Comment: True wisdom is simple and is directed at each of us. From the depths of time, profound thoughts come to us that have no expiration date. They are still relevant today.
Please comment on some of them.
“If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
My Response: A person must act. “If I am not for myself,” I need to know how to correct myself to be a helpful element of the world, and no one will do it for me. I must do this.
If I am not fulfilling my purpose for everyone, then who am I? If I do not do it now, when I have the opportunity, when will I be able to do it? No one knows what will happen after this moment.
All this calls for the correct, immediate fulfillment of one’s purpose.
Question: Which is?
Answer: To correct oneself, and thus correct the world through oneself. Because through every corrected element of our world, an upper, correcting force flows and is distributed throughout the world.
Question: What constitutes the correction?
Answer: The elements start to connect through me.
Question: Meaning I am the reason for connecting others?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: “Anyone who feels confident in this world is a stranger in heaven. And vice versa.”
My Response: Certainly. The fact is that egoism separates you from the world. You do not contribute anything to the world; on the contrary, you steal from it because you are an element of this world.
Therefore if you feel confident because you are an egoist (egoists feel self-confident), then you cannot bring the upper, correct, spiritual energy into this world to unite it. Conversely, if you feel that you are at the mercy of the upper force, you can transmit it into this world.
Question: So a person should feel insecure? And not be confident?
Answer: Yes. The only certainty should be that you are applying yourself to the upper force.
What can one be confident about? That is stupidity. How can you be self-confident if you do not know what will happen to you in the next moment, who you will become, and in general, what your actions will be? Nothing! It is just childish.
Comment: Nevertheless, the Internet is full of those who teach you how to be self-confident and how to live.
My Response: It is natural because everyone needs it. But no one has it, so everyone tries teaching each other.
Question: Does a person really feel confident only when he reaches out to the upper force and depends on it?
Answer: Yes, when a person is connected to the upper force, he has complete confidence because he sees what it all depends on, and he is at peace. Anyway, he will do whatever the upper force wants to do to him. He does it anyway, but now it will be done consciously.
Comment: “The one who publicly makes another turn pale with shame has no share in the world to come.”
My Response: Yes. It is very important to make yourself smaller than everyone else because this way you can channel the upper energy and upper force through yourself to them.
Comment: If a simple person hears this and asks, “How can I put myself below another?!” It is against human nature.
My Response: Precisely because it is against nature. There is nothing else here. The correction cannot happen any other way.
Comment: Even logically, I can only hear another if I become smaller than him, not bigger.
My Response: Of course! That is so in any case.
When I go out to the students every morning, do I not put myself below them? Am I not doing everything so they can learn, grow smarter and understand, unite, and get closer to the Creator?
Question: So when you go out to the students, must you lower yourself before them?
Answer: Of course! I am like a waiter: I bring and serve.
Comment: Ready to serve, as they say.
My Response: Yes. I do not feel above them. If I show such a state, it is only to give them an opportunity to somehow perk up and understand what they are dealing with.
Comment: There are methods, theories, and spiritual practices where the teacher ties students to himself. That is, where he is clearly above them.
My Response: Never in Kabbalah. Absolutely not! At any moment, a person should feel he can safely leave. Without saying goodbye! Just get up and leave. And how do they part? You see, it happens quietly.
Comment: Indeed. In an instant one is gone.
My Response: Sometimes they come back. There are those who come back. I do not treat them any differently. You see that.
Comment: I see, yes. A person walks in, sits down, you look at him and keep going. There is none of: “Oh! He is back!”
My Response: What for? It is none of my business. My job is to serve. Like in a restaurant: the customers come, and I am the waiter.
Comment: Setting the table.
My Response: Right. Absolutely so.
Comment: “Evil speech kills three people: the one who speaks, the one who believes the speaker, and the one spoken of.” It is written in the Talmud.
My Response: Yes, because in fact there is no one other than man except the Creator. Therefore if you speak ill of someone other than yourself, it absolutely clearly and unequivocally refers to the Creator.
Question: Does it mean slander is to speak poorly about the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Even though you are cursing out someone else.
My Response: It does not matter. If it is work or home related, it is not considered slander. We are talking about ideological, internal, spiritual slander. This is what you cannot allow!
Comment: “Love those who rebuke and hate those who praise, for the former will lead you to life in the world to come, while the latter will destroy you.”
My Response: That is right! Absolutely correct. A person should be paying those who beat him or scold him. And conversely, he should distance himself from or scold those who praise him.
Comment: But it is almost impossible.
My Response: If a person aims himself correctly at restriction and screen, this is exactly what he does.
Question: That is, if one is aimed at the Creator, then he thanks the one who rebukes him?
Answer: We do not really thank each other like that in life. But at the same time, a person experiences great help from the Creator in hearing anti-praises through someone.
Question: Even in Shamati (“I Heard”) it is written that it is good for a Kabbalist to be humiliated. Is it not masochistic to feel good when humiliated?
Answer: No, one does not enjoy it. He enjoys the fact that with the help of such seeming humiliation he can bring himself closer to the Creator. It is a great help when egoism is belittled. But usually a completely different picture is shown on the outside.
That is, if he is a real Kabbalist, he may be indignant and object.
Question: Be angry, but internally grateful?
Answer: Of course.
Comment: “When your enemy is rattled, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, do not let your heart cheer.”
My Response: The fact is that you must think of the general correction, so this is exactly the right attitude.
Question: When an enemy falls, do not rejoice?
Answer: No. After all, he acted this way to bring you closer to correction. So do not be happy about his failures. On the contrary, the more strength he has and the more pressure he puts on you, the better off you will be.
Question: “To fear sin is to be afraid to sin, not of punishment.” What does it mean? Should we be afraid of punishment, or should we be afraid of sin?
Answer: One should be afraid of an action called sin, not punishment for that action because otherwise you are afraid of being punished. If there were no punishment, would you do it or not?
Comment: This is very deep.
My Response: Therefore it is the action you must fear.
Question: While a person is mostly afraid of punishment?
Answer: Of course. If I wouldn’t get caught…
Question: I would take everything. Meaning I would steal if not for getting caught?
Answer: Of course I would steal.
Comment: If man knew there would be no consequence, there would be total chaos.
My Response: The Creator’s governance still keeps us within a certain framework until we choose our path voluntarily.
Comment: The famous saying of King Solomon: “What has been, will be. What happened will happen; there is nothing new under the sun.”
My Response: Yes, and everything goes back to normal because all this is just one pure universal egoism that is constantly undergoing stages after stages of its correction. Cycles.
Question: What is in it for a person? He says, “What has been, will be. What happened will happen, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Answer: This means there are no new laws. Of course there are new actions. Circumstances are changing, the Earth is changing, everything is changing; but it all follows the same laws, and flows in the same direction.
Question: Is King Solomon saying there is actually one law?
Answer: One, to bring egoism to absolute bestowal.
Question: Does this mean for a person to become a giver and a lover? Is this the purpose of life, and is this where everything is headed?
Answer: Yes, above one’s ego, precisely because of it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/19
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