Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is happiness internal or external?“

Everything we sense is internal. No one else senses what an individual senses, and if someone senses something and tells another about it, which the other person cannot adequately relate to as part of their feelings, they then do not know what they are talking about.

Whatever is not inside the person is thus nonexistent. Therefore, happiness is internal, and it appears when something we truly aspire for becomes fulfilled.

Such a feeling can be called “happiness.” However, there are a range of levels between what we suffer from and what makes us happy. It turns out that the greatest happiness appears when we feel ourselves coming closer to balance with nature, similar to how a child yearns for his or her mother. That is when we feel happiness.

Happiness is a strong desire for a fulfillment that we always wanted to materialize, but we had already lost hope. Then, the positive force of nature—the force of bestowal, love and connection called “the Creator”—appears. It utters “Where have you been? I have been looking for you!” And the person wants to say: “I am the one who has been looking for You! Not me—but You, where have You been?” That is how they come together, in a simple fashion, without any hesitation or words.

That is happiness. However, it is not the kind of fusion that occurs in our world, when two bodies cling to each other while retaining their own space and individual sensations. Here we have no bodies, but a reciprocal sensation of mutual diffusion. As a result, a certain state of being emerges.

In terms of our sense of self, we then want it to melt away. We feel absolutely no need for it. However, if the feeling of oneself disappears, then the feeling of the other will also disappear. That is why it is designed such that the self needs to exist.

In the language of Kabbalah, it is described as follows: the Aviut, i.e. the “thickness” of the ego, does not disappear. Moreover, as the ego keeps increasing, we can acquire the ability to harmonize it with the quality of bestowal. As a result, the ego, the hatred, becomes greater, and love also increases. In our linear world, we do not understand how it works. That is how it plays out in the spiritual realm. And such hatred and love increase to a state of infinity, where we feel infinity. There is then no limit to such happiness, but it has to be felt, otherwise it is meaningless. However, there is a very long path ahead of us before we reach such a sensation.

Based on the video “Is Happiness Internal or External?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Rosh HaShanah is the time to ask forgiveness from the Creator for your crimes. In other words, I feel that I do not have a sense of the importance and greatness of the Creator, and I apologize for this. After all, if I felt the greatness and importance of the Creator, then of course I would behave differently. It turns out that I lack only the feeling of the Creator.

And that’s why I ask: “Let me feel You and I will become different!” This is what a person should say to the Creator; this is the correct request and the right apology. After all, why do I commit crimes? Because I lack the sense of the Creator, which is called faith. There is no feeling of the Creator, there is no faith, and therefore, there is no one to stop me. I cannot do otherwise because if the Creator does not rule over me, then the evil inclination, egoism, rules.

Therefore, I ask the Creator to take authority over me. This is my main request, after which we come to Rosh HaShanah, we come to the king, and we want to place Him to reign over us.

I want to repent of all my sins, to know and feel everything that prevents my correction. I ask the Creator to open my eyes and let me feel where the crime is and where the commandment is so that I understand where I fulfill His covenant to give, to love, and to unite, and where I do the opposite.

I don’t feel it now at every moment of my life. If I did, of course I would improve. The problem is that I don’t feel the Creator, the force of bestowal, which I could check myself with. So with this, I turn to the Creator and demand that He give me the opportunity to test myself regarding the force of bestowal, and then I will never commit a crime.

We do not recall the past and do not ask for forgiveness for it. I should not cry about what happened, but about the fact that I do not strive for correction and do not require the Creator to help me in this. I want to move forward, not dig into the past and shed tears about what I did.

Did I do something? I didn’t do anything, the Creator did everything. And He did it on purpose so that I now know what I need to fix. I take this evil, the crime that has now been revealed, and begin to correct it. My whole aspiration is forward, not backward. This is the difference!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/20, “What Is Preparation for Selichot (Forgiveness)”

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Rosh HaShanah is the beginning of the new year according to the Jewish calendar. Like any other nation celebrating the new year, we hope that it will bring us a good renewal.

The Rosh HaShanah holiday is preceded by a period called Selichot (Repentance), when we make a critical analysis of everything we have done over the past year, checking how well or how badly we treated people.

Judaism is built on the principle of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, so a person is obliged to calculate whether he really behaved kindly toward all people in the world. And then he sees that he did not always comply with this principle, and therefore repents and asks for forgiveness for offending people, committing a crime, or an unintentional oversight. After such repentance, we come to a special day from which the new year begins: Rosh HaShanah. After all, according to the Torah, the world was created five days before Rosh HaShanah. And on the sixth day, a man was created, Adam, who, as is known, sinned and was banished from paradise. Therefore, we are obliged to correct Adam’s transgressions because we are all parts of his soul.

In fact, there are four beginnings of the year. The year really begins with the exit from Egypt, about which it is said: “Now you have become My people.” Therefore, the new year, the new period should be counted from the moment of leaving Egypt, that is, in Pesach.

The second beginning of the year is Rosh HaShanah, which we are celebrating now. And then there will be a celebration of the beginning of the year for trees, Tu BiShvat. And there is another beginning of the year to commemorate the giving of the Torah.

It turns out that we celebrate all four beginnings of the year, but the most traditional holiday of the beginning of the Jewish year is Rosh HaShanah.

The traditional symbols of Rosh HaShanah celebrations are apples with honey and round challah. They express our hope for a good new year. It is also customary to eat pomegranate on the holiday, symbolizing with its seeds a large number of good deeds that we commit to doing in the new year.

It is customary to eat round challah on the holiday since the circle is a symbol of perfection. The apples and challah are dipped in honey to commemorate a good, sweet year.

It is also customary to eat the head of a fish and wish each other to be the head and not to stay in the tail. Fish represent a creature living in water, and water symbolizes mercy, Hesed. The child at birth comes out of the maternal waters in which he grew.

All these symbols indicate that we are entering a new period, a new life.
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From KabTV’s “The World” 9/5/21

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The holidays that come with the beginning of the Jewish New Year symbolize the entrance of a person into spiritual work. In fact, this entrance begins much earlier, during the preparation period. This is why the month of Elul means “I am for my Beloved and my Beloved is for me.” That is, a person begins to reveal that he has a connection with the Creator.

A few years after beginning to study Kabbalah, a person discovers that he experiences ascents and descents in mood, in understanding, and in perception of texts. Then, after some time, he realizes that spirituality can really be reached only through connection, that is, he begins to believe in what he has read and he connects with the material.

He understands that there is no choice, it is necessary to join the group for practical work. After all, beautiful conversations are not enough, one needs to feel with the heart and awaken one’s feelings. This is necessary for spiritual attainment and sensation, and the realization of one’s life. He does not want life to pass between the dates of birth and death and end without a trace. He wants to rise above it and continue further.

Then he understands that he needs to correct himself, to gain the force of bestowal above the force of reception. The recognition of the need for internal change is the beginning of the month of Elul.

Elul is a month of introspection: What can I do with my soul to start coming closer to the first contact with the Creator? I am waiting for the revelation of the upper force, not to enjoy it, but to bow before it.

Let my egoism bend down and allow me to become a slave of the Creator. I will be happy to put myself under the power of the upper light and feel its perfection, eternity, and greatness. My will to receive is ready to bow down before such revelation, to reduce itself, and to give itself to the control of the upper force.

This is how we come to the New Year, Rosh HaShanah, the essence of which is to proclaim the Creator as the king of the whole world. The upper force stands at the beginning, at the end, and in the middle of everything, controlling everything without exception. All we need is to feel ourselves under the influence of upper force, as slaves of the Creator, His faithful subjects, to receive faith above reason, the force of bestowal above reception, and to begin using it to work on our desire.

All this work relates to the holiday of Rosh HaShanah, the first stage on the way to the correction of creation.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/18 “Rosh HaShanah“

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The beginning of the year (Rosh HaShanah) is called terrible days because we go through very drastic changes. We are working against the great, terrible, genuine egoistic desire with the help of the great and terrible force of the Creator.

This is the beginning of correction at its initial point where the will to receive and the will to bestow meet, and these two opposite poles begin to unite in their oppositeness.

During Rosh HaShanah, a person examines himself and sees that he is full of sins, and he has to correct himself in order to come closer to the Creator. Therefore, he decides that he must take steps toward the Creator. But he understands that he can come closer to the Creator only when he corrects his heart and builds the structure of Malchut in it, which will be similar to the quality of the Creator, Keter, bestowal, and love.

He can do that only through connection with friends; otherwise, he will not be able to change his heart. He has to connect his heart to his friends and move with their hearts to such an extent that they all become one heart. Then in this one heart, he will be able to feel the Creator’s attitude toward them.

It is preferable that there should be ten people, no more and no less, in accordance with the general structure originally created by the Creator. After all, the forms of relations between the Creator and the created beings undergo ten metamorphoses until they reach the quality of the created being from the quality of the Creator.

The stronger we connect our hearts into one heart, the more we give the Creator a place to rule. We ask the Creator to be King over us in this holy house we have built for Him, in the temple of His greatness. We want it to become a place of bestowal, where the Creator will dwell and fill the connections between us with Himself. We will try to improve and increase this connection all the time so that the Creator is revealed more and more within us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/22,“Rosh HaShanah“

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/25/22

Almost every culture celebrates the beginning of the year. Each tradition has its own customs, meals, gifts, and inner meaning. For Jews, celebrating Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the year) comes with symbolic foods and a day of judgment. This judgment is the heart of Rosh Hashanah.

We can think of the spiritual significance of Rosh Hashanah as an operating system, like Microsoft Windows or Apple IOS. The human race did not come out of nowhere. Evolution has a purpose, and the operating system leads it toward it.

The operating system runs throughout nature, and all creations but humanity follow it instinctively. We, on the other hand, can study it and manipulate parts of it for our benefit.

On Rosh Hashanah, before we taste from the fish’s head, we say a blessing: “May we be the head and not the tail.” These words express our wish not to remain oblivious to the operating system and governed by it unconsciously, but to become aware of it and able to steer our development in a positive direction.

The operating system invariably leads toward a state of harmony and balance among all the elements in reality. It is aiming to bring all of humanity into a state of unity and closeness as though we are all a single warm and loving family. The system does not strive for sameness, to make us all the same, but for complementarity, to make us complement each other so that each of us contributes our unique skills and talents for the common good, and enjoys the contributions of everyone else, just like a loving family where everyone helps everyone else because they care about them.

As we study the system, we gradually realize how opposite we are from the state of closeness and care. These realizations precede Rosh Hashanah, and they are called Selichot (asking forgiveness). Selichot are prayers we say when we feel how opposite we are from the state of balance and mutual care.

The Hebrew word for “prayer,” by the way, is Tefilla, which comes from the word Haflala, namely criminalization. During a prayer, we “criminalize” ourselves, namely discover that we are criminals, and therefore ask for forgiveness. The crime we realize we have committed pertains to the operating system, namely that we have been selfish, thinking of ourselves and loving only ourselves rather than embracing all of creation and working for its favor. In spirituality, selfishness is always the only sin, since every wrong we do comes from thinking only of ourselves.

The physical Rosh Hashanah happens once a year. However, the process of reflection, regret, asking forgiveness, and praying to become more loving is not limited by anything. It can, and should be a constant cycle that we do internally. Each time we complete a cycle of requests for forgiveness, we reach another Rosh Hashanah, until the next realization of selfishness emerges in us through our efforts to correct our egoism and become more caring.

When the cycle of Selichot is over and we reach Rosh Hashanah, we not only wish to be the head and not the tail, we also celebrate the correction of our corrupt qualities. We symbolize this by dipping an apple in honey. The apple represents the heart, and the honey stands for sweetening (correcting) it from selfishness to caring for others.

Another custom is to eat a Rimon (pomegranate). A pomegranate has many seeds in it. Each of them stands for one selfish desire. Eating them stands for correcting them from selfishness to giving, which gives us a feeling of Romemut (elation, note the similarity to the word Rimon).

Finally, on Rosh Hashanah, we blow the Shofar—a festive horn. The blowing of the horn stands for our yearning for correction from carelessness and hatred of others into being loving, connected, and united as one with all the people in the world. The word shofar comes from the Aramaic word Shufra (the best of the best). This is the state we achieve once all our desires have been corrected and we become united as one loving, global family.

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Question: Is there any similarity between the Tu B’Av holiday and Purim?

Answer: Yes, of course. Both holidays speak of the highest possible condition.

Question: Could you give a short formula of love?

Answer: The formula of love? Don’t know. I think it’s H_₂O.

Question: Just like that?

Answer: Yes. The most important thing in love is the justification of the other. Permanently! Give in to the other all the time, justify him or her all the time, and tell him or her more compliments.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Question: What is the difference between what the science of Kabbalah offers humanity and what ordinary education teaches about loving each other and being good children? What is our know-how?

Answer: Our know-how is that we need to create groups in which people would communicate with each other and begin to feel that by getting closer they really enter into a completely different sense of the world, and that it is in the closeness, and not children, but adults, they should rise above their egoism, above the force that separates them from each other.

People should understand that by coming closer despite opposing egoistic forces, they will be able to feel a completely different state of themselves, others, and the connection between themselves and others.

They should begin to feel the new state of society, which is based on friendship, love, and mutual support. This is what we need to teach them.

In principle, this is the basis of the holiday Tu B’Av (Day of Love) that follows the 9th of Av, which represents shattering, separation. The 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) means, on the contrary, unification, closeness.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Question: In the chain of Jewish holidays, Tu B’Av (Day of Love) occupies a rather modest place although, judging by the name, it is a very high holiday.

What is the essence of this holiday that is hidden at the moment?

Answer: Tu B’Av (Day of Love) is a celebration of rebirth, birth, unity, and I would even say coupling of all parts of nature.

Question: We see what is happening in the world today. On one hand, throughout the development of mankind love is something important for a person. People write about love, talk about it, strive for it in some form, think that they love each other—relatives, close ones, friends, etc. On the other hand, they destroy each other and hate each other.

There is such a difference of potentials. Why does this happen?

Answer: Love and hate are two poles that cement any society. One is impossible without the other. Love toward people is established from the attitude of parents toward a child, especially the mother toward the child. That is why we welcome love so much, we are grateful for it, and we develop through it.

But the fact is that we need to develop a completely different love, love between all people, not because a mother’s love for a child exists, or a child for a mother, or between a man and a woman, and so on.

Meaning, there should be an absolutely different foundation that would establish bonds of affection, friendship, love, mutual assistance, and mutual support between us, such bonds that would connect all of humanity regardless of any external signs: black, white, yellow, red, no matter what kind of a person. This is what nature requires of us.

I hope we realize that this is the approach to the world we need and we will come to it.

Question: Does nature give us the tools to come closer to this approach?

Answer: Yes, we have enough for that. A lot is said about this in the science of Kabbalah because it is all based on creating love between people.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah express” 8/5/22

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Question: There is always some kind of struggle and mutual rejection between us. How can people introduce mutual complementing between them and begin to actually coexist together, really together? What role does the concept of true love, which you always talk about, play in this?

Answer: People need to be taught. They need to be constantly taught how important it is to be connected with each other, how much they need support from each other. The most important thing is the purpose.

They should unite and constantly feel that from day to day they are getting closer and closer to each other. This getting closer to each other raises them increasingly higher to the Creator, to the one single force of nature. They should feel their future in this.

Practically, this is what we exist for, in order to take several steps toward the Creator during our life. And we will continue further. It does not matter how or when.

This is what we need to take into account. Therefore, we must further develop those basics that we can receive from our mother and from school.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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