Question: There is a term “to run after the crowd,” to be under its influence. Is it possible not to run after it, but to go against the stream?

Answer: It is very difficult. The influence of the enormous human mass on an individual is almost irresistible. It is necessary to rise above all this mass, to unite with the upper force that controls it and to be at the level of the manager.

But a person cannot just tear himself away from the masses. He must oppose it with the force of a higher degree.

Question: We should not go against the current, not fight, but rise?

Answer: Otherwise, nothing will work! You will still fall under yourself or under others. You have to be under someone, because a person is an egoist.

Question: How often is it necessary to change the environment in which a person is and whose influence he receives?

Answer: Every minute! Why should I restrain myself if I can always fall under the influence of a more progressive society? More kind, more just.

Question: But, in theory, it needs to be checked?

Answer: It already depends on my preparation. But time plays no role here. A person can move so intensively that changes in external influences will occur in him literally once a minute.
[277550]
From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 1/12/21

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Question: Our brain categorizes everything it feels. From these categorizing what is known as bias grows. That is, a person thinks in patterns and often makes decisions that were originally ingrained in him. Sometimes these decisions can be wrong, unfair.

Scientists say that one of the methods of preventing bias is to stop a person in time and ask him the appropriate questions. Basically, make him pause so that he asks himself, “What assumptions do I have? What influences me in order to make the right decision?”

We are subjected to bias from birth. What can I do about it? How can I not succumb to it?

Answer: I believe that nothing will help except the right environment, which will influence a person. If one begins to question himself, to remember some of his schemes, habits, and patterns implanted in him from childhood, it will not have any results. The only remedy is to be constantly under the strong influence of the right environment.

It turns out that you can only fight against bias by changing it to another. That is, a person is initially under the influence of one society, which forms something in him. Then he gets under another influence and it forms something new in him.

Nothing can be done otherwise. Then there will be a third society, a fourth, and so on, which will influence him more and more. However, from each environment, he will receive what it imbues him with. In this way, he will begin to comprehend everything better and go up the degrees.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 1/12/21

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Question: Isn’t the desire to become like the Creator the highest level of egoism?

Why should attainment happen precisely through Kabbalah if the Creator originally intended the created beings to obtain His quality? It would be more logical if the Creator already instilled the necessary knowledge and instructions for this life in each person at birth.

Answer: Then a person would be just a machine, a robot. The desire of the Creator, however, is to create man in full likeness with Him. That is, to have freewill, choice, decision, and action.

This is impossible without problems, descents, ascents, and understanding, without everything we have today. This is a very difficult path but it constantly shapes the inner consciousness of a person. Only then can he understand the Creator, His thought, His purpose, and implement it.
[277198]
From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 3/20/19

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Question: Is it possible to influence the development and course of events or are they predetermined?

Answer: On one hand, they are predetermined, but on the other hand, I can influence their implementation to the extent that I understand that they are predetermined.

Comment: It sounds like a rebus.

My Response: Because there are two types of freedom of will: from the side of nature and from the side of man. And if they understand each other—nature and man (or the Creator and man)—then their plans combine together and get realized.

To the extent that a person can make of himself what nature wants from him, he predetermines his ascent to that level.

Question: What does nature want from us?

Answer: It wants us to be good and kind. Good and kind so that everyone, everyone indeed, is happy with you. Not in our world. In our world we are surrounded by egoists and this cannot happen.

When I talk about humanity, about nature, I mean a completely different level of existence.

Question: When will they be happy with me? What is this goodness that is expected of me?

Answer: When you correct all the people and they become absolutely kind, perfect, and corrected. This is your responsibility. By this, you correct yourself. After all, you see yourself in people. You see the reflection of yourself. In this way, you correct the Creator.

Question: The Creator needs to be corrected?

Answer: Of course. We must make Him! He does not exist at all. You must make Him! And constantly try to make Him better and better. This is what the Torah says: “As though you have made Me.”
[277119]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/20

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Question: Does what the upcoming year will be like depend on everyone?

Answer: Yes! It depends on everyone. And in the most direct way.

That is, I create my own life, myself, my own world. I just need to learn how to do it. The science of Kabbalah is called the science of receiving, how to get what you want from life.

Question: What should I create?

Answer: Yourself. And accordingly, together with this, you create the world in which you exist.

To create yourself is to make yourself what you dream of, what we need to come to. So that you do not regret anything, and for everything  you thank nature, the Creator, and people—everyone for everything!

I’m talking about lofty dreams—entering the level of eternity and perfection. This is prepared for everyone, but we must try to do it in the near future.

We can’t put it off. This is necessary in the coming year. So now we start working on it.

Question: Can I say, “Now I want to enter a state where I will be loving, giving, and existing in an eternal space”?

Answer: Yes. To this end, you should now begin to wonder how this is achieved.

And this thought of yours will make this goal. Man makes himself and the world.
[276959]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/20

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Question: In Kabbalah, the absence of actions for the unification of the people is considered a sin. At the same time, Kabbalah says that there is no freedom of choice. Where does the sin come from?

Answer: The freedom is only to move toward the goal correctly and much faster than it is determined by nature.

Question: If I pray for myself, it is a sin according to Kabbalah. On the other hand, what choice do I have?

Answer: Your choice is to pray that you relate kindly to others and for the Creator to help you with this. In this way, you accelerate your movement and your development.

Question: Do I have the freedom of choice to ask the Creator for help?

Answer: Yes. It depends on how much you enter the group that inspires you, helps you, and pushes you forward. You use their mutual support and thus turn to the Creator through taking a certain number of impressions from the group.

Question: What is sin, from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Sin is the wrong use of those conditions that are given to you in order to move correctly toward the goal and achieve it quickly and painlessly, during this lifetime.
[274774]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/14/20

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Comment: Paris hotels are empty. There is a pandemic and no tourists. The Hotel Avenir Montmartre, which is in a good location with a view of the Eiffel Tower, let the homeless in.

The hotel management gave rooms to a homeless charity and provided shelter to people during the year so that they would not freeze on the streets in the cold; they were placed in these rooms. There, they have three meals a day, a warm shower, and a warm toilet.

This charity believes that, in this way, they will be able to make the homeless change their lives.

My Response: No. This is a lifestyle.

Question: To live on the streets?

Answer: Yes! I feel free. I do not owe anything to anyone and no one owes me anything. I do not need anything. I do not want any mutual obligations. I want to feel free.

Question: Is this not a misfortune as we all think?

Answer: This is not a misfortune. It is a feeling of such freedom, such an existence that no one else has.

Comment: I will carefully assume that the homeless are looking at us and saying, “Here are the unfortunate ones! With all their businesses and affairs.”

My Response: Yes. The main thing is that we live in the pursuit of time and they have no time; time has no control over them.

Comment: This is nice. We have a clock ticking all the time, all the time, everything is time, yes. I didn’t have time.

My Response: This is how we subconsciously think that I did not have time to do and what I managed to do.

And here, nothing! Do you understand what happiness is?! For the sake of this feeling of freedom, they are ready to live on the street. A person always chooses egoistically, there is nothing you can do about this. This is our nature. They choose this state. Therefore, they will come, of course, to the hotels, but I do not think there will be very many of them.

I do not think they will use hotels 100%. These are people who, in principle, do not care so much about whether or not they washed themselves and even whether they ate normally or not, as long as this would not affect the sense of their timelessness. We do not even feel how it is possible to exist outside of time, outside of movement. This is actually a spiritual feeling since time is the most important thing we have.

Comment: Yes. These are our fetters. If you go on a little longer, I will drop everything and go out on the street, just like that. There is even some romance in this.

My Response: This is the choice a person has, not because he couldn’t do anything else. This is his choice. I would even say that France has enough funds to look after these clochards [vagrants], not necessarily now, because of the pandemic, but in general, there were all sorts of opportunities.

Yet, they do not leave the streets. They believe that such an existence gives them a sense of freedom. You can say, “But they do not exist as homeless people, they exist as animals.” They live on the street, no matter where, how, or what. That’s right. But, this is their choice.

The most important thing is whether a person controls time or time controls a person, right up to the point of death.

Question: How can we, without going out onto the streets, begin to control time?

Answer: To do this, we must get out of all the restraints that our egoism imposes on us, rise above them, above egoism, and begin to act in a completely different way, not for ourselves, but for others. We have no other choice. Then, you will feel that you are coming out of one captivity and falling into another captivity, into caring for others, but there you will feel free from earthly fetters.

Comment: But, still, looking at the homeless.

My Response: Envy them! On the other hand, we can say that we are now getting closer to them in some ways. The virus makes us stay at home and not rush.

You cannot do anything anyway. Stay at home for a couple of months longer and then you will check to see if you can stick your nose out onto the street or not. If you are not yet above your destiny, then you will stay at home for a couple of months more and so on, until you start to feel that there is no time.

Now, you are still writing in your calendar, another couple of months, another three months, and more. When you stop doing that, you will lose your sense of time. Then, instead of a sense of time, you will have another sense.

You will begin to define this feeling as other space-time relationships and connection between everyone. The past, present, and future will become a movement toward universal connection. Then, you will measure in this way: if there is a connection and it becomes more and more explicit and desirable, then I go forward and I live. If this connection does not manifest in a larger and larger connection between us, then time begins to fly. This is exactly when it flies.

Question: Does this mean that time stops when I find a connection with others, as if I have passed into an almost eternal state?

Answer: Yes. If everything moves, not within me, but between me and others, then time slows down to a standstill.

Comment: Thoughts about others, living for others, I will live like this.

My Response: Yes. Circulation within a closed system will bring this system into a state of absolute rest.

This feeling is the attainment of the Creator.
[276647]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/21/20

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Question: There is a small letter addressed to you: “’You have repeatedly said how a person is influenced by the environment and that it is the only thing both we, adults and children, need. It builds us, directs us, corrects us. The main thing is to have a good, correct environment’. But then what do we do now? During the pandemic, we are practically isolated from each other, except for the family, of course. What shapes me now? Who influences me?”

Answer: Society, first of all.

Question: Where is it? Apart from my family, I do not have much contact.

Answer: No, it does not matter. We are in a world that is influencing us. It is all in the atmosphere. That is the first thing. Secondly, I am, of course, influenced by my immediate environment. My family. Maybe I am working. I am also in all kinds of small environments, companies.

Thirdly, if, let us say I am talking about myself, I have another circle, the most important one for me, of like-minded people. We organize an environment for ourselves that elevates us above the pandemic, above this world, above things that ordinary people see here. In this environment, we are trying to create conditions in order to feel the upper world.

Question: If we are talking about an ordinary person, what does this environment give him?

Answer: It gives him a sense of the eternity of nature, the opportunity to enter this feeling and exist in it with a higher focus, purpose.

Question: Is this necessary for any person today?

Answer: I cannot imagine what one would do without this. Why live? Today will pass, tomorrow will pass, again and again. Even without football! It will be even worse. We will soon begin to feel how much we have exhausted the Earth, exhausted ourselves, human nature, human society, how poor we are in general. What can I fill myself with at least a little?! On one hand, there is no desire for anything, and on the other hand, the fulfillments disappear.

Question: Were we deliberately driven today into this box—our house?

Answer: Yes. This is a wonderful period! Recognition of the evil of our egoism and where it has led us. This is the first thing that should happen. Second, I start looking for an environment that is engaged only in connecting with each other to rise to the next level of nature, to climb upon it, to cling to the next level of nature, where there is bestowal, love, where a person lives not with the help of egoistic desire, but altruistically.

This is what will give a person unlimited fulfillment. We will begin to feel ourselves existing in a common space that is simply hidden from us today; we do not feel it because all our organs are egoistic. Then we will exit ourselves and begin to feel nature outside of us.

It is like that little worm that lives in a radish and suddenly sticks its head out of the radish and exclaims: “I thought the whole world was as bitter as this radish! Now I see the sun, the air, and the birds are singing. How lovely!”

Question: Where is the environment in this story with the little worm?

Answer: This is exactly what allows the worm to get out of the radish.

Question: Otherwise would he have continued living in it?

Answer: Yes, of course. Just like we still do today.

Comment: I see. It means we need to get out of the radish.

Answer: Good luck!
[276360]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/7/20

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Question: It turns out that the Creator created a game for us, that is, evil, and the rules of the game by which we should play. Where is the freedom of choice here? What depends on me?

Answer: The freedom of choice is not to play by the rules of the Creator, but in the fact that you accept these rules of the game and play by them.

You may not accept them, but then you will be driven to do so by the blows of fate. Nobody says that you are free.
[276329]
From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 12/31/18

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Comment: The international day of tolerance was celebrated on November 16th in a world where we practically see no tolerance. Patience has run out.

In America, Europe, and Asia, whatever we may call it, there is no tolerance. Look at what is happening in Ethiopia, in Belarus. Anywhere you look.

My Response: The world is now entering a very serious peak, a fall.

Question: What does the term “tolerance” mean to you?

Answer: Tolerance is a very useful word, a very good method if we know how to apply it, if we have the right attitude toward each other, that the world exists for everyone equally and in equal measure so that we do not favor anyone over anyone else. This must be taught, we are not born this way.

The Creator made everyone different. And we must make ourselves equal. Therefore, here we must go against nature, against the Creator. And think seriously about what we are actually doing to ourselves.

Comment: You said that we must go against the Creator. The Creator has created us in such a way that there is no patience, no tolerance, but you tell us that we must resist this, saying: “We want to be patient.”

My Response: Of course! The Creator Himself says: “I created the evil inclination. And you have to correct it.”

Question: And how do we do it?

Answer: Ask the Creator for another force, the force of tolerance, the power of unity and connection, of patience and understanding of others as an integral part of oneself.

Question: At what point do I request this?

Answer: When I see that it destroys everything, including myself, and I do not agree to it! When one understands that to turn his back on the world whatever happens, letting it all collapse, taking him down with it is the easiest solution.

It is much harder to live, to correct yourself, to correct the world, and so on every day.

Comment: You are giving humanity a job it does not want to do.

My Response: That is what education is all about—what we should bring to a person who agrees to self-destruct: “Press the button, and in a moment there will be nothing left.” This is too easy.

But no, I have to think about how to pull everyone out of this swamp of worthlessness, insignificance, intolerance. I must pull everyone up to raise their heads, open their eyes, and start looking at the world in a new way.

Question: Do I know where I am taking them?

Answer: Of course.

Question: What is it like, this better world?

Answer: Thinking good about each other. Nothing more. And we instantly attract the good force of nature, which we have never felt before. Instead of the evil force that still governs us today, we will feel a different, good force.

We are only required to want to be under the power of this force.

Comment: At what point do I want to be under the power of this force and start changing anything? After all, if everything is my evil inclination, for such is my nature, it will only come back to haunt me.

Let’s say I do something bad to someone, send some negative thoughts, and it comes back to me ten times worse. Then I could understand you. Then I would stop and think: “Wow, I thought poorly of him and it all blew up in my face.” This I can understand if the Creator would make it so that it would come back tenfold like a boomerang.

My Response: Then you would be an animal! You would not do anything wrong, but you would not have freewill, which lies exactly between good and bad actions.

Question: Yes, I would follow the stick. If the stick hits me, I know how to get away from it. Is it wrong?

Answer: By doing so, you would turn a human being into a robot, which is completely against the Creator’s intention.

Question: But if it doesn’t come back to me like a boomeranging, if I get richer and richer by suppressing others, as it happens, how will this thought occur?

Answer: Circumstances will bring you there.

Question: Suffering?

Answer: Yes. Good thoughts are not triggered by good life.

Question: Where is the education you always keep talking about?

Answer: No one has any.

Question: So who will introduce it?

Answer: I believe only the Kabbalists can. They must show the world the right sources. And the world is slowly coming to this.

Question: Do you think that sooner or later people will come to the Kabbalists and ask for this educational instruction?

Answer: Yes, to teach them this methodology.

Question: So, after all the attempts to arrange something in this world with the help of the laws of our world, humanity will understand that this is impossible and that other rules are needed?

Answer: Yes. I hope it will happen a bit sooner than them pressing the red button.
[275674]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/16/20

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