Cabbala-Blog

In the misery of life, we see people always trying to change their surroundings to get a better life. They may end up on the other end of the world, while then facing the absolute same problems again, just in different clothing. Have we often heard of such cases?Criticism is the most important tool for overcoming our own Tikkun. When the individual and the community as a whole want to be able to advance, they must be able to face criticism. It needs a lot of restriction when we face hate postings, for example, that we will still be able to ask ourselves if not even in responses of our greatest haters, there might be contained a spark of truth. Someone who wants to become a leader must constantly ask himself, according to the reactions he receives, what he's able to change. Often our closest surroundings are a direct answer to our own flaws and Tikkunim. The constant mistakes we face in others are the facets of our own persona that need to be corrected.Does this mean now that we should constantly walk through the world as Mr. or Mrs. Nice? By no means! Tikkun could also mean that we establish borders again. That we don't let exploit ourselves. A perfected central column restriction in Kabbalah means always to know intuitively when to say yes and when to say no. The Bible encourages us to develop a sense of discernment between good and evil. We could further state that the Tree of Knowledge is the gate to the Tree of Life. This might sound bizarre because we normally want to be connected to the Tree of Life reality, while we were taught that the Tree of Knowledge would be something very negative and sinful. In Kabbalah, we must develop a paradoxical thinking of living in two realities at the same time. In the Tree of Life reality, everything serves its purpose; in the big picture everything is good in such sense – everything stems from God – while in the reality of the Tree of Knowledge Evil is very, very real.What does this mean in practice? In the Tree of Light reality, everything is already existing in a perfect state. When we look with those eyes unto the world, we see only the divine nature of everything and everyone. In the world of timelessness and of eternity, everyone has already achieved complete perfection. Thus, sometimes, in certain situations, we need to be blind to the mistakes of others. We have to exercise mercy over judgment. We must recognize that the sweeter the fruit at the end of its development will be, the more bitter it will be in the process of becoming. In this way we turn a blind eye on others and see only the good in them.On the other hand, we live in the World of Tikkun—in the reality of the Tree of Knowledge—where we have to elevate the sparks of light from places of darkness. Here we often need to be judgmental as well. Judgment in today's political correctness has become a very negative term. In today's society, we see how fast certain people are getting sued because they've chosen the wrong words. The fact is that there was a period of time when Kabbalists treated their students as the last piece of dirt in the world. This changed with the modern Kabbalah under Rav Yehuda Ashlag, who meant that for him it would be sufficient that his students develop an authentic fear of God. They don't need to fear him as a teacher as well. Rav Yehuda Ashlag, in this aspect, was a very untypical, merciful Kabbalist of his time. When Jesus took the whip into his hands for driving out the money changers in the Holy Temple, it was an act of love clothed in judgment. As a parent needs to raise up its children, so a true leader must find the true balance between judgment and mercy, while the first will always be for the sake of the latter. In the end, the path of mercy will always prevail. A parent needs only to be strict because they want the best for their child.While we should treat ourselves most of the time with mercy, we should be aware that we have to undergo as well a process of Tikkun. Many people are just busy attaching themselves to some inspirational readings or spiritual lectures, but only a few have the discipline to sit every day in silence with themselves asking, What can I improve on myself? And as stated, the answer mostly lies in the flaws we're always observing in others. Maybe there are some family members and friends who always need to know everything better. Some always get angry, and so these are our own private examples, where we have to start working on ourselves. The world outside of us is a reflection. The most powerful light lies in the things that trigger us the most. A teacher will always recognize that the flaws and mistakes of his students are, in the end, a mirror of his own Tikkun. And so while we often must express opinions or even criticism to others, in the end the root of them lies in ourselves. This is the paradox of living in a conditional world, where everyone has his own free will, and where conflicts need to be solved on a human level, while on the other hand, becoming like God means to become the ultimate root of everything. And this means to overtake complete responsibility over the whole world, because the whole world, as we've already learned, is just a mirror of our own.

When everything is of divine nature, we could ask ourselves why a spiritual pathway at all is necessary when everything literally happens in the background of God. Every thought of mine, every action, is of divine nature. When everything is God, why do we have to undergo a correction process?

In all spiritual traditions of the world, we can observe a polar development of thesis and antithesis. The answer to often very extreme, ascetic methods is methods of the complete opposite. We can call these pathways male and female approaches. One side is being dominated by the male willpower—the desire to dominate over oneself or others—and the other side is the complete opposite—the female path of surrender, of passive receiving—real devotion to God.

The kabbalistic worlds are a spiritual map of how to approach God. Each subsequent world dims the light further. We can see our world as the worst state, where the light of God is completely concealed. In Assiyah the light is concealed for 80%, in Yetzirah for 60%, in Briyah for 40%, Atzilut for 20% and at the top of Adam Kadmon we come to the full disclosure of the light.In practice this means that in the state of our world – the Olam Hazeh (literally 'this world'), man cannot justify the behavior of God towards him. This means that in this state our life is full of suffering and tragedy. When man advances on his path of correction (Tikkun), he unveils the different curtains that dim the light of the divine. The more he advances the more blissfulness and divine inspiration he's feeling in this life. The worlds are nothing less than expanded states of consciousness. Today we see a wide spectrum of an academic Kabbalah, which concentrates on the right intellectual understanding of certain terms, but we see only a few schools that actually go into practice. With practice I don't mean a dry observation of the Torah and its rituals, but with practice I mean delving into actual kabbalistic meditation methods to enter these worlds. In modern terms we could describe such states as astral travels. The most powerful spiritual tool for unlocking the astral gates into heaven or the spiritual realm is the book of Zohar – in English 'the book of splendor.' The Zohar is written in a language, which opens up the sensory organ for spiritual vision. That's why it's always opening up with 'Come and see' and not 'Come and hear'. Seeing is Chochmah, hearing is Binah. That's why the book of Zohar is not really meant to be understood, but has to be felt by a sixth sense, that we could call the 'Massach' (screen). This screen prevents the light from being received in an egoistic sense. Egoism is death in Kabbalah. That's why it's said that the sinners of this world are like the dead because the suffering and the pain, that they have to endure during their lifetime by far exceeds the little pleasure, they're able to feel. In the Zoharic Kabbalah we mainly speak about the correction of desires. The more I can use my desires in order to bestow, the more I climb the astral latter into heaven. In this other world I attain spiritual organs like seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, expressed in terms of the ten Sefirot, or five, if we count Tiferet or the dimension called 'Zeir Anpin' as one.The most difficult step probably is the one of becoming born spiritually. That's why we should enter a kabbalistic study group with which we can attract the light, that is reforming our vessels of receiving. The bigger the vessel, the more light is to be received. In order to expand the vessel, we always need good deeds in this physical world. This physical world, although being very dark and coarse compared to the most sublime realms, becomes the root of every spiritual development, because every word and deed, that is expressed by us, ascends upwards, and will get accordingly a response in the world of time and space. Time is the delay between the work and our reward. Someone who has attained the highest spiritual degree, called the 'Gmar Tikkun' (the final correction), will be always in a state of joy, because he can justify his maker in everything. But before, we must undergo the tests that are prepared for us. And only when we pass them, we attain the merit to dwell forever in the kingly palace.

We must learn to understand that the spirituality of the Bible is based upon a sacrificial system. Without the sacrifice, there is no Kabbalah and no Cabbala. The main difference between Kabbalah and Cabbala is that in Cabbala we believe that Jesus has sacrificed himself as the lamb, which has replaced all other offerings from the temple service. While Judaism is awaiting a third temple with animal sacrifices, in Christianity we believe that there will not necessarily be a third temple. There are some theories that there could actually be a physical third temple, but the common view is, as the book of Revelation states, that the lamb is the temple. 

The spiritual world is the energetic field that connects everything and everyone with each other. We can get access to this domain through immersing ourselves in the holy books. When we read the Hebrew or Aramaic terms that describe spiritual phenomena, we draw upon ourselves the Or Makif - the surrounding light. This surrounding light will correct our inner vessels so that we can elevate our soul to the world that lies beyond time and motion.

According to Sigmund Freud, happiness was a very rare phenomenon. It seems that man, because of his inherent conflicts, cannot become happy. What is when true happiness and freedom could become like a second nature of ourselves? And what if I told you that it's just one step away?Man is the only schizophrenic being in this world. Everyone is happy—the animals, the plants, even the stones are happy that they have a right to exist according to Cabbala. Everyone is included in the divine name YHWH. Just man is not yet part of this cosmic feast. Man, through his free will, is the bridge between animal and man. On the one hand, he has a divine soul; on the other hand, his body is part of the animal kingdom. The conflict between his sex drive and the drive to survive, and the higher capabilities of his divine soul, create suffering. Man often feels that he would be imprisoned between two worlds.Nearly everyone is very much part of this world. The person who seeks constant physical pleasure is very much of this world, and the spiritual seeker who always runs after a spiritual goal like Nirvana or Gmar Tikkun is also very much of this world. His emphasis just shifted from the material to the spiritual, but the process is still completely the same. Everyone is running after something, and that's why tragedy exists. Quite no one truly lives in the now. How can we attain something that already exists? The enlightened state called Gmar Tikkun in Cabbala is, in fact, the only thing that exists. But when we think we can attain it, we approach it in an asymptotic curve, which will never attain its destination. Imagine you have 125 degrees before you that lead down to the divine Merkavah. Often in Cabbala the mystical process was described as a descent rather than an ascent because it describes the descent deep into the processes of our subconscious. Now you can, with much effort, make one step after another, very safely, as your teachers have told you. Or you have the courage to jump like Pierce Brosnan in the opening scene of GoldenEye. To die with the Messiah means to immediately cancel the processes of ego and the processes of seeking. It means to awaken to a new life of freedom and happiness. True life will only happen for someone who has become a zero.

In our unenlightened state, we must constantly force our body to do things against its will. Our body foremost ages and dies because it is not embedded in the field of the divine that connects everything. In a fully enlightened body, every cell breathes divinity. Every cell of it is connected with everything else in this universe. We're only busy with creating chaos all day because we're not connected with the whole. The only way to enlightenment is complete surrender. The consciousness of someone who has surrendered does not know any borders anymore. It's expanding ad infinitum.

Through social media, we live in a generation where people less and less are able to look into each other's faces. Impure forces roam the world, which affect people's consciousness to identify the other as an enemy. People today are very awake to danger, but not on a human level but more on a beastly level. Less and less we handle conflicts with diplomacy and words but just with our fists. Covid was just a physical manifestation of our own inner state. Humanity has reached the lowest state in its development, although media and science want to make us believe otherwise.The only gateway to the spiritual world is through creating again authentic, selfless connections—not connections based on a certain program. Today only the least religious or spiritual organizations can be trusted. In most cases other agendas are standing behind the propagated programs of love and unity. An authentic connection between spiritual seekers should not be based upon hidden business agendas. When a church is using your donations or tithings to speculate on the stock market, it already tells you everything. A true teacher is not interested in your money but only looks into your heart. Today, inner change mostly is valued only according to how much people are willing to donate to their church or spiritual center and not to what human beings they really are.In the New Testament, Christians were willing to share everything with each other. They created farms and living communities to live their faith. We must come away from the commercialization of faith. Today most prominent churches are busy with organizing all kinds of courses, from cooking to music festivals, but about scripture itself, barely anyone really wants to know. In the early Christian communities, the apostles only taught from the teachings of the Old Testament because a new one simply didn't exist yet. The only way to correct human relationships is the inner dimension of the word of God. The inner Torah, so to say, provides us with the necessary light that will elevate our global interdependence to the state of world peace. To study the Torah for its own sake means that we study it not to achieve any reward except our intended spiritual correction to become a giver instead of a mere receiver—"If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:41-42, NIV).True bestowal and freedom are one and the same thing. One who agrees to take the yoke of the kingdom of heaven upon him will taste of true life. The surrounding light of God will push us as long as we're not taking the necessary spiritual work upon us. Today people constantly want to flee to other places in the world, just to realize later that the exact same problems are awaiting them there. No one can flee from his personal Tikkun - his personal correction. Consciousness is the reality that underlies everything physical. Our own perception of the world determines with which events we're getting confronted. In a community I have the chance to recognize my own mirror. Every member in a community mirrors my own virtues and faults. We must come to the spiritual perception that from now on, instead of mere people, we will only see lights and vessels.

This whole world in Kabbalah is regarded as Egypt. It is the life where we're trapped like a hamster in its wheel. We normally don't have a house or a job to live well, but we're slaves of such external matters. When material things or external situations are controlling our minds and egos, it's regarded as idol worship. We constantly remain empty because we live the whole day to satisfy only ourselves. The departure from Egypt means that I come to a spiritual state where I recognize that only the light of God and I are existing. I begin to understand that the thought of creation governs everything. Slowly and gradually the divine force is overtaking this body. The whole spiritual process can be described as a conflict between the soul and the body. The soul is the expression of the desire to give, while the body is the expression of the desire to receive. In the Jewish oral tradition, it's said that only one-fifth of Israel would have actually left Egypt. Only because my soul belongs to the other world, it does not necessarily mean that I'll take the essential step out from my own slavery.Man comes to a state where he sees that his egoism and selfishness create for himself only harm. When he comes to this sensation, he has the choice to accept the heavenly kingdom over him, and he's ready to leave behind his egoism. He performs a restriction on all of his desires. In this state I leave a world behind me. Something from afar seems to pull me. I'm not yet sure what it actually is, but I'm prepared to make the first step. From a logical point of view, it would have been suicide to follow Moses into the desert, but the Israelites who left Egypt with him took trust in the divine light. Egypt connotes constant fear of the future and constant building of supply depots. Constant planning - a calculation of everything. When we go into the desert of spiritual correction, we enter the realm of the transrational. I wouldn't call it irrational because entering the spiritual world is anything but irrational. We think we're smart in this world, but we actually aren't. We're very dumb in our so-called rationality. And we come to a place where we, for the first time on our journey, begin to feel the light of higher worlds. And we gradually learn to surrender to the yoke of the heavenly kingdom as Jesus stated, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30, NIV).

In the last articles we learned that the Torah is inscribed in our hearts (Romans 2:14-15). What the apostle Paul taught was the Torah of the inward man (Romans 7:22). This means that gentile Christians are not bound to observe the law in a physical way (except the few laws they received from the apostles; see Should a Christian Observe the Torah?). Instead we enter the domain of the inward man. All actions that take place in the inward world happen through a Massach that can be translated as "curtain" or "screen." This screen prevents the light from being used in a selfish way. While the only rule that governs our world is egoism, the upper world is governed by the force of altruism. This means that we only receive the lights with which we can share. Receiving for the ego alone is considered death in the spiritual world. Thus it is said that sinners are regarded as dead because the efforts and pain they have to endure while living in this world  far exceed the tiny pleasures they're able to experience in their lifetimes. The righteous on the opposite inherit doubly. Not only can they enjoy the fruits of their labor, but their labor itself becomes joyful. When someone in our world gains one million dollars, he wants two, and in this way sinners will always die with half of their desires unfulfilled. The Righteous will not only enjoy everything in this world, but he will also inherit the world to come.In the spiritual world, changes are defined as passing from one state to another. A Kabbalist can experience festivals like Rosh Hashanah or Purim on any day in this world. We speak of inner changes that someone is undergoing. Circumcision, for example, is the removal of the desires that cannot be used for the sake of God. In Kabbalah we only speak about pleasures and desires. The higher one is climbing the spiritual ladder, the bigger desires he will have. When all desires in the end can be used for the sake of God, it is regarded as the Gmar Tikkun, 'the final correction.' In the end the Kabbalist will become a partner of God; he will ask, and God will answer, I will fulfill.

Only a mind can ascend spiritual worlds, which is trained to discern lies from truths. In this article we will learn which key points are essential in a holy form of Christianity. This is not necessarily a matter of 'good vs. bad religion' but what scripture demands from us and how Satan finds doors to distract believers with a good heart from the actual core message of the gospel.Most important is that Satan is mostly not recognizable as what he really is when you scrutinize his outcomes on a surface level. Scripture tells us that he will  actually appear as an angel of light, whom people will worship and who will lead the masses away from the gospel of God. First we must ask ourselves, is my religion or spiritual community accepting the Eucharist, and is it actually there for every believer to take? When we don't take from the Eucharist, we're principally not Christians, and we're not part of the new covenant for the forgiveness of sins. Through the Eucharist we become part of the body of Christ. Wine symbolizes the blood of the Messiah, while bread symbolizes his body. And I know that for some religions they're the actual blood and body, while for others they're more representative, but this is a theological matter on its own.Second, baptism as well is a very important point. While some religions insist on being baptized by the trinitarian formula, more liberal communities do it very often in the name of Jesus alone, but what is important is that baptism expresses a spiritual new birth. Being born again of water and of Spirit is a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of God (John 3:5).We must also scrutinize if our church or community is making us have a bad conscience about different kinds of foods and drinks. This is an important key point for realizing if the institution is really following the biblical God or not because scripture again and again makes it clear that no foods or drinks can make us impure any longer. The Messiah declared all foods as clean (Mark 7:19). Also, the Apostle Paul went so far as to state that every religion that will make people have a bad conscience about certain foods in the end times will be under the influence of demonic spirits. While drunkenness in the Bible is often condemned, wine as well is regarded as a helpful medicine, as in 1 Timothy 5:23. It is a kabbalistic concept that wine will let the sinners fall while the righteous ones will nourish their souls with it. This concept is also hidden in the Hebrew word for vine (yayin) itself, but this as well would need its own article to explain.The next point is, am I part of the first resurrection in my religion or faith? Satan often twists the Bible to make us believe that there would be more classes of believers, where the first ones would resurrect at the beginning of the messianic age, while the latter ones at the end, while the book of Revelation makes it very clear that those with faith will resurrect first, while those without will be judged according to their deeds after the second resurrection (Revelation 20:4-6).All in all, we must also consider if eternal life is regarded more as a gift or as something that must be earned. Although merit and salvation by grace don't necessarily exclude each other, it's important that eternal life must be seen mostly as a gift. If we were to think that eternity could be earned by deeds alone, the Messiah would have died for nothing (Galatians 2:21).