Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does freedom depend on where you live?“

Freedom does not depend on where you live.

The environment you live in is given to you from nature, i.e., from forces outside of your control. You do not choose your environment, just as you do not choose the society you are born into, the upbringing you receive, and the values you grow up with.

We can realize our freedom according to a single condition: freedom from our egoistic human nature. We can free ourselves from nothing else.

Freedom from our egoistic nature means living outside the laws and constraints that our egoism dictates to us at every moment, i.e., the urges of human nature from within. It is possible to realize such freedom if we prioritize benefiting human society over self-benefit. In other words, freedom comes from rising above our egoistic nature that automatically and constantly functions in the direction of self-benefit, in order to benefit others.

When we live in the desire to benefit others, we rise from the egoistic level of life to the altruistic one, and then we gain access to the flow of nature in its perfection and eternity. We thus also feel ourselves as perfect, eternal, and free.

Realizing this shift in consciousness depends not on where we live, our nationality or gender. It depends on how we each organize ourselves to rise above our inborn egoistic nature.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: If a person does not correct something himself and we do it for him, we rob him in a way. Why is that?

Answer: Because we are going against the general law of the universe.

Everyone is obliged to correct themselves. Everyone must go out into the infinite higher universe, achieve the quality of eternity and perfection. Absolutely everyone!

And therefore, if a person suffers, we must help him, and not quit, so that it would not be like in Sodom and Gomorrah. They had another philosophy: “Do not help. Since this descends on a person, then this is what God sent.” And that’s all.

We must help people, but help them in what they need. At the same time, we must help them begin to recover on their own so they do not sit without working just waiting until they receive something. Train them, give them a job.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says: make them sit and study. We don’t have a job for everyone. Today our world is slipping toward a state where everything superfluous will gradually leave. The person will lose.

We already see that young people somehow do not strive for luxury, for fashionable clothes. On the contrary, there is some kind of rag and that’s it, nothing else is needed. All these conventions, all excesses, except for what is necessary for normal human existence, will leave our lives.

When humanity gradually comes to this, then many people will be left without work. After all, ninety percent of the population today lives from creating and advertising unnecessary things, and reselling them. Humanity is busy with all the time consuming unnecessary things and throwing them away, consuming again and throwing them away again.

This vicious cycle is already coming to an end. A huge number of unemployed will remain. What to do with them? The wisdom of Kabbalah says: “Do nothing. It is very good. Let them sit and study.” The state will pay them. And ten percent of humanity that wants to work will work.

Or perhaps ten percent of our time will be spent on work and the rest of the time a person will be directed to develop internally and gradually enter the upper world, into the upper universe. The law of nature pushes us to this. Then everyone will be provided with an eternal sense of their life, and a material one.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Universal Law” 9/30/09

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Question: It is said in The Book of Zohar: “All the friends who do not love each other cause themselves to stray from the right path.” Moreover, they put a blemish in the Torah, since there is love, brotherhood, and truth in the Torah.” What does “blemish” mean? Why do we cause blemishes?

Answer: Because we enter into an egoistic relationship with each other, and this is called that we reveal blemishes. This is as it should be because blemishes show where we still need to correct ourselves. And we again need the upper light, the Torah, and so on.

All this is not so difficult. You just need to try to objectively understand it. The most unpleasant thing is that a person perceives everything very subjectively: is it better or worse for me, good or bad.

It is necessary to absolutely detach from oneself and draw the whole picture of the world without including myself or our world, nothing, as if I moved to some other galaxy and they tell me about their conditions of existence there completely independent of me and my earthly conditions.

If I begin to relate to the statements of Kabbalists in this way—and they are not even coming from another galaxy but really from another world—then I will be able to more or less plausibly paint this picture for myself.

And then if I clearly perceive it, I will be able to approach it and perhaps begin to interact with it in such a way that I will enter it relatively easily. The main thing is not to inscribe your interests, your egoism, there, as if only my spirit has moved there and now we are engaged in adaptating to a completely different system.
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From KabTv’s “The Power of The book of Zohar” #21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

Selected Highlights

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Prophets, Joshua, Chapter 4:1 – 4:3: And it was when all the nation had completely passed over the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, take to yourselves twelve men from the people, a man from every tribe. And command them saying, Take to yourselves from here out of the midst of the Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and you shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where you shall lodge this night.

People take their basic desires and perform certain work because corrections are impossible without changing egoistic desires into altruistic ones.

To enter the land of Israel means to correct egoistic desires into love for one’s neighbor and through this into love for the Creator. And the Creator is the one common desire where they must fully unite in mutual bestowal to each other.

Therefore, they take stones (from the word “Lev HaEven”- “stony heart”), carry them across the Jordan, and put them in a special way on the other side of the Jordan in the land of Israel in memory of the fact that the crossing-over took place here.

Question: It is said that the twelve stones were taken from the middle of the Jordan where the feet of the priests stood firmly. Why are we talking about this particular place?

Answer: This is the boundary, the transition of the remaining egoistic desires into altruistic ones, which is carried out exactly in the middle.

Question: What do the priests within me mean?

Answer: These are qualities that can work not for themselves. There are several steps in this. Moreover, such desires are chosen that are suitable precisely for the severity of this transition.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/5/21

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Question: How do I correctly sort my desires and thoughts? What are the criteria for this sorting?

Answer: You should discuss this among yourselves, but only a little so as not to be confused. Of course you can read about it and listen to our lessons; we have huge amounts of material.

Read articles, process them systematically, and you will see that gradually a healthy and sensible attitude will begin to appear in you, solely and only through discussions between you and by reading the sources.

Question: Does this mean that I cannot sort out them by myself?

Answer: No, you will not be able to do it by yourself, but the group can partially. One says something, another says something else, and a third adds something more. In your attempts to achieve agreement between you, the Creator will guide you in an unseen way. Suddenly, by way of one person, by way of a second or a third, you will begin to see that there is some kind of higher logical thought that is revealed. That is how the Creator manages this.  You will feel it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/14/19

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The Book of Zohar, Ki Tissa, Item 54: All those friends who do not love each other depart the world before their time. All the friends in Rashbi’s time had love of soul and love of spirit among them. This is why in his generation, the secrets of Torah were revealed. Rabbi Shimon would say, “All the friends who do not love each other cause themselves to stray from the right path.” Moreover, they put a blemish in the Torah, since there is love, brotherhood, and truth in the Torah.

Question: Is the Torah an objective reality, a perfect object?

Answer: There is nothing objective. Even the Creator is not objective. Everything manifests itself relative to us.

If I perceive the entire universe from my senses, from my mind and heart, what can be objective here? If I change, it means that everything will change relative to me because the whole picture is subjective in me. The Creator is also in me. The Torah is also in me. Everything is in me. Is there something outside of me? I feel, I perceive, I evaluate.

Look at how people, by changing, change their opinion about the Creator and the Torah, about themselves and the world, about everything.

And what does “permanent world” mean—the one that is outside of us? We do not know it, we do not feel it, and so there is nothing to talk about here. We need to clearly agree that everything is only relative to the observer. Just like in quantum physics, according to Einstein’s theory. So, there is nothing absolute.

The Torah is a method of correction. To the extent that I understand how to correct myself, I have my own Torah.

The Torah consists of four parts—PaRDeS. In accordance with the egoism that I am now correcting, I realize and implement one of its parts.

The Creator has degrees. It is the property of bestowal, the property of connection of the entire universe into one global system to the extent that I perceive it.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #21

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Society should properly realize itself relative to the younger generation. It should give them the right example, act it in front of them.

Let us say we are spoiled people, we neglect each other. But we must play like a correct family, in the right relationships with each other, and show the children how much we love them in one case, and in another disapprove of them. All this should be done very gently because we ourselves still need to be educated.

The mass media and all educational institutions should be involved in this. Such educational programs should be specially implemented in schools, kindergartens, and at work. Our most important problem is educating the next generation, the next humanity. If we do it correctly, we will properly educate our children and grandchildren, then they will their own, etc.

The problem of mass education arose for the first time now. We see that we have reached the end of the line, our children are turning completely away from us.

Nevertheless, we are capable to properly educate them. But to do this we need to fully mobilize all our resources and understand that education is the most important thing.

If we do this, then thanks to our children, we will eventually correct ourselves. This is what the Torah says: “You return the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers.” It is in this way that the children will force us to correct ourselves.

By correcting ourselves for their sake, we will correct them as well, and achieve the correct, normal, good state of all mankind. Then the whole of nature will shine in a different way because a person will enter into harmony, into balance, with it.

I believe that the state we are in today—drugs, depression, suicide, and most importantly the younger generation, which completely disconnects from us and absolutely does not want to deal with us—will force us to rebuild. Not even crises but just this.

As a result, a person will begin to understand that I am nobody, I am alone, I am despised and repelled even by my children. This will be experienced by us very painfully and will force us to turn our hearts to them, as it is said in the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Marriage contract” 8/19/09

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