Question: From where does the sensation of inner emptiness come to a person?

Answer: Desire is constantly growing within us. It has to grow to the state where you will demand the light, moreover, in the size that exceeds our world. Then unwillingly you will have to exit the framework in which we live and rise to the next dimension.

This invitation to the next level already exists in a person and therefore he feels emptiness.

He is playing a game of life, feeling that there is nothing to be fulfilled with. “For now I will live this way. What can I do? Will my life end simply like that? But there is nothing shining behind that. But at least for now I will be busy playing somehow and will spend time.” A person has the instinct of self-protection.

But in essence, the inner spiritual hunger is sucking him and calling him to reach something higher. This desire is developing for the next level, to a greater portion of light, in other words, to another life.

Question: Does it mean that we do not have any freedom of choice in our existence?

Answer: The freedom of choice is only in accelerating our development. And we can accelerate it only with the help of a certain environment.

When we create such an environment around us—books, teacher, and friends—we can elevate our desire, direct it correctly, shape it, and make it big and aspiring to the goal. Then we will come out of our world to the next dimension faster.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Does the Creator Exist?” 5/9/11

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Question: Today, many people are asking the question: “Which desires are mine and which are imposed on me by society? Why does society determine what is good for me if I feel inside that it is not good at all, at least for me? How can I resist this society?”

Are you saying that feelings like envy and jealousy are considered positive in Kabbalah?

Answer: Of course. They develop us. Imagine a child who does not look up to adults and does not want to be an adult. Unfortunately, he will remain undeveloped.

Imagine scientists who do not envy each other and do not strive to outdo one another; imagine people who do not compete and do not want to become richer, stronger, bigger, higher, and so on. After all, all this only makes us human and drives progress; otherwise, we would not have climbed down from the trees.

Comment: But, while being raised, we were told all the time: “Being an egoist is bad.”

My Response: No, it is very good.

The term “Kabbalah” comes from the word “to receive.” The more a person wants to receive, the bigger he himself becomes. The whole problem is how he uses this natural quality. If it is given to us by nature, it cannot be bad.

Whether it is good or bad depends on our implementation. Therefore, children should be told: “Be envious only of what is good, and try to become greater than him. You see how well he does, and you do even better. You see how strong he is, and you become even better. You see how he can draw or something else—try it, maybe you can too.”

It is said: “Envy, lust, and honor take a person out of the world.” Either they kill him, so to speak, or, on the contrary, raise him into the spiritual world—that is the thing. These are the strongest natural qualities inherent only in man. It all depends on how we use them: either to the detriment or to the benefit.

There is an anecdote about the Decembrist granddaughter’s view of the revolution. They told her: “We are making a revolution so that there would be no rich.” She answers: “My grandfather also wanted to make a revolution but so that there would be no poor.”

That is, the difference is in the vector, where we are going, what we are heading toward—either good or bad. And the qualities themselves are the tools of our development. They should never be suppressed in a child. On the contrary, let him be envious, let him be jealous, let him be proud; it is all very good.

All in all, they can be called ambitions. Big ambitions lead a person to something big.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Does the Creator exist?” 5/9/11

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Question: It is written in the Torah that those who are engaged in spiritual development go toward the Creator and want to reveal Him are above the stars and signs of good luck. What does it mean?

Answer: If we study Kabbalah, meaning the upper laws of the world, and invite them to influence us for the better, then by this we, in fact, determine our good future. Therefore, the Torah advises us to act this way.

Question: What does it mean that a person is above the signs of good luck?

Answer: This means that in our world we would be following one current, and by practicing Kabbalah, we invite upon ourselves upper, good forces that influence us, and we rise to better forces, higher than those that usually influence us. In this way we invite upon ourselves the forces of luck.

Question: Can we say that if I simply go with the flow of life, this is called fate, but if I invite upon myself upper forces, this is already luck? That is, I am becoming higher than the program assigned to me.

Answer: Yes. This is basically what happens. Fate is the path that you would have taken if you had not used the forces of luck. And if you use them, it is no longer fate, but your decision, your conscious development.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/24/22

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Comment: Irina is asking: “During this war and these events that are happening, I suddenly have a feeling that I cannot plan anything, that I do not decide anything, that everything is decided for me. They took away the meaning of living the way I want! I have to live as someone else wants! I feel like an animal being led wherever they want: into slavery—so, into slavery; to slaughter—so, to slaughter. And this is called life! How can I break free out of this circle? This is not life!”

My Response: It has always been that way. You just did not realize that you were being controlled. Now you have grown up internally and feel that you are being controlled. This is a completely different state.

What is this for? In order for you to maybe be able to change yourself. To find out why you are being controlled, who is controlling you, what for, why, and how to change yourself so that you can enter this governance yourself. This is already recognizing that you are in a state of spiritual growth.

All these people and governments are in fact puppets. Who is behind them? The upper force that controls all of us through all sorts of figureheads.

It means that we must understand from where, what for, and why, and try to see this upper force that leads us to a certain state and controls us. To come in contact with it in such a way that we would receive all kinds of control signals directly from it.

Question: So that I receive directly from this force? Roughly speaking, why do I need intermediaries? By this I remove these intermediaries and work directly with it, right?

Answer: Of course. This is the level of Moshe (Moses)—the one who talks directly to the Creator. Everyone can come to this. If we get out of slavery, we reach the level of Moses.

This is why we are driven into such states, so that we come out of them and directly connect ourselves to the upper force that wants to lead us somewhere. We are given all the problems just to turn our attention to the upper force. Therefore, it is said about the Creator that He is very jealous.

Question: Is He jealous because we do not pay attention to Him but to everything that happens around us? And we should pay attention to Him?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, are you saying that this direct dialogue is not just possible but necessary? Is that where we are being led?

Answer: He will force us to do this. But it is better to do this sooner.

Question: Will every inhabitant of the Earth be directly speaking with the upper force? What will happen then if this fantasy takes place?

Answer: We will discover the upper force within which we exist, which controls us and leads us to the next degree of development.

We will discover that He surrounds us, includes us, and controls us in everything and by everything and wants us to enter into such a connection with Him that we understand His every action, His every signal to us.

Question: Why does He need it?

Answer: So that we rise to His level. Through this we reach our highest state of development—to be like Him, to see everything, to understand everything, to execute everything, to do everything, to be at the highest level of nature. To see everything from one end to the other. That is, we become eternal and perfect.

Comment: As they used to say at school: “Man is the crown of nature.” The man who mutilated everything around him.

My Response: This is the recognition of our current state. It is terrible, of course! Worse than animals! It is out of this recognition that we come to connection.

Question: What about what you say all the time: love, connection, and good relations?

Answer: We must cultivate this within ourselves by force. From this forced cultivation we will come to this feeling. We will come to this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/25/22

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Question: “Does God exist?”

Answer: No, there is no God. There is nature with its eternal laws, and the main basic force of nature we call  “the Creator” because nature creates. Among other things, it also created us.

We are inside nature, we are part of it. But not in the way it seems to us that supposedly we can observe it from the outside and thus make some decisions outside of nature. We ourselves are a product of its work, and I would say, not the best one.

Yet, we are special, because we can see, observe, make decisions, somehow change something, we have a certain freedom of will.

In general, we are inside nature, and all of it is a creation, inside of which there is a force holding this entire system. This force is called the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Does God Exist?” 5/9/11

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The problem with humanity is that we should have invented some developmental goals for ourselves earlier, but now we can’t because the next degree is not in the same direction and perspective as previous levels of development. Previously, we developed instinctively, under the pressure of nature, and everything was fine. In a way, we sort of thought, sort of did, sort of even made revolutions. In fact, it is not “us” at all.

There is no freewill here, but it seemed so to us because the development took place according to growing egoism, which was constantly increasing in us. We were just looking for the best way to realize it. And so we realized it, some this way, others that way, in accordance with their internal natural data, which we call mentality, a particularity.

But now we must ascend to another degree and, contrary to our egoism, build a connected society, something that was not done in Ancient Babylon. Then we were given the opportunity to settle apart from each other, and therefore, we did not need to dock together.

And now we have come to the need for full communication again. Absolutely complete! But we have it one-sided, economic and egoistic. We need to make it different exactly according to the condition of ancient Babylon, as Abraham told all Babylonians, all people on Earth need to get together and be friends, to become “as one man with one heart,” one desire, one family.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Organic food” 10/21/09

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there free will in this world?“

There is no free will in our world. Free will is possible only if we have an opportunity to rise above the egoistic nature of our world, i.e. the nature where we wish to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature, which determines our decisions and behavior.

We consider ourselves free for as long as we do not think about it and identify ourselves with our animate body. But if we rose above our body a little, we would see that it strictly obeys the laws and processes it is subject to.

We think that we determine all kinds of choices in our lives. However, we are placed in certain conditions and given certain inner qualities, while our desire to enjoy runs like an engine according to a simple principle: maximum pleasure and gain for minimum effort and investment.

We calculate according to this principle at every moment, direction, place and in relation to everything. That is how nature works. It takes into consideration various conditions, such as how tired and healthy we are, and how much risk is involved versus the quality and quantity of enjoyment—and accordingly passes out decisions. We can thus see how we remain in the ego, and how there is no free will in its range of functioning.

We have to realize that we can realize our free will by controlling and being above our desire. The more we stay in our egoistic desire, the more we remain as obedient puppets, fully controlled by egoism.

If, however, we wish to take control of the situation, then we have to manage our desire, which is done by rising above it. In other words, we can experience free will, but only above desire.

Then the question becomes: How can we rise above our egoistic nature in order to realize our free will?

That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah engages in.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on November 26, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is any human really free?“

We have no free choice at our current level of existence. Decisions are made, either consciously or subconsciously, somewhere in our subconscious based on certain instincts, habits and social influences. And even if we accidentally choose something, it is also not freedom since we choose by chance instead of deciding by ourselves.

If we are given the opportunity to make a free choice at our current level of existence, we would not know what to base it on, where to lead it, and why we would choose one thing over another.

Our current understanding of freedom is to seek minimal pressure from undesirable extraneous sources. It is thus not freedom as a category.

Freedom is when we are positioned between two natures, two universes, corporeal and spiritual, i.e. when we can act based on the practice of receiving for our own sake (the corporeal nature), or bestowal and love for the sake of others (the spiritual nature).

Between these two natures, we have the opportunity for freedom. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is a specific inner place called Klipat Noga (the Noga shell). It is a very special and subtle point-like state that is located between two universes. In between them, we have a choice of where we can go, but the moment we have made the choice, we then have no freedom neither here nor there.

Based on KabTV’s “Close- Up, Dissenting Opinion” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 29, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Find yourself and be yourself: Remember, there is no one else like you on Earth like you (Dale Carnegie).

Comment: But we spend our whole life fulfilling desires imposed on us from the outside. For the most part, we are not ourselves.

My Response: We, like little children, are constantly learning from others. Look at a little child. He constantly learns from adults and imitates them. You can call, let’s say, a cup by some other word, and he will repeat it after you and get used to this name.

If you teach him an action, he will try to repeat it. Then this habit will enter into his nature. He will instinctively prefer this action to others, even ones that are more reasonable and useful, because habit becomes second nature and by fulfilling its desires, he will enjoy it.

Therefore, we are all an imprint of the surrounding society and none of us is ourselves

Question: Isn’t it time for us to be ourselves? When can this happen?

Answer: Today there is already such a desire, but still in a small number of people who are beginning to ask themselves about the purpose of existence, about the seeming purposelessness of this world. Millions of people in the world are asking this question, but millions are not billions.
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From KabTV’s “Close Up. Theater of the Absurd”

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Question: Kevin Strickland was 18 years old when he was convicted for shooting and killing and given a life sentence. He served 42 years and only now was it revealed that the charges were false. A witness who survived the shooting had pointed him out as one of the shooters. She had doubts, but hesitated in telling the truth because she was afraid of accusations in her direction. She later admitted that she was pressured by the police.

How does a person who has wrongly imprisoned another for 42 years feel?

Answer: It’s hard to imagine.

Question: Why is such a thing given to a person?

Answer: We don’t know what kind of punishments these are and what kind of corrections they are. Unfortunately, we don’t know what it is at all.

Question: So it was directed from above?

Answer: Of course, it is all from above. There is a purpose to this.

Question: Can an innocent man who has been in prison for so many years justify society and people?

Answer: I think he no longer has the strength to be against anything. He has already cried everything out, his hands have dropped, and he continues to simply live.

Question: How can we accept that there is such a punishment from the Creator? It’s not your fault, but you’ve been locked up for years. You talk about the Creator all the time. How can this be accepted?

Answer: I think that here we still need to figure out what is really happening above oneself and above this circumstance. After all, in order to understand the decision of fate, you need to be above what it did to you within the place where these questions are being decided.

Therefore, I don’t think that a person who has served so many years will just live with this organic hatred. He will still have to mature over all these years and reach the point that it’s not about people and not who decided, but it’s about some kind of upper management and a plan that needs to be understood.

Question: So it will sweeten his feeling?

Answer: No, not only sweeten, if I want to engage in scrutinizing such questions, I have to put it on the level of fate. It’s not just someone who wanted something or someone who did something.

Question: Is this already a correct step when a person begins to think: “Why is this done to me? What did the Creator do to me?” And so on?

Answer: Yes, he wants to penetrate into the plan of actions and this is already higher than a person and really the level of the Creator.

Question: I wonder if it would be justified for a person to suffer for so many years in order to come to such a thought?

Answer: Of course. Undoubtedly.

What is 40 years and in general what is human life? If he had lived it as some kind of locksmith or technologist, or no matter who and what, he would have had children or would have been imprisoned for petty theft and so on. But he would not have been able to scrutinize such questions that he may be thinking about in prison if he had his freedom.

And in freedom his life would have been like in prison, where he would live only inside himself and his egoistic thoughts. When he is in prison, then he will be free from his egoistic thoughts and maybe he will think within the framework of real freedom.

Question: If he rises to the Creator in his thoughts, will he be in dialog with Him? And do you think that even these sufferings for many years are justified?

Answer: Of course! These are all small things and are considered egoistic whining.

Question: Only to come to these thoughts?

Answer: Of course!

Question: So if he comes to these thoughts, then his whole life is justified?

Answer: Of course. Not only life, but precisely the kind of life that would have otherwise seemed to him that death is better than such imprisonment. He begins to understand that this is not imprisonment, but is in fact freedom. And where he would have felt freedom before he now feels the captivity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/6/22

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