October 23, 2024
December 12, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Ego, Quotes
Dr. Michael Laitman: In the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn about the birth of the spiritual Kli, about its growth and about changes of state. The same thing takes place with us in our world, the birth and growth of our beastly body, which in principle is that ego. Our body is what exists in our imagination, in fact, it is formed within our ego. After that it melts, disappears, dies, and in its place another body appears, and another, and so forth until we go out to the level of the completed correction. We return into the bodies all the time because they are imperative for us for our independent attainment of every spiritual level.
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December 8, 2014 at 5:50 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Supreme Gift and the Stigma Attached
In the beginning of Creation there was one common soul: the Light (pleasure) and the corresponding body (desire), Adam. These were merged in adhesion with the Creator, and therefore received maximum delight. The soul’s nature is merely the will to receive pleasure, and the soul was filled with pleasure in accordance with its desire.
However, once having received pleasure, the soul sensed shame. In our world, everyone who receives a gift or favor feels the same way. Once it had felt a burning shame, corresponding to the received pleasure, the soul discovered that the only way to be rid of it was to stop enjoying the pleasure.
How Reception Distances Spirituality and Keeps Us on the Run
The soul that receives for its own sake is opposite from the Giver in its intention and spiritual action. The greater the pleasure it selfishly receives, the greater its opposition to the Creator. The extent of the sense of shame depends on the person’s spiritual development. Only this feeling keeps us constantly within limits and compels us to observe the laws of the society. The same sensation underlies our aspirations for knowledge, wealth, recognition by society, and honor.
The Day Reception Overpowered Bestowal & the Explosive Result
However, since the Creator’s desire was to delight the soul, the soul agreed to accept this delight—not for its own sake, but only for the sake of the Creator. However, since the common soul could not instantly overcome its natural desire to enjoy for its own sake (that is how great it was!), it was shattered into myriad fragments (souls). These fragments were easier to work on, to neutralize the selfish will to enjoy.
How to Get it Together for Good
What separates spiritual objects is not space, but their spiritual incongruence and dissimilarity of properties. Therefore, the number of souls, meaning separate spiritual objects, determines the number of people in the physical world.
Closeness is determined by how much pleasure the soul receives for the sake of the Creator. The will to receive instinctively acts within us, but our desire to rid ourselves of shame and to enjoy for the Creator’s sake originates within us. Therefore, the desire to rid oneself of shame and to enjoy for the Creator’s sake requires special and continuous effort.
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December 5, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
You Must Desire to be on the Wavelength of Spirituality
When we want to be impressed by something, whether emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise, we must be on the same “wavelength” with it and thus possess the same quality. For example, to detect radio waves, the receiver must produce the same wavelength, and only then can we detect the wave on the outside.
Your Senses Are Currently Opposite to Spirituality
Nature’s overall force is a “desire to give,” to bestow, to impart abundance. conversely, our nature is one of “desire to receive delight and pleasure,” a desire to enjoy for ourselves alone. Our nature is self-centered; it is how we were made, as Kabbalah tells us. In other words, we are in contrast with the upper force, opposite from it, and hence we cannot sense it.
Is there anything we can do to sense it? We cannot destroy our nature and our will to receive, nor do we need to. We should continue with our lives as usual, and at the same time acquire new tools of perception.
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December 1, 2014 at 7:00 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Spiritual Bar Is High, So Where Will I Find Strength to Leap Over?
We can unite with the Creator by equalizing our properties, desires, and goals with His, by completely destroying egoism and selflessly doing good things. However, a question arises: where will a complete egoist (one unable to make a spiritual or physical movement unless it offers personal benefits) find the strength and motivation to live for the sake of others? The answer to this question can be easily understood with an example from life…
The Secret of Strength – Changing Work into Reward
Imagine a situation in which you wholeheartedly wish to give a present to someone who is important in your eyes, someone you love and respect. Suppose this person agrees to accept your gift, or agrees to come to your home for dinner.
Although you spend money and work hard to treat the important guest well, you enjoy it as if it is not you, but the guest who does you a favor, giving and entertaining you by consenting to accept your treat. Hence, if we could imagine the Creator as someone we respect, we would gladly please Him.
How to Permanently Surround Yourself with a Spiritual Power Generator
We can observe the laws of the universe only if we attain the Creator’s greatness. Then, when we work for His sake and realize His grandeur, it is as though we receive from Him. Yet, since thoughts depend on the influence of society and social environments, everything that society praises also becomes elevated in the eyes of the individual. Hence, the most important thing is to be among as many people who exalt the Creator as possible.
Employ the Power Paradox: Make Yourself Small to Reach the Highest Heights
If our environment does not elevate the Creator to the proper level, it will not allow us to attain spirituality. A student should feel like the smallest of all the students. In this way, the student can absorb society’s views, and in that state, the student considers society’s views as important. For this reason comes the truism, “Buy for yourself a friend.” Indeed, the more people influence me with their opinions, the more diligently I will be able to work on myself, on correcting my egoism, in order to feel the Creator.
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November 20, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Meet the Greatest Gift You Can Reach in the Spiritual Realm and the Big Question It Raises for You
Kabbalah explains that the correct, consistent observance of spiritual laws leads to adhesion with the Creator. Yet, what does the word “adhesion” mean? Indeed, because of the limits of time, a three-dimensional space, and bodily desires, our thoughts cannot grasp the Creator, i.e. the quality of love and bestowal. Therefore, as long our thoughts are bound by these limits, we cannot be objective.
How to Open the Door to the Spiritual Dimension through Transcending the Ego
As we transcend our egos, the will to receive and the definitions of time, space, and motion change. They acquire a spiritual dimension. In that state, we control our will to receive and are not governed by it. Therefore, our thoughts do not depend on the will to receive, and hence are objective.
Use the Premier Trick of Play Acting to Merge with the Creator
Kabbalah offers the attainment of equivalence of properties and actions with the Creator as a means of nearing Him. It says: merge with His actions; be as kind, caring, and as humble as He. Yet, how can one be sure that the Creator’s actions and the Creator Himself are the same? Moreover, why should I merge with Him by imitating His actions?
In the material world, we imagine merging, or adhesion, as shortening the distance between bodies, and understand separation as moving away from one another. However, the spiritual realm lacks such concepts as time, space, and motion. This is why the equivalence of properties between two spiritual objects draws them closer to one another, and the difference in properties moves them apart. There can be no adhesion or separation (in contrast to the adhesion or separation in space) because the spiritual object itself takes no place.
Why You Must Avoid the Proverbial Axe that Cuts Off Spirituality and How to Do It
Just as an axe divides a physical object, the appearance of a new property in a spiritual object divides it into two parts. That is, if the difference in properties is insignificant, then the spiritual objects are close to one another.
The bigger the distinction between their properties, the more remote they are from one another. If they love each other, they are spiritually “close,” and the distance between their corporeal shells is unimportant. The relationship between them is determined by their spiritual affinity. If one likes something that is disliked by another, the distance between them depends on the difference in their views and sensations. They are considered completely opposite if one of them likes everything the other hates.
You Can Use Your Affinity for Spirituality to Take You There
Thus, we see that in the spiritual world (the world of desires), similarity or difference in aspirations, desires, ideas, and properties plays the role of an axe, dividing the spiritual into parts. The distance between spiritual objects is determined by the extent of incongruence between their sensations and properties.
To the extent that our attributes are similar to the Creator’s, we feel Him, become part of Him, and merge with Him.
Dr. Michael Laitman, in “The Purpose of Life Is the Revelation of the Creator.”
“Discover How to Travel to the Spiritual World and What Awaits You There” is based on the book, Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Expanding Your Inner Vision by Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Image: "Thick arrow made from jigsaw puzzle pieces" by Horia Varlan.
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