Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to conquer yourself?“

Conquering yourself means aiming to organize your egoistic drives in order to reach life’s final destination—balance with nature—and not caving into the ego’s demands.

By doing so, we enter into a constant struggle with the ego, which always draws us in different directions and makes us fail, and if we play our cards right, then we also overcome it time and again.

Human nature is egoistic. Due to the ego residing in each of us, we either consciously or subconsciously aim to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature. However, we are developing toward a final state of total balance with nature, which functions according to opposite altruistic laws.

Therefore, if we seek our final state, trying to align ourselves with it, and try to build positive connections and altruistic attitudes to each other above our innate egoistic quality, i.e., thinking in terms of what would benefit others, nature and the world above thoughts of self-benefit, then we would be on course to conquering ourselves.

Based on the show “News with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman” on February 15, 2021.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: Scientists are sounding an alarm: an epidemic of perfectionism is spreading all over the world. According to psychologists, perfectionism is a belief that an ideal can be achieved. In pathological form, it is a belief that imperfection has no right to exist.

My Response: Then what remains?

Comment: What remains is to get rid of anything that is redundant and to straighten anything that may be deformed. Different studies have led to the conclusion that all this leads to stress, depression, anxiety, and suicide.

My Response: This means that high demands that cannot be attained actually kill us.

Question: What is this ideal in Kabbalah? What should we aspire for and never concede, never give up?

Answer: The attribute of love and bestowal by which we become like the Creator is ideal.

It can be achieved by a gradual, step-by-step method. But we cannot implement it with our existing senses and attributes inherent in us in our world. We need to acquire additional attributes, additional senses, and then we will be able to implement this idea in us.

The ideal is when we collect all the forces, all of nature’s attributes, together in the most explicit manner, connect them to the one single ideal system, and they complement each other to such an extent that there is nothing redundant that we need to get rid of, and there is nothing missing in it either.

This means that all the elements of nature enter this system, complement each other, and make a system that is one absolute round sphere, absolutely ideal.

Kabbalah actually teaches us how we can connect opposite attributes into what is called the middle line, and then everything begins to work perfectly.

Question: And what is imperfection? Imperfection in man and in society?

Answer: There are many different levels and sublevels of imperfection. The main imperfection is when a person considers himself whole.

Question: Does imperfection have a place in society?

Answer: Imperfection has a place in society. It is thanks to the feeling of imperfection that society can constantly improve itself. We cannot live without it. This is actually what makes humans different from animals—the fact that they constantly feel their imperfection, which forces them to develop all the time.

Question: Perfectionists want to cut it all off and smooth it out?

Answer: There is no need to cut off or throw away anything because nothing in this world was created without a reason.

Everything stems from the ideal picture of the world, which fell apart on purpose, and we must collect the pieces and put them together again like a jigsaw puzzle. So there is not a single redundant piece or particle.

Question: What is a spiritual perfectionist?

Answer: I don’t think that a spiritual perfectionist is a perfectionist. He is simply a person who truly aspires to put all the pieces of creation into one perfect picture. This state is called Adam, that is, a system that totally resembles the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/24/19

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Question: Why did the perfect Creator create place for the dense tales of simpletons in His design? If it were not in the design, it would not exist in our world either.

Answer: Initially, the Creator created the light, which contains everything formed by Him and is under it.

Each upper level includes all lower levels, so the upper light includes the whole plan of creation, its goal, the method of its implementation, and its ultimate state.

Everything in creation exists in this light in the form of a very precise original record. Just as in the human genome there is everything that can be said about men’s past, present, and future. If we took all the genomes from all the people and connected them correctly, we would know everything about humanity.

It is the same regarding the upper light; it contains everything.

Question: So it is the ultimate scenario that contains all records?

Answer: Yes. Now everything is revealed to us as if we are at a certain stage along the path (to give us the illusion of freewill), and we supposedly have to reach this goal by ourselves.

But when you move forward, your own path opens for you because you are given “obstacles,” which you seemingly overcome and thus acquire a new feeling and begin to understand the Creator, to justify Him, identify with Him, and this is already worth something.

As a result of going through this path, we become aware of who created us, what He has done for us, and we feel immense gratitude.

But everything is predetermined, of course. Everything initially exists in its ultimate form. But by discovering this, we perceive everything as a great adventure.

Even when we watch some movie again and already know the end and what leads to it, we still enjoy it. Moreover, the second time we watch it, we enjoy it even more than the first time.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/10/19

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Question: What do the definitions “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery,” and “do not kill” mean? What or who are they talking about?

Answer: About each of us because we kill, steal, and commit adultery every second.

The fact is that we are in our egoistic, uncorrected states, and this means that I am performing these actions. If I have not corrected my “do not kill” or “do not steal” quality, then I am in it.

It does not matter if I implement it or not. The spiritual court evaluates a person according to his potential. So, if there is a quality in you that you can kill in a certain state, then now you are killing, which means you are not potentially a killer.

In the spiritual world, we do not need to specifically bring a person to this state. So, you are a murderer, a rapist, a thief, and everything else.

It does not really bother you right now. But the time will come when you will begin to feel all the potential, unrealized qualities as realized in you: now I kill, now I rape, now I rob, now I deceive. Then you get the feeling that you are responsible for all the suffering in the world. You cannot take it anymore.

In accordance with the way the light acts on a person, it shows who he really is and at the same time shows him from what source the light comes, then this difference between where the light comes from, the Creator, and the fact that he is potentially in all his terrible qualities, is felt in him by a terrible inner state of shame.

This shame that burns him is called hell. It is actually hell. Therefore, a person is ready to get rid of it. But getting rid of it is not so easy.

In hell there are eleven months—spiritual stages during which a person passes through the state of being opposite to the Creator, burning inside from the terrible sensations of his difference from the Creator so much that after these eleven months he corrects his state to equivalence of form to the Creator and comes to the state called paradise.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #9

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Question: Does the information field constantly transmit information to us and interact with us?

Answer: Yes, incessantly. We are in it all the time, but we do not feel it.

Comment: At the same time, according to the law of equivalence of form, there must be an area where we intersect with it, otherwise interaction would be impossible.

My Response: We interconnect according to the measure of similarity of properties. That is, to the extent that I am ready to realize the general properties of this field, I get closer to it, we come to equal or close to equal conditions, and this field affects me.

It excites certain processes in me because I am close to it. A kind of induction happens here, a leveling of my egoistic data due to changes from this field. Suppose I strive for certain changes and in accordance to it, I induce changes from this field. By wanting to approach it in properties, I create a certain vector of tension relative to it, and it accordingly acts on me in the opposite direction, opposite me.

Question: Can we say that this occurs in the desire through the right intention?

Answer: Of course. Absolutely correct.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 3/22/19

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Question: Today, all the rules of human social behavior completely replace each other. A man prefers to stay at home and do housework and a woman realizes herself in a career. Why is this happening?

Answer: Because we are developing incorrectly. The upbringing of the sexes has changed. Boys are raised by women, which is wrong.

Boys should be raised by men, because a child grows up by example. And when he is next to his mother, he revolves around her skirt all the time, and then the teacher in the nursery, in the kindergarten, the teacher in the school is by his side, then everything he learns is from a female, served by a woman.

Therefore, a man prefers to stay at home, raise children; he lacks that base, that attitude to the world, to life, which a real man should have. Today we do not even understand what it is. The whole world is like that—half-female.

I am not saying this as a reproach. It is just our omission. Both sexes must be educated so that they feel their opposite and know how to properly complement each other. And this is not happening.

If a child is brought up by women all the time, then he has no masculine basis, no understanding of his strength, his own peculiarity, his own fulfillment of some female properties, needs, requests. This is a big problem.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Common Law Marriage” 8/11/09

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Counting of the Omer (Sefirat HaOmer)“

Selected Highlights 

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Question: What is a person’s freedom of choice?

Answer: The fact is there is freedom of choice at the everyday level, which concerns each person. And how they manipulate it is their business.

And there is freedom of choice that concerns people who want to use it to ascend to another system of attainment. This is a completely different area. We call it spiritual because it is built not on the quality of reception but on the quality of bestowal.

Freedom of choice lies in the fact that a person enters into such an environment, puts himself under such influences that will help him create a quality in himself that is above his egoistic qualities. And in spite of his egoism, he can act anti-egoistically.

And how is this possible if egoism is his whole nature, it is all of him? Here, we begin to work in a team, in a group, and a special quality of bestowal arises (exiting ourselves above our egoism), which we acquire during the process of proper development through the study of Kabbalah.

Then we begin to feel that we can really rise above our usual, logical, egoistic qualities, desires, calculations, and actions to a completely different area where we act above our egoism. This is connected with the freedom of choice and the sensation of the upper world’s governing system.

That is, all this depends on the environment with which a person communicates and thanks to which he exposes himself to the special influence of this right environment. In a sense, he wants to disconnect from our world, not to obey it.

As a result, he gets the opportunity to understand, reason, and feel the quality that we call faith above reason. And then, as he develops, he begins to feel the second control system built not on egoistic influences but on bestowal and love.
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From KabTV’s “A Conversation with the Integrated Course Project Participants” 3/19/21

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One needs to make great efforts to convince oneself that the way to the Creator is through the group. After all, this path is not natural for us.

Everyone would want to come to the Creator for the sake of egoistic gain, with the hope of making their condition safe and secure. Otherwise, we exist in darkness and uncertainty and all hope is only in the support of the Creator.

However, on the way from me to the Creator there is the group, the ten, by which I can format myself in order to adhere to the Creator. The upper light comes from the Creator, but I cannot receive it unless it enters into ten desires. Therefore, I must collect these ten desires and connect the desires of my friends so that the Creator will clothe in these ten Sefirot.

The light passes through the Sefira Keter and spreads through all ten Sefirot, and then I begin to feel it below, in my Malchut. But I need to assemble this structure by agreeing that all these desires are mine and accepting all the conditions of the group.

The connection we are building will be arranged as described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot and will allow us through it to connect with the Creator and the Creator with us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/6/21,”Increasing the Importance of the Goal”

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