The Creatorʼs Concealment and Revelation

Double Concealment (concealment inside concealment)

In this state the person does not even feel the opposite side of the Creator,

cannot perceive anything as coming from Him. He feels that the Creator

abandoned him, disregards him completely. He attributes suffering to destiny

and blind nature. Being confused by the Creatorʼs attitude to him, man loses

faith.

Description:

When the person prays about his misfortunes and performs good deeds, but

receives no response.

After he stops praying he suddenly receives an answer.

As the person begins to believe in the Divine Providence and corrects his

actions he is ruthlessly thrown back.

As he stops believing and commits evil deeds, luck comes his way and he

feels peace.

Money is gained by crooked ways.

It seems that those who aspire to the Creator are poor, sick, despised,

uncivilized, stupid hypocrites.

Those who do not seek the Creator seem to be prosperous, healthy, calm,

clever, kind, amiable and self-assured.

When the Divine Providence invokes such a feeling, the person wishes to

forget that suffering comes from the Creator. This leads him to loss of faith in

the Creatorʼs rule over the creation and compels him to believe that everything

happens at natureʼs whim.

Single Concealment

The Creator is concealed, i.e. He manifests not as absolutely kind, but as the

One who brings suffering. The person seems to see the opposite side of the

Creator, since he only receives sufferings from Him. He nevertheless believes

that everything that comes to him is for a reason, that the Creator treats him

this way to punish him for his evil actions or to lead him goodness. Thus he

strengthens his faith in the Creatorʼs supervision.

Description:

The person is poor, sick and despised by people. He is anxious and nothing

seems to be right in his life.

Revelation

Although in concealment, the personʼs faith in the Creatorʼs rule over the

world grows stronger. This leads him to books from which he receives the

light of correction and an understanding of how to strengthen his faith in the

Creatorʼs rule.

When his effort to believe in the Creatorʼs Providence reaches sufficient

measure allowing the light of correction to influence him, he becomes ready

for the Creatorʼs rule over him in the state of revelation. The Creator reveals

Himself to all of His created beings as the “Good and Kind One” in

accordance with their desires.

Description:

The person feels the Creatorʼs goodness, peace, constant satisfaction, earns

enough money without effort, knows no troubles and ailments; he is respected

and successful.

If he wishes something, he prays and immediately receives it from the

Creator.

The more good deeds he performs, the more successful he becomes and vice

versa, the less good he does, the less successful he becomes.

The person sees that all those who aspire for correction are well-to-do,

healthy, respected, calm and amiable, while those who neglect correction are

poor, sick, contemptible, stupid, uncultured hypocrites.

Baal HaSulam

The Bright One

The Bright One!

And from the Heavens He shines.

There—within the curtain of the screen.

The secret of the righteous is there made clear,

And Light and darkness shine together.

How good it is to delve in His deeds,

But beware not to reach out your hand for Him.

Then shall you hear Him, and so will you meet Him,

In the tower of might, the All Inclusive Name.

You shall relish in words of truth,

To speak untainted words.

And all you will see,

Your own eyes will see, and not a foreignerʼs eye!

Baal HaSulam

Intentional Love

We have been speaking of “the teachings of wisdom” and we have been trying to see the work of love in the light of these teachings.  We have been trying to understand the work of love as the task of supporting each other’s search for the life of meaning that wisdom tells us is possible and necessary for humanity.

The flash and glory of falling in love can awaken us, body and soul, to a great unknown within ourselves.  But when we live together and face the day-to-day details of life, the continual pressures and complications, the fears and resentments, the disappointments and the strangely hollow triumphs, the everydayness of it all, the physical, emotional, and mental labyrinth of “life itself,” how can we go on loving each other in a way that is more than only a yearning for another beginning?  Another beginning of love, a beginning that, like all human processes, must inevitably come to a crossroads where something intentional and conscious is needed.  To be “romantic,” in the derogatory sense of the word, is to turn away again and again from the crossroads of the process of love, the place where what is automatically given to us by nature must be joined by something intentional from ourselves.  To be romantic, in the derogatory sense, is to yearn only for automatic love. But the work of love begins where automatic love ends.

The wisdom teachings do not speak much of automatic love, or about what we nowadays call “relationships.”  This is so much so that one might even wonder if men and women of other cultures and worlds experienced anything like the difficulties and rewards that are part of intimate relationships in our culture.  In fact, it is probably true that in our industrial and postindustrial society, with all the social changes that have been wrought by technology, the psychological demands of living together are startlingly different in many respects.

But that is not the main point.  The point is that when the traditions of wisdom speak about love, they are speaking almost without exception of love that is intentional love “at the crossroads” and beyond.  Confusion enters in mainly because the love spoken of by wisdom is mistakenly viewed as existing on the same level as automatic love.  It is a serious error to confuse the kind of love that is given to us by nature with the kind of love we must work for.  And, of course, we will never even imagine the work of love if we assume that the higher forms of love are on the same level as the love that is given to us automatically.

- Excerpt from Jacob Needleman’s book, “The Wisdom of Love”

We're all sinners but the gates to Hell are marked His and Hers

From The Times

February 18, 2009

Richard Owen and Jack Malvern

Sex discrimination is destined to continue in the scorching fires of Hell, according to a study approved by the Vatican which suggests that men are most likely to commit lustful sins whereas women are beholden to pride.

The men, it seems, are the ones whose souls end up being pelted with fire and brimstone, while the women's souls are more likely to be broken on a wheel.

Monsignor Wojciech Giertych, personal theologian to Pope Benedict XVI and the papal household, said there was “no sexual equality” when it came to sin. “Men and women sin in different ways,” he wrote in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Pride ranks only at No 5 for men, who are likely to have indulged in so much lust and gluttony that they are too slothful to feel angry, proud, envious or avaricious. Women are not averse to lust, but are primarily occupied with pride, envy and anger. Sloth does not set in until after gluttony and avarice.

RELATED LINKS

• Gates to Hell: view from the confessional

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“When you look at vices from the point of view of the difficulties they create you find that men experiment in a different way from women,” Monsignor Giertych said. His own observations had confirmed the survey, an analysis of confessional data carried out by Roberto Busa, 96, a Jesuit priest celebrated for his computerised study of the works of St Thomas Aquinas.

He said: “Diverse cultural contexts generate diverse habits - but human nature remains the same.”

Monsignor Giertych said that human weaknesses could “purify faith” provided that they were “admitted and offered up to God”.

However, 30 per cent of Catholics no longer considered confession to a priest necessary, and 10 per cent even said that it “impeded their personal dialogue with God”.

Many believers accept the broad seven deadly sins or “capital vices” laid down in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and popularised in the Middle Ages by Aquinas, and by Dante in The Inferno.

Last year the Vatican added seven new ones: genetic modification; human experimentations: polluting the environment; social injustice; causing poverty; “financial gluttony”; and taking or selling drugs.

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body that oversees confessions, said that two mortal sins which continued to preoccupy the Vatican were abortion and paedophilia. The latter had even infected the clergy itself, and so had exposed the “human and institutional fragility of the Church”.

A Connection Through the Times

There are two engines on the the “Kennedy” spacecraft, each engine five-feet wide. The spacecraft engineers wanted to make the engines wider, but couldn’t. That’s because the engines were delivered by railroad, and the distance between the rails was only five feet (or rather, four feet 8.5 inches). Why?

It’s because the American-made railroad was modeled after the British model, and in Great Britain the railroad was modeled after the trolleys, and the trolleys were modeled after horse-trams, and the width of the horse-trams was specifically made so the wheels would fall into tracks, and the distance between the tracks in Great Britain is five feet.

And that’s because the roads in Great Britain were paved by the Romans to fit the size of their military chariots, which were five feet wide. And that’s because the chariots were led by two horses and this was the width of two horses’ behinds!

So the size of the spacecraft’s engines depends on the size of a horse’s behind 2,000 years ago!

Michael Laitman

Who Believes In God?

A Parable: 

Once upon a time, in a small American town, a businessman decided to open a bar. The problem was that the bar was on the same street as a church. Obviously, the church officials weren’t happy about this, and at every sermon they called upon the citizens to protest the opening of the bar and to pray for God to punish the immoral businessman.

The day before the bar’s Grand Opening, there was a tremendous thunderstorm. Suddenly, lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.

The church officials rejoiced, but their festivities did not last long because the bar owner sued them, demanding a compensation for his loss. Of course, the church officials denied any responsibility for the matter.

After hearing out both sides, the judge noted: “Based on the evidence, it appears that the bar owner believes in the power of a prayer, but the church officials do not!”

Michael Laitman

Do You Believe In Life After Birth?

A joke I received:

In the belly of a pregnant woman, two babies are having a conversation. One of them is a believer and the other is an atheist.

The Atheist: Do you believe in life after birth?

The Believer: Of course I do. Everybody knows there is life after birth. We are here in order to grow strong enough and prepared for what awaits us after it.

The Atheist: Nonsense! There can’t be life after birth! Can you imagine how this life would be?

The Believer: I don’t know all the details, but I believe there’s more light, and maybe we will walk and feed ourselves there.

The Atheist: Rubbish! It’s impossible to walk and feed ourselves! Ridiculous! We have the umbilical cord that feeds us. I just want to point this out to you: Life after birth can’t exist because our life, the cord, is already too short.

The Believer: I am sure it’s possible. It will be just a little different. I can envision it.

The Atheist: But there is nobody who has ever returned from it! Life simply ends with birth. And frankly, life is just one big suffering in the dark.

The Believer: No, no! I don’t know how life after birth will be exactly, but in any case, we will meet our mother and she will take care of us!

The Atheist: Mother? You think we have a mother? So, where is she then?

The Believer: She is everywhere around us, and we are in her! We move because of her and thanks to her, we move and live! Without her, we wouldn’t exist.

The Atheist: Baloney! I haven’t seen any such mother; hence, there is none.

The Believer: I can’t agree with you. In fact, sometimes, when everything calms down, we can hear her sing and feel how she caresses our world. I strongly believe that our real life will begin only after birth.

And what about you, dear reader?

Michael Laitman