By Rav Michael Laitman PhD
Foreword
Kabbalah is known to be a secret wisdom. It is precisely this secrecy
surrounding Kabbalah that gave rise to numerous legends, falsifications, gossip,
ignorant arguments and wrong conclusions. Only at the end of the 20th century
was the wisdom of Kabbalah allowed to be revealed to all and even circulated
around the world. Therefore, addressing the reader at the beginning of this
book, I feel obliged to tear age-old layers off this ancient wisdom that is
common to all mankind.
The wisdom of Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion, meaning it is no more
related to it than physics, chemistry or mathematics. It is not a religion and
this becomes obvious from the fact that religious people know nothing about it
and do not understand a word in it.
The most profound knowledge about the laws of the Universe, the method of
apprehending the world, the achievement of the Purpose of Creation was
originally kept away from the religious masses in the first place. Kabbalah was
waiting for the time when mankind matured sufficiently to accept this wisdom and
to use it correctly.
Kabbalah allows man to control his destiny; it is the knowledge that was
passed to all peoples of the world. It deals with the realm hidden from our five
senses. It operates only with spiritual notions, meaning with things that happen
above the material level, beyond our perception in the upper world.
Kabbalah describes the upper world by using the language of metaphor or the
scientific language.
The metaphorical description: Kabbalah borrows the names of spiritual
objects, forces and actions from the language of our world. This is necessary,
because we have no words at our disposal that can describe unearthly phenomena.
But since a certain force descends from each object in the upper world to form a
corresponding object in ours, a Kabbalist living in both worlds sees this
connection and describes the spiritual reality by using the names of our world.
However, Kabbalists’ descriptions seem like accounts of earthly actions to
those who have not yet attained the spiritual realm. Kabbalah speaks exclusively
of what happens in the upper world. The use of familiar words and definitions
leads to false conceptions and erroneous conclusions. Hence, Kabbalah forbids
imagining a connection between the names of our world and their spiritual roots.
This is considered the grossest error in Kabbalah. That is why it was forbidden
for so many years up to this time: man’s development was insufficient, we
imagined all sorts of demons and angels where something totally different is
meant.
The scientific description: Starting from the 90-s of the 20th century one is
allowed to study Kabbalah and is encouraged to disseminate this wisdom. Why is
that so? It is because people stopped thinking of natural forces as manlike
creatures, mermaids, centaurs etc. They are now ready to conceive of the upper
world as a domain of forces, force fields: the world above matter. Starting from
the 16th century, from the period of the Lurian Kabbalah this wisdom began to
describe the upper world by using strictly scientific definitions and methods.
What am I living for?
What is the subject of Kabbalah?
Kabbalah deals with the question about the purpose of life. From a very young
age man starts asking this question, but then forgets about it in the course of
his life. Man cannot traumatize himself indefinitely with this unanswered
question. The answer can be found only in one source – the wisdom of Kabbalah,
which was available only to a chosen few throughout the centuries. Generations
have come and gone, but only the representatives of the last generations can
receive the irrefragable answer to the most important question.
But even today when Kabbalah has emerged from a secret doctrine to become
accessible to practically all our contemporaries, it is intended directly for
those who, having matured and even grown old, do not cease to ask themselves
this childlike question - what is the point of my life and the life of all
mankind?
People who feel this question very sharply come to Kabbalah. They do not feel
satisfied and filled in their daily life. They suffer neither manias, nor
depressions - they simply cannot reach peace of mind in this life. Why? Kabbalah
answers this question.
Stages of development of desires
The development of mankind over thousands of years of its existence is a
development and realization of different levels of desire. The search for ways
of fulfilling these emerging desires determine this or that level of
civilization’s evolution and everything we define as technological and
scientific progress.
Owing to the fact that desires constantly improve, i.e. vary from smaller to
bigger, mankind advances.
Kabbalah divides the entire complex of human desires into five stages:
• Primary desires – for sex, food (it is said: "Love and famine rule the
world"…);
• The second stage of development of desire – striving after riches;
• The third stage of development of desire – craving for power and fame;
• The fourth stage of development of desire - thirst for knowledge;
• The fifth stage of development of desire - aspiration to spirituality, to the
Creator.
The need for sex and food are animal desires, because animals have them as
well. Even being in full isolation man feels hunger and the urge to reproduce,
i.e. to have sexual relations.
Desires for wealth, power, fame and knowledge are the beginning of human
desires, since to satisfy them man must be surrounded by other people.
Man is born, his animal and human desires develop, and then he finds out that
their realization does not satisfy him, since his secret but true aspiration
which he cannot yet realize and formulate, falls outside the limits of this
world.
Man receives this desire from above. It is neither given by nature as animal
desire, nor does it develop under the influence of a society as do human
desires.
Kabbalah calls this level of desire – the desire of spiritual light or man’s
soul.
Kabbalah studies the spiritual construction named the general soul or Adam.
This construction consists of 600.000 parts, each of them in turn splitting into
a multitude of fragments which are located inside earthly desires.
According to Kabbalah, the Creator is a universal force governing the entire
creation, which includes all the individual forces of the universe.
Emergence of a new kind of desire
The set of earthly desires is called man’s heart. And the fragment (desire),
placed from above into the heart, is referred to as a point in heart.
During his biological life in this world man should completely fill his
spiritual desire. He will repeatedly come back to our world, until this goal is
reached. Thus, each generation in our world constitutes the same 600.000 souls,
vested in the bodies of our world.
Each generation are the 600.000 souls in a rank which are progressing forward
in order to be filled by spiritual light: the body dies and the soul moves and
dresses in a new body, works in it again for the sake of being filled and so on
until at a certain stage of development it will be filled with the Supreme
Light.
Most people only feel the needs limited by the framework of our world. These
include man’s creative, intellectual, cultural aspirations and the need to
research and understand the structure of our world. This testifies, or indicates
that souls dressed in the bodies of these people have not yet reached a desire
for spirituality - the fifth stage of our desires’ development. Souls of this
type do not cause aspirations to develop for what exists outside of the worldly
bodies in which they are installed.
But there are a small (so far!) number of souls of a different type. Being
installed in a protein body, such a soul forces man to long for something
unearthly and eternal. Like others, he tries to be satisfied with what this
world can provide, but to no avail. He sees how other people crave for riches
and success, and realizes it is no more than a game. He participates in these
"games", often not without success, and it brings him no satisfaction.
Gradually, trying himself in this world, disappointed and disenchanted, man
begins to feel that his soul demands a different kind of filling. Having at last
received a desire for the spiritual, man feels that he can no longer fill
himself with earthly pleasures and feels his life is empty. Then he begins to
look for the way to fill a new, spiritual desire.
Search and disappointment are the highlights of this new kind of desire, so
characteristic of our time. Starting from the middle of the 20th century
forward, more and more people are awakening to this spiritual desire sent from
above. Being combined with all other desires, it creates a conflict in man’s
heart. The fifth desire causes inner discomfort and ultimately leads a person to
Kabbalah. Such people come to us and we begin to explain how they can fulfill
this desire.
However, since spiritual desire descends from above, it cannot be filled with
objects of our world. Kabbalah shows man how this most exalted desire can be
filled.
Kabbalists, who fill this spiritual desire (“Kabbalah” means “reception” in
Hebrew) call this filling the Light or, rather, the Supreme Light.
This Supreme Light is called the Creator, because He both creates this desire
and fills it. However, if this desire does not manifest in man he goes on living
like all others.
Searching for satisfaction and the process of filling
Human life is a process of endless search. Man incessantly looks for
something that can satisfy his new desires: he keeps seeking after food, wealth,
sex, power and knowledge. All these desires constantly pop up and alternate in
him. Man devotes his entire life to satisfying them.
There are many people in the history of mankind who managed to fill their
spiritual desire. In their books they tell us about the search for satisfaction
and the process of filling. Their explanations and the description of this
process have developed into a science called Kabbalah. Such people call
themselves Kabbalists.
Kabbalists explain that while being in our world man should fill his soul
with the light so that it will rise to the same spiritual level which it was
prior to descending and dressing in man’s heart, i.e. his earthly desires. Our
task, regardless of all other desires called “heart” or “body”, is to fill that
point in heart with the Supreme light.
Kabbalists say that filling the soul with the light gives man a sensation of
the upper world. This means that he can simultaneously live (feel) both in the
upper world, and in ours. He unites these two worlds in him. The state, when man
in our world completely corrects and fills his soul at the highest spiritual
level, is referred to as the End of correction of a soul or simply “the end of
correction”.
From the moment he begins to feel aspiration to spirituality a person
receives his initial information on Kabbalah. Kabbalah enables the person to
master a method of filling his soul, to attain a state of infinite delight,
sensation of eternity, absolute knowledge and perfection. Moreover, he receives
an opportunity to realize it now, in this world, in this life, instead of coming
back again and again to this "not the best" of worlds searching and suffering
from birth to death.
Since souls continuously change, develop and improve, the task of Kabbalah is
to create a method of reception of the spiritual filling suitable for each
generation. This science is called "Kabbalah" – reception, because it offers a
method of filling the soul with the light. Kabbalah teaches man to receive the
Supreme Light and fill the soul with it, i.e. both desires of the heart and
spiritual desires. This is possible, since all our desires are created by this
very light. Hence, only direct filling with the light can satisfy us.
Spiritual desire – what is it?
The first four categories of desire are clearly understood and felt, but we
have no idea about spiritual desire.
Man won’t discover what “the spiritual” means as long he keeps satisfying his
desires by means of objects of this world. He sees these objects and knows
exactly what he is after. But when a spiritual desire awakens in him, he sees no
source that can possibly fill it. Man feels helpless and lost: life loses
meaning and taste; there is nothing to fill it with. He simply feels bad.
Something uncertain “pulls” him. But to where? Man doesn’t know where to turn
because the source of pleasure is concealed from him. Normally he chooses to
forget all about it.
As children we ask ourselves: “What are we living for?”, but later hormones
ignited by adolescence suppress this question along with the will to discover
the meaning and source of life. Our sexual and intellectual aspirations lead us
away from the solution to this problem. Then it arises again to disturb us.
Those, who can’t fill the emptiness and demand an urgent answer to that
question, find Kabbalah or rather, are led to it from above: when this happens
the time of filling the human soul arrives.
Spiritual space
When the human body dies, the soul passes to a new-born one. From one life to
the next the soul gradually accumulates readiness to manifest in man. He lives
many lives without feeling his soul - an aspiration to the upper world. Take
care not to confuse it with the earthly “aspiration to loftiness”, which
normally stands for creativity, poetry, music and art.
Man feels the manifestation of the soul as a new desire, longing, as
emptiness and has no idea how to fill it. The search begins from this moment;
ultimately it leads man to Kabbalah. Thus all people in the world are led to
Kabbalah, because it is the only method of filling the soul.
When a man discovers Kabbalah, i.e. finds a Teacher, books and a group, a
so-called “preparatory period” (for discovering the upper world) begins. This
period can last for a few years (minimum 3 years).
Spiritual space opens up before him. Man finds himself on the periphery of
that space with the Creator being in the very center. The spiritual space is a
realm of properties similar to a physical field with a maximum manifestation of
power in the center and the gradual weakening of it towards the perimeter until
this property completely disappears on the border beyond which our world begins.
By changing his properties according to the properties of the Creator, man
can move in spiritual space: the difference of a man’s properties from those of
the Creator makes them remote from each other, while the similarity of their
properties leads to their closeness. A complete equivalence causes them to
merge.
We, in our initial state, are opposite to the Creator’s properties; hence we
are totally outside of this field and cannot feel the Creator.
Having completed the preparation period, man reaches the first, minimal
degree of similarity with the Creator and crosses the barrier (Machsom)
between our world and the upper one.
He then begins his spiritual advancement; distinctly feeling the Creator he
consciously corrects his properties becoming ever closer to Him.
Kabbalah describes the process as an ascent through 620 steps. This gradual
rapprochement with the Creator through the similarity of properties consists of
consecutive correction, i.e. the substitution of all 620 egoistic properties for
altruistic properties. It speaks about the method of correcting desires on each
of these steps. As a result, man each time attains the Creator on a new, higher
level. Man must correct all his 620 desires step by step, i.e. climb all 620
levels, while existing in his physical body, living in this world.
Upon completing his spiritual ascent, he fully associates himself with the
soul and need not return and incarnate into the material world.
Man’s death – What dies the body or the soul?
Man does not die, his biological body does. To begin with, we all feel only
our body – the earthly desires. Then a desire for spirituality awakens in us.
This desire is not of this world, it belongs to the Creator. If man develops
it he starts feeling not only the properties of his body, but those of the soul
which is a part of the Creator’s properties within himself.
If man corrects himself so that the spiritual desires suppress the desires of
the body and the body completely associates itself with the soul, he perceives
the death of his body as shedding a cover from the soul. The body dies but man
feels detached from the body while still living in it.
The body dies, but man feels detached from the body while still living in it.
If we live inside the desires of our world (sex, food, wealth, power and
knowledge), we receive filling through our body, i.e. through its five senses.
We may irritate our brain with electric impulses by sending signals through
electrodes attached to it and feel pleasures ostensibly received through the
five senses. In this case we directly influence pleasure centers by sending the
same signal they receive from the sensory receptors.
This is an example of directly affecting the pleasure centers, which receive
all signals.
Soul, screen and delight
We receive spiritual desires directly from above. To fill them we need a
special sense called “a screen” (Masach). As soon as man acquires this
sense, he starts feeling pleasure through it. The pleasure is called the Supreme
Light. It enters our desire to enjoy it through the screen. This desire to enjoy
the Supreme Light is called “soul”. The light is not felt as the source of
pleasure unless man acquires an additional sense capable of picking it up.
All components: the light (pleasure), the screen (means of reception) and the
soul (receiver) are in no way connected to our physical body. Hence, it doesn’t
matter whether man has a body or not. As soon as man establishes contact with
the Supreme Light, he begins to correct himself so as to be filled with it. The
gradual likening of one’s properties to the light and the consecutive filling
with it is called spiritual ascent.
The body is only a means for the spiritual advancement in this exciting
process; otherwise it is of no interest because a small pleasure cannot be felt
at all in comparison with a great delight: the greater delight suppresses it.
Therefore, although a Kabbalist lives in the same world as we do, he is actually
already in the upper world.
Since we cannot feel his world, all his sensations are beyond our perception,
on the other side of Machsom.
When man associates himself with his soul and not with his physical body, he
experiences the death of this body as a change of clothes. The sensations he
acquired in this world do not disappear, and the world he lives in stays with
him after his body dies. Everyone living on earth can and must complete their
way in accordance with the Creator’s plan.
What data is Kabbalah based on?
Kabbalah uses only precise, experience-tested data. No theories or
assumptions are taken into consideration. Everything Kabbalah is based on has
been received from people who personally attained the spiritual sensations
through the point in heart, through the soul. They tested, measured and
described their sensations. The combined results of their research form the
science of Kabbalah.
As in any other science, Kabbalah operates with precise mathematical,
physical and graphical data (diagrams and tables). Instead of dealing with
feelings, Kabbalists use vectors, forces of gravitation and suppression of
desires: their correlations are numerically measured; desires and their filling
are accurately defined. This is the means by which Kabbalists describe their
sensations of Supernal Providence.
In our world we can measure neither man’s inner efforts, nor his subjective
sensations, to all the more accurately compare perceptions and impressions of
two different people. One can only sympathize with psychologists and
psychiatrists, who are totally unable to operate with the parameters of man’s
soul.
The history and the language of Kabbalah
Everything that we know about the upper world even before we discover it by
ourselves was written by people who personally attained it. They described their
method, their sensations, conclusions and offered recommendations so that we
could follow in their path. Kabbalistic books are the accounts of their journeys
in the upper world.
Everyone begins the attainment of the Supreme governing Force by asking the
question about the point of his life, sufferings, and the purpose of the
universe, destiny and chance. A deep analysis of these questions leads man to
the necessity of revelation of the Supreme Force. The first known Kabbalist
described his impressions of the divine revelation around 3700 years ago in the
book entitled “Sefer Yetzira”. He used the language of Kabbalah in his book,
which is still studied by Kabbalists today.
The languages of narrative and prophecy are also used for the description of
the spiritual domain. It makes no difference to a Kabbalist which language a
book about the Creator is written. In whichever language, like a musician who
hears music while looking at the notes, a Kabbalist feels what the author
describes in a Kabbalistic text.
Material and spiritual senses
We are born with five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, through
which we receive some information from outside. Our brain processes this
information and produces a combined picture of the surrounding world. These
sensations are called “this world” or “my world”. Precisely speaking, we don’t
know what exists around us. We just attribute our reaction to some outside
influence.
Our ear is designed so that a membrane separates between our inner part and
the outer reality. This membrane may be more or less sensitive, healthy or
damaged. Accordingly, we define a sound as strong, weak, high-pitched,
low-pitched or even imperceptible. The quality of the sound I hear depends not
on what it is like on the outside; it is determined by the parameters of my
sense, i.e. by my inner qualities. What I feel is not the outer fluctuations,
but my sensor’s reaction to them. In fact, I perceive something inside and call
it an outside sound.
The same refers to the rest of our senses.
It turns out that we are an absolutely closed system: each of us feels only
his inner reactions to an outside unknown influence. We can never perceive
something that happens outside of us objectively. Whatever we feel in our senses
is processed by our brain and the information is presented in a certain way.
Outside of our senses we have no idea what this information is like. We are
locked inside ourselves.
What can the additional consciously acquired sense provide me with? It allows
for receiving information not via my natural five senses into my egoistic
desires (interpreting everything in terms of personal profit, i.e. being
biased), but directly and impartially. This way I can achieve a genuine
attainment of the absolute and objective universe.
This is what Kabbalah allows us to do. Like any other science, Kabbalah is
characterized by repeatability of experience, registered data etc. Kabbalah is a
science and has nothing to do with religion. Religions do not teach Kabbalah,
because it reveals to man the true universe, where the Supreme governing Force
desires only one thing – to make man equal to itself.
Gematria of the soul
If two Kabbalists read one and the same description of the upper world, they
will perceive a certain picture. But how will they be able to compare their
sensations? Each feels them according to the inner properties of his soul.
If one Kabbalist has a larger screen than the other and his spiritual level
is higher, the pictures he can see will definitely be different. If you are in
the 5th grade and I am in the 10th, you naturally understand more than I do.
The quality of the soul is a combination of all of its properties. Man in our
world has an entire set of properties: greed, jealousy, mercy etc., but everyone
has them in a different proportion. By studying Kabbalah one can discover the
desires of the soul, describe and formulate its structure.
The Creator created a single desire – the soul called “Adam”. 600.000 fixed
structures, separate souls can be singled out in it. Each soul (both common and
individual) includes 620 inner parts, desires. Their combination determines the
soul structure.
Each of these soul structures receives its name according to the principal,
distinctive quality. It has a numerical value called Gematria.
Gematria of combined properties is expressed by letters, i.e. the Hebrew
letters are used instead of numbers. In order to define the souls numerically,
they are given names, since originally there were no numbers in Hebrew (they are
designated instead by letters).
Then absolute attainment is achieved
As a result becoming corrected, all souls merge into one common soul and
start interrelating within a unified system. This common soul construction binds
all individual souls together, so that ultimately each of them feels what all
the others feel. This is the achievement of absolute attainment. Such a state is
called the “Final Correction”, after which the soul, receiving the light from
above ascends to the Source – the Creator, becoming equal to Him.
All souls are obliged to achieve this state not later than 6000 thousand
years from the point of “the creation of the world” – when the aspiration to the
upper world awakened in man for the first time. The year 2005 coincides with
5765 from “the creation of the world”. We have a little more than two hundred
years left, but our efforts may considerably shorten that period.
Why is Kabbalah a science about reception of pleasure?
In Kabbalah we understand pleasure as filling in all its manifestations:
material, moral, intellectual or physical. Furthermore, here we speak of delight
(filling), which is absolute, eternal, perfect and infinite.
Delight is felt only when a very strong desire is present – provided there is
a crystal-clear desire for something, which is unavailable. The received
pleasure instantly extinguishes desire which in turn reduces pleasure. The
greatest delight is felt only during the first contact of the desire with the
desired, the way the first bit of food feels in a hungry man’s mouth. Then
hunger subsides, the desire disappears and satiation sets in. The food stops
bringing the delight that was felt at the beginning of the meal. Gourmets leave
the most delicious dishes for the end of a feast, because greater delight
compensates for the lack of desire.
If we start researching the various kinds of pleasure we receive from
knowledge, power, riches, sex and food, we’ll notice that all of them diminish
upon reception of the desired. Oftentimes man works for years to get what he
wants, but having received the object, stops enjoying it.
It is the disappearance of the sensation of pleasure forces us to look for
new delights. Advertising, fashion etc. supply us with new desires, and we get
carried away by the constant pursuit of anticipated pleasure. Once the desired
is received, we feel compelled to seek new enjoyment. This process is endless.
Hence, man can never really be delighted. He is constantly moving.
Kabbalah teaches man how to receive non-vanishing pleasures: eternal,
absolute and perfect, revealed as permanent peace and delight. Hence, this
method is called “Hochmat HaKabbalah” (the science of reception). It was
given to us by the Creator so that our enormous desires would be immediately
satisfied and then new desires would emerge, be fulfilled and so on. The absence
of a gap between a desire and its filling would allow us to enjoy never-ending
peace and delight.
How can such desire be created? It does not exist in our world. Hence, the
soul is opposite to our entire world. It differs from this world by its property
of altruism called “a screen” in Kabbalah. The process of acquiring a screen is
the subject of Kabbalah studies.
We speak about a strictly practical approach, about mastering a special
method. It can be accomplished in the process of studying certain Kabbalistic
books. For example, the principal Kabbalistic six-volume composition “The Study
of Ten Sefirot” is compiled as a regular academic textbook: in each of its 16
parts, on more than 2000 pages the structure of the upper world is expounded in
modern language. The part of the books entitled “The Inner Reflection” gives a
more detailed explanation of its functioning. The part called “The Meanings of
Words” provides questions referring to the meaning of the words used. Finally
the part called “Questions and Answers” deals with descriptions and explanations
of spiritual phenomena.
We welcome and await all those who find no peace searching for the answers to
the questions about the structure and functioning of the universe, about the
purpose of life. These are the people who discover the spiritual point in their
hearts. It is for them that we created our internet site available in 22
languages.
For further
information, visit the Bnei
Baruch Web site.
Electronically
reproduced on Lotus and Rose by permission.
Further information
regarding Kabbalah:
Two books by Gershom Sholem
On
Kabbalah and It's Symbolism
Kabbalah
