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Home » Writer's Blogs » Bnei-Baruch Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Blog Bnei Baruch (70) Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education &Research Institute Kabbalah On Happiness: They Lived Happily Ever After! Posted Saturday, January 17, 2009 (309 days ago.) Viewed 8 times. Just close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine what kind of feeling this phrase elicits. Allow yourself to float away on a dream of it, to explore your hopes and wishes that come with this open-ended phrase. Perhaps right now you feel very happy or sad or somewhere in between, but when it comes to tomorrow and beyond, it is very hard to grasp this notion of a promising future, and yet it is something we all desire without really knowing what it is and if it is actually something we can achieve. No one wants to live an unhappy life forever after, nor do we like to see or read stories of such unhappiness. The goal of achieving happiness is something that makes life worthwhile, that motivates us to move forward, and gives us a sense of purpose . Like in many stories, we know that happiness is something that can only be obtained after we have gone through some initial struggles, and along with these struggles, many times we will have to make some sacrifices. This is a commonly accepted fact of life: happiness needs to be earned; it has a price, and this price is different for each and every one of us. Only when we have overcome these struggles and paid our price, will we enter this promising second part of our lives, the " ever after ." So what is happiness? And what is forever after? If you have your own definition of happiness, and you feel content with it, just search a little on the Internet and you will find out that it is a disputable concept and that it also depends heavily on who defines it. A philosopher would tell us something completely different than a psychologist, a scientist, a religious person, a biologist, or a politician. Going from an individual level to a global level, we have rated our world according to certain happiness indexes, such as the Happy Planet Index, which show us that there are indeed countries that seem to be happy while others feel "less" happy to even unhappy. The index also shows us that happiness will stagnate at a certain level, meaning that people can only derive so much happiness from their physical environment and that there is something more that humans need in order to obtain lasting happiness. The quest for happiness keeps us occupied; we all want it, we know that it will fulfill us, and we know that we need to do something in order to get it. However, we will have a hard time finding a structured approach to reach this happiness for " ever after ," which is a very carefully chosen expression and gives us a sensation of eternity, as opposed to something that stops at the end of our physical lives. So, how do we rise above our situation that is limited by our genetics, the society we live in, and the esoteric pleasures that are offered to us? We may reach a certain level of happiness for a limited time, but is there a way to reach the "ever after" of happiness? The ancient wisdom of Kabbalah can give us an interesting perspective on this classic phrase. The fact is that on an individual level we will not find an answer on how to reach this everlasting feeling of happiness since our happiness depends on that of others, as stated so beautifully in writings by Baal HaSulam , the great 20 th Century Kabbalist. "Unity of the society is the source of happiness and well being, whereas separation between people is the source of all miseries. All fortunes and well being depend only on the drawing together and unification of the global community." Global events, such as the financial crisis of the last few months have shown us how the world is interconnected and that people all over the world must join together in unity to survive, by understanding and living the concept of "love thy neighbour as thyself." It is through the interconnection with others that we will find the happiness which all humans seek. We have learned that we will need to put effort into making the words of Baal HaSulam a reality and a goal in order to reach this unity, but then, once we have accomplished this goal ...we will live a happy life in unity for ever after. Permalink         Comments (0) Kabbalah: Upside Down? Inside Out? Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 (313 days ago.) Viewed 14 times. Have you ever looked at your life and just simply wondered? What is this all about? Why am I here? What should I be doing? Why do I feel so badly so much of the time? Why does getting hired feel good and getting released feel awful? Why is the birth of a baby a joy to be celebrated and the death of a loved one deeply grieved? These very questions are the same ones that have been asked throughout the ages. Every religion and philosophy has attempted to answer these very basic questions. The answers are logical. They make sense. And yet, something is missing. The individual receiving the answer is not able to sense it. And there lies the problem. The ancient wisdom of Kabbalah not only answers these very profound questions, but also offers the promise of sensing the reality of our existence in a very different manner. What if all the perceptions we are experiencing are simply not what we think they are? What in the world does that mean? In our lives there are many examples of misperceptions. We evaluate our world by our five senses. Based on the perception of those senses, we calculate whether something is good or bad. That calculation is decided by the individualized perception of the perceiver. An example is that one individual loves the taste of vanilla ice cream. A different individual cannot even eat vanilla ice cream and loves chocolate ice cream. The flavors of vanilla and chocolate remain the same. The calculation is assessed by the sense of taste of the perceiver. Seeing how perception calculates the sensation, what happens if one's perception is off? What if the perceiver is not perceiving reality in the correct form? So now let us go back to these questions. Most of the world believes that we are here on this planet to be teachers, doctors, or stockbrokers. Our goal is to be a good wife or father. We are born, educated, work and die. That is our life here on earth. Or, is it? What if the reality is that our life here is for a specific reason ? Maybe our life here is to experience something we have not yet realized. Most of us have experienced a yearning for something we cannot quite grasp. It is as though no matter what we have, there is still something missing. When that feeling occurs, the basic questions in the first paragraph of this article take on a life of their own. The questions become a living, breathing entity and one feels the importance of getting these questions answered. In fact, the feeling becomes more and more powerful. It becomes a driving force in one's life. In some people, it eventually becomes the reason for one's life. According to Kabbalah, the only way to answer these questions is through the use of a sense we were not born with. We can call it a "sixth sense." It is what allows us to sense reality "right side up." Until one feels the need to answer these life questions, he or she is not motivated to seek the missing sense. It would be like asking if you miss a sixth finger. Since we never had one, it is not missed. However, surely one would miss of their present five. There is so much in our reality we are not sensing when we use only our five senses. And, that is how we are living our lives. We taste, smell, see, hear and touch. Those calculations form our reality. That is why our world seems at times to be upside down and inside out. Just notice in your daily life, how many times one of your perceptions is wrong. T he ancient wisdom of Kabbalah is comparable to a map that can change the way we live our lives. Changing one's perception can change one's life. This sentence sounds so simple. Changing the perception is much more challenging! Permalink         Comments (0) Where Do We Go From Here?! Posted Saturday, January 03, 2009 (323 days 1 hour ago.) Viewed 10 times. Look around you, what do you see? Turmoil, strife, hate, war, poverty . Is this any way to live? It seems like every time you pick up a newspaper or watch TV, you are struck by the fact that the whole population of earth is spinning wildly out of control and on the verge of a serious crash . So how did we get here, and more importantly, how do we move away from the precipice? When we are bombarded by such immense symptoms it is easy to lose sight of the underlying causes of the problems. However with a cursory analysis, some causes jump out at you. Greed After the apparent failure of Communism and Socialism in the late 1970s, the world started looking for another economic solution. Free market economists eloquently expounded on the principle that society would be best served if people followed their self-interest even to the point of what might be called greed. The logic was that people would be good stewards of their resources because they would intuitively know that in the long run, they would hurt themselves by crass exploitation. The folly of this logic has been confirmed by history many times over, yet it is so intellectually appealing that every 25 years we seem to have to relearn the lesson. Self-Concern When people simple look out for number 1' it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that often the world is a zero sum game. As such, if I take more than what I really need, I am in effect taking away someone else's needs. The effects of this logic are dramatically demonstrated by the percentage of natural resources that the industrialized nations take versus what's left over for the second and third world nations. Need for Instant Gratification When a society constantly pursues instant gratification , the long run opportunities and well being of the society are put at great risk. The reason is that such behavior inevitably leads to overextending one's credit. Since the main motivation continues to be instant gratification, there is little effort made to bring expenditures in line with income until the society is on the verge of ruin. Belief that Might is Right' - When nations believe that whoever is stronger militarily or economically gets to make the rules, the stage is set for a continuing struggle where the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker until the whole system collapses under the weight of the inequity. This logic is not intuitive since it would appear that the strong will always be able to overrule the weak, but history shows that eventually a breaking point is arrived at due to the degenerative effect exploitation has on the fabric of the exploiting society. Intolerance As long as someone feels superior to others, they have no problem exploiting other people and their resources. Furthermore, people tend to follow leaders who confirm their superiority and will perform all nature of negative actions in the pursuit of what they believe are their God given rights.' Indeed it is hard to find fault with your nation or its leaders when God is on your side'. So how do we turn this around? When one considers these underlying causes, it becomes apparent that the root cause of all our problems is the nature of humans to view every situation from the stand point of will I receive pleasure from my action?' If the answer is yes, we pursue it; if no, we don't. This is the basis of all human nature. The problem is that as long as we continue to behave in this manner we will continue to have problems, and as the economists say, the problems will increase at an increasing rate. This is because as our knowledge of technology grows our ability to truly ruin the planet also grows. It is obvious that the only way to turn this around is to understand that we are all in this together. To paraphrase many religions, we need to love our neighbor as ourselves .' But how do we do this? There really are enough resources, jobs, wealth, food, etc to adequately take care of all humanity. The catch is we must put our ego aside to make this situation a reality. We can't legislate this behavior, though many societies have tried and failed. Nor can we guilt' people into behaving correctly. Realistically there is only way we can get from our current place of overwhelming egoism to a place of mutual support and satisfaction, and that is through growing spiritually. The best way to grow spiritually is to immerse oneself in a program of training that is based on scientific principles and not on appeals to emotions. Throughout history that approach has been through the science of Kabbalah . Permalink         Comments (0)

Archives: November 2009 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30           « Oct     Previous Posts: Kabbalah On Happiness: They Lived Happily Ever After! Kabbalah: Upside Down? Inside Out? Where Do We Go From Here?! Teach Each Your Children If Only Still, Something is Missing? Kabbalah! Its The End of The World (As We Know It) Hidden Lesson of the Ryder Cup All Posts by Bnei Baruch Related Posts: Submission Did Jesus Christ Have Long Hair? Phoenix! The Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe The Apparition at Knock Ireland - August 21, 1879 Necessary Freedom Send God A Text! Saint John of the Cross and His Path of Self-Renunciation

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