Choose the Best Environment

Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”: Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.

A person who chooses the best environment each time achieves a reward: his next, better, more advanced state.

Question: The appearance of good or bad thoughts in me is also not from me?

Answer: No. But what you do with them is from you.

You can “kind of” program yourself for the future. I stress, “kind of.” Indeed, in order to develop even greater freewill in you, your settings will be knocked down every time, giving you the opportunity to direct yourself to the goal with finer accuracy. Like a ship from the sea entering a riverbed full of branches, it is constantly guided; you need to move the same way.

Question: So, to be a good or bad person, to do good or bad, does not depend on the person?

Answer: No. Just by choosing your environment, as a result of this, you do good or bad deeds.

Moreover, you should always try to make a good deed against your previous state, and a bad one in relation to your future state, then the next state will be better. And do not despair if your next state is shown to you: “Ah, you see?! And you are not the one.” This is in order to push you forward.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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In the Maelstrom Whirl of Life

Question: Are all a person’s actions and conditions in this world predetermined, except for one’s aspiration for spiritual development?

Answer: A person also has a certain predisposition to spiritual development. One feels that they are drawn somewhere.

In our world we do not just rush in the maelstrom of life. For example, if I look back from the height of my seventy years, then I will see how I was always directed somewhere. Although sometimes these were turbulent flows that carried me from country to country, from society to society, it still was a purposeful movement.

At a certain stage of the journey, a person is given the opportunity to pick up the oars and steer one’s boat in a different direction. You must understand this, realize this, determine which sails to raise, and how to control your little life vessel.

In principle, 99.9% of people do not understand this. But there are people who are somehow trying to somehow direct themselves somewhere, although they also do not understand where and for what purpose.

Therefore, now, in our very turbulent time, when maelstroms carry us in an unknown direction, the science of Kabbalah is being revealed which explains that, in principle, you have the opportunity to influence your fate, you have freedom of will.

Despite the fact that you are affected by the initial data embedded in you, it does not matter. All the same, you are given the opportunity to influence yourself through the environment. It is only necessary to choose an increasingly correct environment each time.

In principle, one does not choose the environment, but clearly finds it according to the goal and enters the appropriate environment. Therefore, first of all, you must choose the goal of life.

If you want to be a musician, an artist, or a scientist, then accordingly you choose the environment in which you will develop in order to come closer to the goal that attracts you, the goal that you need.

Question: So, over all these tens of thousands of years of human development, we have not had freedom of choice. But at a certain evolutionary stage, it appears in a person. One seems to accidentally find some kind of environment. And this is also not freewill yet. Does it start when a person is already inside this environment and works with it?

Answer: Yes. A person’s free will manifests itself to the extent that one submits oneself to the environment in order to absorb all the properties and forces necessary to achieve one’s goal from it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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Why Does an Individual Need the Influence of the Environment?

Question: Why is everything created so that I, as an individual, am influenced by society? What does this give me? How can I use it for my spiritual development?

Answer: The fact is with the help of the surrounding society I can control myself. If I am a closed system and I can do nothing with myself and inside myself, then no matter how I spin, like a dog chasing its tail, none of this will work because I have certain properties, qualities, and if I use them, then it will be the same “me.”

How can I make myself go out of myself and exert influence on me from the outside? Here is where the science of Kabbalah shows us a very interesting principle.

It says that if I have a clear, selective attitude to the environment: “This is good for me and that is bad. I want this to affect me more and that to affect me less,” then in this way I choose the sources of influence on me, sort them, and put myself under their influence. Thus, I control myself through the surrounding society.

Maybe I need two hours to be influenced by one group of people, and three hours by another one, or to listen to some report on television, read an article in a newspaper, or surf the Internet. I must constantly monitor what external influences to choose because I create myself in this way. This is the process of my creation of myself. This is what matters. This is my freedom of will. Such an opportunity, such freedom is given to us by the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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Environmental Impact

Question: According to Kabbalah, heredity and the environment are factors that affect a person on an unconscious level.

With heredity, everything is clear. As for the environment, does the environment we exist in affect 100% of us? That is, is it impossible for us not to fall under its influence?

Answer: Even if we do not explicitly choose a specific environment, but are in some kind of contact with it, it still affects us more or less, explicitly or implicitly. Moreover, we ourselves do not even understand how we put ourselves under it. After all, I might not want to be in contact with it, but it still affects me greatly.

Here it is necessary to carry out very serious work and research so a person realizes that the most important thing for us is to understand our surroundings, what exactly affects him or her.

Sometimes the environment in which we exist might affect us even more than people; it urges us to some completely impractical actions, reactions, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully investigate the impact of the environment on a person in all its parameters: inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human.

Question: Does it mean that inanimate nature also affects people?

Answer: Of course. Does the weather not affect our mood and well-being? And the city and the house in which you live? I’m talking now not about people, but about everything else, in particular, about the inanimate level. This all affects us very much.

Put someone in another place, put a person in a forest or out in the countryside, and you will discern a completely different person insomuch as the factor of one’s surrounding nature is strong.

Remark: They say that if you are near a depressed person, then his or her depression can also be transmitted to you. And even more so if you are in a depressed society.

My Comment: Absolutely.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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Four Factors Determine Our Choice

Remark: Looking at our life, we see that it’s not so often that we choose something in it. Maybe it seems to us that way, but even from recent studies on this topic it shows that birth, death, character traits, and even political views are determined by society or are genetically defined. It turns out that nature leaves us no choice.

The greatest Kabbalist of the 20th century, Baal HaSulam, wrote an article on this subject, “The Freedom,” where he describes four factors that influence our development and determine our choice. The first factor is called the “basis of a person” or his hereditary information.

My Comment: Indeed, there are informational records in each one of us. In Kabbalah they are called “Reshimot.”

Remark: Baal HaSulam says that ideas, thoughts, and opinions all lose their previous form and at birth go to people in the form of properties. We do not choose these. They are inherent to nature.

The second factor is more interesting: the unchanging properties, which is that each foundation contains properties that change and others remain unchanged.

My Comment: A person is born with certain traits, with a certain character. Within this framework, he can change something, but he can’t change the framework. We even see such inclinations in our own experience and in our lives that can’t be changed.

Remark: Baal HaSulam gives an example that wheat will always grow from wheat.

My Comment: Yes. Nothing else will work. Under the influence of the environment or some other influences we can change certain internal qualities of a grain, but nothing other than that. It depends on what environment the grain is placed in.

Question: This is the third factor when the properties set by nature can change under the influence of the environment.

For example, if a person who is stingy by nature is placed in a certain environment where there is wealth, then it is entirely possible that this property in him will change to the extreme opposite or will not develop at all.

The fourth factor that determines the developmental stages of creation is external influence: climate, global warming, crises, etc. Suppose if we live in a normal society and everything is fine, then it’s stable. And if the global crisis begins and problems arise, then, quite possibly, it will change.

How do these four factors affect a person?

Answer: Simultaneously and sometimes in incomprehensible combinations. We don’t clearly understand what is happening here.

All we need to clarify is how dependent we are on them, and in what state at every moment we can act upon them selectively, with a certain direction, for a specific purpose.

Of utmost importance is how we can identify what is desirable to receive from ourselves or from others. For example, receiving from children, from upbringing, and how to influence them each moment, at what level, etc.

Question: So is the environment the only factor that we can change?

Answer: Yes. However, this is not about the usual environment. First, we must set the ultimate goal, understanding what we want to get from our actions. Maybe we will invest a lot in education and in the end get nothing but a zero depending on what we concentrate on, what we want to change.

Here you need to understand where the border of our capabilities is, what we have the most optimal means for, and how we can approach a person so that he himself takes part in his changes. Everything here depends not only on us, but on the object itself and the environment.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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Question: Do I understand correctly that in our world the most free are children before we start raising them? They do not care about how to dress or how to eat. Do I understand correctly that we need to take an example from them and study the highest of sciences, Kabbalah, and  love one another, dance, sing, and rejoice like children?

Answer: Children are absolutely dependent on their desires and intentions. And the freedom they feel is imaginary. In fact, they do not know that they are not free and that they blindly obey their desires and instincts.

As soon as you begin to limit them or say that they need to restrict themselves, immediately they strongly resist and cry. Children are not an example.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 11/17/19

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Question: If everything is predetermined, including the fact that by choosing we will suffer more or less, then why do we need Kabbalah?

Answer: Kabbalah is needed to raise us above our egoism to a state where we will not obey anyone or anything.

Egoism enslaves us, therefore, the science we study is called “the science of Kabbalah,” the science about the bondage of our egoism, and how rising from it gives us a sense of freedom.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 11/17/19

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Question: There are many personal growth techniques nowadays that say: “Take responsibility, set goals and act, strive, work!” A person on our path often faces the fact that the Creator inserts sticks in his wheels. How can one act properly in order to do what is necessary on the material level and not deviate from one’s spiritual path?

Answer: First of all, it is necessary to understand the Creator’s plan. The plan is to bring a person to an absolutely free state. So that no pressure from the Creator is directed against a person, only for a person. If a person perceives this correctly, then he finds the correct contact with the Creator.

Then you just need to implement this practice. You will gradually understand that exactly this practice makes you free, raising you above your egoism. It raises you to the quality of bestowal, and this quality makes you free.

It seems to us that the quality of bestowal, love, bestowal on one’s neighbor, and love for one’s neighbor somehow enslaves us, limits us, makes us think about others and work for others. No. This is actually not the case. In fact, meanwhile, we begin to receive the upper energy, the higher sensation, a way out of this world; therefore, it feels like freedom.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 11/17/19

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Question: What path does Kabbalah offer for managing one’s fate?

Answer: First of all, it is necessary to rise to the root of your soul, at least to the minimum degree, from which it is already possible to understand what is happening with you to some degree. In order to participate in the management, you need to climb at least three steps: Ibur (conception), Yenika (suckling) and Mochin (adulthood).

After climbing only one step, a student gets at least some idea of how the control signals descend to him and operate him. He starts to understand from where he receives knowledge, desires, and different opinions, where the decisions are being implemented, and he already receives their results.

Otherwise, it seems to him that everything happens in him. Due to the lack of understanding of where all the signals are born, he thinks that it is inside of him.
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From Kab TV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 10/27/19

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Question: If the point of freewill is in approaching the Creator, then how can I bring someone closer to the Creator because by doing this wouldn’t I deprive him of his choice?

Answer: No. Freewill is not in moving toward the Creator. To this, you are awakened from above.

Do you want to say that you, yourself choose this path? Why? Somebody somehow influenced you. From where? How? You yourself do not know and do not remember. This doesn’t matter. The fact is that today you feel that you want it. But it is not your choice.

Your choice is not in selecting the vector of direction of where to go but in displaying even greater strengthening of the goal at every stage of your path. When your arms weaken, your legs give way, when you fall and have to get up to go forward again, this is when your freewill is manifested.

The Creator organizes a descent for you; you must understand why He organized it for you, and thus implement it correctly and go forward.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 8/18/19

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