Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the difference between physical love and spiritual love?“

Physical or corporeal love comes from receiving pleasure from someone or something.

Spiritual love, on the contrary, means that we feel repulsion and rejection from others, and above these negative sensations, we build a loving attitude.

It is written about spiritual love that “Love will cover all crimes” (Proverbs 10:12). Spiritual love does not replace hatred, but emerges above it.

To the extent that we suffer from such hatred, i.e., that we want to love others but find ourselves in opposite sensations that contradict the love we want, then our construction of positive connection above such negative sensations awakens spiritual love.

Spiritual love is thus measured according to the distance from whom we want to love. Attaining spiritual love thus also requires a great amount of learning and preparation, with the understanding that it is an attitude that we need to attain toward the whole of creation.

Creation, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is the desire to enjoy. A single desire to enjoy is positioned behind everything we perceive in reality.

The desire to enjoy in and of itself poses no problem, as it is simply matter. Problems emerge when the desire to enjoy wants to individually benefit at the expense of others. Among cells in an organism, such a tendency is considered cancerous. Among us humans, the desire to individually benefit at the expense of others is the basis for every problem we experience in life.

The more we develop, the more the desire to enjoy grows, and the more we find ourselves in a swamp of problems and crises. Such a process is leading us to a state that the wisdom of Kabbalah terms “the recognition of evil,” where we gain awareness of our egoistic nature that wants to self-benefit at others’ expense as the root of all problems. At that juncture, we will reveal that we hate the egoistic nature within us, and we will then genuinely yearn to have a loving attitude upon it.

The desire to enjoy is our nature. We cannot get rid of or destroy it, nor do we need to. We need only treat our nature as the ground level in a building that we need to construct, where the second level and upward is built out of a positive and loving attitude upon the desire to enjoy from other people and nature.

How can we reach such spiritual love?

It is done by asking for it from a higher degree. The desire to enjoy is the nature of creation, and opposite it is the nature that created it: the desire to bestow, love and give. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the desire to bestow and love has several names, including “the Creator,” “the upper force,” “the light,” and also “nature.” It describes the quality of giving and love that exists in reality, concealed from our inborn desires. When we reach a sincere desire to love others spiritually, i.e., without wanting self-benefit laced within that love, then we reach a true request to the Creator—a prayer—to perform that self-transformation.

Why would we even want to reach such a state?

It is because by doing so, we bring ourselves closer to the source of our lives, elevating ourselves from the animal degree of existence to become human in the fullest sense of the term. “Human,” in Hebrew (“Adam”), refers to the phrase “similar to the most high” (“Adameh le Elyon”). Therefore, reaching spiritual love means attaining resemblance to the Creator, which is described by Kabbalah as the purpose of life—the highest, most harmonious and balanced state of perception and sensation that we can achieve, while alive in our world.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of January 23, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “According to the Bible, what is spiritual growth?“

The purpose of our lives is to reach a state of perfection by harmoniously unifying with humanity in a single integral system—our soul. This state is called “the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world,”* and it is attainable while we are alive in our world.

The Bible was given to us as a means by which we can correct ourselves in order to unify with others, i.e., to ultimately reach a level of “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). The word for “Torah” in Hebrew connects to two words, “Hora’ah” (“teaching”) and “Ohr” (“light”). That is, the Torah is a means by which we draw light onto ourselves, which corrects our intention from self-benefit at the expense of others to bestowal and love for others.

Spiritual growth takes place by rising above our inborn egoistic nature to increasing positive connection and unification with others. In the Bible, such ascent is described by degrees called holidays, weekdays, the Sabbath, Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of the month), the nations of the world, Levites, Cohens, Israelites, and so on.

It is important to understand that the Bible does not describe corporeal phenomena, but spiritual degrees, structures, and processes, which are ultimately degrees of love, bestowal, and unification. The correct study of the Bible should draw upon us the light that brings us closer to attaining those degrees. When we attain the spiritual degrees described in the Bible, we can perceive what it means to be on the degrees of King David, King Solomon, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, Jacob, and so on.

The more we grow spiritually, the more we feel that we elevate from the lowest degrees to the highest, and encounter several states on the path. In other words, the more we unite among each other, and with humanity as a whole, the more we experience the various depictions contained in the Bible. Such spiritual growth takes place until we integrate the entire world inside ourselves and become “human” in the fullest sense of the term (i.e, “human” [“Adam” in Hebrew] from the phrase “similar to the most high” [“Adameh le Elyon” in Hebrew]), which means that we resemble the Creator.

We should thus perceive what is contained in the Bible as degrees of our spiritual growth that we undergo until we reach the complete harmony, perfection, and eternity of our soul—in equivalence with the Creator.

* See section “What the Wisdom Is About” in “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” by Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam).

Filed under: Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: How to achieve inclusion in the upper world?

Answer: Only through the correct knowledge of the entire general system and nothing else. You will never be able to enter the upper world if you do not know it.

In our world, when you are born, your parents serve you and make you, literally from scratch, a little person and a human.

In the spiritual world, you must do all this with the help of upper forces, which are also called “father” and “mother.” But at the same time, you must make your own efforts, that is, raise yourself with the help of the forces that are given to you.

Only to the extent that you can do the right thing and never make mistakes are you given the right to see, feel, and act in the upper world. There are no errors.

Question: How can you reach such a level before entering the upper world that you do not make mistakes?

Answer: Only by reading The Book of Zohar. Nothing else.

Read, but with our comments where you are told how to set yourself up to cause maximum contact with the spiritual system, to get closer to it.

In principle, gradually bringing yourself closer to it, not yet feeling it clearly, you already feel how it changes you. You begin to feel the forces that operate behind the picture of our world and control it, as you see this whole world like on a computer or TV screen.

Usually, we see a picture on them, but in fact, they are forces, vectors that comprise this picture. It is the same here: you move from the external picture to the vectors, and you begin to understand their state, their connections with each other, how you can manage them, and eventually get the right picture.

If you want to fix our world, you must reach the layer where the forces that define it are located. The science of Kabbalah makes this possible.
[276586]
From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #2

Related Material:
The Soul Is The Knowledge Of The Upper World
The Remote Control Over The Upper World
Let The Book Of Zohar Talk About Me

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Zohar | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Kabbalah is actually based on a person believing in it. Without faith, is there no Kabbalah? If so, is Kabbalah a work of man?

Answer: I can only say one thing: start learning. The lessons will start awakening all sorts of impressions and feelings in you, and you will begin to see the world in a whole new way.

This is not self-persuasion or some kind or confusion; on the contrary, it is a revelation of a new mind. You will simply become wiser and smarter, it will be explained to you how you were created, what is happening to you, etc.

After that, you will see that a completely new possibility opens before you to raise yourself to the next level of sensation, to analyze and synthesize everything that happens to you and around you.

You will be able to become more objective, escape your boundaries, and view the world as if outside of yourself. You will not be leaving this world, as they say in mysticism, but a conceptual perception of the world independent of your five senses and your egoism.

You will get the opportunity to be more detached from your animalistic senses, from your habits. Then you can really see that Kabbalah does not enslave you but gives you the opportunity to look at the world with a clear mind.

Question: To be objective, does that mean to get the same attitude toward the world as the Creator?

Answer: This is what we should strive for: to break out of the control of our animalistic nature and be above it.
[276685]
From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 12/31/18

Related Material:
What Do We Gain From The Wisdom Of Kabbalah?
The Only Way To The Creator
The Method For Discovering The Creator

Filed under: Kabbalah Study | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Can striving to achieve the goal increase through the mind and the heart?

Answer: Yes, the drive toward the goal can be emotional and intellectual. According to this, we yearn for it.

In the process of spiritual work, at a particular stage, we see how emotions and the mind begin to support each other and balance each other to achieve a particular harmony so that one develops at the expense of the other.
[241641]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/9/18

Related Material:
Between The Desires Of The Heart And The Arguments Of The Mind
Harmony Is A Balance Of Contradictions
The Neutral Zone

Filed under: Spiritual Work | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Being in Egypt (in egoism), people go through “seven years of abundance.” What is this state?

Answer: They are beginning to understand that working together, which did not exist before Egypt at all, benefits them.

They see the benefit in the fact that they understand more, know more, and achieve some earthly success in their unity. And this is called “seven years of abundance.”

Comment: Even today science proves that when people interact, it brings a lot of benefits.

My Response: Yes. But this is absolutely not a movement toward comprehension of the Creator.

Question: And then seven years of famine begin. What does this mean?

Answer: They begin to realize that what they are in does not lead them to the correct result, does not give them a connection with the Creator, to what they want to achieve, reveal, and understand.

Then they begin to cry to the Creator: “What should we do? After all, this is our desire. After all, we are the sons of Jacob. We want to reveal the Creator, to comprehend Him. For this we exist. And suddenly we see that everything is given to us in egoism, but nothing is given in the properties of the Creator. We in no way feel that we are getting closer to Him.”

This state, comprehended by them, is called “Pithom and Ramses.”

Question: Why does this go on for seven years? Where does the number seven come from?

Answer: The soul consists of ten Sefirot, ten parts: three head parts (Keter, Hochma, and Bina) and seven lower ones, in which the head parts are reflected, meaning fill them, act in them.

Therefore, the seven lower Sefirot (Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod) receive from the head of the soul. And so it continues: seven years of abundance before realizing worthlessness, emptiness, and the dead end of the path, and then seven years of famine. Abundance in egoism, famine in the desire to get out of it.
[276864]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/15/19

Related Material:
Let My People Go!
Without A Future
The Escape To Unity

Filed under: Spiritual Work | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic of “The Breaking of the Heart”

Selected Highlights

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: When it comes to the big challenges in life, we often stand at a crossroads: either we believe that we are powerless against great changes or we stand together to meet the challenge. Scientists argue in favor of so-called “stubborn optimism,” when deep optimism leads to decisive action.

For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, in a few weeks, humanity was able to organize a movement to protect vulnerable groups of the population, to start developing a vaccine against coronavirus, although no one knew whether it would be successful or not. The prospects were assumed, but not visible.

Is it true that people are ready for very important purposeful actions only when they feel that they have the power to change something?

Answer: Yes. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even start acting. The fact is that a person can do something only under the influence of a compelling force either attracting him to some great victories and gains or pushing him from behind with the help of suffering. But if these forces are not present, humanity itself is very inert.

Question: What is this state when a person feels that he is able to change something?

Answer: It is a condition that slowly accumulates several parameters: it is possible – there is no way, there is a need – there is no need, to do – not to do, and surely there is no other way. When all this data is collected together, it leads to action.

After all, we are not talking about one person, but about a large mass of people. So special forces and special reasons are needed here.
[277157]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 1/12/21

Related Material:
Nature’s Reaction To Human Relationships
The Main Moral Principle Of Humanity
Dependency On All Of Humanity

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Comment: Humanity often admits that it is powerless when facing a big change. Many philosophers and leaders throughout history have said “We are powerless,” but still, humanity tried to do something.

My Response: We must not stop working even if it is absolutely impossible to do a certain thing. It is the same in our lives. Even though we may not see great prospects, we know that we have to get up, go to work, come home from work, go through this day, and so on. And then this will lead us somewhere.

That is, we do not see the external system that controls us. We do not see the program according to which we exist. But all the same, our daily work and participation in this system gives its results.

Comment: Let’s take this example. People who are fighting global climate change cannot say when it will happen. It turns out that there is a huge time gap between their actions and the fact that some changes will occur in the future. Yet, they still have the strength to perform purposeful actions.

My Response: It is because we really are facing a big, global, inescapable problem. What difference does it make if it happens now or in a hundred years? In any case, we are sure that this will happen, and understanding this, we have created an entire science. Therefore, it is important for us to act today as if this will happen tomorrow.
[277215]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 1/12/21

Related Material:
What Brings Humanity To Action?
“Humanity In Labor Pains” (Medium)
2021—The Year Of The Awakening Of Humanity

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization | Add Comment / Ask Question →