Audio Version Of The Blog – 4/26/23
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Question: If a person asks to be brought closer to the light, won’t it be an egoistic request? After all, he wants it to be better for him.
Answer: It doesn’t matter. Desiring spiritual things egotistically for oneself is called Lo Lishma.
A person wants to experience the spiritual world, to receive spiritual life and a sense of true reality, and to see that his life is not wasted. After all, it is going by and who knows how long he has left? He doesn’t want to end it pointlessly.
A person initially cannot think about anything but his own benefit. Therefore ,if he does not egotistically desire the spiritual and imagine it as good, he will never turn to it.
Therefore the spiritual path begins with egoistic attainment (Lo Lishma), and then, under the influence of the upper light (Ohr Makif), the egoistic attitude to the spiritual itself is replaced by altruism (Lishma).
Therefore a person’s egoism is called “help against oneself” (Ezer Kenegdo) because it leads one to a state where he suddenly sees: “But it’s precisely what is bothering me!”
The very ego that helped me so much and pushed me forward, I must now destroy, not the desires themselves, but only their egoistic intention. Thus gradually the light changes me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/23
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Question: Mikhail asks: “What is the ultimate goal of a person? Is it to dissolve into the Creator, as you say, to merge with Him? Will we lose our identity or not?”
Answer: I would say it is much higher—to complement the Creator. Except that it is said “You create Me.” So says the Creator. But at least if we do not create, we complement Him.
Question: So, is there some flaw in Him if we complement Him?
Answer: Of course, there is a lack because He is suffering very, very much without us. He has the desire to bestow, to saturate, and to emanate, and there is no one, no one wants to.
Question: But we want to be satisfied, to receive, right?
Answer: We do not want to be fed from Him and not by Him! Therefore, here, I would say, it looks like a war of nerves, who will be the first to give in and say: “I love you!” This is a game of exhaustion, of course, really.
Question: Mikhail asks: “Will we lose our identity or not?”
Answer: We will find it then. What kind of identity do we have now? There is absolutely none.
Identity is acquired by the fact that we become necessary for the Creator in action. We are already necessary, but in action, in the fact that we get closer to Him, unite, and merge with Him; in the fact that we complement the universe, we cause filling in the whole universe, the upper light that fills the whole creation. Without us, it would be empty, cold, and dark.
Question: What kind of additional help does the Creator expect from us?
Answer: So that we turn on the light, turn on the light in fact in this world, so that the universe would be filled with the light of the Creator, love, goodness, unity, and perfection in all possible forms.
Comment: At the same time, you say this today when one does not know where to run. With these crazy wars.
My Response: Nothing needs to be done. We just must wait calmly, with confidence that this should happen, to want, to ask, to quietly ask the Creator.
Question: Is that all that is required of us?
Answer: Yes. Without unnecessary noise, statements, disputes, without anything.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
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Comment: If we compare you and Baal HaSulam, he was not as public as you are and he did not disseminate to such a large number of people.
My Response: I am sure that if he could, he would have done everything. In 1940, Baal HaSulam published the newspaper The Nation. Can you imagine what it meant to publish a Kabbalistic, Zionist newspaper at that time?!
And the book The Giving of the Torah in which he addresses ordinary people! A Kabbalist comes out of his corner and addresses ordinary people! He was a true revolutionary!
Who am I compared to him? Now everything is open, do what you want. It is a completely different century!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who controls Laitman?” 12/27/12
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Question: Am I a puppet through which the Creator acts on the friends? Or are the friends only means through which the Creator acts on me?
Answer: I cannot control my friends in any way, in no way! By being connected with them, I can only convey my support to them.
And by not doing this in accordance with the capabilities of the system we are in, I harm both them and myself. We are always mutually incorporated in each other. If I do not transmit what is in me to them every second, I short-circuit myself and of course them.
This is an analog, integrated system. There is no getting away from it! There are no such calculations here where you constantly think about how to arrange something for someone. There is no such thing! All together! From the start!
When we understand this, everything will be fine. In the meantime, everyone is thinking about how to gain something and always at the expense of others! When the system is revealed, then everything will become clear.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who controls you?” 12/29/12
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Question: In Kabbalah, two people are considered a Minyan (group); they also make up the ten Sefirot. On one hand, there are at least two, and on the other hand, is it desirable that there are 10 people?
Answer: Two people are necessary in order to be able to understand what it means to exit yourself. For this exit to be really outside of oneself, it takes ten people. Then they form a common system.
But in principle, ten is not necessary. We just want everything to be similar to the spiritual system. In fact, it can be two, three, or five people; it does not matter. The main thing is that there should be someone outside of you on whom you can work out a way out of yourself.
As a person goes out of a space capsule into space, in the same way you should be able to go out into another. For this, the other must exist. He must be in a certain contact with you, in a certain connection, in mutual assistance, so that you can do it.
Question: Should a person do this actively so that everyone can see or is his presence enough?
Answer: Yes and no. It depends on what kind of person, at what time, in what era, and with what kind of egoism. It is not easy.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How many people should be in the group?” 12/22/12
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Question: How do we absorb the world around us and connect with it?
Answer: One can absorb the world only to the extent that is necessary to correctly explain the method of ascent to people.
What does it mean to enter this world? If I am at the next degree, then this world is just a small part in which I know everything from one end to the other. I feel it in absolutely everything: its energy, movement, and connection between all objects.
I am only interested in the part of this world that is called a person’s consciousness. I want them to acquire higher consciousness. This is what I have to do as someone who is at the next level; I help everyone who is at this degree to climb to the next degree. This act is called spiritual birth.
But to dive into this world, where to dive?! Nowhere! You have no idea what it is like. Compared to the upper world, it does not even come close to a millimeter; everything in it is so much more flat and linear.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/22/12
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Question: In one of your clips there was a story about a lonely whale that exists in its own frequency and makes its own sounds. The others don’t see or hear him. He wanders all by himself.
Martha writes to you: “Tell me, what should I do? I am such a lonely whale. I am surrounded by a lot of people, but I am all alone. I really want to communicate with people, but I cannot find sincere contact, I am afraid of people. What should I do?”
Answer: Tune in to the fact that there are no sincere contacts. Exist the way you exist. It is not called being a lonely whale. The whale also does not exist alone, but among many, many others, similar to and including him. So are we.
Comment: But it was said that the whale wanders around alone, that none hear it or see it. Martha thinks she is the same.
My Response: So, what? What Is wrong with that? I do not feel like a lonely whale. I do my own thing, communicate with a certain number of people, and so on. That is, it is not loneliness.
Question: Not loneliness. And if she has this loneliness?
Answer: This is how she feels.
Question: If she writes: “I’m afraid of people”? How can she overcome such a problem if it is not at the medical level? Fear of people, fear of contacts, there are the people who do not want this connection; they are afraid of it. What should be the result of their efforts?
Answer: The result is that they eventually find company in which they feel free.
Question: But we need to look from easy to difficult, with whom can I? Do not force yourself.
Answer: No! But you can join some clubs and chat with one or two women or men there.
Question: Please explain why you insist on contact. Why not tell a person: “Well, just exist the way you are”?
Answer: But she is complaining!
Comment: She complains, that is right. “I really want to communicate with people, but I cannot find a sincere contact.”
My Response: Sincere! She herself is not ready for sincere contact.
Question: Is that what you feel?
Answer: Of course.
Question: What kind of contact is sincere for you? For her, it is clear to me that she is looking for something like this for herself.
Answer: For me, a sincere contact is to find a book that would capture me. That is all.
Question: In general, what would you call a sincere contact?
Answer: When they understand you. But that is hardly good either. At the same time, a person has very little of himself left. It is true, we do not really want to open up.
Question: Yes, we are closed, of course. So, after all, what is sincere contact?
Answer: I do not know. This is when you feel comfortable with a person. But with whom can you be constantly calm?
Comment: This is also a problem.
My Response: Of course.
Question: A real contact, what is it?
Answer: Real contact is obviously when you love a person and want to make him feel good all the time.
Comment: You took it and suddenly turned everything around just like that. Instead of being good for me, you say: “So that it would be good for the other. And this is called contact.”
My Response: Yes when I feel that I want it to be good for him, create a pleasant atmosphere for him, a feeling.
Question: And if we are talking about the upper, about the Creator, what is a real contact?
Answer: This is already an equivalence of form. This is so that I can affect the Creator in the same way that He affects me. To do this, I need to change my nature, which, by the way, He made for me. So, I must ask Him to change it. This request is the contact.
Question: Can such a request be sincere?
Answer: Partly, until I really ask sincerely.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/23/23
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1st part of the Lesson — “Man’s Freedom”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 33
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Selected Highlights
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on pain?“
Pain is our body’s reaction to all kinds of bodily disruptions. It warns of danger and makes us act—to move toward pleasure and away from pain, to diagnose the cause of the pain, to reach conclusions and to advance in our lives to new states.
Pain impacts our ego, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others. We can feel pain when we feel bad, or when sympathizing with others who feel bad, or when the pain of envy strikes us when we see that others are better off than us.
There is pain that prods us from behind, making us evolve, and also existential pain that ultimately pulls us forward to greater fulfillment.
We would feel nothing at all if it were not for pain. Whether it is a certain kind of conflict, contact or pressure, our every feeling is built upon a certain form of pain, and we can only feel pleasure, fulfillment and enjoyment after pain.
However, we can overcome pain. When we rise above the ego, i.e. when we ascend beyond prioritizing self-interest at the expense of others to its opposite—prioritizing the benefit of others—we can then live in complete fulfillment, without emptiness, where we relate to everything and everyone out of an ever-increasing wholeness and love.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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