Dear Michael Laitman,

You have been a replacement for me for radio and TV for a long time. I have been with you for three years. I want to ask a question, Where do desires come from?

Moreover, such desires are shameful to admit. And sometimes you cannot get rid of them. They were not in me, generally, I have a completely different character. Please tell me how to deal with such desires that are not good? 

Answer: I do not know what “bad desires” means.

Comment: A person is somehow uncomfortable with the desires that suddenly arise in him.

My Response: Well, desires arise. Man is a complex animal after all. He consists of an animal part, a human part, and possibly a spiritual part.

Question: Meaning, desires from all degrees come to him?

Answer: Yes. So there is nothing to worry about. All desires have the right to be revealed and to exist in a person.

Question: Any desire?

Answer: Absolutely any. And a person can have all kinds of relationships to this.

Question: What does one need to do if bad desires arise, even those that shake a person?

Answer: I see. What to do? Shake yourself, shake them off, and continue to exist. You need to engage in something else, and then the desire will change.

Comment: Please answer the question “where do they come from and why?”

My Response: From above! Why? In order for a person to develop. In order to develop him.

Question: When you say “develop,” what does it mean? So that some specific desires arise in him?

Answer: Desires, emotions, intentions, and so on, such that will match the more developed person that he will become.

Question: You said “from above.” Is there a bank of desires that one needs to go through?

Answer: Yes. There is a bank of desires that we have to go through, each of us and all of us together.

Question: And when this bank is emptied, desires pass, what happens next? When all the desires have already passed through me, what does it mean?

Answer: The end of the world. We have worked out all our desires and are at rest.

Question: The end of the world, what is that in your opinion?

Answer: The end of the world means that there is no one to live onward, there is no need, and there is no goal.

Question: So I will not be coming back here?

Answer: No.

Question: Where will I end up? This world has ended. Where do I end up?

Answer: In the next world.

Question: And what is there in the next world?

Answer: Happiness, peace, and all good things are waiting for you in the next world.

Question: I already like this. That is, in principle, this whole chain of desires should lead me to the world where there is happiness, peace, everything?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How should I work out these desires in order to come to this peace and happiness?

Answer: You will come to it anyway. So, do not worry. The only thing you need is to agree that you will be brought there. And therefore, in accordance with this, live calmly, breathe calmly, and be peaceful toward the upper force that will lead you there.
[316377]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/23

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Question: Whenever I make a decision, it seems like I have weighed everything, all the pros and cons, but almost always, the opposite happens. If I want to save money, I lose it; If I want to save time, I lose it; If I want to please my wife, everything comes out backwards. I’m getting desperate. How should I make decisions?

Answer: Do not make them, and you’ll see how everything works out. Calm down and don’t make decisions. I do not know what decisions you need to make, but generally, you should let go of the reins and let the horse drive you. Let it take you where it feels you need to go. An animal is never wrong. People are wrong.

Question: Is this animal our body?

Answer: Yes, so everything will be fine.

Question: Let us say I have a desire to save money and I keep spending as before; is the outcome the same or am I saving? Have I put anything away and started saving?

Answer: Give the money to your wife; that’s all. If you try to hoard it, it won’t work. Better give it to someone in charge of it anyway.

Question: I see. So along the same lines, what if I want to save time, to generally make better use of my time?

Answer: Nothing will happen. Live quietly with the questions that arise. Deal with them as they come up and do not stress over it.

Question: Is there a higher wisdom in this?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: So is it like entrusting myself into His hands, as in, you created me like this, and this is how I come? If only we could yield like that! How many mistakes would we have avoided!

My Response: “If youth only knew, if old age only could.”

Question: This means, all our actions in this world: to save time, or money, to be someone, to make something, etc., are all somehow corrupt?

Answer: Yes, because we are rooted in egoism. There is nothing you can do here.
[316463]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/31/23

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Question: In the learning process of artificial intelligence, the mechanism of the black box is completely preserved in it. If before a person created computers, he clearly knew it was a microcircuit, an algorithm; there is a cause and effect, and everything goes along the chain and leads to some result. A person understood the whole scheme.

When training artificial intelligence, the structure of neural networks is modeled. At the first level, a huge amount of information is loaded into it—trillions of data. After that something happens in it, like in a black box. Do neural networks themselves line up inside the black box?

Answer: Yes, this is the point at which we do not own data and information.

Comment: This information is located precisely inside the black box, and a person does not know what is happening there both in relation to himself and in relation to his creation. He just gets some result that statistically satisfies him more.

My Response: In general, a lot of questions arise here. How do we choose the result? Do we choose intuitively or because it is inherent in us, that such a result is closer to us and we agree to live with it, but with another one—no way. That is, there is a big problem here in the person himself, not in the machine, not in what it chooses, but in the person who chooses.

Therefore, many questions still remain open. But I think that in the coming years, we will begin to understand this more. I do not know when we can solve this, but we will be able to understand.
[316492]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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Question: During life, a person acquires life experience and learns from examples and abstract concepts. This is similar to the training of an animal when we set some tasks for it, give examples, and some kind of reward for performing them. Based on the results of these actions, we evaluate whether the dog is smart or stupid. Is a person trained in the same way during his life?

Answer: Of course, we evaluate ourselves and everyone else only in relation to our tasks.

Question: Some information is constantly entering a person. There are some calculations going on inside him that are concealed from him, and he acts on their basis. How can he catch the reason for these actions in order to justify them?

For example, with artificial intelligence, it is clear that a person sets goals for it, gives it a database for training, and even evaluates what is good and what is bad in its actions. How can this be determined in relation to a person?

Answer: There is nothing we can do about a person because the higher nervous activity is also taken into account here. So this is harder with a person. And it will get harder with machines. If we are talking about self-learning algorithms, then it will be difficult for us to establish the right attitude to the machine. And to a person too.

Therefore, we treat each other purely externally, one cannot go inside the other. It is unclear how and what to do with this person inside himself because he is a thing in itself.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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Question: There is a common expression: “A thought came to mind.” Where does the thought come from?

Answer: We do not know this.

Comment: A person does not really think about this much.

My Response: Exactly, that is why a person does not think about it; a person does not know. A person cannot control it and is not capable of controlling it. And even if someone from the outside would tell him about it, it still would not help because he cannot exit the “black box”—himself.

Question: Within the framework of our material life, it seems to us that we formulate our own goals and decide for ourselves how to achieve them. Is it an illusion or not?

Answer: Of course it seems that way. After all, we cannot be certain about anything. We make mistakes, change our minds, and listen to other opinions. In regard to everything that happens, a person cannot say with 100% certainty that he is sure of something. There is no ultimate truth.
[316413]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23

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Sometimes I imagine the following scene: we come to heaven, and God comes to everyone and asks, “what did you think?”, and I answer: “What do I think about what? I am a sinner Lord, please have mercy on me.”

But He will interrupt me and say: “Yes I already know that. How do you like the Earth?” “What are you talking about, Lord?” l ask. And He says: “I created the Earth. What do you think about it? Did you like it? Did you see what kind of fish I invented? What about my volcanoes? And the jungle? I spent so much time on waterfalls! And whales are so beautiful! Well, tell me, what did you like the most?”

I am very afraid that I will stand and blink my eyes and say, “Well I just did not have time. I worked a lot. Then the family, the kids, the annual report, and the car loan. But I wanted to, God; I wanted to. I am a sinner, Lord, please have mercy on me.” Then he says, “You are not a sinner, but stupid. There will not be a second chance” (Source Unknown).

Question: will there be a second chance?

My Response: We always think there will be.

Question: This is why we live life as if we have a second chance. Is that right?

Answer: Partly, yes. Partly, but why? Maybe this time we were already living in a second chance, or in a third one, or in some other one.

Comment: Yes, we do not know this.

My Response: What can we do? Therefore, it is best to rely on God and think about how to correct what we can now.

Comment: This scenario shows that we do not see that everything is created by Him and how beautiful it all is. We do not see this due to our running around, the annual reports, and all this other fuss.

My Response: Yes, naturally.

Question: To see this, what do we need?

Answer: Wow! To do this you need to see the world. To see the world before you, the entire world, its interconnections, and its harmony. The most important thing is how the upper force of the Creator is clothed into it.

Comment: If only it were revealed!

My Response: If it were, there would be no freewill. I would just be tied up by this, bound hand and foot, and I would have nothing left.

Comment: But you keep saying that we have to come to this harmony one way or another.

My Response: We must come to this harmony because we choose it ourselves, we search for it ourselves, and we ourselves want to somehow mold it from our various impressions.

Question: Does it mean that, in any case, we have to rise from this bottom, from running around, and the annual reports?

Answer: Absolutely! In principle, we are given a chance to reach this state all the time. But we have to go through the bottom.

Question: What do we have to accomplish in this world? Basically the question is: what do we live for?

Answer: In this world we must succeed in order to feel His entire system, the upper mind, and the will of the Creator, which controls all this.

Question: But do we start with the fact that we absolutely do not feel it?

Answer: We do not feel anything. Then we begin to feel that we are completely confused. There is a period when a person simply does not know why, what for, or how. Then this purpose gradually begins to manifest itself within him, the reason everything is arranged in this way. Based on this purpose, he is as if unwinding his life back to his birth and begins to understand how it all happened.

Question: But this point that arises, the purpose that suddenly appears in all this confusion, has it already been in us or is it being introduced into us in response to our efforts?

Answer: We have everything within us. Absolutely everything! But we need to sort all this out, hold on to the beginning and the end of life, and feel that we have passed it with the help of the Creator, in accordance with His intention.

Question: That is, during our lives, we essentially rake all this garbage inside us? We are raking and raking, until we find this point? Is this a person’s life?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is this garbage all of the other desires and thoughts?

Answer: It is something that was specifically confusing us, so that we would dig in even more and figure it out.

Question: Was it deliberately confusing us and specially given to us?

Answer: Of course.
[316042]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/17/23

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Question: People who practice Kabbalah develop certain callousness after a while as a natural effect. How can this callousness be used correctly?

Answer: They are like that because they are given freewill. This is how I behave with my students as well. Otherwise, will I be force them to be the way I want them to be? No. They must take each step by themselves or they will not start walking and learn how to navigate in this world!

A little man changes under the influence of the environment. He looks at others and this is it, he does not need anything else. He sees a child a year older than himself, and it is an angel for him, it is an example for him. He looks at him and does the same.

He automatically enters the kindergarten and nothing else exists for him: other kids sit down, he sits down; they get up, he gets up; they go somewhere, he follows them like a monkey! Look how this instinct introduces us to life and helps us. Look what nature does!

It means you need to use this instinct. This is the most natural action. We just need to get into the right environment, the right “kindergarten,” and learn from good, right people, and then everything will be fine.
[315951]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ruthless people” 9/17/11

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Question: Why is there a parallel between self-annulment in Kabbalah and totalitarian suppression of personality? After all, both paths are very similar.

Answer: In totalitarian suppression of personality, you are not offered a different personality! You are being suppressed against your will.

On the spiritual path, you have the freewill to annul yourself at each next degree and thus ascend to it. This is called the law of equivalence. When I wish to ascend to the next degree, I am obliged to take its form, and then I leave the previous form of the lower degree and ascend to the next one.

At the next degree I become completely filled with it, recognize it, understand it, feel it, analyze it, and synthesize it within myself. Once I finished it and became it, I have to voluntarily, consciously, and by my own effort, annul myself before the next degree, before the higher mind and sensation. This is how I grow each time.

Otherwise, I will never become a human being from a cat. If I like being a cat, I use its brains and feelings. Therefore, I have to annul this degree in myself and want to become a person. That is, by annulling the cat’s states in myself, I take on the image of a person and rise.

This is not totalitarianism! I force myself to do this, no one else does. This is how it is set by nature. You want to accuse the Creator that, allegedly, He forces us in this way! Offer me another way to climb from degree to degree. How else will you rise if you do not annul your present degree and accept the next one as necessary, in advance, before you ascend on it?!

However, the desire for it you develop by yourself, no one can force you. You yourself realize that the state you are in now has worked itself out. Like in a rocket, that stage should fall off and burn, and you fly on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How can We Trust You?” 9/16/11

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Question: You told us that once when you and Rabash were driving somewhere, your car suddenly stalled. Then Rabash read TES and the car started. This, in principle, is perceived as a miracle. Did the Kabbalist somehow influence this?

Answer: Yes he did. So what? He could in a particular form influence the engine, but not me. Then he would take away my freewill.

Question: That is, a Kabbalist can influence some kind of inanimate level?

Answer: This is not about whether he can or cannot do that! You can do your child’s homework from school instead of him. But what is the point? What will he do on the exams?

Question: But if people who are on the inanimate level behave like robots, does it mean that a Kabbalist can influence them?

Answer: What for? Man, during tens of thousands of years of his development from fossil species to our time and beyond, must develop only under the influence of nature. There should be no influence of people on him from the side; there is no coercion in spirituality.

By doing this, you are depriving him of the opportunity to grow further. If you solve a problem instead of him, you remove an obstacle before him, and that’s it, he is no longer ready to advance further. He will not be able to!
[314904]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hidden wonders” 8/5/11

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Question: If the Creator completely governs everything and a person supposedly has freewill, then why does He lead us through violence and suffering?

Answer: The Creator governs us by the laws of nature. The Creator is the general force of nature in which two forces emanating from Him are opposed: bestowal and reception. A person is between them, and both properties affect him.

The question arises: how does a person develop under their influence? What is he doing? What is his freewill? How does he accumulate these two forces in himself? How does he correlate them in himself? How does he build himself out of them?

This is the entire wisdom of Kabbalah: how to receive these two forces in the right form and with their help shape yourself so as to become similar to the Creator, rise up, reach Him, and adhere to Him. The fact that He gave us the opportunity to control with the help of these two forces is our freewill!

How can we act if we do not have it? Who will we be then? Just the ones who are controlled?

Until now, we have been just the controlled ones. What does it mean? The Creator adds a little bit of egoism as if He gives you a drop of injection and releases the egoism in you a little more, and you take something upon yourself, do this and that, twist and turn. So does everyone else. He squeezes the syringe a little bit more and so on all the time until He squeezes the whole injection into you.

Right now you are filled to the limit with egoism. No more. This is why you have nowhere to escape. Where to go? What to do?

Moreover, egoism has closed and become global and integral. In the beginning we felt good because we reached egoistic global connections in the world and thought that everything would be fine. But when these connections began to depend on everyone, we turned out to be the opposite of nature. And here we have a problem: what to do about it?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Is the Creator a pervert?” 8/2/11

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