Question: If the thought of creation is predetermined and we will all attain the Creator whether we like it or not, and the only free will we have is whether to accept His leadership or not, we may say that freewill is an illusion.

Answer: Although the thought of creation and a person’s ultimate state are predetermined, the way we accept the Creator’s leadership is very important because it is only by the right perception of the Creator’s attitude to a person that one can bring Him contentment.

First, being in our world, which is the lowest of all the worlds, and the circumstances we live in help a person reveal the right attitude to the Creator.

Second, the fact that the end is predetermined should not bother us since the Creator is concealed from us anyway. So it is actually when a person aspires to reach Him and tries to choose the way that the Creator would choose that he attains His thought in this motion, His mind, His attitude, His goal and His relationship.

A person needs this world because although he doesn’t feel the Creator, doesn’t see the ultimate goal, and doesn’t know how to advance toward it, he has the elements that motivate him to search and to try to act properly. It is in his search for the right motion forward that he begins to feel the Creator, to perceive Him, to absorb His attributes, His thoughts, and His feelings, and thus becomes equal to Him.
[180765]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/31/16

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Question: Does spiritual freedom depend on the corporeal world?

Answer: Spiritual freedom doesn’t depend on the corporeal world in any way. Special upper forces are revealed in a Kabbalist and help him attain spiritual freedom and provide him with the attribute of love and bestowal that enables him to exit himself and float above his egoism. Therefore, he doesn’t feel the limitations of his body and this world. There is no connection between matter and spirit, and a person can ascend the spiritual levels and, at the same time, remain the way he is in the corporeal world with the same character, the same tastes, and the same habits.

Question: Does that mean that there is nothing spiritual in matter?

Answer: Absolutely not. The still, vegetative, and animate levels belong to our corporeal world. These levels of development operate according to the egoistic law of the conservation of energy. According to this law, every particle wants to sustain only itself and at the expense of others, by whatever means. What’s important is constantly to maximize its condition.

Question: Does corporeal freedom depend on the spiritual world?

Answer: In earlier generations, corporeal freedom did not depend on the spiritual world. However, today, it is indeed so because in our times, the spiritual world and the corporeal world are getting closer. Therefore, we encounter increasingly greater problems in the corporeal world and, at the same time, more opportunities to discover the spiritual world. If we perceive and understand the spiritual world, we will be able to affect our corporeal world.
[179349]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/17/16

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In the News (aeon): “The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do. …

“For example, it uses short messages that tell us what to do which appear for a moment and we are unconscious of them. …

“Guided by social science, marketers were quickly learning how to play upon people’s insecurities, frailties, unconscious fears, aggressive feelings and sexual desires to alter their thinking, emotions and behaviour without any awareness that they were being manipulated. …

“Relaxing music in supermarkets obligates us to move slowly and buy more products. …

“Most of the meaningless thoughts and feelings are chosen by experts in the areas of marketing, fashion and entertainment. …

“To understand how the new forms of mind control work, we need to start by looking at the search engine – one in particular: the biggest and best of them all, namely Google. The Google search engine is so good and so popular that the company’s name is now a commonly used verb in languages around the world. To ‘Google’ something is to look it up on the Google search engine, and that, in fact, is how most computer users worldwide get most of their information about just about everything these days. They Google it. Google has become the main gateway to virtually all knowledge, mainly because the search engine is so good at giving us exactly the information we are looking for, almost instantly and almost always in the first position of the list it shows us after we launch our search – the list of ‘search results.’

“That ordered list is so good, in fact, that about 50 per cent of our clicks go to the top two items, and more than 90 per cent of our clicks go to the 10 items listed on the first page of results; few people look at other results pages, even though they often number in the thousands, which means they probably contain lots of good information. Google decides which of the billions of web pages it is going to include in our search results, and it also decides how to rank them. How it decides these things is a deep, dark secret – one of the best-kept secrets in the world, like the formula for Coca-Cola.”

My Comment: This is not the only method that is manipulating us. But does it matter? After all, according to Kabbalah we have no freedom except to yearn for each other; see the terms for free will. So we must see how much a person is captive and how through using the wisdom of Kabbalah he will become totally free.
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“What the Concept of Suffering Is in the Work,” Rabash: What can a person do so that he doesn’t need to come to a descent, called “suffering,” when he feels that he is far from the Creator….How could there be a reality in which he doesn’t need to fall to a state of humility? The advice about this is when a person takes stock of himself and through his thought and desire he sees how he is still far from adhesion with the Creator. It means that even during a time of ascent he takes stock of himself and begins to feel his shortcomings. So then he apparently doesn’t need to fall from his state because he was given thoughts of humility until he feels as if he is in a deficient state. So even during an ascent, he already begins to seek advice about how to ascend a level.

We begin our way from below to above from a tiny shortcoming, from lacking the point in the heart. The lack in this point doesn’t give a person any direction and he has no power, for this is just a point. I continue toward something, but I don’t exactly understand toward what. But when I am brought to a group, my desire begins to take shape. I already know what to wish for and toward where. A few years pass until I finally understand that this aspiration must be directed toward connection and not just toward a higher power.

I am already aware that the higher power is not somewhere in the heavens, but that it is revealed within me: it is the power of bestowal and love that fills all of the higher reality. If I acquire the characteristic of bestowal and love, with this I feel the upper force, the higher dimension and the upper world.

Quite a while passes until this approach stabilizes in a person. And this time doesn’t just pass without a trace. Great changes happen every moment, and lots of time is required for it. Just like in our world, the period for stabilizing the still level of nature, the creation of the universe, was the longest and took billions of years. The vegetative world stabilized even more rapidly, the animate world stabilized even faster, and the human stabilized very quickly relative to the previous levels.

So we also went through thousands of years of regular physical existence, passing through a multitude of incarnations. And when we are finally granted an Itaruta de La’ila (awakening from Above) resulting in the awakening of the point in the heart in us, so this account has already been going on for years. In spite of everything, it took years.

From that moment, I am already placed facing the goal and know how to advance toward it. I come to a group, find a teacher and books. I realize that this is the purpose of human life in this world to which I have finally been brought after many incarnations in order to implement the goal and get some kind of result in my life without having to waste it in vain. I have already been given freedom of choice here, to go in the way of Torah or the path of suffering.

The path of suffering is when an unconscious desire is awakened in me and I start to figure out why I feel bad. Time passes until I find the cause of evil and clarify how to correct it and to transform it into goodness. The way of Beito (in its time) is very long and includes many stages within it. So then, in the way of Achishena (I will hasten), in the way of Light, time becomes accelerated. I must search for the shortcomings myself, the means for advancing.

I can get the stimuli for advancement from the environment. The main thing is that this push toward advancement initially stabilizes me in the right direction and I know for what I am looking. It is always necessary to search for a lack of the characteristic of bestowal and love, for connection, for oneness, for Arvut (mutual guarantee), for adhesion with the upper force, meaning love for others.

If I search for shortcomings like these, then I am no longer in some kind of point with a single desire that has no direction. Instead, I already know the goal that I must reach.
[127143]
From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14

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Question: What is the difference between a group for Kabbalah students of ten people and a sect whose purpose is to exploit its members?

Answer: A group of Kabbalah students is based on absolute pure love and in such a group you don’t obey those who manage it but only its spiritual goal. Therefore it is up to a person whether to join it or not.

In a sect, on the other hand, there are many conditions; it is very limited and closed, has its distinct ideology, and the closer one gets to the center of the sect, the more and more hidden it becomes. A sect also has typical rituals such as prayers, meditations, etc. Such things are not part of studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

A group of Kabbalists is not closed. It is based on the principle of mutual love, honesty, warm-heartedness, mutual inclusion, and mutual help according to the principles of Kabbalists and the sources that are studied. The only ritual it encourages is sharing a meal.

There are no conditions as to religion, race, or a nationality. A person who wants to join the group is accepted and if he wants to leave, he can do so. Everything is open and free; all the study materials are available on the Internet in every language; there is no barricade or separation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah encourages the unity of all mankind in mutual love and good mutual relations without any coercion, equally for everyone and with everyone.
[174496]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/29/15

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Question: Is there a law of fate, called Karma, that depends on the actions of a person in this world?

Answer: A person indeed can influence his fate, but not on the level of Karma, but only through his own aspiration along with those like him for greater unity. Then his influence will be positive. However, if he does not act according to those opportunities that are given to him for unity, his influence will be negative.

In this world, we are very limited by our philosophies and inventions. We have only one possibility: to unite and create a connection between us or not. Accordingly, we are either cut off from the higher forces and discover negative influences, losses, and suffering on all levels, or we make it possible for them to pass through us and create a positive influence.

Question: Is the attainment of wholeness and transition to a higher level a common inheritance, or will some of us not merit reaching this?

Answer: We are involved in everything that is required to hasten the spiritual development of the whole so that each one will take his place within spirituality and all of us will reach the final state through the good and rapid way, not the slow way of suffering.
[172781]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/8/15

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Question: What determines the life expectancy of different people? After all, both wonderful people and vile killers die young. Could it be that, from the point of view of the maturation of the soul in this current life, the first souls already have ascended higher, while the latter are hopeless, so they are taken away in order to be reborn?

Answer: All of this relates to reincarnations. No calculations are made here regarding the bodies. You can be a good or evil person, but in egoistic terms, it does not matter.

The calculation focuses only on the general system in order to bring it optimally to complete correction. Therefore, it is only about the fulfillment of a person’s soul. The body is given to a person so that by his free will he will place himself in the general soul in connection with others in total love and bestowal.

If he can do that, he finds his soul. Then the calculation is according to his state at any given moment.

If he cannot do it, he is given a certain amount of time to be incorporated willingly into the general society and perhaps even into the spiritual world. If he doesn’t use this opportunity, it is taken away from him, and he moves on to the next life. The same spiritual gene will be dressed in another body with new data in a new environment, and he will still be given an opportunity to fulfill his mission.
[170773]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/1/15

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Question: You say that everything develops according to a particular program, and at the same time you speak about freedom of choice. Isn’t there a contradiction here?

Answer: No, indeed there is a general program of development in relation to all of humanity and a particular program of development in relation to every person. However, going in the way that is intended for you, you can go against your will where you are pushed from behind through suffering like a beast or you can go rapidly in a conscious way like a human being. This is the entire difference.

Freedom of choice is an independent and conscious choice of forward movement, with a choice of accelerated development. It doesn’t exist for everyone else. But when you choose the conditions for movement and independent advancement, you determine for yourself everything that you perceive on the way, and then everything feels completely different.

Question: But a person always strives to be free. There is freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and so forth.

Answer: All of this doesn’t exist. On the level of our world, everything is determined from the start. However, we are talking about the spiritual development of a person where a person can advance only through realizing freedom of choice.

Question: Yet, how is it possible to choose a mate or a profession for myself correctly? Does the wisdom of Kabbalah speak about this?

Answer: No, it is only if you study the wisdom of Kabbalah and begin independently and consciously to advance forward in the proper implementation of your environment (group, teacher, method), then freedom of choice appears for you.

However, it doesn’t exist just like that! After all, I am an egoist, and at every given moment, I search where it will be better for me, how to find some benefit, to profit more. This is not freedom, but a search like a dog that looking for food in the street.

Question: What is the system that throughout life arranges all kinds of problems and blows for a person just so that he would begin to think and reflect upon the meaning of life?

Answer: This is an absolute system of connection between all of its parts. Therefore, all of us determine the fate of one another.
[169239]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/27/15

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Question: Does Kabbalah teach the correct attitude to all kinds of events occur during the day?

Answer: Kabbalah does not teach how to navigate your way in this life, but how to find the entrance to the upper world, to identify where the door is that I will open in order to enter it.

Question: What if I’m interested in corporeal life? Let’s say I have a problem with the bank.

Answer: Kabbalah deals with the upper management and helps a person to create such signals to our world that then his life in this world will also start to change.

The method helps us to pass from our world to the next higher state. It depends how we use this method. Someone uses the wisdom of Kabbalah from the top down, and some from the bottom up. But most important is that we direct the connection to the upper management that engages in our world and also the spiritual world.

Question: And who arranges our physical problems?

Answer: We are talking about the overall management system, and if you attain it, you will see how you are surrounded, managed, and with this you will understand how to manage it yourself.

A person begins to understand what the essence of his or her free choice is, and where one is enslaved. He discovers that until this moment, in fact, he had no free choice in life; all his movements were compelled; he was completely programmed.

But now, he can exit from this slavery to freedom, to the extent he begins to recognize, understand, and realize the highest management program. He begins to connect with it to merge, and to enter it as a free element, as a factor in the equation.

And all his problems in material life: the choice of a profession, the country of residence, a life partner, etc. will be resolved by themselves.

A completely different system of values will appear in him that will change his plans.
[168370]
From the Lesson in Russian 9/20/15

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Question: If our brain receives all the orders and thus operates our body, it means that I also receive thoughts about freewill and the wisdom of Kabbalah.

So what does it mean to be a free man if we don’t control our thoughts and our actions? How can a person ascend if he doesn’t receive such orders?

Answer: A person receives everything from the Upper Light and from there his path depends on his connection with the environment and to what extent this connection resembles the structure of the upper level. If it resembles it, he discovers it, etc.
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