Question: Does a Kabbalist feel free? Free from what and for what?

Answer: A Kabbalist is torn inside into two parts. He feels the part in which he is in equivalence of form with the Creator, meaning that he feels that he is above the corporeal world.

He adapts himself to the Creator, identifies with Him, and feels himself elevated above all that exists. Moreover, submitting to the Creator happens above the annulment of one’s egoism, and therefore is felt as freedom. For there is nothing above the Creator, so to be a slave to the Creator is not an illusion. It is a feeling of freedom because the Creator is the highest level of existence.

And with the other part of a Kabbalist, before he achieves complete adhesion with the Creator in all his egoistic desires, corrected to love and bestowal, it does not feel like freedom. Quite the opposite, it feels even worse than a person in this world because he remains in the illusion, in the feeling that nothing is pressuring him.

However, the Kabbalist knows that he is under the power of his egoism, and therefore, his feeling of bondage is very troublesome, it weighs heavily on him. This, however, is exactly what pushes him forward.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/2/17

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In the News (NPR): “An update from the Wild Wild West of fake news technologies: A team of computer scientists have figured out how to make words come out of the mouth of former President Barack Obama — on video — by using artificial intelligence.

“If you’ve been on the Internet at any point in the last year, there’s a good chance you’ve come across fake news articles. Soon we may see a wellspring of fake news videos.

“As a team out of the University of Washington explains in a new paper titled ‘Synthesizing Obama: Learning Lip Sync from Audio,’ they’ve made several fake videos of Obama.

“Take for example, a time that he discussed the Pulse nightclub shooter and said ‘the investigation is ongoing, but we know that the killer was an angry and disturbed individual who took in extremist information and propaganda over the Internet.’

“Obama did in fact say these words. But the computer scientists were able to make it look like he said them in places different from where he actually did — in this instance, in a different room at the White House. Audio and video images could be manipulated to make it look like he said them at a different time — say as a much younger Obama.”

Comment: A new era of news is beginning: it is fake news. They say that global area networks (GAN) already allow the production of video clips on which people do things that they have never done and say things that they have never said. It’s considered the wave of the future.

My Comment: This is good because it removes all boundaries between people. I don’t know who you are or who I am, when or what you or I said or didn’t say. Who knows where this will take us. There will be no way for us to relate to each other at all.

Say for example, now you are videotaped, later they will sit you here in a bathing suit in the company of who knows who or who knows what, and you will be declaring, I don’t even know what.

Comment: And they send it to my wife…

My Comment: Yes. But by that time your wife will already understand that there is no truth in the world.

This understanding that there is no truth in our world and we cannot orient ourselves in any way to what we are receiving from mass media, that is the most important thing. It completely disconnects us from the world.

All of this will disorient us to such an extent that we will begin to relate to the world in a completely different way. We will want, we will demand, the truth; that is, we will desire to move to the next level, into the next system, meaning the system of inner connection between us. I must see the truth, otherwise, I cannot exist.

I hope that this will happen and quickly. But, until then, humanity will only be laughing at itself. There is information chaos in the world! In reality, this is just chaos influencing the population. That is, it is not a demonstration of one against the other. Here we have no “one” and no “other” and no “against” and no “for.” This is an amazing state!

A person is shaken to such an extent that there is nothing to stand on: under his feet there is nothing stable. Only relatives and those who are close; actually, relatives who are close and close ones who are relatives, and aside from that, nothing. How does one exist? Because this will only grow wider and deeper.

In principle, this will bring us to where all the sources of mass media will vanish. All telephones, cell phones, all the “toys,” which amuse us so much today will vanish, because there will be no point in talking about anything.

Question: Will we switch over to the kind of connection like we have right now with you: just sitting together and beginning to hear one another?

Answer: Yes. But even this connection is still based on what we are now. But, by then we will be completely different.

That is, all this will bring us to the point where a person will demand the truth. And then, from this demand, completely different sources of mass media will appear, going from heart to heart, not the route of “amusement” through intermediate sources. At that point, sources of mass media, thank God, will cease to exist.

I wish for them to disappear as soon as possible! Because if today it’s fake news, then tomorrow this will turn into general anarchy. But after that, truth will come.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 7/12/2017

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Question: Is it enough to have an intention for spiritual relationships or do we need actions as well?

Answer: Actions are also required for spiritual relationships. After all, if there are no actions, it means that there are no relationships. If I relate to someone with love, then I want to show him that I love him through my actions.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/11/17

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Question: What does it mean to honor your father and mother in spirituality?

Answer: To honor the father and mother means to adhere to the upper degree with its male and female parts called father and mother. To honor means to receive their impact on ourselves in a way that we will be similar to them.

The book Talmud Eser Sefirot gives a detailed explanation of all sorts of qualities of how the Light and the screen (Masach) work, how the restriction happens, and so on.

Like, for example, Einstein worked with the light, so a person who attains spirituality will see how to work with the upper Light that the higher degree (father and mother) emanates, how to perceive it, and be similar to this degree.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/4/17

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New Life 906 – What Intelligence Is
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is the part of a person that is called intelligence? What determines which personal ability we can develop and in spite of that ability, why don’t we achieve self-realization? Why are people created with various abilities? Is it so that we would complement each other?
From KabTV’s “New Life 906 – What Intelligence Is,” 9/12/17

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Preparation for the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “One Must Say, The World Was Created for Me” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Giving of the Torah,” Item 5

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Question: Should the Creator be present in all my relationships? How can I build my relationships to other people who do not have a point in the heart through the Creator?

Answer: A person must build relationships only with those friends with whom he is in the ten and with no one else. Nothing else is required.

There are billions of people in the world. I do not need to build any relationships with them. Only with my ten, this unique love, and it is what remains. The rest will come into it. I will begin seeing how the world shrinks and becomes included into it.

Question: Does a ten mean ten people, ten biological bodies?

Answer: Yes, for now they are ten biological bodies for me, but later I will stop seeing them this way. We will feel an interaction of desires between us, more egoistic ones, less egoistic ones, desires at certain levels, with certain intentions and so on. Bodies will begin disappearing from our sensations and from our sight.

The quantity will turn from a number of people into desires, and from desires into Sefirot. There will be ten Sefirot, one Partzuf.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/11/17

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Question: How can you object to the opponents of Kabbalah who claim that teaching Kabbalah to the masses is unacceptable because there is a danger of materializing its concepts or, conversely, being in the clouds and fantasizing?

Answer: There is indeed such a danger if we study Kabbalah in the wrong way. But our method is very close to people. In fact, we teach unity and love for our neighbor as for ourselves. Who can object to such a method?

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the true Torah, for it only talks about truth, that is, loving one’s neighbor, which is what the Torah must teach everyone. There is no greater commandment than loving one’s neighbor, for it leads to love for the Creator. This is what we teach, and there is no mysticism in it. And even the spiritual is quite “material” because we are studying how a person should behave here and now in this world.

Question: Is there any claim that the Kabbalah contains a powerful force, like atomic energy, and if we teach it to people who are not ready yet, then they can use these forces to harm themselves and others?

Answer: The Kabbalist does not control the world at will, as the opponents of Kabbalah claim. He does not control anything, but only teaches people how to come to a good union and even love. The goal of Kabbalah is to teach a person love, because we correct the world by a good connection between all.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a very practical method. Especially people of Israel need it because of anti-Semitism, hatred, and pressure. But all of humanity needs it too. The study of Kabbalah cannot be harmful. Only those who do not know the laws of nature can claim the opposite. That is like scaring a child with a monster so that he will not go out into the street. There is no point in these claims.

People who do not understand this wisdom, disseminate their methods, teach it incorrectly, and cause all the problems related to Kabbalah. There are many kiosks in Tel Aviv where they sell books that they claim are about Kabbalah.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/17, Lesson on the Topic: “The Resistance to Kabbalah”

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Question: The main thing in the cause of stress is the never-ending desire to receive. But is there something wrong with the desire itself, doesn’t it lie at the very basis of life? Without it, there would be no fulfillment in life.

Answer: What is wrong is not the desire itself, but the attempt to fulfill it at the expense of others. We are in a constant competition with each other throughout our entire lives, measuring our success relative to others.

We all exist in one system and there was a time when we were connected to such an extent that we felt ourselves as if we were one person. There were many people in the world, but egoism was so minimal that we felt no difference between us. That is how it was in primitive societies. Then the desire to receive began to grow and we began to make distinctions: this is my family, that is your family, and over there, that is his family.

Before that happened, people lived as one commune, as if under communism, where everything belongs to everyone equally, like in a tribe. But then we began to distance ourselves from this unity: here is my wife, my children, my cave. Distinctions and divisions started to be made with respect to professions as well, as it is written: “Go and earn from each other.”

Our egoism is growing non-stop. That is why competition began and we started judging who is more successful and who is less. This is how we have been advancing until the present day. But now competition has grown to worldwide proportions because mass media affects us by showing the entire world to us on our television and smartphone screens.

They obligate us to compete with the entire world, showing us how everyone is more successful than we are. It is not surprising that people are gripped by depression.

Question: You think that the desire to be first is bad? But it is responsible for making the individual strive to be successful.

Answer: It is a bad desire. The person needs peace and happiness, not outstanding achievement.

Stress means that the external influences on the individual’s egoistic desires are greater than he can bare, that although a person is driven to fulfill the desire to receive pleasure, he is still unable to easily achieve the goals that are set before him. The difference between the desire for pleasure and the ability to acquire fulfillment for it creates a stressful state.

It is obvious that an average person will never be able to acquire all that he sees in the media. We are constantly living in a state of low-grade, chronic stress due to all the potentials for pleasure that are shown to us on the screen: clothes, sports, beauty. This relates to women and men equally.

Stress affects us on many levels. Ultimately, we will reach disillusionment and we will see that the condition is hopeless; we will leave this race for pleasure and reassess our values. Eventually everyone will realize this. Then we will see that we need to take a different route and search for pleasure in a completely different place.

There we will also compete to receive fulfillment, but differently. The one who brings the biggest benefit to others will be considered more successful. Pleasure from bestowal to others is much greater than egoistic fulfillment and does not lead to any stress.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/27/17

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