Is it possible to advance along the spiritual path without descents at all? But if there were no descents, we would never reach the final goal. After all, we ascend precisely due to descents.

We are not able to ascend just like that. There are no forces in me now to perform a spiritual action for the sake of genuine bestowal, there is no anti-egoistic screen and there are no forces of overcoming. I am all from the desire to receive, and how can I bestow?

So what is done from above? l am driven into descent, and I suffer, but I hold on. The main thing during the descent is not to stray from the usual daily routine: work and study, work and study… Stand on it stubbornly like a donkey, whatever happens.

And then it turns out that the Creator arranges these descents for me, and so be it. But I’m still going on. And then all my descents, in which I could not do anything, are counted to me as if I had done everything.

We cry that we don’t want to descend because it’s unpleasant. But we need to see in them the Creator’s work on us. Therefore, let us have a lot of descents, because this means that there will also be a lot of ascents!
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From KabTV’s “Conversation at a Meal” 11/3/21

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Question: In the article “Time to Act,” Baal HaSulam writes that many books of the Jewish people were written by those people who were recognized as Kabbalists and were in comprehension of the higher worlds. And among other peoples, everything revolved around everyday life: culture, painting, literature. Why?

Answer: Because for 1,500 years the Jewish people existed on a spiritual level. After leaving Babylon, the Jews descended to Egypt, then passed through the Sinai desert, and from there to the land of Israel, then there was the exile in Babylon, where Nebuchadnezzar reigned, the return to the land of Israel, the construction of the Second Temple, and another 800 years of existence until the 2,000 year exile.

For 1,500 years from Babylon to the last exile, we lived in a sense of the spiritual world.

Question: Has the Kabbalistic method, which is now offered to all of mankind, already been implemented once in your life?

Answer: Yes, but in those days, selfishness was still small. Therefore, a large mass of people could not understand that it is precisely the ascent above our world that is a necessary method of existence, that our world is needed in order for you to enter the spiritual realm from it. Man did not realize this.

He believed that he should live in this world in a practical way by developing himself, society, family, sciences, crafts, etc. That is, selfishness had not yet outlived itself, and did not expose itself, as in our time.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Difference in souls” 12/11/09

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #50 “Two States” 

Selected Highlights

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Israel is a country with a special inner spirit. But unfortunately I often hear from young people that they do not feel this spirit and do not believe that they have a future in the promised land. The problem is that the spirit that once filled the people of Israel, both in religious and secular environments, is disappearing. And there is nothing to replace it.

Have we already lost the war against indifference, against fear, against neglect of our country? I think that this problem starts from the very top, from the educational system and from culture. We do not care about ensuring the correct upbringing of the younger generation, thinking that everything will work out by itself. But nothing will be fixed by itself.

Therefore I think that there is a large field of work to try to bring back the spirit of life, the spirit of struggle for myself and the entire people of Israel. I am sure this is possible. After all, we were in conditions much worse than this at different periods of history.

I think we can get up. But there is a lot of work for this, depending on such organizations as Bnei Baruch, which, without loud shouts, work painstakingly day after day, trying to revive and rekindle those sparks of spirit that still exist among the people of Israel.

It depends on school programs, on what TV channels show to viewers and radio broadcasts. All this requires investment. It is necessary to raise the spirit that has always been present in the people of Israel and has awakened in the most difficult moments of its history. Everything depends not on the millions who remain indifferent or semi-indifferent, but on those few people in whom the heroic spirit remains, those who are ready to talk about it and build a new society.

The people of Israel are not based on belonging to a particular geographic area, but only on the union of the Jews. And we must fight for this union. If we can convince the part of the people who are in the land of Israel that our good future depends only on our unification, then we will succeed.

Unfortunately it is characteristic of our people that they can endure blows for a very long time until they begin to awaken and want to change their future. I really hope that we will not have to fall into a deep pit in order to rise from it again and revive national pride, strength, and power. We must use all means to fight for the high spirit that we want to see among the people.

In our time, based on the works of Baal HaSulam, we can begin a new stage and affirm a new national ideal that will raise us to a new peak in order to bring all of humanity to the end of correction. At a time when people are seized by despair, we have confidence that we can offer the confused and helpless world a reliable method and map route for achieving a good state, a state in which the Creator and all of nature will help us. We have something to rely on.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation with Journalists” 10/17/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is self realization?“

We exist in a collective, closed and integral system. How, then, can we use this system so that it will give us maximal strength, thoughts and desires—all of the means where, if we use them correctly, with the aim of benefiting everyone, we will reach a state where we will enter this system in a balanced way?

If we reach such a correct use of the system, we will receive a true and complete realization of ourselves in it. We will then be able to realize ourselves throughout our current lifetime, regardless of how long it is, completely and to the fullest.

Based on “New Life episode 1,155: A Healthy Lifestyle,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Nitzah Mazoz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: “Absence” or “nothing” is a category that captures the absence of something. In physics it is called a vacuum. But although a vacuum is the absence of some objects, fields exist in it. And what does the wisdom of Kabbalah mean by the terms “absence” and “existence out of absence”?

Answer: Absence and existence from absence are different things.

Absence is the negation of anything in any place, volume, or space. Therefore if we say “absence,” “none,” or “nothing,” we are simply saying that no forces exist in the place, format, or category in question.

And existence from absence is something that exists. Therefore it is called “being” or “essence.”

Thus there is absence and there is something that has appeared from absence. But how can it appear? To what extent does it exist? What properties does this something have, and who can feel and affirm it at all? Regarding whom and what does it exist?

These are very deep, serious, one might say philosophical questions, but in Kabbalah they are dealt with simply, clearly, and each has its own place.

First we must immediately discuss one of the most serious attitudes: everything we are talking about happens with respect to a person who attains nature and finds in it absence, existence, being, nothing, and so on. It means that any person who makes certain efforts can attain these categories of nature.

Question: So they don’t exist by themselves, outside of a person?

Answer: We cannot talk about what is outside of man at all, even about the Creator, because the upper force of nature is still felt in us. Therefore the Creator in Hebrew is called “Boreh,” “Bo-reh“—”come” and “see.” That is when you come and see, attain it, and define it. This will be called “Boreh” in relation to you.

Question: Is there any term that means a force that cannot be attained and seen?

Answer: If it is impossible to attain and see, then how can you define it? What we don’t feel, we can’t call by any name, and therefore we don’t talk about it.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/19/21

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Question: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the fulfillment of his campaign promises.

First, in the near future, Americans will be able to choose male and female gender for their passport independent of other gender designations on other documents. Secondly, the designation of a third gender “X” in American passports is about to be introduced.

This is for intersex and transgender people. In addition, a law introduced in New York allows one to write “parents” instead of the traditional “father” and “mother.”

Please tell me, is the introduction of such laws, such freedom, when a person chooses their gender or does not call his father and mother as such but only “parents” correct?

Answer: There is a certain danger here. How will a person change one’s attitude toward the world, toward life, toward people, toward society, toward oneself and that includes how one views his or her parents and how the parents will look at him or her. He is not from some kind of machinery, but from his parents.

Question: Is there a revolution in his view of the world and the view of the world toward him?

Answer: I don’t think there will be a revolution. I think that as usual these are the imbalances of humanity at this stage, which with time will simply recede and will be forgotten.

It can’t be. No one can cancel a man and a woman, how they conceive a child, and how it develops. I would not advise them to flirt with such fundamentals of nature as parenting, childhood, birth, and the definition of it all.

Question: So if we take the view of nature on humanity, then nature cannot allow this?

Answer: You can try to do whatever you want. But as you distort natural definitions, no matter what they are called, in the end it will lead to emptiness.

The fact is that humanity should have long ago reached new guidelines of being mutually connected, mutually obliged, loving, and in this connection to reveal its single highest and unified root. We must actually find something to move towards. And then all these problems will simply cease to be important.

Question: It will no longer become the goal of life?

Answer: What difference does it make what and how we call it?! Life remains life. I don’t understand human stupidity! Except one thing, I see that nature wants to teach us very seriously in order to give us a good slap so that we do not think that we are smarter than it.

Question: I feel this is such a cunning move. Does nature itself direct us to this dead end?

Answer: Yes. So learn. We learn from our mistakes. But there are mistakes that cost us a lot.

To avoid these problems we need to clearly define what an ideal society, fantastic in the good sense of the word, should actually be.

This is a society of equal, kind people who help each other, who work together in conjunction to take from themselves, from everyone, and from nature only what is necessary for existence, thus preserving themselves and the world around them.

Question: Then can all these problems be resolved by themselves?

Answer: Of course. We will not jump somewhere, I do not know where.

Comment: I mean these same-sex marriages and so on.

My Response: The one who does not want children, let him not have any. Calmly.

We have come to such a state in the world where people do not know what to do with themselves! We have to give it all to our simple nature. And then everything will be fine. Everyone can dispose of himself as he wants. The rest depends on the upbringing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/30/21

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When it comes to non-interference in inanimate, vegetative and animate nature, we say: “You can’t immerse your paws in nature, destroy forests, birds, animals, etc.; everything has to be done carefully, cautiously.”

And when it comes to human nature, we are weak in this regard and that is why we have to work with ourselves in some way. But no one wants that. That is the whole problem.

The science of Kabbalah does not speak about ecology, but about how to restore our balance with nature, since we are inflicting particular harm to the general, global homeostasis. And the most harmful object of nature is man.

But how can a person who thinks only about himself become an integral part of nature?

There are laws on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels that provide homeostasis, inner consent and harmony of all parts. A person does not have this. In order to bring a person to the conscious fulfillment of balance with nature, one needs to understand what it is and how to achieve it.

In order to get into balance with others, each person must take into account the desires of others, and they his. This is called the law of mutual guarantee, mutual consent.

In principle humanity would like to do this somehow. After all, all the laws we adopt seem to want to compensate for ignorance of the law of mutual guarantee, but this compensation is weak and one-sided, with distortions.

The fact is that the implementation of this law will provide humanity and all the other underlying layers of nature—inanimate, vegetative and animate—with complete balance. We must reach it.

Moreover, when we begin to achieve it, we will discover the laws of natural commutation. And then we will be able to make big breakthroughs in everything because we will understand how to properly organize the relationship between people on all levels—between spouses, parents and children, bosses and subordinates, subordinates among themselves, bosses among themselves, etc.

We will be able to clearly perceive, in accordance with nature, how to build these relationships.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation about Management Science”

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For if you turn away, and cling to the remnant of these nations, that remain with you; and intermarry with them and mingle with them and they with you;

Know of a certainty that the Lord your God will not drive these nations out from before you, anymore; and they will be a snare and an obstacle to you, and a goad in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you. (Prophets, Joshua, 23:12-23:13)

This is about reward and punishment. Moreover, punishment is also a reward and a correction; everything is aimed in one direction. Do not think that there is some kind of closeness or separation here. All of it brings a person toward the similarity with the Creator.

Question: It is said that we are not allowed to “intermarry with them,” which is a serious prohibition in the Torah. What does it mean?

Answer: This prohibition means that throughout various stages of development of egoism, there are desires that we cannot work with yet for the sake of bestowal, so we seemingly cut them off from ourselves. That is, prior to correction there can be no combination of egoistic and altruistic desires.

But afterward, as it is written, “intermarry with them and mingle with them,” because in the end everything will be corrected.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/30/21

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