From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/1/18

Earlier this week, I came back from a successful international Kabbalah convention in Rome. Three days of exhilarating connection that filled me and hundreds of my students. However, before the flight back, we saw another reality.

The restaurants were empty of diners, the shops empty of buyers. The boot-shaped country is limping. The capital of Italy, known for its glamorous culture of food and fashion, is losing its glamour. The demographic balance has also changed, my local students have told me. Couples consider marriage only from the age of thirty-five and up, if at all. And they are not worried about having children, because according to them, it can happen until they are fifty.

Checking the Italian pulse reinforces a global diagnosis: human culture is both dying and being reborn at the same time. What used to be shiny is no longer apparent to the human ego. People are becoming indifferent as emptiness grows inside of them. It lands like a cloud, covering the horizon, and causing everyone to walk in the fog.

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Question: Can it be said that the prophets were Kabbalists? And if yes, then why did almost all of the prophets complain?

Answer: Prophecy is one of the levels of attainment of the Creator. The book of Ramchal, a great Kabbalist of the 17^th century, called The Path of the Creator, describes spiritual levels of attainment, one of which is called “the level of prophecy.”

It is one of the levels Kabbalists attain, and you too can achieve this state. A person on this level is already above the limitations of time, space, and movement, and that is why he is called a prophet. In other words, he sees what will be ahead and what was left behind, he sees this outside of time and even outside of actions.

Question: Then why did the prophets complain?

Answer: It is because they felt regret for what was happening to humanity, how people did not understand that they were only harming themselves. It is very sad to look upon this, like looking at a young child, you understand that he brings unhappiness onto himself.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18

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Question: Who is the study of Kabbalah meant for?

Answer: For everyone without exception because all who are born on this earth can attain their eternal state and remain in it by taking advantage of the opportunity given to them in this material life.

Question: What need can there possibly be for the majority of people to study this exalted wisdom?

Answer: The need is to understand the meaning of life and to attain it, rising to the next level of existence even before death in this world.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18

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New Life 1019 – Personal Capability In A Connected World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

If you try to connect to others and fail, you need to examine the reason: what does nature want from you? Every person can adapt themselves to trends in the development of nature and learning to connect with people correctly. In the future, it will be necessary to feel connected to the entirety of humanity just as a small village was connected in the past. We will require a special education in order to learn how to communicate with all of society, nature, and reality as a whole.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1019 – Personal Capability In A Connected World,” 6/5/18

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “From Helplessness to Crying Out to the Creator”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

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A person who wishes to advance in spirituality must remove his ego-desire.
He realizes that he can’t go against his ego-nature.
But since the Creator gave him the ego-nature, He will replace it as well, if the person asks for it from the bottom of his heart.

To lift a person from spiritual ascent, the Creator drops him down with thoughts of him instead of HIM. One thinks that he fell alone, spiritual growth isn’t for him and he’s worse than everyone. But precisely from this state, if he asks the Creator, He helps and brings him to Him.

Loss of energy and sensation of emptiness (after a congress) come from above—for us to find out: what does the Creator want from me? Why did He take away all my strength and desires?
It’s so I’ll depend only on Him and receive desires/strength to move to the goal only from Him!

After ascent (at a congress), we fall!
Yet it’s not descent, but the opportunity to reevaluate the goal anew:
What do I want from the Creator and what does He want from me?
Whereas in ascent there is no care for spirituality—since I feel great and would stay this way my whole life.

According to Baal HaSulam, “Peace In The World”: Peace in a given society depends on world peace, for we’ve reached a stage where the whole world is a single society. So everyone has to care for the wellbeing of the entire world and serve it, in order to ensure his own existence.
From Twitter, 8/1/18

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Question from Facebook: You always talk about playing a game. I hate this word. I want truth in a relationship, not games. What should I do?

Answer: Fate plays with a person. We should understand that we must play in order to draw the upper force that will change and correct us.

The game is not just playing, but checking one’s present state and orienting toward the future at every moment. Since the future is unknown and the present, in general, is not particularly evident, we are always in a fog, in a confused state: How should we proceed?

The correct behavior of a person in relation to the future is called “play” because we ourselves do not determine our future, just our attitude toward it.

Setting ourselves up for the correct attitude toward a good future will bring us good in the present. This is how we will advance.

It is very serious work, but since our next state is unclear to us, our movement toward each other, our attitude to the world, to life, even to the Creator, is like acting on a stage, when we are acting out our best future state, imagining what it can be. When we aspire to it, then accordingly, we receive it from above.

In principle, it is based only on the fact that the future is unknown, and I can determine it and its relationship to me, my inclusion in it, with the help of actions called “playing.”

Question: Is depression also a game?

Answer: Depression is also a game because we build a picture of the future as completely dark, foggy, unknown, and frightening in front of us.

In principle, Kabbalah discusses only about how we can achieve a real, true, and correct future. We need to create it. When I create this future, I build it from blocks. This is the game.

I am playing all the time, building it. If we correctly understand how to play and create our future from the blocks, it should be to connect these building blocks, what we should imagine. What’s most important is the relationship between us in a world that we can make beautiful. We cannot create it. So, we must learn to play.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 6/5/18

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Our sages said (Tractate Yoma) that the Second Temple was ruined because of unfounded hatred. This is despite the fact that people in it were engaged in the Torah, the commandments, and charity, yet they did not do it selflessly but for the sake of a reward; that is, they fulfilled all the actions except for unification and therefore this work turned from the elixir of life into a deadly poison.

The Torah can be a deadly poison, that is, a medicine that helps kill an egoistic desire, and it can be the potion of life that enlivens the desire to bestow. It is the same upper Light. If it comes to the desire to receive while it is still egoistic and does not yearn to be corrected for bestowal, then it further hardens a person’s heart, leading him to the recognition of evil. Once a person recognizes his evil and truly wants correction, the same Light turns into a good angel.¹

First of all, we need to come to the recognition of evil; only it can lead us to the prayer, to the request for correction. The recognition of evil can be from my egoistic qualities, from the fact that I do not want to correct myself, or because I already want to correct myself but do not have enough strength for it. Strength is required not for the correction, but in order to ask the upper Light to correct me.²

The day of Tisha B’Av is grief over the broken soul abandoned by the upper Light, that is, the presence of the Creator. We have to bring it back. It is the fact that we do not want to bring it back, do not want to restore the broken soul—this is the ruin and crime that we should regret. That is, we do not mourn the destruction that once was, but our unwillingness to correct it here and now. We do not want to ask the Creator for our correction, we refuse even to approach this request. This is the real ruin.

We should cry not about the ruined building, but about ourselves, about our broken soul that we can, but do not, restore.³
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/18, Lesson on the Topic: “Tishaa BeAv (Ninth of Av)”
1 Minute 25:00
2 Minute 27:40
3 Minute 32:40

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Question: What is the Creator’s jealousy? If I am a part of the Creator, how can I be jealous of myself and in regard to whom?

Answer: To the extent that you fail to identify yourself with the Creator, there is an opportunity for jealousy. The Creator is jealous. He wants us to look at Him only. If we stop paying attention to Him, His attitude toward us changes dramatically in order to re-establish maximum connection between us again.

Question: Does the Creator have any qualities or feelings?

Answer: A person assigns various behavioral qualities to the Creator. One cannot perceive the Creator as the absolute because one cannot grasp it. Therefore, with regard to us, the Creator manifests in such a way that we begin to feel Him as an interlocutor, companion, partner, teacher, the one to whom we can attach ourselves and be in mutual communication.

Question: How does a Kabbalist perceive others if he or she is communicating with the Creator constantly?

Answer: I will tell you a secret. There are no others. I exist alone.

Question: Isn’t that lonely?

Answer: No, it is not lonely. Everyone is inside of me.

Question: What does communication with the Creator consist of: questions, dialogues, cries, arguments?

Answer: Communication with the Creator is built on the search for constant and ever-increasing contact, until the point of adhesion. Everything else is perceived just as an incentive, information necessary for complete contact.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/4/18

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Question: What is the difference between thinking about myself or thinking about others? In any case, I’m the one thinking?

Answer: Of course, I am the one thinking. After all, I don’t cease to exist. The difference is where I exist, within the beastly body or within my soul that is outside of me, in others.

Question: How can unity protect me from the powerful influence of the values of the consumer society?

Answer: If the group is more important to me than the wider society, or even the world, then the group protects me from the influence of the surrounding world. However, if the world is more important to me than my small group, then I am under its influence, and no one can even be a guarantor for my spiritual future.

Question: Can spiritual unity exist between a husband and wife?

Answer: Certainly. However, a group is usually divided into male and female parts. A couple can learn and read together at home. Moreover, a husband can open himself spiritually to his wife, like to no other in the world.

Question: Why does the Creator create situations that embarrass me?

Answer: The Creator is acting this way to rein in your ego somewhat, and what is so bad about that? What is it that is embarrassing you? Are you afraid that you will be discovered in unpleasant and disgraceful circumstances? All of this is meant to help you to humble and subdue yourself.

Question: What is the meaning of: “He who increases knowledge, increases pain” (Ecclesiastes 1:18)? What kind of pain is this talking about?

Answer: If you increase knowledge but don’t balance it with the system of bestowal, in other words, if the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) is not clothed in the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), then instead of Light, darkness emerges.

Question: How can I nullify my ego if I have nothing except the ego? Isn’t this self-deception?

Answer: This is why we exist in connection with the friends, so that my ego will be used to help them, and their egoism will be used to help me. Mutual integration between everyone with each other like this creates an anti-egoistic field.

Question: Can I insert myself into an anti-egoistic field through listening to a workshop or reading a book like The Book of Zohar, for example?

Answer: No, you cannot insert yourself anywhere that way. You can do this only with the help of your friends. No matter how impossible and complicated this may seem to you, there is no other way.

Question: What kind of connection is there between the higher power that manages everything and unity in a group?

Answer: It is the same thing. Where do you define the Creator, feel Him, correct your vision of Him, and come in contact with Him? It is only within the group. It is only through the right characteristics that you create among you.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/18/18

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