Your First Steps

Laitman_137When the point in the heart is turned on in a person it draws him so strongly to the Creator that he is ready to do anything in order to satisfy this desire. This stems from the fact that it is the uppermost desire of a person.

So it is with burning eyes, a person finds his way to the study of Kabbalah and is ready to accept any conditions. But in the beginning he doesn’t understand or hear anything of what is being taught, but is as within a cocoon, inside himself.

He comes to study regularly and participates in all the events because he wants to be accepted as a member and be part of the group of those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah. After a couple of months he gets a feeling of a descent and sinks into darkness, indifference, weakness; the Light diminishes and he doesn’t understand what is happening to him.

This is a sign that the first layer has been revealed in him, the lightest layer of his spiritual egoism, besides his everyday earthly egoism in which he was before just like all the other people. This means that a new spiritual layer of the ego is being revealed under the layer of his earthly ego. Although a person doesn’t understand what is happening to him and doesn’t feel any change, this state is different from all the other states he has been through in his life, a foggy state, which he doesn’t understand.

The revelation of the new layer of egoism occurred as a result of attending Kabbalah lessons in a group, of his participation in group events; as a result of his participating in a Kabbalistic group, he now receives his first portion of the Light that Reforms. The Light reforms a person and brings him back to the Creator, to the Light, to the attribute of love and bestowal to the friends, and gradually to all of humanity through advanced mutual actions.

It is written, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” First it reveals a new layer of the ego in a person, the evil inclination, and then the right response for it is expected from a person. Generally speaking a correct response means a prayer, a person’s request for help from the Creator to ascend above his egoism so that despite the disturbances he will consider that the egoism was sent to him and is revealed in him by the Creator Himself. The Creator gives him a chance to rise above the obstacles so that he can constantly be aware of the Creator’s uniqueness, and His absolute good leadership, (that there is none else besides Him and that He is good that does good).

The problem of a beginner is that he cannot control himself when he discovers the new desire in him, the change in the size of the desire. It seems to him that the world collapses, that the method is not realistic, etc. He has many complaints not to himself and not even to the Creator but to the teachers and the place of study.

At this point many usually leave the study with a negative attitude. We don’t see such massive numbers of people who leave in any other method because nowhere do people study how to exit their egoism. On the other hand, in a group of students like in Bnei Baruch we are taught how to “sacrifice” our egoism, our nature, and instead how to acquire the attribute of altruism, the Creator’s nature.

Therefore, it is said with regard to the wisdom of Kabbalah that “a thousand enter the study and only one comes out to be an instructor (to the Light).” But the 999 students who don’t attain the Light are also in contact with it and their reward is very high. (See the writings of Baal HaSulam). Those who leave the method and especially those who speak against it because they cannot acquire it because they are too lazy, keep themselves even further away from the correction of their soul.
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How Do We Turn To The Creator?

Laitman_931-01Question: I value what is written in the sources and in the prayer book because you said they were written by Kabbalists, members of the Great Knesset, but I imagine what is said there in the most corporeal way. How should I turn to the Creator? Should I pray to Him if I don’t feel Him?

Answer: We don’t feel the Creator, so having no choice, we imagine Him in different corporeal images. If we want to attain Him or at least to imagine who we turn to correctly so that we can really turn to Him, we have to understand who He is, which means to gradually attain His attributes.

A man’s need to reveal the Creator stems from this world, from which we gradually begin to depict Him correctly to the extent that we acquire the attribute of bestowal, which means to the extent that we begin to resemble the Creator according to the rule “from the love of the created begins to the love of the Creator.”

If we do it any other way, we will not turn to the Creator but to His oppositeness, to our ego, to Pharaoh. When we turn to him we ask for corporeal fillings, not to acquire the attribute of love and bestowal. This is the reason that Baal HaSulam says that first we have to imagine the Creator and then pray to Him.

Only if our efforts are aimed to the connection with friends, which spur and summon the influence of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), the Light of the Torah that reforms, to the source, to the attribute of love and bestowal, is the image of the Creator revealed in a person. It is revealed as the only upper force similar to the way the image of the parents is formed in a small child as something that is whole, safe, protecting, the source of himself and of the whole world.

A person who begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah draws away from the religious perspective of the Creator if this is how he was brought up, and seems to leave the religious path. After the correction of the first level of the ego, by correcting himself in a group of friends who try to get closer to each other, by fulfilling the Kabbalists’ instructions in the connection between the friends in the group, by drawing the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light(Ohr Makif), by the attempts to get closer to the friends; he gets closer to fulfilling the main rule in the Torah, “love thy friend as thyself.” It is only under the influence of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif)  that saves and corrects a person that a student begins to feel the presence of the Creator in the world. Thus our forefathers advanced in their attainment of the Creator to the extent that they resembled Him.

Then came the period of the sons when the feeling of the Creator through uniting in the group became more real. An urge to turn to Him appears and is felt as the source of life and all of a person’s attributes and actions. A person becomes totally focused on the connection with the Creator because he feels that the Creator manages all his thoughts, desires and actions.

So the only thing left for a person to do is to ask the Creator for the ability to make the right choice in his thoughts desires and actions because it is as if he wants to overtake the Creator in his yearning to resemble Him. The period of the correction of a person’s nature is called the period of the sons and it is said “my sons have overtaken me,” which means that the sons overtake the Creator in their yearning to resemble Him.
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ISIS—Alphabet For Terrorists

Laitman_200_02Question: The “Islamic State” terrorist organization has developed an application for kids for Android smart phones. This software enables children to learn the Arabic alphabet, but in a special way. The letter “Dal,” for example, corresponds to the word “Dbaba (tank),” “Saad” corresponds to “Sruch (missile),” “Meim” to “Midfa (cannon),” and so on. What can such a method lead to?

Answer: It will turn the children into soldiers. Any tyranny wants to recruit children to its army, so it is all very clear.

Of course, I feel sorry for these children. I doubt whether they will grow up to be normal members of society because their mental condition is affected by such methods.

Children need affection. They need to learn to cooperate, to sing and dance together, they need care, and they need to play. This approach should continue until the age of nine, and from the age of nine until 13, they gradually need to learn about life, but the study shouldn’t be based on hatred since it may harm a child’s psychology.

Education cannot be based on hatred because it is against the main law of nature that is aimed only at unity and love. We see how it is revealed more and more in the world today between all of the parts of creation. By wanting to separate and to divide nations and states, we go against nature, and therefore first and foremost, we suffer from this.

Question: How will this be echoed back?

Answer: It is already echoing.

There are two billion, if not more, supporters of Islam today all over the world. What happens to them? Are they happy? Do they have a normal state? Do they have a well-established system of mutual help? Everything is distorted, corrupted, and destroyed because today’s Islam is not the original Islam but rather a movement that demands sacrifices. And this is what they are prepared for.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/11/16

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Sadiq Khan, The New Mayor Of London

Laitman_419Comment: The Labor representative of Pakistan origin Sadiq Khan won the election for mayor of London with  57% of the votes compared to 43% of the votes that his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith received. Now all the papers say that a chain of Moslem mayors is expected in Europe.

Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Islam will conquer Europe both by terror and by governance. Eventually all of Europe will be conquered even gradually in a democratic way. One man crosses the border and makes his way to the continent and lives in a slum and after a while rises to power, like Sadiq Khan. The Creator’s plans are implemented in an absolutely perfect way and there is no way we can escape them. Europe will become Muslim.

Comment: It is important to note that Sadiq Khan speaks nicely and claims that he is a democrat and that London is the capital of the world where all the races and nations live together.

Answer: Of course, since according to the Islamic belief, it should become the world religion and everyone should gather under the green flag, which means being loyal to the prophet Mohamed.

Question: Does this mean that you believe that Sadiq Khan also holds this belief?

Answer: Without a doubt. This is what the Muslims want and this is what they will achieve. It is clearly expressed throughout their history. After all, Islam supports the strengthening of the family and is against alcohol and drug consumption, etc. It is a religion that offers a stable way of life that appeals to many, especially in such an unstable time in Europe.

Question: What does that mean with regard to Israel?

Answer: Soon we will not be able to fly to Europe because the attitude toward Israelis will be very unfriendly, like in Nazi Germany. Tourists may be robbed and kidnapped as hostages and even killed.

We have to come to our senses and realize that we are creating these problems, that we have elected the mayor of London; it is actually us, the Jews here in Israel and not somewhere else. We have to establish a new society here that is based on integral education, a society in which everyone is mutually connected not under any special flag but under the flag of mutual love relations.

Unless we understand that our mission is to be Light unto the nations of the world, things will be very bad and we will receive blows. The blows will, of course, eventually help and will force us to unite, but the question is why it should be after so much suffering.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/8/16

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New Life #360 – Music Connects The Hearts

New Life #360 – Music Connects The Hearts
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What is the essence of the connection between a musician and the audience for whom he performs? How does it connect us with a sense of harmony and how can we use this essence in teaching integral education?

The sound of music that a person plays is a means of connecting his heart with the heart of the listeners. Great musicians can feel how the audience before them swallows the sounds and the feelings they convey.

The sitting arrangement in a live performance is important in order to connect the audience; this is the reason that an amphitheater is built the way it is. Before a musician begins his performance he needs to tune himself to the fact that he is going to connect everyone as one.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #360 – Music Connects The Hearts,” 4/27/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.30.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder”

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Giving of the Torah,” Item 5

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.29.16

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How Do We Grasp The Wisdom of Kabbalah?

laitman_525Question: In regular science, a person reaches everything in a logical manner through his intellect. In the wisdom of Kabbalah it is said that a person must obtain everything in sensations without creating physical images. How do we grasp the wisdom of Kabbalah at the beginning of the study and memorize drawings, definitions, and information as usual in science and create some logic circuits in the mind?

Answer: In section 155 of “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” it is said that Kabbalists wrote their books so that during the reading of these books the students would begin the awakening and then the continuation of certain Lights on them.

They don’t need to understand anything nor are they able to understand since they still haven’t revealed anything. However, through attracting the Upper Light they begin to gradually change. These changes build in them elements of various attainments like cells in a honeycomb, ten rows high, ten rows across, and ten rows down, but only in N-dimensional space, and there are 620 honeycombs like these for each sensation.

This is a very serious and interesting system of the psychology of a person’s soul, the element of his real attainment called “ the soul.” Man marches toward attaining his root in his clarification of “Where am I?, “Who am I? and Who created me?” On the way he clarifies how he should act in order to study and research the plan of creation in which he is included. Where will it lead him? Will he be able to realize it in the best possible way, accelerate his development, change its final point, and so on. This is to say study and research of the future is taking place here. When a person begins to understand the entire chain of the transformations that occur within him, then he becomes a Kabbalist.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/28/16

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Freud’s Birthday

Laitman_088Comment: 160 years have gone by since the birth of Sigmund Freud. Many great Jews who transformed the world were born in the 19th century, including Freud, Marx, and Einstein.

Attitude: The second half of the 19th century was the golden age of Europe, a period full of the flowering of all of humanity! But after the revolution in Russia, after the First and Second World Wars, national opposition and resistance began and instead of scientific and psychological discoveries, instead of cultural understandings, technology began to work for the sake of war, annihilation, subjugation, etc.

Ultimately everything was revealed as a phenomenon of the complete alienation of humanity from itself. And today we are “reaping these fruits.” We have again immersed into complex states. Compared to the 19th century, our 21st is certainly losing everything!

Question: How do you relate to the psychology that Sigmund Freud established?

Answer: These were magnificent attempts of making inquiries about a person’s inner world, although they are certainly fragmented and not based upon precise internal studies since the “psyche,” meaning the soul, doesn’t belong to science, on the one hand. On the other hand, it directs all of human activity, all thoughts, everything that stands behind our attitude toward us and the world. It stands behind all of our thinking: how we behave, how we relate to each other, how we receive signals from the outside, how we send signals from inside.

So a great leap was expected from this area for solving questions that a person must know: What is it that directs him, what are his internal instincts, drives, and movements, and what kinds of relationships does he have with his parents, relatives, himself, and the Creator? All of these create a basis for understanding what motivates a person.

In principle, a person needs psychology very much, especially in our time when we are found in constant contact with each other. But psychology cannot be a science. We cannot rely on it; we cannot bring it to the entire system.

Ultimately nothing came from it, even though materialistic psychology did very great work. It took the person out of fragmentary and complex images about himself, about the Creator, about religion, about the subconscious and about the unconscious. It “died” successfully in spite of all this.

Here the wisdom of Kabbalah is essential for us because only it is involved with the study of the soul, entering our animal soul as well, in which we are working when we are found in this world. So Freud did great work and had good followers.

Comment: I would like to read a few of Freud’s catchphrases and have you respond to them. He wrote: “We don’t choose each other by chance. We meet only those who already exist in our subconscious.”

Answer: Of course! This is because otherwise we don’t see others. We see and react only to what has already been prepared in us from the start.

Question: Is that the way we choose a mate?

Answer: Yes! All of this was already registered from the start.

Comment: “The task of making a person happy was not included in the program of the creation of the world.”

Response: Making a person happy in the egoistic sense, as we imagine to ourselves in this world, no, not in any way! On the contrary, the task of the Creator is to show a person that he is found in a miserable world to push him so that he will raise himself to the level of true happiness.

Comment: “We enter the world alone and we leave it alone.”

Response: This truism is understood by all. Yet I don’t think that we enter into the world alone because we are naturally connected to that body from which we were born. But we leave the world absolutely alone. Already in old age, before death, we feel completely torn and detached from others.

Question: And if, a person begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah, on the contrary, links the person with all of creation, with all of the souls: present, past, and future. above time, beyond everything! It’s completely different, not according to the teachings of Freud.

Comment: “You never stop searching for power and security on the outside. But you must search for them within yourself. They were always there.”

Response: There is no power in a person, he only has a tiny egoistic force through whose help it is up to him to understand that he completely lacks power and he can receive the correct force only from the Creator.

He receives both the inflexible, dark egoistic force and the bright and great altruistic force from the Creator. And with their help, like two legs, he climbs the ladder, he rises up to a state of absolute happiness in which these two opposing forces connect together and create his soul.

Comment: “The masses have never known a thirst for the truth. They require delusions without which they cannot live.”

Response: This is correct. But these illusions must be replaced by the discovery of the truth. However, the truth will not be discovered by the masses but by spiritual leaders, a spiritual aristocracy that is found above them. The masses will simply cling to them and will be nourished by them to attain spiritual truths, but passively, like the head and body of one spiritual creature. That is how Judea still was before the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) and we are now returning to this.

Comment: You will certainly agree with the saying that, “Every person has desires that he doesn’t tell to others, as well as desires that he doesn’t even admit to himself.”

Response: That could be, but not with a Kabbalist. A Kabbalist rises above envy, above insults, and especially above shame. The moment he begins to understand that everything within him was created by the Creator and he is himself an empty puppet that the Creator manages, he no longer associates himself to any instincts, thoughts, movements, and even the most despicable acts.

So if he works within himself, he can say clearly that everything within him comes from the Creator, and even his correct behavior today also comes from Him. So we have nothing personal within us, nothing!

If a person is not a Kabbalist, he certainly always has something to hide; he cannot get rid of the feeling of shame, self-criticism, and so forth. But if he attributes everything to the Creator, then in that point where he merges with Him, he becomes like a fetus in his mother’s womb and is not aware of what he has to hide, if all of this is the creation.

Comment: It follows that if everything comes from the Creator, it is possible to justify everything that way.

Response: First it is necessary to attain a direct connection with the Creator, and then from this it is possible to justify the situation.

Comment: “It is typical for a person to appreciate and want what he cannot attain above everything.”

Response: Certainly, because in the framework of our world we cannot achieve everything we want; I am not a painter, not an author, not a dramatist, not a great scientist, not a billionaire. Generally I am not this or that or that. So in this world there are very many limitations to the realization of my “self.”

But a person is given the possibility of exiting to the upper world, to the world of the wisdom of Kabbalah. There he can attain the infinite world in which he will begin to receive all the great desires that exist in creation and to fulfill them. So the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the wisdom of fulfillment.

Comment: “The person never refuses anything; he simply replaces one pleasure for another pleasure.”

Response: This is completely correct. The same thing exists in the wisdom of Kabbalah. We exchange small, temporary, meaningless pleasures of our world for the one eternal, infinite, absolute, and complete pleasure of the upper world.

Comment: “Before you have diagnosed yourself with depression and low self-esteem, make sure that you are not surrounded by idiots.”

Answer: A person always evaluates himself in relation to others. But this is not enough. Today we exist in such a world in which we are beginning to feel great depression, even without seeing it in others. A person no longer is measured in relation to those around him, but in relation to the next level to which we must ascend. So it is not enough for a person to equalize himself with those around him. What does it matter to him if they are suffering or not? And me?!

In this case, my “self” leaves the general society in that it demands its personal and unique realization. Here it will no longer help me to look among those “idiots” around me.

I am depressed not because of them, but because within me appears a true desire to ascend to the next level, not to realize myself with those around me, but with the Creator, with the higher level, to attain the true meaning of existence and to realize myself on the level of eternity, infinity, wholeness! This desire is latent in us. So the world is immersed today in such a depression. So Freud’s advice no longer works.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/8/16

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The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And Psychology

Laitman_083Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah explores egoism, yet psychology also explores the reaction of our egoism to various external stimuli and can record this with the help of formulas. What is the difference between them?

Answer: Psychology cannot record anything with the help of formulas because a person has nothing that will upgrade his egoism; he cannot manage it.

It is possible to manage egoism only if a person directs a particular “Light” (the desire to bestow) toward himself like a laser, a beam that directs it toward an object, and under a particular frequency and wavelength of the Light changes occur in the object. If the person doesn’t control the management of his egoistic desire, then all of the reports and results are absolutely spontaneous. It is impossible to predict conclusions in advance.

Therefore psychology is not a science. It gives correct results, yet is not possible for them to lead to a general method and common denominator because a person has no precise and clear influence over his egoism. It is impossible to say: “If I add 10 grams of effort, something like this and that will happen, I add another 10 grams of effort and something else happens.” There is no such thing. So it is impossible to determine differences between people.

In psychology, statistical data work according to averages, but they are imprecise because a person doesn’t have the Upper Light in his hands, an instrument that will influence his desires and characteristics.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah does. By changes in a person’s attitude and the efforts that he makes toward others, he attracts quanta (portions) of the Upper Light that carry out gradual changes in his desires. With each quantum of Light, desire changes and the person feels how he changes in one direction or another. He upgrades and re-calibrates himself on his own.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/28/16

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