What Baal HaSulam Writes About Man and Society
Man is enslaved in all his motions, shackled in iron chains by the views and manners of others, who are society — Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, “The Freedom”
September 20, 2024
Why You Feel Trapped by Life and Where You Can Find True Freedom
Read How to Maximize Free Will and Subtract Subjugation
The concept of freedom determines our whole life. Animals in captivity usually develop ill health and may even die – a sure sign that nature disagrees with any kind of subjugation. It is not by chance that for centuries humanity engaged in bloodshed and battles to obtain a certain measure of freedom.
Even so, we have a rather vague idea about freedom and independence. We assume that everyone has an inner need for freedom and independence, and that they are available to us at will. But if we examine our actions carefully, we will discover that we act compulsively and that we have no free will at all.
Here Is a Method That Is Helping People to Take Control of Their Destiny
The One Aspect of Life Where You Have Free Choice
One of the most interesting aspects of the Wisdom of Kabbalah its the notion of “free choice”. As Kabbalah explains our only free choice is in choosing the right environment that influences us, since we are completely interconnected, and inter-dependent with our actual generation.
But Kabbalah also explains that our soul goes through multiple life cycles through reincarnation, thus we are interconnected with previous generations as well.
People often ask if previous lives dictate our present lives. They do, of course, but don’t forget that there are future lives as well, not just previous ones. Today, every person has a chance in this life to affect his or her future lives. Every one of us should know how to influence our lives correctly, how to study the laws by which the influence continues from life to life.
How to Control Your Own Destiny
A person can pass on a lot of vital information from one life to the next, thus preparing for a better life in the next round. We can advance toward the purpose of creation within just a few lifetimes and accumulate our attainments. We are the only creatures in the whole of creation that are given that opportunity.
We can determine our own destiny and consciously influence the surrounding environment. Our whole world depends on the light that comes down to us and clothes everything around us. This invisible light revives the entire reality. People can control the descent of this light to our world. The acquisition of a spiritual screen through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah enables a person to control the descending of this light. That person can open a Kabbalistic prayer book and act according to the orders that are written there, instead of waiting for heaven’s mercy.
Why Kabbalah Is Needed to Attain Real Freedom
A man or woman who can follow these instructions feels the upper light pass through him or her and as a result feels confidence and the perfection of the attainment. He or she knows what is going to happen and how to control it. This is where the real freedom of choice appears. In this level of bestowal, a person has full control over his or her life, the future, and the whole of nature. He or she brings to our world all the goodness through the upper light, and that light reflects back doubled and tripled.
“Here Is a Method That Is Helping People to Take Control of Their Destiny” is based on the book, Awakening to Kabbalah: The Guiding Light of Spiritual Fulfillment by Dr. Michael Laitman.
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The Secret of Whether or Not Humanity Has Freedom of Choice
The Big Question: Does Humanity Have Freedom of Will?
In our world, we are almost completely dependent on nature’s providence. We are compelled to be born; we do not choose our time of birth or our family, our talents, or the people we meet in this life. We enter an environment we never chose.
All my characteristics are predefined: the feelings, the aspirations, and the character. Everyone is born with his or her own Mazal (luck). Moreover, it is said that “there is not a blade of grass below [in our world] that has not an angel above [a force from the upper world] that strikes it and tells it: Grow!” So is there any freedom at all?
Both nature and society evolve according to their own laws, and so do all the changes in the universe and the ever- greater catastrophes that happen, hence there is nothing that depends on us. But if everything in humankind is dictated from above, not only our characteristics and inheritance, but everything outside us, including the forces that lead us to the end of correction, to a predetermined state, what kind of freedom can we talk about or even think about?
Predetermination vs. Free Choice
On the other hand, if we just obey nature’s orders, it is unclear why we were created in the first place, not to mention everything else around us. If everything is predefined and there is no freedom of choice, there seems to be no point to the whole of creation. The goal of creation, however, is not that everything will continue the way it has so far advanced, without any reason, but rather to attain completeness, precisely through our gift of free choice. For that reason it is vitally important that we find where and in what our free choice manifests.
What Does Kabbalah Have to Say about Free Will?
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.
