Mountains are no longer mountains, rivers are no longer rivers.
But:
Mountains are again mountains, rivers are again rivers.
And:
If it looks the same, feels the same then it is same.
It can not be seen.
If it is seen it is not it.
Hence we see pattern.
Do not try to make cense of those patterns because there is no meaning in them, if there would have been, they wouldn't be it.
Do not create symbols of something,
create symbols for the symbols sake,
and let those that see create the meaning.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
“Kabbalah Revealed” Episode 1 – A Basic Overview
I stumbled over this video (in the title) one day, and Kabbalah is something new to me so I decided to watch them, but as I watched them I had some comments to make, and this is what it's all about me writing down comments. If you want to watch the video I am commenting on just google the title.
I will not argue for or against Kabbalah, since I don't practice any religion there is no gain for me to demote or promote any of them, I will just try to understand the meaning behind the words he is saying and meaning of Kabbalah and write it down as I understand it in clear text.
I write down comments as I watch the video hence some things may be repeated or changed in the same order they do in the video. I don't comment on every single word in the video but only on things that seem to need commenting.
Lets begin:
The reason for one as far as this introductory video goes is that Kabbalah predates any religions. Reading up from other sources it seems that they claim that Kabbalah has its source in Eden and the founder was Adam himself, accepting those claims would of-course make Kabbalah predate any religion. But it is believed that Kabbalah originally was a part of Judaism's oral law given to Moses by God.
Wether Kabbalah predates any religion or not can not be decided here, but even if we assume that it does, wether something is a religion or not is not decided by date, but by content, and Kabbalah certainly has many elements in it that are characteristic of religions.
But it is important for Kabbalah to predate everything because he goes on saying that religions is disconnection from upper force and misunderstanding of Kabbalah, hence the argument is that the Kabbalah is the original truth and all deviations from it in form of Judaism and other religions are misunderstandings of Kabbalah.
But it is just taking it one extra step, if you believe that Kabbalah originated in Eden then yes their claim is true, if it originated with Moses then it is false, just as if Jesus was son of God then Christianity is the truth else its just a philosophy of Jesus. In other words it is a classical religious argument, one has to accept/believe certain things in order for the argument to be true, which also solidifies the claim that Kabbalah is a religion.
For the second that Kabbalah is a science the claim is that it is a way to make a direct connection with things that seem magical. How that differs from any other religions where people claim to have direct connection with God I don't know, but by that argument any other religion where you believe to have direct connection with something you believe to exist is also science. In other words it is the same reasoning as above taking it one step further, believing in higher forces is religion and mysticism, while believing that you have direct connection to the forces you believe in is science.
Now lets continue, he says that Kabbalah is not for everyone and one should turn to Kabbalah only if one find no answerers anywhere else. This will makes people that pick up Kabbalah feel good about it because they will feel special since they are doing something that is not for everyone.
But this is again a clever way to turn people to Kabbalah since human nature is such that there is always more questions then answers especially in religions where the subject is of the nature that by definition can't be known to the people, hence no matter what background you have you will always have questions about some things about God or spirituality because there is no way of knowing for sure. Hence basically saying Kabbalah is not for everyone but only for people with questions, that everyone has. Once again taking it one extra step, making it sound good, but at closer inspections saying same thing as every other religion.
People that study Kabbalah will be changed and will appear strange to others that are not, also common claim by religions.
You will find answers to the meaning of life in Kabbalah, also not an original claim, but there are few more videos to watch, so we'll see if that is true, but I guess one has to devote the whole life to it in order for that claim to be true, just as in any other religion. (then meaning of life will become the finding of meaning of life in this or that religion since you devoted your life to it)
There are also 125 steps from this world to the ultimate reality which is the goal to reach because by doing so you will become enlightened. This stepping is very common among sects to commit people, since people always want to reach higher levels and don't want to loose what they already have, that why all MMORG games always have levels and for every level the character gets better and better, and people spend countless hours and money to do repetitive, boring and utterly pointless things to get to the next level. And when the maximum level is reached in a game, that game start dying, since there is not a whole lot fun left to do, so people start collecting equipment, but that doesn't last for long, so to keep the game alive developers release expansions with more levels, because as long as there are levels to climb there will be people doing that.
Also already here he says that the plan is to rejoin what we call creator or that ultimate reality, hence the whole purpose is to climb those levels. This is directly connected to finding of meaning of life he mentioned earlier. I don't know but I would guess that there are very few people that has climbed all 125 levels and reached the creator in their life, hence the meaning of life you get from Kabbalah is to climb those levels all your life.
This concludes this video.
Afterthought:
I made some comparisons with other religions in this post, and of-course one way to look at it is that Kabbalah is just another religion since it has same claims, but a person that believes in Kabbalah would probably argue that it is not Kabbalah that is similar to other religions but those other religions are misunderstandings of Kabbalah, but since they are still based on Kabbalah it is natural that there are similar claims, but the ways other religions try to accomplish it are mostly wrong.
I will not argue for or against Kabbalah, since I don't practice any religion there is no gain for me to demote or promote any of them, I will just try to understand the meaning behind the words he is saying and meaning of Kabbalah and write it down as I understand it in clear text.
I write down comments as I watch the video hence some things may be repeated or changed in the same order they do in the video. I don't comment on every single word in the video but only on things that seem to need commenting.
Lets begin:
The reason for one as far as this introductory video goes is that Kabbalah predates any religions. Reading up from other sources it seems that they claim that Kabbalah has its source in Eden and the founder was Adam himself, accepting those claims would of-course make Kabbalah predate any religion. But it is believed that Kabbalah originally was a part of Judaism's oral law given to Moses by God.
Wether Kabbalah predates any religion or not can not be decided here, but even if we assume that it does, wether something is a religion or not is not decided by date, but by content, and Kabbalah certainly has many elements in it that are characteristic of religions.
But it is important for Kabbalah to predate everything because he goes on saying that religions is disconnection from upper force and misunderstanding of Kabbalah, hence the argument is that the Kabbalah is the original truth and all deviations from it in form of Judaism and other religions are misunderstandings of Kabbalah.
But it is just taking it one extra step, if you believe that Kabbalah originated in Eden then yes their claim is true, if it originated with Moses then it is false, just as if Jesus was son of God then Christianity is the truth else its just a philosophy of Jesus. In other words it is a classical religious argument, one has to accept/believe certain things in order for the argument to be true, which also solidifies the claim that Kabbalah is a religion.
For the second that Kabbalah is a science the claim is that it is a way to make a direct connection with things that seem magical. How that differs from any other religions where people claim to have direct connection with God I don't know, but by that argument any other religion where you believe to have direct connection with something you believe to exist is also science. In other words it is the same reasoning as above taking it one step further, believing in higher forces is religion and mysticism, while believing that you have direct connection to the forces you believe in is science.
Now lets continue, he says that Kabbalah is not for everyone and one should turn to Kabbalah only if one find no answerers anywhere else. This will makes people that pick up Kabbalah feel good about it because they will feel special since they are doing something that is not for everyone.
But this is again a clever way to turn people to Kabbalah since human nature is such that there is always more questions then answers especially in religions where the subject is of the nature that by definition can't be known to the people, hence no matter what background you have you will always have questions about some things about God or spirituality because there is no way of knowing for sure. Hence basically saying Kabbalah is not for everyone but only for people with questions, that everyone has. Once again taking it one extra step, making it sound good, but at closer inspections saying same thing as every other religion.
People that study Kabbalah will be changed and will appear strange to others that are not, also common claim by religions.
You will find answers to the meaning of life in Kabbalah, also not an original claim, but there are few more videos to watch, so we'll see if that is true, but I guess one has to devote the whole life to it in order for that claim to be true, just as in any other religion. (then meaning of life will become the finding of meaning of life in this or that religion since you devoted your life to it)
There are also 125 steps from this world to the ultimate reality which is the goal to reach because by doing so you will become enlightened. This stepping is very common among sects to commit people, since people always want to reach higher levels and don't want to loose what they already have, that why all MMORG games always have levels and for every level the character gets better and better, and people spend countless hours and money to do repetitive, boring and utterly pointless things to get to the next level. And when the maximum level is reached in a game, that game start dying, since there is not a whole lot fun left to do, so people start collecting equipment, but that doesn't last for long, so to keep the game alive developers release expansions with more levels, because as long as there are levels to climb there will be people doing that.
Also already here he says that the plan is to rejoin what we call creator or that ultimate reality, hence the whole purpose is to climb those levels. This is directly connected to finding of meaning of life he mentioned earlier. I don't know but I would guess that there are very few people that has climbed all 125 levels and reached the creator in their life, hence the meaning of life you get from Kabbalah is to climb those levels all your life.
This concludes this video.
Afterthought:
I made some comparisons with other religions in this post, and of-course one way to look at it is that Kabbalah is just another religion since it has same claims, but a person that believes in Kabbalah would probably argue that it is not Kabbalah that is similar to other religions but those other religions are misunderstandings of Kabbalah, but since they are still based on Kabbalah it is natural that there are similar claims, but the ways other religions try to accomplish it are mostly wrong.
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