If We Could Experience People's Suffering in Wars and Natural Disasters, Could We Make Better Choices in Our Future Paths?
Experiencing suffering from wars or natural disasters does not grant us the ultimate choice that we need to make: free choice. In such cases, we simply submit to the blows, which is no free choice. Nature is specifically interested in our conscious choice to ascend to the next level of development, otherwise it is no human choice at all.
The transition from the still level of natural development to the vegetative, and from the vegetative to the animate, happens under nature’s pressure. Today's humanity is a result of this evolutionary development. However, now we must take the next step consciously, not instinctively. We need to ascend from the animate to the human level of development in an entirely new way. It is why the wisdom of Kabbalah surfaces today as a system of knowledge. After developing through the still, vegetative, and animate stages, we now have a unique tendency within us, a drive to rise above our personal selves, our self-aimed desires.
We exist in an intermediary state. Between still and vegetative matter, we find corals; between vegetative and animate life, there is the so-called “dog of the field,” and between the animate level and human (Adam in Hebrew, from "Domeh le Elyon" [similar to the most high]), we find the ape. Likewise, between the human level of this world and the next level of human in the upper world, there is the Kabbalist.
A Kabbalist is unique. On one hand, they still possess the animalistic attributes of this world, but on the other hand, they acquire qualities of the next, upper level. Unlike the previous evolutionary leaps, which took place under nature’s instinctive forces, the Kabbalist’s ascent happens consciously. That is why Kabbalah teaches us about freedom of choice, working within a group, and placing ourselves in certain conditions that facilitate inner transformation.
We need to seemingly pull ourselves out of a state in which the ego controls us and elevate ourselves to a higher state where we balance the ego with a newfound positive force that is opposite to the ego. This creates a new existence where two forces operate within us: the negative egoistic force and the positive altruistic force.
The nature of our world lacks an altruistic force, so we need to attract it. When we do, we will exist in a state of balance between these two forces. We call this state of balance "the middle line." I hope that we will achieve this state through free choice and that we will not be forced into it through major wars and suffering.
Moreover, we can avoid an apocalypse and even natural disasters by making the right choice. Even if only a small portion of humanity comes to understand that the only way to prevent such catastrophes is to apply the method that explains to us how and why nature works, what our nature is in contrast to nature in general, and how we can rise from our egoistic nature to the comprehensive altruistic nature outside of us, we nonetheless need to reach the realization that there is no alternative.
Yet, why does humanity receive such blows if they do not lead to real development? The accumulation of suffering eventually compels humanity to think about what to do next. In other words, suffering balances the human ego.
Think of a child who refuses to go to school. The parents, trying to guide him, begin taking away his pleasures, first his ball, then his bicycle, and so on, until he has no choice but to agree to go to school. Even in such a situation, a choice still exists. A person is always under some form of limitation, and choice does not require absolute freedom.
In such a way, we are given the opportunity to choose an ascent in our inner attitudes: from egoistic to altruistic, divisive to positively connected, indifferent to caring, hateful to loving, and so on. It is likewise also a choice between reward and punishment. We need to reach the understanding of the precise conditions and circumstances that lead us to the unique state called “freedom.”