Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

The Creator stands behind your hater, the enemy stands behind him. If you want to turn to the Creator, you must somehow break through the heart of your enemy with your attitude.

Comment: But this is an unbearable condition.

My Response: This is an unbearable condition, which means, we will die, from century to century.

Question: Do you think this is the main condition?

Answer: Yes! It should become something that I must see in everyone, my beloved people. Moreover, there are particles of the Creator, His messengers, representatives.

If I treat everything around me in this way, I will suddenly see that the Creator is clothed in them. He is in them, fills them, and in general, it is all Him. Everything!

Question: The person hears you, and everything turns inside out. He says: “It is not just impossible!” What should he do, the way he is?

Answer: Turn over. Roll over!

Question: And here too, should I ask the Creator: “Give me the opportunity to turn over”?

Answer: Of course! And who am I? Some kind of selfish little part that is not capable of anything.

Question: So I am able only if I turn to the Creator, that I want to turn over and approach my enemy, and embrace him, and raise a prayer with him?

Answer: I ask the Creator to allow me to do this, to show me, to teach, to push, and that my opponent would also want the same thing, would agree with me. Because I see both myself and my opponent as an act of the Creator. That the Creator is pointing us at each other like this, pushing horns against each other, inciting us.

And that is why I ask the Creator to bring us closer, to open arms instead of fists, so that we gradually show our love for each other. Right down to love.

Comment: If the world could hear you…

My Response: If people want to, that is the problem. And the Creator is ready for it if people want to. If they want to, it depends on the suffering they feel.
[340890]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22

Related Material:
How Can We Turn to the Creator
Turn To The Creator
May the Creator Gather Us into One Nation

Filed under: News, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Comment: According to Dr. Robert Lustig, professor emeritus at University of California, San Francisco, happiness and pleasure are not really the same.

He asserts that pleasure is short-lived and visceral and happiness is long-lived and ethereal. Pleasure is taking, while happiness is giving. Pleasure is usually experienced alone, while happiness is usually social. 

My Response: Indeed pleasure is an animate state in which my body enjoys. Happiness, on the other hand, is eternal and complete. It requires stepping out of oneself and rising above oneself. It is connected with a higher purpose, eternity, and true achievement.

Can both be combined? Yes, if I elevate all my pleasures to the level of happiness. Then by rising above my body, I will bring all the best to others, and in this I will find true pleasure and true happiness for myself.
[223252]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/12/24

Related Material:
In Harmony Between Two Lines
What Is Happiness?
Attainment That Brings Happiness

Filed under: Children, Education, Health, News - No Comments →

Question: Often when we prepare material for dissemination, we try to include either your text or that of Baal HaSulam or Rabash in it. Does this actually work?

Answer: I do not think this is always justified because anyone who studies Kabbalah may be beyond all the original texts. After all, they are complex, intricate, and intended for a certain level. I would not do it.

Perhaps by including quotes, people are trying to shield themselves by saying, “Well, that is how it is written,” or they assume that what moves them will also move the consumer who is not familiar with Kabbalah. I doubt it.

I would not say I find it necessary. On the contrary, in all my early books, I rewrote everything into modern, somewhat scientific language to steer the reader away from thinking about Kabbalah and instead to allow them to feel or understand the information directly on the platform they are used to perceiving it.

I do not think it is necessary to introduce them to archaisms or other Kabbalistic “isms.” Why? The text should be presented in a way that makes it easier for a person to understand. As it is said: “Teach a child according to his way.”

Comment: But you did slightly modify Shamati, for example. That is, you wrote a book based on it.

My Response: In Hebrew, I did not modify Shamati at all. I only added punctuation marks, as they were quite chaotic. But in Russian, I made it a bit more fluid because otherwise the reader would not be able to absorb it; it would be a hindrance for them.

Comment: But in Russian, you wrote Attaining the Worlds Beyond, in which you included some elements from Shamati and presented them in a very pleasant, not dry form.

My Response: That is how it turned out because I processed it through myself. First, it is a translation, and second, a retelling. So I allowed myself that freedom. Moreover, Attaining the Worlds Beyond is not just from Shamati, it is from everything. It wrote this book in just ten days. It just poured out of me.
[340848]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Kabbalistic Texts” 6/18/10

Related Material:
An Accessible Explanation Is a Profession
Adapting The Writings For The People
Passing On The Materials Of Our Teachers To The Masses

Filed under: Dissemination, Q&A - No Comments →

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 99

How Should We Behave in a Kabbalistic Group: To Act According to Our Truth or to Pretend?

There are two types of behavior in a Kabbalistic society and group:

1) Behavior characteristic of the greatest Kabbalists who have burning hearts within yet who exhibit disdainful behavior on the outside. This is like the behavior of the Hasidim of Kotzk (as described in the book Sneh Boer B’Kotzk). These were people who, inwardly, had reached high levels of understanding, yearning, true work, and constant inner effort, while outwardly they displayed open contempt. They did so to such an extent that people were even convinced that they were non-Jews. They entered the synagogue on Yom Kippur with crumbs of bread in their beards and did other things deliberately and defiantly so that outsiders would have no hold on their inner work, and they did this with utmost seriousness.

2) Behavior characteristic of our generation, where it is forbidden to show disdain, and instead it is required to express inspiration for the group. This is because we all need spiritual inspiration from the group, otherwise we will be spiritually lost. How? In our current state, we are only impressed by externality because we cannot see into our friends’ hearts. If everyone were to show disdain, we would also become disdainful.

It might be that all of our friends are completely righteous, but their external behavior will be exactly as the sages’ recommend in order to prevent any hold by outsiders. However, if they behave this way in front of us, we will not perceive this truth, but we will instead focus on their outward, false behavior, and we will thus become confused and abandon the whole matter.

Therefore, it is necessary to behave the opposite way. We should adopt a behavior that seems as if we truly desire spirituality, as if we love each other, as if we are willing to do everything for one another. Although this is an outward act and we all know it is a pretense, our body understands what it sees and hears, it believes only what it sees, and it is impressed by this outward behavior as though it were real.

Psychologists who study the body’s reactions also recommend that people tell their spouses every day, “I love you,” even when they are angry or feel a lack of love. If they repeat this sentence to their spouse, that is what the spouse hears, and the love reaches their heart with that sentence. This is how we need to act with the body in spiritual work. We should say: “The Creator is great, I love my friends, the goal is important,” and so on. Accordingly, the body will absorb that these things are important and significant.

This is how it works in our world. Fashion and tastes change and fluctuate. They have no real significance, no hold in reality; they are just illusions. But when importance is suddenly attributed to something and people worship it, even if it is empty of content, it becomes important to us as well because everyone says so. This is how it works also in spiritual work. Therefore, we need to openly demonstrate and discuss the importance of the spiritual goal and the Creator.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 98
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 97
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 96

Filed under: Talks about the Steps of the Ladder - No Comments →