WEDNESDAY PRAYER: HOD-MAIN READING FOR THIS WEEK – FOR MITZVOT – Drugs as Inevitable Inclination
READING: SUNSET TUESDAY
Main Reading for KABBALISTIC PRAYER this week, today with THE READING FOR MITZVOT.
ARVUT OF: Sheridan Moreton-Judd.
Drugs as Inevitable Inclination
-Rabbi Michael Laitman, PhD
An increasing addiction to drugs is becoming a strategic problem of the entire world. Politicians do not take too much interest in this problem, because all they need is to rule over someone or something. Therefore, they do everything possible to hide it and do not even prioritize it during their election campaigns. This is because they feel their helplessness and regard this issue a failed mission. Yet if we pay attention not just to what is going on at the moment, but to also discern a tendency, we would certainly conclude that humankind, as an intelligent and volitional part of the universe, is entering a period of self-destruction.
The drug problem in the modern world has been thoroughly researched, described, and presented at numerous conferences. It is on the UN agenda and is discussed during open and closed government debates. Hence, without repeating ourselves, let’s mention what directly refers to the solution we offer.
From the point of view of their production, drugs happen to be very cheap merchandise. The entire humanity can easily be provided with it. So why not do just that? So many people on the earth suffer from idleness, unemployment, degradation, homelessness and diseases. Health budgets exceed defense costs. Being able to receive their daily dose, drug addicts would not pose any serious threat to the society. Compared with any other condition of an average unemployed citizen, they will only require a minimal care. They exist in their own world, detached from the society’s problems, causing no serious harm.
The problem is that since the state of narcotized numbness of an individual stops the development of humanity, it contradicts the fundamental law of nature. Nature will never put up with man’s disconnection from the process of conscious attainment of life’s meaning. It will never agree to an uncontrolled drug abuse.
Humankind has known narcotics for thousands of years. However, in the past they have never been used so excessively. People did not feel such a pressing need to be disconnected from the sensation of life, because they somehow managed to fill their desires. The person wanted to receive pleasure and to acquire the things he saw in the world around himself. All he desired was more or less available in his world. He saw a goal and decided whether it was worth his while to make a required effort to achieve it. He always made his choice to pursue a certain objective, or not, and made up his mind this or that way. He was never left with an open question that demanded an answer.
He worked hard, went through incredible sufferings, and was sold into slavery, but he still saw the pleasure he so much craved for, he anticipated it. The person clearly saw that in exchange for something, or through making a certain effort, he could get what he wanted. If, however, his dream was unrealistic, he preferred to forget about it, because the body (will to receive) does not wish to suffer and eliminates it from its field of vision, as it is written: “Man of the common people will not seek King’s daughter’s hand.”
Seeing even a distant goal, the person is ready to work hard for years in order to achieve it. He does not need drugs as a means of escape from reality, because he anticipates the future satisfaction
When does someone turn to drugs? It happens when the person cannot fill his desires in this world. Having no other option, he then prefers to disconnect himself from the feeling of deficiency and frustration and turns to drugs. He would never do that, if he could see some source of pleasure.
Human desires are known to grow and develop from one generation to another: From bodily needs and pleasures for food, sex, home and family, which the person feels even while living alone, outside of the society, to desires for:
– Wealth,
– Esteem, fame, power, and
– Knowledge.
Every person includes all of these desires in various combinations, but in the course of history they grow both in quantity and in quality. Just the growth of these desires in each person determines the progress of humanity.
It transpires that when the growth of all human desires stops, a new desire and aspiration for something vague and incomprehensible emerges. The person cannot even describe it; he simply wants something without knowing what it is, or being able to find it in this world.
Such people refer to this state as depression. This leads to an enormous number of divorces. Man feels the need to change something in his life and believes that a new marriage will solve his problem. As a rule, he discovers a complete vainness of his actions and falls into a deeper disappointment and loneliness.
Many people interpret the appearance of this new desire for something unknown as an aspiration for the spiritual, for the beyond. More and more people feel this and join the ranks of drug addicts and psychologists’ patients.
In the long run, the person gradually discovers that this new longing is really a desire for the Upper world. People begin to rush about searching for a method of attaining the source of spiritual filling. They go to India and other eastern countries looking for gurus; bookstores are teeming with all kinds of literature about spiritual methods and quests.
All the person’s desires are conditionally referred to as his “heart.” The emerging desire for the unknown that no source can fill is called a “point in heart.”
Science has lately been found to confirm the existence of the Upper world. More and more of the prominent scientists, in the course of their research of matter and energy, come to the conclusion that there exists some other reality. As a rule, these are nuclear physicists, biologists, etc., i.e. the people, who each in his own field, delve into matter.
Humanity has the method of attaining the Upper world at its disposal. This method is called Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a means for filling the desire for the unknown spiritual pleasure. We should check this method, not reject it. There is no alternative to the growing problem of depression, divorces, aloofness among people and, most importantly, to drug abuse.
The situation is only deteriorating. People will continue to buy drugs. Their production will increase tremendously; tiny factories will spring up everywhere. Drug-containing plants will be grown on vast plantations; narcotics will be produced in home-based labs.
However, this should reach such proportions that politicians, economists and other people of influence would see that they have no one to control. They will stop receiving pleasure from money, recognition, etc. The problem will then be termed as “strategic!”
When the person discovers Kabbalah, he begins to realize that there exists a solution, an answer. Well, it may take another five or ten years, but the solution is there. In this case the person has no need for drugs, because he already lives in anticipation of the future. Instead of narcotics the purpose should be revealed to him and with it an opportunity to fill himself.
Essence of Kabbalah
This wisdom reveals the most general, all-embracing force of nature to people. By studying it, the person discovers that by the end of its evolution the entire humanity should inevitably come to the revelation of the universe and its purpose.
This revelation does not occur simultaneously in all people. This is an individual process of everyone’s inner advancement. Starting from the twentiethcentury, the larger part of humanity reaches a certain level of its development. As a result of this, many people feel a desire to attain something that transcends the boundaries of this world.
The science of Kabbalah is divided into two parallel paths:
- The order of descent of the Upper forces, from the highest world down to this world, and
- The order of attainment from down upwards. From this world the person ascends the levels of attainment that were formed during the descent. He is obliged to gradually attain every level in complete compliance with the laws established during the descent of the Upper forces. “Attainment,” means a higher level of comprehension.
Reality of spiritual attainment is similar to our everyday study of the forces that surround us. The material reality, perceived in our sensations, consists of real things, the essence of which we cannot grasp even in our imagination. For example, take such phenomena as electricity and magnetism. Can we say they are unreal, if our knowledge about them completely satisfies us, even though we have not the faintest idea about their essence?
The main thing in knowledge is not the essence, but its manifestations. Our knowledge of any material objects or people – of all that we can touch – is none other than making “acquaintance with actions,” which provides us with the impressions of their contact with our senses. This gives us absolute satisfaction, although we know nothing about the essence.
Attainment of the Upper world is similar to that. A student feels perfectly content with complete knowledge, even though he only attains actions. It appears as a result of the Upper Light’s contact with someone who attains it. It resembles the person who feels no need for the sixth finger, because he is quite happy with five.