Question: Were you ever in danger that you would not progress to the spiritual state you have now?

Answer: Of course there was. Is my current state the end of all correction? I am not happy with myself. Maybe I seem like someone who has achieved everything, but for me, this is completely unsatisfactory. I am not being modest, but I actually feel that way.

Today I do not feel myself more perfect than the five-year-old boy that I remember myself as. Then the question of the meaning of life burned in me, and I felt tiny before the vast universe.

We had our own house, a large yard, and a garden. I liked to go out into the courtyard at night and look at the stars, and I did not understand where I was: “I must feel what kind of world this is.” But not what is around me: all this life, some kind of fuss and emptiness.

Of course, today I am not in such a state. I feel the worlds and our world relatively; I compare them with each other and understand where I am. But compared to what is opening up, I feel as one who completely has not achieved the desired.

The fact is that a person consists of two voids, two Kelim (vessels): the one I am in now, and the one that is being revealed, the future state.

Today I have a certain part of me, which is filled with something and gives me some knowledge and qualities. This is my current vessel.

At the same time, my next vessel is opening, an empty one, in which incomprehensible questions are asked, and in which there are all kinds of sensations and emptiness. This next vessel in me is very large. This suggests that someday I will fill it.

Ultimately, this will be the case for everyone. But this vessel is very pronounced in me, emptiness rings in me, and therefore bothers me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Dissatisfaction” 3/6/11

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Question: What does it mean to enjoy for your own sake or for the sake of another?

Answer: When the vessel (desire, soul) must connect with the light in mutual filling, and at the same time gives the source of light, the Creator, pleasure from been able to and wanting to receive light and enjoy it, and the Creator enjoys from giving, it turns out that everyone fills each other.

This is a true, real combination with each other. We must advance to this, learn it from the spiritual world, and transmit it to our world. Then our sexual attraction will be boundless and infinite in accordance with the spiritual attraction.

Question: So now all people are using this property completely incorrectly?

Answer: They use it on an animal level.

Question: Why is sex considered one of the evil properties?

Answer: There is nothing wrong with it. Kabbalah does not speak of sex as some kind of vice. What is wrong with it? That I have sexual pressures and I satisfy them?

It is just that people put all this in some stupid framework, came up with paid, free, platonic and cynical love, graduated to “can” and “can’t.

From the side of nature, it is not like that at all. From its side, we are given the opportunity to fill, enjoy, and satisfy.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Sex?” 2/27/11

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Question: What are your desires as a Kabbalist?

Answer: To see the world corrected. Really. After all, a sense of hopelessness awakens today in the world more and more. Of course, this is terrible and disturbing because hopelessness threatens us with a terrible explosion.

People do not understand what kind of explosion this is when humanity will simply burn. A person cannot extinguish himself; he will slowly burn out. Moreover, this is not just a physical fire, but a slow burning out from the inside, like with radiation from the consequences of nuclear explosions. This is horrible. A person will be gradually charred.

I convey these physical states in such words that we understand. Moral suffering will be much worse.
People have no idea what they are playing with. They believe that some kind of explosion is a solution. They do not understand that if such an explosion occurs, it will be too late.

I am very afraid of this. You see, I am not at the age to be afraid for myself. I feel sorry for humanity because along with this, it has a very simple, easy opportunity to bring itself to an ideal state, to eternal perfect life. Here it is in front of us, we just need to raise our heads a little.

When millions will be engaged in it, the methodology will immediately become clear. It could not be more understandable if it is the destiny of hundreds of thousands of people. But when it becomes the destiny of hundreds of millions, then it will instantly become clear for everyone.

If two hundred years ago a modern car had been shown to a person, he would not have been able to drive it. He did not have these skills: pull here, twist there, press the pedal here. Now, however, a child gets behind the wheel and drives because this is the destiny of billions of people. Therefore, it becomes the heritage of all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Wealth?” 3/24/11

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Question: Does modern technology, meaning mobile phones, social networks, and everything else have some kind of spiritual root? Why did technology develop in this way?

Answer: Today humanity is developing only in the direction of communication and connection with each other because it is pushed to this by the upper governance.

What difference does it make to me why I should be connected with the whole world? Why do I personally need that? I would rather eat and sleep first. Family and children are in second place. Then there is work, salary, and so on. But why do I need this whole world? Why do I need to know what is going on here? Why do I need these eight billion bugs that are just swirling about in front of me?

But the thought of the upper governance is to bring us to a state of universal interconnection. Therefore, look at what is given to people: SMS, emails, iPads, and so on and so forth. Why do we need all this?

To ensure that we were tightly connected to each other and could not get away from it. Gradually, we will discover a great emptiness in this and realize that we must change this connection. After all, we will not be able to get away from it, but we will be obliged to change it. This is what we are being led to.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Technology?” 3/20/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the difference between material joy and spiritual joy?“

We feel joy from material fulfillments when we fulfill our own desires.

We feel spiritual joy when we fulfill other people who were initially strangers, but who we then turn into our loved ones. We thus rejoice in their fulfillment.

The difference between these two kinds of joy is that material joy comes from fulfilling our own desires, which is limited; while spiritual joy comes from fulfilling others’ desires, which we feel as unlimited.

Why do we feel limited fulfillment in material joy and unlimited fulfillment in spiritual joy?

Material joy comes from fulfilling our self-aimed corporeal desires where we can only fulfill ourselves. These desires are thus limited in volume, and consequently, in the amount of the force of joy in its sensation. In other words, our lives are limited by the size of our world, i.e., our perception of reality that we receive in our five senses.

When we start fulfilling others, we reach a degree of limitless fulfillment, where we gain a sense of eternity and perfection.

However, we can reach such a degree on condition that we love others, i.e., when we are ready to fulfill others endlessly, because we then simultaneously connect with the upper force of love, bestowal and connection.

This upper force gives us everything we need in order to fulfill others. We then channel this upper force through us to others as they become our most beloved and desirable people. Accordingly, we gain a boundless opportunity to fulfill everyone and feel great joy by doing so.

Spiritual joy is thus the feeling of an immense and eternal joy that we feel when an endless stream of pleasure passes through us, giving us a feeling of the spiritual eternal life. In order to reach such a degree, we need to first start loving others.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the main commandment because if we approach it, we then advance optimally toward spirituality and come to fully realize ourselves. If we make no moves toward loving others, then whatever we do in our lives drifts away in its transience.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Joy?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 27, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

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Replacing a technological connection with a sensory one is an irreversible process. No one can disconnect us from each other. All of our systems have developed to such a state that if some country switches something off, the whole world suffers.

It will also be impossible to disconnect; the general system will cover us completely. It will be both cosmic and terrestrial, and it will break through thousands of various paths.

Suddenly you will find that you are connected with absolutely all people on Earth. Just what do you do with them? You really want to be in contact, but there is emptiness around!

This is when humanity will begin to understand that connection between us is necessary. We will begin to reveal another world that will fulfill us. The fulfillment will come from our contact, and a good contact, not just a connection where I send you all sorts of smiles and you send them back to me, or something else. No.

When we begin to contact each other through feelings, then we will understand that we can find the source of our fulfillment in them and that without others I cannot be fulfilled. I will look for people by their character, by their desire, people who want to be together and be fulfilled from this. Then the Internet will be freed from the control of various businessmen who are trying to make money from it. We will not let them manipulate us.

There will be virtual revolutions on the Internet. We will throw off the yoke of the big media tycoons who rule there so insidiously that we do not even know what they are doing to us. Over time, all these Google, Wikipedia, and other huge companies will be remade.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Technology?” 2/27/11

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Question: You say that our most horrible qualities can be used correctly. But these bad qualities are expressed on the physical level as well. How can I direct the urge to kill, for example, in the right direction?

Answer: If you want to kill, go and work as a butcher. Learn how to kill cattle correctly and go ahead and kill.

The desire to coerce can also be directed correctly. Try to coerce yourself and you will become a great person. Everything depends on the object and the goal.

Comment: But not all qualities can be applied to oneself.

My Response: That is the only way! This is why a person is born!

When you try to coerce or kill others, to do something bad to them, eventually you later discover a horrifying fact. It turns out that by that, you coerced and killed the people closest and dearest to you, who are dearer to you than your own self. And you reach such a horrible state when you suddenly discover the essence of your actions. And this will definitely happen.

You will reveal that all the people for whom you have ever felt even the slightest bit of hatred, dislike, and rejection, to whom you caused anything bad or even allowed it in your thoughts, it turns out they are the closest and most beloved by you.

And to the extent of the pleasure you felt when wishing to demean them, to somehow punish them, to do anything to them, you will feel all of that in relation to yourself, and that is how you will be corrected. But that is a horrible state. I am speaking based on my own experience.

You will discover that it was as if you were punishing your own baby, who you love more than yourself, that it turns out that the whole time, you were maliciously and viciously inflicting enormous pain upon him. You will discover his internal suffering, how he experienced it, how in reality he was calling out to you inside, “Daddy, what are you doing to me?!” It is a tragedy! But on the upside, this causes you to reach true repentance, true love.

Question: But isn’t this sadism, torturing yourself?

Answer: It is revelation of evil when you pay for your hatred of everyone.

Comment: But I was rewarded with this hatred.

My Response: You have to go through this precisely in order to reject it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Envy?” 2/27/11

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Question: Does any word existing in the material world have spiritual ties behind it? Is there no word that does not have its root?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Even modern, made-up words?

Answer: No, made-up words do not have a clear spiritual root because they are artificially created by humans. Of course, they have some kind of secondary or tertiary spiritual root, otherwise nothing would have appeared. Everything comes from the fact that you cannot invent anything out of nothing.

Nevertheless, all new combinations are created artificially; they do not exist in nature.

Nature has its own inherent properties, and from them stem simple human actions that help them to come to correction. Although bread, wine, various dishes, products, a table, a chair, etc., are artificial things because such objects do not exist in nature, they exist in the process of human correction. He has to make them, and therefore, their prototypes exist in nature.

All this is described in the creation of the Temple, because the Temple represents what a person must do during his life in order to achieve complete correction and ascent to the upper world. Therefore, everything we study about our world, we learn from the actions that are described in the Torah (Bible).

These are 39 earthly works: how to cultivate trees, harvest, prepare bread and all kinds of dishes, press olives, make wine, roast meat, treat skins, write on them, sew clothes, etc.—many different processes. But they are natural, although in nature they are not inherent in us, as in animals.

Animals do not have these processes. They live in their body, eat ready-made food, and produce offspring, i.e., everything is ready for them. Sometimes they dig holes or weave nests, but it is very limited.

But a lot of all kinds of artificial actions are characteristic of a person, they are all described in the Torah and only because of that, it is thanks to them that we are corrected.

If we do something other than these actions, then it already fits into our egoism to fill it. However, it goes back to us, we have to pay for it and pay dearly.

Thus, it is possible to calculate how many actions humanity has done in vain and what it has done in excess in its history. That is why it has not yet reached its correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is the Word?” 2/27/11

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