What Is Pain, and How Can We Stop Feeling It All the Time?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn our world, pain is the organism’s reaction to a problem in it. It’s the organism’s way of telling us that something is wrong with our body. For example, pain warns us of danger and makes us pull our hand away from fire. Pain compels us to move, to come closer to something/someone, or to get away from them, to change our qualities, to adopt new opinions, to realize the reason for the pain, to draw conclusions, and to progress to new states of being.

In fact, pain is the only force that is able to affect our egoism: pain when we feel bad, or when others feel bad, or when others feel good. Pain pushes us from behind and forces us to develop. The pain of feeling empty pushes us ahead, toward fulfillment. Pain is everywhere! All our sensations come from clashes, contact, pressure – or in other words, from pain. We feel pleasure only when it’s preceded by the painful sensation of an unfulfilled desire, suffering, or expectation.

However, when we come out of egoism and rise above the Machsom, we begin to realize that instead of living our lives based on lack or absence, we can live based on total fulfillment and fullness. Instead of basing everything on pain, we can take perfection as our starting point. Instead of doing the things we do because we need to, we can do them out of love, without needing anything.

This is a completely different kind of existence, a different attitude to the world, to people, to yourself, and of course – to the Creator. And when we attain it, the Creator immediately becomes revealed to us, because then we become perfect, just like Him.

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Only Kabbalah Combines All the Right Ingredients

Only Kabbalah Combines All the Right IngredientsA question I received: I’m able to intrigue many people with a “trick” that lets them be in the present, after they discover that they are always thinking and feeling the past or the future. The moment they’re “enlightened” by this realization, should I talk to them about Kabbalah? If yes, then what’s the best thing to let them read? They usually have preconceived notions, so it’s better to give them something easy to start with. For example, maybe I can let them read something by the American mystic and spiritual teacher Gurdjieff?

My Answer: The first time you talk them, don’t talk about Kabbalah but rather show them what is the reason for the crisis – both the personal and general one, and explain that the correction lies in unification, attainment of the quality of bestowal. Show them that this is the only freedom of will we have, and we are like robots in every other regard. Moreover, the attainment of this quality has to be evident in one’s perception and mind.

However, we can’t change our egoistic nature, but only an external force – the force of bestowal – can make this change in us. Explain how one can attract this force, that there’s a method for it, and so on.

Mystics and philosophers such as Gurdjieff, Madame Blavatsky, Solovyov and many others were true seekers of a connection with the Upper Force, but they didn’t have the right Teacher and the authentic method. Hence, their compositions only express their attempts to use human qualities and reason to figure out something that’s impossible to attain with our qualities. This can only be done with help from above, through the Upper Light.

Kabbalah draws the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) by combining the necessary “ingredients”:

1. The person
2. The group
3. The text that talks about one’s corrected state
4. The Teacher who guides the way

This is why Kabbalah is the only method of attainment that allows one to enter or clearly perceive the Upper World.

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How Little Geniuses Are Born

How Little Geniuses Are BornA question I received: I listened to your conversation with Professor Gregogy Brechman on pregnancy and birth, and it made me think about how lately everyone is panicking about aggression and violence among children, and child suicide keeps growing exponentially. According to your conversation with Dr. Brechman, the ones to blame for this are the pregnant mothers-to-be who are constantly thinking whether to “execute (abort) or to have mercy” on the creature that’s in their womb, because these thoughts instill a very powerful fear for life in the future child.

Shouldn’t we do something about these thoughts of the uncorrected parents, because the further we go, the worse and more egoistic their thoughts become, and hence every generation that’s born becomes more cruel and aggressive? If our thoughts during pregnancy really influence the way a person will turn out, then what should we think to make children geniuses? And can a man influence the thoughts of his pregnant wife?

My Answer: It doesn’t matter what state the creature is in: a drop of semen, an embryo, a newborn, a child, or an adult, and whether he already attains his higher existence or still doesn’t – regardless, as a Reshimo, he is always influenced by just one force – the Creator. And there is no one else in the entire universe besides the two of them – the Creator and the creation!

The Reshimo develops under the influence of the Light and begins to feel that it’s receiving from someone. It starts to perceive someone, the way a newborn does. In other words, one’s entire development is qualitative rather than quantitative – it’s the development of one’s relationship with the Upper One (the Light, the Creator), or of one’s attitude to Him.

Hence, if the parents are studying Kabbalah, the connection with the Upper One, then they already prepare their children – on the informational level – for spiritual development. And this influence becomes more and more important as the child develops through the prenatal period, then after he’s born, then the preschool period, and so on, until he becomes an adult. The soul has no age, and regardless of the form of its bodily, outer shell, any influence on the soul is positive.

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Preparing for Childbirth – a Conversation

I had a conversation that was recorded on the topic “Preparing for Childbirth,” as part of a series called “Family and Children.” I spoke with:

Dr. Yoel Shofaro – a specialist in treating infertility,

Hagit Telem – project manager at “Beit Kabbalah L’Am,”

Niv Navon – manager of the department responsible for disseminating our materials on the Internet.

Preparing for Childbirth

We compared the processes of conception and the embryo’s development in the mother’s womb that take place in the root – the soul’s development in the spiritual world, with the branch – what happens in our world. Dr. Yoel Shofaro is one of the leading practicing specialists in the field of infertility treatment, and he explained what modern science knows about the conception of life and the main problems of infertility today. We compared this with cases of infertility in the Torah and the conception of our souls. Why did we talk about this? Because the most important event in our lives is when the Upper Parztuf – called “mother” (Ima) – is pregnant with us – with our soul!

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