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Indeed, the number of atheists in the world is rising. Some estimate it to be close to a billion people, and the trend appears to be increasing. However, this comes as no surprise. It reflects a deeper process of human development.
Atheism is not the absence of belief. It is belief, just redirected. It becomes a kind of modern religion. Its gods are reason, progress, technology, success, and money, i.e., forces that people rely on to give life meaning. In this sense, atheism is the religion of nature, not godlessness. It is a necessary phase in our evolution.
As the human ego develops, it begins to reject primitive images of a deity that were once comforting. But that does not mean the search for something higher disappears. On the contrary, it becomes more refined. A person begins to seek something real, provable, and which does not demand blind faith but can be experienced and verified internally.
What, then, is true faith? True faith, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is not believing in something unseen or intangible. It is the attainment of the upper force of love, bestowal, and connection clearly, directly, experientially, and consciously. We can reach full connection with this force. This upper force enters us, fills us, and acts through us, with our complete participation and agreement.
This is the essence of Kabbalah: the science of revealing the Creator, the upper force of reality, through a conscious and voluntary process of resembling it.
What is this force? It is a force of absolute love and bestowal. It contains no images, rituals, or intermediaries. It exists beyond time, space, and motion, without form or demands. It is the constant offering of connection, and it awaits our discovery of it.
But here lies the challenge. This force is the complete opposite of human nature. We are built to receive, protect ourselves, and serve our egoistic self. That is why, for most people, the idea of absolute love and bestowal is unattractive and even repulsive. It feels unnatural as it threatens the ego.
Only those in whom a genuine yearning awakens, i.e., a burning desire for the meaning of life that eclipses all else, will pursue this connection at any cost. If that desire has not yet awakened, we continue to live for the sake of the body, to exist on life’s animate level, even if we call ourselves human.
Yet, this yearning will awaken in everyone. Sooner or later, every soul must reach the state where it cries out: “What is the purpose of my life? Why was I born?” That cry is the beginning of the spiritual path.
Our spiritual ascent is not done alone. Humanity is not separate from nature. As we ascend, we pull all levels of existence with us—still, vegetative, and animate—back into unity with the upper force.
So yes, we humans are the crown of creation, but only if we fulfill our role: to discover the upper force of love, bestowal, and connection, to resemble it, and to lift all of nature to that same state.
Until then, we are still in the process. But the end of the process is already written, and it is wondrous and sublime.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 24, 2024. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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