Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do we change our perception of life to become happier?“

We first need to understand how we perceive life, which is through a lens of self-concern. We do not perceive life as is, but we have five senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste, five openings through which we constantly receive information. If we transcend our five senses, then we come to sense a new and different reality.

Everything that we perceive is in our ego, i.e. in our desire to enjoy with an intention to enjoy for self-benefit alone. This ego accompanies and directs us to enjoy every moment of our lives, to gain as much as we can, and lose as little as possible. Nature has programmed us to desire, think and act out of self-concern at every moment, and our bodies do so in very sophisticated and clever ways. Our perception of life is thus very limited, in terms of what we want, what we understand and feel, what we receive, and what we own.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we exist in an eternal, abundant and perfect reality, and our perception greatly narrows this reality to a tiny limited point. We have no idea about the vastness of the options and opportunities that exist in the universe. It turns out that our bodies are our enemies, not our friends, as they force us to live inside them, detached from the abundant pleasure that exists outside.

Therefore, the key to change our perception of life and become happier is to exit the perception of life we receive through our five senses, and enter into a new perception of life: one above our bodies, where we open a new sense that can perceive the eternal and perfect reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah calls this new sense a “screen” (“Masach” in Hebrew), and the entire method of Kabbalah is aimed at developing this screen up to a point where we discover everything we possibly can in our perception of life. By doing so, we gain access to the source of happiness, i.e. we achieve happiness in its eternal, perfect and true form, and thus become happy in the truest sense of the term.

Based on the video “How to Perceive a Different Reality” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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