Question: The Ari described the system of relations between souls. It is called the system of lights and screens. Did he, in principle, do something that no one before him had done? I mean, were the language, the approach, and the system itself new?

Answer: Everything was new: the system, the methodology, the approach. The Ari made a revolution in the attainment of the one single upper force in the world that governs everything and with which we can interact, reveal, and understand.

Comment: Let’s say, I have a certain desire and you have a certain desire. The Ari described the connection of how my desires can connect with yours, how my fulfillments can correspond to your fulfillments as well as to other people, everyone included.

My Response: He described the laws of commutation between man and the upper single governing force of the world.

Before the Ari Kabbalists felt and described what was happening to them. He, in addition, revealed the reason for these sensations. This is the most important thing.

Therefore, by studying him, and following his methodology in the course of our lives, we can develop such qualities in us that will help us attain the world in its entirety, not just be passively impressed by it, but become active participants in it.
[301315]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/2/22

Related Material:
Ari – The Turning Point From Darkness to Light
Before The ARI, The Gates Of Wisdom Were Closed For Us
The Day The ARI Departed

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Make an effort to connect with your friends and you will feel that in the gap between you there is no room where the Creator can be revealed. When we come closer to each other we do not narrow the space by doing so, but on the contrary, we discover the space for the revelation of the Creator. After all, this obeys opposite laws.

There is no space in spirituality; it is zero! Therefore, if we unite so closely that we completely adhere to each other, we create a space for the Creator. The spiritual space is the need to reveal the Creator in a common desire, in one Kli.

We need to connect our desires in such a way that they become as one desire.
[301432]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/22, Writings of Baal HaSulam. Letter 38

Related Material:
Move Aside, Make Place For The Creator
The Place For Revelation Of The Creator
The Purpose Of Life Is The Revelation Of The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Were there any other methods before the teaching of the Ari beside the method of suffering?

Answer: No. Mostly, it was about the method of suffering, which allowed people to rise above egoism, because we feel bad in it. A person even deliberately drove himself into egoistic suffering in order to force himself to rise above the ego, run away from it, and thus awaken altruistic qualities within himself.

Question: Does it mean that suffering softens egoism and it is easier for a person to run away from it?

Answer: Yes, but only at very small levels of egoism because this method does not work at higher levels.

Question: Why? If I have a high level of egoism, will suffering not affect me? Or on the contrary, does a person with a huge egoism become more sensitive?

Answer: No, you cannot force yourself to approach such suffering. Previously, people consciously approached them. That is why it was said, “Eat bread with salt, drink plain water, sleep on bare ground, and study Kabbalah, and then you will succeed!”

But there is a limit up to what level of suffering a person can go against himself. This does not mean simply to cut yourself into pieces. This means that he must live this way.
[301418]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/2/22

Related Material:
The Spiritual Root Of Suffering
Egoism Causes Its Own Suffering
Sweet Suffering Of Love

Filed under: Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: What kind of results would you like to see from your work?

Answer: As a result of my work, I would like to see the world beginning to understand the true state of things, understanding what I am writing about in the blog where the same thing is constantly repeated.

I already do not know what to do!? Maybe abandon this blog?! But I cannot! Who will read posts written a year, two, or five years ago, even though they are still relevant? That is why I write every day. I have nothing to say anymore. It is necessary to wait until the world will realize the dead end of its development.

Now humanity is already beginning to talk about the need for unification. Here and there articles appear that we need a completely different attitude to life. First of all, about reasonable, normal, even minimal consumption; otherwise, 90% of the world, if not more, will starve and be in need of basic necessities!

It is necessary to be seriously engaged in education so that everyone will begin to understand what kind of world we are entering. As of today, we exist at the animate level of development, not at the human level.

Human is something above egoism, above our nature! We are not at that level and for the time being we live as animals. Why as? Because animals are triggered by nature instinctively. They instinctively do everything they need, and therefore do not make mistakes. We, humans, are gradually losing this instinct.

For many years, nature pushed and developed us, and now it is slowly starting to let go. Now we are lost. From the beginning of the 20^th century, we began to feel: What should we do? Where should we go? Previously, nature guided us, like all animals, and we had no questions, but now we do not know what to do.

We are entering a new, integral phase, but we ourselves do not correspond to it and do not know how to act. We are within the forces that pass between us because they are integral. They are interconnected in a system, but we are completely different.

Moreover, we do not see or feel it. We just feel that we would like to do something, but cannot. What to press, what to push, what to pull? Something is affecting us, but what we do not feel. We end up in some kind of n-dimensional space, as if, we are passing through it.
[301171]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To See the Future” 2/5/13

Related Material:
When Will the Awakening of the World Come?
Humanity’s Development under the Influence of Spiritual Energy
Two Ways Of Human Enlightenment

Filed under: Crisis, Dissemination, Globalization, Q&A - No Comments →

Comment: In ordinary life we often do something not for pleasure but out of necessity. And we sometimes even force ourselves, let’s say you need to feed your body or do basic home maintenance.

My Response: No, it is necessary to receive pleasure, and not deny it. Let’s say I’m thinking about the spiritual, about the exalted, about bestowal. But if I can enjoy it to that extent, I must do so.

After all, the purpose of creation is enjoyment and fulfillment because the Creator is good and doing good. It’s not clear, I understand. I feel how these contradictions collide in a person. They are not easy to reconcile, but in the end they will be reconciled.

A person should not give up normal pleasures for a single moment in his life. On the contrary, he should only aspire to the Creator above all pleasures, and then he will make the correct restriction on himself. And if he begins to shut himself up and deny himself, it will not be a restriction, but a torture against the Creator’s will.

The Creator wants a person to feel fulfilled at every moment of time. When your fulfillment is in what you give instead of what you receive, then replace one with the other. You will still enjoy. By making a restriction on yourself, you will not cry, suffer, and torture yourself, but you will enjoy the fact that you have achieved the ability to bestow. There is such joy in this!

In no case, if it is not to the detriment of others, should a person deny fulfillment. Only to prefer more exalted pleasure to the lowly ones, until they replace each other, alternately, gradually, and reach the highest level.

And then one constantly thanks the Creator. Otherwise, he curses Him in his heart. If a person does not get pleasure, he curses the One who gave him this life, who governs it.

In everyday life, eating normally, sleeping, doing everything you need to do for yourself becomes part of our spiritual work. My teacher Rabash, the great Kabbalist, the last Mohican, loved to eat delicious food, ate with pleasure and praised the taste and smell of food.

That is, in no case you should do it! This is the embodiment of small pleasures that the Creator gives us so that we can begin to combine them across the entire spectrum: from the smallest to the greatest. And all this together comes from one light.
[301200]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Enjoy Life?” 2/16/13

Related Material:
Enjoy Life Here And Now!
Discover Tremendous Opportunities To Receive Pleasure
The Greatest Delight

Filed under: Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you think Israel is broken? If yes, how can we fix it?“

We have long been broken. We face alienation and generally negative relations toward each other, and it is indeed a problem. We need to reach a state where we take care of each other, to explain to ourselves that there is no other place for us.

The positive aspect of our broken state is that we have the power to change it. If we come closer together and decide that we are one nation, then we can mend our currently-broken connections. We certainly need to work on that more and more.

On the other hand, many would argue that we are familiar with slogans about our unity from a young age. We hear about it regularly throughout our upbringing. However, we see that it fails to bring us any closer together. It is because the explanations we currently receive about our unity lack the understanding of our foundation as a nation. Moreover, neither side of the political spectrum in Israel discuss it.

Our foundation as a nation resides in the tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we fail to sustain such relations among each other, then we are not Israel. There is a superior law to our existence as a nation that requires us to unite above our differences. If we adhere to this law, that “all of Israel are brothers,” then we can truly fix our broken connections, and build the State of Israel in a new and positive way.

Therefore, while we are broken, we have the power to fix our shattered state, and become a united nation based on mutual relations of love. We would then also see that the negative sentiment toward us would fade away, as we would positively affect everyone in the world with the positive unifying force that we would realize among each other.

Based on the video “Is Israel Disintegrating?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Israel Today, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic, “The Ways of the Lord Are Straight” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 3, Item 11

Selected Highlights 

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Devoid of Jewish Identity”

The national Jewish identity and the fear of losing it has become a question that troubles many people in Israel. On the one hand, there is no fear that we will lose our identity even if we want to since the hatred of the world toward us reminds us that we are Jewish. Our Palestinian neighbors also assist in that through their pressure. Were it not for their hatred, we would be long gone.

The Jewish national identity is derived from realizing a certain demand from the Jews as a group, as the Israeli nation. We have a common language, we have our politics and politicians, and even a distinct Israeli mentality. Yet, as long as we do not know why we are here, we are not really a nation.

If our spiritual calling is to be “a light to the nations,” but we are not sure what it means, the world will remain lost in the dark, not knowing why it exists. The more humanity advances, the more the questions about the purpose of life become poignant and painful. In consequence, the nations are growing angrier and crueler toward us, Jews.

Now we have come to a state where everything material is in abundance. The only thing we do not know is the purpose of it all. That aimlessness leads the nations to remember the calling of the Jews, so when we do not provide the answer they want, they hate us.

Since we are unaware of our calling, we do not understand why the world hates us. We think that leading the world in advanced technologies, contributing to the world in culture, medicine, agriculture, science, and entertainment should win us the world’s gratitude. However, it does not win us gratitude, much less favor. We do not understand why, but if we realized what it is that we must give the world, we would see what we are not giving it, and we would understand why the world hates us.

We may think that we do not have what the world wants, but we do. The world wants to know how people can live together in peace, since hatred is the only plague that ruins everything we do. The Jews have had the method for achieving unity since we formed our nation by rising above the vehement hatred that our ancestors felt toward each other and uniting “as one man with one heart.” Immediately after we became a nation, we were tasked with passing our method to the rest of humanity. The Bible defined it as an obligation to be a light to the nations, namely to pass on the light of unity.

Over the centuries, we had achieved high levels of unity. We lived out the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and for a time, we really shone the light of unity to humanity. However, our unity was short-lived and with its decline, the world has plunged into eons of war, bloodshed, and hatred.

Now it is time to return to our Jewish identity—to shine the light of unity to the entire world by uniting among ourselves and setting an example to the world. The growing hatred toward us, which seems so unjust, is the world’s demand that we unite and show humanity the way. When we achieve unity among ourselves, the world will unite with us, and we will not need to search for our identity or justify our existence as a nation.
[301643]

Filed under: Israel, New Publications - No Comments →

Medium published my new article “The Ultimate Pleasure”

Scientists discovered that an ant exposed to heat during an activity with other ants behaves as if it does not feel it. It continues with all the other ants as if it feels nothing, and changes course only when all the ants do so. The same is true of many flocks of birds, such as starlings, and of many schools of fish. They do not follow each other, but move as if they were all one organism consisting of innumerable specimens. I do not know if they do this by releasing hormones or by something else, but the result is that they are completely in sync with one another.‎

Humans cannot feel this way. We are denied the ability to merge completely into society; we always feel our individuality. Moreover, we give priority to our individuality over society, so we cannot connect with the collective mind that starlings and schools of fish work with.

Since we are unable to sense the collective mind, we are denied the understanding and perception of the collective reality. It is as if we live in a world where we cannot see beyond our own noses. At the same time, precisely because we are not born with a collective perception, we will gain infinitely more by developing it than by being born with it. We will gain not only the collective mind, but also the thought behind its development, the difference between having ‎it and not having it, and the way to help others gain that consciousness, as well.

When we see that such a state of collective consciousness exists, we want to attain it. It motivates us to value it more than our innate self-centeredness. As our motivation grows, we understand that we can reach that state only if we prefer it to our selfishness.

Once we are in that state, we discover a completely new kind of pleasure, the ultimate pleasure. In this kind of pleasure, we strive to feel not ourselves, but our collective existence, our oneness. It is not suspension of the self, but an addition of a new self that consists of and belongs to every being in reality. Our original self continues to exist, and a new one is added.

Once we acquire that collective consciousness, we understand the true meaning of love and why everyone longs for it. In this love, we feel our separate selves, and at the same time feel everyone’s efforts to rise above their selves and unite with others in love.

In fact, in that state, the purpose of the ego changes and its new role is to distinguish between a state of hatred and separation and a state of love and connection. The greater one’s ego, the greater the joy of love because a greater ego requires a greater love to overcome it.

At the end of the process, a person feels the absolute selfishness of the ego, and at the same time feels the absolute love that exists in the collective consciousness. What fish and birds feel instinctively, we can feel only once we develop love for every iota of Creation. This ultimate love brings with it the ultimate pleasure. The ultimate love that we all long to feel is not to be loved absolutely, but to feel absolute love for others. When we experience it, we find that everything is absolute love.
[301640]

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →