet with its atmosphere and natural manifestations behaves as a live intelligent creature that reacts to our influence as a live object.
From this research scientists conclude that the universe, the globe and everything
that exists on it (from the simplest forms of life to the complex ones) are an imprint of man’s properties. Therefore, in the final analysis, all sciences, although developed over thousands of years take place within a very narrow field of our research of reality.
Kabbalah comes to take their place. It absorbs them, functions together with them, and explains to man the right way to research true reality. Reality manifests itself to us in accordance with the equivalence of form, while our properties are compared with the properties of the Light. Every phenomenon will be revealed to us only if our properties become similar to their properties.
This can be explained by a simple example. Sound waves exist outside my ear, but I perceive them only if there is a system inside me that is capable of reproducing the same waves.
The simplest analogy is a radio set. If it has an inner oscillatory circuit that produces a wave, which coincides in frequency with the external wave, it creates resonance and the radio “catches” the outside wave and brings it to the listener. That is to say, I have to possess a certain property to pick up the wave. If I wish to perceive some particular part of reality, I have to know in advance what inner properties I need to have.
We are born with five senses. Each of them has a certain range of perception, within which all of our reactions to outside influences are registered. We do not perceive all the waves that exist around us, but only those within the frequency range of, say, between 15 Hz and 15 KHz. All our other senses work the same way.
We are made in such a way that the world appears to us within the limits of our five areas of perception. If we had additional sense organs with different perception areas, our picture of the world would be totally different. This is a picture that appears to us as a result of our reaction to some outside influence.
Waves (the Upper Light) exist on the outside. Out of all these waves we pick up only an insignificant portion, a small impression within a certain frequency range. This is all that creates our picture of the world. That is how we perceive the surrounding reality and ourselves.
It is clear that the picture that I perceive is an imprint of my own properties. If a person is born without one of the senses, his perception of the world differs from ours. If we acquire an additional sense organ, our picture of the world will change as well.
Science appears as a result of research. It is impossible to demand from a person who is confined to his properties to research something that is beyond the scope of his perception. To this end he needs an additional property called a screen or the sixth sense. Science has not yet completed the development of the screen; a higher level of advancement is needed.
We are powerless to change the innate sense organs of our body; therefore we perceive our world as one unchanging picture. If we had a sense organ that could change, we would have perceived through it a changing world. That is exactly what happens when with the help of the screen we acquire a new ability to perceive a different, Upper world.
The science of Kabbalah explains how to feel, grasp, and perceive reality in accordance with your choice. It helps to tune your additional inner sense – the screen, the vessel, the soul (all three words mean the same).
Question: Whatever changes may take place in man, the laws of nature remain unalterable regardless of his world outlook. Nature, that can destroy, maim or please us, will remain the same. You can keep changing us indefinitely, but all the same, we will continue suffering from nature’s ruthless ways…
I believe I gave you an example that can be easily understood. By looking at an object through one instrument, I see a wave. However, when I look at the same object through another device, I see matter. Some say that reality does not change. Reality does change, and it depends on me, on my properties. If I change my properties, reality will change. The reality that we perceive does not exist beyond us. Everything we see, hear, touch is the result of our sensations. You cannot say that the same reality exists beyond us. No one has succeeded in getting out of himself and feeling reality differently.
The results of scientific research and experiments demonstrate that if we change ourselves, the picture that we perceive also changes. I am not speaking about Kabbalah’s viewpoint, I mean scientists. They already understand that by changing man we can change the world because the world is a reflection, an impression of our attributes.
In the course of human history we thought that the world existed by itself regardless of our presence in it. We believed that the universe, the globe, existed irrespective of man. Later on we began to understand that the world picture (according to Einstein’s discovery) depended on the velocity of movement. With the acceleration of movement, reality correspondingly goes through transformation: time and distances change.
The values, which we previously considered as constant, turn out to be variable. Thus, everything is relative. What does “relative” mean? That everything is measured with regard to me, to my attributes.
Later on, another theory (now obsolete) emerged. It asserted that the reality that I perceive is non-existent in itself, but constitutes the combination of my properties with the environment. Something exists beyond me, but I pick up only a small fragment that corresponds to the perception range of my senses. My sight, hearing, touch, etc. form a certain picture, which is part of some vast general reality existing beyond me.
During the past 30 to 40 years scientists arrived at a conclusion that no reality whatsoever existed outside of us. The picture that appears before me exclusively depends on my characteristics, my inner parameters. What I sense, pick up, is not the surrounding reality, but my own reaction to something external. For example, my eardrum responds to an outside wave, and I accordingly pick up a certain part of it.
There can be scores of sound waves of huge frequencies, yet if my eardrum is damaged, I merely perceive my weak, partial, and short reactions. That is all I am able to pick up, and I have not the slightest idea of what happens beyond me. I have no device to help me compare and find out what is outside of me.
I resemble a black box with five holes – five sense organs that correspond to five forms of perception: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.
I feel my reactions to something external, but I do not know what is outside of me. The sum of these reactions creates the picture of the world for me. This is my world. Thus, the world is not the external picture beyond me, but an imprint, a projection of my inner properties, the result of the functioning of my sense organs.
Continue to Page 2
Go to Lesson 1
Go to Lesson 2
Go to Lesson 3
Go to Lesson 4
Go to Lesson 5
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Kabbalist Rav Michael Laitman, PhD.,
Kabbalist, Rabbi, & Author
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World leading Kabbalist, Rav Michael Laitman, PhD has an MS in Bio Cybernetics and a PhD in Philosophy and Ontology.
Rav Laitman is the author of 25 internationally selling books on Kabbalah; his books have been translated into nine languages.
His lessons are broadcast live throughout the Internet and cable TV to tens of thousands of students the world over. In recent years he has become a sought-after lecturer in academic and learning circles in the US and Europe
His search for the meaning of life led him to the teachings of Kabbalah in the 1970’s. At first he studied Kabbalah with various teachers in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. In 1979 he discovered his true teacher, Kabbalist Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (1907-1991).
From the time he met Rav Baruch Ashlag (known as the Rabash), he was never apart from him and spent most of his time in his presence, as his disciple and personal assistant. Up until his death, Rabash passed on to Rav Laitman the wisdom he had acquired from his father, Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam for his Sulam commentary on The zohar (The Book of Radiance).
Rav Dr. Laitman held a successful public meeting in San-Francisco in March 2005 with leading American scientists, participants of the blockbuster hit "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Here are some of the impressions of the scientists after meeting Dr. Laitman:
Fred Alan Wolf, PhD. author of eleven books, among them The Yoga of Time Travel, Matter into Feeling: a new Alchemy of Science and Spirit, and Mind into Matter: "I admire your knowledge. I would love to sit at your feet and study for a long time."
Jeffery Satinover, MD (Psychiatry), MS (Physics) – Author of seven books including The Quantum Brain & Cracking the Bible Code: "The emergence of Kabbalah from its concealment in a genuine form is historically significant and is truly remarkable."
Rav Laitman is the founder and president of the Bnei Baruch Association – Kabbalah Education & Research Institute. Bnei Baruch is an Israeli based non-profit organization that is dedicated to spreading the wisdom of Kabbalah to all of humanity.
Bnei Baruch conducts daily Kabbalah lessons, broadcasted live on the Internet and available for free.
In 1996 Bnei Baruch created, what is now the largest and most popular Internet site on the subject of Kabbalah--www.kabbalah.info. This website provides unlimited access to Kabbalistic texts and media in over twenty languages, and hosts over a million readers every month.
Website: www.kabbalah.info.
Further information is available at www.kabbalah.info.
The following study
e-books, and resources are free,
and available in the formats listed below:
• "Attaining the Worlds Beyond",
by Kabbalist, Rav Michael Laitman, PhD.
Audio book
(MP3 format): www.kabbalah.info/
engkab/
worlds_beyond.htm
PDF:
www.kabbalah.info/
engkab/
book_4/Attaining-Text.pdf
•"Kabbalah for Beginners"
Palm download:
www.kabbalah.info
/engkab/ebook/kab_
for_beginners.htm
•"What the Bleep…"
Video Discussion:
www.kabbalahmedia.info/
~video/KabbalahMeets
ModernScience/Kabbalah
MeetsModernScience_
pilot_eng.mpg
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