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February 16, 2014February 17, 2014

What Is God? Is God Real?

God is what you discover in your actions. You discover the force of God, which is a force of giving and love, as much as you make actions of giving and love yourself. Then, in your actions, you discover the internal force that is called “God,” or “the Creator” (“Boreh” in Hebrew), which means “Bo” (“Come”) and “Reh” (“See”) – “come and see.”

Spiritual attainment takes place entirely through the principle of “By Your actions, I will know You.” By my actions, where I am in this world, toward God, I attain God’s force of giving and love that fulfills me. In other words, I attain the Creator.

When does a baby start recognizing its mother? It gets an impression from her actions. However, the baby does not discover anything from this impression, but simply feels a caring, loving attitude emanating from her. When the baby begins reacting to its mother, repeating actions she wants rather than doing what the baby wants, the baby then starts attaining her. In essence, the baby’s entire upbringing comes down to this.

In this same way, we attain God, the Creator. I perform actions in accordance with the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that arise within me. This is called “By Your actions,” and thus, “I shall know You.”

Why is it “Your actions?” After all, they are my actions, aren’t they? No, the Creator has given me the Reshimot. He has given me the desire and the environment as well as the strength to perform these actions. That is why, after every action, I say, “These are Your actions.” However, through these actions that have passed through me, albeit with my participation and desire, I come to know You (God, the Creator).

Who is it that comes to know You? There is a certain point of my free will called my own “I.” I have triggered these actions from You, and thus, I come to know You. From Your actions, I come to know You. Inside me, there is an “I” that comes to know You. The actions are His, but the attainment is mine.

To learn more about God and how to attain God, it is recommended to take the free courses. The reason is that many of the concepts and terms we have a 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, and related topics like:

The ultimate contradiction about having a God: if there is a God that’s all good and loving, then why is there so much suffering? (The topic tackled in lesson 2)
Why is God hidden from you? How can you attain the perception & sensation of God? (Topic in lesson 9)
What does it mean that God is a quality of giving and love? What are the actions of giving and love that we can do in order to reveal God? (Topic tackled in lesson 1).

February 13, 2014

Who Else Wants to See the Roots of Creation & Evolution?

In the below excerpt, the Ari (Kabbalist Isaac Luria) describes the intermediary stages of the four stages of creation, and mentions how between the animal level and human level of evolution, there is the intermediary stage of monkeys.

This raises the question, how could the Ari, the great Kabbalist who passed away in 1572 (three centuries before Charles Darwin, who is famous for discussing this phenomenon), state that monkeys were an intermediary phase of development between animals and humans, i.e. since Kabbalists only write about what they clearly attain & perceive?

The answer is in what is known as “Reshimot“(informational genes) in Kabbalah. Reshimot can be thought of similarly to frames and scenes in a long film reel (of our life) that unravel like a chain, from small to large, and which give rise to everything that exists.

Since Reshimot precede and give rise to our perception, we cannot see the Reshimot themselves. What we see is a resultant picture where species’ originate “one from another,” whereas in reality they originate “one after another.” This is what the Ari explains in the below except, i.e. the order of development of Reshimot.

The world was created by the desire to bestow (in other words, Nature or the Creator), and every creature was also created by this same desire to bestow. The only matter of creation is the desire to receive, which develops and expresses itself by creating an outward appearance (a bodily shell) according to its qualities. However, we do not perceive the forces of the desire (i.e. where the Reshimot reside) and only perceive the external wrapping. This is why we think that they come from one another.

Here is the excerpt by the Ari:

Indeed, in all these four inner Behinot there is one Behina that contains them all. It is a median between each two Behinot and consists of both. For example, biologists write that between the still and the vegetative there is the coral; between the vegetative and the animate there is Adnei ha Sadeh (Ledges of the field), mentioned in Masechet Kilaim. It is like a dog that grows on the ground with its navel rooted in the soil, from which it sucks its sustenance. When you cut off its navel, it dies. Between the animate and the speaking there is the monkey.

The above is an excerpt from Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot) Part 3. This text is part of the study material for lesson 10 in the Free Kabbalah Course – “Creation & Evolution Explained: From Before the Big Bang to the Future, Final State of Existence.” Sign Up for the Course Here »

February 9, 2014February 9, 2014

Now You Can Know How the Earth was Created & Use the Same Principle of Development to Improve Your Life

There is a positive force, meaning constructive, and a negative force, meaning negative and destructive. They create and complement the entire reality in general and particular through their harsh and perpetual war with one another. As we have said above, the negative force appears at the end of every political phase, elevating it to a better state, and thus the phases follow one another until they reach their ultimate perfection.

Let us take planet Earth as an example: first, it was but a ball of fog-like gas. Through the gravity inside it, it concentrated the atoms in it, over a period of time, into a closer circle. As a result, the ball of gas was turned into a liquid ball of fire.

Over eons of terrible wars between the two forces in Earth, the positive and the negative, the chilling force in it was finally triumphant over the force of liquid fire, and cooled a thin crust around the Earth and hardened there.

However, the planet had not yet grown still from the war between the forces, and after some time the liquid force of fire overpowered and erupted in a great noise from the bowels of the Earth, rising and shattering the cold hard crust to pieces, turning the planet into a liquid ball of fire once again. Then an era of new wars began until the cool force overpowered the force of fire once more, and a second crust was chilled around the ball, harder, thicker and more durable against the outbreak of the fluids from amidst the ball.

This time it lasted longer, but at last, the liquid forces overpowered once again and erupted from the bowels of the Earth, breaking the crust in pieces. Once more, everything was ruined and became a liquid ball.

Thus, the eons interchanged, and every time the cooling force was victorious, the crust it made was thicker. Finally, the positive forces overpowered the negative forces and they came into complete harmony: the liquids took their place in the abdomen of the Earth, and the cold crust became thick enough around them to enable the creation of organic life as it is today.

All organic bodies develop by the same order. From the moment they are planted to the end of the ripening, they undergo several hundred situations due to the two forces, the positive and the negative, and their war against each other, as described regarding the Earth. These wars yield the ripening of the fruit.

Every living thing begins also with a tiny drop of fluid, and through gradual development over several hundred phases by the power of the tug-of-war, finally reaches…

…a great ox fitting for every labor, or a grown person fit for his tasks. However, there should be yet another difference between the ox and the human: today, the ox has already reached its ultimate phase of development. For us, however, the material force is yet insufficient to bring us to completion because of the contemplative power in us, which is thousands of time more valuable than the material force in us. Thus, for humans there is a new order of gradual development, unlike any other animal; it is the gradual development of human thought.

In addition, being a social creature, the individual development is not enough. Rather, one’s ultimate perfection depends on the development of all the members of society.

The above is an excerpt from Baal HaSulam’s (Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag) article, “The Solution.” This text is part of the study material for lesson 10 in the Free Kabbalah Course – “Creation & Evolution Explained: From Before the Big Bang to the Future, Final State of Existence.” Sign Up for the Course Here »

February 8, 2014January 9, 2014