🕎 WEDNESDAY PRAYER: HESED-MAIN READING FOR THIS WEEK – FOR MITZVOT – The Science of Kabbalah – A Method for Researching Man and the World

READING: SUNSET TUESDAY

Main Reading for KABBALISTIC PRAYER this week, today with THE READING FOR MITZVOT.

ARVUT OF: Sheridan Moreton-Judd.

The Science of Kabbalah – A Method for Researching Man and the World

-Rabbi Michael Laitman, PhD

It is well known that we discover the world using our organs of perception. We are like a black box that only perceives things entering it from outside. To be more precise, nothing actually enters the box, it is only being affected or “pressured” and then reacts to it.

Whatever “gets” into us – a self-contained system, through the five organs of perception is recorded, processed and analyzed. Whatever is not picked up by our five organs of perception we do not feel.

The external force in itself remains unperceived by us. We cannot judge it objectively. We feel only our reaction to an external force. Therefore, our perception is contained inside us. All the information that comes our way is processed by no other means than our senses.

All existing physical instruments merely serve to expand the range of our sensations but they do not allow us to go beyond their limits. No instrument can create a new organ of perception and we cannot imagine how we would perceive the surrounding world if we had different organs of perception.

After analysis, the entire collection of sensations creates in us an internal picture which is called “our world”. This is an entirely subjective picture that cannot be compared with anything. We can never compare objective reality existing outside us with the subjective reality existing inside us.

We cannot escape the limitations of our perception and are permanently locked within the framework of our sensations. Collectively we all share common sensations that provide us with the opportunity to communicate with each other, to exchange signs, impressions and to understand each other.

All our organs of perception, or to be more precise, organs for the reception of information receive, record, process, and evaluate it exclusively according to its personal usefulness.

Any life form is created in a way that its only desire is to receive pleasure. This law applies to all levels of existence. A desire to receive a maximum amount of pleasure is the main law of the still, vegetative, animate, and human natures..

Kabbalah, (“reception” in Hebrew,) is a method that allows us to develop an additional organ of perception, i.e. to receive additional information about something that exists in the external universe. By mastering this method we start feeling the surrounding world in a completely different way: that world will be perceived as independent from our egoistical body and isolated from our “Self”. A person that has sensed this is called a “Kabbalist”.

This is an ancient, scientific method for attaining the Upper World. It has its own mathematical, methodological and psychological system. It investigates fully the mechanics of man’s inner world and demonstrates how in any situation one can go beyond his internal sensations in order to attain the external ones, even before they start affecting our five organs of perception.

Equipped with the Kabbalistic methodology, a man, remaining in its physical body, living in our world, can sense beyond the limitations of his egoistical “body”’ i.e. his desire to receive. He can acquire the ability to sense the world outside himself.

Kabbalists are ordinary people just like you and me yet equipped with the Kabbalistic methodology they’ve developed themselves to such an extent that they begin to feel the objective world. They tell us about this in their books. These books are written using a special language called “the language of branches”. It is the purpose of Kabbalists to introduce us to the system of the Upper Worlds.

In total, there are five worlds or five levels of perception. Each world is the consequence of the one preceding it.. All signals originate in the highest Upper World, pass through the lower worlds which serve to weaken the signal from the Upper World to the appropriate level at which they can be perceived by us existing in the lowest of worlds.

All worlds are designed according to the same scheme. Everything that exists in our world: any atom, cell, and organism has its root or a prototype in the Upper World.

There are no material objects in the Upper Words, just only forces that give birth to the objects of our world and to our sensations. However, we can call these forces, the roots of everything all that exist in our world, by the name of their branches, brought forth in our world by these very forces.

There is a precise and definite connection between a force in the Upper World (cause, root) and a consequence (branch) in our world. That is why we can call any root by the name of its branch in our world. This is the naming method called “the language of branches” in which Kabbalistic books are written.

Kabbalists, attaining the Upper Worlds, are able to reach a very high level, to sense the Source itself and to receive genuine, original information revealing that all five worlds and our world were created with a purpose. BY engaging in this process a man living in our world develops in himself an additional organ of perception and he elevates to a level where he feels all five worlds inside himself. He thereby lives simultaneously in all the worlds without leaving his body. Until a man reaches this state the system requires that he will continue to be reborn, to descent into this world, “below” the five Upper Worlds

Kabbalah consists of a number of areas of study, though all of them talk about the attainment of the Single Field – the Common Law of the creation. There is a section dealing with descent or creation of the worlds and the signals coming down from above. It tells us how the Upper Field restricts itself gradually through level by level of descent, how it materializes according to five levels of restriction until it reaches our world. Each successive world represents an increasingly greater concealment of the Upper Field. This area of the science of Kabbalah researches only the Upper Worlds and their functioning, governance, the effect they have on us, how we affect it by our actions and how, depending on our reaction they affect us in return.

Another area of Kabbalah deals with the method for the development of the soul – the inner part of a human being that is placed in him from the Upper World. Man is the only living creature in which the soul (a part of the Upper World) exists. It has nothing to do with that vital life supporting force of our body which is indistinct from a body of an animal. What we are talking about here is a special energetic, spiritual substance which when realized by man marks the point when he leaves the category of “a two-legged upright being” and enters the category of “human”.

All reincarnations related to the descent of this spiritual part into a biological body, the leaving of it after a biological death and its subsequent descent into a new body are called reincarnation of a soul. The body does not reincarnate.

There is an area of Kabbalistic study that deals with the creation of a mathematical model for the description of spiritual processes taking place in a soul. These models allow the Kabbalist to relate to the processes inside him from a scientific point of view. With it he is able to research the effects of the Upper Worlds on himself, to analyze, rank, and formulate the connection of signals coming from above with the reactions appearing inside him and visa versa. By this he can receive practical solutions for the best, optimal reaction of that spiritual-energetic part (a soul) that he received from above. The mathematical model of Kabbalah consists of:

• gematria – a numeric record of spiritual states of the worlds and a soul;
• figures reflecting the states and interdependence between the worlds’ influence on a soul and the influence that a soul, a man makes on the Upper Worlds;
• tables, matrixes reflecting various ways of engagement between qualities of the worlds and a soul.

After a man attains the Upper Worlds while living in this world he begins to sense the unified system of creation and its single purpose. Even before attaining the spiritual, when just beginning to study Kabbalah, a man begins to realize that without developing the sixth altruistic organ of perception he will not be able to go beyond the limits of his world and that his entire existence amounts to nothing more than the escape from suffering.

The ultimate goal of the spiritual energetic system that we study is the reception by a man of the ultimate pleasure of reaching the total perfection of his existence: an absolute knowledge resulting in of it a complete balance within the entire internal system (soul) and the external system called “the Creator”.

Over the many thousands of years of human existence each generation differs from the previous one by the level that the egoistic nature of a soul reaches, each generation reaching an ever higher level. As a result, the method of attaining the Upper Worlds differs for each generation. The attainment of the spiritual takes place within a soul so if it changes qualitatively then, accordingly, the method changes as well.

The mission of the Kabbalists who live in any given generation is to adapt and adjust Kabbalah, the method for attaining the Creator, in accordance with the nature of the souls of that generation.

The great Kabbalist Rashbi (II c. BC, full name Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai) is the author of the first Kabbalistic method. He came into this world because there was a need for a new method and he presented it in detail in the book of “Zohar”.

The necessity of changing this method arose only in the 16th century. The Kabbalist who created the new method for the new type of souls in his generation was named the ARI (full name – Isaac Luria Ashkenazi (1534-1572). As he writes in the Preface to his teaching, “starting from this moment and on, everybody willing to study Kabbalah can do so because starting from this time all souls descending into this world are able to attain the root of their origin and upon finishing their correction not to return to our world again.”

The last Kabbalist who created a new method for our generation was Baal HaSulam (1885-1954). He wrote commentaries for the book of “Zohar”, and the books of the Ari and created a method for attainment of the Upper, spiritual world suited for the souls that descend into this word today.

A man possessing a large degree of egoism has a good chance of attaining the spiritual. Like the whole of nature, a man also consists of different levels of desire: the still, vegetative, animate, and human. The smallest degree of egoism characterizes the still level, the largest – human.

Because we study the system of the Upper Worlds where all consequences in this world have their beginning, we can talk about the spiritual application of Kabbalistic knowledge not only to science, but also to the arts and all other manifestations of human activity.

Through the study of Kabbalah a man attains the universal laws of the universe including all the laws of our world. After attainment of the Upper Worlds it is possible to see the origin and the consequence of all sciences in our world. The researcher can draw the line between something that is already revealed or what is inaccessible to scientific research. He can see where the perception produced by our five sense organs, and its logic ends and where the external world begins. However, this is possible only after leaving the limitations of our world through the alteration of one’s personal qualities.

There are no material objects in the Upper Words, just only forces that give birth to the objects of our world and to our sensations. However, we can call these forces, the roots of everything all that exist in our world, by the name of their branches, brought forth in our world by these very forces.

There is a precise and definite connection between a force in the Upper World (cause, root) and a consequence (branch) in our world. That is why we can call any root by the name of its branch in our world. This is the naming method called “the language of branches” in which Kabbalistic books are written.

Kabbalists, attaining the Upper Worlds, are able to reach a very high level, to sense the Source itself and to receive genuine, original information revealing that all five worlds and our world were created with a purpose. BY engaging in this process a man living in our world develops in himself an additional organ of perception and he elevates to a level where he feels all five worlds inside himself. He thereby lives simultaneously in all the worlds without leaving his body. Until a man reaches this state the system requires that he will continue to be reborn, to descent into this world, “below” the five Upper Worlds

Kabbalah consists of a number of areas of study, though all of them talk about the attainment of the Single Field – the Common Law of the creation. There is a section dealing with descent or creation of the worlds and the signals coming down from above. It tells us how the Upper Field restricts itself gradually through level by level of descent, how it materializes according to five levels of restriction until it reaches our world. Each successive world represents an increasingly greater concealment of the Upper Field. This area of the science of Kabbalah researches only the Upper Worlds and their functioning, governance, the effect they have on us, how we affect it by our actions and how, depending on our reaction they affect us in return.