Entries in the 'Body and Soul' Category

Let The Upper Light Be Your Teacher

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhy should we treat each other nicely? We should do it only in order to attain adhesion with the Creator. Why do I come to the group? It’s only for the sake of the Creator.

If I have other reasons, then I am the same as the Communists in Russia who built the society of the future for their own sake. That is why they are still dealing with the consequences to this day. The only way to correct them is by "fire with fire," meaning with the right kind of communism – Kabbalah.

The Creator must be our goal! Otherwise there are horrible blows awaiting us. The example of that is Russia, which had invested gigantic efforts, means, and money, and made it the topic of discussion everywhere: on the radio and television, in kindergartens, schools, songs, plays, and everything else that people did. Everything summoned people to do just one thing: Let’s unite and be friends!

But look at what happened. Man did not accept any of it and everything immediately turned to egoism even though it seemed like good, proper education that taught everyone: Let’s live in peace all together as one family.

If the Creator does not stand at the head of everything, being the source of the Light that changes a person, then what’s the use of empty words? They do not match the real facts!

As a result, it becomes necessary to make a person follow them coercively through punishment, suppression, and force. We have to draw conclusions from this about what is the right education and how it applies down to the smallest details.

The only way to educate anyone is through example. And you don’t just show your personal example because if a child learns how to behave as you do, this will not be inner correction; he will simply imitate you. Tomorrow he will see a bad example and will copy it as well.

On the other hand, if he has corrected himself and understood it, then he is already protected until that level.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, "Body and Soul"

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How Much Do Your Eyes See?

Dr. Michael Laitman"A judge has nothing more than what his eyes see." This is a very strict law that must be observed very precisely. We cannot follow even the very best advice unless it comes from our own corrections, our similarity to the Light.

Also inside yourself you must ask at all times: "Who am I hearing now? A person who lives inside his own fantasies, or one who looks at things as they really are and knows his exact place, not jumping any higher?"

Then I don’t perceive the things I hear from Kabbalists as laws or even advice, but as "Segula," a miraculous means. I want it to influence me and change me! Once I change, I will then see the truth.

"A judge has nothing more than what his eyes see," meaning that I will actually hold the fulfillment in my "hands," in my Kelim of reception, and I will "see it with my eyes," meaning inside the Light of Hochma. That’s when I will be able to act!

Until that happens, you can memorize the entire Torah by heart and it will do no good; yet the Torah can work as a "miraculous means" or a "spice." You will be able to correct and use your egoism only to the extent you can add this "spice" to your egoism.

Then you will see exactly which desires you can use and to what extent, or how deeply (with which Aviut). This approach, first and foremost, requires correction.

A completely different approach to teaching follows from this, namely, that we have nothing to say to a student. We can only awaken him so he absorbs as much Light that Reforms as possible. It is impossible to give him ready-made behavioral models, but only "miraculous means": the need to unite in the group among friends, and then to wait for him to change on his own.

If this doesn’t affect a student, if he does not change and does not accept the teacher’s advice, then nothing can be done about it. It is impossible to coercively give him exercises that are above his level, but only to the degree he has corrected himself and understood that he has to make the calculation, change, and then start to act.

This greatly restricts the teacher’s possibilities when teaching a student compared to our world, regardless of whether the student is an adult or a child.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/10, "Body and Soul"

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Life With Many Unknowns

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person living in this world does not know what will happen to him at the next moment. He does not understand why the things that happened to him yesterday happened and from where his thoughts and desires are now originating. He feels that he is controlled by unpredictable forces, as if he is hung in the air in relation to his past, present, and future. And he tries to find some kind of support, searching for an explanation to the universe with the help of logical reasoning and hypotheses.

His ego grows and asks more and more questions about life, and about what awaits him after death. The more strength we acquire through the development of technology, which opposes nature, the more powerfully nature comes out against us, forcing us to find the answer about how we are governed and what is the meaning of life. As a result, we feel as if we are in empty space.

When man lived in caves and chased mammoths, he thought that he knew everything about his life. He felt and understood the world much more than we do. We, on the other hand, are unsatisfied by any of the existing theories. We need a clear answer because we are unable to properly arrange even our day to day lives. So many questions arise that we are unable to cope with them.

It’s like mathematics: In order to find one unknown, it is sufficient to have one equation. To find out two unknowns, you need two equations. However, in our lives we end up with many unknowns while having less and less data or facts with which to build a formula.

The philosophical and religious explanations of the past no longer work on us; we cannot rely on them. We demand facts and proofs, meaning attainment. If we knew that we do not have any freedom of will, then we would build a completely different society and relationships in it, a different system of punishment and justice. The problem that Kabbalah proposes to solve is not theoretic, but very practical: to determine where and how we can influence and realize this opportunity.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, “Body and Soul”

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The Question That Demands An Answer

What Should You Spend Your Time On?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if at The Zohar lesson I feel like I am just wasting my time? Should I try to overcome this by faith above reason and suppress this sensation?

Answer: There are studies on human life showing that out of 70 years that we have to live, we spend 30 years sleeping, another 10 years eating, 5 years washing and doing an enormous amount of other things until at the end, after accounting for all these years, we have about one free day left – so what will you do during that day? You’ll probably sleep through it….

That’s why I ask you: What fills up your life so much that you feel sorry wasting your time on The Zohar lesson? Just think about how you live in this world for 70 years and then die, whereas here you have the opportunity to reveal eternal life. So perhaps it’s worthwhile to work for it a little.

You can persuade yourself and lie to yourself as much as you want; anything to stay in touch with this source. When a person comes to Kabbalah he first imagines something imaginary and unreal. However, we understand that the world to come is the quality of bestowal in which the Creator becomes revealed.

That’s when we acquire attainment and understanding of the Upper World. If you have attained this in your Kelim, that means it is yours and it doesn’t matter whether you are alive or your biological body has died.

The animate body was given for you to start with and to accompany you so that by starting with it you will be able to attain spirituality. Once you attain it, it means you have won, and if you haven’t attained it, you will receive another chance to do it later on.

Therefore, if the Creator has given you this opportunity and you are already sitting in the group reading Kabbalistic books, that means from now on the problem is only inside you. So don’t miss this opportunity!

Alternatively, you can decide that you do not agree with the Creator and go back to your regular life: “The shop is open and anyone can come in and borrow, but the Hand writes….”
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From the lesson on 11/25/10, The Zohar

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If You Don’t Wake Up, Tomorrow Everyone Will Be Asleep

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the beginning, a person grows like an embryo inside his mother’s womb, thus far, at the “still” level; he simply nullifies himself. Then, he becomes as a little child who exists next to a grownup, and this is the “vegetative” level. After that, a person is an adult which is the “animate” level.

All these levels are staged by the forces of nature, meaning that we don’t need to exert effort in order to evolve since Nature turns on the forces and desire to grow in us from within. In other words, it raises a request for development, MAN (Mayin Nukvin – female waters), on our behalf; it awakens in us on its own.

The Creator (Nature) acts from two directions. From within, the embryo strives to develop and nullifies itself in relation to its mother, and from inside, the mother’s organism nourishes the embryo and doesn’t treat it as a foreign object. Both are driven by basic instinct, mutual love for each other, a grown up to a child, and the child to the adult.

On the animate level, at a more mature age, we still have to nullify ourselves in relation to each other in order to learn from the others. Yet, again, all of this is controlled by instincts.

As for the development of the soul on the speaking level, the level of Human/Adam (Adam or Domeh in Hebrew), man, himself, must initiate the raising of MAN, the plea for correction. In other words, there has to be a desire coming from man himself.


We receive the initial point of this first desire as part of the Creator, from Above, which is our “point in the heart” given to us from Above, along with all the other necessary instruments of the Kabbalistic texts, the teacher, and the group. Using these tools correctly, we need to achieve the desire to demand equivalence to the Creator. (The force P1 comes from the Creator, and P2 must come from you.)

I have a desire to evolve, but I am unable and don’t understand what and how to do that. Everything is concealed from me, yet, to figure it out, I am given the group, the environment. This is why the collective soul broke.

Attach them all to your point in the heart; you will receive the power necessary for the act. Your point in the heart is backed up by the group, and, if you receive assistance from it, you will be able to raise MAN to the Creator (who, in truth, also resides within the group).

As a result, you will receive a response, MAD (Mayin Duchrin – male waters), the force of development, the Light that Reforms, from the Creator. It doesn’t matter where you work all day long; what matters is where your thoughts are as that’s where you are as well.

However, your thoughts can be defined with the help of the environment. So, let’s agree that we will do our best to make sure none of us forgets, even for an instant that we must stay connected, thereby awakening each other.

Let’s make this wish and together with all our friends around the world draw the Upper Force, the Creator, to this desire. Let’s force Him to help us think solely about oneness, only about mutual responsibility, the Arvut.

If you don’t wake up, the others won’t wake up either, and if the others don’t wake up, tomorrow, I, myself, will be asleep during the lesson. There is no way out of this unless we take responsibility to provide the basic desire, having received it from the group, and with it, appeal to the Creator.

Anything that Nature does with the embryo, a child, and any creature living in this world by pushing them toward growth, we must accomplish with our own free will and consciously start our own evolution.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, Baal HaSulam “Body and Soul”

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This Life Is A Dream

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we reach revelation so we would see the spiritual world as realistically as we now see our reality?

Answer: I don’t know whether the things I’m seeing now are reality or not. What if I am dreaming and cannot wake up?

It seems to me that I am now inside of a certain reality, but how do I really know whether or not this reality is just a dream compared to the next reality? Maybe there such a level of wakefulness is awaiting me that everything I felt in the past will seem like a dream?

Inside my current reality there are also periods when I tune out from it and go to sleep. So how do I know: Maybe I am sleeping now as well?

In other words, I have to discern how to go from one state to the next and acquire a new consciousness. And that is why Kabbalists have given us a means.

Until you acquire that new consciousness, you will remain inside a dream and you won’t even find out that it is possible to wake up and start living! We all understand what it means to dream. I was sleeping, I woke up, and now I am considered awake. And that is exactly how we exist in relation to the spiritual world, the world to come.

There are many states like this, one above the other. Kabbalah gives us the means to keep ascending from one state to the next. If you correctly use the means given to you in your current state, then you will be able to ascend to a state that is called “life” in relation to your current state, and what you feel today will be called a “dream.” It is written, “We were as dreamers.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, “Body and Soul”

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Transplant Of My Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen I connect to the group, it is as though I transplant my soul from one place to another, from the body I’m in now to another body. I transfer my soul from the sensing of its presence in this body, to sensing that I’m transferring it to another one.

This other body is called the group. However, by “group,” I don’t mean my friends’ faces, the individuals that are more or less connected to one another. By group, I mean a new system, or not even a system, but rather a new desire which exists outside of me.

This is the most corrected desire that exists at the end of correction. This desire has no lack because the Creator exists within it and fulfills it entirely. This is a great and perfect desire with only one thing missing: my connection to it.

This is similar to a transplanted organ that has to be accepted by the new body and feel its different parts, then nullify itself before them and connect through the incoming and outgoing blood vessels. This is how a transplanted organ becomes more and more familiar with this system, connects to it, and starts functioning together with it. It understands that everything depends upon the extent to which it was able to integrate itself into the system to become an indivisible part and literally lose itself in it.

This is called reaching Malchut (Kingdom) of the World of Infinity, the last degree of correction. The extent to which I connect to this new desire (group) is called Shechina (Divinity, the presence of the Creator) that is where I reveal Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/5/10, Rabash “The Matter of Schechina”

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Searching For An Eternal Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is there anything eternal inside us?

Answer: In every aspect relating to the material body, we are mere animals, although more developed,  endowed with feelings and a mind. Nevertheless, every animate body is mortal.

There is a second nature, the desire to bestow, which is called the spiritual world, the soul, or the “part of divinity from Above.” Besides it, everything else belongs to egoism, the animate level, or the material world. Therefore, for now there is nothing connecting us to eternity besides one point that belongs to infinity, This point has to organize an environment for itself as a means to develop.

I am not talking about the animate soul that enlivens the body, which is the “vital force” present in all creatures still, vegetative, and animate. Besides it, man has one real point of the root which he has to develop. It is because of this point that he is called “human” – “Adam,” “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator, whose level he can attain.

A regular person contains nothing besides this point that is spiritual and eternal. Just as his animate body lives, so it dies – and nothing remains! And what about that point, do we get to keep it at least? Well, was it ever present inside the body? No, it does not belong to the body. We will never be able to transplant it to another person together with some other organ.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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An Integral From Zero Until Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The material reality is described by Einstein’s famous formula in the theory of relativity: E=mc2, which relates mass to speed. Is there an analogous formula in the spiritual world relating the will to receive to the will to bestow?

Answer: I don’t think Einstein’s formula can be applied to the spiritual reality because it talks about the limited nature of our material world, about what we can maximally extract from matter with all its manifestations (mass, speed, and energy).

Any formula indicates a limitation, but spirituality is not limited by anything. In spirituality we attain the maximum limit that is described by the formula: “He and His name are one.”

That is to say, we connect the entire will to enjoy with the entire force of the Light together with all the corrections, and we attain such unity among them that everything unites into one whole. The result is Infinity.

This is the maximum realization in spirituality. The material formula of the theory of relativity is about the boundaries of time, motion, space, energy, mass, and speed, but in the spiritual world these boundaries do not exist! That’s because you connect to the Upper Force, the Creator, and you become infinite like Him, without any boundaries!

In spirituality there is no formula because any formula compares conditions on one side to conditions on the other side, assessing how they can be in balance on account of one another. Energy cannot be greater than mass multiplied by the speed squared. But in spirituality that is not so! By completing opposites, we attain infinity. It’s as if we take the integral sum of all the forces of the universe, from zero until infinity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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Don’t Let Yourself Fall

Dr. Michael LaitmanI see how many people who felt great excitement at the Convention are experiencing fatigue and depression now that it’s over. Why did everyone feel such an elevated mood? It was because we were under a powerful influence from the environment. So what is it that now prevents us from feeling the same way?

Now we have to work on our own to create a powerful environment for ourselves. At the Convention this happened by itself thanks to the enormous force of influence from the great mass of people who spent so much time preparing for these special moments, the three days of the Convention. Our preparation worked, together with the great help that we received from Above (Itaruta de Leila).

Now each of us personally as well as all of us together must make the same efforts. Then we will feel that we are advancing just as powerfully as we did at the Convention! We will be able to make great leaps along the path; otherwise we will stretch out over a year or even years what we can achieve within a week.

If a person feels a descent, it’s a sign that he is not connected to the environment and does not sufficiently awaken its influence upon himself! In addition, the environment as a whole does not sufficiently worry about the general inspiration to ensure that it’s never any less than it was at the Convention.

Why should we suddenly fall? We should always remain on an ascent, and we are able to do that! We should not agree with the fact that we have lost this general mood.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”

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