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Kabbalah: The Bnei Baruch Association – Kabbalah Education & Research Institute.
Kabbalah Revealed |
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by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD.
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Foreword
Kabbalah is known to be a secret wisdom. It is precisely this secrecy surrounding Kabbalah that gave rise to numerous legends, falsifications, gossip, ignorant arguments and wrong conclusions. Only at the end of the 20th century was the wisdom of Kabbalah allowed to be revealed to all and even circulated around the world. Therefore, addressing the reader at the beginning of this book, I feel obliged to tear age-old layers off this ancient wisdom that is common to all mankind.
The wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion, meaning it is no more related to it than physics, chemistry or mathematics. It is not a religion and this becomes obvious from the fact that religious people know nothing about it and do not understand a word in it.
The most profound knowledge about the laws of the Universe, the method of apprehending the world, the achievement of the Purpose of Creation was originally kept away from the religious masses in the first place. Kabbalah was waiting for the time when mankind matured sufficiently to accept this wisdom and to use it correctly.
Kabbalah allows man to control his destiny; it is the knowledge that was passed to all peoples of the world. It deals with the realm hidden from our five senses. It operates only with spiritual notions, meaning with things that happen above the material level, beyond our perception in the upper world.
Kabbalah describes the upper world by using the language of metaphor or the scientific language.
The metaphorical description: Kabbalah borrows the names of spiritual objects, forces and actions from the language of our world. This is necessary, because we have no words at our disposal that can describe unearthly phenomena. But since a certain force descends from each object in the upper world to form a corresponding object in ours, a Kabbalist living in both worlds sees this connection and describes the spiritual reality by using the names of our world.
However, Kabbalists’ descriptions seem like accounts of earthly actions to those who have not yet attained the spiritual realm. Kabbalah speaks exclusively of what happens in the upper world. The use of familiar words and definitions leads to false conceptions and erroneous conclusions. Hence, Kabbalah forbids imagining a connection between the names of our world and their spiritual roots. This is considered the grossest error in Kabbalah. That is why it was forbidden for so many years up to this time: man’s development was insufficient, we imagined all sorts of demons and angels where something totally different is meant.
The scientific description: Starting from the 90-s of the 20th century one is allowed to study Kabbalah and is encouraged to disseminate this wisdom. Why is that so? It is because people stopped thinking of natural forces as manlike creatures, mermaids, centaurs etc. They are now ready to conceive of the upper world as a domain of forces, force fields: the world above matter. Starting from the 16th century, from the period of the Lurian Kabbalah this wisdom began to describe the upper world by using strictly scientific definitions and methods.
What am I living for?
What is the subject of Kabbalah?
Kabbalah deals with the question about the purpose of life. From a very young age man starts asking this question, but then forgets about it in the course of his life. Man cannot traumatize himself indefinitely with this unanswered question. The answer can be found only in one source – the wisdom of Kabbalah, which was available only to a chosen few throughout the centuries. Generations have come and gone, but only the representatives of the last generations can receive the irrefragable answer to the most important question.
But even today when Kabbalah has emerged from a secret doctrine to become accessible to practically all our contemporaries, it is intended directly for those who, having matured and even grown old, do not cease to ask themselves this childlike question - what is the point of my life and the life of all mankind?
People who feel this question very sharply come to Kabbalah. They do not feel satisfied and filled in their daily life. They suffer neither manias, nor depressions - they simply cannot reach peace of mind in this life. Why? Kabbalah answers this question.
Stages of development of desires
The development of mankind over thousands of years of its existence is a development and realization of different levels of desire. The search for ways of fulfilling these emerging desires determine this or that level of civilization’s evolution and everything we define as technological and scientific progress.
Owing to the fact that desires constantly improve, i.e. vary from smaller to bigger, mankind advances.
Kabbalah divides the entire complex of human desires into five stages:
· Primary desires – for sex, food (it is said: "Love and famine rule the world"…);
· The second stage of development of desire – striving after riches;
· The third stage of development of desire – craving for power and fame;
· The fourth stage of development of desire - thirst for knowledge;
· The fifth stage of development of desire - aspiration to spirituality, to the Creator.
The need for sex and food are animal desires, because animals have them as well. Even being in full isolation man feels hunger and the urge to reproduce, i.e. to have sexual relations.
Desires for wealth, power, fame and knowledge are the beginning of human desires, since to satisfy them man must be surrounded by other people.
Man is born, his animal and human desires develop, and then he finds out that their realization does not satisfy him, since his secret but true aspiration which he cannot yet realize and formulate, falls outside the limits of this world.
Man receives this desire from above. It is neither given by nature as animal desire, nor does it develop under the influence of a society as do human desires.
Kabbalah calls this level of desire – the desire of spiritual light or man’s soul.
Kabbalah studies the spiritual construction named the general soul or Adam. This construction consists of 600.000 parts, each of them in turn splitting into a multitude of fragments which are located inside earthly desires.
According to Kabbalah, the Creator is a universal force governing the entire creation, which includes all the individual forces of the universe.
Emergence of a new kind of desire
The set of earthly desires is called man’s heart. And the fragment (desire), placed from above into the heart, is referred to as a point in heart.
During his biological life in this world man should completely fill his spiritual desire. He will repeatedly come back to our world, until this goal is reached. Thus, each generation in our world constitutes the same 600.000 souls, vested in the bodies of our world.
Each generation are the 600.000 souls in a rank which are progressing forward in order to be filled by spiritual light: the body dies and the soul moves and dresses in a new body, works in it again for the sake of being filled and so on until at a certain stage of development it will be filled with the Supreme Light.
Most people only feel the needs limited by the framework of our world. These include man’s creative, intellectual, cultural aspirations and the need to research and understand the structure of our world. This testifies, or indicates that souls dressed in the bodies of these people have not yet reached a desire for spirituality - the fifth stage of our desires’ development. Souls of this type do not cause aspirations to develop for what exists outside of the worldly bodies in which they are installed.
But there are a small (so far!) number of souls of a different type. Being installed in a protein body, such a soul forces man to long for something unearthly and eternal. Like others, he tries to be satisfied with what this world can provide, but to no avail. He sees how other people crave for riches and success, and realizes it is no more than a game. He participates in these "games", often not without success, and it brings him no satisfaction.
Gradually, trying himself in this world, disappointed and disenchanted, man begins to feel that his soul demands a different kind of filling. Having at last received a desire for the spiritual, man feels that he can no longer fill himself with earthly pleasures and feels his life is empty. Then he begins to look for the way to fill a new, spiritual desire.
Search and disappointment are the highlights of this new kind of desire, so characteristic of our time. Starting from the middle of the 20th century forward, more and more people are awakening to this spiritual desire sent from above. Being combined with all other desires, it creates a conflict in man’s heart. The fifth desire causes inner discomfort and ultimately leads a person to Kabbalah. Such people come to us and we begin to explain how they can fulfill this desire.
However, since spiritual desire descends from above, it cannot be filled with objects of our world. Kabbalah shows man how this most exalted desire can be filled.
Kabbalists, who fill this spiritual desire (“Kabbalah” means “reception” in Hebrew) call this filling the Light or, rather, the Supreme Light.
This Supreme Light is called the Creator, because He both creates this desire and fills it. However, if this desire does not manifest in man he goes on living like all others.
Searching for satisfaction and the process of filling
Human life is a process of endless search. Man incessantly looks for something that can satisfy his new desires: he keeps seeking after food, wealth, sex, power and knowledge. All these desires constantly pop up and alternate in him. Man devotes his entire life to satisfying them.
There are many people in the history of mankind who managed to fill their spiritual desire. In their books they tell us about the search for satisfaction and the process of filling. Their explanations and the description of this process have developed into a science called Kabbalah. Such people call themselves Kabbalists.
Kabbalists explain that while being in our world man should fill his soul with the light so that it will rise to the same spiritual level which it was prior to descending and dressing in man’s heart, i.e. his earthly desires. Our task, regardless of all other desires called “heart” or “body”, is to fill that point in heart with the Supreme light.
Kabbalists say that filling the soul with the light gives man a sensation of the upper world. This means that he can simultaneously live (feel) both in the upper world, and in ours. He unites these two worlds in him. The state, when man in our world completely corrects and fills his soul at the highest spiritual level, is referred to as the End of correction of a soul or simply “the end of correction”.
From the moment he begins to feel aspiration to spirituality a person receives his initial information on Kabbalah. Kabbalah enables the person to master a method of filling his soul, to attain a state of infinite delight, sensation of eternity, absolute knowledge and perfection. Moreover, he receives an opportunity to realize it now, in this world, in this life, instead of coming back again and again to this "not the best" of worlds searching and suffering from birth to death.
Since souls continuously change, develop and improve, the task of Kabbalah is to create a method of reception of the spiritual filling suitable for each generation. This science is called "Kabbalah" – reception, because it offers a method of filling the soul with the light. Kabbalah teaches man to receive the Supreme Light and fill the soul with it, i.e. both desires of the heart and spiritual desires. This is possible, since all our desires are created by this very light. Hence, only direct filling with the light can satisfy us.
Spiritual desire – what is it?
The first four categories of desire are clearly understood and felt, but we have no idea about spiritual desire.
Man won’t discover what “the spiritual” means as long he keeps satisfying his desires by means of objects of this world. He sees these objects and knows exactly what he is after. But when a spiritual desire awakens in him, he sees no source that can possibly fill it. Man feels helpless and lost: life loses meaning and taste; there is nothing to fill it with. He simply feels bad. Something uncertain “pulls” him. But to where? Man doesn’t know where to turn because the source of pleasure is concealed from him. Normally he chooses to forget all about it.
As children we ask ourselves: “What are we living for?”, but later hormones ignited by adolescence suppress this question along with the will to discover the meaning and source of life. Our sexual and intellectual aspirations lead us away from the solution to this problem. Then it arises again to disturb us. Those, who can’t fill the emptiness and demand an urgent answer to that question, find Kabbalah or rather, are led to it from above: when this happens the time of filling the human soul arrives.
Spiritual space
When the human body dies, the soul passes to a new-born one. From one life to the next the soul gradually accumulates readiness to manifest in man. He lives many lives without feeling his soul - an aspiration to the upper world. Take care not to confuse it with the earthly “aspiration to loftiness”, which normally stands for creativity, poetry, music and art.
Man feels the manifestation of the soul as a new desire, longing, as emptiness and has no idea how to fill it. The search begins from this moment; ultimately it leads man to Kabbalah. Thus all people in the world are led to Kabbalah, because it is the only method of filling the soul.
When a man discovers Kabbalah, i.e. finds a Teacher, books and a group, a so-called “preparatory period” (for discovering the upper world) begins. This period can last for a few years (minimum 3 years).
Spiritual space opens up before him. Man finds himself on the periphery of that space with the Creator being in the very center. The spiritual space is a realm of properties similar to a physical field with a maximum manifestation of power in the center and the gradual weakening of it towards the perimeter until this property completely disappears on the border beyond which our world begins.
By changing his properties according to the properties of the Creator, man can move in spiritual space: the difference of a man’s properties from those of the Creator makes them remote from each other, while the similarity of their properties leads to their closeness. A complete equivalence causes them to merge.
We, in our initial state, are opposite to the Creator’s properties; hence we are totally outside of this field and cannot feel the Creator.
Having completed the preparation period, man reaches the first, minimal degree of similarity with the Creator and crosses the barrier (Machsom) between our world and the upper one.
He then begins his spiritual advancement; distinctly feeling the Creator he consciously corrects his properties becoming ever closer to Him.
Kabbalah describes the process as an ascent through 620 steps. This gradual rapprochement with the Creator through the similarity of properties consists of consecutive correction, i.e. the substitution of all 620 egoistic properties for altruistic properties. It speaks about the method of correcting desires on each of these steps. As a result, man each time attains the Creator on a new, higher level. Man must correct all his 620 desires step by step, i.e. climb all 620 levels, while existing in his physical body, living in this world.
Upon completing his spiritual ascent, he fully associates himself with the soul and need not return and incarnate into the material world.
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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