January 9, 2025
Archive for November, 2014
November 3, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Sure-Fire Cause & Effect Guide to Revelation
Kabbalah teaches about the cause-and-effect connection between spiritual sources that unite according to absolute laws into one exalted goal: the attainment of the Creator by the created beings existing in this world.
According to Kabbalah, all of humanity and every individual must reach this ultimate point to fully attain the goal and program of Creation. Throughout the generations, individuals have attained a certain spiritual level through individual work. These people, called “Kabbalists,” climbed to the top of the spiritual ladder.
Untangling the Web of Forces that Upholds Our Universe
Every material object and its action, from the smallest to the greatest, is operated by spiritual forces that fill our entire universe. It is as if our universe were resting on a net of forces.
Take, for example, the tiniest living organism whose role is merely to reproduce and sustain its species. Think about how many forces and complex systems function within it, and how many of them remain undetected by the human eye. If we multiply them by the number of organisms living today, and by those that once lived in our universe and in the spiritual worlds, we will then have a vague idea of the vast number of forces and connections that control them. One can depict the spiritual forces as two interconnected and equal systems.
Discover the Magic Ladder to Spiritual Attainment
The difference between these two interconnected systems is that one comes from the Creator and develops from up downward through all the worlds to our world. The other begins in our world and rises according to the laws that were developed in the first system and now function in the second.
Kabbalah defines the first system as “The order of creation of worlds and Sefirot,” and the second as “The attainments or levels of prophecy and spirit.” The second system teaches that people who wish to attain the ultimate degree should follow the laws of the first system, which are the laws studied in Kabbalah. When one ascends in these degrees, the second factor is born within. This is spirituality.
Meet the Owner of the Ladder
The foremost Kabbalist of our time, Dr. Michael Laitman, introduces the owner of the ladder to spiritual attainment: Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag, often called “Baal HaSulam, (meaning: the owner of the ladder) was given permission to disclose the wisdom of Kabbalah to our generation. No other Kabbalist received such permission. No one throughout history has written or explained so clearly what we need in order to carry out and to fulfill the end of correction. Without Baal HaSulam we wouldn’t be able to approach the correction that we are starting to actually fulfill now. His books are the sources that will be used by the next generation as the ladder upward. We only help everyone find this ladder, come close to it, and start climbing.” [Source: A Ladder Upward by Dr. Michael Laitman]
“How to Get Your Hands on the Spiritual Ladder Anyone Can Climb” is based on the book, Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Expanding Your Inner Vision by Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Image: "Ladder to heaven?" by Susanne Nilsson.
November 2, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Ask the Right Questions
According to Kabbalah, there are four mandatory kinds of knowledge to attain. Armed with these four kinds of mandatory knowledge provided by authentic Kabbalah, you will have the tools to live fully and well…
Where Are We From? Where Are We Now? Where Are We Headed?
1. Creation: The study of Creation and the evolution of the worlds, namely:
- The way the Creator created the worlds with the creatures that populate them through consecutive restrictions;
- The interaction laws between the spiritual and material worlds, and their consequences;
- The goal of man’s creation is to form a system with an illusion of the existence of free will by combining the soul with the body, and by controlling them through nature and the apparent factor of chance with the help of two mutually balanced systems of light and dark forces.
How Can We Operate Reality?
2. Functioning: The study of the human essence – its interconnection and interaction with the spiritual world. Functioning deals with one’s arrival to – and departure from – this world. It also includes the Upper Worlds’ reactions to our world and towards other human beings, caused by man’s actions. It researches everyone’s individual path, from the creation of worlds to the attainment of the ultimate goal.
Is This Life All There Is?
3. Incarnations of the Soul: The study of every soul’s essence and its incarnations, as well as our actions in this life and their consequences for subsequent lives. The research of incarnations examines how and why a soul descends to a body, and what determines the acceptance of a certain soul within a certain body.
Incarnations of the soul also deals with the mystery of chance, and researches human history as a result of a certain order and cycles of souls. It also follows this path over 6,000 years and studies the connection of the soul with the general governance of the system of worlds and its cycles of life and death. It also states upon what factors our path in this world depends.
Who Is in Control?
4. Governance: The study of our world: inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, their essence, role, and how they are governed by the spiritual world. It studies the Upper Governance and our perception of nature, time, and space. It researches the Upper Forces that move material bodies, and the way one’s inner force pushes all things, animate and inanimate, to the preordained goal.
“4 Things You Should Know to Live Fully and Well” is based on the book, Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Expanding Your Inner Vision by Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Image: "Connect 4" by Banalities.
November 1, 2014 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Torah Portion
Genesis, 18:1-22:24
This Week’s Torah Portion | November 2 – November 1, 2014 – Cheshvan 9 – Cheshvan 15, 5775
In A Nutshell
The portion, VaYera (The Lord Appeared), begins with the story of the three angels that came to Abraham and told Sarah she would have a son. Sarah laughed because she could not believe that she would have a son at her age. Yet, she did have a son, whose name was Ytzhak (Isaac) named after her Tzhok (laughter).
The angels continued on their way to destroy the cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, due to the many sins being committed there. Lot and his family were allowed to escape, but Lot’s wife did not obey the angels’ orders, turned around to look, and became a pillar of salt. Lot and his two daughters made it to a cave. Lot’s daughters were certain that they were the only survivors in the world, so they tricked their father into having children with them.
Later in the portion, following Sarah’s request, Abraham expels Hagar and Ishmael to the desert; the Creator commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and in the last moment, an angel stops the execution. Abraham takes a ram that he found caught in the thicket and offers it instead of his son.
Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman
In “A Preface to the Book of Zohar,” one of Baal HaSulam’s introductions to The Book of Zohar, he offers a special explanation of our perception of reality. The explanation details how we perceive the reality we live in, and how the place where we are is depicted in us as an image of emotions, which are portrayed as solid, as gas, as liquid, etc.
The Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah explain that due to the way in which we perceive reality—with our qualities and senses—we react to something outside of us, which we do not know, and which we turn into various colors and materials. However, we need to acquire additional senses and rise to a higher perception of reality, above our senses. This is how we will discover the upper world.
The Book of Zohar speaks to us in the “language of the branches,” using the terms of our world. It tells us how we can obtain and be impressed with the new form, which is higher than our world. Sometimes our concepts seem real to us, such as a pillar of salt, the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the story of the three angels, etc., since “a verse does not extend the literal” (Masechet Yevamot, 24a). Yet, we should strive to see these concepts as relationships between us in the common soul.
The events of the portion are not merely historic tales; they are sources that deal with the connections between us. The role of these sources is to teach one who wishes to advance and rise to the new perception of reality how to scrutinize one’s desires, qualities, forces, and the connections between them, in order to design from them the perception of reality that is called, for instance, “the portion, VaYera.”
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