Entries in the 'Body and Soul' Category

Life Outside the Body

712.03In our world, we are all connected through animalistic senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch, and tactile sensations. A person must go beyond their boundaries in order to begin to feel the upper, that is, what is above the corporeal senses. This is not something mystical, but something that a person does not perceive in his physical body now, but it exists around us!

The technical devices we use now give us a very small additional range of sensations. They only expand them, because behind the devices there are people who still translate these huge expanding ranges into information accessible to them, otherwise they will not understand what is happening with the device. It turns out that we do not go beyond ourselves.

Therefore, we do not need to invent all kinds of devices, but to correct and expand ourselves: “Do we have this in us?”

Kabbalah says that when a question arises in a person about the meaning of life, it means that he has a need to expand the perception of his five senses. Not in expanding the spectrum of frequencies in each sense organ, but in expanding oneself into some new area.

If you want to truly deepen your perception, you must radically change it from reception to bestowal, i.e., begin to contact the environment not in your senses, but outside of them, because they limit you. They refer to your animalistic body.

How can you leave the body as if it were not there? How can you make yourself feel life outside of yourself, not disturbed by your body? Then you can talk about something that really exists objectively. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah deals with, as it does not study at all what we perceive in the body.

Therefore, when people say: “What about vision, and hearing” I have nothing to say. Kabbalah immediately rejects all this, leaving it to psychology and other methodologies, this is their business. It has no connection with those desires, qualities, and thoughts that an ordinary person has because all this relates to the same quality of reception.

We need to move from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal, i.e. neutralize ourselves by absorbing all perceptions, learn to exit ourselves and feel the space undisturbed by our body the way it really is. This is called “exiting the body,” “exiting into the spiritual world.”

Then it does not matter whether your body is alive or dead. After all, you begin to feel everything with completely different qualities that have nothing to do with your physical body. Therefore, this wisdom reveals to us the eternal perfect world. And you, to the extent of adaptation to it, to the extent of your coexistence with it, to the extent of your consolidation in it, become eternal and perfect.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Eternal and Perfect” 12/1/11

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Look within Yourself!

611Question: There is a tale of an old  blind man who was sitting in the shadow of the temple when a passerby asked him: “Forgive me for my question, but how did you become blind?” “I have been blind since birth,” answered the old man. “What do you do?” asked the passerby. “I am an astronomer,” he answered. “I watch the sun and stars.” “But you can’t see them!”, the passerby exclaimed in surprise. “I see,” answered the old man. “They are here.” And he put his hand to his chest.

Can one live like this: blind, but not blind, and as a result you are sighted; deaf and at the same time hear music, and can be a musician? Can a person not feel his inferiority?

Answer: Of course. Because all our senses, in principle, come from our egoism. If we did not have these senses, we could be completely different.

Question: If this sense organ is cut off from me, let’s say I’m blind like this old man who says, “I’m an astronomer,” then how can I not feel that I’m blind?

Answer: Look within yourself.

Question: What will I see there?

Answer: You will see everything: the sky, the stars, everything! Within yourself.

Question: And if, say, I am deaf, can I be a musician? Will I hear music?

Answer: Whatever you want. You don’t need your five senses. You don’t need your body! If we didn’t have a body, we would be so happy and perfect.

Question: So, in this case I don’t feel any inferiority if I kind of live with myself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Please teach me. How to live like this? How to achieve this? It sounds so good.

Answer: This cannot be explained.

Question: Then the last question about the sage. He said, “I am an astronomer even though I am blind.” Why do we freeze when looking at the stars?

Answer: Because this is the opposite part of the universe in which we exist. And it immediately tells us about its infinity and our finiteness.

Question: So, I see infinity in this? And can it be found in oneself, like he found?

Answer: It can be found within yourself. You can connect with these stars. You can feel how they exist.

Question: And with this I seem to be moving into this state of infinity?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/16/23

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How Can a Person’s Last Suffering Be Alleviated?

294.3 Natasha writes:

Hello, dear Michael Laitman! It is very important for me to know your opinion. The fact is that my niece, who is only 18 years old, is dying of cancer. And yesterday the doctors told us that she is to die in about one month.

Throughout her illness, the whole family supported her and told her that everything would be fine and that she would overcome everything. But now the doctors have pronounced their verdict, and she will be gone in a month. I do not know what to tell her. I really do not know. I will be standing in front of her, she will look me in the eye, and I will have to say something. What should I say?

My Response: You should say that there is nothing worse than this world, and all of us will eventually move to another world and it will be better there. A person will meet this with understanding and relief.

Question: So you think this girl already understands inside her that she will leave?

Answer: Of course she understands it.

Question: In the case that she understands it, or in any case?

Answer: She will understand it. This will remain inside her. And she will accept this departure as a good transition to a better state. It is not a lie, not at all. On the contrary, you alleviate a person’s last suffering here in this world. And let her go.

Comment: That is, this world is not the best one.

My Response: It is the worst one.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/20/23

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How the Soul Moves from Body to Body

213Although we see the bodies changing from generation to generation, this is only the case with the bodies. But the souls, which are the essence of the body’s self, do not vanish, to be replaced, but move from body to body, from generation to generation.

Thus, in our world, there are no new souls. And the fact that in the meantime, each has changed his body several thousand times is completely irrelevant because the essence of the body’s self, called “the soul,” did not suffer at all by these changes (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”).

Comment: Arsen writes: “I was told about my past reincarnations. Not that I believed it, but then I read from your favorite Kabbalist Baal HaSulam and realized that I could be the Pharaoh himself. Please explain what is written about the reincarnation of souls. What kind of soul are we talking about here? What is my soul, which turns out to be immortal if it travels from body to body?”

My Response: There is an animalistic soul. And there is no longer a physical soul, but a spiritual one. But in principle, the reincarnation that we see is not the soul; it is an animalistic body, animalistic forces, that when a person dies, returns, and is born again.

There is nothing here. The most important thing that happens to us is the reincarnation of the spiritual soul. It goes through all kinds of changes until it is ready to attain the Creator.

Comment: That is, all the movement of this spiritual soul from body to body, the change of bodies…

My Response: It is not spiritual. The spiritual soul is the level of attainment of the Creator that a person reached in his previous life.

Question: So does his soul move until he reaches this level?

Answer: After that it still moves many times until it comes to its full correction.

Question: Then is this not about this body?

Answer: No, we are not talking about this body at all.

Question: What is it about? What kind of body is meant here when he says moving from body to body?

Answer: From body to body is only about the spiritual component.

Question: Is the body like a spiritual component? So is this, as we say, a desire?

Answer: Yes. Nothing happens with this body, with our flesh. It is the same as with an animal.

Question: What should my desire come to?

Answer: To the desire for complete adhesion with the Creator. This is the main goal.

Question: Is it about how desire changes all the time? Is this the reincarnation of souls?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: Arsen asks: “What does it mean that the same soul moves through time, and dresses in different bodies?”

My Response: This is what it means. A person’s desire to connect with the Creator, gradually, from generation to generation, dresses in various animalistic forms until a person attains a state where he will be similar to the Creator.

Question: Should my desire change and purify in such a way that I want the Creator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What do you mean by the desire to come closer to the Creator?

Answer: To be bestowing, loving, and connected with others in my qualities, like the Creator.

Comment: Then he has a question: “It turns out that the body is worthless, but we are always afraid that we will die. But here it is written at the end that the soul, the essence of the body, does not suffer from these changes. The body suffers, but the soul does not.”

My Response: Yes. The body dies, rots, and so on, but the soul does not. This is the eternal essence of a person, which yearns for the Creator. It must constantly come closer to the Creator from life to life, from generation to generation.

Question: Why are we so afraid of death? The fear of death drives a person.

Answer: This is because we know what we are losing. A person parts with his body. As long as he holds onto it, he is afraid.

Question: Can I not hold on to it?

Answer: It depends on the person.

Comment: Question: “There is no great joy in returning to this world all the time. How can one not return?”

My Response: To do this, you need to reach your correction. We stay in this world only to rise from degree to degree in our equivalence with the Creator. Then you no longer hold on to your body and do not want anything else at all, except to be attached to the Creator and that is it.

Question: Does the soul then no longer return to this world?

Answer: No.

Question: Where is it then?

Answer: Nowhere. Where is it now? You can say that it is some kind of life-giving force that fills our body because now we still perceive it that way. But in general, this has nothing to do with the body.

Question: Where is the place of the soul, can you tell? Is it not within me?

Answer: There is no place.

Question: There is no place. I need to think about this answer. There is no place at all.

Arsen writes: “I wonder, if I associate myself not with the body, but with the soul, does it then turn out that I can travel in time? The soul, after all, was the same all the time. That is, I can meet myself who lived 3,000 years ago. Can I say that?”

Answer: No, you cannot say that. All this is not simple. We should not tie corporeality to spirituality.

Comment: But you understand that this question is very interesting to people. We cannot escape it.
Another question: “My wife and I feel that we are halves of the same soul. Is that possible?”

My Response: Yes, it is possible. If you really lived your previous life happily, then it is quite possible that next time you will already be in a greater connection with each other, and maybe you will even be one soul.

Comment: This is beautiful! Arsen asks the question: “How can one learn to be with the soul and not with the body?”

My Response: Aim for adhesion with the Creator. This is all.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/6/23

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Don’t Waste Your Life

547.05In 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.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lost a Million” 11/6/11

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Formula of Immortality

963.5Olga 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.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/30/23

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Hear Your “Body”

509The 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.
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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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Expand the Soul 620 Times

264.01The 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.
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From the 1st 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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Revelation of the Soul

583.02Question: 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.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/23, “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Congress”

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“The Day We Die the Wind Takes Away Our Footprints”

504Question: 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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