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May 7, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Real Reason Why People Hate to Collaborate
As we can see from multiple psychological and sociological studies, it is more rewarding to work in a group than alone. Hence, why do we not cooperate all the time? If we are made of a desire to receive and can receive more by collaborating, then why are we not collaborating? What is it about our nature that, despite the 1,200 studies that prove it is better to work together than alone, we have not thoroughly installed these methods in our education system? And why do schools (and the entire education system), media, sports, and politics still promote competitive and individualistic behavior, extolling successful individuals? Why not extol people who promote bonding and mutuality, if evidence proves that it would work to everyone’s benefit?
The reason why this is so is because in Stage Four of the development of the egoistic desire we are no longer satisfied with achieving more. Achieving more was what we wanted in Stage Three. In Stage Four, our primary desire is to achieve more than others. We want to be unique and superior, just like the Creator. Thus, we may provide hard, indisputable evidence that it is better to work together than alone, but without feeling that this is so, our egos will not succumb to the idea. In Stage Four, solutions must first satiate the ego before we can approach daily life tactics to improve our achievements.
In regard to the above paragraph, in “Peace in the World,” Baal HaSulam elaborates on our sense of uniqueness: “The nature of each and every person is to exploit the lives of all other people in the world for his own benefit. And all that he gives to another is only out of necessity; and even then there is exploitation of others in it, but it is done cunningly, so that his neighbor will not notice it and concede willingly. The reason for it,” he explains, “is that… because man’s soul extends from the Creator, who is one and Unique [referring to the single law of bestowal that creates and sustains the world]… man… feels that all the people in the world should be under his own governance and for his own private use. And this is an unbreakable law. The only difference is in people’s choices: one chooses to exploit people to satisfy lower desires, and one by obtaining government, while the third by obtaining respect. furthermore, if one could do it without much effort, he would agree to exploit the world with all three combined—wealth, government, and respect. However, he is forced to choose according to his possibilities and capabilities. This law can be called, ‘the law of singularity in man’s heart.’ No person escapes it, and each and every one takes his share in that law.”
You Can Either Be Unique and Creative Alone… Or With the Creator
On october 15, 2006, Sam Roberts of The New York Times published a story titled, “To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered,” where he referred to a census. The story revealed that “Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority… The American Community Survey, released… by the Census Bureau, …found that 49.7 percent [of] households in 2005 were made up of married couples… down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.” Moreover, revealed Roberts: “The numbers of unmarried couples are growing. Since 2000, those identifying themselves as unmarried opposite-sex couples rose by about 14 percent, male couples by 24 percent and female couples by 12 percent.”
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May 2, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Getting to the Bottom of the “Keeping Up With the Joneses” Phenomenon
We can see just how much we always want what others have in Item 38 of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” stating that “Man [Stage four], who can feel others, becomes needy of everything that others have, …and is thus filled with envy to acquire everything that others have. When he has a hundred, he wants two hundred, thus his needs forever multiply until he wishes to devour all that there is in the whole world.”
But earlier in the introduction (Item 25), Ashlag writes, “Since the Thought [of Creation—the Creator’s goal] was to delight His creatures, He had to create an overwhelmingly exaggerated desire to receive all that bounty, which is in the Thought of Creation [to give us unbounded pleasure].” And he continues, “If the exaggerated will to receive perished from the world, the Thought of Creation would not be realized—meaning the reception of all the great pleasures that He thought to bestow upon His creatures—for the great will to receive and the great pleasure go hand in hand. And to the extent that the desire to receive it diminishes, so diminish the delight and pleasure from receiving.”
Hence, if we want to become Creator-like, we must not diminish our desires. But if we do not diminish our desires, then our ability to eliminate self-centeredness and become Creator- like will fail if all we have in our medicine cabinet are the old remedies of religious fanaticism, oppression, tyranny or any other of the old means of discipline. Those methods were good for “taming” the desire to receive in its earlier stages, but they will not suffice for today’s level of desire to receive.
A new method, a fresh code of action is required, something that will not try to suppress the insuppressible, but will harness the new powers that extreme egoism evokes to improve life, instead of destroying both humankind and our pathogenic egocentricity.
Competition or Cooperation? The Need to Choose Wisely
In Stage Three of the evolution of desires, our envy has created an interconnected and interdependent world where we compete against, yet depend on each other for sustenance. Again we can quote Ashlag, who wrote, “Because each person in the world draws his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and to care for the well-being of the whole world.”
We can also quote McGrew’s statement: “This [single global system] defines a far more complex condition, one in which patterns of human interaction, interconnectedness, and awareness are reconstituting the world as a single social space.” These quotes accurately reflect our situation at the start of the 21st century: we are tied together, and hateful of each other.
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April 27, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Ari – The Greatest Creative Force of the Renaissance
Preceding every new stage in the evolution of desires, the appropriate precursor appears. First, there was Abraham; he was the Root. Then there was Moses, representing Stage one, followed by Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi), who corresponds to Stage Two. And now the time has come for Stage Three.
The emergence of Stage Three in the evolution of desires roughly corresponds to the advent of the Renaissance in Europe. Its harbinger was the greatest Kabbalist since Rashbi: Isaac Luria (the Ari)—founder of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the most systematic and structured school of Kabbalah. Today, it is the predominant teaching method, thanks to the 20th century commentaries of Baal HaSulam, who interpreted the writings and adapted them to the scientific/academic mindset of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Despite his short life, the Ari (1534-1572) produced numerous texts with the help of his prime disciple, Rav Chaim Vital. The Ari did not write his texts by himself. Instead, he would speak and Chaim Vital would write down his words.
After the Ari’s early demise, Vital and several of his relatives compiled the Ari’s words into cohesive texts. for this reason, many scholars have ascribed the Ari’s writings to Chaim Vital and not to his teacher. Yet, even though Vital was the scribe, the provider of the information is undisputedly the Ari.
How the Ari Reformed the Wisdom of Kabbalah
In Stage Three there is an “inverted” modus operandi, where the act is reception but the intention is to give. This was true for the initial four stages of desire. However, after the breaking of Adam’s soul, the prevailing intention in the collective soul—of which we are all parts—has been inverted and regressed from bestowal to reception. And because we are all parts of Adam’s soul, the hidden intention in all humans is to receive, as well. Clearly, when everyone wishes to receive, and none wish to give, it induces an unsustainable situation.
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April 15, 2014 at 8:38 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
The Middle Ages through the Prism of Kabbalah
The Middle Ages is a very peculiar period in history. views on when it began and when it ended seem to range from 2nd-5th century to 15th-18th century respectively, depending on the researcher’s field of expertise. Some mark the fall of the Western Roman Empire as its beginning and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire as its end. others see the beginning of the Middle Ages as the time when Emperor Constantine the Great summoned the first Council of Nicaea, in 325 CE, and its end as the time when Martin Luther was excommunicated (1521) and the ProtestantChurch was established.
Kabbalah does not define any age as being in “the middle,” but it does consider the period between the writing of The Book of Zohar and the writing of The Tree of Life as a distinct period in the evolution of humanity. In a sense, the term, “The Dark Ages,” would be more suitable to describe this period in history, since this is roughly the period during which Kabbalists concealed their knowledge and made it a secret teaching, known to only a few.
Within this period, we will relate more to the processes that occurred between the writing of these books than to specific events. This should make it easier to see how desires, which on the human level appear more as ambitions, steer the processes that form the history of humanity.
The Cure for Humanities Ills
In Kabbalah, the period between the writing of The Book of Zohar and writing of The Tree of Life has a crucial role. Without it, the purpose of creation would not be achieved. To reiterate in a word, the purpose of creation is for every person to know the Creator and become like it. Abraham’s group was the first to achieve that. Yet, Abraham’s goal was not only for his group to achieve it, but for every person in the world. Moses helped Abraham’s cause by expanding the attainment of the group into the attainment of an entire nation.
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April 14, 2014 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Let us examine the sub-surface processes that unfolded between the writing of The Book of Zohar (also called The Zohar for short) in the 2nd century C.E. and the writing of the Tree of Life in the 16th century. These dates (very) roughly parallel the period between the Roman conquest of Judea and the onset of the Renaissance, or what we now call “the Middle Ages.” The goal is not to focus on particular events, but to provide a “bird’s-eye” view of history, showing how processes correspond to the evolution of desires. In the case of the time frame just mentioned, it is probably best to begin with the Roman conquest and the ruin of the SecondTemple.
How Unfounded Hatred Destroyed the Unity of Israel
The defeat of the Jewish revolt against the Romans (66-73 CE) caused the ruin of the SecondTemple and the dispersion of Judea. (The first Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE, and was ruined by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.) This dispersion signified something far more important than the conquest of one nation by another. It reflected the extent of the Israeli nation’s spiritual decline. The Hebrew word Yehudi (Jew) derives from the word Yechudi (“united,” or “unique”), referring to the state of the Israeli nation of the time: perceiving (and adhering to) the unique force of bestowal that governs life.
Yet, the desire to receive is an ever-evolving force and requires constant adaptation. Constant effort is required to harness the newly emerging desires to work in unison—with the intention to bestow, and adhering to the law of yielding self-interest in favor of the interest of the host system. And because the desires evolve, the means to harness them must evolve accordingly.
Unlike animals, humans must constantly realize their place in Nature and choose to be constructive parts of it. However, if we act to the contrary, the negative outcome will not be immediately evident. This leaves us room to maneuver and to calculate.
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