Description

Michael Laitman, PhD outlines the evolution of desire, how it relates to a person׳s own life and to humanity's evolution.

Transcript

Kabbalah explains that our levels of development depend on our will to receive. That’s our substance—our will to receive, which evolves continuously. However, the development of the will to receive is gradual.
   
First, it evolves into physical desires, focusing on what the body needs. Even if people live alone, they would still want food, sex, family, and home. This is what their bodies need. So these physical desires were the first to develop during the early generations of humanity. Then came the need for wealth and money. The will to receive kept growing.
   
Following the desire for money came the desire for honor and power. Now we see that many more people began to evolve. Those who had been focused on physical desires moved on to desires for wealth. Those with desires for wealth went on to seek honor and power. And following honor came the desire for scientific knowledge, from the Middle Ages onward, and especially at the time of the Renaissance.
   
In our times, a desire for spirituality has begun to awaken. Every time people come into this world, they come with a greater will to receive, and with a greater ego behind that will. That’s why all the teachings must be concealed, so people don’t misuse them.

When does the will to receive spirituality appear? After the person has completely despaired of his own development at previous levels and has reached the state where it seems there’s nothing in this world that will fulfill him. Only then does he ask: what is the purpose of my life? Why do I exist? What is the reason for this life, and for all the suffering?

These questions will lead a person to question his origin, “Where is my life from?” These questions are from a Higher Plane, so to speak. (The Zohar states that humanity would start asking these questions en masse as of the year 1995.) This is the earthly will to receive, everything that happens to us here, in this world. And from here on begins the spiritual will to receive.

Now the seeker begins to ask about things beyond this world, about the reasons beyond those in this world. At this point it is time for the wisdom of Kabbalah to be revealed. Why? Because Kabbalah will answer those questions, and when its wisdom is revealed, the revelation will improve us, support us and correct us.

Once we are corrected, we will be protected against our egos and we won’t harm ourselves. We will also understand how reality is constructed, and understand the Upper World. And we will know the Providence and the governance from the Upper World over us.
   
Only then, after the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed, will we be permitted to open up all the other teachings and learn how incorrectly we have done everything in the past. At that point we will certainly not harm ourselves.
   
This is why nowadays the whole world is facing a very difficult period of crisis. In the past, whenever there was a crisis, it would be replaced by another crisis. If there was an economic crisis, it was replaced by a spiritual one. If it wasn’t a spiritual crisis, then it turned into a cultural one; and if not cultural, then technological. They somehow kept replacing one another, and thus humanity went on evolving.
   
But today, we’ve reached a point where no matter what kind of experts we talk to—philosophers, physicists, humanists, scientists, sociologists—all come to a screeching halt in their development. They’re completely lacking in the ability to envision the right path to follow. They’re unable to see or understand, and they feel unable to develop further.

At this point, say the Kabbalists, and only at this point, must the wisdom of Kabbalah be revealed, because it provides the answers these experts are seeking. In other words, now there is a lack, and the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed according to that lack. Thus today it is time for it to be revealed.
   
What is the need for its disclosure, and what does it do? In that regard Baal HaSulam wrote the following in the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

“What does The Wisdom revolve around? ... That this wisdom is a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, in fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal, described as, ‘The revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.’”