It is impossible for the will to receive to appear in any essence, except in four phases, which are the four letters of HaVaYaH (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 6).

Question: Why did the Creator create the desire to receive—creation—not at once but precisely through four phases of development?

Answer: The fact is that the Creator wanted the creation to be able to somehow generate itself, control itself, react to external influences, and even learn from previous or future generations.

It is impossible to create a creation in one go because in order to continue to develop it must be changing in its foundation. So from generation to generation it will constantly grow

If it were to be in a static state, it could be created with a single action. But this is a gradual process because creation must evolve all the time.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 8/14/22

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Comment: In everyday life, a person studies for 20 years while a Kabbalist studies all his life.

My Response: Learning is an endless process of absorption, absorbing the material and realizing it. This is an eternal process.

There is not much difference between the science of Kabbalah and all other sciences; it is just that Kabbalah recounts where everything comes from, which is something that other sciences explain partially based on what they have accumulated.

Question: When teaching people Kabbalah, how can one make it beneficial for a person to delve into the material all the time, to search all the time?

Answer: He must feel that Kabbalah speaks about his world, about a force that, as if, through a shell, a sphere, governs all of humanity, the entire universe, and him. It takes him from one state to another, induces thoughts and feelings in him like he is in a very interesting dream called “this world,” “this life.”

It is only necessary to present him the material in an interesting way, intrigue him, and show that he can wake up. He can see himself and everyone else sleeping from the outside because it only seems to them that they were born, live, and die. It is necessary to show that this is happening inside a person, in this dream of his, but in fact he should wake up to a completely different state.

It will happen. I am sure, I am an optimist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. As Much as Required” 6/13/14

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Preparation to the Lesson

Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Donkey Driver,” Item 115

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 50

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does human nature work?“

Human nature is the desire to receive, also called “desire to enjoy,” and it functions by receiving what is beneficial to itself and rejecting what is harmful. Everything in our lives is built upon this calculation where we first try to distance ourselves from harm, and then seek how to draw ourselves closer to what is beneficial.

Human nature also includes a multilayering of systems that work simultaneously on still, vegetative, animate and human levels. One of those systems is our bodily one, which operates involuntarily. If our bodies are healthy, then they know what is good for them and draw that goodness to themselves. After the bodily system, there is the emotional system, which also functions relatively according to instinct. From the emotional system, we move to the mind, and from the mind to the intellect, and so on. That is, we have systems over systems that concurrently work on receiving what is beneficial and rejecting what is harmful.

Such is human nature and the essence of our lives. Our every desire, thought and action operates according to the calculation, “How can we receive what is most beneficial to us and reject what is harmful?”

Based on the video “How Human Nature Works” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Nitzah Mazoz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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For this reason, any expanding light consists of four phases in the impression on the vessel (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 6, Item 24).

Question: Where did the four phases come from if there were only two discernments in the light?

Answer: Yes, but we always receive four from two discernments. The second one comes out from the first, then this second, which wants to be like the previous one, makes a third one from itself, and the third, which wishes to implement this change, becomes the fourth one. This is where it ends.

This is HaVaYaH, the four-letter name of the Creator Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. This is the way He is manifested. And only the very last stage is considered creation.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/1/23

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Question: When spouses are just starting to live together, according to biological processes, hormones support their relationship for the first three years. It is believed that after three years, hormones stop working, and a cooling occurs between a man and a woman, nothing holds them further. Does it come from nature?

Answer: Probably. In past centuries, it may have been different, but nowadays they say that it is, especially on the part of a man.

Maybe from the woman’s side, I do not know. Usually a woman gets used to a man. I don’t think she wants to change everything so much. Today, it is also a little different for women, but still not in the same way as for men.

Question: It’s not a fact that someone wants to change something, it’s just a question that there is no longer a physical factor that holds them back. How can spouses overcome this and continue to live normally?

Answer: Now is a special time—the time of correcting selfishness. And if the spouses are not engaged in its correction, they will not be able to coexist together.

There will be more and more divorces until there are no families left at all. People will converge for a day or two, for a year or two, and disperse. Children will be born not clear from whom and where. The world will come to this because a person will not be able to cope with selfishness if he does not begin to correct it.

And for the sake of correction, you will live with one woman because you will feel that you are kindred spirits with her and it is with her that you can correct yourself. And then all physical problems or cooling will be invisible because in your physical union with her you will feel spiritual unity, and then there will be no problems.

The world is coming to this. And now we are living in a transitional period when there is no such marriage as before, but there is also no new state of marriage as it should be.

But a person will be like that. He will live only in order to improve spiritually, to rise, to feel a higher state, but in no case to remain in this world and this life. Otherwise, there is no point. Otherwise, people will commit suicide, use drugs, and terrible things will happen in the world.

Comment: In principle, such a connection should ideally be.

My Response: No, not at all ideally. A person will feel spiritual needs above the base, earthly ones because in his eyes it will not be worth spending his life on them. We will survive this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Preserve Love” 12/19/13

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The three developmental stages of the Jewish people are symbolically called the forefathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or the right, middle and left lines. Sometime after leaving Babylon, this society needed additional development, which can only happen when greater egoism is revealed, is corrected, and it is risen above even more.

In the past, Abraham pondered how the absolute quality of love and bestowal could be reached. Later, he revealed this problem and found the solution: there needs to be a constant growth of egoism above which his group, this small nation, will keep rising.

Therefore, the next stage of development required an increase in egoism within this group and the revelation of its second stage (the first was revealed in Babylon), over which they needed to rise.

But it is not that simple. At first, egoism grows and everyone takes it well, falls into it, and begins to work with it. That is, all kinds of selfish motives dominate, influence, and subdue people. They try to rise above them by adhering to the same methodology, the ideology of Abraham, to unite and care for each other rather than for themselves, as much as possible.

The Torah (Bible) mentions this struggle, about the nation going through the Egyptian states, how they fought among themselves and together against their ego, against the Pharaoh, the new level of egoism that continually broke out between them.

Abraham’s group was in Egypt for 210 years. This is a conditional measurement of units of time, just like the four stages of direct light at the foundation for the four-letter name of the Creator, that is, a formula in which there are always four components of successively developing stages.

Therefore, the egoism that manifested in them consisted of four stages, and the time of the Egyptian exile it was called 400 years. In fact, it lasted 210 years (conventional units), and the remaining exiles fell to 190 years.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14

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Question: How does a person’s involvement in the internal processes of the group help him accelerate his progress and even, perhaps, go through spiritual states more painlessly?

Answer: When a person is engaged in materials that speak about the next level of the world, then from there, from that level, the surrounding light shines on him. He gets a little charge.

By being engaged in connection with his friends, he prepares the conditions for the influence of that same surrounding light on him. The most important thing is to work with light, meaning with your next level. To the extent that he aspires to it in study, in connection with friends, in disseminating it, in inspiration, in exalting it, from there the upper light shines on him the quality of bestowal that reigns at that level.

It is in this quality of bestowal that a person begins to rise above the virtues that he has at the moment. This is the principle of spiritual ascent—to attract the quality of the upper level, the radiance of the upper light.

Question: What happens if a person cannot find himself in this system?

Answer: He leaves this method and will return to it no one knows when. He will be given the same awakening again, only the external conditions will be much worse with problems, wars, and sufferings that will help him overcome the difference between the stage he is on and the next one, i.e., between today’s egoistic quality and the next, future, altruistic one.

Question: Have some of us already experienced this separation; have we repeatedly come and departed from this method?

Answer: I don’t know, maybe. Someday you will know, although it doesn’t matter. What is the difference, because when a person is in this method, he is immersed in it. If he goes forward, then he goes; if not, then no. It still does not convince him whether he was already in it or not. It is like he has been reborn every time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Seven Years of Abundance and the Seven Years of Famine” 4/15/14

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