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Question: You have said that naturally there cannot be true friendship between women, why?
Answer: True friendship cannot be between men either. Their friendship is no different from childish friendship. Women don’t know how to be friends because they are individualistic; we see that in everyday life.
In the spiritual world, both men and women encounter the same problems and it makes no difference that women are more distant from a mutual connection between them than men who seem to find it easier to connect to one another, but it only seems so at first. But when women begin to build internal connections between them, they see that it isn’t that easy and so do the men. Therefore my advice is not to think that it is easier for men to perform spiritual corrections.
Question: Do women need a group?
Answer: Women need a group just like men do. In spirituality, women have to perform all the actions that a man performs: the same closeness, the same mutual guarantee between them. In the spiritual world it makes absolutely no difference which body you are in; think that you have no body.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15
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The desire to receive is the matter of creation. This desire develops on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and undergoes different phases as a result of which more and more complex structures are formed. The elementary particles gather into atoms, the atoms are connected into molecules, and the molecules are connected into different materials: gases, liquids, solids, and plasma.
Later, the level of the vegetative formed including all its components. Here the organization and composition of matter is much more complex and unique since it develops, absorbs, emits, multiplies, etc. The animate level is even more complex.
Generally speaking, matter increasingly includes more different parts and is more complex. Different processes occur in it caused by internal software and also by the external influence of the environment.
Eventually there is the level of man, which in its development also undergoes the three earlier phases: the still, vegetative, and animate. Wisdom is developed, and desires for food, sex, a family, money, respect, and knowledge. Mankind develops emotionally and cognitively, and the main part of our development is in the relations between people, social development.
In addition to that, modern research indicates that we give up our cognitive development for the sake of social relations. This is because society generally emits and expels people who are too intelligent. They are humiliated because they stand in society’s way of feeling as one body. Society prefers people who are grey, simple…
Therefore, according to the software of nature, humanity has preferred to develop, not in a special emotional or cognitive way in the form of a large, unified, grey society, but one in which people are connected. This is what we are more attracted to while we don’t like, belittle, and reject everything that is not part of this standard framework. This is the way we evolve.
Eventually we reach a special stage in which global society becomes more or less homogeneous, and the point in the heart begins to awaken in many people—a new deficiency, a new desire. It is a special desire that is revealed according to the plan of creation, and there is nothing we can do about it. It isn’t a way to be above others on the same plane, not an addition of intellect, feelings, or any other talent. No, this point totally belongs to another world and therefore involves no competition with anyone as is customary in our world.
For ages impudent people who tried to stand out in society and to be above others were excommunicated because society usually doesn’t tolerate such people. But the point in the heart is a totally new urge. It doesn’t invoke competition against someone who doesn’t have that point; it opens a new world for everyone and on the whole doesn’t interrupt in anyway. Such people are called “Israel,” which means Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). They interact with one another, with others, and especially with the upper force in a different manner.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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New Life #508 – The Whole Truth About the Upper Force
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe.
Summary
There is an operating system surrounding the universe and the different forces of this system operate our world. Above these forces there is one force. The goal of our spiritual development is to get to know the upper force, to understand that it operates from inside us and speaks inside us.
All the Holy sources teach us how to discover the upper force. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that we shouldn’t blindly believe that this force exists, but should explore, study, and discover it by ourselves.
The great Kabbalists, who were very wise people that lived thousands of years ago; they developed many levels, and wrote books in which they encoded the inner secrets of the upper system. All these books actually teach us how to attain the upper force.
Today the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, inviting everyone to learn how to develop his soul and get to know the upper force; it is the attribute of love and bestowal, the good and benevolent force. This is how the ancient Kabbalists actually broke through the borders of time and space and conveyed the message about the force of love and bestowal to us in the books written through “love thy friend as thyself.”
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From KabTV’s “New Life #508 – The Whole Truth About The Upper Force,” 1/22/15
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New Life 684 – The Need To Criticize Others
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
It is natural to criticize others since we are all egoists. Each of us wants to be the king and to rule, and even in school we can already see who the critical and cunning kids are, qualities that accompany them in political positions and on an international level. The more a person’s ego grows, the more he feels distinct from others and the greater his criticism of others.
Today, social networks and the Internet enable a person to criticize everything and to say whatever is on his mind to let out steam. In the future, the ego will be even more complex, pride will grow, and very few in the world will behave differently. In ancient times, in the early days of humanity, the ego was collective, but as the ego developed more and more, each member of the tribe felt that he was separate. The sense of criticism developed in order to separate man from others to our current state when everyone hates everyone else.
A person attacks the one who criticizes him while allowing himself to criticize everyone else since he feels that he is the clever one who understands everything. On the next level of the development of the ego, a person will feel so distant from others that he will have nothing to do with them, not in commerce or in any other area. Each of us will sit alone in his home and only machines will do the work for us. People will not even engage in sports; everything will freeze.
There can be constructive criticism only toward someone we love, but today everyone hates everyone else, and when everyone feels isolated and lonely and the question of “what am I living for?” awakens in a person, the correction of the ego will follow.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 684 – The Need To Criticize Others,” 2/2/16
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Questions from the World Kli“
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Writings of Rabash – Letter 40
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Writings of Rabash, “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 24
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From the News (Huffington Post): “Food stamp enrollment is expected to fall by 1 million next year thanks to harsher rules, according to a new report by a liberal Washington, D.C., think tank. …
“After this year, states will have to reimpose requirements that able-bodied childless adults enroll in job training or work 20 hours per week if they want more than three months of food stamps. …
“‘The loss of benefits will likely increase hardship for these 1 million unemployed Americans who rely upon SNAP to meet their basic nutritional needs,’ Bolen wrote on the CBPP’s website. ‘With Congress unlikely to act, states need to begin planning for the reduction to ensure that clients and the many organizations and SNAP stakeholders that work with them are aware of the upcoming change and its effects.’
(Wisconsin State Journal): “Nearly 15,000 people lost access to food stamps in the first three months of a new law that requires some recipients to seek employment, new state data show. …
“The 2013-15 [Wisconsin] state budget created a rule for some recipients of the state’s food stamp program known as FoodShare: If you’re an able-bodied adult without children living at home, you must work at least 80 hours a month or look for work to stay in the program.
“That rule went into effect in April, and between July and September, about 25 percent of the 60,000 recipients eligible to work were dropped from the program when the penalty took effect, according to DHS data. …
“DHS responded on Nov. 17 saying based on anecdotal information from U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal food stamp program, roughly 60 percent of eligible recipients lost access to food stamps under rules similar to Wisconsin’s, and 10 to 30 percent found jobs.
My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us in the “The Last Generation” by Baal HaSulam how to build a society that resembles nature in which everyone works as much as needed in order to provide the basic necessities for himself and for society, and everything is divided in a relatively equal manner between everyone, and all the extra free time is dedicated to educating humanity and teaching the method of resembling nature.
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Comment: The chairman of the opposition Itzhak Hertzog demands the complete separation of Israel from the Palestinians: “I want to separate from as many Palestinians as possible as soon as possible,” he asserted in a speech he gave at a convention in the INSS in Tel Aviv, “They are there and we are here; let’s build a big wall between us.”
Hertzog presented a new plan in which he suggests building a fence around the big Arab settlements declaring that “only the separation between them and us will guarantee a Jewish majority in the state of Israel. Only the separation between us and them will prevent the penetration of terrorists and increase our sense of security.”
Answer: I don’t think this will prevent the penetration of terrorists since there is actually no barrier against terrorists and no border can be absolutely sealed.
My belief based on the wisdom of Kabbalah is that we should actually focus on unity between us that will draw all the nations of the world to unite around us! And first and foremost the people who are closest to us historically, mentally, and linguistically because Arabic is very close to Hebrew.
Therefore, we should change our attitude toward Arabs in Israel and the surrounding countries. Our teacher, the great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam, Rav Yehuda Leib Ashlag, wrote about it.
Personally I regard such expressions about the issue very carefully and doubt whether they have any practical meaning at all.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/8/16
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Question: Is it possible to discover the Creator without studying according to a method with a teacher and books?
Answer: It is possible, but this is very difficult. There have historically been Kabbalists who attained serious and high states without study.
One of the cases was a person who attained the upper world when he was in a Soviet concentration camp. He began to write in Hebrew there even though he didn’t know the language at all. It is considered that the book was written in a high language that nobody speaks and nobody understands.
I showed his book to my teacher Rabash and he said that this was a very high spiritual attainment, but it is individual like the Book of Psalms by King David.
I was amazed at how a person who doesn’t know the language could write something like this. Rabash answered that it was specifically the great suffering that he went through, which revealed the upper world to him, and he expressed his feelings in writing.
It is necessary to understand that we exist in the upper world, but we lack the desire for it whereas for him, there was a breakthrough into the upper world. There was an additional case of a person who also sat in the prison cell of a concentration camp, and from tremendous longing and great suffering he began to feel the upper world, although not clearly. But he felt as if everything enveloped and held him. This is a normal first feeling of the upper world, and that is what he described in a book.
When he reached Israel sometime later, we met, but all of his spiritual sensations had disappeared. It could be that if he had remained in a camp, he would have reached a greater attainment. Since this didn’t happen, he will live this life without physical suffering. But he had an illumination there and the opportunity to discover the upper world specifically from a state of suffering.
Comment: There are many people who suffer and don’t receive an illumination like this.
Answer: It depends on from what they are suffering. If a person suffers because he is searching for the meaning of life, this could end with the revelation of some kind of illumination. We are found in an ocean of Upper Light, but we don’t have a strong desire for it. When the desire appears in a person, he has some kind of vigilance and he makes an effort so he will feel a higher illumination.
Question: If a person receives illumination through suffering, does this mean that we were created to suffer?
Answer: No, a person is born to discover eternity, the infinite, perfection, and harmony. Suffering is not the right way to attain the upper world, and if this happens, then the contact with the upper world is temporary because the person doesn’t develop permanent desires for spirituality. I don’t suggest considering the example that I gave because a temporary illumination like this comes in moments of very great disappointment and despair when a person sees absolute darkness in front of him.
This is called the “illumination of Malchut,” an abyss that is not a void, not anything except coldness; instead, it is a state in which all substance seems to freeze in him. That is, the person has moved to the beginning of the creation of the universe.
This is possible because all of us are moving in a timeless dimension. States like these can be experienced when the ego disappears, but they don’t give anything. In moments of intense suffering, a person can feel some kind of detachment from his ego because suffering pushes him toward it.
His entire being is suffering and he wants to leap out of his body, apparently to stop existing. In a state like this he can feel a little detachment, but even though this is a state of antimatter, it is far from being spiritual.
If you want to achieve conscious fulfillment from the higher force correctly and rapidly, it is possible only through connection with friends according to the correct Kabbalistic method. All the other ways are incorrect.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/20/15
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