A question I received: For a long time now I’ve been connected to you through the website. I’ve stopped reading books and watching television. I rarely see my friends, and I don’t work since I recently gave birth. To my regret, I read an article in the book Shamati and realized that I’m presently on the level of a sinner. What should I do now?

My Answer: You shouldn’t regret reading Shamati. I think that you still have a long way to go before you’ll become a sinner. This is something you have to sense within you, even without a book. It’s something one feels in relation to the Upper Light.

When we study correctly, the Light shines, and we see our true selves relative to the Upper Light. We then have feelings of shame and sin, and these feelings push us forward toward correction.

Listening to lessons on Baal HaSulam’s original texts with commentary is the best thing you can do, because they are a very powerful medicine.

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News Story: Down the Tube: the Sad Stats On Happiness, Money and TV

“Put down the remote and back slowly away from the television.

Despite the sharp rise in our standard of living in recent decades, Americans today are little or no happier than earlier generations. Why not?

A new study suggests one possibility: Maybe we need to be smarter about how we spend our time. And, no, that doesn’t mean watching more TV.”

The article continues by outlining three components of happiness:
1. Your nature or personality, that is, whether or not you’re a happy person by nature – and you have no control over this.
2. Your life’s circumstances, such as your age, health, marital status and income. The study continues by saying that these are nowhere near as important as people usually imagine them to be, giving the example that even if our income doubled, we would get used to it very quickly.
3. Your use of your time.

The study showed that people were generally happy in activities that the authors described as “’engaging leisure and spiritual activities’ – things like visiting friends, exercising, attending church, listening to music, fishing, reading a book, sitting in a cafe or going to a party” – and that people choose to undertake such activities, instead of doing them out of necessity.

Moreover, the study mentioned watching TV as taking a lot more of people’s time than the above-mentioned activities did in the past, and that if we spent more time on the “engaging leisure and spiritual activities,” we would then have a more satisfying life.

My Response: Soon we will start finding out that even these activities will leave us empty and unfulfilled. We will search for fulfillment in all kinds of places, until we arrive at our last desire: the desire to discover the meaning of life, through the attainment of the Creator.

Related Material:

* ARTICLE: It’s All About Pleasure – Although we enjoy different things, we all share a common need to fulfill our desire for pleasure

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News Story: Earth’s Ozone Would Be Largely Destroyed in Nuclear Conflict

“According to a new study published in the magazine ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,’ A nuclear war involving 100 Hiroshima-size bombs would open a massive hole in the earth’s ozone layer, exposing life to dangerous levels of the sun’s rays.

Smoke caused by the atomic explosions would trap heat in the stratosphere and lead to the deterioration of more than 20 percent of ozone globally.”

My Comment: We have shifted the world’s balance to its very edge, when even the smallest violation of nature’s laws will lead to an avalanche of downfalls in all various spheres of our activity. I don’t believe in human reason’s ability to get us out of this tension. Rather, I believe in the opportunity to aspire toward our correction and as such, attract the positive forces from above, which will repair our situation. To this end, the quality of voices is more important than their quantity. A handful of people aspiring to correction can bring about a change in the Upper Governance of our world. That is why I keep repeating myself. Some of you seem to think that I’m trying to frighten you with scary stories, and it’s a shame that the message I want to get across is so often misunderstood. So again, here is the main message I want to get across: “Let’s work together and think of how we can discover everyone’s interconnection in the common soul of Adam, which is filled with the Upper Light of eternity and peace.”

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Alexander Rapoport is a practicing psychologist specializing in relationships, as well as a famous TV and radio host, theater and film actor, and singer throughout the Russian-speaking world.

We had a conversion over a video conference once, and it’s available here for your reading:
This World Has Not Been Created In Vain – Conversation between Michael Laitman and psychiatrist, sexual pathologist and actor Alexander Rapoport (December 1, 2005)

Here’s how the talk began:

Alexander Rapoport: By listening to the CDs with your speeches, I am ready to subscribe to every word. To me, everything that you say seems to be correct, everything that you say is good, everything that you say is very clear. The only thing that is not clear to me is how this differs from what the representatives of other teachings: yoga, Islam, Orthodoxy, qigong, Tai-Chi and etcetera claim. How is this teaching unique?

My Response: Your question, “How does Kabbalah differ from other teachings, religions?” I can answer by saying that on the surface, it does not differ at all. It stands in the same row as all other teachings: esoteric, non esoteric, religious, different spiritual practices. And man outwardly cannot distinguish one from the other. One can say that it is older than the rest, one can say that it has a more serious inner apparatus, with sketches and graphs, an enormous amount of literature, a connection to different manifestations in our life, but all this does not yet speak about the verity and uniqueness of the teaching.

The uniqueness of Kabbalah is absolutely not visible outwardly. Read the Full Conversation…

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The more you study TES (ed. abbreviation for Talmud Eser Sefirot), the more you understand what it is talking about. Every several lessons you suddenly understand something new, which changes the way you previously perceived and thought of matter. You’re able to understand things on a different level and project this differently onto everyday reality and the group.

A question I received: What difference does this make, if the only thing one needs is for the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) to take him through the Machsom (barrier)? Why does one need his understanding to change? After all, he can’t benefit from these changes, since what he understands comes from the will to receive, which is uncorrected and has no screen.

My Answer: You’re right. Everything that one attains through the mind, without feeling it, everything one attains in one’s uncorrected senses, without the intention to bestow – has no importance when it comes to spiritual attainment. But it’s important before he attains spirituality, because it helps him connect with the material in different states, when his senses aren’t working. And when one’s senses are working, he should try connecting them to the material that he studies. After all, TES speaks about your corrected state, and by studying it, you aspire to attain it with all of your organs, to actually enter it.

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How does Kabbalah view abortion? Abortion is opposed to natural development, and as such, causes imbalance with nature. It is physically and spiritually harmful, and if we sensed nature, we wouldn’t do it.

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A question I received: Is it possible to publish the Torah with an explanation of its inner meaning, the Sulam commentary? Many people I know say: “I only know the Torah of Moses. I don’t know The Book of Zohar, only Moses. I don’t know Rashbi, the Ari, or Baal HaSulam, only Moses, and I read his Torah every day.” The problem is that they read a beautiful tale without the inner meaning. Is it possible to publish the Torah with explanations of its inner meaning beneath the text? Does such a thing exist? It would open the eyes and hearts of many!

My Answer: This won’t open anything up for anyone. About twenty or thirty years ago, people used to ask how Kabbalah explains different excerpts from the Torah. Lured by these commentaries, they came to learn Kabbalah – myself included.

However, today people want to know about themselves, and they don’t care about what’s written in the Torah. One considers one’s own soul as being more important. In the past, people were interested in theoretical problems, but today, they are interested in practical problems, the problems of survival.

Thus, we should speak to people directly, and not confuse them with beautiful phrases. We should succinctly explain causes and their effects, get straight to the point, and tell people how they can change their lives in a way that everyone will understand. I dismiss those who set their terms and say, “I only want to hear it this one way.” Let them receive a few more blows of fate, and then they’ll feel the approaching disaster, the suffering, and will come without setting any terms. A hungry person is ready to eat anything, and doesn’t ask for a menu.

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A summary of Baal HaSulam’s article “There Is a Difference Between Corporeality and Spirituality” (article #164 from Shamati):

In corporeality, the force precedes the act. Such is the arrangement at the end of correction: no act is done until there’s enough strength to carry it out.

In spirituality, the act precedes the force. Everything takes place according to a step-by-step disclosure of desires suitable for correction, from the easiest to the most difficult. Therefore, the work needs to begin even before one has the strength to carry it out.

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A question I received in response to my post “A Call for Ideas – New Children’s Games“: How can one help a child mature if the child resists? I understand “Mosif daat mosif mahov” (“increase knowledge, increase pain”) but it’s still difficult to observe a normal boy, 13 years of age who wants to be like an 8 year old.

My Answer: You can impose a more grown-up environment upon him by involving him in his peers’ hobby groups, and keeping him out of the house.

A question I received in response to my post “Comments about Depression, Seeming Egoistic to Others, and Parenting“: How do I defend myself against evil people that hurt my feelings and constantly bother me? How can I deal with the stress that results from this?

My Answer: Find an environment that will allow you to feel secure and healed. Whatever you do, don’t isolate yourself. Find amusement, sports, a change of scenery, and be hard on yourself for being sensitive.

A question I received in response to my post “The Creator = Nature“: Why isn’t the Creator indifferent towards me? Is He more concerned about me than others? If this is true, then why?

My Answer: Put simply, the time has come to correct your individual soul in the general collective of souls, of the single soul of Adam.

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A question I received: Newspapers are full of reports about a mother having sexual relations with her two sons, allegedly to spite her husband. The 38 year old resident of Netivot, Israel was arrested on suspicion of having sexual relations with her two sons. She said that she did it to spite her husband, whom she is divorcing.

Lately we’ve been hearing about many cases of mothers raping their children. Why is this happening now, and with mothers? After all, a woman’s love for her children is the most natural, pure, real, and essential feeling! So what is making mothers abuse their children so cruelly?

My Answer: Egoism is assuming these horrible forms because we should have started correcting it on the mass scale a long time ago. The time of correction began with the Ari, and Baal Shem Tov also tried to achieve this by spreading Chassidut in Eastern Europe.

Egoism has grown beyond the boundaries of the natural, animate level, and is manifesting in a supernatural form, in order to force us to reject it and instead adopt bestowal and love. Unless we realize this and start correcting ourselves by studying Kabbalah (i.e. acquire a basic understanding of nature, life, and the world), then in the near future we will face even uglier manifestations of egoism, such that the world has never seen.

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