Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/20/23
Posted on August 20th, 2023
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Question: Is the request of the lower ones to bring us closer to the Creator from the bottom up or to attract the light to us from the top down?
Answer: It is to lift us up to the Creator from the bottom up.
Question: When feeling joy, each of us also feels and sees the joy of our friends. How do we understand that we brought contentment to the Creator and that He enjoys our good connections?
Answer: You must reach a state where you feel how the Creator relates to you. And it will be felt by you as joy.
Question: The Creator gives us all the states. We either run away from the battlefield or run after the Creator. How can we make Him bring us closer to Himself?
Answer: Try to gather all your friends into one common whole where there will be no difference between you. In this, you will feel closer to the Creator.
Question: Before asking you about something, some friends feel such intense awe that they are afraid to ask questions. How can we work with this feeling? Is it necessary to overcome it so as not to hesitate to ask?
Answer: I think there is nothing to be shy about. Questions should be asked. You can first discuss them between you in the group and then ask.
Question: You recommended to rise above all contradictions and unite in one heart. How do we work with these contradictions?
Answer: You should try to get closer to the Creator yourself and drag all your friends with you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”
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Question: Which efforts are more important: to love and see the greatness of the friends or to focus on love for the Creator?
Answer: The most important thing is to turn to the Creator and through Him try to solve all our problems, especially spiritual ones.
Question: So what is better: to the friends and after them to the Creator, or from the Creator to the friends?
Answer: It depends on what stage you are at. But it is best to turn to the friends, and with them to the Creator.
Continue to clarify your questions with the friends and with the Creator. Then everything will work out.
Do not worry about the fact that you may not be able to ask the right question. The Creator understands everything. It is said about this: “The Creator will finish for me.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/4/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”
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Question: When we read the Psalms of David, we feel their special power. Can we read them as preparation for the lesson, and how will this help us open our hearts even more?
Answer: Psalms in Hebrew are called Tehillim. You can read them; it is very beneficial because it attracts a person and brings one closer to the Creator.
Psalms were written by King David, who in the general system of souls corresponds to Malchut.
Therefore, if we read them, we very strongly influence our connection with the Creator through this. All over the world, Psalms are valued as a very serious ascent to the Creator, as praising the Creator.
Question: We have disagreements about the reading of Psalms. Some people think that it is necessary to read several Psalms at a time, but even one Psalm is difficult for me. How should we read them correctly together?
Answer: I think it is better to read one Psalm slowly from beginning to end, perhaps even splitting it into two or three parts. You can read it alone and see how it affects you.
You should not read several Psalms at once, read a maximum of one. Psalms are a great power; they have a lot of energy. I wish for everyone to feel it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/3/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”
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Question: There is a common expression: “A thought came to mind.” Where does the thought come from?
Answer: We do not know this.
Comment: A person does not really think about this much.
My Response: Exactly, that is why a person does not think about it; a person does not know. A person cannot control it and is not capable of controlling it. And even if someone from the outside would tell him about it, it still would not help because he cannot exit the “black box”—himself.
Question: Within the framework of our material life, it seems to us that we formulate our own goals and decide for ourselves how to achieve them. Is it an illusion or not?
Answer: Of course it seems that way. After all, we cannot be certain about anything. We make mistakes, change our minds, and listen to other opinions. In regard to everything that happens, a person cannot say with 100% certainty that he is sure of something. There is no ultimate truth.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23
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Question: If I can read Hebrew a little, but I make a mistake in pronunciation, can I read Psalms and the Torah? There is an opinion that if you pronounce words in Hebrew incorrectly, it can do harm.
Answer: Neither you nor anyone else can harm themselves no matter how they read and distort the text. Feel free to open the book in Hebrew and read.
Of course, it is better to do it in Hebrew, but it is also good to read in your native language. Psalms have been translated into all languages of the world. Everyone can find a canonical translation for themselves and read it.
Question: What translation of Psalms is in the archive of the Kabbalah academy?
Answer: I once translated them into Russian and did the adaptation of some Psalms, the way I think they should sound. I recommend you read it. But there is a perfectly clear official version of Psalms in Hebrew.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/3/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”
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Question: You often throw us from one end to the other. First you say we should be working on ourselves, then you say to work with people outside of our group, and then back to ourselves and round again. Is it done so that a person would not get stuck in one place?
Answer: No work should be left out for us because we are moving within the three points. It is like aiming a rifle when the eye has to be on the same line with the sight and the target; we should apply exactly the same principle. Our heart, meaning my desires, the desires of the group, of the world, and the upper stage of creation, which we call the Creator, have to be on one line. Based on this you should always look further.
For a person who is not yet even at the minimal attainment of the entire universe, his “me,” the entire humanity, and the Creator (the upper level of nature) do not align. He is unable to look in front of him at the nearest point and the farthest point simultaneously. He cannot! They are different for him; this is me and this is society.
However when he’s at least at the first rung he can see that “me” and society are the same thing, and then he can also see the Creator, the common force of bestowal that begets, holds, and fulfills the entire creation. That is when this is normal for him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You contradict a Lot” 8/27/11
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New Life 232 – Happiness And Suffering
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe
Does the degree of our suffering depend upon the plan of nature? How can we influence it through an environment so that it will balance and direct us toward correction and a sense of eternal happiness?
Suffering is a feeling of a lack of fulfillment. It is a kind of empty place; if it were filled, I would be happy.
The feeling of suffering is necessary for our development as humans and the evolution of humanity. It currently appears that suffering is not due to material shortages, but rather from an essential lack of relationship between us. All dreams have collapsed—the communist, the capitalist, and the democratic.
None of them have ended suffering. The origin of suffering is to be found within a person, in one’s relationships with others. When we correct our nature, we will stop suffering. When a person has a higher purpose, even suffering on the way is felt as pleasure. And if there is no purpose, everything is suffering. Without suffering there cannot be any happiness; without darkness there is no light. It requires contrast, like minus and plus.
All of the wisdom of life is about making the right connection between a feeling of lack and a feeling of fulfillment, such that they don’t extinguish each other. We experience hunger for food and hunger for sex. Without an appetite, pleasure cannot be felt. Enjoyment from family is also not felt that much today.
It is necessary to awaken a desire for family in a person. If it were possible that appetite and its fulfillment would not extinguish each other, there would simply be perfect happiness. The Eastern approaches say that it is preferable not to desire; you will suffer less. But this doesn’t help us today. Women suffer more than men because they have the ability to endure greater suffering; they are much stronger.
We fear future suffering and picture bad things that are liable to happen. Nature is developing me so I can recognize that my egoism is doing bad things to me. Our nature is to benefit ourselves at the expense of others. Therefore all of us suffer. Many understand this, but nobody knows what can be done about this destructive nature. Instead, we resist change and are unwilling to go out of our comfort zone. We must anticipate what remedy will soften a blow and explain that there is a way to improve human nature, with the help of society.
Imagine a situation in which everyone loves you. There is nothing better than that. What must we do for this to happen? If we don’t advance toward a change in human nature, then a difficult future will be ahead for us. But there is room for optimism. If only we will want to change a little, then this will happen.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 232 – Happiness And Suffering,” 9/29/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there any benefit to introspection?“
If we undergo an introspection that aims at bettering our connection to each other in an integral manner, then there is indeed great benefit to introspection.
For instance, if we think to ourselves, ”When will we be able to care about all people in the world as we care about our close-knit family?” then such an introspection brings us closer to balance with nature’s integral laws.
It does not mean that we think about everyone having the exact same amounts of money and assets. We cannot make it so that each person would have, say, a thousand dollars and be done with our scrutiny. Instead, we need to account for each person’s demands, needs and states.
We need to care about the whole world similarly to how a well-functioning family discusses how to allocate its resources to each of its members according to their respective demands, needs and states. If we care for humanity in such a way, then there would be no room for all kinds of crises and disasters that we receive from nature in order to wake us up to our globally-integral connection.
It might sound like a socio-economic approach that is out of a common person’s reach. That is, how could a single person possibly affect the way each and every person receives a budget and supplies for their lives? But it is much more than that: it is an integral form of introspection that has to run constantly within the general system we live in.
We are all members of humanity, and humanity must constantly introspect about itself like we do in our families. If we expand the ongoing care we have for our families’ demands, needs and states to the level of humanity as a whole, then we will start discovering our much deeper connection “as one man with one heart,” i.e., as a common integral system. Moreover, through such an ongoing introspection that increases our care for humanity, we will draw the positive force that dwells in nature into our connections—a force that has the power to lead our lives into a state of complete harmony, balance and peace.
Our hearts, i.e., our desires, are currently very small. We are born with self-serving desires, and we grow up thinking that our egoistic mode of enjoying for our own personal benefit at the expense of others is all that we have in life.
But there is a way to expand our hearts, i.e., our desires, to include everyone within.
For the time being, we mostly feel only our own needs and those of our families, and we cannot relate to others’ needs as we do to our own. But if we create support systems to conduct an introspection of how to increase care throughout human society, which will lead us to a harmonious connection, then we will draw ourselves closer to a much more complete form of connection that is in balance with nature’s integral laws.
We will then experience nature as friendly and warm, because we would then enter into a certain level of congruence with nature, as a single interconnected, interdependent and integral system.
Based on the video “A Guide for Introspection” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Man Is Rewarded with Righteousness and Peace through the Torah”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 184
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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Selected Highlights
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