Question: We learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah that “there is none else besides Him,” and that the Creator is kind and perfect. But if a person who has revealed that becomes a witness of a murder, how should he feel about that?

Answer: When we see evil in our world, we wonder: “How can it be that the Creator is good and perfect, the good that does good? Everything that the science of Kabbalah says refers to states at a level above the “Machsom” (the boundary between the corporeal and spiritual worlds). Goodness rules only at those degrees. By obtaining the property of bestowal, you begin to understand that the world is beautiful and the Creator is kind.

Below this boundary, one eats the other, both literally and metaphorically. Here, we should not expect good deeds; on the contrary, all of us around the world will feel worse and worse because it forces us to get rid of our ego.

If we were comfortable, the Creator treated us kindly, and life were good, we would remain little egoists, enjoying the small things. Only unhappiness pushes us towards development.

When you cross the border between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, you develop further by your own will. You no longer need problems because you yourself generate the force for your development.
[44833]
From Lesson 1, Convention in Madrid, 6/3/2011

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Question: Are you familiar with the writings of Kabbalist Isaac the Blind (Rabbi Yitzhak Saggi Nehor, 1600-1235, Provence, France)?

Answer: We study three main sources of the wisdom of Kabbalah: The Book of Zohar, the writings of the Ari (mostly his book The Tree of Life), and the works of Baal HaSulam, the great Kabbalist of the 20th century. Baal HaSulam handed down the entire wisdom of Kabbalah to us in the form most suitable for its publishing and distributing to everyone in the world.

Among all the great Kabbalists, starting with Babylon and to this day, each generation produced many other Kabbalists. But some of them concealed themselves and others wrote very little since until very recently, just thirty years ago, to reveal any part of Kabbalah, one had to receive special permission from Above. Hence, Kabbalists rarely wrote and when they did, it was in a secret form.

And only in the 20th century, when the time has come for the revelation of Kabbalah to everyone so as to correct the collective ego, Baal HaSulam wrote what was permitted to distribute. And we are offering this specific part of Kabbalah to the world.
[44767]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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Question: How did the first teachers of the wisdom of Kabbalah receive this knowledge? Where is its origin? People think that Kabbalah is something close to magic, and many myths surround it.

Answer: Adam was the first Kabbalist who lived 5772 years ago. He was the first of all of humankind who discovered that an integral system of nature exists and it is possible to reveal it.

People had lived before him, but he was the first man in history who had questions: “What do I live for? What is the secret of life? Where is its source?” He wrote a book about this; it reached our days and is called The Secret Angel (Raziel HaMalach). An angel is a force. The “secret angel” means the “hidden force.” It is a small book, a few dozen pages.

The next book was written by Abraham around 3700 years ago and is called The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira). This book explains for the first time in a systematic form, the “Sefirot,” the 32 forces that descend to us and are connected among themselves.

At the same time, several Kabbalists together wrote one more Kabbalistic book, The Great Midrash (Midrash HaGadol), which means explanation or commentary. Many more books were created after that, until the greatest Kabbalistic book appeared, The Book of Zohar, which was written around 2000 years ago.

After that, plenty of books were written, up to the time of the Ari who lived in the 16th century. The Ari’s main book was The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim), which talks about Sefirot and worlds and is full of drawings and diagrams.

From the immense number of books that appeared after it, the most important for us are the books of Baal HaSulam, written in the 20th century.

All these books were not known to the general public. They were mentioned only occasionally, as though “leaked.” This formed a mysterious aura around Kabbalah as if it involves mysticism, secret forces, performing miracles, and predicting the future through Tarot cards. In reality, this is not related to Kabbalah at all!

Of course, Kabbalah uses symbols, diagrams, graphs, drawings, and Gematria (the numerical value of words). Kabbalah studies the soul and its stages of growth. But there is nothing mystical in it. I would say that it is simply the physics of the upper dimension.

Kabbalah is not associated with religion and any mystical practices. It is a science for people who want to know. Naturally, they have to work on and correct themselves. I would compare this with tuning a radio which is surrounded with many radio waves of various frequencies. If I tune the radio and create the wave that corresponds to the wave existing outside it, I receive that external wave and can hear the signal.

The science of Kabbalah helps us create these waves inside ourselves, and we begin to sense the force existing outside us, perceive, and study it. We develop the inner sense of hearing and inner sense of sight. The inner sense of hearing is called the degree of Bina (Sefira Bina), and the inner sense of sight is called the degree of Hochma (Sefira Hochma).
[44671]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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Question: The problem is that people think they own the earth and in their desire to extract from it as much as possible, they are destroying the earth. People don’t understand that the land was given to them only to use, not as their personal property. It drives humanity to wars, struggles to conquer more territory and resources.

How can studying the wisdom of Kabbalah harmonize the different views people have and make them understand that by using the earth selfishly, first and foremost they harm themselves?

Answer: It can be done only if one sees the reverse side of the tapestry! If we don’t learn to see this world as transparent and detect the forces working in the surrounding reality, we will not change. Our ego can break only if it clearly sees how its actions are bringing it pain: “It will hurt me.”

We must come to a state where we reveal that nature is integral. Then I simply won’t be able to commit evil since I will see how in doing so, I harm myself. That is the only way! There is no other possibility. People won’t learn in any other way.

But we can reveal this kind of mutual connection between us through working in an environment in attempting to connect and unify, and trying to rise above our egos. Then we get to feel how difficult it is and begin to examine ourselves, our nature, and all our egoistic properties; we discern how we are or are not able to unify with the others against our desire and to elevate them in our eyes.

This is tremendous inner psychological work, and it continues until we start to discover the internal forces. Basically, it occurs when we reveal the general force, the power of unity, which transforms every one of us.

Yet, we don’t have a choice. Today, humanity finds itself in a very perilous state. We can clearly see that in another 10-15 years we will have exhausted all the world’s resources for energy. Production of all main sources of energy, such as oil, gas, coal, and water, is sharply diminishing. We need to reach balance with nature.
[44676]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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As we rise above egoism, besides everything else, we make a wonderful discovery: We begin to discern that essentially, the entire world exists within us, and not outside of us. And this is logical because I really don’t know what exists on the outside.

A person only perceives what enters his senses and through the nervous system reaches his brain, which processes the final “image.” This is the way we perceive the world. It is enough to sever a nerve to make a part of our reality disappear from our senses.

Thus, as a person rises above himself, he sees that his perception is not at all on the outside, but fully depends on his senses, desire, thought, sensations, and mind. And when we know how to change these parameters, we can expand our perception and rise above the limits of the five senses.

This is where the name “the wisdom of Kabbalah” comes from, which literally means the wisdom of  “reception.” A person uses it to gradually come out from the physical senses of his animalistic body and expand the sensations to the point of infinity. While living in our world, he advances to the level where he no longer associates himself with a corporeal body since he sees a much greater reality above it.

Now he no longer conditions his life to perception in the five senses. And even after the body dies, the person remains in the reality he has acquired above it. He does not feel death since a new dimension has entered his perception before the death of the body.

This way a person lives on two levels: the corporeal degree, like all of us, and the “incorporeal” degree that rises above egoism.
[44614]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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Essentially, Kabbalah is the method of correction of man, man’s nature. And so, within the framework of our studies, we are involved in widely distributing this information.

We have around two million students worldwide; we teach in 26 languages in many countries. We see that all different kinds of people and representatives of many nations express their need for this wisdom, and they begin to understand that the world has no future without it.

Besides that, we teach children and see how much more developed they become, how it opens them up. We publish books, broadcast on television, and work actively on the Internet. We promote development.

We study the wisdom of Kabbalah in groups. It is not about growing apart from others; rather, a person develops individually when he is in the group, in the environment, and constantly changes himself through the group dynamics. Essentially, a person adapts himself to the environment that has to show him, time after time, the need to rise above egoism and exit from himself into love of others. A person practices this in the group.

By establishing contact with the environment, a person feels its needs and unites with it. Then, a connecting network is revealed between everyone; it is above personal egoism, and a person feels common bonds, a common force that dwells between them. As a result, it’s as if everyone exits oneself and starts connecting to this collective force.

Thanks to this, we find out that above the reality that we are aware of, there is a higher reality. We perceive our current reality inside, in our vessel, and thus we are limited. We want to receive pleasure, and when the pleasure enters the desire, they cancel each other due to their mutual oppositeness.

It turns out that each time we achieve something, we enjoy it for a moment—and the pleasure disappears immediately. We run after the next pleasure, touch it, and it vanishes as well. As soon as the pleasure enters the desire, it neutralizes the latter at once: A short circuit between the plus and the minus leads to annihilation.

On the other hand, when a person exits himself and above his egoism starts to unite with the group, with other people, he creates a vessel above himself, an external desire. Now he feels outside himself both the desire and the pleasure, and they do not disappear. On the contrary, reality turns into the flow of infinite life above time.

Pleasure that enters and disappears over and over again creates for us a sensation of time. But if the pleasure is not extinguished, if we feel how it flows endlessly, then we rise above a sensation of time and begin to perceive the general force of nature, which surrounds and arranges us together.

We begin to discern connections between all the parts of reality, resembling the interwoven threads on the reverse side of an embroidered picture. Outside, we see a “pattern” of our world, but if we look behind its surface, we will see the threads tying the parts of this picture. This is what we discover with the help of the science of Kabbalah: the connection and mutual influence between us.

This produces a great impact on people, and they change. Having seen this reality, they understand that we cannot manage without connection and mutual understanding because they can see the harm they may cause to others.

Thus, we need not faith, but attainment. In this way, a person becomes free and begins to see the world clearly. Then, according to his degree, he determines the correct course of actions for himself.
[44617]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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The science of Kabbalah says that the entire reality consists of desire which is constantly evolving. From the still level, the vegetative one grows, followed by the animate and human levels.
Desire continues its relentless development in humans, and that is why each successive generation differs from the previous one, and even one person during his lifetime keeps on changing his desire, his ego, and is constantly developing.

Thus, we grow above the animate level, build society, industry, technology, science, and so on. However, satiation is inherent to this development. It first manifested itself in ancient Babylon when a special situation was created: On one hand, people came to greater egoism, wishing to “build a tower reaching up to heaven,” and on the other, they plunged into mutual hatred to such an extent that they no longer understood each other.

These two opposite forces brought them to an unbearable state. The same process goes on in a family before divorce: The spouses are bound to each other by strong ties, such as children, a common home, household, and life and at the same time experience insurmountable hatred; they cannot stand each other. Under such circumstances, the science of Kabbalah was revealed in Babylon.

Kabbalah teaches people how to rise above egoism to mutual connection, to harmony in an integral society. Thus, we become similar to nature which is also “round” in its essence, in other words, integral, global, and inseparably interconnected in all its parts.

Had we joined nature in this manner, we would have come to balance and would have revealed all the forces that are present in it and manage it. Then, we would have connected to the general force that governs everything. However, humanity in those days preferred to reject the path of correction and dispersed, as in the example of divorced spouses.

As it is said in the science of Kabbalah, 3,700 years later, we will come again to such a state; however, this time we have nowhere to run from each other. We will be totally interconnected with each other throughout the world, hating each other, and having no ability to manage without each other. Our egoism is growing to the scale of the biggest multi-crisis, and, as Kabbalists write, it should happen at the end of the 20th century.

When I started studying the wisdom of Kabbalah in 1975, I did not believe that everything would happen in this way. It seemed something so distant and unrealizable. Could the world come to crisis in such spheres as education, culture, family, drugs, terrorism, technology, or science? Would people around the world feel interconnected? Nothing like it could be felt then.

Nonetheless, it happened within a few years. Today, we are in the same state as described in the story of Babylon, and for that reason, the science of Kabbalah is opened to the world for the first time since then.

Being revealed to the world, it invites everybody to become acquainted with the general laws of reality so that we can rise above our egoism and live in mutual interconnection, as one big family does. Indeed, the global force of nature surrounds us closer and closer, compressing us so much that it may lead to the destruction of humankind.
[44621]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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The science of Kabbalah is special because it allows us to reveal how to control the two forces of nature: the force of reception and the force of bestowal. All of nature is comprised of these two forces. We see them everywhere: plus and minus, bestowal and reception. Their combination is what creates the essence of our lives.

On the still level they build atoms and molecules, dipoles, crystalline patterns, and so on. On the vegetative level the combination of a plus and minus produces life: a plus provides useful things whereas a minus excretes waste, which enables a body to live and develop.

On the animate level a plus and minus become even greater and their interconnection not only causes useful things to be absorbed and harmful things excreted, but also brings about movement, reproduction, and the individual life of a separate animal. This is already a special sum of two influences.

However, as paradoxical as it may be, on the human level only one of two forces was operating to this day. As a result, any pleasure that entered us immediately waned. That’s because our desire is egoistic and we did not have any chance to oppose it, to add a second force against it so we could excrete the harmful things from our desires and thoughts, from our hearts and minds, which belong to the human level.

Now a second force is being revealed in us—the point in the heart, which stands opposite to egoism. It enables us to form ourselves, to decide which thoughts and desires to bring inside and which to take outside. As a result, out of thousands of thoughts and desires, we can gather a new structure and build a special level inside of us called “human” (Adam) or ”soul.” It consists of ten Sefirot and is also called “Partzuf”—a spiritual structure.

This is what we form inside of us by virtue of the fact that two forces have finally begun developing in us. For hundreds of thousands of years, only one force operated in us on the human level. We were constantly activated by the desires and thoughts that awakened in us. That is how we lived.

But now, together with several million people from the whole world, we have received a true gift from above—the bestowing desire in addition to the receiving desire. And now we are forming a new creation inside of us. We must build the human in us ourselves. This is the entire purpose of man’s existence in this world. Otherwise, why does he exist here? What can he possibly do here?

Today we are advancing together with all humanity. We are the first, and others will come after us. From one day to the next new people are awakening and joining this process of building a person inside of each one of us. You and I are learning how to become human in the true sense of the word.
[44840]
From the 1st lesson at the Madrid Convention 4/6/11

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Question: You have said that in order to solve the global crisis it is necessary to reduce consumption. How does minimal consumption differ from vital consumption? For example, can a watch costing a thousand Euros be considered a vital necessity?

Answer: This question is not simple. I would even say there’s a catch to it. Let me explain it by way of a Kabbalistic parable that’s 2000 years old.

Once upon a time there were two friends. One was rich and the other was average, but they were both on the spiritual level. One day the rich man went bankrupt and then his friend started serving him like a servant, wishing to provide him with the necessary level of existence that he was used to. That’s because previously his friend had serrvants, so when he lost them, he felt like he lost something that was necessary.

This is an interesting example, but it is not suitable for out times because nature obligates us otherwise. We have no choice but to restrict our consumption since otherwise we will devastate the planet earth. It’s not just that we have to reduce our necessities, but we have to reach a state where we would be happy to get rid of our necessities, but are obligated to receive them because we have to exist in our bodies in this world.

I have a big desire, which includes the level of my regular life where I have physical necessities as well as social necessities, such as education, culture, vacations, and trips. No one says you have to give them up. You need an apartment, everything necessary for it, a wife, children, and so on.

The problem is our consumption above the norm. If you study the science of Kabbalah, you will involuntarily consume only what is necessary because the most important thing to you is spiritual fulfillment. Therefore, you are happy that you do not reveal these excessive desires inside of you and you would be happy even to get rid of the normal desires, but you need them in order to support your existence. This is called necessity.
[44816]
From the 1st lesson at the Madrid Convention 6/4/11

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Question: As far as I understand, we have to develop the sixth sensory organ that will enable us to understand the unity between us. Does this possibility exist for everyone? Can anyone develop this sense organ?

Answer: There are people who get an aspiration for this development, wonder what they live for and why, what the meaning of life is, where its source is, how everything revolves in this reality, and what happens in it. They cannot calm down without answers to these questions.

These people come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because they feel that they simply must understand; otherwise it is not worth living. They are not able to live like animals. But there are few people like this in the world.

Man’s desire is divided into six desires. Three desires are related to our body: the desires for food, sex, and family. And three desires are connected with society: the desires for wealth, fame, and knowledge. These are the six basic desires. If people can find themselves and the meaning of life in them, they do and live in this way.

You are asking about a higher desire to know the source of life. This desire comes only to some individuals in the world, and recently, their numbers are growing.

Around forty years ago, when I began to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, there were few such people, very few. As it is written in The Book of Zohar, from the end of the 20th century and beyond, lots of people will suddenly start asking about the essence of life—what they live for, what the meaning of life is—and will come to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. Indeed, within fifteen years, the number of our students has grown to two million. In fact, there are many more; we just do not know about them because we do not keep lists of people who study with us on the Internet.

I think that in any case, there won’t be many people in the world who really wonder about the essence of life. However, the rest will also have to rise above their egos not because they would rush forward, towards the source of life, wishing to know what they live for, but to escape suffering that is pushing them from behind. Thus, they will join us out of helplessness. So, I hope that we all will reach a good life. Nature will force us to come to an integral society.
[44678]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

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