Entries in the 'Free Will' Category

Born Free

423.02Comment: Researchers have been studying the effect of joining the majority for a long time, meaning when you choose what the environment chooses, when you choose what your relatives and friends approve of and what is in fashion, it is like you do not have a particular opinion. Researchers note that it is often the fear of missed opportunities that motivate us to follow the majority. This is a condition that occurs when you start thinking that the grass is greener behind someone else’s fence, someone else’s life is more interesting, and so on. They basically direct everything to the fact that there is a fear of missed opportunities.

My Response: Of course.

Question: Is that why we choose what everyone has chosen?

Answer: I do not know who chooses but mostly, yes. Mostly because it seems that others have it greener, better, and so on.

Question: Can a person break out of this lack of freedom? From the fact that I live like everyone lives as they choose, so I choose the same, can I escape this?

Answer: I think that only if a person works on himself, if he has a different defense system at the same time, he will understand why he is doing this.

And why follow the majority just like that? There is nothing in the majority but a brute animal force that directs me to choose what it chooses.

It just pulls and says: “You will be safe with us, everything will be fine, be like everyone else, you do not need anything more or you will feel bad, and so on.” We can already see how it works.

A person can be free only if he stands above the collective, if he can be free from the collective, and when he decides what to join. Then he either creates a team himself or already joins a known team.

Question: But only when he decides by himself?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: What does he have to weigh for this, for him to join them?

Answer: The goal! His own and the goal of the collective, and choose from that which group to join.

Question: What goal determines whether a person is free or not? For example, you will be told: “He went for this goal.” You say: “This is a free man.” If he has chosen this goal, he is a free man. Is it possible like this?

Answer: If, first of all, he does not fall under the influence of any collective.

Question: What can you do with human nature, which is all under the collective and under the general opinion?

Answer: That is what we see.

Question: So he needs to break out of his nature, in general?

Answer: Yes. These are special people who are born like this, develop, and therefore they are not able to be in any team at all. And then they find their realization.

Question: Can a person be taught this?

Answer: No.

Question: If born not free, he continues not to be free?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: This is generally a verdict.

My Response: This is not a verdict; it is nature that operates like this.

Question: Have you seen such free people in your life?

Answer: Very few. Usually such people choose real lack of freedom. They are looking for a team they could approach, into which they could join and give themselves till the end. Because they understand that it is impossible to exist separately. And therefore, in order to realize yourself, the main thing is to find the right team.

Born free, man takes his freedom and follows the collective. He sacrifices his freedom in order to realize himself correctly. Because the implementation is still in the collective, in the team.

Question: Is this really his heroism? Is it much cooler than if you stay free because you were born free?

Answer: What is the point? It is a lonely existence.
[302714]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/23/22

Related Material:
A Person Is An Imprint Of The Surrounding Society
How Is The Environment Selected?
A Simple Formula For Spiritual Life

Calculation Is Not With Bodies, But With Souls

962.2Question: Suppose some acute situation arises somewhere nearby, in a city, in a country and then all over the world. To which of them should I direct my attention first? I can watch the news in a purely detached way: “Oh, well, yes. They are blowing up there, they are shooting there. Well, it’s bad for them.”

Answer: The world appears as one single whole, but at the same time you see the clear hand of the Creator, which leads all souls to correction. If, for the sake of this correction, it is necessary that today, for example, one hundred million people perish in the world in a single day, then they will perish.

In our time, somewhere there is some kind of accident and it is there already. But earlier, let’s say, two or three thousand years ago, the soldiers of King David engaged in hand-to-hand combat. There was nothing else: either I strike you or you strike me. When leaving for the war, men gave a divorce to their wife in advance, so that later she could get married.

How else can it be? I am faced one on one with the enemy or maybe even with not one but with several who attack me. And what did they fight with: shield and sword, spear or mace, stone throwers or slings. So during the war, tens of thousands of people would die a day.

Therefore, when you look at what is happening in the world, you begin to justify everything that is happening because at the same time you see how the calculation is done not with bodies, but with souls. This is first.

Secondly, it is not possible to correct them otherwise. This is the best, optimal method for them to get closer to the spiritual because at the moment they are not able to respond to challenges to correct themselves.

But when people are already close to correcting themselves and not falling under the millstones, under the firm pressing force of development, then it’s really a pity. When they have freewill, then it’s a pity. And what will you do? As it turns out.
[302502]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, Spiritual States” 4/17/13

Related Material:
What Determines Our Life Span?
Is There Eternal Life?
What Determines The Length Of One’s Life?

Living Inside Oneself

427.01Comment: It often happens that the place of residence defines many things in a person. Let’s say, if a Hindu grew up in England, he is no longer a Hindu, but an Englishman.

My Response: This happens on a corporeal level because ordinary people have a clear link to earthly culture, statutes, and conventions. But a Kabbalist does not have this. He departs from his body, from all conventions, and enters a completely different space, into the quality of bestowal.

Therefore, what difference does it make where he lives? What difference does it make who he lives among? He is inside himself, inside the upper world. After all, Kabbalists lived in all kinds of different places and there were never problems with that.
[301289]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World through the Eyes of a Baby” 2/10/13

Related Material:
The Inner Map Of The Soul
The Right To Choose Where To Live
What Is Freedom?

A Man Is the One Who Achieves the Quality of Bestowal

294.3Comment: The influence of the environment on a person is enormous. For example, an African who grew up in Russia becomes the same as all Russians.

My Response: This is natural because you take an individual and let him develop under the influence of the environment. But this has nothing to do with Kabbalah.

This can be attributed to religions, to all kinds of beliefs, philosophies, anything, and in whatever may fall within the framework of this world for an ordinary person.

There are very few individuals in the world who are concerned about elevating themselves and following the point of their soul; there are very few of them in the world, maybe a couple of million, for whom the earthly does not exist. They consider everything earthly to be an animal level of development; therefore, they must rise to the next level of “man.” Their discernment takes place according to a completely different system.

A man is the term for one who achieves the quality of bestowal. That is, one who makes a complete restriction on one’s entire animal part, feeding it only what is necessary like with a domestic animal, and directing everything else only toward bestowal, toward connection with others, and to filling outside of oneself— aimed ultimately at the Creator.
[301292]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World Through the Eyes of a Baby” 2/10/13

Related Material:
Human—Striving To Become Like The Creator
Man Is An Integral Part Of Nature
Why Was Man Created Imperfect?

Is It Possible to Change the Information of the Original Gene?

557Question: In the article “The Freedom,” Baal HaSulam writes that there is a foundation in every person, that the root of his soul that does not change. Is this foundation somehow related to the Reshimot?

Answer: This is the basis of all Reshimot over which all kinds of changes and actions take place. The very basis is unchangeable; this is called the primordial gene. That is, each of us has an original gene that goes through all kinds of states, Reshimot, and everything is recorded on it.

Question: What can we change? What changes and what remains the same?

Answer: We can change the application of the Reshimot (spiritual information records) that are in us for the future. And this, by the way, will correct our past.

Using correctly what is recorded in you, you can change your future destiny. It is impossible to change the past, but by changing the future, you thus change all impressions and consequences from the past.

Question: What exactly can I change? How will I feel about this future?

Answer: The future itself will feel positive. In principle, it is correct to say that a person is building his future. And a Reshimot is like potential states and nothing more.
[300405]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

Related Material:
The Inevitability Of Fate
Life’s Movie Script
What Determines The Future Of A Person?

Feel Ten Years as Ten Days

760.4Question: What is the main function of Reshimot?

Answer: The main function of Reshimot is an informational record of all your future states. However, this is just a record. How it will be manifested within you depends on you.

When you begin to enter these states with your senses, the way you will feel this will depend on your attitude toward them. A person who wants to develop spiritually will feel this in one way, and a person who wants to develop differently will feel this in another way.

For example, a child is brought to school where he is given various tasks. One child shouts: “Why do I need this?! For how many years will it go on like this?!” He is told: “Ten years.” And he is ready to just jump out the window.

And the other kid comes to school, and he likes it, he is happy to complete tasks, for him ten years fly by very quickly.

Question: It turns out that I cannot change the fact that I have to study at school for ten years? Is it written in my Reshimot?

Answer: Yes, but you can feel these ten years as ten days.
[300411]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

Related Material:
Untwist The Chain of Reshimot
We Build Our Soul By Correcting the Reshimot That Come to Us (Advanced)
Everything Takes Place According To Our Reshimot (Spiritual Genes)

Soccer or the Goal of Creation?

962.5Comment: The environment influences a person, builds him up. But this does not always happen. For example, soccer used to be very popular and still is. A lot of people are fans of this sport. However, among the fans there are those who seem to be present at the matches, root for it, immerse themselves in this environment, but remain unaffected.

Similarly, people engaged in Kabbalah should immerse themselves in a certain state, but they are perhaps not ready for this at all?

My Response: Football is one thing, but striving for the goal of creation is quite another since every person must move toward it because his personal life and everything connected to it depends on it.

The fact is that everything that happens to us is necessary precisely in order for us to take at least some small step toward the goal of creation on our own, like a child who is learning to walk. A small step for a person is a big step for all mankind.

Even if one person takes a small step toward the goal of creation, toward its realization, it resonates throughout humanity because we are all integrally interconnected. Therefore, there is a big difference in whether I am interested in soccer or in implementing a program that depends on me.

Take any person, whoever he may be, even if he only participates in it mentally or by a small action somewhere, it is recorded in his spiritual genes, it affects him, the whole of humanity, and the whole picture of the world revealed in the next moment because everyone who accepts a reasonable, conscious participation in it spiritually improves the overall situation, and it becomes much easier for everyone.
[299641]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Impact of Football on a Person” 2/18/11

Related Material:
Sorting Life’s Values
Living To Develop The Soul
Corporeal And Spiritual Development

Freedom in the Future Society

294.4Freedom is a state where a person rises above all restrictive limits and from the point of view of his inner freedom gives everything to society. This is what gives him the opportunity to feel absolutely free and not limited by anything.

If he can give everything possible for the benefit of society, then this is his main purpose of living. This gives him fulfillment. He does not feel any restrictions from egoism because he uses it in order to bestow.

Question: Does it mean that a person in the future society will not feel any restrictions?

Answer: No, he lives in another dimension, in the dimension of bestowal—not reception. He as if changes his nature.
[299986]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

Related Material:
Avant-Garde And Rear-Garde
At The Head Of The Future Society
Absolute Freedom

Freedom Will Meet Us

537In the News (Psychiatric News): “The sobering side of the neurobiological revolution is that behavior is largely determined—with little or no room for free will—by the psychological, physiological, and evolutionary forces science is now decoding, says Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.

“The message that neuroscientist, primatologist, and best-selling author Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., carries about the neuroscientific revolution of our time is both hopeful—promising a new understanding of behavior and more effective tools for treating people with mental illness—and yet also profoundly sobering, challenging our notions about free will. …

“Synthesizing findings from a range of disciplines, Sapolsky describes how any behavior is shaped by events in the environment and responses by the human organism in the immediate seconds prior to the behavior. But these responses are shaped in the hours or days before the behavior by psychological, hormonal, and other physiological responses (usually unconscious) and in the weeks and months and years before that by social and cultural factors—all the way back to childhood, infancy, and the womb.

“And these factors, too, are shaped even earlier by epigenetic changes transmitted across generations and by events all the way back to ‘evolutionary pressures played out over the prior millions of years that got the ball rolling.’”

My Response: This of course, just shows the narrow-mindedness of the professor. On what basis does he draw such conclusions? Let him collect all the data that he is talking about into one volume and burn it. Because he will not learn anything from it anyway and nothing reliable will be revealed before him.

Question: Do you think there is any reliability in his base conclusion that there is no free will?

Answer: This is right. But what is the conclusion from the fact that there is no free will?

Let’s say we came to the conclusion: there is no free will. What is next? If there is no free will, then there is no point in our existence at all.

Without freedom of behavior, freedom of choice, and freedom of decision and decision making, a person is not a person. He is just an animal that acts according to its instincts.

Well, so what? So, we would need to close absolutely everything and think only about an easy way to feed ourselves and rest easy from birth to the grave. Or even better, to invent a pill that would put us to sleep and to fall asleep quietly.

Question: How can we get out of this dead end? Here he comes to this conclusion, but does not suggest what is next. Is there any loophole there?

Answer: The loophole is a very simple one that states that there is no dead end in nature. The apparent dead ends that it sets for us are only there for us to jump over, to overcome the barrier and develop further.

Dead ends are like steps and only exist at our level. How does a small child climb up the stairs? He moves on all fours, with difficulty. This is why we are given these disappointments, ups, downs, and so on. We grow through them.

Question: Does it mean that the growth of a person is precisely through overcoming these dead ends? Should I even feel that there is a dead end?

Answer: Yes. You must understand that the obstacles before you are the steps of the ladder of ascent.

Question: Where am I headed as I go through these dead ends?

Answer: To understand the meaning of life. To attain the meaning of life.

I ascend in order for these steps of ascent to create such desires, properties, and qualities in me in which I could reveal the meaning of life. And it exists! Only I do not see it, I do not feel it, and I cannot formulate it.

As a result of these ascents, when I crawl from step to step like a small child on all fours, trying to climb, I develop my mind and feelings in order to understand the meaning of this ascent.

Suddenly I begin to understand that this meaning lies between the steps. I did not expect that this is the way it would be revealed within me at all. But it is born precisely from my efforts to climb on all fours from one step to another step and so on. Like a child crawling on his knees on these steps.

Question: Is there an end to these steps?

Answer: It is somewhere very far away. Almost non-existent. And what if I begin to feel that this is life?

This is life when at every step you have disappointment, the need to find strength, and the need to find an exact aim or goal. Otherwise, you will not have the strength to determine what for, why, what is the correct goal, the correct decision or not, and so on.

As a result of climbing these steps, you begin to feel yourself growing and creating.

Question: Ultimately, what will motivate me? The desire to pass this dead end or the desire to come closer to something?

Answer: No, you do not even want to reach some final step so much anymore. You begin to feel pleasure in the fact that you are going through them. Between the steps you begin to feel the wisdom, the clarity of these steps.

Question: Do I start feeling this governance?

Answer: This is called “From Your actions I shall know you.” From the steps themselves, from how they were created for you, and at the same time how you were created in order to nevertheless rise above them, from all this you begin to attain the Creator of these steps. This is the main thing.
[299384]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22

Related Material:
Freewill In Rising Above Egoism
Freedom Without Limits
True Freedom

Energy Vampire

738Question: Why is man the disturbing factor of water?

Answer: Humans are the most egoistic element of the universe. That is why it is such a disturbing factor. Everything depends on him and he depends on everything. On one hand, he is the most sensitive to external influences, and on the other hand, he is an energy vampire, absorbing and imposing everything bad.

All elements of nature act instinctively, except for man. The inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels are governed by absolutely clear laws. They have no freewill, no desire to harm anyone on purpose. Each one maintains its existence within the framework, in the laws in which it exists.

Therefore, water between them is something neutral. It connects them together both in the form of an ocean of air and in the form of water as a substance.

Thus, animals are in complete equilibrium with nature. Their number and settlement depends on the surrounding nature. They are in balance.

But when the human enters into this balance and begins to change it, not because he just wants to exist, but above his existence he wants to absorb, fill himself, change, and destroy the surrounding nature, he brings his negative energy, first of all, into the water.

After all, a person consists of water. We cannot live surrounded by dry air. We live in water, breathe air with water, and constantly depend on it. Therefore, in case of imbalance, this carrier of energy and information becomes negative and causes all kinds of negative phenomena between us.
[299672]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Secret of Life” 7/13/11

Related Material:
Who Causes the Imbalance in Nature?
Who Disrupts the Balance of Nature?
Delicate Balance of Nature