How to Compromise With Your Partner

How to Compromise With Your PartnerTwo questions I received on handling relationships

Question: What do I need to do to stop seeing only those things that separate me from other people? It is difficult for me to see the good deeds that people do; I get stuck on their bad deeds, even though I realize that this disconnects me from my friends in the group. I must mention that this mainly happens in relation to men, including my husband. Even though this also happens with women, but when it comes to women I manage to find balance. What should I do?

Question: In one of your talks about relationships, you said that when a couple has a disagreement about something, the best thing to do is keep quiet and not argue, and this silence will lead to a new understanding of one another and a new level in your relationship. You will also set an example for your partner. Can you please talk about this some more? This is a sore spot in my relationship, and I think that there are many couples going through this.

My Answer: Staying silent in an argument, compromising, causes your partner to react in the same way. Compromising leads to union and understanding, an understanding that we need to unite over our egoism. In such a way, we develop respect for one another, even for each other’s weaknesses, and understanding of each other’s nature, and this, in turn, leads to love, regardless of the obvious uncorrected properties of each partner. It says in King David’s Psalms: “Love covers all sins!” That is, the sins still remain, but the two of you learn to rise over them and unite there.

Related Material:
Article: Relationships – The Purpose of Creation
Article: Relationships – Man and Woman
Article: Relationships – A Woman’s Nature
Article: Relationships – Family
Article: Relationships – Upbringing
Article: Relationships – Concerning Love

What Is Death? How Can We Not Fear Death?

What Is Death?A question I received: What is death and how can a person stop being afraid of it?

My Answer: When a person identifies himself with the animate level (the body), then he is afraid of its death, since he also sees this as the end of his “I’s” existence. But if he’s already begun identifying himself with the soul, that is to say, he generally begins perceiving himself in his inner life, he feels his “I” beyond the animate level (the body), he perceives himself through the point in the heart, unites with the points of others and starts living in others, then he attains the state of confidence (of course, under the influence of Ohr Makif), and knows that even if the physical body will die, he has already acquired a new, spiritual body! And at the moment of death he perceives his physical body as if he is being undressed and is parting with it. In general, it’s a psychological problem. It’s because one feels oneself as living in the body – in one’s desires. The main solution lies in interacting in the group. It’s because when you start perceiving the desires of others (your “neighbors”) instead of your own desires, then you acquire an eternal body or desire outside of you.

Related Material:
Shamati Article: Confidence Is the Clothing for the Light
Shamati Article: About Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon a Person
eBook: Shamati (I Heard)
Purchase the Book: Shamati (I Heard)

Everybody Has Their Own Path

Everyone Has Their Own PathA question I received: Dear Rav Laitman, could you please explain how does Kabbalah treat marriage and differences in perception between husband and wife? Kabbalah has already explained a great deal to me. Does Kabbalah treat a relationship between husband and wife as a sacred one or is it up to one`s desire to decide whether to follow the path? Thank you for helping us to understand what was considered “a secret.”

My Answer: “Sacred” is the quality of bestowal, which we acquire under the influence of the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif), when we correctly study Kabbalah (the books of Baal HaSulam). There is no other sacredness! It’s written: “There is no coercion in spirituality.” In corporeality, coercion originates from egoism. But it cannot exist in the spiritual world and in spiritual actions.

Every person has his own path and his own time to come to the Creator, and therefore you don’t have the right to force anyone to do this, including your husband and children. You can only tell them about it without pressuring them, “by the way,” gently, without threatening them, and evoking love for this topic in them. And no matter what the result, you should continue with your family life just like before.

Uniting with everyone who aspires toward the Creator will give you the strength and the desire to attain Him. You should view your relatives as bodies that are related to you, and as souls that are foreign to you.

Related Material:
Part 6, Ch. 4 from the eBook Interview with the Future: What Should One Go Through in Order to Attain Spirituality?
Shamati Article #145: What Is Will Give Wisdom Specifically to the Wise
Chapter 4.4 from the Book The Path of Kabbalah: Questions and Answers
eBook: The Path of Kabbalah – Revealing the Hidden Wisdom
Purchase the Book: The Path of Kabbalah – Revealing the Hidden Wisdom