Cabbala-Blog

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).

We could have also chosen a picture of darkness for describing the Klipot, but I decided otherwise because I think even in darkness there are very important lessons to learn. Darkness in Kabbalah doesn't necessarily imply something negative. Rather, dry land is regarded as something negative in the Torah because dry land hasn't received water for becoming fertile soil. And so we often read that the rivers have dried up. This means that our vessel now doesn't receive lights from the upper world. Klipot (shells) have a twofold task. One is for punishing the wicked, and the second is that it serves as a kind of safeguard mechanism so that the light cannot fall into the hands of the unworthy. Like a shell can contain the flesh of a fruit, the Klipah serves its intended purpose. Every world in Kabbalah is a kind of Klipah for the world above it. Every world dims the light further until we arrive at the lowest world - our material universe - where the light is nearly utterly concealed. In our world, man normally does not feel the light force at all.Did you know that even your back pain or sleepless nights can come from those forces called Klipot? We have to do here with forces that are only perceivable at the very edge of material existence. Those forces can make themselves noticeable through humming or ringing ears, through a flickering of the air, or through sudden changes in temperature. Normally only a trained spiritual sense can take notice of them. A normal man only senses them regarding their outcome - meaning the chaos and pain they create in his life. A normal man tends to degrade everything as an effect of mere physical causes. The reason for everything lies in the upper world. On one hand, the Klipot can be the outcome of divine punishment, meaning that we ourselves have sinned and must bear the consequences, or those Klipot can  also be the result of spiritual attacks. Those who are true beacons of light in this world are normally the first ones who become the victims of the attacks of the forces of evil. Too often we can serve the side of darkness without being aware of it. That's why, as we have stated in the last article, we should always scrutinize our own fruits. A spirit of truth won't prophesy falsely. When someone is a true prophet of God, his predictions must come true. Otherwise he is not a prophet of God. False religion is the cause of a lying spirit. That's why the apostle Paul instructed us to test everything (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Only liars are fearing a mind that has the ability to discern between truth and falsehood. When we follow false religion, we begin to exist in a bubble, which consists of mere imagination or fantasy. You can convince yourself of seeing higher beings or angels, and then there are those who really are able to perceive. Those who actually do are normally preferring to stay silent, while those who  do not are busy with proclaiming their false prophecies to everyone.Someone who truly follows God does not seek the spotlight. When a Kabbalist attains the higher world, one of the first steps he normally undertakes is to detach himself from society so that he can, for now, attain a feeling of the vast world of the Creator. Only later, when he has developed a firm, discerning vessel,  will he return to society to share his light with those ready for it. When someone is attaining the light of God, he normally isn't in need of a teacher anymore, but despite many students preferring to be connected to their masters so that they can navigate them through the upper world. We will  soon learn more about the discernment between fantasy and scriptural fact - lie and truth.

Someone who wants to attain righteousness through circumcision has to obey the whole of the law, as the apostle Paul made clear in Galatians 5:3, and furthermore has fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4). We began to discuss in the last article why the attempt to become Torah obedient might be very dangerous for a Christian believer. It happens all the time; first, such a believer will let himself be convinced that faith alone wouldn't be sufficient to draw closer to God, and then he will probably convert to Judaism. Because no one in Judaism will be excited if you tell them that you believe in Yeshua (so probably the original name of Jesus) as the Messiah, you will either leave him completely, or you will deny him in public, while believing in him secretly. But we know what Jesus said in Matthew 10:33 (KJV): "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." Someone who testifies to Jesus before others will earn Mochin from the higher worlds. Those Mochin are spiritual lights - we could say the mind or divine intellect of the upper system.We can imagine the upper system as a gigantic network of energy, where the messiah ruling in heaven sits on the throne of God. From there, all the lights will be channeled hierarchically downwards through several righteous souls and angels. Someone's merit in this world will determine his stature in the upper world. In the end only the fruit of one's spirit counts - it is action alone that matters. This means that someone who has faith will perform the works, which were prepared for us beforehand by God (Ephesians 2:10). Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). In Kabbalah, the lowest spiritual world is called the world of Assiyah, which is the world of action. Only through action do we have the choice between good and evil. Good and evil can only meet in our world, which is considered as the last end or, better to say, the reflection of the world of Assiyah. Through Christ, we're not elevating through the performance of the ritual law but through deeds that serve others, and mostly our spiritual brothers and sisters (Galatians 6:10). This is not works righteousness but can be considered as the love to a woman. We normally don't do good to earn the love of our wife, but we do good because we love her. Real love is unconditional, which means that we expect nothing in return. And so someone who  really has the spirit of God will overflow with good deeds - not out of effort, but because it has become our new nature. This new nature means to walk constantly on a straight way with God. We don't do good because we want to earn something, but because we stand in grace and want to draw closer to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18).

Today we observe a fashion where more and more Christians want to convince other Christians that they would have to observe the entire law of the Old Testament. This is not necessarily a good development for good reasons. The dogma that Jesus would have ended the law of the old covenant on the cross is disputable. When we read in the New Testament, we see that the apostles were all Torah-observant Jews. How strictly someone like Paul was following the Torah remains a question, but we must see his role as apostle for the gentiles under a special light. He had to bring the message of the Jewish Messiah - as the followers of Jesus have seen him - to a completely new audience. Of course his followers were not merely gentiles, and so he had to avoid the establishment of two classes in his communities. For him the gentile had the absolute same value as a circumcised Jew. From now on every Christian believer was regarded as a priest in the holy celestial temple. From a more mystical perspective, we could say that this spiritual priesthood was the destination of the spiritual ascent.How later the church reasoned the invention of a physical priesthood is its own topic, but when we follow scripture itself, we can see the division of humanity only into two groups: the believer and the unbeliever. Some may also add the 144,000 of the book of Revelation, but it becomes clear that those elected from Israel are completely becoming one with the big crowd from the nations. As we learned in the last article, day and night became one, as well as man and woman. Although they're separate timings or individual beings, they become one unity in spirit. Jesus and his father, as mentioned, became one. Although they're two separate beings, they are one in spirit. As books like Acts or Galatians make clear, it is from now on not necessary anymore to take on Jewish identity to become one with God. Although the law remained the standard of how to set up the life of the Jewish follower of Jesus, it's not binding for the gentile, except for keeping the Mitzvot (precepts) that the apostles gave to the gentile believers in Acts 15. The apostle Paul made clear that the law is from now on circumcised in our hearts (Romans 2:15). The great danger for a Christian of becoming Torah observant is that the next step would be Jewish conversion, after which most of them will forsake Jesus completely. From now on we will bind ourselves with a system of reward and punishment according to the actions of the law that we obey or not obey. To die with Jesus on the cross means to leave this calculation. This does not mean that the believer couldn't become a victim of divine judgment, because the Bible tells us that those who draw closer to God are the first who get disciplined (1 Peter 4:17), but we should not submit ourselves under a system that promises us rewards according to the observance of special timings and seasons. With the cross, we go beyond the cause and effect chain of physical reality. This means that when we practice repentance for our misdeeds, we can prevent divine judgment from coming over us. This topic is theologically and spiritually very complex, and we will dig deeper in the next postings...

When Jesus was asked what would be the highest precept, he answered, "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad" - "Hear oh Yisrael, that the Lord our God the Lord is One." This is an all encompassing unity, as the Bible states in the first verses in original Hebrew that there was "one day" instead of "the first day". This means that the first day of creation represented a unity of polarities like day and night. Later we read of man and woman, that they should become "one flesh" that there will be no separation between them, although they're seemingly two separate individuals. Jesus said that he and his father are one, which means that they're spiritually a complete unity. And so also his followers should become one, as he is one with his father. Meant is the unity in community.

Why can't we confront something as complex but at the same time as simple as life itself? Why are we bound to suffer? Why does it feel as if we would be constantly imprisoned in a dark cage of our own self-identification? Why can't we simply live life to the fullest? Why are we feeling so compromised when there should be instead a wide horizon before our eyes?External religion alone won't lead man anywhere. It is the hope for something that does not exist. All heavenly promises are a lie. We must come to the realization that we won't attain something in the afterlife that we haven't attained in this lifetime. In reality, as we have learned, there exists only the light and the vessel. When we depart from this world, we will only take that with us, what we have attained during our spiritual work in this world. When we have completely fulfilled our purpose, there will be no reason anymore to return to this world. If not, our soul will choose a new body in the next lifetime to complete its task. Man himself is the only being in this world that has the choice between good and evil. Everything that has to do with a limited self-identification, a pursuit for oneself alone, is regarded as 'evil.' Everything that helps us to come out of the limited perception of our body and that has to do with receiving for others is regarded as 'good.'Man is the bridge between the animal kingdom and the kingdom of the divine. Man's purpose in the end is to rise even above the angels. This makes many beings and forces jealous of man. The heavens are full of evil entities that seek to obstruct man so that he cannot fulfill his divine purpose. These forces are often called Klipot, or shells, whose purpose it is to diminish the divine light. Every world, so to say, is like a Klipah (shell) in relation to the world above it. This can be compared to a nut, which consists of multiple layers. Christian imaginations that there would be a war in heaven do not really exist in Kabbalah in a direct sense, but the truth is that there are existing forces that are opposite to each other, and man can choose with his deeds to which system he attaches himself - the pure or the impure system.The more we connect to the noble, the true, and the beautiful, the higher our destiny rises. There are a couple of destinies before us. Every moment in which we choose the good, we create, so to say, a better universe for ourselves and others. Every time we choose evil, we descend to a place of more pain and chaos. With constant spiritual work, we can choose the best world for us and for the people around us, as long as they go the path with us. In spirituality, constant planning and calculating won't work. In spirituality we have to adjust to the opportunities the universe is providing to us. We must achieve a feeling to  always make the right choice - to act according to our soul's purpose and not according to the fears of our ego. The difficult and hard path is mostly the right one.

The two letters called Hei in the name of God are looking exactly the same, and so it is with our world and the other world, just that the law of the other world is one of selfless giving, while the law in our world is the one of receiving for the self alone. Receiving for the self alone expresses itself in the law of gravity and the consistency of death and decay. The bush that burns but that is not consumed by its fire is a symbol for the spiritual force that contradicts the laws of physical expiration. How can something or someone exist in the world of time while it or he is not disintegrating?