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Exile From Love

567.01The Egyptian exile is a very special state. Our entire corporeal world is under the rule of the will to receive, but it is not considered that it is under the rule of Pharaoh.

The fact is that the feeling of exile is caused by the exile from the spiritual world. Therefore, only a person who yearns for spirituality can gradually realize that he is not in it because there are egoistic forces in him that hold him captive and do not allow him to enter spiritual qualities. Thus, he discovers that he is under the rule of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

It will take a long time before a person begins to notice that his whole life is controlled by the egoistic desire that does not allow him to bestow, to come closer to the friends and closer to the Creator, to treat everyone with love, to return to the state of a single soul as it was before the shattering of Adam HaRishon. This is what defines the exile, and the intensity of it is also different for each and every one.

There are people who do not feel they are in exile from spirituality at all. They just feel bad in this world because of various problems, but this is not yet considered exile. Exile means separation from bestowal, connection, love. If a person does not yearn for this, then he does not feel that he is lacking it, which means that he does not feel himself in exile.

Therefore, we need to clarify whether we are in Egypt, in exile from spirituality, from bestowal, connection, and love, or not. You cannot just say “I am in exile” if you do not feel suffering. If I suffer from the fact that I am in egoism and think only about myself and not about the friends and the Creator, then I feel that I am in exile.

After all, I would very much like to rise above these thoughts and worries only about myself and to care about my neighbor, but I am not able to do this. This is the feeling of exile. The more I suffer from the exile, the more I will be able to enjoy the exit from it and the redemption.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/21, “Pesach (Passover)”

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Why Do I Feel This Way?

219.01The Creator told Abraham that all those who seek the Creator will have to go through 400 years of exile, through four stages. During these four stages of exile, they will receive addition after addition of the desire to enjoy, which will grow more and more, in four degrees. And according to this, they will want to come out of exile and will finally come out.

The study of the Egyptian exile is not an easy phase because this exile is imprinted in us, and we feel it. We will go through different states: yearning for connection and rejecting it, descents and ascents.

It is a struggle. On one hand, this is a very powerful period, and on the other, it is not very pleasant. And so you need to stick together and try to go through it by correctly balancing the mind and the heart, both of them acting at the same time.

If you only immerse in sensations, it will be terrible. And if only in the mind, it will be only dry abstract reasoning. Therefore, you need to try to combine mind and feelings correctly in order to understand why you feel this way.

“Why” is a question from the mind and what I feel is a sensation. And when we connect the mind and the senses correctly, it gives us the right Kli that will allow us to come out of the exile. As soon as we organize such a Kli, we immediately feel that we are entering the upper world, the spiritual reality, and we begin to feel the forces operating outside of this world and the Creator who fills everything and directs everything.

But before that, we will have 400 years of exile, that is, four stages of increasing the desire to enjoy, and we must learn how to properly handle it. Until we figure it out, we cannot get out of our egoism. We need to uncover it, organize it properly, clarify it in ourselves, find out what we are gaining at its expense, etc.

There is a big, painful work to be done inside the egoistic desire: we want to get out, but we are not allowed. And each time we reveal how weak we are, how we do not really want to get out to anywhere, and we do not understand why it is necessary.

In such states, there is a desire to escape from this work, and now it is important to have the strong support of the group, the environment, and the understanding that there is no way out and you must continue. You need the right framework that will hold you at times when you are thrown up and down and in all directions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/21, “Pesach (Passover)”

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Allegories And Spiritual Properties

560Question: At Passover, we eat Matzah and not bread. What does this mean spiritually?

Answer: The fact is that the rejection of egoism symbolizes the exodus from Egypt, from the power of the ego. By us eating Matzah, we seem to demonstrate what exactly the rejection is. A person should refuse to use bread because flour is one property and water is quite another.

Flour (the property of reception) and water (the property of bestowal) cannot be together. The holiday of Passover symbolizes the absolute separation between the property of receiving and the property of giving.

Question: Did the people who came out of Egypt go through all these states?

Answer: Yes, they felt that this was the way they should behave.

Question: And it was in such allegorical stories that they were supposed to describe everything? Couldn’t it have been something else?

Answer: No. There was no other way because spiritual properties had not yet appeared. How could you describe it? Only in the language of branches.

There are spiritual roots. It all happens in our inner forces there, and it is impossible to describe it because I do not know these forces, I am not familiar with them, I do not even have names for them.

And if I take spiritual roots and draw branches (consequences) from them into our world, because our world is arranged in exact similarity to the upper world, then I can already take the words “flour,” “water,” “Egypt,” “Red Sea,” and so on, and operate with these meanings while imagining that we are in the spiritual roots.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/15/19

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Brothers In Exile

528.04It is the feeling of exile that pushes us forward and obligates us to seek the center of the ten where we can connect together and then reveal our connection with the Creator. The sufferings of exile compel us to unite like a flock of sheep huddled together because they are surrounded by wolves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/21, “Pesach (Passover)”

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“In the Land Of Pharaoh King Of Egypt” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “In the Land of Pharaoh King of Egypt

There are many ways to think of the drama that took place between Pharaoh and Moses in Biblical Egypt. Some think of it as history; others see it as folklore, and still others see it as an allegory to teach us morals. The wisdom of Kabbalah has a completely different take on the story of the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. It views it as a process that leads to one’s defining moment in life: the liberation from the ego and the entry into a new reality, where the ego is the servant and care for others is the king. This is why today, when egoism is our sole ruler, it is so important to introduce the concepts of the wisdom of Kabbalah, since only caring for others will prevent the world from exploding into pieces.

In Kabbalistic texts, Pharaoh represents the ego, our inclination to focus on ourselves and strive for superiority over others. The period that humanity is in today is indeed a “Pharaoh” period. These days, Pharaoh, people’s untainted and unhinged egoism, is coming to the fore. It controls our lives, organizes them, and we have nowhere to run from its control.

In Kabbalistic texts, Pharaoh represents the ego, our inclination to focus on ourselves and strive for superiority over others. The period that humanity is in today is indeed a “Pharaoh” period. These days, Pharaoh, people’s untainted and unhinged egoism, is coming to the fore. It controls our lives, organizes them, and we have nowhere to run from its control. Even when we realize that it is not good for us to let Pharaoh govern and enslave us, we opt for “bread and circuses” since we feel helpless against it.

Nevertheless, bit by bit, the realization that our situation is not as it should be is forming within us. Gradually, we are realizing that the endless pleasure hunt leaves us empty in the end. We are born, mature, get a job, perhaps a career, have children, grow old, get sick, and die. Why do we go through these cycles? If in the end we die and stop existing, then why be born in the first place? The little pleasures we have in life, if we have them at all, alleviate some of the pain we experience the rest of the time, but if there is nothing left of our lives when they end, then what is the purpose of living, and what is the purpose of the suffering?

When we begin to ask these questions, and today more and more people are asking them, it is a sign that we are beginning to disagree with Pharaoh’s governance over us. This is the beginning of the emerging of the Moses within us—a new perspective on life that wishes to pull us out of the shackles of egoism and deliver us from the metaphoric land of selfishness: Egypt.

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not relate to physical locations or to flesh and blood people. Every persona in the drama is a force within us, and every land, a type of desire. Egypt represents the desire for self-indulgence, concentration on oneself, while Israel stands for the desire to give, to care about others, to connect with their hearts. Both “lands” exist in every person in the world; therefore, every person can choose with whom to sympathize: the inner land of Egypt, egoism, or the inner land of Israel, giving.

When Moses begins to grow within us, we begin to feel our stay in Egypt as pressing and oppressive. When the Passover story tells us that the people of Israel were in exile in Egypt, it means that they began to want to free themselves from the shackles of egoism, but Pharaoh, the kernel of egoism, would not let them go out free. After some time in that state, the Moses force within us begins to gain strength and makes all the pleasures that the ego offers seem pointless and tasteless. It isn’t that we suddenly fall from riches to rags, but that the same riches that felt so good before, feel pointless and meaningless, and we lose all joy from having them. But in the absence of having any other pleasures, we feel it all as emptiness and hunger. Worse yet, since we are not yet free from egoism and must still serve it, though we no longer want to, we feel that we are slaves, enslaved to Pharaoh.

Today, many thousands of people already feel like that. They are especially common among younger people, who grew up seeing their parents’ lifestyles and simply do not want them. They find no pleasure in them, but they also find no pleasure in anything else. This is why so many of them turn to substance abuse to forget about life, or to extreme sports or violence, frantically searching for something that will excite them and give them a reason to keep living. These youngsters are not failures and they are not fools. They are actually very bright and very honest with themselves, and cannot pursue a goal that doesn’t seem worthwhile.

This transition period we are in can be long and painful. The struggle between Pharaoh and Moses happens within each of us, but it also has social, national, and international ramifications. The Bible describes the time of hesitation whether to go Pharaoh’s way or Moses’ way as the ten plagues of Egypt. But in the end, the ego, namely Pharaoh, surrenders. Now we are approaching that point of choice on the global level. We can choose to experience the plagues, as well, or we can choose Moses’ way before the plagues land on us.

We know that in the end, Moses will win and we will build a united society, where people care for one another. Therefore, the sooner we head in this direction, the faster we will achieve this blissful state. In the process, we will avoid Egypt’s afflictions. Now is our time to make a choice which way to go, toward the land of Egypt, and suffer, or toward the land of Israel, the land of unity and love.
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“Does God Exist? Can You Explain Why God May Or May Not Exist?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Does God exist? Can you explain why God may or may not exist?

Subconsciously, we want God to exist. It is a natural instinctive response to uncertainty. But outside of our desire for God to exist, how can we find out if God really exists or not?

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a methodology for discovering a perception and sensation of God, which is also called “the Creator,” “Nature,” and various other names.

When we embark on the journey to discover the Creator, we start understanding how the myriad ways of believing in God without attaining revelation are no more than psychology.

Therefore, does God exist if we do not clearly perceive or sense Him?

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Creator is hidden from us and is attainable, but we cannot attain the Creator through our corporeal senses, intellect and emotion. Therefore, any beliefs in the Creator without attainment are no more than inferences and guesses.

The Kabbalistic approach to the Creator is written in the sources as follows: “A judge has only what his eyes see.” By developing our perception of reality according to the method of Kabbalah, we come to attain a new sense through which we can perceive a new reality, one in which we clearly see and feel the presence of the Creator. Until we reach such attainment, however, we cannot say that the Creator exists, because we have not attained that existence.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

21st Century: Looking At The Root Of The Problem

115.06Question: Yuval Noah Harari’s book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century talks about the challenges that humanity will face in the coming years.

Which he describes as mass unemployment, technological, political, and environmental challenges, nuclear weapons, a change of values, an era of disbelief or an epoch of post-truth, mass wars, a change in education, and constant disorientation in the future.

The author believes that former beliefs, on which the world was held until recently, have already collapsed, but nothing has yet come to replace them. We do not understand where to move, what to do, what skills to acquire. Where can this lead?

Answer: I do not consider these challenges a direct threat to humanity since it faces a more serious common goal: to rise above our nature that is constantly destroying us.

In the 20th century, we went through all sorts of technical and technological revolutions and two world wars, but this does not save us. We have reached computerization and technological breakthroughs, but even this is harmful to us. We see that our egoism is simply killing humanity, raising new elites, and they, like a hydra, devour everything around.

Therefore, we must look at the root of the problem. We can change social, political, no matter what, technologies a thousand times, but after a certain hope for some kind of “panacea,” we again find ourselves as losers because our egoism, like a “snake,” conquers everything and leaves us with nothing…

Therefore, all technologies and advances in any area will still lead us to disappointment in our development. It seemed that we could make humanity happy, worthy of the fruits of our development, but we see that, on the contrary, it feels itself falling ever deeper, hungry, unjustly dismantled into countries, nations, and classes. As a result, we again find ourselves in front of a large disillusion.

Therefore, we need to take our main goal, the egoistic nature of man, and see how we can correct it. Without this, all the principles or causes of our misfortunes will lead to nothing. We need to look exactly at the root.
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From the conversation on the topic “Challenges of the XXI century. Introduction” 4/24/19

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Where Should A Person Go?

 202Comment: 2020 stopped production, which resulted in a depression, led to poverty, destroyed entire industries, broke families, and ruined governments. “We have all failed,” says the UN.

On the other hand, forecasts for 2021 say it will be much worse. The virus will be scarier. We will be vaccinated every year or every six months, and so on. There are many dire predictions. And here a man stands between these problems and does not know what to do. He’s like a paralyzed person.

And they also say: “You look at 2020, and it will seem like a fairy tale to you.”
How should an ordinary person behave between these fires?

My Response: A person should still ask himself: “Why is this happening in the world? Can I do something about it?”

Now we can somehow answer this. We still need to correlate our life with what is happening,  why have such viruses suddenly crept out. If we were killed by a nuclear war, that would be another matter, everyone would understand. And why did some strange virus suddenly appear? Tomorrow may bring another one, then a third, and so on. Where can we go from there?

Comment: A nuclear war is understandable: Here is the enemy and he is dropping a bomb on you, or you are dropping it. And then someone invisible…

My Response: Nature.

Question: And how can we talk to nature? How does one enter into a dialogue with it, say: “Don’t touch me.” Or: “Why are you touching me?”

Answer: We do not approach nature, we do not approach it. We are constantly in opposition to nature. All nature is integral, global, everything is interconnected in it, and humanity, on the contrary, builds a system that is opposite to nature in everything!

Nature is a living organism in which we also exist as a living organism. And these two living organisms begin to oppose each other because we do not want to recognize ourselves as a part of nature.

We are doing a huge amount of anti-natural actions. We hate others, we dig in the ground and destroy the air, trees, whatever. See what happens every day! We are even told about it, but we cannot contain ourselves.

We subjugate nature in everything and everyone. We are in every way opposed to the integrality of nature and we constantly violate this integrality at all levels and in all possible forms. And that is why nature reacts in this way! This is not some kind of malicious intent in nature.

Comment: But it is attacking us now.

My Response: It is not attacking, but it is protecting itself from its main pest—man.

There is no question of any retribution here. Only a normal reaction of nature. Not some evil intentions. There is no such thing in nature. And there is just a clear reaction. We have reached the point where nature will have to destroy us. We are the only and greatest evil in nature.

Question: So what’s next? What actions should an ordinary person take?

Answer: Stop being opposite to nature. Make it so that you understand what it means to correspond to it, moreover, at the levels of physical, genetic, biological, vegetative, animate, whatever. And most importantly, as a person. With our thoughts, we are directing huge damage to nature. We do not want to be the integral core of all nature. Although we, in general, are the top of it by design.

Question: I am an ordinary person who lived my normal life. Is it enough for me to begin to understand that the world is interconnected?

Answer: I must understand! Otherwise, these pandemics will not end. What does nature teach you? That you are in a huge closed system. In this system, you excite all kinds of negative forces, properties, reactions.

Question: So you won’t get tired of repeating, repeating, and repeating it?

Answer: I have nothing more to say. I speak from a different point of view. What else can I say to humanity? After all, there is no other reason for our constant deterioration of our condition, degradation at all levels. There is no other reason.

We have created a system of our interconnection, the so-called society, which eats itself up.

Question: What decision should an ordinary person make, not the government of the world, not the UN? What do you call him to?

Answer: I think that nothing depends on government here. It depends on the attitude of a person to the world around him—to inanimate, vegetative, animate and human levels of nature. All levels.

We must protect this world. We must, as the most terrible, threatening part of it, bring this world to equilibrium precisely with our correct attitude. Except for us, all of nature, the entire universe is in equilibrium. And we are breaking this balance with our thoughts and actions.

Question: So it is enough for me to at least direct my thought to this?

Answer: And everything else depends on thought. A person does not do anything completely thoughtlessly. If we stop thinking about harming each other, then the world will immediately begin to calm down from this thought.

Most importantly, let’s calm down with our thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/8/21

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Reaching The Upper Light

509Question: It is written in The Book of Zohar that once Adam tasted the forbidden fruit he must not touch the Tree of Life. Why?

Answer: Because this is the light, which will only make his corrupted state worse, as if you give a baby or an uncorrected person a weapon with which he can harm himself and others.

That is why now it is necessary to make sure that he enters the system of governance, which will force him first to correct himself, then to receive fulfillment in accordance with this and become the recipient of the forces.

Once he realizes what state he is in, he receives the forces for correction, not that he already had them and then received the opportunity to choose how to work with them. First, you need to acquire knowledge, an understanding of where and how you are going, break away from your imaginary perfection, and only then receive the upper light and correct yourself.

This is how we are in our world. Today, humanity still does not reach the upper light. It receives nothing, runs around, and does not know what to do with itself.

However, when it begins coming closer to the understanding that it should rise upward, then to the extent that it has a firm decision to correct itself and rise above its state from egoistic qualities to altruistic qualities, it will receive the force of light. Otherwise, it will only harm itself even more.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #7

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