Entries in the 'Free Will' Category

Don’t Let Others Decide for You

961.2A student asked the master, “You said that if I understand who I am, I will become wise. But how do I do that?” The teacher replied, “To begin with, take away from people the right to decide who you are. One will say you are bad, and you will believe him and get upset. Another will say you are good, and you will rejoice. Whether they praise or criticize you, believe in you, or betray you, as long as they have the right to decide who you are, you won’t find yourself. Take away this right from them, and from me, too.” (Parable)

Question: Is it possible to be free from the opinions of others?

Answer: When I see how others judge the world, me, my teacher, and my science, it does, of course, sadden me to a great extent. But in principle, it does not last long or affect me significantly. I find a perfectly sensible answer to it.

Question: Doesn’t it motivate you to make changes?

Answer: No, not at all! That is long gone!

Comment: This means they can no longer change you.

My Response: No one can.

Question: Explain to someone who worries that any opinions can change him. How can he manage to stand firm, avoid all traps, criticism, and so on, and keep moving forward?

Answer: It may take years to achieve this. But I took this upon myself many years ago, and it no longer bothers me.

Question: So you latched onto a goal, a teacher, and that’s it? You couldn’t be swayed by any means?

Answer: By no means.

Question: So in reality, does a person need to hold onto something firmly?

Answer: Yes, to hold on tightly.

Question: Even when doubts arise?

Answer: Doubts come intentionally to make a person hold on.

Question: Is it possible to find oneself without the influence of others? After all, you had a teacher; there was an influence.

Answer: Without the influence of the teacher on me, I am nobody!

Question: But you were looking for someone who would influence you. How can you determine if it’s the right kind of influence you seek?

Answer: During the first few years with him, I still traveled, visited other places, and tried to find out what suited me.

Comment: You are talking about yourself right now.

My Response: Yes, about me and my teacher! And I asked him, “How do I know that you are real? In the thousands of years that Kabbalah has existed, how many like you have there been? Where are they, where are their students, and what happened to them?” He said, “I don’t know.”

Question: Is this called “teacher’s help” to answer like this: “I don’t know”?

Answer: Yes. You have to check for yourself.

Question: So, he doesn’t try to prove anything; he says, “Check it yourself”?

Answer: Exactly.

Question: So was his influence on you like this: “See if it suits you or not”?

Answer: We sit down, we read, we talk, but we don’t delve into anything personal.

Question: Does personal mean whether it’s your place or not?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So do these clarifications take quite a while for a person?

Answer: Gradually, you grab hold more and more, then let go, fall, and then rise and grab hold again. And like this you move forward.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/31/23

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In Complete Agreement with the Creator

75.01Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine. This single wheel has no freedom of movement in and of itself but continues with the motion of the rest of the wheels in a certain direction to qualify the machine to perform its general function (Baal HaSulam, “Peace in The World”).

Question: What drives the mechanism of these wheels? What initiates the movement?

Answer: The Creator of course. Is there anyone else besides Him?

Remark: Typically in such mechanisms, there is some kind of main wheel that rotates all the others.

Answer: This is the Creator. We must achieve the state of spinning freely, understand what the Creator wishes to do with us, and be in complete agreement with Him.

At every moment in time, a person should be aware that he is under the authority of the Creator and wishes to act as the Creator acts with him. He must become absolutely free regarding the instructions of the Creator. In other words, what the Creator instructs him, a person performs with full willingness of mind and heart.

Question: How can I feel what the Creator wishes to do with me and not interfere with Him?

Answer: Relax, to relax means to be in absolute agreement with higher governance.

Remark: But sometimes I want to take some initiative.

Answer: Your job is to be in full alignment with the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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49.01Comment: Rabash realized very early that there was no point in correcting others, criticizing them, or pointing out their mistakes.

My Response: Yes, because a Kabbalist does not do this. First of all, what are people’s mistakes? There are none. What arises in them is under the influence of the Creator, nature, that is what is manifested.

How can a person be accused of anything at all, starting with Hitler and Stalin, no matter who? This is nature, it created them like this. Of course, if it were possible to destroy them before they committed their crimes, it would have been done. But what appeared in them arose under the influence of the same Creator. That is what it says: “The hearts of the ministers and kings are in the hands of the Creator.”

And what about the little man? It is the same with him. Therefore, who is to blame, and what is to blame? No one and nothing.

Kabbalah refers to any person only to the extent that he potentially gets the opportunity to promote connection into an integral system, the construction of the walls of our “pot,” in which we will feel eternity, perfection, and access to another degree, the degree of Man with a capital letter.

Now we are still at the animal level. Although it is more developed than others, it is still an animal degree. We live for the body.

Question: But by trying to change the pleasure of power over others into full power over one’s self…, love is a long process that also requires psychological preparation, right?

Answer: Kabbalah is the highest psychology. It reveals to you what you are made of and how to work with it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Revelations of the Kabbalist” 10/2/11

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Order a Movie with a Happy Ending

 906It seems to us that we, today’s humanity, are in some way the heirs of two civilizations: Rome and Ancient Greece. The government structure and the structure of the judicial and banking systems come from Rome. Philosophy comes from Greece and in a later period partly from Byzantium. But in principle, all this concerns the corporeal development of humanity.

However, the internal altruistic spiritual development of the world came from the Israelites, a group of people who fell from the spiritual level to the corporeal one. All world religions originate from them, and today they have given the nations of the world a certain preparation for the perception of spiritual ideas.

Thus, humanity was prepared for the fact that the story of mutual infiltration and communication would move to a new level. According to Kabbalah, this is bound to happen either by awareness or by being pushed to happiness by a stick.

Question: Do corporeal and spiritual development, in fact, occur simultaneously?

Answer: In spirituality, the beginning, the end, and all the stages of development exist from the very beginning. On the corporeal level, however, there is none of this; it all unfolds only in us. We can go through these stages either with a good feeling or with an evil feeling. We choose between good and evil.

Every time you have to be in a certain state. If you want to understand and feel what is good for you, you need to transform yourself so that the next state prepared for you is desirable. If you are ready for this, you will perceive your whole path well. If you are not ready, you will perceive it as bad. But that does not change the path.

There is a mechanism inside you that shows you a movie that you have to go through. You just order your attitude to this movie with your constant frame-by-frame development.

In other words, in spirituality, all this already exists in one single picture. And you gradually reveal this picture for yourself as you develop either under the influence of suffering or under the influence of awareness.

It is as if you begin to see clearly and you receive a new vision, a new opportunity to feel, to see, to realize, to understand, and to absorb. In this way, a new world opens up to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History According to Kabbalah” 9/29/11

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The Testimony of the One Who Knows All Mysteries

231.01“What is repentance like? When He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.”

 In other words, when will one be certain that he has been granted complete repentance? For this, one is given a clear sign: “When He Who knows the mysteries testifies that he will not return to folly.” This means that he will attain the revelation of the face, at which time one’s own salvation will testify that he will not return to folly. (Yehuda Leib Ha-Levi Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 56). 

Question: What is “testimony”? Does a person have a new basis for making decisions in order to evaluate their actions differently?

Answer: The Creator shines a special light upon a person from a certain degree, and this indicates that he will not fall below this degree.

He has a new foundation, which depends on the light of the Creator influencing him.

And above that he has freewill, and he must climb the degrees of the spiritual worlds by himself. He himself is now looking for ways to advance further and continue his journey and his ascent.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/23, “The Need for the Creator’s Salvation”

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How Can We Deal with Bad Desires?

627.2Dear Michael Laitman,

You have been a replacement for me for radio and TV for a long time. I have been with you for three years. I want to ask a question, Where do desires come from?

Moreover, such desires are shameful to admit. And sometimes you cannot get rid of them. They were not in me, generally, I have a completely different character. Please tell me how to deal with such desires that are not good? 

Answer: I do not know what “bad desires” means.

Comment: A person is somehow uncomfortable with the desires that suddenly arise in him.

My Response: Well, desires arise. Man is a complex animal after all. He consists of an animal part, a human part, and possibly a spiritual part.

Question: Meaning, desires from all degrees come to him?

Answer: Yes. So there is nothing to worry about. All desires have the right to be revealed and to exist in a person.

Question: Any desire?

Answer: Absolutely any. And a person can have all kinds of relationships to this.

Question: What does one need to do if bad desires arise, even those that shake a person?

Answer: I see. What to do? Shake yourself, shake them off, and continue to exist. You need to engage in something else, and then the desire will change.

Comment: Please answer the question “where do they come from and why?”

My Response: From above! Why? In order for a person to develop. In order to develop him.

Question: When you say “develop,” what does it mean? So that some specific desires arise in him?

Answer: Desires, emotions, intentions, and so on, such that will match the more developed person that he will become.

Question: You said “from above.” Is there a bank of desires that one needs to go through?

Answer: Yes. There is a bank of desires that we have to go through, each of us and all of us together.

Question: And when this bank is emptied, desires pass, what happens next? When all the desires have already passed through me, what does it mean?

Answer: The end of the world. We have worked out all our desires and are at rest.

Question: The end of the world, what is that in your opinion?

Answer: The end of the world means that there is no one to live onward, there is no need, and there is no goal.

Question: So I will not be coming back here?

Answer: No.

Question: Where will I end up? This world has ended. Where do I end up?

Answer: In the next world.

Question: And what is there in the next world?

Answer: Happiness, peace, and all good things are waiting for you in the next world.

Question: I already like this. That is, in principle, this whole chain of desires should lead me to the world where there is happiness, peace, everything?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How should I work out these desires in order to come to this peace and happiness?

Answer: You will come to it anyway. So, do not worry. The only thing you need is to agree that you will be brought there. And therefore, in accordance with this, live calmly, breathe calmly, and be peaceful toward the upper force that will lead you there.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/23

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565.02Question: Whenever I make a decision, it seems like I have weighed everything, all the pros and cons, but almost always, the opposite happens. If I want to save money, I lose it; If I want to save time, I lose it; If I want to please my wife, everything comes out backwards. I’m getting desperate. How should I make decisions?

Answer: Do not make them, and you’ll see how everything works out. Calm down and don’t make decisions. I do not know what decisions you need to make, but generally, you should let go of the reins and let the horse drive you. Let it take you where it feels you need to go. An animal is never wrong. People are wrong.

Question: Is this animal our body?

Answer: Yes, so everything will be fine.

Question: Let us say I have a desire to save money and I keep spending as before; is the outcome the same or am I saving? Have I put anything away and started saving?

Answer: Give the money to your wife; that’s all. If you try to hoard it, it won’t work. Better give it to someone in charge of it anyway.

Question: I see. So along the same lines, what if I want to save time, to generally make better use of my time?

Answer: Nothing will happen. Live quietly with the questions that arise. Deal with them as they come up and do not stress over it.

Question: Is there a higher wisdom in this?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: So is it like entrusting myself into His hands, as in, you created me like this, and this is how I come? If only we could yield like that! How many mistakes would we have avoided!

My Response: “If youth only knew, if old age only could.”

Question: This means, all our actions in this world: to save time, or money, to be someone, to make something, etc., are all somehow corrupt?

Answer: Yes, because we are rooted in egoism. There is nothing you can do here.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/31/23

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Unidentified Black Box Mechanism

202.0Question: In the learning process of artificial intelligence, the mechanism of the black box is completely preserved in it. If before a person created computers, he clearly knew it was a microcircuit, an algorithm; there is a cause and effect, and everything goes along the chain and leads to some result. A person understood the whole scheme.

When training artificial intelligence, the structure of neural networks is modeled. At the first level, a huge amount of information is loaded into it—trillions of data. After that something happens in it, like in a black box. Do neural networks themselves line up inside the black box?

Answer: Yes, this is the point at which we do not own data and information.

Comment: This information is located precisely inside the black box, and a person does not know what is happening there both in relation to himself and in relation to his creation. He just gets some result that statistically satisfies him more.

My Response: In general, a lot of questions arise here. How do we choose the result? Do we choose intuitively or because it is inherent in us, that such a result is closer to us and we agree to live with it, but with another one—no way. That is, there is a big problem here in the person himself, not in the machine, not in what it chooses, but in the person who chooses.

Therefore, many questions still remain open. But I think that in the coming years, we will begin to understand this more. I do not know when we can solve this, but we will be able to understand.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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A Thing in Itself

508.1Question: During life, a person acquires life experience and learns from examples and abstract concepts. This is similar to the training of an animal when we set some tasks for it, give examples, and some kind of reward for performing them. Based on the results of these actions, we evaluate whether the dog is smart or stupid. Is a person trained in the same way during his life?

Answer: Of course, we evaluate ourselves and everyone else only in relation to our tasks.

Question: Some information is constantly entering a person. There are some calculations going on inside him that are concealed from him, and he acts on their basis. How can he catch the reason for these actions in order to justify them?

For example, with artificial intelligence, it is clear that a person sets goals for it, gives it a database for training, and even evaluates what is good and what is bad in its actions. How can this be determined in relation to a person?

Answer: There is nothing we can do about a person because the higher nervous activity is also taken into account here. So this is harder with a person. And it will get harder with machines. If we are talking about self-learning algorithms, then it will be difficult for us to establish the right attitude to the machine. And to a person too.

Therefore, we treat each other purely externally, one cannot go inside the other. It is unclear how and what to do with this person inside himself because he is a thing in itself.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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Inside the “Black Box”

198Question: There is a common expression: “A thought came to mind.” Where does the thought come from?

Answer: We do not know this.

Comment: A person does not really think about this much.

My Response: Exactly, that is why a person does not think about it; a person does not know. A person cannot control it and is not capable of controlling it. And even if someone from the outside would tell him about it, it still would not help because he cannot exit the “black box”—himself.

Question: Within the framework of our material life, it seems to us that we formulate our own goals and decide for ourselves how to achieve them. Is it an illusion or not?

Answer: Of course it seems that way. After all, we cannot be certain about anything. We make mistakes, change our minds, and listen to other opinions. In regard to everything that happens, a person cannot say with 100% certainty that he is sure of something. There is no ultimate truth.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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