Inside the “Black Box”

198Question: There is a common expression: “A thought came to mind.” Where does the thought come from?

Answer: We do not know this.

Comment: A person does not really think about this much.

My Response: Exactly, that is why a person does not think about it; a person does not know. A person cannot control it and is not capable of controlling it. And even if someone from the outside would tell him about it, it still would not help because he cannot exit the “black box”—himself.

Question: Within the framework of our material life, it seems to us that we formulate our own goals and decide for ourselves how to achieve them. Is it an illusion or not?

Answer: Of course it seems that way. After all, we cannot be certain about anything. We make mistakes, change our minds, and listen to other opinions. In regard to everything that happens, a person cannot say with 100% certainty that he is sure of something. There is no ultimate truth.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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In All Languages of the World

276.05Question: If I can read Hebrew a little, but I make a mistake in pronunciation, can I read Psalms and the Torah? There is an opinion that if you pronounce words in Hebrew incorrectly, it can do harm.

Answer: Neither you nor anyone else can harm themselves no matter how they read and distort the text. Feel free to open the book in Hebrew and read.

Of course, it is better to do it in Hebrew, but it is also good to read in your native language. Psalms have been translated into all languages of the world. Everyone can find a canonical translation for themselves and read it.

Question: What translation of Psalms is in the archive of the Kabbalah academy?

Answer: I once translated them into Russian and did the adaptation of some Psalms, the way I think they should sound. I recommend you read it. But there is a perfectly clear official version of Psalms in Hebrew.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/3/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”

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Movement within Three Points

161Question: You often throw us from one end to the other. First you say we should be working on ourselves, then you say to work with people outside of our group, and then back to ourselves and round again. Is it done so that a person would not get stuck in one place?

Answer: No work should be left out for us because we are moving within the three points. It is like aiming a rifle when the eye has to be on the same line with the sight and the target; we should apply exactly the same principle. Our heart, meaning my desires, the desires of the group, of the world, and the upper stage of creation, which we call the Creator, have to be on one line. Based on this you should always look further.

For a person who is not yet even at the minimal attainment of the entire universe, his “me,” the entire humanity, and the Creator (the upper level of nature) do not align. He is unable to look in front of him at the nearest point and the farthest point simultaneously. He cannot! They are different for him; this is me and this is society.

However when he’s at least at the first rung he can see that “me” and society are the same thing, and then he can also see the Creator, the common force of bestowal that begets, holds, and fulfills the entire creation. That is when this is normal for him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You contradict a Lot” 8/27/11

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New Life 232 – Happiness And Suffering

New Life 232 – Happiness And Suffering
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Does the degree of our suffering depend upon the plan of nature? How can we influence it through an environment so that it will balance and direct us toward correction and a sense of eternal happiness?

Suffering is a feeling of a lack of fulfillment. It is a kind of empty place; if it were filled, I would be happy.
The feeling of suffering is necessary for our development as humans and the evolution of humanity. It currently appears that suffering is not due to material shortages, but rather from an essential lack of relationship between us. All dreams have collapsed—the communist, the capitalist, and the democratic.

None of them have ended suffering. The origin of suffering is to be found within a person, in one’s relationships with others. When we correct our nature, we will stop suffering. When a person has a higher purpose, even suffering on the way is felt as pleasure. And if there is no purpose, everything is suffering. Without suffering there cannot be any happiness; without darkness there is no light. It requires contrast, like minus and plus.

All of the wisdom of life is about making the right connection between a feeling of lack and a feeling of fulfillment, such that they don’t extinguish each other. We experience hunger for food and hunger for sex. Without an appetite, pleasure cannot be felt. Enjoyment from family is also not felt that much today.

It is necessary to awaken a desire for family in a person. If it were possible that appetite and its fulfillment would not extinguish each other, there would simply be perfect happiness. The Eastern approaches say that it is preferable not to desire; you will suffer less. But this doesn’t help us today. Women suffer more than men because they have the ability to endure greater suffering; they are much stronger.

We fear future suffering and picture bad things that are liable to happen. Nature is developing me so I can recognize that my egoism is doing bad things to me. Our nature is to benefit ourselves at the expense of others. Therefore all of us suffer. Many understand this, but nobody knows what can be done about this destructive nature. Instead, we resist change and are unwilling to go out of our comfort zone. We must anticipate what remedy will soften a blow and explain that there is a way to improve human nature, with the help of society.

Imagine a situation in which everyone loves you. There is nothing better than that. What must we do for this to happen? If we don’t advance toward a change in human nature, then a difficult future will be ahead for us. But there is room for optimism. If only we will want to change a little, then this will happen.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 232 – Happiness And Suffering,” 9/29/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman

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“Is there any benefit to introspection?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Is there any benefit to introspection?

If we undergo an introspection that aims at bettering our connection to each other in an integral manner, then there is indeed great benefit to introspection.

For instance, if we think to ourselves, ”When will we be able to care about all people in the world as we care about our close-knit family?” then such an introspection brings us closer to balance with nature’s integral laws.

It does not mean that we think about everyone having the exact same amounts of money and assets. We cannot make it so that each person would have, say, a thousand dollars and be done with our scrutiny. Instead, we need to account for each person’s demands, needs and states.

We need to care about the whole world similarly to how a well-functioning family discusses how to allocate its resources to each of its members according to their respective demands, needs and states. If we care for humanity in such a way, then there would be no room for all kinds of crises and disasters that we receive from nature in order to wake us up to our globally-integral connection.

It might sound like a socio-economic approach that is out of a common person’s reach. That is, how could a single person possibly affect the way each and every person receives a budget and supplies for their lives? But it is much more than that: it is an integral form of introspection that has to run constantly within the general system we live in.

We are all members of humanity, and humanity must constantly introspect about itself like we do in our families. If we expand the ongoing care we have for our families’ demands, needs and states to the level of humanity as a whole, then we will start discovering our much deeper connection “as one man with one heart,” i.e., as a common integral system. Moreover, through such an ongoing introspection that increases our care for humanity, we will draw the positive force that dwells in nature into our connections—a force that has the power to lead our lives into a state of complete harmony, balance and peace.

Our hearts, i.e., our desires, are currently very small. We are born with self-serving desires, and we grow up thinking that our egoistic mode of enjoying for our own personal benefit at the expense of others is all that we have in life.

But there is a way to expand our hearts, i.e., our desires, to include everyone within.

For the time being, we mostly feel only our own needs and those of our families, and we cannot relate to others’ needs as we do to our own. But if we create support systems to conduct an introspection of how to increase care throughout human society, which will lead us to a harmonious connection, then we will draw ourselves closer to a much more complete form of connection that is in balance with nature’s integral laws.

We will then experience nature as friendly and warm, because we would then enter into a certain level of congruence with nature, as a single interconnected, interdependent and integral system.

Based on the video “A Guide for Introspection” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash.
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 8/20/23

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Man Is Rewarded with Righteousness and Peace through the Torah”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 184

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”

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Selected Highlights

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/19/23

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Under the Power of the Creator’s Greatness

938.07Question: The greatness of the Creator has immeasurably huge dimension and power. If we imagine it, we can just crush ourselves. How can we come into contact with His greatness in the correct way?

Answer: If we are moving toward the Creator together, and He has set us such a condition that we can approach Him only together, then we should not be afraid, nothing will crush us. We will be able to receive His attitude toward us into the ten Sefirot and understand that He treats us correctly.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/23, “Revealing the Glory of His Kingship”

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A Moment that Connects the Past and Future

232.08A person should feel how all times: past, present, and future are included in the present moment, which means that I should think what I am aiming for at this moment and how to attach all the reasons to the action that I am about to perform now.

I connect the past and the future with the present time and from this I find the most correct action for my advancement.

It all depends on my intention because now I want to perform an action in which all times, all actions, and opportunities will come together in one effort to connect.
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From the  1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/6/23, Writings of Rabash “Three Times in the Work”

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Desire, Light and Restriction

236.01To save the created beings from this titanic separation, the first restriction took place, separating phase four from the rest of the Partzufim [plural of Partzuf] of Kedusha [Holiness] so that that great measure of reception remained an empty space devoid of any light (Baal HaSulam, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 14).

The fact is that when the Creator created desire, He filled it with light, with the help of which He gave the desire the opportunity to develop. Then He made the light disappear from the desire, and it remained empty.

This limitation of the desire from feeling the light is called restriction (Tzimtzum). The light has reduced itself, withdrawn from the desire it created, and is, as it were, outside of it.

Then the Creator makes the light enter the desire in accordance with the action of the desire itself: “Ask me, and I will enter you. Ask me and I will fill you. Ask me, and I will come closer to you, I will shine upon you. Then you and I will become partners.” This is what the light wants from the created desire.

Here, a certain system of interaction and interrelationship arises between them. From this state onward, we can already talk about creation and the Creator, about desire and its fulfillment. This is practically the entire wisdom of Kabbalah, which studies how the creation receives fulfillment from the light and how it regulates the filling with the light inside itself.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 7/30/23

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