“Stephen Hawking”

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/15/18

An interviewer once asked the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who died yesterday, how come he uses “God” as a metaphor although he is not religious in any way?

“If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed. If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence,” Hawking replied.

Interestingly, Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, wrote that “Nature (Hebrew: HaTeva) has the same numerical value (in Hebrew) as God (Hebrew: Elokim)—eighty-six,” and therefore we can “call the laws of God “Nature’s laws” or vice-versa, for they are one and the same.” (“The Peace”)

The wisdom of Kabbalah, similar to ordinary science, asserts that man is meant to investigate and attain a clear sense of reality, and not be caught up in delusions. Man must apply the proverb: “A judge has only what his eyes see.” Meaning, he must trust only what he is capable of grasping in his actual senses.

However, if the concept of “God” is undefined and amorphous, declaring “there is no God” is just like declaring “there is a God.” In order to declare the existence of something or lack thereof, you first have to define what that something is. Perhaps Hawking knew what he meant when he said “God,” but in science, you cannot refer to something if there’s no consensus on its definition.

Hawking’s decisive approach to the non-existence of something, is somewhat reminiscent of the certainty that previous generations had that the earth was flat or that the sun revolves around it. Also, a statement about the existence of God, or vice versa, is sometimes connected to one’s expression of the righteousness of his view and the triumph of his belief.

A person who researches reality using the method of Kabbalah accepts that what he cannot perceive simply doesn’t exist for him. In other words, let’s say I am told: “Jump a meter high, and you will see a completely different world.” Now, I simply train myself to jump a meter high. I do not believe what I’m told, I want to see for myself. Therefore, I focus only on the jump itself.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us how to use the laws of nature so as to expand our grasp of reality. Ultimately, to reach a state where I am included with all of nature, referred to as “attaining adhesion with the Creator,” or in Stephen Hawking’s words, “to know the mind of God.”

To learn how to do it start here >> perceivingreality.com