The Way: Using the Wisdom of Kabbalah for Spiritual Transformation and Fulfillment
256
The Way: Using the Wisdom of Kabbalah for Spiritual Transformation and Fulfillment
256Paperback(First Edition)
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Overview
"This book will inspire your soul. Michael Berg has accomplished the monumental task of translating the eternal truths of life into spiritual common sense. Without a doubt, The Way will become one of the sacred texts of your own life." —Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Sacred Contracts
The spiritual way of Kabbalah has grown from a hidden treasure into a widespread mainstream movement that has helped people from every walk of life, all around the world, to improve their lives. In this bestselling book, Michael Berg of The Kabbalah Centre—the world's leading educational institution teaching the wisdom of Kabbalah—shows you how to recognize and understand the key spiritual laws in order to improve your life and the lives of everyone around you. The Way will teach you meditation and prayer techniques and how to reduce emotional chaos and increase personal harmony. At once groundbreaking and so clearly written that it is accessible to anyone following any spiritual path, The Way provides the spiritual power tools to attain true fulfillment and happiness.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780471228790 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | TURNER PUB CO |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2002 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 457,667 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.90(w) x 10.28(h) x 0.61(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Creating Fulfillment
Can a person's nature be changed by words on a page? Can letters and words on paper so deeply influence our consciousness that we are literally not the same person after we've read them? I believe--I know--that the material we are about to cover can have this effect. I have heard it over and over again, and I have discussed it and taught it on literally hundreds of occasions, and I discover something new every single time.
Let me preface this key topic with some brief observations. In recent years a number of books have tried to bring the wisdom of Kabbalah to a general audience. The great majority have been incomprehensible to most readers, and consequently they've failed to have a widespread impact. Not one of these books has discussed the concepts we will be covering in this section--which is puzzling, since they are absolutely essential kabbalistic teachings, and they're are also quite easy to understand.
Right now, before you read any further, please think for a moment about why you're looking at this page at this particular instant of your life. Are you browsing in a bookstore on your lunch hour? Perhaps you've been given The Way by a friend, or you're thinking of giving it as a gift yourself. Whatever the apparent reason, I would ask you to open yourself to another viewpoint--to the possibility that this is the exact moment when you are most ready to discover these teachings and take them to heart. It is said that Rabbi Isaac Luria, named the Ari, or lion, was so attuned to the state of people's souls that he could offer the precise teaching that any individual needed to hear at any given point in time. As you read this chapter, be aware that this ability on the part of the Ari was an expression of the overarching intelligence of the universe itself. There is a purpose--though perhaps a concealed one--to your reading about Kabbalah at this moment, just as there is a purpose to my writing about it. I believe from the bottom of my heart that the teachings you are about to discover can vastly--immeasurably--change your life for the better, and empower you to help others in the same way.
For each of us, life is a search. It may seem as if we're searching for different things--some for material wealth, others for knowledge, still others for fame and recognition--but these objectives are really just the outward expressions of an essential inner experience of well-being and joy. Kabbalah refers to this experience as fulfillment, a highly significant word.
Although many people gain brief moments of fulfillment over the course of their lives, few of us know it as an ongoing reality. It's here and then it's gone, like the flame of a match that burns for a moment and then becomes a little plume of swirling smoke. So our real search is not only for fulfillment, but for a way to somehow keep it a presence in our lives. On the very practical level of our daily experience, the purpose of Kabbalah is to make that happen--to make fulfillment a constant, not just for each individual, but for the world.
The tools of Kabbalah presented in this book don't need to be completely understood at the outset. They just need to be used. But as you use them, be sure to return again and again to the principles that underlie them, which will also be presented in these pages. These ideas should be constantly rethought. As we'll see, complacency is one of the greatest dangers to real growth. If you feel that you've thoroughly understood the concepts and that there's no need to revisit them, take it as a sign that revisiting is exactly what you need to do.
I think it's worth mentioning that I didn't make any of this up. Rather, I am privileged to have studied the wisdom of Kabbalah that has evolved over many centuries, and the purpose of The Way is to share that wisdom with you. There are many books on spirituality that derive from their authors' life experiences and gain their power from the authors' charisma or eloquence or depth of thought, but this is not one of those books. I do consider myself a reasonably intelligent person and an honest one, but I am not the incarnation of Kabbalah. As the person who is introducing you to this wisdom, I will try to do so to the best of my ability, but I really want you to focus on what I'm saying rather than how I'm saying it. For the few hours that you leaf through these pages, I am the medium, but the message is much larger than me. And I think you'll see just how vast that message really is as you proceed through the book.
The Creator
God is a word that frightens many people, for many different reasons.
Over the centuries, a multitude of different meanings and emotions have been attached to the word, many of them decidedly negative. The word God has been used to strike fear in children and to create guilt in adults. It has been used to justify military aggression and political ambition. It has come to signify a powerful and unpredictable entity that exists somewhere across a vast metaphysical divide--a being about whom it's difficult to say anything definite except that he, she, or it is very different from you or me. We've even heard fear of God described as if it were a good thing, as when someone is called a "God-fearing man."
In short, God is a word that carries a lot of baggage, and you may be surprised to learn that it's a word used rather sparingly in the kabbalistic teachings. One reason is the imprecise nature of the word itself. The first sentence of the Torah, for example, is usually translated, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." A great deal has been written about this sentence, and I will have more to say about it soon, but for now let's focus on the word for God in the original Hebrew text. The Hebrew word is Elohim, which refers specifically to God's judgment--as distinct from God's mercy, or from a more all-inclusive sense of God as an omniscient presence. In general, Kabbalah refers to God as the Creator, or as ein sof, which can loosely be translated as "the infinite."
In keeping with this preference, we'll rarely use the word God in this book, and most often we'll speak of the Creator. Although we will occasionally use the personal pronoun "He" when referring to the Creator, this is only for the sake of grammatical efficiency. Kabbalah teaches that a distinction does exist between male and female energies, but that the Creator transcends these gender categories. "He" encompasses both forms of energy. The Creator is an infinite force of positive energy, without beginning or end; the essence of all hope, peace, contentment, mercy, and fulfillment; the source of everything in Creation that opposes the forces of confusion and chaos and suffering and pain; an endless source of Light; and an unnamable timeless presence.
But these are attributes of the Creator, in the same way that judgment and mercy are attributes. They are the Creator's creations--but the whole of the Creator is unknowable and beyond our comprehension.
The energy of the Creator is carefully and lovingly distributed in our world, because the Creator's deepest intention is to share with us peace, joy, kindness, and love.
Kabbalah teaches that this sharing permeates the natural world--in physical things such as apples and airplanes, as well as in intangibles such as affection, loyalty, and kindness. Through these and all the other infinite varieties of matter and feeling, we catch a tiny glimpse--and only a glimpse--of the Creator's nature.
The Light of the Creator
Kabbalah refers to all these manifestations as the Light of the Creator. The Light is not only knowable, it is something we encounter in one form or another virtually every day. When we look into the eyes of children and are overwhelmed by their innocence and perfection, this is an aspect of the Light of the Creator. When we take pride in a job well done, when we treat others with respect, when we marvel at natural beauty or at a beautifully realized work of art, we are encountering the Light; conversely, sadness, loss of hope, and negativity in our lives are expressions of our separation from the Light. Kabbalah tells us that the feelings of peace, joy, and understanding that we gain from experiences of the Light in the physical realm only hint at the infinite fulfillment that is the Creator's essence. And whether we realize it or not, it is union with this essence that we're all searching for.
Unfortunately, the real meaning of this union and of the fulfillment that it brings are difficult concepts for most people to understand. Very often they're misconstrued as money, fame, power, or other tangible and temporary attributes of everyday life. Many of us are searching for those things, and we take pleasure in the excitement and satisfaction that they bring. But what if there were a way to make fulfillment a permanent presence, not just in your own life, but for literally everyone in the world?
The principles of Kabbalah introduced in this book guarantee that fulfillment. They just need to be used, and they can be used even before they're fully understood. Intellectual understanding is not the ultimate goal. Thinking about the concepts-- and especially putting them into action in the real world--are what counts.
Kabbalah gives us the tools to stay connected to the Creator's Light, and we accomplish this by drawing out the Light that is already within us.
We don't have to reach out to acquire anything new. We only need to take control of the power that has already been given to us. In fact, this power, the Light of the Creator, is the very stuff of which we are made--and deep down, we know this to be true. We feel that there's something transcendent within us, if only we could somehow make contact with it.
Much research has demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of us believe in some form of higher power, and many believe in God in a very traditional sense: God is all-powerful, and God is good. But how can an omnipotent, benevolent God allow the obvious pain and suffering that afflict our world to come into being, much less continue and even intensify? Is it naive to declare that this just doesn't make any sense? According to Kabbalah, it's not in the least naive. It's a major realization, and it's also the first step toward understanding what the Creator really intended. By revealing the Light of the Creator in ourselves and in the world around us, we can at last realize that intention. We can bring peace, joy, and fulfillment to all mankind.
The rocky path to transformation
Not long ago a student at the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles adopted a baby from China. Lori was nine months old at the time of her adoption, but her physical development was that of a child at least four months younger. She had spent almost her whole life lying flat on her back in an orphanage crib. She could not sit up or even roll over by herself. The back of her head had actually begun to flatten out due to her lack of mobility, and there was a large bald spot where her hair had been unable to grow.
When she arrived in America, for the first time Lori had a chance to move around on her own. Following the instructions of their pediatrician, her parents put a blanket on the floor and gently placed Lori in the center of it. At first she was so terrified that she seemed to enter a sort of trancelike state in order to escape the new and completely disorienting situation in which she found herself. And if any attempt was made to turn her over or stimulate her, she cried bitterly and quickly returned to her "comfort zone" on her back. To her parents, Lori seemed to be making no progress at all--yet Lori's doctor was surprisingly confident. There was no evidence of underlying neuromuscular damage, and, as the doctor put it, "Lori will eventually learn to walk because that's what she is meant to do. She's also meant to experience difficulty in walking, so that by overcoming those difficulties she can become stronger."
Before long, day by day, Lori began to make progress, though at first even the smallest transitions seemed terribly painful. If she managed to turn over, she immediately cried out in pain and again rolled onto her back. But later--sometimes after an hour, and sometimes after a full day--she would try again. Gradually progress happened more quickly, and within six months what had once seemed impossible had become reality. Lori had caught up. She could do everything that was to be expected of a child her age.
Why did Lori not simply give up when her first attempts at growth were so painful? Why did she not behave in accordance with a behaviorist model of pain avoidance? Why did this child, in her small way, choose to transform herself from one mode of existence to another? The answer, as her doctor pointed out, is that it was in her nature to do so. The difficulties she experienced, however painful they may have seemed, were simply of a different order of magnitude than the deeply ingrained objective of learning to walk.
On the path to transformation, you will undergo exactly this sort of experience. The path includes many obstacles, but the obstacles themselves are opportunities to renew your journey toward joy and fulfillment. It's misleading to speak of Kabbalah as difficult or demanding, because that places emphasis in the wrong place. Again, the obstacles are of a different order of magnitude than the objective. When you learned to walk, to speak, to read, or even to ride a bicycle, there were certainly mistakes and scraped knees and perhaps even a broken bone or two, but it was in your nature to accept and even to seek out those experiences as the price of positive change and ultimate fulfillment.
This--not sorrow, pain, or death--is your true destiny. But you are not just a recipient of this fulfillment. The Creator intends for you to be an essential participant in bringing it about, using the spiritual tools of Kabbalah that have been given to all mankind.
The Way is a user's manual for those tools. But it is not a quick fix. As we've discussed, transformation is not easy, nor is it supposed to be easy.
A kabbalistic tale makes this point very clearly.
Accomplish what you came here for
There was once a great scholar named Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, who had become known as the Netziv. He had many students and he had written dozens of books. One day the Netziv spoke to his students about how he had chosen his life's path, and this is the story he told:
When I was ten years old, I was a poor student. When I went to class, I fooled around. I didn't listen to my teachers. I was in trouble all the time. And one day I was in my room and I heard my mother crying as she talked with my father. I sneaked up to their bedroom door and listened. My mother said, "What are we going to do with Naftali? He doesn't study. He's failing his classes. They don't want to allow him back in school. Without schooling, he'll never amount to anything." I was shocked. I felt terrible that I had brought so much anguish to my mother. I dragged myself back to my room and I made a decision--from that day on I would focus on my studies and stop fooling around and listen to my teachers so that my mother would be happy again. And as you can see, I continued my studies, and I became a scholar, and now I'm a teacher with thousands of students and I've written many books.
But I often wonder what would have happened if I didn't hear my mother crying that day. I'm certain that I would have grown up to be a very nice person. I would have been the kind of person who gave to charity and went to synagogue regularly and prayed and studied a little and took care of my family in the best way that I knew. I would have lived a good, simple life. And after so many years I would die and stand before the Creator and the Creator would say, "Well, Rabbi Naftali."
Rabbi? What is He saying? I'm not a rabbi. I'm a nice guy, I'm a nice person, but I'm not a rabbi. Maybe there's been a mistake. But before I could correct Him, He would say, "Where are all your students?"
Students? Is He crazy? Where would I get students? I'm a simple guy. I'm a nice guy, but what do I know about teaching? I barely finished school. He's got me mixed up with somebody else. But before I could set Him straight, the Creator would ask, "And where are all the books that you've written?"
Books? What books? I could hardly read, let alone write. I could read the prayers. But books? No, I hadn't written any books.
And the Creator would have been disappointed.
Why? Why disappointed? I would have been a good person. A simple man, it's true, but good. I wouldn't have written any books, but I would have done no evil in the world. I wouldn't have any students, it's true, but hadn't I taken care of my family? Hadn't I given to charity and gone to synagogue regularly and learned all the prayers? Isn't that enough? What right would the Creator have to be disappointed in me?
The Creator would have a right to be disappointed because had I not heard my mother that day, I would not have reached my potential. Living a good, simple life--even a spiritual life--was not enough. Because the fact is all of us are put into this world with a particular job to do. Just because a person lives a good life doesn't mean that he accomplished what he was put into this world to do. And if we don't accomplish what we were put here to do, we disappoint the Creator, and we've wasted our lives.
But, you ask, how are we to know? How can we understand what we were put into this world to do? We are simple people. We can't see into the future. We can't know what the Creator has in mind for us.
And, of course, that's true. So the only way we can hope to achieve what we came into this world to accomplish, the only way we can hope to satisfy the Creator, is to always push ourselves to the limits of our potential and to never be satisfied with our spiritual accomplishments. Our job in this world is not about being a good person, or a spiritual person, or a wise person. It's not about giving a little charity or being nice to people and attending synagogue. It's about doing what we came to the world to accomplish. And though we may not know exactly what we came here for, we do know that without a constant push to change for the better, without our constant endeavor toward spiritual growth, we can never hope to fulfill our potential. And this is what the Creator expects of us.
This tale reveals a basic distinction between Kabbalah and other spiritual teachings. Kabbalah emphasizes that obstacles and challenges are guideposts to our true purpose in the world. They are stepping-stones to genuine transformation for each of us as individuals, and through us, for humanity as a whole. To understand exactly what this means, it's best to begin at the beginning, with Kabbalah's teaching of how the universe was created.
As we'll see in the next chapter, creation is not an event that took place at some distant point in the past. It is a continuing endeavor in which we participate at every moment, and the purpose of this book is to help you take part in that process in a way that brings you peace, joy, and ultimate fulfillment.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.Introduction.
The Night Fear.
The Benefits.
Using this Book.
Questions to Keep in Mind.
PART ONE: THE WAY OF KABBALAH.
Chapter 1: Creating Fulfillment.
Chapter 2: Kabbalah through the Ages.
Chapter 3: The Light and the Vessel.
PART TWO: GETTING READY FOR THE LIGHT.
Chapter 4: The Work of Living.
Chapter 5: Building a Relationship with the Creator.
Chapter 6: The Twelve Spiritual Laws of the Way.
PART THREE: SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION.
Chapter 7: Understanding Our Thoughts and Feelings.
Chapter 8: Using the Spiritual Tools.
Chapter 9: Sharing the Way.
Glossary.
Bibliography and Sources for Further Reading.
Index.