Comment: You say that now is the perfect time for correction. In the future, this will be increasingly more difficult to implement.

My Response: Of course. From the moment we had the opportunity for correction, we were given the go-ahead. First, it happened in the 16^th century, in the time of Ari, and then at the beginning of the last century. But at least today, when the external crises are growing all over the world, procrastination leads only to bad conditions. There will be no better conditions.

Question: “Better” in terms of egoism?

Answer: No, in feelings. In our feelings it will only get worse. Not because I speak like an evil prophet, but because this is the purpose of creation, this is its plan—to bring us to the next state by hook or by crook. Therefore, we will be beaten until we want to correct ourselves.
[310501]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Will Humanity Die Out” 10/22/12

Related Material:
Final Correction Is On Its Way!
Coronavirus: Through All The Galaxies
The Problem Of Universal Correction

Filed under: Crisis, Dissemination, Globalization | Add Comment / Ask Question →

The whole reality hints to us how unattainable it is. It simply does not exist. Everything is in our imagination, like in a dream.

If we could put in the correct spiritual filter, we would see that there is nothing whatsoever except for some clumps of lower consciousness within a person.

There are movies that show sleeping people, placed in transparent capsules, who are flying in spaceships toward other worlds. They were intentionally put to sleep, placed in some solution, and they are dangling in this formalin connected to some tubes. But even this does not exist in our world.

If we put a filter on all our sensations that would filter out all our inner fluctuations and depictions and would keep only something that really exists beyond our attitude in relation to it, we would receive absolute darkness.

After all, everything we perceive, i.e., inanimate, vegetative, and animate states, are called preliminary sensations that are given to us to enable us to come out to the level of true reality.
[310318]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Break Away from Everything Earthly!” 10/16/12

Related Material:
Is This My Life? Or Did I Dream It?
Are We Awake or Still Asleep?
Wake Up In The Spiritual World

Filed under: Perception | Add Comment / Ask Question →

In the material world we are inside a cocoon we have created. Our whole life today passes like in a science fiction movie in which astronauts are put to sleep to be sent to distant stars.

So, we feel ourselves sleeping in this life and acting automatically. The only thing that is turned on in us is a searchlight that directs us to the goal.

This is what we live for.

If a person is set on revealing the upper world and he has a special unearthly goal, it should captivate him. He should feel as if he is flying in a spaceship, feel like he is passing thousands of parsecs of distances every day, and live in accordance with this.

And the rest of life is just a necessary escort. Earth, space, and our world is like a spaceship, a kind of a capsule.

Actually, the Earth is quite small. It is just the way we look at it. If you go to another dimension and look at our world, then it is one small black point relative to the next, upper world. We gradually begin to understand this and together with this point, without leaving it, we rise to the next dimension, to the next world.
[310442]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Confidants“ 10/6/12

Related Material:
Locked In The Universe
We Must Come Out Of The Aquarium
Objective Reality or Common Misconception?

Filed under: Perception, Spiritual Work | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Comment: Going through “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” we study how the whole system, individual worlds, etc. are built.

My Response: In fact, nothing is built! There are no worlds, no Sefirot, no Partzufim, there are no degrees at all.

What does “there are” mean if I do not feel them? In Kabbalah, we are talking only about a person who reveals them himself, creates them in himself.

It is the same with what you are feeling right now. For you, this world exists as perceived by you, there is some person sitting in it far away from the place where you live talking to you, you imagine all this. It is created in you, it is not outside of you, but in you, in all your visions.

Question: And then how did I come to this if I perceive it this way?

Answer: This perception arose in your so-called animate state. For some time some pictures go through your mind, which you call “my life in this world.” That is it. After a while they disappear, and that is all—life ends.

Kabbalistic sources say that everything exists only relative to the person who attains it. In fact, nothing exists by itself. I cannot say that I am sleeping now or I am going to die, or something else will happen and everything else will remain in existence.

There will be nothing left! There is no such thing! Nothing exists outside of me! I perceive everything only in me.

Kabbalah has instructions for how to create an eternal, infinite, perfect reality inside you, how to achieve it, and make it true.
But this is unprovable to people who have not gone through this. It seems to them that what they feel is the true reality.
[310387]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12

Related Material:
Kabbalah and Physics—Beyond the Quantum Leap
There Is Nothing Outside of the Soul
Without Creation, There Is No Creator

Filed under: Perception | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Do you have states that do not allow you to mentally break away from the corporeal level?

Answer: No, unless there is a wish from above to confuse me in something. Then all of a sudden, I receive some thoughts, all kinds of worries about loved ones or something else. This shows me that here I have not yet finished my work, here I have not yet pulled myself up, and so on.

Question: How do you handle this?

Answer: Let’s say you’re sitting in my class, and a couple of hundred other people are sitting beside us. Together we study the methods of elevating a person, his correction, the problems of our world regarding the next degree, how we should perform some actions, and so on, and suddenly you have some thoughts about your loved ones or distant ones, or about your debts in the bank; it doesn’t matter what or how.

You must understand that all this is in order to sharpen your studies now so that you are more clearly connected with them, that it is in the form in which all these disturbances are being sent to you now that you must strengthen your ties with the upper world.

This is how it will be all the time. That is, as soon as you wake up in the morning and establish a connection with the source in the first second, from this minute onward you should only develop your connection with Him and see all the disturbances as means of strengthening the connection. This is how we need to tune in and look at the disturbances!

Otherwise, you will remain a small child, you will remain in a bad connection with the Creator, with the upper force! You must advance with the help of these disturbances and rise above them! In any case, do not annul them or throw them away! Of course, it is a whole science of how to use disturbances, but that is what they exist for.

Thus, if you can hold out like this for at least a few hours every day, I guarantee you, in a week I will already be talking to an angel. 🙂
[310582]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Practical Kabbalah” 11/4/12

Related Material:
Obstacles—Help To Reach The Goal
A Gift From The Creator In The Form Of Obstacles
Virtuous Disturbances

Filed under: Q&A, Spiritual Work | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the meaning of Deuteronomy 5:15 where it writes, ‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there’?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the state of slavery in Egypt means that we are under the complete control of the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, or in other words, the human ego.

From such a state, we embark on an inner journey to correct our desire so that we enjoy not egoistically, i.e. for the sake of self-benefit alone, but for the benefit of others and the Creator, which is an opposite desire to ours—to give, love and positively connect.

This inversion of our intention is considered a correction of our nature, and it is described in the Torah as us exiting Egypt and entering the Land of Israel.

This correction of our ego from prioritizing self-benefit to prioritizing the benefit of others and nature describes the spiritual path we undergo until our final eternal and perfect state, called “the end of correction” (Heb. “Gmar Tikkun”).

At every stage of this spiritual path, we need to exit our ego called “Egypt,” and gradually start revealing the force of love and bestowal in nature called “the Creator.” Doing so leads us to great joy and a major surprise that the Creator prepared for us.

Therefore, our need to remember that we were slaves in Egypt means that we were in the desire to enjoy for ourselves alone, which completely controlled us, and that the Creator brought us out from our self-aimed desire. We needed to feel that we could not exit our egoistic desire other than by connecting to one another and reaching a sincere mutual request—a prayer—to exit our ego. We were then granted access to a new nature of love, giving and positive connection with others through which we discovered a harmonious, peaceful and joyous reality.

This feeling is very special because a part of it penetrates our desire to enjoy, and another part resists our desire. With this contrast inside, we can then scrutinize the forces that operate on our egoistic nature, whether and how much we can exit the control of those forces, and how the upper force—the Creator—grants us that special ability.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 27, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash.xt

Filed under: Q&A, Quora, Torah | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 16 

Selected Highlights

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The New Refuseniks”

In the early 1970s, when I first asked for permission to immigrate to Israel, the Soviet authorities denied my request. In those days, I was not alone. Many soviet Jews who sought to leave the Soviet Union were refused and became what we now know as “refuseniks.” Even though I was denied, I kept hoping. After several years, I was finally given permission to make Aliyah ‎‎[immigrate to Israel].‎

I paid a heavy price to come here—money, career, family—and came to Israel penniless with a wife and newborn son to feed. I did this because I believed that Jews should live here, and I wanted to contribute my share to the revival of the Jewish people in their homeland.

I served in the army, and then worked for the Israeli air force as part of a team that calibrated navigation and stability systems of fighter jets. I knew that if I did not do my job right, I would risk the pilot’s life. I treated my job as a sacred duty and would not dare slight any aspect of it or allow myself any kind of negligence.

These days, a new kind of refuseniks has emerged. The new refuseniks are not denied anything. They are not refused; they are refusing. Many of them are Israeli air force pilots who declared that they refuse to partake in training or in military action until the government withdraws from its intention to overhaul the Israeli judicial system. They declare that they are doing this in the name of democracy, but their ultimatum attempts to force their opinion, a minority opinion, on the democratically elected government. Indeed, with each passing day, the true nature of our “democracy” is surfacing.

We should not be surprised. After all, we are the people of Israel, the obstinate nation where each member feels that they should be the prime minister. It is true that as we are approaching crucial times in the history of humanity, the people of Israel will have a special role and each member of the nation will have to function like a prime minister, but it will not be in the sense that we are absolute leaders and everyone obeys our orders. On the contrary, it will be by setting an example of kindness and love of others above all the differences. The current attitude, where anyone who thinks a little differently from me is my sworn enemy, is the exact opposite of how we should behave toward each other.

Worse yet, as time passes, we are growing increasingly vicious toward others. Our nation has a history of self-inflicted trauma. We do not need to go back to the days of the ruin of the Second Temple, when a ruthless civil war destroyed the city of Jerusalem and prepared the ground for the Romans’ takeover of the land. It is enough to look back at the days preceding, and during Israel’s war of independence, when Jews told on other Jews to the British authorities and got them hanged, or when Jews fought Jews over possession of arms that came on board the ship Altalena, resulting in multiple casualties by drowning and by gunfire, shot by other Jews, and the sinking of the ship with most of its badly needed weapons and munitions still on board. It was a classic case of Jewish egocentrism: Either I win, or no one wins.

The current struggle is no different. It is not about a judicial reform; it is about power. When we are willing to destroy our country if we are not in power, this is what will happen. We will sink the country just like Altalena sank. And just as with Altalena, the few survivors will blame each other for our destruction.

At the moment, the only way I see to reverse the trajectory of mutual destruction is through the world’s pressure. If the nations hate the Jewish state with sufficient ferocity, it may just be enough to force us to unite. But even then, we will remain united only while we are under threat. The minute the threat is gone, so will our unity.

Of course, we could unite of our own volition and resolve that nurturing solidarity is preferable to a pointless struggle to the death, but at the moment, I do not see that Israelis are even looking in that direction, they feel too entitled, and are too proud being refuseniks.
[310970]

Filed under: Israel, New Publications | Add Comment / Ask Question →

My article in Newsmax: “Netanyahu Will Achieve Nothing With Appeasement”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to pause judicial reform in order to give time for negotiation with its opposers will achieve nothing. The struggle is not about this or that law, or about how to appoint judges to Israel’s Supreme Court.

The struggle is about power and control, and when it comes to power struggles, there is no room for compromise. As several leaders of the protest have stated, as well as major media outlets, the resistance will not stop until they are in power and Netanyahu is behind bars.

It is to be expected that there will be disagreements and struggles between the coalition and the opposition. In fact, there are power struggles even within the coalition, and divisions into Right, Left, and numerous other kinds of disagreements.

We should not expect anything else when every politician wants nothing but personal promotion and does not care about the country, or even about one’s party. All we can and should expect is constant power struggles.

In light of such self-centered motivations, I cannot take sides and decide which side is right. Nevertheless, it pains me to see what is happening in my country. People often ask me about my position. I express my position in my lessons, but it is not political.

My position is that we have no choice but to connect above our differences. We will not feel any closer to each other, but at some point, we will realize that despite our mutual aversion, we have no choice but to learn to function like a united family.

As long as each side’s motivation stems from narrow, partisan interests, neither side can be right. The only thing that is “right” is unity; everything else is inherently wrong.

Regrettably, we are not only far from this perspective, we are growing further away from it by the hour. In the current situation, when political leaders and media outlets push for violence, I think that bloodshed is highly likely. I would not be surprised to see gunfire and casualties as a result of the political upheaval.

At the same time, I do not think that a full-blown civil war is imminent in Israel. Despite organized efforts by interested parties and governments to pitch Israelis against each other, I think that Israeli society is not going in that direction, at least not yet.

Even though I am pessimistic about the outcome of the current negotiation, I think it is good that we are talking. Talking is always preferable to fighting.

However, if the parties want to make the discussions productive, they must first admit that the struggle is not about laws, but about power. Regrettably, since the establishment of the State of Israel, I have never seen a real discussion and openness regarding how to share or manage power.

In all likelihood, we will continue to struggle until we face annihilation. Only then, perhaps, we will realize that we are governed by our own wickedness, and we will resolve to change our nature.

But to get there, I am afraid we will have to experience despair, anxiety, and a physical threat of destruction. We always have been an obstinate people, and we always will be. We are in for a rough ride; I only hope we wise up before we crash.
[310844]

Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, New Publications | Add Comment / Ask Question →