In the wisdom of Kabbalah we study the shattering of the upper world, the upper soul, and its cascading to our world through gradual breaking and destruction.

The very last level of our world is the one that cannot be corrected. We correct it only by existing in our body for many cycles of animalistic life. We need it only in order to start from it and to rise to the first level of the soul.

This is why we must exist. Why should I furnish myself with completely unnecessary things that interfere with this upper eternal perfect goal? I really only need what is necessary, meaning, convenient, comfortable, and good, something that will not distract me from reaching my most desired goal.

It is desired because there I can finally reach perfection and eternity, and stop being connected with this world, its horrors, violence, dirt, and lies. What is the point of messing around with this?

That is why it is so easy for me to be separated from everyone who think and rant about various topics: newspapers, government, politics, slander, vanity, and everything else. I feel sorry for the people! They spend the world, their lives, and all their time and energy on it! I look at them and they are shouting, scolding each other in the Knesset or in a parliament, thinking they are going to decide something.

Nobody will solve anything. It is like playing in a sandbox.

While you are given this animalistic body, provide it as much as it needs to exist normally and comfortably, so that it does not occupy you. You need a bathtub, gas, refrigerator, air conditioner, a car, i.e., things you need for the average normal level of a modern person. If today we distributed everything that is on earth among everyone, our level would be much higher than average. But we do not need this; we need to give everyone a normal average level.

Everything else should be directed only toward the development of each and every one. Everyone must study, learn how to get out of this sandbox, and how to become normal adults, to reach a balance with nature.
[320577]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lost a Million” 11/6/11

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Olga writes:

I was struck by your statement that nothing belongs to a person. You also said that if a person has two desires. On the one hand, he believes that the whole world belongs to the Creator, but on the other hand, something also belongs to a person, then this is a problem.

On the one hand, I understand that if only it were so, then there would not be these terrible wars – nothing belongs to me and that’s it. But is it really true that nothing belongs to a person?

Answer: Yes, nothing belongs to a person. What can belong to him?

Comment: Then she writes: “But still, my life, my family, my apartment, and so on is mine!”

My Response: This is yours. For just a couple more years and that’s it. You will leave all this, just as they, your family will leave it in due time. Nothing belongs to a person. He came, visited, and left.

Question: You said that if a person has two desires, then this is a problem. On the one hand, he believes that the whole world belongs to the Creator. He does believe this, after all. But on the other hand, something belongs to a person. Is this quirk a big problem?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: This means that everything belongs to the Creator, this is your formula that you hold on to.

My Response: Or vice versa, nothing belongs to a person.

Comment: Either everything belongs to the Creator or nothing belongs to a person.

My Response: Yes.

Question: Then the question is: to whom does everything belong?

Answer: What is the difference?

Question: Is there no difference? Does it mean that I can live with this formula: nothing belongs to me?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Then would there be no wars or borders at all?

Answer: What can I say about it? There would be no wars… As if people live according to this formula. Everyone wants to live for his own sake, for himself, and so that everyone else obeys him.

Question: Then there is this question, and she asks it: “Why then are we given the feeling that something belongs to us?”

Answer: So that you would fight it, correct it, cut out everything that you think is yours, and give it to the Creator!

Question: So, are you saying here that there is a host of everything?

Answer: Of course, there is a host. He was, is, and will be.

Question: Tell me how to come to this state that everything is not mine?

Answer: In general, it is very good and very simple. One just needs to tune in to it. Then from morning to evening, from evening to morning, a person lives as if this all is not his.

Question: In principle, is this the feeling of the Kabbalists who wrote this quote?

Answer: This is their feeling; they live and were living like this. What is wrong or hard about it? Nothing.

Question: That is, in principle, if you come to this state, does the lightness of being appear?

Answer: No! I would not say that this is lightness. As if they are doing this because of the lightness! No.

Question: Do they not recommend it because it will make life easier for you?

Answer: No, of course not! These are not the conditions; these are absolutely not the reasons. These are reasons for a person to change himself to reach this state.

Question: What should disappear in me? What should I kill, crush, or turn over in myself?

Answer: Egoism. That there is nothing of yours in you, including yourself.

Question: Is this my egoism saying: “Everything is mine”? Is this the basis of all the troubles, by and large? That “Everything is mine” is egoism.

Answer: Yes.

Question: It is our nature—egoism. When I say “everything is mine,” is it our nature?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Why complicate the work so much?! To this extent?!

Answer: So that, from this point onward, you would work on yourself and understand that you do not belong to yourself in any way either. When you come to this, you cross the border between life and death calmly and easily.

Question: Do you mean that death is the result of something belonging to me?

Answer: Of course. Life belongs to you.

Comment: My life belongs to me.

My Response: Yes. They take it away from you. This is called death.

Comment: And if my life does not belong to me, then there is no death either.

My Response: There is no death.

Question: Have you and I come to the formula of immortality?

Answer: Yes. So far. There is even further, but at least this.

Question: I want to summarize. Do you think that it is possible for a person to come to this state where nothing belongs to me?

Answer: It is in the person’s power to come to a state that nothing belongs to him, and he does not belong to himself either.

Question: This addition “I do not belong to myself,” why do you add it strenuously?

Answer: Because this is the most important thing.

Question: Do I not belong to myself?

Answer: No.

Question: Do I belong to someone?

Answer: To the upper force.
[320793]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/30/23

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The Zohar says that the Creator hates bodies. It refers specifically to the bodies of the Creator’s workers because they want to be eternal recipients, since they also desire the wealth of the future world (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 108 “If You Leave Me for a Day, I will Leave You for Two Days”).

Question: If the Creator hates the bodies, then what was the need to create them?

Answer: The material body is the desire to receive. If the Creator had not created the body, we would not have anything to work on and be rewarded.

We are talking about desires for one’s own sake that arise in a person who seeks spiritual elevation. But nothing can be revealed in the desire to receive, only in the desire to give, which is called the spiritual body or soul.

Question: If the Creator gives us a reward in advance, will we pay for it later much more?

Answer: No, do not take that into account. You must do what is required of you.

Question: It seems like this article describes a conversation with the body. Is it important to keep track of what my body, i.e., my desire is telling me at every moment?

Answer: Of course, it is important. If you do not hear your body and do not listen to it, but just hear it, you will not be able to advance.

Correct hearing means holding on to the group, to the Creator, and listening to what your body wants to tell you. Then you will gain the strength to move forward independently of it.
[320435]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two“

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The soul is a person’s inner desire. And if we want to help each other, then we connect, get closer and imbued with each other’s desires, and become as one person.

The Creator shattered the desire He created into pieces in order to give us the opportunity to feel how much we lack connection, to connect, and thus achieve 620 times greater connection than was originally there.

With our correction, we add to the system of Adam HaRishon all its force, all its height. This common soul was born very small; it had no internal volume. But due to the fact that the Creator broke the soul He created and shattered its inner power and distanced its parts from each other, He gives us the opportunity to grow.

Each of us is a piece of the broken soul. If we unite back into one soul, then to this connection we add the force of separation above which we have risen. Therefore, it is said that the power of the soul has grown 620 times. Thus, if we join together and build a single system, we grow to the height of the Creator.

Through connection we attain ever higher spiritual states. After all, we combine everyone’s desires to bestow that were received from the Creator, and then the upper force is clothed in us, and reveals itself many times more than at the beginning of creation.

We attain the Creator in an ever more genuine, inner form. Thanks to our correction, all parts of the upper worlds are increasingly connected and bind into one whole, which allows us to attain them in the full measure.

The purpose of creation is to unite all the upper worlds so that there is no difference between them, and they all turn into one world—the world of Keter.
[318744]
From the 1^st part of the Lesson of the International Kabbalistic Convention “Opening Hearts” 10/01/23, Lesson 3 “Overcoming the Burdening of the Heart”

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Question: When we open our hearts in our connection, I feel unbearable longing. It is so strong that it is impossible to open the heart any further.

What is the other side of this feeling, and how can I use it for the benefit of my group?

Answer: You must connect all your feelings and direct them toward the unity of your ten, and then after the ten, to all the others.

It is necessary to try to come closer together so that you feel absolutely all the friends in your heart. This will be the revelation of your soul.

We think that the soul is something that must descend from somewhere, ascend somewhere, and move. The soul is our desires that are ready to connect and give a place for the Creator inside them.
[318518]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/23, “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Congress”

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Question: From a letter. “Here are some lines from a bushmen folk song:

“The Way We Die”
song of the Southern Bushmen

The day we die
the wind comes down
to take away
our footprints.

The wind makes dust
to cover up
the marks we left
while walking.

for otherwise
the thing would seem
as if we were
still living.

Therefore the wind
is he who comes
to blow away
our footprints.

“Why does European civilization want so much to leave behind some kind of corporeal trace: things, cities, works of art, and books? Why is it important for us to be remembered? Why are we so afraid to disappear without a trace? But people who live in harmony with nature are not afraid. On the contrary, they say: ‘Our footprints should disappear.’

“Why does it happen like this? We really want to leave our monuments.”

Answer: Egoism! It is our egoism! It forces us to take care of ourselves, the immortal ones.

Question: Don’t we die after death?

Answer: Yes. If I could put up such a monument, a column, that would stand forever, I would not be afraid to die. That is, I continue to live through it. Everyone will see and know it, and they will not be able to destroy it even if they want to. The monument will be such that it will be eternal. And on it, on the pedestal, I will stand proudly!

Question: Don’t we even think that I will not be there, but a monument will be there? I will be there, right?

Answer: Yes, it means that I will be there. For a person, this is everything!

What else, my body? It is clear to me what will happen to it. However, to be depicted in stone like this, eternal, respected, and wise, this is anything but simple.

Question: Does it mean that egoism is indestructible? Both before death and after death. Is it something unimaginable?

Answer: Egoism is higher than death, it is a force of nature. It is against the Creator. There is the force of the Creator and egoism is against Him.

Question: So what chance do we have to become such “Bushmen”?

Answer: We alter our egoism, we change it.

Question: From what to what? From this eternal one?

Answer: Yes, we give it eternity. Do you want eternity? Be my guest. Do you want perfection? Not a problem. Fame? Anything you want. But to do that, you have to change.

Question: What should I turn into?

Answer: From the rejection of the other to the love of others. It is this process that a person must go through. Moreover, he, by himself, needs to understand it, go through it, and finish it.

Comment: But there are sparks of this understanding at the moment a person passes away. He understands that “I will not take this with me.” There are many different stories.

My Response: It is all literature. After all, a person remains with the idea that my actions will remain after me. Instead, he has to come to the idea that nothing is important to me, just to leave everything to others.

Comment: So, am I leaving so that everything remains to others? I do not need anything anymore. No monuments, nothing.

My Response: Nothing.

Comment: There was such a movie, it was called All Remains to People.

My Response: I wanted to say that too.

Comment: It was a socialist, communist movie. I even remember that Cherkasov was playing there.

My Response: Yes, Cherkasov. Such a noble man. In fact, ideally, the person should pass away like that.

Comment: As we know, this did not disappear together with communist ideas.

My Response: It is clear that it will not disappear because egoists were at the head of these ideas.

Question: And if we put a Kabbalistic meaning into it, what would it look like?

Answer: It would look like Kabbalah.

Question: What am I doing with this egoist in me?

Answer: I am converting him into an altruist.

Question: Why did it not work out there, but it will work out here?

Answer: First, we have already become disillusioned with all the previous “isms” and other theories. That is first. Secondly, we understand that otherwise we will not be able to exist.

We must understand that only in the correct connection between us, which will become the basic law of society, is our future.

Question: Where in this is the upper force that you talk about all the time?

Answer: It is in the fact that we create it ourselves by trying to connect. If it is not there, this upper force, then we have not made it.

Question: So we failed, and we have to try again and again?

Answer: Absolutely!

Question: Until when?

Answer: Until you make it!

Question: How will I understand that I made it?

Answer: When you see that this connection works between you and others.

Question: How does it work then?

Answer: You will look at the others and see that everyone wishes happiness to each other. I think we still need a long time to come to this.

Question: But are we going toward this?

Answer: This does not depend on us.

Question: So, will this happen one way or another?

Answer: This will happen, this does not depend on us, but we will have to see this.
[315397]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/29/23

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Question: Why is there such a phenomenon as right-handed and left-handed? Is there any explanation for this?

Answer: Of course, everything has its own explanation, although we see some things in nature, and some things we don’t.

The fact is that in our spiritual image, from where all the threads descend to our world and control us, there are right-handed who work more in the right line, and there are left-handed who work more in the left line. And there are those who are balanced in two lines. These are very rare people, and they really don’t care which hand to work with, even with two hands.

But mostly people are initially left-handed, they are simply converted to right-handed. If you lock your fingers together and see which thumb is on top, then you can determine who you were originally: right-handed or left-handed.

All this comes from the three lines on which our soul is built. Some people work more in the right, others in the left, and the third type in the middle line. It depends on the kind of souls, because we are all connected in one system, in one single soul. And each of us works in his own field.

Just like inside the body, different organs work in different directions and their directions do not necessarily coincide. O like in a car, pistons or other parts move in different directions; one turns forward, the other back, and as a result, the whole car goes forward. It is the same here, everyone seems to work in a versatile way, but in the end it is all balanced.

Therefore, it does not matter if one is right-handed or left-handed. All this comes from our inner state, those properties that descend into our world and are increasingly manifested in our generation because it is in this generation that we must somehow correct and implement them.
[314950]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Left-handed and Right-handed” 7/30/11

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Question: There are hypnosis sessions where a person goes into his past lives. What does he feel during that?

Answer: I have not done it and I do not know how true it is. But in principle, everything is possible. But I do not believe in such sessions. What past life? Animate? What is in it?

Comment: For example, he is told in a session that in some incarnation he was so-and-so or such-and-such.

My Response: So what if he was? Let’s say in the last incarnation you were a projectionist in the village, the first guy in the village. What is next?!

Question: There are also cases where someone is being sought through hypnosis. Why do we need hypnosis at all?

Answer: Do you think I am hiding something from you? Hypnosis also exists in animals: how they hypnotize each other, how they affect each other. But Kabbalah does not deal with the animate level.

Question: But is there a spiritual root?

Answer: Of course there is! At all levels all this is included in one single system. But why engage in it?
[314505]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Power of Hypnosis” 7/24/11

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Question: Dale Carnegie, American psychologist, speaker, and writer, wrote books that gave hope to people. Millions of copies of his books How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Enjoy Your Life and Job, and How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking were sold. Carnegie was called a seller of happiness and a teacher of humanity. But he was unhappy. During the last years of his life, he was very lonely. The reason for his suffering at the end of his life was that he got lymphatic cancer. After the doctors told him about it, he couldn’t forgive them.

He fell into a terrible depression. It is not known whether he died naturally or committed suicide, but he was in such loneliness without friends.

When troubles came, it turned out that everything was jus theoretical. His books touted that diseases come from the isolation of a person and that one should have a lot of friends because then you are open and not subject to depression. He himself became he lonely and depressed, and that is how he died. Tell me, how does this happen?

Answer: Every person has a certain threshold of sensitivity of where he can overcome his suffering and what befalls him, and where he is no longer in the right state to overcome. He had this threshold, he lived through it and gave up.

Question: Another question is if it is possible to agree with the diagnosis, to agree that now is your final time, and not fall into depression, not distance yourself, and not die alone.

Answer: In the end, every dying person agrees with this. Where can a person go? In principle, he understands practically. In the last days, hours, and minutes of his life, he is no longer in the euphoria in which he was born. He already understands that it is all coming to the end.

Question: So this understanding comes to a person and he calms down?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you have any advice if say a person receives, God forbid, some bad news? How can he continue to swim? Carnegie fell into such a state, into depression, loneliness, and withdrawal. Even though he preached something else.

Answer: Everyone is still looking for some kind of salvation.

There is no escape from this. There are still thoughts that you are already in the hands of the Creator. And He does what He wants with you. And you can only, if you want, pray to anyone, however you want. But in general, this is what remains to a person.

Question: And how do you survive these minutes, hours, days, or months? Is there any way to direct the ones that go through this?

Answer: The way to direct thoughts correctly is only if you read Kabbalistic articles. I can’t say anything else. This directs you—your thoughts, your desires, and eventually your soul in the right direction, to the right goal.

Question: Why? What is in them?

Answer: Rapprochement with the Creator, a real, true rapprochement with the Creator.

Question: So you’re saying that I’m kind of locked in this little world of mine and that’s the trouble? And so do I have to open it almost indefinitely? And swim like this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is there an article that you like the most in such cases?

Answer: “There Is None Else Besides Him.”

Question: This is the first article from the book Shamati (I Heard), the crown of this book is “There Is None Else Besides Him.”

When reading it, does peace come or something else?

Answer: Peace comes. Humbleness comes. And joy comes after that. And the joy is very great because you begin to believe that this world exists according to its upper program, and not just that nature thus removes us from its path.

Question: Is it possible to reach this point earlier?

Answer: You can get to this earlier, but you still have to go through this period.

Question: Are we coming to this article anyway?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you think doctors should tell a patient that he is on the verge, that everything is over, that he is now in the last stage of the disease and he is dying?

Answer: I think doctors need to say this to patients. And to say that it is time to turn to the Creator.

Question: Is it right for the doctor to say so directly?

Answer: Yes. That now everything is in the hands of the Creator, and not in the hands of doctors. And a person should turn to Him. I believe that this will be true and open.
[314528]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/5/23

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Question: There is a very short prayer called Modeh Ani, which is a morning prayer in which a person thanks the Creator. Before getting out of bed, just as he opens his eyes, he says this prayer: “I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great!”

Please explain why it starts with gratitude?

Answer: “Modeh ani lefanecha, I thank You.” For what? “Melech chai ve kayam”—that You fill the whole world, You control the whole world, only You.

Question: It says: “Thank You, living and eternal King,” What “eternal” means is somehow understandable. What is “living”?

Answer: “Living” means which exists in everything that exists. Without His presence in something, it would not exist.

Question: So every person should start any day with this gratitude?

Answer: With the fact that he got up to get to know the Creator. This is the beginning of the day for absolutely anyone. “Melech chai ve kayam, she he chezarta bi nishmati”—”for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great!”

Question: Did He take the soul?

Answer: He takes it in the evening and returns it in the morning.

Question: The fact that I go to bed and go to sleep, is it called that I give my soul for this time?

Answer: The soul flies away.

Question: And how do the Kabbalists explain that the soul “leaves” for this time?

Answer: A person enters a dream, and he no longer controls himself, and therefore his obvious connection with the Creator is cut off. Only the Creator is the master over him during sleep, at night. And in the morning a person gets his soul back and thanks the Creator for it.

Question: You just said that the soul is my connection with the Creator. Is this called a soul?

Answer: Yes. And at the time of sleep, it kind of breaks off.

Question: “For You have mercifully restored my soul within me,” does this mean that it is the Creator who decides whether to return it or not?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is night then?

Answer: This is when the soul, so to say, breaks away from the body, and a person feels only a dream or his animal state.

Question: Then here’s the question: can night come during the day? Or do I have to fall asleep?

Answer: No. Can you imagine how many people don’t wake up at all?!

Question: So these are people without a soul? The Creator took it and does not return it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Why?

Answer: It’s quieter in the world. A man without a soul is better off. You have to work on your soul and be thankful for it.

Question: And then: “Your faithfulness is great!” Am I repeating this as a mantra: “Your faithfulness is great!”?

Answer: No. Because thanks to the fact that I believe in You, I am connected to You, thanks to this, I wake up to a new day. “Raba emunatecha”—great is the faith in You.

Question: Do I imagine it or does it live within me? Or should I repeat this as a physical exercise in order to establish a “muscle” of connection with the Creator? Your faithfulness is great! Your faithfulness is great! Your faithfulness is great!

Answer: It just forms within a person, inside him.

Question: When we analyzed the prayer for the road, you said that the road is where a person goes from state to state. This is not a way from city to city.

And here, too, is this prayer also from state to state?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So you don’t have to say it in the morning when you just opened your eyes?

Answer: No, it has nothing to do with day and night at all. In Kabbalah, a day is when I have enlightenment, when I see, feel, and have a connection with the Creator. And night is when a state descends of twilight on the soul and on the heart. And when the dawn comes next, I have to say such a prayer.

Question: Is it necessary to pronounce it in these exact words or not?

Answer: No, in principle, all this can be said differently.

Question: And what should a person say from the heart?

Answer: How good it is for me to be connected with the Creator, this is a day for me. And how bad and sad it is for me to be alone without the Creator, for me it is like night.
[314484]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/1/23

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