Question: An elderly couple was asked what the secret of their long marriage was. The wife replied that is was the fact that “We both love me. I do not exit loving myself, and he loves me.”

What do you think about this?

Answer: This is very one-sided, like walking on a crutch. I do not want that. There is no mutuality.

Comment: This is the entire secret of their long marriage; there is no mutuality.

My Response: It is like a little child who behaves like that with his mom: “I love myself and everyone should love me.” This will not work. I do not feel pleasure, height, journey, and fulfillment from the fact that someone will show me that he or she loves me.

I feel like this sometimes, and it does not make me feel good.

Question: Then what is the secret of a long and happy marriage?

Answer: When you can constantly concede to each other. Constantly! That is, to be ready for this all the time to concede to the other in everything. In everything! Then life is beautiful.

Comment: Can you imagine? The moment I feel a prick and have to attack, and hop, I concede even though everything inside me is burning!

My Response: No, there is nothing anymore and nothing is burning.

Question: So once I have conceded, is there suddenly a peaceful flow?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is this what we come to through big fights and big clashes?

Answer: Through understanding, through recognizing the wisdom of nature. Only in this form can you be connected with the other and can you receive pleasure from being with him and conceding to him all the time! That is all. How wonderful!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/27/22

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Question: What is the right way to go against one’s egoistic desires?

Answer: You cannot overcome your egoistic desires if you do not resist. Above all your desires, you need to build a connection with the Creator.

After all, everything that arises in you now gives you a feeling directed against the unity of the Creator, against His existence, and you must behave as if He exists, as if He is the one and only source of everything that happens, who is absolutely good and doing only good.

And you get a completely different, constantly changing picture against these settings. But you rise above them and act, saying: “You give me these feelings, these thoughts, these relationships with everyone, and this attitude to everyone, you build this worthless world around me. And I will treat You above all this as good, bringing good, the only one who exists, and the cause of everything that happens. And in general, all this around me does not exist, there is only You!”

Suppose you are talking to me now, which means that I do not exist; you treat me as the Creator’s influence on you, and I do not exist. The same for me. Even those thoughts and feelings that arise in me, it is You who arouse them. And who am I? I am only an expert point that feels all this and is tuned to perceive it this way. And then the soul begins to develop from this expert point.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Get Over Yourself” 2/15/14

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Question: In some groups, there are sort of two camps that do not connect with each other very well. What can we do?

Answer: We should not pit such people against each other. We need to constantly talk about this so that they can advance and correct this condition as they progress in their spiritual work.

Eventually, everyone should reach the quality of absolute love. Without this, the Creator will not be revealed. At the level at which bad inclinations and bad impulses are given to us, we must correct them and we will discover the Creator in them—in everyone, in the entire world. Because in the next moment another world, your other bad qualities will be revealed to you, and you will have to correct them.

There will be another world, much worse than now. Your attitude toward the world and the world toward you will be more terrible, and you will also be correcting that world into the world of love, and you will see in it the revelation of the Creator because “world,” “Olam,” is from the word “concealment.”

This is the concealment of the Creator from man. The reverse side of the world, its wrong side, is the Creator at the level of the world that is currently depicted to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Conflict between Friends” 3/3/14

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Question: Once Rabash undertook to teach young, non-religious people. What did he prove by this? That Kabbalah is not a religion? Or did he need a breakthrough?

Answer: I think he saw from my example that the next step is possible here and he could not restrain himself. He made a spiritual revolution.

Of course, Baal HaSulam could have done the same. He would do anything! This man was ready to break all boundaries. Rabash, however, could not afford it. He did not feel that high. He has always been under his father. Even in the photographs, Baal HaSulam’s gaze is directed upward, while standing next to him Rabash has his head lowered. It looks very symbolic.

But from working with me, he saw that there is something to invest in if I bring other students, and therefore he agreed.

Comment: It is probably difficult for many to understand what it means for Rabash, who lived all his life in a religious environment, to suddenly decide and accept as students those who had nothing to do with this at all.

My Response: Yes and no. On the one hand, the spiritual path puts a person in a state of constant fear, because he is lowered to the very bottom, and on the other hand, he is raised to the very top.

You are between two poles, and you have no other choice. You are literally shaking from every speck of dust, from every leaf, like a bunny under a bush, and at the same time you understand that there is no solution, you are obliged to act.

I felt it later. I think that my students also are gradually beginning to understand the gap that exists in the approach to the world in every soul.

Thus, we must consist of fear, as they say, trembling before the Creator, and of greatness and strength. These two opposites must be in each of us. The more they differ, the more powerful the person is.

I am sure Rabash had both. This constantly accompanies you; you cannot get away from this.

Moreover, both opposites must merge—both fear and strength, which makes it possible to move forward, constantly doubting and still realizing oneself. That is why he went for it.

It was necessary to urgently change the situation and bring it to a common denominator. I had a big job. But I quickly moved away from it, because I realized that if I got stuck in this, then I would not be myself. Therefore, we continued our personal line of communication with him.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book“2/12/10

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Comment: Due to the growing popularity of Kabbalah and the development of the Bnei Baruch organization, there are many views on how to classify it. Some consider it as a cult. For example, it is considered that it offers you the exact recipe for success and happiness, just for you.

My Response: There is nothing personal or “just for you” in Kabbalah. It can only be for everyone because the universe is common, unified, and there can be no happiness for one.

Comment: According to the classification of cults, the first meeting opens up a completely new way of looking at things for people.

My Response: No, this is not the case in Kabbalah. By starting to study it, you are just beginning to realize that you are facing something radically new. But what exactly it is, you do not understand.

It takes a lot of time for a person to get into it. First he must prepare his senses and expand them. He must begin to work for bestowal, and then in this acquired quality, he will begin to feel the upper world that we are talking about.

The upper world is the world that is felt in our altruistic desires. While I do not have them, I do not reveal anything. I just feel that it is really something special: big, deep, and ancient. But this impression is very general. It may be incorrect. After all, all of it is individual.

Comment: When a person feels something unusual in Kabbalah, let’s say he checks some things in life.

My Response: No, these are not spiritual, but all kinds of personal psychological impressions, which he often has when confronted with something new—terrible or beautiful, it doesn’t matter what. This is not Kabbalah.

How can a person who has just started studying, at the first impression feel and understand what Kabbalah is?! It is not from our world at all. Therefore first he must see that there is a huge, ancient wisdom embedded in it. Maybe the first time he does not understand something, but instead he simply feels that this is not mysticism and not divination, i.e., it is absolutely nothing that he has read about anywhere else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Hochma (Wisdom), on which the World Stands” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Selected Highlights

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Question: Did Rabash feel when he should answer your questions and when he should not? Did you also feel this?

Answer: Of course! He was candid. First of all, he wanted to make it clear why he was giving an answer or not. After all, when you explain to a student how to answer and how to ask, you prepare a future teacher.

This is the art of communication between a teacher and students where he must teach them to ask questions correctly so that there is some kind of communication.

Question: Did he know that he was training you to be a methodologist?

Answer: I think everyone knew that. Once I visited my friend from the past, and he told me: “I remember one time I went to the beach with Rabash instead of you because you did not want to go. You were in such a state you did not want to and could not go. Rabash said: ‘Let’s call Michael.’ I called you and said: ‘Rav wants to talk to you.’ You answered: ‘I do not want to talk to him!’ I conveyed your words to Rabash and said: ‘How can this be?!’ Rabash replied: ‘You do not know what his condition is, and, in general, what kind of soul he has.’”

I am saying this to confirm that, of course, he was preparing me for teaching.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10

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Question: There are times when someone asks you a question and you answer it very briefly, and sometimes you do not even want to give an answer. It also happens that we ask the same question, and you pour out your soul and open wide spaces before us. How do we catch this moment when you can say something?

Answer: If I cannot answer a question directly, but have the opportunity to answer it in a different way, then I answer.

Kabbalists have large limitations in what they can say and what they cannot. In addition, it is possible that by the time you ask the question for the second or third time, the state of the group has already changed. This is why I can talk about the topic that interests you. That is, there are many different conditions. The difference may even be in several days.

Comment: Sometimes you say that it is impossible to talk about something at all, and at other times you address this topic and develop it widely.

My Response: It is because the time has come. It does not depend on me. I am just a transmitter here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13

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Workshops are a spiritual act because they force people not to argue with each other, to complete each other, to be equal, to speak on a certain topic set by the workshop leader, and then think about it for a while.

If during the workshop five to ten questions are raised that people discuss, then this helps them build some kind of system within themselves and identify goals and stages of their development. As a result, they create a spiritual space between themselves based on mutual bestowal and kindness.

By discussing the topics of getting out of egoism and rising above it, they build between themselves that clearing on which they want to feel the manifestation of the Creator.

A workshop is the state where a person builds his spiritual vessel, which is a common spiritual vessel. Moreover, he begins to understand that this is outside of himself, that this is a way out of himself— the implementation of the method.

During the workshop, a person correctly expresses himself, his “speaking” level; that is, a man is called Adam, similar to the Creator. Of course, there are many erect-walking creatures; a rooster is also erect-walking. And a person is called “speaking” because he can express bestowal and love and lead another person to bestowal and love.

Therefore, today there is nothing more effective than workshops in which we all are permeated with one goal, one idea.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Do We Need Workshops” 4/5/14

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