Question: What happens to a man, to his soul, when he dies?

Answer: When a man dies his body dies and he no longer perceives himself through his body. That is all.

But his Reshimot remain. A Reshimo is a record, an information chain about its further states. It is recorded from the beginning of creation to the end. And from the moment his body dies, he continues to realize this chain of Reshimot in other forms without being clothed in a corporeal body and without perceiving his existence through it.

Question: But is there any realization that this is my Reshimo?

Answer: Yes. But it is not like now.

Question: Better or worse?

Answer: It depends on his life.

Question: So there remains some awareness that I exist?

Answer: Of course. Nothing disappears.

Question: What happens to the soul then?

Answer: The soul is that part of the desire that has corrected itself and united with humanity in order to affect good on it. Thus the soul continues its existence in the total volume of the whole of the desire. This is a different realization, a higher one.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

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In the News (The Telegraph): “Cambridge music students are being instructed to ‘decolonise the ear’ and consider the classical canon as ‘an imperial phenomenon’.

“The works of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi are being taught in relation to topics including European imperialism and Orientalism, as the music faculty pursues work on ‘curricular decolonisation’.

Undergraduates studying for the course, titled Decolonising the Ear, are taught to consider listening to sound in a ‘postcolonial’ way, while a ‘music, power, empire’ module explores how the classical repertoire is a middle-class and imperial phenomenon. …

“According to a course guide for Decolonising the Ear, undergraduates will examine topics including how musical repertoires could be ‘complicit… in projects of Empire and neoliberal systems of power’.

“Students also learn how ‘Empire… affected our understanding of what constitutes “music”’ and how ‘genres like opera seem particularly susceptible to racialised representations’.”

Question: To be honest, I thought that music was above all this. Tell me—you like classical music, rap, you also like jazz—how do you connect all this?

Answer: What is the difference? This is an expression of human feelings, and therefore I welcome it all. I can listen to Odessan folk songs and criminal ones too. And Vysotsky songs [a famous Soviet bard]. In every expression there is a piece of some soul. This is the main thing.

Question: How can we avoid reaching these prohibitions?

Answer: This is the limitation of people.

Question: How can you reach such a height while listening to music?

Answer: You can raise any criminal song, whatever you want, to a high level, because this is the work of a person, no matter how low or insignificant; you can say about him whatever you want, but this is a work emanating from the forces of his soul. This is why you cannot just strike it out.

Question: What can connect me with this person, who, frankly speaking, is low?

Answer: I would say that the ability of a composer, an artist, a poet, a writer, is to highlight or to express some feature in our character, which was created, in principle, by the Creator. Therefore we must understand that there are no bad qualities; there is only a problem of how we treat them correctly in order to see the Creator’s thought in them. Then the most terrible works of hatred will get their rightful place in the common human pantheon.

Comment: Now you are destroying all the stereotypes by saying that there are no low and high genres.

My Response: There is nothing bad, low, or terrible. All this is necessary for us only so that we treat it as a direct communication with the Creator. Everything comes from Him, and all of us must bring it all and bow before Him. That’s all.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/6/22

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Comment: If I look at myself on the basis of my feelings, I begin to understand that some unpleasant transformations are taking place inside me. But if I look from some additional point, if earlier my “beast” was suffering, and I was ready to save it, now…

My Response: Now you understand that maybe this beast should be patient for a little while, and you will ride it. You are already beginning to study yourself from the outside!

Comment: But at the same time, there still is the association of myself with this beast and the attempt to find the strength to overcome this.

My Response: Yes, you still associate yourself with it and this state does not go away until the final correction.

The animate level that exists in us should be the basis for the spiritual degree. On it, I make my spiritual elevation. Until I have completely finished it, this level is underneath me.

Therefore, I must exist in the sensation of this body and this world until I fully come into contact with all people on the internal level to such an extent that I no longer need the level of today’s animalistic communication with them. Then this level will disappear.

It is depicted only in our feelings. The world is matter given to us in feelings. Therefore, this degree will disappear. We remain to exist only in the spiritual state and the corporeal states will catch up and enter spirituality as its components.

Literally from the very first degree of our spiritual ascent above corporeality, we will begin to understand that this world is imaginary. It does not exist, it is within us. It does not exist outside of our feelings.

I hope that humanity will quickly realize this. Science, philosophy, sociology, and psychology are already ready for this. I think that everyone will soon begin to understand this, and this will also help. The main thing is to start looking at yourself and at the world in this way, and this will come.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Secrets of Kabbalah” 2/11/13

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In the News (UN News): “A staggering 100 million people have now been forced to flee their homes globally, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Thursday, highlighting worldwide food insecurity, the climate crisis, war in Ukraine and other emergencies from Africa to Afghanistan as leading causes.

“Every year of the last decade, the numbers have climbed,” said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi. “Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions, or this terrible trend will continue.”

My Response: But it will be constantly renewed.

Question: The UN has the same conclusions: change the situation, establish peace and stability. The same words, and the number grows and grows. To what extent can it grow?

Answer: It is unlimited until all the people on Earth run in different directions. But where to? How to escape?

Question: So it will be bad for a person at his place of birth even if he is provided with everything?

Answer: In any state, for any person, it will be unbearable! Unbearable! And they won’t know where to run. They will simply run in panic in all directions; it won’t be known where and it won’t be known why. It will only be clear that you won’t be able to stay in the state that you are in.

Question: All of my conditions will be bad? What about the homeland? This is my language, I want to continue living here. Will it all disappear? Will a person not have it anymore?

Answer: It will disappear.

Question: And what will move us from our homes? Are you saying that even if there is no war and there are no events that move you, you will still move?

Answer: You will run, not knowing to where. “We live without feeling the earth underneath us.”

Question: And why? I understand that people are running away from bad. You say everyone will start migrating, everyone will start moving. Why?

Answer: It will be bad for everyone. That’s the feeling. From the depths of the Earth, from the depths of this ball, from inside, there will be some kind of hum, vibrations like: “Oooooooo!”—and everyone will tremble in unison and take off from their seats and will not know where to go.

Meaning, I feel bad here, it will be better there. I run there, it’s bad there, it will be better elsewhere. And like that non-stop for everyone, regardless of wealth, satiety, and so on.

Question: You say: “Everyone.” Will a Brownian-like motion begin?

Answer: Absolutely everyone.

Question: Will we start running around the globe? What are we all going to look for? A good life?

Answer: We are looking, in general, for calmness. Because the upper force exists in absolute calm. We strive for it unconsciously, but we cannot achieve it.

Question: What do you call calmness? For example, Finland is the happiest country, or Switzerland.

Answer: I think it won’t be for long.

Question: Even they will move?

Answer: Sure. But for them it will happen much slower.

Question: What is the calmness of the upper force that we want to match?

Answer: Calmness is movement in unison with the upper force. And then you’re at peace.

Question: What is it? Where is it moving to?

Answer: It doesn’t matter to where, the main thing is that you are with it.

It is always moving toward greater connection, interconnection, bestowal, love, merging, and so on. If you move with it in the same direction, it’s already good. And if you’re also trying to merge with it, to catch up with it, and stick to it like a baby to his mother, then you definitely feel good. We need this.

This is the final degree of humanity; there is no higher one. And nothing more is needed! That’s how the baby sticks to the mother; that’s it, he doesn’t want anything else. This is the safest, the calmest, the best condition. That’s it! This is what we will strive for.

But before that, we will have to be shaken thoroughly on the globe and look for how we can come to some inner peace after all. Because the rumble that will come from it from the inside will vibrate in us and we will not know where to escape from it! It’s a very scary feeling.

This rumble is a call of the upper force, and we will have to give in to this vibration. It will pass through us. It will force us to be in this vibration, to search for its source, its causes, and its purpose. And we will see that we have to follow it.
[300937]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/6/22

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic, “For Every Penny Joins Into a Great Amount” 

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

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should children be allowed to choose their gender?“

I understand that there is an inclination in some people to fervently yearn to feel themselves in a foreign body of the opposite gender, as I have known such people. However, they were individual cases that happened without any propaganda or coercion. But in terms of what is happening today, where such an ideology is fed to society regularly with a “So, who else is with us?” attitude, I think it is completely wrong.

On one hand, it goes against nature-given circumstances. However, on the other hand, every quality of nature has exceptions to the rules. We thus naturally have men, women, and a number of individuals with feminine traits among men, and those with masculine traits among women, i.e. people on such a borderline. There are indeed psychological nuances, and a lot goes on in nature, and each instance needs its own evaluation.

Nonetheless, what is promoted throughout society greatly affects our development, especially children’s. Influences in children’s social, educational and media settings shape the children. That is, children can go to school and get convinced of just about anything, including changing their gender.

For instance, children who have no proclivities whatsoever for changing their gender could reach the conclusion that they have to do it. Why? It is because of social influence and pressure: that such a topic circulates the children’s social influences, and children constantly consider where they fit in with others, in terms of their inferiority or superiority to them. They require the approval of their peers and their social environment, so they could go to great lengths for that approval.

However, despite today’s increase in the promotion of such influences, nature will sort everything out. The promotion of gender change to children is one of several scrutinies that humanity is undergoing in order to lead us to a point of helplessness, a dead end. We can already see how nature continuously guides us through many different paths, and each one results in a dead end, i.e. that we find no ultimate happiness or satisfaction through the various directions that we take.

In short, my advice on this topic is to simply advocate that whoever has no such inclination naturally should be kept in their own natural state of being.

Based on the video “Should Children be Allowed to Choose Their Gender?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/9/22

The 9th of the Hebrew month of Av came and went a few days ago, but it seems like it is always here. “Unfounded hatred,” or hatred without cause, which caused the ruin of the Second Temple and the expulsion of the people of Israel from the land of Israel two millennia ago, is still very much alive among us. It may manifest in different ways, but its destructive potential is just as immense, and unless we rise above our mutual hatred, it will inflict on us another ruin.

The significance of the ruin of the Temple is not in the destruction of the Temple’s structure, but in the ruin of the unity and solidarity that are the core of the people of Israel. Since it was shattered in a violent clash two thousand years ago, it has not been restored.

Today’s Israelis are not as aware of the paramount importance of unity to our people or why our sages insist on mutual responsibility being the basis of our nation. Nevertheless, without understanding these basic tenets of our nationhood, we will not be able to build here a strong country and a stable society.

The mourning for the destruction of the Temple is not about the stones; it is about the love that we lost. That love is still lost today, as our sages said, “Any generation in whose days the Temple is not built, it is as though in those days it was ruined” (Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 1:1), and the sage The Chida explained, “for [the Temple] is not built due to unfounded hatred, which is as though it is ruined, as this was the reason for its ruin.”

Indeed, the situation is not getting better; hatred is constantly intensifying among us. The growing violence, vulgarity, and mutual cancelation are expressions of the growing hatred between us. Clearly, a country cannot survive if its factions fight against each other to the point where they want to destroy each other more than the good of the country.

Unless we get a grip on ourselves and decide that we have had enough, we will destroy our own country once again. Even if our hearts refuse, we must demand of ourselves to build it among us, to make efforts, to do things for each other that people do when they love each other, even if against our will. It is hard, but it is our only option if we want to survive as a sovereign nation.

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Medium published my new article “How Close Are We to a Nuclear World War?”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the media prior to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York City, New York, U.S., August 1, 2022. REUTERS/David ‘Dee’ Delgado

In reference to the war in Ukraine, the tension between the Koreas, and the situation in the Middle East, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned this week, “Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” Having seen the “drills” that China carried out near Taiwan while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited there, and the aggressive rhetoric that accompanied those actions, it really does seem like we are one misstep from a nuclear cataclysm. But despite the edginess, I do not think that countries are likely to pull the nuclear trigger on each other since everyone understands that there really is no going back from a nuclear war, and who knows if humanity will recover.

America performed a very significant exercise and managed to complete it without anything actually happening. However, we must not forget that people are constantly at war; it is in our nature. What succeeded now, may not succeed tomorrow.

There is a reason for wars. As we already know, all of reality is connected and each element affects every other element. We, too, are parts of that network, but we are oblivious to it and act as if each of us lives in his or her own universe.

Wars are a result of clashes between people’s and nations’ sense of individuality, and the fact that we are all connected and dependent on each other. When conflicting aspirations clash, we try to impose our will on the challenger, and when we fail, we often resort to violence. As a result, we are gradually learning that we are connected and not isolated, and that if we want to lead a decent life, we have no choice but to collaborate. However, we are learning it the hard way, and we do not have to.

Although wars are acts of violence, their outcome is increased incorporation between the fighting parties. The trajectory of reality is growing realization of our connectedness, and war is a violent manner of incorporation, a result of our unwillingness to do so voluntarily.

Therefore, the winner of the war is not the one with the bigger army or the one that begins the aggression. The winner is incorporation, although neither side wants it.

Currently, I do not think that we are one miscalculation from a nuclear war. However, if we insist on resisting the growing connection and incorporation, it will happen. There is no doubt about it since this is the direction of the evolution of reality.

If we choose connection, with its countless benefits, over separation and alienation from each other, we will not only reap the benefits of working together and living in a society that is based on mutual responsibility, we will also avoid the dismal future that awaits us if we make that one miscalculation. It is my hope that in the near future, the world will realize this and make the right decision for the sake of humanity and for the sake of the world.

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In spirituality everything happens in our feelings, not in the mind, but in the sensory organ called desire.

In order to create created beings and give them the opportunity to reach attainment at the Creator’s level, it is necessary to create and bring the desire to such a condition that it will be able to feel the Creator, i.e., the entire universe. After all, by the Creator we mean the entire universe given to us to attain.

How is this done? The initially created desire gradually grows to resemble the Creator; it discovers the egoistic inclination in itself that is absolutely opposite to Him, it is shattered, and it must recreate itself from a state opposite to the Creator to a state similar to Him.

This, in principle, is the path we must walk. A part of this path happens during preparation when we do not yet feel ourselves. Just as the conception of a person occurs in our world when two forces, father and mother, by copulating, create all conditions for the development of a child (a new desire), which then comes from them and already develops independently.

This is how we must imagine ourselves as truly independent desires which, on one hand, are controlled by the Creator, and on the other hand are absolutely independent of Him. This means that we need to determine what our freedom is and what our direct dependence or lack of independence is.

These two opposing forces must work in us simultaneously. We must balance them, bind them together, and direct them so that they complement each other.

Thus, out of these two forces—the force of reception and the force of bestowal—something will grow that will be called “similar to the Creator.” To the extent that in this force we have oppositeness to the Creator, it will work for being similar to Him. Then the creature that is formed will be called Adam, meaning similar to the Creator.
[300990]
From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/24/22

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