If there is any definition that can tell the spiritual apart from the corporeal, it belongs only to those who have attained and felt a spiritual thing. Those people are the genuine Kabbalists …”

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam),

“The Difference between Kabbalah and Philosophy”

Kabbalah talks about the soul, life’s meaning, man’s spirituality… Sounds like philosophy, right? Wrong. Kabbalah is the exact opposite of philosophy, and it’s important to understand the difference. Here’s why.

Everything in this world consists of four levels: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking (human) levels. These levels are present in all of reality and in every person. The first three levels: the still, vegetative and animate levels are systems that are activated by Nature automatically, through instincts. But the speaking or human level within us does not function automatically.

What exactly is that speaking level within us? It’s our thoughts, desires and intentions – everything that comprises the hidden, non-apparent realm of our existence. This realm is not automatically regulated by the laws of Nature. We decide how to use the speaking level, and although this makes us the pinnacle of all creation, it also poses a great dilemma for us: how should we use this level, and is there any right way to use it?

We’re certainly not the first to ask this question. Humanity has pondered a great deal about how to handle the human part within it: how should we arrange our thoughts and desires, and how should we use them? These questions were scrutinized by some of the greatest minds that ever lived, and thousands, even millions of books have been written on them. All the experience and theories that humanity has accumulated throughout history in attempting to answer these questions is called philosophy.

Kabbalists, too, have focused precisely on these questions for thousands of years. Side by side with philosophy, they have written thousands of books that address these profound and important questions. So what makes Kabbalah so different from philosophy?

Kabbalah allows a person to raise his consciousness to the speaking level, the hidden realm described above, and to study it the way a scientist would. Furthermore, Kabbalah explains that by doing so, one actually raises to a higher degree of existence – higher because it’s above our present, ordinary level of consciousness.

It’s impossible to study that higher level or to say anything definitive about it until one has risen to that level himself. “Rising to it” means tangibly feeling it, living in it – and this is exactly what Kabbalah enables us to do. Its entire method focuses on developing one’s personal qualities, one’s perception, and as a result one begins to feel the realm that was hidden to him before – the speaking level of reality.

And once he feels it and lives in it, he can study it with scientific precision. There is no need to speculate, philosophize or guess about what’s happening there, since the facts are clearly revealed before him.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is not based on clear attainment. It instead takes the liberty to “philosophize” about the higher realm of existence without actually rising to that level. It engages in abstract, non-fact based discussions and debates that rely on imagination. And it can never know whether its conclusions about the higher degree of existence are correct because it does not have the tools to verify them on that level.

Hence, Kabbalah fundamentally differs from philosophy. Kabbalists speak from their own, practical experience. Their descriptions are not abstract or speculative: they only describe things that they have tangibly attained, analyzed, and discerned.

So what is Kabbalah, then? It is best described as a science that’s based on personal attainment and a practical approach. It gives us the tools to rise to the speaking level in order to study it and by doing so we find out how to use that level in the best possible way.

What Is The Guided Reading Philosophy?

When putting a guided reading program together, students are generally put in smaller groups of four to six children. This team will all read the same book and complete any assignments related to it. It is important for the guided reading philosophy that the book chosen is appropriate for the level of all the students in the group, which is why children may often be separated into groups with similar learning needs. With young readers, teachers may often employ pictures and picture books to aid with comprehension. Attaching the word to an image of the item can help develop comprehension. A second common technique is to look for common letter combinations in a word, which helps the child sound it out. For instance the letters “-at” and “-it” are typical pairings in children’s books. It may be helpful for the child to read the entire sentence out loud, and attempt to decipher the word by its context. In the guided reading philosophy, multiple techniques are encouraged to help children with all learning styles.

Teachers may also discuss ideas such as prediction what a book is about, based on things like the title or cover illustrations. Children in a group using the guided reading philosophy may be asked to evaluate the story, and explain what parts they liked and did not like. There are many other strategies that fit into this type of program. For instance, children may discuss solutions to problems that arise in the story or be asked to predict what they think is going to happen next.

While this group of strategies may seem diverse, they all fall within a guided reading philosophy and are designed to help students improve their reading comprehension. By learning these skills at an early age, they can enjoy independent reading. Parents should learn what strategies work best with their children and use them when they are reading together at home.

For a child to achieve academic success, they need to have good reading skills. The guided reading philosophy is an effective way to help your child improve their skills one step at a time. The better your child learns to read, the more success they will enjoy in their later education.

Much appreciate the responses.

Thank you.

You will understand what life is if you think about the act of dying. When I die, how will I be different from the way I am right now? In the first moments after death, my body will be scarcely different in physical terms than it was in the last seconds of life but I will no longer move, no longer sense, nor speak, nor feel, nor care. You will also come to understand what life is, when you struggle in life and you achieve nothing. It’s these things that are life at that moment, the psyche take flight in the last breath.

What is philosophy of life?

Philosophy of life constitutes one of the most important pillars of life studies. The task of philosophy of life is to think deeply about the question “what is life, death and destiny”.

Philosophy of life is the study of life. It is all about knowing the principles guiding life. One may ask “what is life all about”? What is the purpose of living here on earth? Probably everyman in this world always have such type of question. You may ask yourself, “Why am I reading today? Why am I hunting for a job? Why am struggling in life to reach the sky? What is the need for me to do all this things when I that one day I have to go. What will be my destiny here on earth? What will my future after death? What are the principles guiding life. These are all the questions running through ones mind. But if we know the way, is very easy to follow the path.

Philosophical inquiry into some basic concept concerning life, death and destiny

Let us remember that the ultimate aim of life studies is to help us live our limited life without regret and also to fulfill our destiny here on earth, hence, first, we have to make clear what the exact meaning of “limited life” is. We are all going to die sooner or later but what does this mean to us exactly. Surprisingly, this is an extreme hard question to answer. Sometimes we think that we are the way of a long journey. Until when life pushes us to the wall, we then know we have a limited life. I can really say that the purpose of this limited life is to be busy in something and not only been busy but also for us to make a positive impact in peoples lives. Don’t you think it necessary for you? In our happy days, we do not think much about this but in pain all philosophical things dances around us. We all have a mission to accomplish her on earth. This is related to a question, “What is my destiny here on earth?” we all have a mission here on earth. We were all created for a purpose. As we all different names with different background, our destiny is also like that. What I have come to realize here on earth is that even if we die at younger age and still fulfill our destiny here on earth we have no problem. Once we impacted positively in some ones life when alive we will have a good reward. I believe that first we have to discover our destiny before we can achieve our mission. What I have come to realize is that our weak point is our destiny. For us to discover our destiny we have to know what our weak point in life is.

Napoleon Hill once wrote in his book that we are mind with body. Because we are mind, we possess mystical powers known and unknown. If we dare to explore the powers of our mind, I believe we can achieve our destiny here on earth. If you can direct your thoughts, control your emotions you ordain our destiny.

We are all going to die sooner or later. This closely connected to another question, “what happens when I die?” but we cannot know anything certain about this question. Hence the question of life study would be like this “what is the meaning of life?” when we do know nothing about life after death. Also we have to make clear about other important questions, such as “what is life without regret?” we are going to die in the end, so why must we live? What is different between life and existence? Probably life without regret means that when I die, I can really believe that I am happy to have been born. Through out my existence on earth, I made an impact. I transformed lives positively.

What is life?

One may say “I have done good things but nobody says to me a single world of appraisal and a lot of times when I have done nothing, doing some normal things then people say I have done a good job.” What is life all about? What we are told about life are the opposite of what we see.

Life is period between some ones birth and death. This is the period of time (limited time) between birth and death. This the time we have in our whole life to do anything we want to do. This the time we all have to make a difference in our world.

We can also have a clear understanding of what life is all about, if we read about creation in the book of Genesis. We saw that God created man in His image and breathed inside man. God deposited an extension of His inside every man. Therefore life is an extension of God in us. It is the power we have to make a difference in our world.

Basic principles guiding life

For us to succeed in life, for us to live a life without regret, there are basic principles we have to follow. There are principles guiding life which when we apply them we make a difference in our world. The basic principle includes:

• Right understanding

You will understand what life is if you think about the act of dying. When I die, how will I be different from the way I am right now? In the first moments after death, my body will be scarcely different in physical terms than it was in the last seconds of life but will no longer move, no longer sense, nor speak, nor feel, nor care. It’s these things that are life at that moment. The psyche takes flight in the last breath.

Right understanding is the foundation for developing a proper sense of values, so sorely lacking in our age. Without right understanding our vision is dimmed and the way is lost; all our effort in life will be misguided and misdirected, all our plans for individual and social development must flounder and fail.

When wrong views prevail we will operate with a perverted sense of values: we will fling ourselves into blind the pursuit of wealth, power and possession: we will be obsessed by the urge to conquer and dominate which life is not all about. But having a right understanding, having a right view will point us towards an enlightened sense of values, towards detachment and kindness, towards generosity of spirit and selfless service to others; towards the pursuit of wisdom and understanding.

Having right understanding will enable us to recognize that worldly values are man-made and relative. Right livelihood and right action leads to peace and harmony in our lives.

• Life and ownership

What is the conceptual relationship between “I” and “life”? People who justify suicide may insist that “ones life” belongs to him or herself. But is this the same as saying that the person owns his/her life. One may say, since I have the extension of God in me, I have the power to life. I am the right owner of life.

The major problem hindering us from succeeding in life is the problem of life and ownership. We all say, God is the owner of life. He is the giver of life, but we still live our lives as if we are the owner of life. A right understanding of ownership of life will make us live purposefully. This will help know the purpose of living. Having a clear understanding that life is not our legal property, we will make it our first priority to uphold our moral values. We do anything we want and how we want it without recognizing the objectivity of the moral law.

We have to know that our life is not our legal property but hope to our environment. Let us try to live a life that gives hope to others.

• Simplicity of life

Simplicity is the quality of being natural and plain. It’s all about making things working in a simple way. If we have right understanding that our desires are endless, we will know that simplicity is the step to succeeding in life. Seeing that life involves incessant change and it subject to forms of suffering, one with right understanding learns to live simply and regulate desire. A wise and virtuous person is moderate in his desires and follows the middle way in ever matter. One with right understanding is aware real happiness is an inward state- a quality of the mind and should therefore be sought inwardly. Aristotle once said that “happiness is independent of external things though of course a certain degree of material security is necessary as a basis for inner development.

Now we don’t really know the different between an asset and a liability. Author of a book “Rich dad poor dad” once wrote that anything that anything that takes money from your pocket is a liability but anything that puts money into our pocket is an asset. People don’t really understand what investment is all about. We all go after things that don’t really have value. In life we require only four basic kind of physical sustenance: wholesome food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Complementary to these we have four mental needs; right knowledge, virtue, guarding the doors of senses and meditation. These are the two set of basic requisites for living a lofty life.

Understanding the close connection between craving and suffering, we will realize the importance of holding desire in check by simple living. Living simply without superfluous possessions and entanglement leads to contentment and peace of mind, releasing time and energy to pursue higher virtue and values. Life is all about simplicity.

Remember, it is pride and vanity that keep us tied to false goals and the smaller mind the greater is the mind.

• A life plan

To make the best use our human potential, we need not only a practical aim in life, but a life plan for achieving that aim. While we walk along the path of liberation, as laypeople we have we have to live in the world and our immediate objective will be to make our life in the world both a means to worldly success and a stepping-stone to final liberation.

For us to accomplish this, we must recognize our life plan with the framework of the Noble eightfold path with its emphasis on self-effort, self-control and respect for the individual. We can best realize our immediate aims by drawing up an individual life plan in keeping with our powers and circumstances. This our life plan must be realistic. It must envisage a realistic development of our innate potential, steering us towards the fullest actualization of our possibilities.

At a start, we require an honest understanding of ourselves. It is pointless to device a workable life plan on the foundation stone of grandiose delusions about our character and abilities. The more we find out about ourselves, by self observation and self –examination, the better the better be our chances of-improvement.

We should ask ourselves how far and to what degree we are generous, kind, considerate, honest, and sober in morals, truthful, diligent, energetic, industrious, cautious, patient, tolerant and tactful. We need to improve ourselves wherever we are weak. We are what we repeatedly do; excellence is not an act but a habit (Aristotle). A little practice everyday is all that is necessary. We should remember that the more often an action is performed, the easier it becomes the tendency to do it again and again until it becomes a habit, an ingrained part of our character.

What brings life failure is lack of life plan. Majority of us live our life the way we see it and the way the day present it to us. We don’t make plans on how we want to live our life. We don’t plan for our future. Our life plan should cover all the main areas of a normal householder’s life, including occupation, marriage, and the procreation and raising of children, retirement, old age and death. The happiness of lay life consists in finding out exactly what one can do and doing it well.

A clear mental picture of a practical aim in life and realistic sketch of the steps needed to achieve that aim will help guide us to the fulfillment of our idea.

We tend to become what we really want to be provided we act realistically and effectively to realize our aim.

• Life, potential and success

Aristotle stated that where your talent and the world cross, there lies your vocation. Our lives have some things deposited in it. For us to understand and a difference in our world, we have to make use of that potential deposited in us. This potential is all about using the extension of God in us to impact lives.

One secret to life is once we make impacting lives positively our first priority, that’s the time we understand what life is all about. For us to make use of the potential deposited in us, we have to understand what success is all about. Making use of our potentials does not guarantee our success. What guarantee our success is making use our potentials effectively and applying the steps to success. Success and potential are the two things that make our life different from others. It is success and potential that makes our future brighter.

There are steps we have to follow for us to succeed in life. There philosophies behind success. The philosophies include:

1. PERSISTENCE

All that it takes to succeed in life is persistence. All the things that you read or know about don’t worth a dime if you don’t make them happen. For you to make them have you have to work and persist in your work. We make plans and we don’t stick to it. Persistence is what makes our idea different from plan. Persistence is what puts our plan into reality. One may persist and not succeed. But keep in mind that the difference between those that achieved greatness and those that didn’t, whether it was money, or career, or knowledge or something else, was that they did not give up. They persisted to believe and work to their dream, because what the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve- the self motivator. Let us remember that every adversity has the seed of greater benefit.

Talent and special abilities don’t make great people. Persistence does. Success is achieved and maintained by those who keep trying.

2. Do what you love money will follow. The greatest value in life is love of people and importance of serving people.

3. The major problem in achieving our goals is procrastination. If you must achieve something, the best moment to start is right now, not tomorrow, not next week NOW! Today is the perfect day to start. Make a first step to get a little closer to your goal, even if it’s a very small one.

One step made means one step less in your long and sometimes difficult journey.

4. GOAL SETTING

Set a goal! Make it specific. You want o make money? Set a figure 3,000, 4,000 Dollars. You want to kill a Lion set a target. Whatever it is set it. Do that for everything, every decision in your life. Make clear for yourself. What is that you want?

5. The next step in making our dream reality is to develop a plan. Use a monthly, a weekly and a daily plan. It’s a well known fact that a person that doesn’t have a good plan will outrun the one that doesn’t have a plan at all. More importantly than making the plan is to respect it. The value of a plan can be measured only by the results. What value has a plan that doesn’t get to be accomplished! None. So respect your plan to make it valuable.

6. A not so good truth us humans, is that we live in the prison of our fears. It’s our fear that holds you from being brave. It’s our fear that holds you taking decisions. It’s fear that stops us from changing our lives. Learn to conquer your fear. Believe you can succeed and you will set in motion the greatest of all human power- the mind.

7. Don’t let people stop you from believing in your dream. Some people will try to show that your dream cannot be accomplished. But most don’t even know they are talking about. Many of your so called friends have conflicting interests and your goals make them feel uncomfortable. Learn to select those that want your success, listen to their suggestions and always decide for yourself.

8. MOTIVATION

We humans need a motivation to make every single move that we make. Motivation is the first step to persistence. What is that you want out of life? You have success born in you. Motivate yourself. Use the mind and the brain. Be a self motivator.

9. Take yourself serious when you have to, but don’t over do it. Laugh; make fun of yourself from time to time. You will have a better image about yourself and you will live a more beautiful and longer life.

Conclusion

To be truly happy we require a simple but sound philosophy of life. Philosophy is the keen desire to understand the nature of man and our destiny in the universe. It gives life a sense of direction and meaning. Without one we either dream our way through life or muddle through life.

A clear-cut philosophy makes life meaningful and fruitful, enabling us to live in harmony with our fellows and with the natural environment, thereby fulfilling our destiny.

Written by Ifeanyichukwu Ogbuka

Enugu State, Nigeria.

Ifeanyeogbuka@yahoo.com