Why should you take by force that from us that which you can have by Love? (Chief Powhatan)

By force, it seems to us that it is easier, that it is closer, that it is one action. And love, I have to fight against myself not against another. I have to show it. I need to make sure that the other person has felt my attitude toward him as correct and that I have already felt a certain response from him. That’s when you can say that I succeeded in my correction.

Question: Outwardly, should I show this love and the effort that I make on myself in order to love a person I do not love?

Answer: I have to play at it until I awaken the same reaction from the person to myself.

Question: So I should feel this mutual breath to feel the love between us?

Answer: Sure. Without this, it is considered that you did not show love, did not express it, that you, in turn, did not achieve love.

Question: This happens only when I overcome myself. Is there no such thing as simple, natural love? Is it not love?

Answer: No. This is all just philosophy.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/15/21

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Out of the desire—and with the extension of the soul that he extends there—another force is drawn, from among those degrees of angels that are called “persons,” and everything enters into the extension of the semen, and the body is built of them. This is the first, lowermost force of those three degrees—the Nefesh. (Zohar for All, “Lech Lecha,” Item 97).

This is about the spiritual gradation of a person. In our world, the following gradations are accepted: newborn, child, teenager, adolescent, young man, adult, elderly, and old man.

In the spiritual world there also are also degrees of a person’s development and elevation to the level of the Creator, up to the so-called seventy spiritual years, when one reaches full equivalence with the Creator.

Ish (person) is the first degree of a person’s spiritual development, the smallest equivalence with the Creator, the degree of Nefesh.

Just as in our world a little person is born from a seed, so here one is born from spiritual seed that exists in absolutely each one of us. The fact is that when it begins to manifest itself in a person, it makes him seek books, the environment, and the teacher.

Accordingly, he comes to Kabbalah, and while under the influence of the light that he attracts by reading The Book of Zohar, he develops this seed, this embryo of the future man in himself, and rises to the first stage—Ish.

The seed is the point in the heart.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #18

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Comment: From the World Happiness Report 2021: Scandinavian countries top ranking of the happiest nations in the world with scores ranging from mid 7’s to nearly 8 of 10, followed by Western Europe, the North and Central America, and some Asian nations.

Billions of people are living in conditions exceeding the dreams of kings 200 years ago. And they lived well.

At the same time, the rate of growth of mental disorders in these happiest countries is exponential. Depression, antidepressants, drugs, these are already common things. Suicides numbers in these countries are ten times higher than in the unhappy nations. The whole culture is saturated with a feeling of fatigue, apathy, and suffering of an individual in an oppressed world.

Question: What are people missing? It seems that there is happiness; they say they are happy. Just live your life and be happy.

Is this conclusion correct: the better off I live financially, the worse I feel internally?

Answer: The better I live financially, the more internal stress I live with.

Question: What should I do so that I can live well financially and be filled internally?

Answer: I visited the house of a man, not my student, in Amsterdam. He has access to these channels, but he comes home from work, has dinner, sits in a rocking chair, picks up a newspaper, just like 100 years ago. And there are no world problems in the newspaper, just an ordinary newspaper.

I asked a couple of questions and realized that everything was fine for him. He does not notice any disturbances in the world. They pass by him.

Nothing can be done. There are people who do not react. And you want to tell them that we need to move toward brotherhood or there will be misfortune all over the world, that we must be equivalent with nature, but he is in equivalence with nature already.

Question: So what do we want from them? In principle, they are happy people.

Answer: It is not about what we want. It is about what nature requires. We must start from there. Otherwise, they would not have been flooded.

Question: Are drugs and antidepressants requirements of nature?

Answer: Everything is a requirement of nature, and in a form not yet understood by them: where does it come from, what is being done? In general, there are a lot of problems. This is the transition period for humanity. And I hope that it will end soon.

Question: So, what is happiness?

Answer: Happiness means being in balance with general, global nature! With the still, vegetative, animate, and human beings. When you are in balance with them, then you experience a special feeling, the highest balance called happiness.

Balance with nature is when I feel myself in this huge system and I feel how I influence it and how it affects me. And we feel our interdependence. At the same time, what I feel is called happiness. Balance with nature! But nature includes a lot of additional qualities and forces that we do not yet know and will have to reveal.

Question: Which means, I am active? I cannot sit in a rocking chair, pick up a newspaper, and just pass out? Isn’t this like being dead?

Answer: It is impossible!

One neighbor will wake you up from below because there is a flood, the second neighbor from above because there is fire, and from the left and right for some other reason.

And all this is so that we can balance the entire surrounding nature with mutual relations between us, between neighbors.

Comment: I have to be active all the time. And I do not want to! I want to rock quietly in a rocking chair.

My Response: Of course. This is the tragedy of the last generation!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/29/21

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Question: When you begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, you perceive everything like a fairy tale, like a new life, which is indescribable. But with time, perhaps because this is how I see things through my ego, everything becomes a kind of a routine.

It becomes difficult to come to the morning lessons, although I really want to. You have probably been in these states. How can I renew them so that I will constantly have the energy for this?

Answer: When you arrived at the wisdom of Kabbalah your ego led you forward to attain the upper world, to attain the Creator, to know and to understand everything, to control your life and the whole world too. You felt like a hero, as if you had found a gold mine.

When you first joined you received new impressions from every lesson and everything was fine. But then, after a while, everything became dark for you, and you began to draw away because the upper light began to operate on you and to show you that you don’t resemble it, and that you are very far from it.

This means that it shines for you, but you feel that you are being lowered, that nothing interests you, that life is waning away, and nothing is attractive anymore. You feel like some kind of freak, and that in general everything around is totally disgusting. These are the implications of the awakening of the upper light that you have summoned by your study.

You felt this after a year. I felt it after two weeks. I remember this as if it happened today. It is a terrible state. But at the same time it is a very interesting state. When you first feel it a person doesn’t know what it is, what it is for, and why.

So what’s next? Then comes a time of very serious work on yourself. You will not be pulled or pushed forward by sweets or by light blows from behind anymore. You will have to force yourself to move forward, to learn systematically, and then the darkness will gradually fade away.

Good luck!! The main thing is meticulous daily work. He who follows the path will overcome.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 6/23/19

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“And they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees.” It should have written, “With Terah.” However, Terah, Lot, Abraham, and Sarah went out because they wanted primarily to come out from among the wicked. After Terah saw that Abraham his son saved him from the furnace, he returned to doing Abraham’s will, and because of it, Terah and Lot went out with them. (Lech Lecha [Go Forth] Item 17, The Book of Zohar)

Take close relatives with you means that a person takes all his properties that are closest to him, from which he grew up and found the spiritual path with him.

Therefore, Abraham’s father, Terah, and his wife Sarah (egoism in him) accompany him in his spiritual ascent. He gradually absorbs them into himself and thus rises.

All these properties exist within us, and we must understand how to work with them.
The Torah (Bible) tells about the inner transformation of man, how he rises from his animal level to the level of perfection, eternity, the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #17

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “The Creator Is Revealed in the Connection Between Us” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 32

Selected Highlights

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Prophets, Joshua, 12:9 – 12:24: The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, that is beside Bethel, one. The king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one; The king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one; etc. The king of Tirzah, one; all the kings thirty-one.

Kings are desires that are collected in one common desire called the land of Israel.

A person passing through these desires begins to feel what actually exists in him because each of us is a miniature copy of the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/2/21

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“Since encountering Epictetus, Massimo Pigliucci has become one of the best and prolific popularizers in Stoicism. His latest is A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living. This book is a remix of Epictetus – it includes ideas from the original ancient Stoics and advances Stoicism into Stoicism 2.0. …

“It begins by focusing on the most important ideas:

• The dichotomy of control
• The 3 disciplines: judgment, desire, and action.

Have you ever been on a cruise? If so, you will know that when you are allowed ashore you may entertain yourself by looking around and doing some shopping, but you should always be aware of when the ship will depart, lest you end up stranded where you don’t belong. The same goes with life…You should always keep in mind at some point the voyage will be over, since it does not last forever. When the time comes, be ready, and make sure that you look back and do not find that you have misspent your shore leave. (A Field Guide to a Happy Life)
(Stoameditation.com)

Question: How do you feel about this point of view? Do I need to look back and check how I spent my life?

Answer: I think that a person should live with it all the time, not when he is already dying and makes some kind of calculation: “What do I have, how can I now account for the results?”

One has to live with it. I must be constantly aware that there is a ship that has to sail at a certain time, and I have to catch it, and I am leaving. I should be in this in such a way that I meet the day of death almost calmly, with joy, and sail forth.

Question: What is the purpose I live for every day?

Answer: To rise above myself, above my egoism.

Comment: But I must realize that I am an egoist.

My Response: Of course. This is the most important thing. This is the first point: recognition of evil.

Question: How can I understand this?

Answer: If you are among the right people who are also working on themselves and want to reach this state, then you see that you are in your egoism and cannot get out of it. You must demand, ask, and fulfill some conditions in order to rise above it.

Question: So, should my life initially be in searching for such an environment? For those who want to rise above their egoism? Does it mean that I go ashore in order to find such an environment in this life?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Who will give me this initial thought that I need to rise above egoism, that I should live my life like this?

Answer: This is given from above, by the Creator, who gives a person such a feeling, such a state. This is called “the embryo of his soul.” The fact that a person develops this state within himself is already the development of the soul.

Question: Can it be developed only with the help of the environment? Is there any other way?

Answer: No, what other way?

Comment: By myself somehow.

My Response: What will you be comparing it with? How will you change yourself? There is no other way.

Question: Does it mean that I “went ashore,” I lived through this life, and again I am going back on this “ship”?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is death my sailing off?

Answer: Yes, and you “sail” further. Like in Dante.

Question: Every day I live my life the way I should, and where do I “sail” next?

Answer: Hell, purgatory, heaven.

Question: Could you briefly explain these three concepts: hell, purgatory, heaven?

Answer: Hell is when I begin to feel my egoism in which I have existed all the time and in which I still exist now, like in hell.

Purgatory means that I must get rid of my egoism. Absolutely, completely, and unconditionally replace it with bestowal and love. Then I feel heaven in these corrected states. It is all very simple.

Question: Why do we not want to go to heaven? Why does He not illuminate it for us? Can He just illuminate it a little and we will run there?

Answer: No, no, no! We are lured only to hell.

I wish all our listeners not to forget that a “ship” is waiting for us.

Question: The one that in the end will take us to heaven?

Answer: Yes, in the end. In the end it will take all of us.

But let’s begin even now to free ourselves from our vile, egoistic state.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/28/21

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In the News (News European Parliament): “Parliament approved a new law banning single-use plastic items… .

Question: Do you think it is possible to stop this damage with such a ban?

Answer: I do not know, and what will replace it? How do we get rid of all these plastic bags etc.?

Question: Why is it that something that is made to be so convenient is almost always harmful?

Answer: Anything that does not come in its pure form from nature is always harmful.

Question: Are you saying that all technological progress is harmful?

Answer: Of course! We still need to learn and understand all this.

Question: All this path of technological progress, technical revolutions, and all the Nobel Prizes received for them, did that harm humanity?

Answer: All of it! Everything is only in order to realize the evil in it.

Until a person correctly understands why he needs something, do not put anything in his hands! Not a little thing, not an atomic bomb.

Our whole life is only to neutralize all possible negative effects of this progress on us. We are only engaged in neutralizing its negative consequences.

All our progress is just to allow us to act egoistically as we please, to act egoistically and at the same time without suffering.

Question: When is this technological progress useful and necessary?

Answer: Only to the extent that it helps us to be in greater closeness to one another.

We have no idea where our egoism drives us when we are engaged only in it. Everything that comes from it is ultimately harmful, and in the end, it will have to be stopped. I am not in favor of suddenly giving up everything. I am talking about the general course of humanity.

Do not give up on anything. Only treat nature correctly. When you can act according to the laws of connection, kindness, love, and so on, then do it. Everything else, put aside. You will see how everything presents a different picture.

I am for reasonable progress, which consists of combining the egoistic and altruistic principles of nature and their acting together. Both the left and the right line are needed. But there must be a middle line that drives them forward.

Question: And then based on this, will the resulting process be correct? Precisely from this connection?

Answer: Yes. But somewhere on the way we jumped off this correct attitude toward nature and started a single-sided development: only for the sake of egoism.

And that is why we ruined not only ecology, but also humans.
[286340]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/8/21

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