In “What Are the Four Developmental Stages of the Primordial Desire in Creation?” we discussed the emergence of the desire to receive in Stage One, and the desire to give in Stage Two, as offshoots of the primordial desire to give in the Root. We also showed how because of its desire to give, the desire to receive was reactivated in Stage Three and maximized in Stage Four. Maximizing the desire to receive caused it to want not merely to enjoy, but to actually become like its progenitor—the Root Stage—and even to have the status of the Root Stage’s primacy. The subsequent realization that this was not (yet) possible induced a sense of inherent inferiority in Stage Four, which induced a restriction—elimination of any sensation of pleasure (light).

Also, because Stage Four’s real desire is for the Root’s primacy, it does not settle for the unbounded pleasure received in Stage One. Instead, it wishes to obtain the nature of the Root, the Thought of Creation, and consequently the Root’s primacy.

Thus, the elimination of pleasure in Stage Four is neither a result of its inability to receive, nor a consequence of the Root’s inability to give. The Root gives incessantly, but the desire to receive does not want to receive something as degrading as charity (as described by Ashlag in “The Giving of the Torah”). for this reason, because Stage Four wishes to acquire the giver’s thought and become like its Creator, its restriction is an offshoot of its decision to not receive unless with the intention to bestow, as this reciprocates the Creator’s desire to bestow.

The Structure of a Partzuf

To achieve that, Stage Four builds a three-part mechanism, called Partzuf (face), to determine if it should receive light, and if so, how much, with the aim to bestow at any given moment opportunity. The top section of the Partzuf is called Rosh (Head). Its task is to determine how much of the abundance (light) is to be received by the desire to receive. The desire to receive itself constitutes the bottom part of the Partzuf, which is called Guf (Body).

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In “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam divides the onset of Creation into five stages and one restriction, but we can cluster them into three groups. Think of the first two groups as a car and the fuel for its engine, and imagine that the third group is the driver.

The first group contains only Stage Zero, the Root. This is the desire to give, the energy that creates and sustains the car called “Creation.”

The second group—Stages One and Two—builds a “platform” for evolution. This is the car itself. In a sense, the platform that the two stages have built resembles what Richard Dawkins described in The Selfish Gene as “The primeval soup,” the oceanic substrate that contained the ingredients for life’s inception.

The third group—Stages Three and Four—is “the driver.” Its role is to start the engine of evolution—the interaction between the desires. As we will explain below and in the next chapter, the restriction is the wheel with which creation is driven toward its purpose: discovering the Thought of Creation.

Stages Zero and One

In Kabbalistic terms, the existence of a desire to bestow without a desire to receive is called “the Root Stage” or “Stage Zero.” The Root Stage is immediately followed by its mandatory offshoot—“Stage One”—the desire to receive, which is permeated with the abundance given to it by the Root, the desire to bestow.

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Two Essential Desires Every Truth Seeker Needs to Find

The importance of Abraham’s discovery lies not so much in its scientific or conceptual innovation, although for his time both were absolutely radical. Rather, the primary significance of his discovery lies in its social aspect.

Indeed, Abraham’s motivation for asking the questions about life’s meaning and purpose, which eventually led to his discovery, was as much social as it was intellectual. He noticed that his townspeople were becoming increasingly alienated. For a long time, Babylonians nurtured a prosperous society that allowed multiple belief systems and teachings to coexist in harmony. But in Abraham’s time, people were growing intolerant, conceited, and alienated from each other, and Abraham wondered why.

Through his questions and observation of Nature, he realized that the world that appears to our senses is but a superficial blanket that covers a complex and magnificent interaction of forces. When these forces interweave in a certain way, they induce a certain type of physical or emotional reality to appear, such as birth, death, war, peace, and all the states in between.

This interaction exists not only on a large scale, as between countries, but in every element of life, from the subatomic to the interstellar, and from the very personal to the international.

Abraham’s thought process in discovering these forces is evident in his questions, which to him were, as Neil Postman put it in The End of Education, “the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.” In Maimonides’ writings, Abraham asked, “How was it possible for this wheel [of reality] to always turn without a driver? Who is turning it, for it cannot turn itself?”

Thus, through repeated pondering and observation, Abraham came to realize what really makes the world go around, and like all great truths, it was as simple as can be: desires, two desires, to be exact. One is a desire to give and the other, to receive. The interaction between those desires is what makes the world go around; it is the wheel that drives all things and the force that creates all phenomena. In Kabbalistic terminology, the desire to give is referred to as “His [the Creator’s] desire to do good to His creations,” and the desire to receive is described as “the desire and craving to receive delight and pleasure.” for short, Kabbalists refer to them as “desire to bestow” and “desire to receive.”

This simple realization is what Abraham was trying to convey to his fellow Babylonians, but Nimrod tried to prevent him from doing so by trying to kill him. And when he failed to do so, he sent him away.

The Secret Rules Abraham Discovered of Preventing Potential Destruction

Alas, deporting Abraham did not restore the Babylonian spirit of camaraderie and union. Eventually, “The Lord [Creator, meaning Nature] confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen, 11:9).

This did not happen to the Babylonians because some vengeful and powerful old man called “The Lord” was holding a grudge against them. It happened to them because the desires that Abraham discovered possess a certain direction of evolution. There is no random interaction here, but a set of rules that unfold by a rigid cause-and-effect order.

When Abraham discovered these rules, he realized his local folk were headed in the wrong direction, which could only lead them to eventual destruction, so he tried his best to warn them. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a state inherent in the process of human development in which we feel bad without achieving the goal of creation, which is to attain adhesion with Nature’s quality of love and bestowal, even in our normal life on earth, as if it is not related to the higher goal. However, we exist in the material world to rise out of it and reach the goal of creation.

Therefore, a situation in human development comes about when we suddenly start feeling like we can no longer continue along the same lines of progress, and it is necessary to find the meaning of life. From this moment, the person starts searching for the meaning of life.

One feels a lack of fulfillment in one’s earthly desires, which cannot be satisfied with anything, and thus starts crying, “What is the meaning of my life?” One loses the taste of existence so much that one does not understand why one needs this life if he does not realize its purpose.

The person needs to realize the method of Kabbalah to achieve the purpose of creation, to attain contact with the force of bestowal and love. Humanity’s entire life aspires to this single goal, and Kabbalah lets a person discover this goal faster than one who will be led to it via all kinds of blows. [Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, “Life Is Good if You Know its Meaning”]

Who Am I? Why Do I Exist?

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about my ascent to a higher dimension. What does “ascent” mean? The Kabbalists say: “You exist in a higher dimension but do not feel it. You have to reveal yourself as existing in it.”

I exist in two dimensions. One is at the level of “this world,” where I reside in my physical body. The other is in a higher dimension, where I exist in my spiritual body. This spiritual body, a desire to bestow, is concealed from me, and I know nothing about it. Opposite it, there is the upper force called “the Creator.”

Nature is opposite my corporeal body. In my current perception of reality, I feel bad, which pushes me to uncover the higher reality, my existence as “the soul and the Creator” instead of “the body and nature.”

Kabbalists say that I have to discover the higher dimension because that is where life’s governing forces reach me, and I along with my entire future depend on them. If I ascend, then I find out why I exist, who I am, and what happens to me. I reveal the meaning of my life and how to change everything for the better. These questions push me toward the higher dimension. [Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, “Find Yourself in the Upper Dimension”]

To learn more about how Kabbalah was created solely to answer questions about the meaning of life, to reach contact with the quality of love and bestowal, and not for any other purposes that it’s been commonly misconceived as being connected to, it is recommended to take the Free Kabbalah Course. The reason is that many of the concepts and terms we have heard a lot about in our upbringing have completely different definitions in Kabbalah, and it takes a while to process them properly. Therefore, if you’re interested in this topic, then we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …

How the Wisdom of Kabbalah Originated

Let us, for a moment, journey back through time to ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Roughly 4,000 years ago, situated within a vast and fertile stretch of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what today is Iraq, a city-state called Babel played host to a flourishing civilization. Bustling with life and action, it was the trade center of the entire ancient world.

Babel, the heart of the dynamic civilization we now call “ancient Babylon,” was a melting pot and the ideal setting for numerous belief systems and teachings. Its people practiced idol worship of many kinds, and among the most revered people in Babel was a priest named Abraham, who was a local authority in the practice of idol worship, as was his father, Terah.

However, Abraham had a very special quality: he was unusually perceptive, and like all great scientists, he had a zeal for the truth. The great 12th century scholar, Maimonides (also known as the RAMBAM), described Abraham’s determination and efforts to discover life’s truths in his book, The Mighty Hand:

“Ever since this firm one was weaned, he began to wonder. …He began to ponder day and night, and he wondered how it was possible for this wheel to always turn without a driver? Who is turning it, for it cannot turn itself? And he had neither a teacher nor a tutor. Instead, he was wedged in Ur of the Chaldeans among illiterate idol worshippers, with his mother and father and all the people worshipping stars, and he—worshipping with them.”

In his quest, Abraham learned what lies beyond the borderland that William Crookes described so many centuries later. He found the unity, the oneness of reality that Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein, Leibniz, and others intuitively sensed. In Maimonides’ words, “He [Abraham] attained the path of truth and understood the line of justice with his own correct wisdom. And he knew that there is one God there who leads…, and that He has created everything, and that in all that there is, there is no other God but Him.”

(To interpret these excerpts correctly, it is important to note that when Kabbalists speak of God, they do not mean it in the religious sense of the word—as an almighty being that you must worship, please, and appease, which in return rewards devout believers with health, wealth, long life, or all of the above. Instead, Kabbalists identify God with Nature, the whole of Nature. The most unequivocal statements on the meaning of the term, “God,” were made by Baal HaSulam, whose writings explain that God is synonymous with Nature.

For example, in his essay, “The Peace,” he writes, “To avoid having to use both tongues from now on—Nature and a Supervisor—between which, as I have shown, there is no difference…it is best for us to…accept the words of the Kabbalists that HaTeva (The Nature) is the same…as Elokim (God). Then, I will be able to call the laws of God ‘Nature’s commandments,’ and vice-versa, for they are one and the same, and we need not discuss it further.”)

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