Question: When you say that a person who attains spirituality burns from the inside and it really begins to be felt, do you take analogies from what you perceived yourself?

Answer: Of course from myself! Everything that exists in the world, a person lives through himself. Look how everyone lives their life: short or long, more or less prosperous, suffering, with problems, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Question: You are talking about such scorching things! Did you really have to go through this yourself to feel all that?

Answer: By going through it, I saw that if I deviated to the right or left line, I would either turn into a “flatbread,” or it would be something perfect—a soft down pillow that would smoothly slow down my train.

Question: So, when you went through these states, did you clearly feel each of them?

Answer: Yes, because a person usually walks in the middle line. He still hits a barrier that slows him down, but it is like hooks grabbing you when you need to stop. These grips slowly slow you down.

Question: And everyone will have to go through these states?

Answer: Of course, it is a must: the right and left lines upon which you build the middle line. It depends in what form, that is, to what extent. In accordance with my soul, I had to study so much and disseminate so much. There are such souls among the souls, not high, but just special. They are required to be teachers or leaders in charge, and so on.

Once we visited a former student of Rabash and he, looking at me, said: “I look at you and how many years you have been doing this. I remember once you had a fight with everyone, including Rabash and refused to go to the coast with him. Then I went with him. And there I asked him: “Rav, why don’t you expel this Laitman? Look what he allows himself!”

Rabash replied: “I would kick him out, but he has a special soul.” I did not understand it then, but now I see that you do not give up, you continue and keep hitting one spot all the time.”

Why am I saying this? Not to spotlight myself. There is nothing special about it because the Creator appoints and removes. But everyone simply has a mission, and it must be fulfilled. I feel it pressing on me, and I am implementing it. Is it possible to escape from it? It is forbidden. Whether you agree with it or not is your problem.

I am trying to agree, to justify the Creator’s plan, in relation to myself at least. Therefore, I have no questions about how I live. I feel that it must be done.

And what is interesting about Kabbalah, the more you study, the more you realize that this image you are playing now does not really exist. Nothing remains of a person! It is in our world, in its history, we remember great or famous people, positive or negative. But there is nothing left at all! That same integral point remains in the huge system, which played its role because the Creator played it that way. And that is it.

So, I have a very simple mission. I am trying to do the maximum of what I feel from my science. As much as it works, it works, as much as it does not, it does not.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To See the Future” 2/5/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I shift my emotions from negative to positive?“

Throughout nature, negative feelings run in parallel to positive ones to sustain the balance. We should thus first understand that negative feelings surface in us from nature in order for us to enter into balance with nature. Doing so will lead us to understand both negative and positive systems in nature, and we will be in between them as its masters.

We thus should not try to suppress or cover up negative feelings, but complement them with positive ones. Suppose that we take a negative feeling like depression: it needs to balance out with joy and happiness. I understand that this sounds far fetched, because joy and happiness are the most distant feelings from depression. However, doing so becomes possible if we engage in connection-enriching learning on a regular basis.

If we are in an environment that regularly explains and promotes to us that negative feelings are an invitation for us to develop to their positive opposites, and which provides support and encouragement to do so, then it is possible to make such a shift.

The process is quite simple to explain, but it requires regular engagement in a supportive environment connected to such learning in order to implement. The process is as follows: A negative feeling arises, and we then have to find its source and its purpose—that the negative feeling arises in us from nature in order for us to seek its opposite, joy and happiness. We then have to learn how to relate to negative feelings as to positive ones, and be equally grateful for negative feelings as for positive ones. By doing so, we learn how to live between the two because there can be no plus without a minus.

If we engage in such a process, then we become masters of our state. We will know what to do with negative emotions when they arise, and we will understand that nature awakens such feelings solely in order for us to enter into balance with it.

Moreover, we need to understand that as we develop into the future, we can expect more and more negative feelings. From one day to the next, things will get worse. I promise. The world will cry and shout, and no remedy will help. If today we can take some pills or shots to try alleviate our pains, tomorrow we will find that they will no longer work. Drugs will not help us in the future because nature will lead us to a state of feeling a complete sense of depression and negative feelings. It might seem cruel, but it is in order for us to reach a much better state, one that we have yet to experience, through realizing the correct solution: that we need to want the positive force, that it would balance out the negative force in us, which is the reason for depression and all other negative sensations.

Based on the video “How to Shift Your Emotions from Negative to Positive” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic, “Living Between Opposites” 

Selected Highlights 

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Need to Get Out – My Personal Story”

I remember how everyone looked at me 50 years ago in Belarus when I said that I had to leave there and go to Israel, that I had no other choice and wanted nothing else in life ‎other than to come there, to Israel. People pressured me from all directions, “Don’t leave!” “What will you do there?” “They might put you in jail!” and many other warnings. But I could not listen; I knew I had to go, that that was my way.

After I submitted my application to the Soviet authorities to emigrate to Israel, I became a refusenik for several years. Refuseniks were people who applied for an emigration permit from the former Soviet Union to Israel, but the authorities rejected their application. Eventually, however, I received the permit and made Aliyah (lit. “ascent,” a term that designates ‎ emigration to Israel).

But when I arrived in Israel, the story repeated itself. I started asking questions, looking for someone to explain to me why we live, what is the purpose of life. Again, people looked at me awkwardly. “Why? What is it you need?” they asked me. I had to get answers to the questions about the universe and existence, and I knew that here, in Israel, the answer must ‎be found.‎

In this way, I was led from above to the land of Israel, where, after a long search, on a rainy winter night, I was led to my wise and kind teacher, RABASH. He opened the books of Kabbalah to me and showed me the inner meaning of the teachings of Israel. He answered my questions one at a time, with scientific logic and in perfect order, questions that had been ‎haunting me since childhood.‎

Like RABASH’s father, the great kabbalist Baal HaSulam, my teacher lived and taught within the Jewish Orthodox community. My calling was to be a cornerstone in bringing the wisdom of Kabbalah to the general public, to secular people. When I began teaching, people had no need for it. “What is it, philosophy?” they asked, “Is it some kind of psychology?” “Why do I need it? Isn’t it a religion?” “Do I have to pray three times a day?” Very gradually, I learned to explain the wisdom, and people began to understand what it is ‎really about.

In part, my own efforts contributed to this process. I was willing to do literally anything to make Israelis realize what a treasure they have. In time, nature took its course and an inner urge to know the wisdom began to emerge in people, a craving to understand where we ‎come from and where we are going.

Today we are approaching the same state that I felt in Russia and in Israel, a state that until ‎today came only to a few. It will become a torrent that will push us into the straits, because if ‎previously, we could settle for an apartment that we bought with great efforts, a good salary, a guaranteed pension, and even occasional trips abroad, soon these satisfactions will no longer motivate us to get up in the morning. We will feel that we cannot go on ‎living like this; material satisfactions will no longer satisfy us.

The worsening situation in Israel will add to the heaviness, and we will feel that we are suffocating, that we are cornered and have nowhere to run, that we must break out, out of the dark and narrow dungeon and into the daylight, to a place where there is spirit!

This narrow place is our life, where we feel alone and our eyes are always looking for fleeting corporeal pleasures. We feel the spirit of life only when we break out from the straits ‎ into the feeling of others, when we include our brothers in us, care for them, and unite with them as one.‎

This duty is hidden in the teachings of Israel, in the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is the method ‎to break out of our own boundaries into the hearts of our friends, and from there to include the whole world, all the people, and even animals, plants, and minerals. Kabbalah is the teaching that leads us into connection with the upper force that creates everything and sustains everything, and includes everything and everyone within it.

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Question: Is there a lucky number in Kabbalah?

Answer: There is no such thing. Any number is lucky.

Question: Do you also not have a favorite number?

Answer: As a child, I had favorite numbers, and after that no. I remember my favorite number was seven.

There are no favorite and less favorite numbers, everything can be good, and everything can be bad. It depends on how a person applies all these numbers and these laws.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/26/22

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Question: How does light affect us—constantly or only when we call it on ourselves?

Answer: The fact is that we are constantly in the ocean of light. But how we feel it and how we are prepared for this or that kind of influence of the Creator depends on us.

So we can’t say anything specific. Everything that comes from the Creator is called light, and a person, depending on how much he corresponds to the Creator, feels this influence more strongly and fully.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/19/22

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There are no vowels in Hebrew. They are expressed by additional dots and marks above, below, or inside the letters.

The Hebrew letter consists of three elements: a dot, a line, a circle.

A black dot on a white background symbolizes the beginning of creation, when an egoistic desire appears on the white background of the upper light, on the background of the influence of the Creator.

This point can express a circle and can expand in any direction from four sides (meaning movement on a plane).

We can talk about this endlessly because the movements of a black dot on a white background express the entire spectrum of the attitude of the Creator to creation and conversely, the creation to the Creator.

That is, the shape of some letter on a black background expresses how I perceive the Creator’s influence on my Kli (vessel). The white light is the light of bestowal, love, and unity with the Creator. As I feel this light, I perform some actions with it and send it back to its source.

We need to study all of this.
[301087]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/26/22

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In Hebrew there are no numbers at all; there is a letter record of numerical states. For example: Yud-Alef (י – א) is 11. The depiction starts from one to ten and beyond. By adding new letters, the following tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. are expressed. That is, letters express both words and numbers.

All this is connected to Gematria. Gematria is the numerical meaning of words that speak about inner spiritual force, not of the word itself, but of what stands behind it.

Question: For example, God is Elokim in Hebrew. In Gematria, it is Peh-Vav (פ-ו)—86. What does this mean?

Answer: For a person who does not study Kabbalah, this does not mean anything. It speaks to someone who knows what it is about. This means that the force value of this word is 86 (Peh-Vav). If I say Peh-Vav to a Kabbalist, he understands what kind of connection with the Creator we are talking about.

Question: In principle, there are no secrets in this?

Answer: No, of course not. There are no secrets in the world at all! It all comes down to just knowing what is behind the words, numbers, etc. Nothing else.
[301260]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/27/22

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Question: Is it true that babies have a much greater perception of the world than an adult even  though it seems to us that they do not perceive anything at all?

Answer: The fact is that children’s perception is not constrained, not limited by the framework imposed by society, the environment, conventions, so-called “education,” and so on. It is not yet narrowed to a frame, like with the aperture of a lens, by the requirements of the environment.

Therefore, we can say that it is undoubtedly more open than in adults. We do not see very much. We see everything that society directs us to and restricts us by. Every time we hear or see something from the outside, we constantly include it in ourselves, and as a result, our field of perception narrows and distorts under the influence of the environment.

The perception of a baby is like clean photographic film on which it can record everything directly. Our perception however, can be compared with something worn-out because society with its stupidities coarsens us so much that as a result we perceive only some scanty information from the environment.

Therefore it is of course wonderful to rise above the influence of society, which means to throw away culture and all external conventions, that is to say, external egoism, to drop the inner egoism that was introduced into you, and to begin to perceive the world from your point, which you pull out of there. Then you discover yourself, not what was done to you.
[301269]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World Through the Eyes of a Baby?” 2/10/13

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