Can Connection Become An Idol?

559Question: Is the worship of one’s egoism idolatry?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And how do we not to become an idolater?

Answer: Be engaged in your own development all the time.

Question: But you keep explaining that development happens through a group, through society, and through connection. Can this connection become an idol?

Answer: It can. It depends on how you perceive and develop it. On this basis, perhaps mistakenly, a lot of various methods, theories, as a rule, group ones, have appeared.

Question: How can we maintain a balance between attaining the Creator and uniting people?

Answer: The Creator is attained in the connection of people. The right connection of people is the identification of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22

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What The Science Of Kabbalah Reveals

226Question: Why do you always say that Kabbalah gives a person an answer to what is the meaning of life and other methods do not?

Answer: Because it raises a person to the level of clear, explicit comprehension of both the question of the meaning of existence and the answer to it in this life. It reveals to a person the line between the present life and life after death; it pushes this border, and the person continues to see his existence beyond the border of animal death.

Question: Can this also be fantasy?

Answer: No, this is not fantasy.

This is the same fantasy as our life today. Exactly in the form in which we perceive it, we also clearly perceive what Kabbalah reveals.

Since Kabbalah reveals the upper world to us and gives us the whole perspective of the transition from this world to the spiritual one, i.e., a perspective of transformation, development, correction, and elevation, then we can talk about the next stage as reasonably, clearly, and scientifically as we can talk about our life.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Is Frankl right?” 8/8/10

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How Can We Justify The Injustice Of Fate?

541Question: Kevin Strickland was 18 years old when he was convicted for shooting and killing and given a life sentence. He served 42 years and only now was it revealed that the charges were false. A witness who survived the shooting had pointed him out as one of the shooters. She had doubts, but hesitated in telling the truth because she was afraid of accusations in her direction. She later admitted that she was pressured by the police.

How does a person who has wrongly imprisoned another for 42 years feel?

Answer: It’s hard to imagine.

Question: Why is such a thing given to a person?

Answer: We don’t know what kind of punishments these are and what kind of corrections they are. Unfortunately, we don’t know what it is at all.

Question: So it was directed from above?

Answer: Of course, it is all from above. There is a purpose to this.

Question: Can an innocent man who has been in prison for so many years justify society and people?

Answer: I think he no longer has the strength to be against anything. He has already cried everything out, his hands have dropped, and he continues to simply live.

Question: How can we accept that there is such a punishment from the Creator? It’s not your fault, but you’ve been locked up for years. You talk about the Creator all the time. How can this be accepted?

Answer: I think that here we still need to figure out what is really happening above oneself and above this circumstance. After all, in order to understand the decision of fate, you need to be above what it did to you within the place where these questions are being decided.

Therefore, I don’t think that a person who has served so many years will just live with this organic hatred. He will still have to mature over all these years and reach the point that it’s not about people and not who decided, but it’s about some kind of upper management and a plan that needs to be understood.

Question: So it will sweeten his feeling?

Answer: No, not only sweeten, if I want to engage in scrutinizing such questions, I have to put it on the level of fate. It’s not just someone who wanted something or someone who did something.

Question: Is this already a correct step when a person begins to think: “Why is this done to me? What did the Creator do to me?” And so on?

Answer: Yes, he wants to penetrate into the plan of actions and this is already higher than a person and really the level of the Creator.

Question: I wonder if it would be justified for a person to suffer for so many years in order to come to such a thought?

Answer: Of course. Undoubtedly.

What is 40 years and in general what is human life? If he had lived it as some kind of locksmith or technologist, or no matter who and what, he would have had children or would have been imprisoned for petty theft and so on. But he would not have been able to scrutinize such questions that he may be thinking about in prison if he had his freedom.

And in freedom his life would have been like in prison, where he would live only inside himself and his egoistic thoughts. When he is in prison, then he will be free from his egoistic thoughts and maybe he will think within the framework of real freedom.

Question: If he rises to the Creator in his thoughts, will he be in dialog with Him? And do you think that even these sufferings for many years are justified?

Answer: Of course! These are all small things and are considered egoistic whining.

Question: Only to come to these thoughts?

Answer: Of course!

Question: So if he comes to these thoughts, then his whole life is justified?

Answer: Of course. Not only life, but precisely the kind of life that would have otherwise seemed to him that death is better than such imprisonment. He begins to understand that this is not imprisonment, but is in fact freedom. And where he would have felt freedom before he now feels the captivity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/6/22

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 4/29/22

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Item 1

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Selected Highlights

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 4/28/22

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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“Is There Something Jews Can Do To Lower Antisemitism?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Is there something Jews can do to lower antisemitism?

We Jews need to first understand the reason for antisemitism: that it is due to us not performing our obligatory role in humanity.

If we would reach our completion, which is a state of absolute friendship according to the rule “Love your friend as yourself,” then we would bring balance and calm to nature’s colliding forces. This is our destiny, our responsibility and our role toward the world, which is also described in the Torah. Also, it has no connection to religious belief. It is all about the attitude of “Love your friend as yourself,” which requires no rituals or ceremonies. We simply have to achieve a heart-to-heart connection from person to person, and show that to everyone.

We need to realize the immense importance of our attitudes to each other. Human connection is nature’s highest degree, and our nation was founded on realizing the principle of human connection—“Love your friend as yourself”—and by doing so, become a conduit of such connection toward humanity, which is the meaning of us becoming “a light unto the nations.” Therefore, the more divided we are, the more antisemitism rises; and the closer we are to each other, then likewise the more the world would relate positively to us.

Based on the video “An Overview of the World’s Current State – David A. Rosenthal Interviews Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Dostoevsky Will Lead Us To A Brighter Life

220In the News (The Telegraph, “In these Covid times, it’s Dostoevsky that is resonating with readers”): “Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote of ‘the pleasure of despair’, and book sales reveal British readers are buying into his brand of agreeable anguish.

“The Russian writer’s existentialist oeuvre is the fastest growing market for Penguin Classics, ahead of more genteel favourites like Austen and Dickens. …

“While the sudden clamour for the 19th-century author’s ‘gloom and nihilism’ remains ‘mysterious’ to publishers, experts have suggested that pessimistic modern readers have found a ‘prophet in Dostoevsky’.

“Kevin Birmingham, the author of literary biography The Sinner and The Saint, said: “I think the appeal is that Dostoevsky’s view of human nature seems more apparent now: we’re irrational, egoistic, and self-destructive.

“We spite ourselves, we crave freedom even if it leads to our detriment, and our perverse impulses are at the heart of civilisation.

“Readers of Dostoevsky’s novels wouldn’t be surprised by global affairs of the last several years. These are all Dostoevskian.

“He is currently fitting very well with the mood of readers, according to the Penguin Classics team, amid an increasing audience for angst that has seen UK sales for the author’s works increasing 177 per cent since 2016. …

 

“There is an abiding fear that there are no foundations, no ultimate sense of truth or justice, and this is something we’re grappling with these days.”

 

Question: What can we do about the fact that we live like this?

My Response: I think maybe this is why we will come to a brighter life, through such things like looking at the world through “dark glasses.”

Question: If I am wearing dark glasses, then what are my actions?

Answer: At least you have a realistic view of the world. It does not blind you.

Question: What does this reality give me?

Answer: You will want to brighten this world.

Question: Is it not that I will get depressed or something like that?

Answer: No, this is not depression. This is just a need for correction.

Question: Do you mean that because of such a view of Dostoevsky, I will want to come out into the light?

Answer: I think so, yes.

Question: Is this what you are talking about all the time: recognition of my evil, which is within me?

Answer: Precisely!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/10/22

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Understanding The Tendency Of Current Affairs

549.02Comment: Today, the education of boys and girls is reduced to only sex education. They do not have any other, more internal interaction.

My Response: Adults also reduce everything to this and believe that it is just necessary to teach children about safe sex and nothing more.

Question: Is this an internal flaw of adults?

Answer: I do not think so. I see everything that is happening in the world as one more stage for forward movement.

We should not be negative about things that are happening. We just need to understand the tendency, and if possible, explain it based on an understanding of its final result.

Then we will understand why today we are experiencing such events and not some other ones, and how we can, nevertheless, prepare children to advance more correctly to the goal that nature moves us to.

I hope that all the suffering that we are going through as parents, and also children in their own way, will allow us to open our eyes.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Theater of the Absurd” 7/18/10

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Is There Freedom In Our World?

744Question: According to Kabbalah, a person is totally programmed. Does he have some kind of free program at the level of our world?

Answer: Not on the corporeal level. Why should he have it? In what way should I be free? Find me some point of application of freedom and tell me what it means to be free. Based on what I should act? What does “I am free to do as I want” mean? What do I want?

Comment: It is one thing today, something else tomorrow.

My response: No, this still is not freedom. Everything is decided somewhere in my subconscious, whether consciously or unconsciously, based on some instincts, habits, and the opinion of society.

Even if I accidentally choose something with my eyes closed, this is also not freedom since I choose by chance instead of deciding by myself.

In our behavior, in our world, there is no such concept as freedom at all. No! It cannot be! Give me the opportunity to apply a free decision, and I will not know what to base it on, for what, and where. No!

By freedom, we mean minimal pressure from unwanted extraneous sources. This is all. This is our entire freedom.

Thus, this is not freedom as a category. Freedom is when we are between two natures, between two universes, spiritual and ours, when I can act based on the practice of receiving for my own sake or bestowal and love for the others sake.

Between them, there is the opportunity for freedom, what is called Klipat Noga. There is such a special, very subtle, point-like state located between two universes. Only between them, is there  a choice of where to go—there or here. However, once you have chosen, there is no freedom either here or there.

Question: But still, is it me who is choosing?

Answer: Yes! Everyone who is at this crossing chooses. Therefore, a person should stand with one foot here, the other foot there, and inside, within himself, feel the conflict between the two universes, the spiritual and ours, and choose.

He should be in this state all his life, at all stages of his development to the very final one. It is in this state that he feels free.
This state is not simple at all. It is not like feeling free in our world! Free from what? Do whatever you want. This is not freedom.

Here, however, is the freedom of choice, which implies that you have two equivalent theories, methods, practices, and you are in between them.

How will you choose if they are equivalent?! If one is more and the other is less, then there is no freedom of choice. If they are equal, then you, like Buridan’s ass, do not know where to turn, you stay in the middle and die of hunger because you are unable to choose between the two.

Everything is decided by the third one from above. You must come to contact with the upper force and with its help, without preferring one state to another, connect them together. Then, in the connection between them, you will feel freedom.

This is a very difficult decision. Not many people come to it; they are Kabbalists who are seriously working on themselves. But in the end, all of humanity must go through this and come to the feeling of complete freedom.
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From KabTV’s “Close- Up, Dissenting Opinion” 8/29/10

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Is It Necessary To Experience The Risk Of Losing Life?

963.6

It is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; . . . the individual who has not staked his or her life may, no doubt, be recognized as a person; but he or she has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel).

Question: Is Hegel correct that if a person did not risk his life in war, for example, he does not have a normal self-consciousness; he is not advanced by evolution? Is it necessary to feel the risk of losing one’s life in order to come to self-knowledge?

Answer: The risk of the loss of life must be felt. But in the name of what? What do we mean by life, by understanding the loss of life? This all needs to be well grasped. Otherwise, these are beautiful empty words.

The animalistic fear of losing one’s life, in principle, does not give anything. All animals have it. And here, it means something that lifts us higher.

Question: What does it mean to a Kabbalist “to lose life”?

Answer: To lose life means to lose connection with the property of bestowal and love, with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 3/4/22

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