(Morality means: Never lying, and working honestly for a living, and not asking for handouts, and being married. The Ten Commandments.
I consider morality and holiness to be closely connected. (That I got from Hegel).
On the other hand Kabalah and/or Eastern religions tend (when they are effective in opening the gates to the beyond) to be traps. What I am trying to say is the standard common sense morality and logic and reason seems to me to be the only valid standards of behavior and spirituality. Logic may not be very good, but it is the best thing out there. Common sense does not seem perfect, but it is the best among all other options.
We must distinguish what we might call common sense morality. One ought not to tell lies, one ought to keep agreements, one ought not to attack others without provocation--these are all elements of common sense morality.
[I was at The Mir and then when I got to Israel I did get a kind of sense [immediate non-intuitive knowledge] for the spiritual realm. But I don't think this is exclusive. Also, I think that the basic reason that this path worked was for the basic moral values in the path
Torah contains two levels. A first level moral law and then a second level Divine Law. To see this in detail see the Rambam/(Maimonides). The first level is the law of the ancient Greeks, natural law. The next level is Mount Sinai. The Rambam holds the first level also needed Revelation. People are in no way automatically moral. To get even to the level of natural law needed some kind of Divine input.
Then when people were ready for it came the second level of Mount Sinai. Now what I wanted to point out is the are plenty of aspects of the first level of natural law in the Torah. Because the Rambam and the Talmud make clear that the Laws of the Torah have reasons. And these reasons are not mysterious. They are knowable. and the Rambam [Maimonides] himself gives some of the reasons, some of which are straightforward natural law.]
Now I can get to my point after this introduction. The point is once one gets in connect with the spiritual realm the basic event that happens is the Dark Side shows up, and also ego inflation occurs. This is totally outside the basic effect of learning kabalistic literature which causes ego inflation even when one is not in contact with the spiritual realm.
The essential event that happens is one starts to think of himself as the Messiah or as G-d or the true tzadik or many other variations of ego inflation.
The fact of ego inflation does not take away the fact that one may have true insights into spiritual and human nature. In this mixed realm, great insight and miracles tend to be mixed with an overgrown ego and personality problems that get inflated because of the power of this realm. I have not seen or heard any safeguards against this. Every spiritual group that I have seen or heard of seems to have the same exact set of problems.
I consider morality and holiness to be closely connected. (That I got from Hegel).
On the other hand Kabalah and/or Eastern religions tend (when they are effective in opening the gates to the beyond) to be traps. What I am trying to say is the standard common sense morality and logic and reason seems to me to be the only valid standards of behavior and spirituality. Logic may not be very good, but it is the best thing out there. Common sense does not seem perfect, but it is the best among all other options.
We must distinguish what we might call common sense morality. One ought not to tell lies, one ought to keep agreements, one ought not to attack others without provocation--these are all elements of common sense morality.
[I was at The Mir and then when I got to Israel I did get a kind of sense [immediate non-intuitive knowledge] for the spiritual realm. But I don't think this is exclusive. Also, I think that the basic reason that this path worked was for the basic moral values in the path
Torah contains two levels. A first level moral law and then a second level Divine Law. To see this in detail see the Rambam/(Maimonides). The first level is the law of the ancient Greeks, natural law. The next level is Mount Sinai. The Rambam holds the first level also needed Revelation. People are in no way automatically moral. To get even to the level of natural law needed some kind of Divine input.
Then when people were ready for it came the second level of Mount Sinai. Now what I wanted to point out is the are plenty of aspects of the first level of natural law in the Torah. Because the Rambam and the Talmud make clear that the Laws of the Torah have reasons. And these reasons are not mysterious. They are knowable. and the Rambam [Maimonides] himself gives some of the reasons, some of which are straightforward natural law.]
Now I can get to my point after this introduction. The point is once one gets in connect with the spiritual realm the basic event that happens is the Dark Side shows up, and also ego inflation occurs. This is totally outside the basic effect of learning kabalistic literature which causes ego inflation even when one is not in contact with the spiritual realm.
The essential event that happens is one starts to think of himself as the Messiah or as G-d or the true tzadik or many other variations of ego inflation.
The fact of ego inflation does not take away the fact that one may have true insights into spiritual and human nature. In this mixed realm, great insight and miracles tend to be mixed with an overgrown ego and personality problems that get inflated because of the power of this realm. I have not seen or heard any safeguards against this. Every spiritual group that I have seen or heard of seems to have the same exact set of problems.
