Audio Version Of The Blog – 1/2/21
Posted on January 2nd, 2021
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In this world, in our little egoism, we feel only what it can catch. The wisdom of Kabbalah and, in particular, The Book of Zohar says that a person perceives everything within himself, but there is really nothing around us. Everything we see is a reflection of our inner state.
For example, now I am in front of you, I am being filmed by a camera, there are also different people here. In fact, physically none of this is in front of me, it is all in me.
Kabbalah tells us about the mystery of our perception of reality. The world that seems to exist outside of us is called a contrived, as it were, fantastic world, which I imagine so by my internal qualities. And the fact that I see the appearance of more and more new objects and phenomena occurs because I develop inside myself and thus see everything supposedly from the outside.
The fact that a person sees everything inside himself, i.e., perceives only himself, can be scientifically proven. Psychology and philosophy say a lot about this.
Outside of us, there is only the white light of the Creator, His absolutely equal attitude toward us. And all the qualities that we see outside of us, which we imagine to be all kinds of objects, forces, movements, these are our internal qualities and phenomena.
Everything that we experience within ourselves is reflected supposedly in front of us, outside of us. I am like a movie projector that projects my own, mostly black egoistic qualities into the white light. And that’s how I see the world. Therefore, it is said that you see the world that you create.
If you want to see a kind world, you must be kind yourself. You draw the world. Draw it the best, it’s up to you. Do you want to be happy? Be it.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah – Science of Life” 3/1/18
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Question: Internally, we are constantly moving away from each other. We see that egocentric thinking grows all the time and manifests itself in different situations.
Have we reached the end point of social distancing or will we continue to distance ourselves from one another before we start to unite? What is the trend of nature?
Answer: The tendency of nature is directed toward absolute unification of all people; therefore, it forces us to get closer to each other all the time. No matter how much we want to distance ourselves from each other with our egoism, nature, on the contrary, will push us together, and force us to come closer until we understand that this movement must be heartfelt.
Question: There are two trends here. On one hand, nature, which fosters selfishness in us, alienates us from each other. On the other hand, the same nature pushes us toward unification. Does nature have two forces, as it were?
Answer: Naturally. These are the egoistic forces that are at the basis of our world and the altruistic force is the force of attraction, mutual love, and bestowal, which is at the basis of the spiritual world. Both forces, especially in our time, are increasingly manifesting in us.
It is good if we understand where this is all leading and begin to walk along with nature. In this case, we would not feel contradictions, problems, or blows of fate.
If we do not want this and act only in accordance with our egoistic strength, then we will have many problems including all kinds of wars, problems with viruses, like now, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/30/20
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A New Day, a New Party”
(Yet) Another general election is coming up in Israel in less than three months. As we have seen over the past recent general elections, all of which happened in the last two years, a new campaign brings with it new parties. And as we have seen, these parties turn out to be ad hoc initiatives, which often fall apart soon after the election or, perhaps, last just until the next election.
Jews have always been opinionated people; it’s our nature. However, when the only purpose of establishing new parties is to politically eliminate other parties or other people and to take control instead, nothing good can come out of such political maneuvers. If there is any purpose to them, it is to discover that this road has no way out; it will amount to nothing. The only question is how soon we will discover it.
You cannot achieve anything by splitting the society. You also cannot establish a solid and stable party when you have dozens of other parties whose sole purpose is to ruin one another. We are only splintering our society to the point where we will be compelled to agree that we cannot build anything this way.
At the same time, we also cannot agree on anything, although we know how destructive division is to our society. What do we do? We realize that we cannot reconcile our differences, yet we must find a way to coexist despite the fragmentation. When we acknowledge this, we will realize why we are so divided—since this is the only way that we can build unity.
We must understand that without division, there is no unity. If we have no disagreements, we can live peacefully next to each other, but not with each other. We may live side by side, but not in any form of unity, but as neighbors who ignore one another, oblivious to each other’s existence. If this were the case, we’d be like different animal species sharing the same habitat, yet are separated from one another.
Humans aren’t animals. If we were, we wouldn’t evolve the way we have; we wouldn’t have developed civilization and we wouldn’t have developed global interdependence. Humans are meant to mingle because only mingling, connecting, and disagreeing force us to find a tighter bond than separate animal species cohabitating.
The process of forced unification is very meaningful. It’s the only way we can come to feel consciously what animals feel instinctively: that we are all connected. Instead of sensing that connection and following it instinctively, and therefore unconsciously, we humans must toil on our connection, exert for it, and overcome hatred and conflicts. In the process, we become aware of all the intricacies in our connection, cherish it, and comprehend it on levels that no animal can. This is the advantage of man over beast: the profound understanding of the makeup of life. But it happens only if we 1) reveal the separation that exists between us, and 2) exert to overcome it.
The Jewish people, or more correctly, the ancient Israelites, were the first to achieve this unity, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, when we connected “as one man with one heart.” Only once we did that, we became a nation. Immediately afterwards, we were instructed to reflect that unity to the rest of the world, or as the Torah phrased it, be “a light unto nations.”
It is therefore no wonder that we find that the Israeli society is more divided than any other society. The conflicts manifest in us more than anywhere else precisely so we will set an example of rising above them. We will never be able to eliminate them, since then we will have no need to unite. All we will be able to do is realize that our common goal is to be a light of unity for the nations and because of it—and for no other reason—unite among us.
I have no timeline for the completion of this process; I don’t know how long it will take, or how much pain the people of Israel in the State of Israel will have to endure before we realize what it is we have to do. Either way, unity will be the end result, and it will also be the solution to our problems. I hope we come to it sooner rather than later.
Happy New Year to all.
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Question: I hate the state of receiving for myself. But how can I increase my willpower in order to get out of myself as quickly as possible and include the entire process of creation within me, to understand and feel the connection between me, the Creator, and the world?
When I find myself in a situation outside the group, I doubt a lot and cannot expand past this point. I seem to attend classes in a group, but a week passes, and the state of fulfillment, giving away somewhere leaves. What can you recommend?
Answer: I cannot give you any advice besides full integration within a group. I do not know which group you belong to, what you are involved with, and to what extent you are working on the integration of everyone with everyone. But the fact is that besides that there is nothing else.
If you are fully integrated with a group and stop feeling the difference between you and others, you will become qualified and suitable for receiving and discovering the upper light within you.
Through integration in a group, you transform yourself from being an egoist to possessing the characteristic of bestowal so that the light will begin to be revealed in you.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/25/18
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Thrive Global published my new article: “2021—Between Pessimism and Optimism?”
A giant seven-foot tall 2021 sign was placed in the middle of Times Square on the 21st December to begin the countdown to New Year. The sign will be lit up at midnight on December 31st. People are asked to take pictures with the sign and share them on social media using the hashtag ‘#balldrop’ while still maintaining COVID-19 safety guidelines. Where: New York, United States When: 21 Dec 2020
Credit: Niyi Fote/TheNews2/Cover Images
A new year is always associated with a new beginning, particularly after a tumultuous year people want to forget altogether. This is a natural form of self-preservation that humanity goes through, acting like little children who close their eyes and say, “We’re not scared anymore, nothing is out there.” On the contrary, the year we have left behind has been one of great lessons learned, an eye-opener to the importance of the connection between us in order to make a fresh start of the world toward a good future. Everything depends on our unity.
Humanity is divided into two parts—pessimists and optimists, Left-leaning and Right-leaning, men and women. Nature has created a diverse reality, but if we learn to connect with each other in a mutually complementary way, all the shades and distinctions will fuse together beautifully. Such a merging will create the kind of wholeness that no single part could reach on its own.
Do you see the glass as half empty or half full? Being pessimistic or optimistic about life is largely determined by the way the brain functions and is influenced by our genes. If so, how can we build a balanced approach to all the kinds of situations that can arise?
Being constantly optimistic is not ideal because if, for example, we do not recognize the danger inherent in a particular situation, we may get into trouble. On the other hand, it is not good to always be pessimistic either. We need to learn how to connect these two tendencies in a balanced way, like the positive and negative in an electrical system.
If we were to look in depth, we would find that within every pessimist is also a bit of optimism, and vice versa. This is how we are built so that we have something in common through which we can somehow connect and communicate with others who have opposite qualities. That is, in order to complete every quality on the minus side of the forces of rejection, separation, and hatred, there exists a complementary quality on the plus side that expresses union and love. This is how we achieve balance.
In order to upgrade our perspective in life we need to connect with different kinds of people. Consider this: not only do we have two eyes, but our brain is also divided into two. The combination of opposites is necessary for building a complete working system. In recent years this insight has been internalized in the fields of science, technology, and various other innovations. The most significant projects require a very high level of integration.
Studies show that optimistic people tend to focus on progress and growth, while pessimists are primarily concerned with confidence and stability, being careful not to take risky actions. The right combination of the two tendencies can move us forward with confidence and security in an optimal way.
The tendencies that are inherent in us from birth cannot be changed, but what can be molded and directed is the way that they are used, and this is made possible by connecting with others. Therefore, constant self-criticism or torturing ourselves to change is useless. It is far better to concentrate on developing relationships with others, which then lead to the attainment of new achievements at a higher level. The formation of deep connections requires efforts to transcend our natural egoistic tendency to want to control others, the natural rejection we have of someone who is different from us.
In a broad sense, every society is comprised of disparate constituents and divergent people, and from year to year the struggles between conflicting types become more forceful. However, the globalized world we live in is a single connected network that is closing us in together. In such a reality where we are becoming increasingly dependent on each other out of necessity, only if we complement one another with mutual guarantee can we build a stable system that will ensure that humanity doesn’t implode and go to its doom.
The challenge of our times is to learn to maintain the difference and uniqueness of each and every individual, while building a balance between them all. Such a process will open up for us a new, integral, complementary, shared mind and emotions that will break through into a new dimension of existence, one that is connected and beautiful. Like nature, like the fabric of life. Therefore, the best New Year’s resolution we can set is to move toward closer connection with each other.
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— Published on January 1, 2021
Question: How can you justify the Creator in any situation? I cannot deceive myself, especially when I am angry or feel a lack of fulfillment.
Answer: If a person who had absolutely nothing to do with the Creator before begins to feel His presence precisely in suffering, in contradictions, in the properties and actions opposite to the Creator, then this is the justification of the Creator.
Question: Where is His presence felt? In this world, I see, hear, and understand you through my material senses. And where is the Creator understood?
Answer: This is the next sense organ, which is not associated with material sensory organs. He is above them and is their root. What we sense in our senses and mind comes from a higher level. Therefore, it is called faith above reason.
Question: In these roots one can hear the Creator and see the Creator. Are these different types of comprehension?
Answer: Of course seeing and hearing are different types of comprehension. We see this also in the prophets. There are those of them who speak with the Creator, and there are those who see the Creator: “I have heard” or “I have seen.”
Question: It is clear that this is all an allegory because the Creator is all nature. Then how can we talk to Him?
Answer: It depends on the level of the comprehension of the Creator. Therefore, a person who is at a certain stage says: “I heard. I saw. I heard a voice. I had a vision.”
Question: And yet, what is it: nature, the universe, all forces?
Answer: This is comprehension of the next informational level of nature, which is above our five material senses.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/11/19
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Question: What is the state of bestowal? What does a person who is in this state feel?
Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah, which studies the nature of man, the state of the world, and the entire universe, states that there is no bestowal on the corporeal level. The entire nature of our world is egoism, that is, the will to receive.
No one gives anything to anyone. No one can. No inanimate, vegetative, animate, or human being can give anything to anyone without receiving something in return. And this is not bestowal but rather an exchange, reception.
If I give in order to receive something good in return, it means that I am receiving. When we pay money for a purchase in a store, do we bestow?
Question: So is this a kind of egoistic altruism?
Answer: There is no such concept as altruism. It was invented by philosophers.
Comment: But you yourself gave an example of cells in the body that as if give for the sake of the entire body.
My Response: For the sake of the body because they participate in the general metabolism of the body without which they themselves will not be able to live. And in cancer cells the internal program of such coexistence is disrupted, and therefore they kill the body and themselves. That is, they act to their own detriment. They shoot themselves in the foot, so to say.
Question: Does it mean that there is no pure bestowal in nature?
Answer: No. There is only reception. That is why our wisdom is called the wisdom of Kabbalah, the science of receiving, because it clearly speaks about reception.
Very often we hear a wife reproach her husband: “I gave you my whole life!” Or parents say to their children: “We gave you our lives!”
Yet, no one gives anything to anyone! It is just that if we value this object, then by giving to him or her, we feel that we are receiving. We even often ask: “Please, take it, eat it” and so on. That is, for us, it is like an act of receiving and not giving.
Therefore, if you look at anything in our world correctly from the point of view of Kabbalah, you will see that no one bestows to anyone and they cannot! This is not inherent in our program. Absolute bestowal comes only from the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/28/19
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