Entries in the 'Body and Soul' Category

What Remains After Life?

Laitman_709Question: If a person wants to fundamentally “cleanse” his personal life, what is considered the “garbage” of life?

Answer: A person must reach the end of his life with having created connections with other people, connection through which the Creator is discovered. This is the only thing that remains after life and all the rest is total “garbage”!

Unfortunately, almost all live their lives in vain, except those who in time come to the wisdom of Kabbalah and properly implement it.

Question: So what does a person establish a family for?

Answer: If a person is living to attain the meaning of existence, which is to discover the Creator in this life, then all of his actions are justified and in the right direction.

The revelation of the Creator to the creatures is attainment of the entire system of creation, the system of management in our world and all the other worlds.  A man discovers a huge “computer” and acts in its intelligence, and is connected to and fully identified with it. He completely understands this intelligence, is connected with it, and begins to manage it.

Everyone must reach this state, as it is said, “My children have won” (Baba Metzia 59a). We must acquire this higher intelligence and it can be done during our lives. I invite you!
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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Upper Forces Or How We Can Change Our Fate

laitman_572_03Question: Can you define the term “upper forces?”

Answer: The forces that operate in the upper world are altruistic forces, and the lower forces that operate in our world are egoistic forces and therefore we are all egoistic. The Creator says from the beginning, “I have created the evil inclination…,” which means that if you have any problems or complaints, turn to Me personally, and then He immediately adds, “I have created the Torah as a spice.”

Our world is the embodiment of all the evil that was created in us. The evil force, egoism, is the force that generates thoughts and actions only for its own sake, for its own pleasure, momentarily, which is revealed at the moment on all levels of nature: on the still, vegetative, animate, and the human. Living within ourselves is called evil because such a life is short, flawed; we are always locked on ourselves, on satisfying our immediate needs in order to maintain ourselves in a more or less comfortable state.

Let’s imagine that we have created a machine that operates for some time only in order to maintain its functioning and then to happily die. What is this inefficient, unproductive product of the Creator—a person who thinks only of itself, and, consequently, has negative efficiency?

Initially, there was no intention to create a biological machine, as a man and in general all of nature, to live only in order to multiply in great pain and great trouble. In our current state, all of a human life is a desire to survive somehow, to suffer as little as possible and eventually leave this hard, temporary life, to disintegrate into elementary particles, and to put it simply, to rot. Of course, you can not see any perfection or anything in the action of the Creator that would speak of it as of something higher, wise, purposeful.

Therefore, we don’t see anything wise about our life, but quite the opposite: from the first moment a person comes into this world he begins to get closer to his death. And if life is so short, there is nothing inherently good. This creation can not be created by an absolutely perfect Creator, and that we live, does not fit into His plan of creation to delight.

We don’t understand how the Creator, who is absolute and perfect, created such a world; what we undergo in life does not fit into His plan of creation to delight His creatures.

The thought of the creation is to bring the created beings contentment so that they should praise the Creator, resemble Him, so that we would attain the same level of perfection and eternity on which He exists. In order to raise us to His level that is totally opposite from the level we are born and live on in this world, we were given the Upper Light, the upper force, and also a manual telling us how to spur, summon, and fulfill that force so that it will gradually change us and raise us to His level of eternity and wholeness.

This level is totally different from the corporeal level that is characterized by the temporary egoistic desire to fill ourselves right now, no matter what will happen later. A true altruistic level is not what we call altruism in our world, but an intention to ascend above our egoism and to acquire a form that is opposite from it.

Therefore it is written: “I have seen an opposite world.” This is what we must attain in our world. In other words, while living in our egoism, we have to begin to change it, to rise above it, and to turn it inside out. But we don’t have the forces, the capabilities, and understanding to do so. We only suffer from our existence inside it.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, if a person suffers, it means that you can already speak to him, because as an egoist he wants to get rid of the suffering, of the ego. If we offer him to help him get rid of what constantly oppresses, beats and humiliates him, he will probably agree. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah offers us.

Kabbalah was hidden as long as we were not disappointed with egoism and believed that it was somehow possible to live with it and to establish some kind of relations between us. And when we realized that we are advancing to the worst possible state, the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed. When a person begins to feel that the end of civilization is near, when he no longer believes in a bright future and asks himself about the meaning of life, this is the state for which the wisdom of Kabbalah offers a solution. The solution is to change man’s nature into an opposite nature and thus acquire an absolute eternal happy state instead of the current state, which is finite, miserable, and vicious. This is how we can change our fate.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16

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Why Do We Suffer? Part 1

Laitman_182_02Question: Suffering is an integral part of our lives, no matter how much we try to live well. What is suffering, and why do we suffer?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah considers everything, starting from the bases of creation, of which there are two in nature.

First is the Light, the force of love, bestowal, and unity that is called the upper force, the Creator (Boreh), which means “come and see” (Bo-re), because we must reveal it. This force created the creature, the desire to enjoy, the lack of fulfillment.

The Upper Light develops a desire and forms it as a need for all sorts of fulfillments. All creatures, including ourselves, are various desires. Human desires can be divided into six types: food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge. Each person feels a natural need for all of these fulfillments, but in different proportions.

If a person lacks these fulfillments, he feels suffering, emptiness, and even pain. Sometimes, this suffering is so strong that it becomes unbearable.

Food, sex, and family are desires of our body, natural instincts that are inherent to all animals. Money, honor, and knowledge—that is, the desire for power, fame, position in society and in science—are purely human desires.

The source of suffering is the lack of fulfillment of these desires. When the Light doesn’t fill the desire, it begins to suffer. Suffering can be big or small, lengthy or instantaneous, general or personal, and so forth.

The wisdom of Kabbalah states that it has a method to get rid of suffering. Not by chance is it called the wisdom of Kabbalah, which means the wisdom of receiving because it teaches how to fulfill all desires.

On the one hand, this is a very popular topic, but on the other hand, this wisdom is hidden. If people knew that there is a method that enables us to fulfill our desires and become completely happy by getting rid of suffering, from the smallest to the largest, global, and universal ones, then, it might seem what could be better than this?

Indeed, there is nothing better. If we used the wisdom of Kabbalah, then we would be able to fulfill all of our desires, all the created material of creation, and feel in it only pleasure and eternal fulfillment that is called eternal life. Suffering would disappear from the world and we would be completely happy.

Conversely, all other ways and attempts to avoid suffering and fulfill ourselves will end in an imminent collapse.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 6/23/16

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New Life 736 – The Origin Of Our Suffering

New Life 736 – The Origin Of Our Suffering
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The wisdom of Kabbalah is based upon the fundamentals of creation. The Light created the desire to receive, which suffers when it is empty. The source of suffering in our lives is lack of fulfillment, whereas Kabbalah is a method for fulfillment of our desires.

The role of suffering is to advance us, without it we would not be able to do or feel anything. A person who stops suffering, stops feeling that he is missing something, becomes indifferent, withers, and finally dies. Suffering develops us.

Our origin is in the shattered collective soul. A different kind of fracture is constantly being discovered. The correct response to suffering is understanding its purpose. We don’t know why we are living. The greatest suffering is when a person feels that he is not the “master” over his own life.

Today many people use tranquilizers and drugs, but in fact, all fulfillment of desire is a type of drug because the relaxation of the suffering that appears as a result of the lack of fulfillment, prevents the person from developing further. We are destined to receive complete and eternal fulfillment, filling of the Upper Light, and suffering is designed to move us forward toward it. The correct use of suffering brings pleasure. For the same reason, we want to have an appetite for food, a desire for sex, and so forth.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 736 – The Origin Of Our Suffering,” 6/23/16

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Living With Other Coordinates

laitman_742_03Question: Can a person influence the amount of time that is allotted to him? I’d like to live as long as possible….

Answer: If you want to live as long as possible, please. It is possible to rise to a level of eternity in this life and continue to live forever.

Question: Is it possible to lengthen the period of physical life?

Answer: If I am found within the characteristics that give me a feeling of time, then I can rise above them, meaning above time. Even physicists say that there is no time.

It is possible to manage time, but this depends on how much I am connected with others. As soon as I rise to a level where, together with others, we form a single collective common body, then the feeling of time disappears immediately and no questions arise because I am already floating in totally different coordinates.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16

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The “Self” From A Kabbalistic Point Of View

laitman_622_01Question: Does my “self,” meaning my desire to receive, feel the desires of the physical body as if they were its own?

Answer: The “desire to receive” is what I want, while the physical body is my “beast.” Sometimes I feel my desires through the physical body, meaning a desire for food, sex, and family, and sometimes through a more internal body, a desire for knowledge, respect, and wealth.

The first type of desires (food, sex, and family), are a person’s “beastly” desires. Then follow the desires on the human level, desires for wealth, respect, and knowledge, but these are still not desires on a spiritual level. And then, spiritual desires are revealed in a person, attracting him to resemble the Creator.

Question: What is the “self” from a Kabbalistic point of view?

Answer: The “self” is a desire for pleasure and it is different on different levels. Sometimes I want food, sex, or family, and sometimes control, wealth, or knowledge.

Question: If the body is given only to meet the first three types of desire, is it possible to attain spirituality, discovery of the Creator, without it?

Answer: How can I begin to work with others without a body? After all, we must communicate with each other. Our entire world is built from the first and final state of our way; there is nothing accidental.

The final goal of creation appears first, which is to bring the person to the likeness of the Creator.

It is from this that creation was created. In order to realize the goal of creation, a person must simultaneously include the “minus” and the “plus.” So from the start, the “ego,” which is contrary to the altruistic characteristic of the Creator, becomes determined within him.

 

 

The “minus,” meaning the egoistic state in a person, constantly grows. But together with this, a person must create a “plus” from the “Point in the Heart.” Therefore it is said, “The end of the action is in the initial thought.”
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/13/16

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New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?

New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

 

Question: The issue of astrology and fate is very interesting, intriguing, and very unclear. Do the stars affect our fate? Is it possible to foresee our fate? How can we use this information?

After all, the hardest thing about our life is that it is unpredictable. We go through life having no idea what will happen to us in the future and what surprises fate has in store for us.

A person cannot control his life. This is the reason that so many people are interested in astrology, which can seemingly predict a person’s character and his fate according to the different signs.

Astrology was very popular in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Far East, India, China, and also among the American Indians. Even today many believe that there is a connection between the stars and a person’s state. Is there really such a connection?

Answer: The universe develops gradually, step by step, and man is the last phase of this evolutionary process and is the most developed part. But it is actually because man is the most developed creature and has a mind and feelings by which he can explore nature more and more, that he feels that he is vulnerable.

It says “a day-old calf is called an ox.” After all the moment the calf is born he already has the mind and senses of a grown ox. He knows which plants he can eat and which he shouldn’t; he will not fall from a high place, unlike a small child who has to be nurtured and taught for a long time until he grows wise.

If we don’t teach a child, he will grow up to be an animal. But if we convey to him all of the human life experience that has been accumulated for many years he will reach the human level, the level that he will be allowed to develop to. A person develops and according to the level he develops to he discovers the world.

Therefore man is a very sensitive creature, since he has to feel nature very deeply. He is strong in being able to build different systems that help him cope with nature. Man has learned to control fire, discovered electricity, learned to heat his home and light up the darkness of the night. He has learned to communicate over great distances and has invented the Internet.

Man has become increasingly more sophisticated and has added all the comfort he lacked to nature. At the same time he hasn’t changed much. There are probably very clear limits to human ability.

We can improve our daily life in many ways, but we cannot answer the most important question of: what will my fate be? What will my future be? What will happen when I die? What was there before I was born and what will happen to me after I die? What happens beyond the boundaries of this life? Why have I met the people who surround me in my lifetime? Why was I born with a certain personality, as a man or as a woman, in a certain country, at a certain time?

All these questions remain a mystery for us. There is a certain force that controls us and we cannot influence it. We can only try to live comfortably at the place our fate has brought us to: to build houses instead of caves, to prepare food and to store food products.

We develop what belongs to the body’s corporeal existence, which means that we use the human mind and feelings that raise us above the animals for the sake of the animate level, for the sake of the body. It is only for the sake of the body that we have developed all the sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, and zoology, so that our body can enjoy.

But we cannot use our mind and our feelings in order to exit our body. It turns out that we use everything that was given to us beyond the animate level—our high intelligence, the ability to explore nature and to discover its laws—only for the well being of our corporeal body.

We wanted to move fast, so we built a car; we wanted to speak to someone who is far away, so we invented the radio and the Internet. But all these inventions are for the comfort of our body, for the sake of our health, for ourselves or for our children.

There is no invention that our developed mind has come up with that was for the level that is beyond the animate level. Universities, stock markets, museums are all made to provide our body with maximum comfort. It is sad to see how primitively we use our delicate feelings, our sharp minds, and our ability to develop as we evolved from one generation to the next.

We fly to outer space and have great achievements in medicine. A hundred years ago the average life expectancy was no more that 40-50, and today we are nearing 100. In another 50 years we may live to 200. We have the ability to make our life in this world much more intense, healthier, and to extend the life of the body. But what remains unclear is what we should do with the body for so many years.

We can improve the conditions the body lives in for the sake of our families and our children. We can answer practically any question except for the one most important question about our fate. The term “fate” includes what we were before our birth, what we will be after death, what will happen to us in the middle, in the time from birth until death, and what hardships we will have to cope with during this time.

On the one hand, we realize that everything is predetermined, but to us it is revealed as complete chance. Now it seems a coincidence, but what if I could rise a bit and look at the whole plan from above. This is very intriguing.
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From KabTV’s “ New Life 489 – Do The Stars Affect Our Fate?” 1/1/15

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New Life 488 – Hope Heals

New Life 488 – Hope Heals
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Abraham drew a clear boundary between truth, nature, and the human mind that explores our ability to advance to the human level, which differentiates man from an animal, and on the other hand, different mysticisms and beliefs that aren’t even a religion where everything is strictly organized, but are different dark superstitions.

There is the wisdom of Kabbalah revealed by Abraham that teaches a person about the Creator and there is religion in which a person operates in rigid frameworks according to precise rules.

Religion is a social framework that thoroughly binds a person and doesn’t allow him to act according to his heart’s desires. It is a certain kind of pressure with a promise of a reward or a punishment in this world and in the next world: heaven or hell.

But there is a gray area between these two major streams: the wisdom of Kabbalah (the wisdom of the upper force) and religion. It is created because people are not satisfied with the simple religious frameworks anymore and are trying to find out something about themselves: What will my future be? What will happen to me? How can I succeed in life and keep away from trouble?

They have practical questions. They don’t ask about the next world that religion promises them, but about our daily life. They care about succeeding in life and are looking for the means to achieve that: blessings, lucky charms to protect them and their children, simple symbols that give them a sense of security and hope for the future.

Indeed, a person who buys a lucky charm, ties a red string around his wrist, or wears a symbolic trinket hopes for better circumstances, which gives him strength and psychological support. People are ready to pay a lot of money in order to feel protected, calm, confident, and happy.

This actually heals. It is common knowledge that self-confidence can help a person by raising the body’s hidden resources that can support and heal him. Therefore, we cannot simply dismiss these methods and say that they don’t work. They do work, but in the rational sense, and there is no mysticism here, although they stem from an irrational source.

This is the reason that there is a grey area between the wisdom of Kabbalah and religion. In England, for example, people have experts purify a new home from all the evil spirits before they move into it. All these superstitions should be taken seriously because they give people confidence.

There are very few people who yearn for the revelation of the Creator and for whom the wisdom of Kabbalah is important. There are many people who belong to a certain religion in one way or another, but every person is somehow connected to this gray area. Everyone believes in some signs and symbols that support and sustain him through life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 488 – Hope Heals,” 1/1/15

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What Is Infidelity In The Spiritual World?

laitman_276_02Question: For a woman in the spiritual world, what is “infidelity” in relationships between a man and woman?

Answer: In the spiritual world, the concept of infidelity doesn’t exist because it operates on the basis of equivalence of characteristics. When two systems enter into an attachment, each one gives and receives, one from the other and they create a “contact,” which is called Zivug (coupling). The systems are divided and move apart from one another to the degree of the difference between these characteristics. The more equivalence between them, the fuller the connection they enter and vice versa.

In the spiritual world there are no souls that are mutually connected permanently.

Contacts between them are very rapid; the souls enter into contact and immediately break up. Again they establish a contact and again they break up. So the contacts are constantly renewed. We change all the time. If in this world I am in front of you in a physical form, it doesn’t change very much and so there is no problem in identifying me; in the spiritual world, I acquire new forms on every level and am completely different all the time and am even called by different names. It is not even possible to identify between who I was yesterday, who I am today, or who I will be tomorrow; these are completely different expressions of my soul.

Every day a person is new. If previously he was on the level of “Moses,” today he is on the level of “Abraham,” and tomorrow on the level of “Noah,” and so on. The desires are constantly changing. The degree of correction of the desires changes and constantly reaches changes in direction. Each time a new switch occurs. We are so included in each other that nothing will remain of us until we become one uniform mass.

The person begins to feel that he is seemingly swimming in ceaseless movement within eternity and wholeness! His “self” dissolves except for one point, so that he can feel something outside of himself. I don’t know what the fate of that point is after the completion of correction, but all of these sensations and emotions are sensations and emotions that are external to our “self.” It is so wonderful to dissolve into something eternal and perfect, what could be better? All of the limitations in our world disappear: time, motion, and space, and we are in perpetual motion and spiritual ascent!
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/6/16

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Why Should We Resurrect The Dead?

laitman_547_04Comment: American bio-technologists are studying how to resurrect people who have died. It refers to people who are brain dead but whose internal organs are still functioning. It is possible to revive a person who is a vegetative state and to bring him back to life. Such experiments will now be performed on human beings and substantial funding has been allocated for this research.

Answer: The whole point is that they are working for the funding since otherwise they will have nothing to do. The question is what for?! According to Judaism when a person dies you should call the funeral home to bury the body in the ground as soon as possible. He doesn’t feel anything anymore anyway; he is dead, so why should he be resurrected?! When the brain dies it is actually complete death. After that a person will never be the same but can be like a robot or a zombie.

If the brain is dead nothing can be done, the body will move automatically, but it will not be a human being anymore since the neurons die first. I believe that such resurrection of the dead makes no sense at all. We have recently spoken about the fact that people will live to be 150 or even 200, but what’s the point? Is it only because of the fear of death that we postpone it?! I am for the natural course of events.

Comment: But we still need to maintain the life of a person who is brain dead and who is in coma for a long time.

Answer: I don’t think this is necessary. Everything should happen naturally. What is the point of connecting a person to instruments that keep his organs alive? This isn’t the normal functioning of the body since a person doesn’t connect to the external world this way, so what is the point in that?

Question: Do you mean that it is all done mainly in order to attain funding?

Answer: Of course! Science is holding onto and relying on funding. Otherwise what will scientists do? We should eventually realize that we cannot defeat the natural flow of life. We will only find out that we have to live under natural conditions since this is what our body was created for. No one will gain from extending our life expectancy. It is a finite process in any case, since the future holds different kinds of life for us, which are much better than the worst of all the worlds.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/25/16

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