What makes us happy and unhappy is not what objects really are but what we turn them into through perception (Arthur Schopenhauer).

My Response: Naturally. Any object already exists in me from the beginning, and it is me who turns it into something else. Otherwise, there is nothing to say about it.

If I am talking about something or someone, then I am expressing my perception, and therefore, this thing already exists in me. In what form it exists, that is what I am talking about. How else? What can I talk about if I do not perceive?

Question: But, as they say, a thousand people, a thousand opinions. How do they find a common language? Why does everyone perceive something the same and something differently?

Answer: Everyone is within himself, based on his qualities.

Comment: Suppose everyone perceives a table, a chair, some kind of environment the same way…

My Response: It is also not the same because we cannot compare. We just agree that it is the same.

Let’s say we say: “chair, table,” I agree that this causes the same perception in me and in you but in no case does it say what kind of object it is, only how it is perceived in us.

Comment: In principle, everyone perceives in their own way, and moreover, we cannot compare such nuances—how sour it is for me and for him. It turns out that people have in fact “agreed” on the picture of the world: this is how we perceive it.

My Response: Yes, because they originally exist according to some common similarity. There is a certain set of qualities in human perception, and therefore, they can agree.
[297602]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 4/29/22

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If one commits a crime, he murders a human within himself (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec).

Question:  For Lec the murder of a person within himself is a crime. What does it mean to “murder a human within oneself”? After all, was there a human within myself?

Answer: Yes, there was a human and after all I committed a crime. And by that I killed him.

Question: What does it mean that this human lived within me?

Answer: It means that for the time being he was not doing anything good or bad. Whereas here came an opportunity to reflect on this state—am I human or not?—and I decided that it is not worthwhile for now.

Question: And what is “a human within me”?

Answer: This is a purely altruistic upper movement—from myself to the benefit of others.

Comment: I think I will be able to do that, but when the moment comes and I…

My Response: Nothing.

Question: And this is called that I kill a human within myself?

Answer: Yes, but then you understand that here you have to turn to the upper force so it would transform you in this way, and you would be able to really grow a human within yourself.

Question: Meaning this is a necessary condition—the murder of a human within me?

Answer: Yes. The one who does not stumbled does not rise. This is a known truth.

Question: Do you mean to say that practically these “murders” are happening constantly within me?

Answer: Of course.

Question: I “kill” a human, “kill” again, and I am moving this way?

Answer: If you are moving. If you feel that you kill.

Question: If I feel that I am killing, it is a tremendous stress and trauma for me?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And once again I grow a human, and again?

Answer: And so forth.

Question: It would be great to move without killing. Is it possible?

Answer: But how can you move?

Remark: With love.

Answer: No! Movement can only happen if you step on yourself like on a rung, and you rise. Then again you see yourself there, on the bottom, and you step on yourself again, and rise.

Question: On every step I lie on the rung?

Answer: Yes.
[297115]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/21/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important emotional skill to teach a child?“

Friendship. There is nothing more important than being with friends. By that, children develop closeness with other children, how to talk to each other and connect, and in general, the construction of friendly relationships lets us enjoy happier, more balanced and calmer lives.

A friendship is a different kind of a relationship to one where we try to outcompete others and come out as number one in society. Friendships imply that we develop ties of love between us, whereas the individualistic success approach demands us to be constantly stressed in an attack-and-defense mode.

Today, we see more and more children with all kinds of psychological and psychiatric problems, and we see how these mental problems follow them into their adult years. Therefore, the most important emotional and social skill to develop in children is friendship, to develop a feeling of mutual reliance and responsibility among everybody, a state where we could all literally close our eyes and feel at peace.

Based on the video “What Is the Most Important Emotional Skill to Teach a Child?” 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 “Fear”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” Chapter 10, Item 1

Selected Highlights

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Question: The sources say that “There is None Else Besides Him.” Is this a law?

Answer: Certainly. There is no other will and force that could change something or do something, no other that we  we can turn or from which something can radiate. It is all one single force.

Question: Should a person believe in this?

Answer: One has to reveal it.

Comment: But we see a different picture. We cannot say that there is none else besides the Creator.

My Response: For us, the whole of nature breaks up into billions of various sources and impacts us. We must reveal that it is all one single whole force, authority, and intention, and in this way approach it.
[299449]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/7/22

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Comment: In an experiment, participants were allocated a virtual budget and asked to decide how much money they were willing to donate to charity. They were told they could keep any leftover amount not donated. Participants with strong empathy and sympathy traits were naturally more altruistic, so they gave more.

Afterward, the participants were subjected to stress. And right after, they were asked to decide once again how much money they were willing to give to charity. Interestingly, people with low empathy and low sympathy did not change, whatever sum they gave before stayed the same. But those who could empathize significantly reduced the amount.

My Response: Yes. If I have experienced stress, I know what it is like, so I have to protect myself against the stress I have been through.

Question: And the result is to think less about others?

Answer: Yes, it is a natural reaction of the body.

Question: So, if under stress we will not be able to help others anymore? Let’s say I am stressed, but I try not to think about myself and to keep thinking about others.

Answer: If it is real stress, then no.

Question: But you always call for a state where I can come out of myself and think of others. Is this the transition to a different state of being?

Answer: To do this, you need to feel the meaning of life. For what sake we do this. Not just to help another. To help someone else is a very weak motivation.

Question: If I have an inclination to be such a corporeal altruist, to help others, then in an extremely stressful situation will I fail the test?

Answer: Of course! We are human. What do you want from people?

Question: So I won’t help Africa, the poor, or the unfortunate; I will not help anyone. Will I hold tight to my money?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So humanity is not going to advance with all these things?

Answer: No, not on its own.

Question: But how can I rise above it so that I can remain a man with a capital “M” even in a stressful situation?

Answer: To do this, we need to educate people. To do this, we must show the possibility of achieving something thanks to the fact that one neglects his personal interests, his personal wealth, his peace of mind, and can consciously reduce them.

Question: And give the rest to others?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And this must permeate into one’s understanding of the purpose of life?

Answer: This is not the goal of life, but the means.

Question: And what should the purpose of life be in this case for one to become such a person?

Answer: You must put your life on the scale of me or everyone else. Something has to outweigh. That is what the scale is there for.

Question: I have this scale: for my own sake or for others. Will this decision bring me closer to the goal?

Answer: Yes, one small step. And then another and another.

Question: So you are saying this scale is there all the way to the goal?

Answer: All the way to the goal and all the time, every time it becomes more difficult to decide what I can give. It is getting harder to walk on the right side.

Question: So, all the way to the goal one is on this scale—every step?

Answer: That is why it is an ascent.

Question: What is this goal?

Answer: The goal is complete bestowal and love, the quality of the Creator in which you merge with Him.
[297065]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/21/22

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Question: A famous singer believes that a woman needs two things for success—a child and character, a man is not required at all. She had a child without a husband because, as she says, men themselves have become uninteresting. Is such a model acceptable from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: What does Kabbalah have to do with it? This is about the world, about nature. We are not above nature, we cannot control it.

What can some singer, even if she is famous, know about human nature, about one’s destiny, about the laws that exist within us?

People want to invent new laws. They do not understand that we are part of nature and exist inside this vast system. If we do not act in accordance with it, then in the end we get a solid blow on the head.

But this is a high price to pay, we should not do it. We interfere with the ecology, we interfere with the family, we interfere with something else, we turn everything over, and then we just suffer. Nature does not change from this, rather we change in a bad way, and then we have to somehow climb out of this again.

We are created to build a family correctly and raise children together. But without a father, a child will not grow up to be complete, and a single woman will not feel complete either.

The thing is that we are creating a society in which it is more beneficial for a woman to be alone since a man does not do household duties, he is not a reliable partner, and does not provide her with what a husband, a man, should provide. Therefore, she comes to this conclusion. In the end, all this is just hormones.

If you talk to biologists, zoologists, and geneticists, they will explain to you the reason for the behavior of women and men from sexual, social, and other points of view.
[296288]
From KabTV’s “Close up. Siamese twins” 11/7/10

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A person who teaches Kabbalah has states when he can express his thought technically quickly and correctly, and there are states when he needs to express something emotionally without a special technique of speech, and then these emotions are conveyed even better. After all, he has to strain himself emotionally and send an invisible charge from himself to others.

This often works better than beautiful words. There is contact between the internal systems of the one who wants to convey and the one who wants to receive.

This is more effective than words because it enters directly without clothing in phrases that should pass into some meaning, and then the meaning in some way should pass into feelings, and the feelings should be felt and absorbed. This whole mechanical chain does not exist because the message goes straight from heart to heart.

It depends on the contact between the student and the teacher. It either exists or does not exist. However, it mainly depends on the student. If he wants to connect with his teacher and be as connected with him as possible, to drown in him, to be absorbed by the teacher, and asks for it, then it happens.

Question: You are talking about an internal request. How can we build it so that it really comes from the heart?

Answer: Gradually, by elevating the teacher in your eyes, above all your opinions, above all possible corporeal conditions. By understanding that you are given a great, unique opportunity to receive something from the teacher, and it is necessary to take advantage of it, to not neglect it, to not postpone it for later, to not accept it as something ordinary, and to not transfer it to some corporeal relations and corporeal benefits.

This is a very big problem of the interaction with the teacher because a person is given difficult conditions here. Yet, if he observes them more or less, he can obtain contact with the Creator through his teacher. At the same time, they should build such a chain when the lower one is completely immersed in the upper one.

We study this from the system of building blocks of the upper system where each degree enters the higher degree, and that one enters an even higher one, and so on. Therefore, if the lower degree enters the upper one and exists there as an embryo inside its mother, then it can develop with this upper degree, at least in the first nine degrees. This is called nine months of fetal development.

Then it goes outside and gets its own external model of development, which also depends on the upper one, like a baby who was born and develops next to its mother. The nursing period lasts two years, growing up six years, childhood and adolescence twenty years, until full maturity.
[299366]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Public Speaking” 6/29/14

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Question: Is the origin of man a consequence of some random changes in nature or a result of some evolutionary process?

Answer: Nothing happens accidentally in nature. If we don’t see something, don’t attribute it to chance. We need to attribute it to our ignorance, to our inability to attain some phenomenon yet. But the more we reveal nature, the more we see a clear deterministic path of development, endless connections, and their forms in it.

All of them are built on one single law of maximal benefit: to be in the state of the lowest energy expenditure and the greatest egoistic fulfillment at every moment of time.

The laws of nature are based on the fact that all the matter of nature is the desire to receive, which is constantly developing and constantly looking for new forms of development for itself.

The method of development of the desire is located inside matter itself, inside desire itself. At the same time, quantitative development leads to the qualitative development of the still, vegetative, and animal nature and man.
[299428]
From KabTV’s “Close-up. The Future of Humanity” 7/17/11

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