Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is good? What is bad?“

Good is when we make voluntary progress toward balance with nature, i.e. balance with the universal force of love, bestowal and connection. On the contrary, we feel bad when we move involuntarily toward the same balanced state.

If we feel bad, like we are at a dead end and have lost our bearings, then that is actually good. It is because, from such a state, we will find a good solution.

We need to think about where we exist and what kind of nature we are in. Nature is integral and global, containing everyone and everything—on inanimate, vegetative, animate, and most importantly, human levels—in a single harmony.

We human beings need to reach a positive form of mutual connection among each other. By doing so, we will experience a wonderful and good life. It might sound like a children’s fairy tale, but it is not. Everything is interconnected and interdependent, and if we upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to adapt to nature’s interconnectedness and interdependence, then we will experience a harmonious existence. It is simply a law of nature.

When we start positively connecting with each other as a single global whole, with mutual dependence, then despite our petty and narrow egoism, we will start feeling that an immensely powerful force of love dwells in nature. We will discover this great force of love in the close knit and warm connections that we build between us, and we will then start feeling that we exist in a completely different and perfect world.

Based on the video, “What Is Good? What Is Bad? – Good and Bad Defined” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: The twentieth century was marked by many fate-altering events. Thus, in the twentieth century, Baal HaSulam revealed The Book of Zohar to our generation and urged everyone to start studying Kabbalah, foreseeing that delaying it would be catastrophic.

He warned that this was indicated in The Book of Zohar, but very few listened. Everyone knows what followed: world war and a hundred million dead.

At first glance, to the uninitiated eye, there is no connection between the disclosure of The Book of Zohar and its impact on the world setting off a chain of events.

My Response: The Book of Zohar is a source of the upper force in this world. It is a bridge through which we can cross from our world to the upper world, a communication channel through which we can contact the Creator. There is no book equal in power to it. Kabbalists have written about this in all ages.

When we started studying The Book of Zohar in the framework of our Kabbalah academies and education centers  (KabU in the US) all over the world, I immediately began receiving letters from people whom I had previously considered spiritually dead. They wrote: “This is so powerful! What’ is happening to me? Why is that?”

The fact is that they began to feel huge changes within themselves. Without understanding anything, without any preliminary preparation, with only some small rudiments of Kabbalistic knowledge, they suddenly began to feel that they were going through very serious states.

The Book of Zohar is a channel of the upper light to our world. We are dealing with serious energy here.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Fate and The Book of Zohar” 2/5/10

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Question: In the ancient book The Great Commentary (Midrash Rabbah), it is written that Abraham went out at night to look at the stars and asked himself the question: “Am I ruled by them or is there a higher power that is higher than them? If I am ruled by their power, I need to worship them, and if there is a power that is higher than the stars, I need to reveal it. ”

Are we under the rule of the stars, or is there a power that rules everything?

Answer: The stars are signs. They are called the signs of the zodiac. And signs, as a rule, accompany certain events.

Initially people understood this, but since these signs really accompany various events, then people gradually started to treat them as something that existed independently, that were determining and controlling. Just like in our life there are a huge number of various sources of influence around me, but all of them are controlled from the outside by some higher forces.

If I direct myself correctly in this world, then I pay attention not to how the world treats me, but to the attitude of that higher source, the upper force behind this whole picture through which I receive positive and negative influences. But, in principle, this is the only force that selectively affects me in accordance with a certain plan known only to it.

Therefore, I should not deal with confrontations with people, events, various incidents, natural disasters, or events that constantly arise in life and pass over us. Instead of engaging in these confrontations with society, with the world, and even with myself (meaning with desires and thoughts that arise in me), I must turn everything to the higher force that causes all kinds of processes in me and in my environment and ask the question: “What is it doing all this for? What does it want from me?”

Basically, I ask about the meaning of life: “Is there any goal? Is there a reasonable beginning and a process that is predetermined that leads me to a goal? Is this process controlled from above? Do I need to know this? And what will it give me?”

Believers often say: “There is God, He knows what He is doing. Leave it, let Him work.” So I close my eyes and perform my little actions. I was told that He wants me to do this and that, I will do it and let Him do the rest.

Is it enough that we are such small primitive creatures? Is this required of us by the upper force or does it want to develop us?

A need is born in me to find out why I live: “What is happening in general? Where is this control over me and the whole world? Is it the signs of the zodiac or is it the upper force?”

My whole life obliges me to get acquainted with this higher force and makes me reveal it. This force, the Creator, through its especially negative influence on me compels me to pay attention to Him.

Therefore, we need to rise above the signs of the zodiac, above all kinds of signs and events in our life. Everything that I perceive from inside and outside should not be taken seriously but only as a demonstration of the attitude of the higher force toward me. And why, what for—I do not know.

Maybe He does things that are not entirely pleasant to me, like parents who punish their children so that they eventually begin to behave correctly, and good things perhaps He does so that I treat Him differently. Maybe He is deliberately flirting with me in such a way that I refuse to understand Him and only get carried away by being fulfilled by some pleasure, etc.

That is, I need to understand the thought of creation, what does He want from me?

Question: So, even if I know what will happen in my life, I will still not be able to change anything?

Answer: Never. We see this in all the lessons our history gave us.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Fate and The Book of Zohar” 2/5/10

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “Adhering to the Friends” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Peace” 

Selected Highlights 

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The year 2021 is ending. We are on the threshold of 2022, and everyone wants to know what the New Year will bring. Will we have respite from the problems that have befallen us recently?

The year 2021 made a huge gap in the lives of many people, brought fears, uncertainty, catastrophic changes in nature, the economy, health, and all areas of life. How can you turn all these changes to a point that will bring new life?

We must understand that if we want to turn the course of development and direct it to a new course, we must perceive everything that happens as yearning for connection with each other. Overcoming all the problems and all the troubles that weigh down on our lives is only possible if we are more and more united. And then we will see that this is a universal solution to all possible problems.

If we feel closer and help each other, stop hatred and wars, do everything to be together as one man with one heart, then we will come out of all adversity and problems with a big win.

You simply have to go and do it. I do not know of a single technique, religion, or faith from ancient times to the present day that call for anything else. We need to realize what so many people, prophets, great personalities, and spiritual leaders have talked about throughout the history of mankind. If we do this, we will surely have a good life.

There is abundance in our world; there is no shortage of anything, but we take natural resources, water, and air from the earth and turn it all into poison because we use everything only for the sake of someone’s profit, weapons, and enmity. We must change our attitude toward nature, toward society. If each of us wants this, then we will oblige the world leaders to it—even those who are against it.

Today’s reality seems extremely complex. What can you expect from 2022? If we do not change this state, it will be even worse. Unfortunately, I do not see any other prospects yet. Despite the fact that mankind is getting smarter year after year in engineering, technology, and modern medicine, we do not know how to use all of this correctly for the life of an ordinary person. This is the problem.

And all this is because we are not fixing relationships between people. It turns out that everyone feels like an individualist, separated from others, and not indebted to them. And although the world’s population has grown to several billion people, everyone suffers only because of that.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer predicts that we will have to fight the coronavirus epidemic until 2024. What then can be expected in 2022 if we take into account the additional problems from climate change, the collapse of economy and all areas of life in the world? All these problems will continue: natural disasters, volcanic explosions, earthquakes, and extreme global warming that we are causing.

This global warming is freeing all kinds of harmful viruses from the earth, many of which will be very difficult for us to fight, if we can at all. All this is on the horizon, but we can undo all this and prevent these problems. However, the solution lies not in the field of technology, medicine, or pharmaceuticals, but only in the field of human relations.

By correcting relations between common people and countries, we have the opportunity to stop all harmful viruses: both known and not yet known and leave them in place where they are now, not letting them appear, develop, multiply, and enter us. It all depends only on the relationship between people.

One can ask: “What is the connection between the economy, climate, and human relations?” The fact is that man is at the highest level of everything that exists in nature, of all its levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. And even more so when humanity reaches a high level of development as it did at the end of the 20th and 21st century.

We can do everything! We have high technologies, powerful weapons, and modern medicine. But in relations between people, we are in a much worse condition than the most primitive people who lived thousands of years ago. And we need to improve this area.
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From KabTV’s “World” 12/21/21

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It is said: “The Lord is high and the low will see.” This means that the main thing in our work is to annul our egoism in order to treat everyone in the form of bestowal, and in this way we will achieve the quality of the Creator.

The Creator’s quality is not His quality by itself, but the way He shows himself to us in our material, His expression. If there are two, then the relationship between them can be in the form of giving.

But when it comes to only one thing, it cannot be said that he has the quality of bestowal. This quality appears only if he shows his attitude toward his neighbor. Therefore we cannot say what we want to give. The question is: To whom do you want to give? How? In what quantity and quality?

Therefore the Creator breaks our Kli to give us the very Lego, the egoistic fragments, that need to be put together. But these parts seem to be magnetized, and it is impossible to randomly connect them to each other. Only on the condition that I influence them in a special way, with a special relation do these cubes come closer and stick together. If I don’t do it right, I won’t be able to glue them together.

Each cube has its own character, and there are many types of such characters. If we could see the whole soul of Adam HaRishon, we would be amazed that no fragment can be in any other place than its own. There all his qualities and forms will exactly make up for all the forms and qualities of his neighbors.

That’s why it takes such a lot of work to connect. We do not understand why it was necessary to create this huge world and bind us to it with so many different connections in this material life. What’s the point of that?

But nothing is created in vain. The whole creation develops from a single point of energy, as a result of the Big Bang. Everything embedded in this point is then embodied in matter in an infinite number of elements. And now we need to combine all these elements back into the same original form, not mechanically, physically, in the material, but again to gather all the internal forces into one united force, beside which there is nothing.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/21, Shamati #230 “The Lord Is High and the Low Will See – 2”

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My new article on Linkedin “Anti-Israeli Winds Blowing from Chile”

The victory of anti-Israel leftist candidate Gabriel Boric over far-right candidate Jose Antonio Cast in Chile’s presidential election comes as no surprise to me. The rifts over the nation’s leadership, direction and vision have deepened, leading to a societal split into two opposing camps in different countries around the world. And this is related to the role of the Jewish people.

The polarization that arises today stems from the ambiguous state of humanity. Human egoism is growing and dividing people, and humanity does not know in which direction to move. It is moving either in the direction of a left communist movement or in the direction of a right fascist movement.

Chile is the most developed country in Latin America. It is also an economic success story: it is rich in resources, has a thriving fishing and agricultural industry, and ranks among the best South American countries in the UN Human Development Index. It is a country closer in character to Europe, so it is only natural that an anti-Israel wind blows.

Even if the far right had come to power in Chile, anti-Israel sentiment would have been no different. The far right or the far left are two extremes that harbor a mutual hatred of Jews. From every body or party, from every circle and movement, they will eventually blame and criticize the State of Israel for every little problem.

The fact that we are being blamed for evil in the world already points to an interesting phenomenon: The nations of the world feel that there is a special power in the people of Israel, and in their own way they blame us for not passing it on. In their subconscious, they are more sensitive than we are to our role as “light unto the nations,” and their way of expressing this dissatisfaction is verbal or practical antisemitism.

“The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over,” Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam,) wrote in his article The Arvut, (Mutual Guarantee), “until they are filled sufficiently, that is, until they develop to such an extent that they can understand the pleasantness and tranquility that are found in the kernel of love of others.” Once we are connected as one man in one heart, we flow a positive spiritual force through the inner network of communication that embraces the entire human race.

But instead of loving and uniting, we hate and hurt each other. Instead of acting in friendship, we treat each other badly. The failure to fulfill our spiritual role is felt in the countries of the world as they do not receive the sparks of love for others that should flow through us. This is the root cause of antisemitism.

If we do not connect with each other and fulfill the role assigned to us, the nations of the world will turn against us, as has happened throughout history. The leaders of the world are a kind of marker for the relationship between us and the world. They are controlled by the supreme power of nature, as it is written, “Like streams of water, the heart of the king is in the hand of God. He directs it anywhere He wishes.” (The Book of Proverbs, 21:1), so that by their positions we can examine our condition to some extent. Our situation, as always, requires the choice of a mutual guarantee and the application of the rule “and love thy neighbor as thyself” if we are to turn hostility toward us into appreciation.
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The world develops through suffering, by getting more and more blows. And in order to break out of this tangled circle, we need to understand what the blows depend on and how to organize our lives in a new way so that the blows benefit us and bring us closer to each other and to the global nature, meaning to the upper force.

Then we will feel that we live in a wonderful world! There is no shortage of anything in our world except a kind, balanced connection between all the forces of nature. If we could connect one with the other through forces of kindness instead of forces of confrontation, we would feel ourselves in the upper world, in paradise, instead of in this world.

We just all need to agree that we want to awaken the good forces hidden within us in order to build good relationships. Everyone has a little bit of such forces. But if we all want to awaken together toward kindness, then it is possible.

This is exactly what we need to do leading up to 2022. We have already tried all the means and realized that nothing works except for one thing: let’s try to keep good connections with each other. We will help each other with our thoughts so that everyone will manage to come to such mutual involvement, support, unity, and love.

We will not let anyone explode, scream, or spill their evil on to others. Then we can really succeed, and 2022 will be a turning point in our relations in the family, between states, and among all people. We will see how we balance the whole of nature with this. All the forces of nature, supposedly in conflict with each other, will suddenly calm down, and all nature will come into balance.

I wish my students all over the world to absorb even more wisdom of Kabbalah in the new year and gather even wider circles of support around them so that together we can change the world for the better.

My wish to all mankind for this new year: Let’s come to love, connection, and mutual embrace between all people without any distinction around the globe. This will solve all the problems.

Happy New Year!
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From KabTV’s “World” 12/21/21

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The friends should see that I am working on lowering my egoism. Everyone tries to be in the center of the ten and at the same time feels that the others are making space for him there. This way we will feel that we are all in one place, and there is enough space for everyone. It is very important to come to such a feeling by making efforts both in thought and in action.

I try to become included into the point of connection in order to pull all my friends to it for all of us to be there. There is no place in spirituality; we can all fit into one point. This means that ten points are arranged into one Partzuf from Keter to Malchut and stand on one point, which is called the center of reality.

As described in the poem of the ARI, before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, there was only a simple, infinite light filling all of reality. Then a central black point appeared inside this reality, in which the light restricted itself and started the entire creation with it.

I try to see my ten inside this black point where we all stand. The upper light influences us from the outside through the Sefirot of circles, and from this inner point we want to influence the upper light.

We cannot freely influence it in all directions. We have only one possibility: to the extent that we restrict ourselves, we can then open ourselves to bestowal. The restriction occurs in all directions around us, in 360 degrees, and the opening for contact with the upper light can be only 1% or one degree of sector of the circle.

There is no place in spirituality. We need to connect with each other in such a way that no one takes up space and we all come to the zero point, meaning we are at the point that the Creator created, in the point of darkness in the middle of the light. This is our center, from which we then develop to the extent of our equivalence to the light, and then the light fills the entire Kli that we develop within this circle.

How did we all manage to fit into one point? None of us take up any space. I want there to be no space for my own importance, my egoism, my pride, and my opinion. Otherwise I will be corporeal and not spiritual.

If I do not perform any action in my egoism, then I am in the center of the circle, in the center of the ten. I do not want to receive anything for my will to receive except the necessary existence in order to build a relationship with the Creator through my relationship with others. Others are those who fill these circles, and the Creator influences us and fills us.

The one who annuls himself before the friends is in the center of the ten. If we all annul ourselves, then we are all in one place. In the spiritual world, place is called a desire. If we annul all our desires, then we find ourselves in the zero desire, in the place of zero—this is the center of the ten, the center of the circle.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/21, Shamati #230 “The Lord Is High and the Low Will See – 2”

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