How to Find the Point of Free Choice in Life
We believe that we have many possible futures to choose from. But choosing means seeing the future, so what is this choice based on? How does one know which future is best? If we could see the result of choosing one option and the result of choosing another option, we would know which was better. But in truth, there are no options to choose from whatsoever.
A certain Reshimo awakens within a certain will to receive, meaning within a certain person situated in a certain environment. Subsequently, that person realizes the Reshimo, accumulating further impressions from life’s events.
If we realized that we are only marionettes, and that at the same time we can change our future, we would then be at a point of choice. In other words, we could then choose an environment that would influence us positively and assist in our spiritual development. Such an environment would help us realize that Reshimo in the same direction and the same preexisting ladder, but we would do it willingly, instead of under pressure.
What a Positive Social Environment Can Do for a Person’s Development
In any given state, the Reshimo in the awakened will to receive, and the environment are all predetermined. Even if one had an urge to realize the Reshimo, this urge would stem from within; and even if one used the environment to accelerate the unfolding of the Reshimo, it would only shorten the predetermined unfolding period.
However, our efforts to be part of an environment that is interested in spiritual evolution, and to be prompted by it to evolve, offer us a new intellect—“the comprehensive intellect,” which pertains to the Creator’s intention with respect to the creatures. Acquiring that intellect means discovering that intention and the subsequent ascent to the Creator’s degree. This is the great bonus.
We need to understand that, by ourselves, we can want anything except to advance in the right way to the right goal. A person alone is like a blind person–unable to see the path of correct progress. We cannot see the outlet from this world to the Upper World, from the will to receive to the will to bestow. We cannot even see that such a thing exists and that here lies our salvation.
It follows that the point of free choice is very, very subtle. We can choose an environment that will bring us to a state where the Upper Light changes our quality, and through the operation of that Light, we will be able to enter the spiritual realm. But alone, without a method or a social environment, we cannot make the breakthrough to spirituality.
Do I Control the Thoughts and Desires that Awaken Within Me?
Terms such as “parallel worlds” and “parallel universes” are becoming increasingly fashionable. Many find the possibility of choosing their future enchanting. There are meditations that offer abilities to choose first thing in the morning the events of the coming day. Psychologically speaking, in this manner one is “programming” oneself and predetermining a specific manner in which to accept the Reshimot that will surface that day. Yet the question remains whether or not we can actually create a different reality by doing this.
We cannot say that such a person is exceptional, as we all have our predispositions about life. We all have habits with which we start our day, whether they are physical exercise or a visit to a therapist.
Whether we plan our day consciously or unconsciously, the fact remains that our picture of reality is entirely determined by the Reshimo within us. This Reshimo situates us in this picture and creates all the decisions in it. Correspondingly, our conscious efforts to “choose” what will happen are a product of the unfolding Reshimo, and nothing more.
Why Something Called Reshimot Dictate Your Experiences in Life
All of the pictures that make up our lives are connected to one another. Thus, evoking a certain Reshimo often reminds us of past experiences. We do not manage our memories, nor can we draw anything from them or forget others. The Reshimo determines absolutely everything. We only move “atop” the experiences that awaken and work within us. If a realization of a Reshimo requires it, past memories will pop up on their own.
Everything we ever experienced remains within us; nothing ever disappears. A Reshimo that awakens in one’s desire is then realized opposite the Light and produces a discernment of what is happening at that moment. Subsequently, another Reshimo awakens, and since the Reshimot are connected, the new Reshimo uses the old Reshimo according to its need.
When several other Reshimot have come and gone, the first Reshimo is lost from memory and the pictures it created dissolve from sensation. These sensations might later reawaken if they are needed for the realization of a new Reshimo. Thus we discern a chain of experiences in which the Reshimot become active and passive, and as these Reshimot are realized, they accumulate impressions within us.
How Each Memory Serves a Specific Purpose
This process unfolds “Above” us; hence we cannot approach our memory and draw specific pictures from it. For example, while walking on the street we might encounter a familiar scent that briefly reminds us of a childhood scene. As the scene appears, it disappears, and we cannot understand its purpose. However, nothing is accidental in the world; all the memories surface only according to their necessity for the realization of the present Reshimo.
All souls are connected within a single, comprehensive system. We can therefore say that memory, too, is common to all of them. This becomes increasingly clear as one becomes more connected to every other soul. The more we consciously work toward this system, more memories will surface in us, and along with them, collective abilities and attainments. If we rise to a degree of bonding with others and work with their vessels as though they were our own, we will certainly utilize everything within them.
Why Uniting With Others Generates a Powerful Force
Thought is a very powerful force. In the docudrama, What the Bleep Do We Know!?, Dr. John Hagelin told of an experiment in mass meditation carried out in Washington, D.C.. According to Hagelin, it turned out that mass meditation on reducing crime levels in Washington D.C. yielded impressive results and crime level dropped by twenty-five percent that summer.
Yet, in this act there is still no free choice, since it is the Reshimo that performs the whole process—the decision to carry out the mass meditation, as well as the subsequent decrease in crime level. Regardless, at present we wish to work with only the modus operandi of human desires, not the degree above it, which “manages” us.
Bringing a group of people together with a single goal creates a great power. This is so because everyone unconsciously uses the already existing system in which they are already connected. Even if people bond for the worst of goals, they will awaken tremendous powers.
Thoughts change reality because a thought is an expression of the desire. By wanting reality to be one way or another, we seemingly channel our future in the desirable direction.
If crime levels are due to rise and thousands of people bond in meditation to lower them, they will decrease because the participants in the experiment inserted their will into that Reshimo. The Reshimo is crude potential, and one’s attitude toward the Reshimo can affect the form the Reshimo will take.
Are You Bonding With Others to Speed Up Your Development?
Bonding people in common thought creates congruence with the state of Ein Sof, where all the souls are already connected. We should state that such congruence exists even when the bonding is not carried out to approach the Creator, i.e. bestowal. In other words, congruence with the system works regardless of its connection to the Creator. Bonding draws power from Above, which changes the way the Reshimo seems to unfold. Yet, we must keep in mind that our attitudes towards the Reshimo are also predetermined within the Reshimo.
Let us use the mass meditation example to clarify the subtle issue of free choice. Two points need to be emphasized:
After the awakening of a desire to use the collective power, one applies this power and reaches an impressive result.
Activating the desire yields a substantial result because that person utilized the Reshimo, the system, and the Light.
Truthfully, there is not a single act in all of this that stems from the individual, since the Reshimo prodded that person into action. As with any other machine, the person performed an act and yielded a certain outcome. The only involvement of the individual in the process was the documenting of the causes and the consequences. In fact, because we acquire independent existence in spirituality, our knowledge is nothing more than recording causes and consequences.
See How Easily You Can Understand the Evolution of Human Desires
Our perception of reality is our sensation of the Upper Light. The measures of sensing the Light are called “this world” or “the spiritual world.” This world pertains to a sensation of the Upper Light via an egoistic intention, while sensing the world via an altruistic intention is called “the spiritual world.” These depictions express two forms of relation toward the Upper Light.
Our attitude toward the Upper Light defines our state; it determines in which world and in what degree we are situated. This attitude is determined by the Reshimot that evolve from zero degree onward. These Reshimot evolve by a certain order, starting with the still, through the vegetative, animate, and up to the physical speaking, the human. The speaking degree continues to evolve through interior degrees of still, vegetative, animate, and (spiritual) speaking. The chain of Reshimot determines everything, and besides that nothing exists.
The Reshimot evoke increasingly stronger desires in us, starting with physical-existential desires (for sex, food, and family), through desires for wealth, honor, domination, and ending in a desire for knowledge.
The Secret of Life after Fulfilling Your Desires
Scientists work with the highest desires in the human species—desires (Reshimot) for knowledge and erudition. Once we exhaust all the Reshimot in the egoistic desire to receive, we are required to commence our correction in order to progress onward.
Kabbalah begins where our ability to research reality ends. This is so because the wisdom of Kabbalah enables one to change a Reshimo from egoistic to altruistic. Realizing a Reshimo altruistically allows the researcher to transcend the realization level of the Reshimot that awaken in the researcher, which brings us to the level of the Forces that coordinate the elicitation of the Reshimot into the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, the researcher explores the Forces that form the Roots of that person’s virtual reality, the very Forces that scientists so desperately seek.
Scientists are at the highest evolutionary level of desires in this world. This is precisely their plight: they cannot find the root of everything or learn what happens beyond matter. They do succeed in assuming that there is a Thought past matter, and that this Thought is probably one of love and giving. They will even come to state openly that there must be a different way to research reality; alas, they will not be able to find it. It is impossible to change the innate approach to the realization of the Reshimot without the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Humanity doubtless had to realize all the Reshimot up to its present state without being consulted in the matter. But today, humanity finds within itself a craving to know the reason for its desperate state; the outcry that surfaces from the heart of humanity invokes the disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah will help humankind realize the spiritual Reshimot to which it is now shifting, the Reshimot that prompt the intensifying spiritual quest of so many people.
If humanity waits until its researchers reach the truth on their own, without the assistance of the wisdom of Kabbalah, it might find itself in an unprecedented avalanche of crises, failures, and disasters. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is surfacing now, to ease the transition. This is also what Kabbalists have been trying to explain to humanity before it falls into these predicaments.
“What Does Kabbalah Have to Say about Free Will?” is based on the book, Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life by Dr. Michael Laitman.
