Remark: In Kabbalah, the relationship between teacher and student is very important. As I understand it, it is not so in psychology.

My Comment: I think that even there a person gets attached to his psychologist. But in Kabbalah, a student’s connection with his teacher is simply essential. It is necessary for a student to listen to the teacher and try to implement his advice, even if it does not seem quite real.

A teacher in Kabbalah is sort of a problem for a student: he or she has to accept the teacher and follow him contrary to common sense.

In psychology, it is clearer. Both, the psychologist and the patient are on the same egoistic level, while in Kabbalah, they are on two levels: the teacher is on the spiritual level and the student is on the material. Therefore, a problem arises.

Question: Is it true that all the advice given by a teacher-instructor in Kabbalah is incomprehensible to a student?

Answer: Its inner meaning, of course, is not clear because a student is not yet at the same level as a teacher. Psychology, in principle, is possible to study by yourself and understand what comes from where, what great psychologists say about it, etc.

That is, psychology is within the framework of rational thoughts and desires, and Kabbalah, which is outside these boundaries, is in what is called faith above reason.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/13/18

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Question: If everyone said that the soul is the most important thing and the body is nothing, people would probably have a different attitude toward death?

Answer: There is no doubt.

Question: Why don’t they?

Answer: First, because no one in the general population feels this, and second, it is anti-egoistic. After all, if this is directed against egoism, then who wants to work against it?

Here it is necessary to think, to make efforts, to act somehow, to organize something. What will I get from this? Nothing in this world: no food, no sex, no family, no fame, no knowledge.

Question: It is probably easier for a person to live with what is thought up in religions about the existence of a future world. But how much does the hope that there is something somewhere psychologically improve a person’s life?

Answer: Today, to improve a person’s life psychologically, it is unnecessary to be religious.

We see religions gradually fading. Recently, a lot of non-religious people have appeared who despise different beliefs of people because religions do not specifically answer our questions.

If a person needs to transform this life a little, he has Hollywood, the Internet, or something else. That’s enough for him. He will create any illusory world for himself.

What is there after death? No one knows. Therefore, a person no longer believes in this. His ego outgrew these tales and can no longer believe, much less sacrifice his time and intellect.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah”, 12/11/18

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The Method of Attainment, Undistorted by Egoism

Question: All theories of the management of nature are very diverse and are a combination of opposites. Is it in the combination of opposites, precisely between them, that the sensation of our world, or the Creator, is revealed?

Answer: No, I do not think so, because all these theories are egoistic. Man invented monotheism, polytheism, etc., based on his egoism without correcting it.

The only theory that has the right to exist is when a person exits himself, rising above himself, beginning to feel others instead of himself, feeling what happens inside the others, outside of himself. Then, one gets a truly objective impression of who one is, where one is, and what is around him. This “theory” is called “the method of Kabbalah,” which allows us to gain a correct impression of the universe, undistorted by our egoism.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/10/18

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Question: What is the difference between the goal, tools, and methods of attaining Kabbalah and psychology? For example, the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world.

Answer: If we want to develop a person as much as possible, to reveal and fill all his negative inner potential with something positive, then this is the revelation of the Creator in a person.

Psychology, however, studies behavior and mental processes of people and animals in order to make their lives more comfortable at the level of animalistic existence. If a person values only his animalistic body and is not above it in anything, then psychology can help him in some way.

We see in ourselves that most of our problems cannot be solved with the help of psychology. People visit a psychologist out of the inability to calm down and adjust themselves in any other way. They do not want to take any calming drugs, but they have a special kind of attitude to life when they need calming talks.

Question: Psychology is based on a person’s work with his consciousness, subconscious, and a method of convincing oneself that everything will be alright. What is different about the tools of the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: In Kabbalah we only examine what we need to change, and then we draw the forces inherent in the sources upon ourselves. These books in Kabbalah are a necessary means of advancement. There is no such thing in psychology.

Question: The third thing is the difference in the methods of attainment. What is the difference between the group method in Kabbalah and in psychology?

Answer: The fact is that the method of attainment itself is absolutely opposite. In Kabbalah, the group is necessary in order for me to completely connect with it, merge with and enter into the friends, melt in them, and depict the group, not myself, as one single whole.

Then in this group, I will discover the general force, which connects us. It was in it even before, but I could not identify it, and now I reveal it precisely in our complete connection. This force is called “the Creator.”

Yet, psychology does not pursue such goals. It is directed to working in a group only in order for a person to get rid of the hindering fears, habits, and all sorts of restrictions.

Question: What happens in Kabbalah?

Answer: I dissolve myself in the group. I want, as they say, to disappear in it. I want the group to become my self. This is an exit to a completely different level of thinking and feeling.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/13/18

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Question from Facebook: How can you attract the upper light if you don’t understand what you’ve read? Who needs The Book of Zohar, which, in your words, is not given for understanding?

Answer: Kabbalistic books have been given so that reading and not even understanding anything in them, we would strive for good—eternity, love, bestowal, the upper light—and ask Him to make us like that.

It’s actually good that you don’t understand anything. Your brain is then unoccupied with what is written in the book, but with asking to make yourself good, eternal, upper, bestowing to and loving of everyone. When you will become like that, you will begin to understand everything else.
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From KabTV’s “Answers to Questions from Facebook”, 3/10/19

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Question: I heard that one page of a text written by a Kabbalist is enough to enter spirituality. Why were so many books written, thousands of pages?

Answer: First, every person has one’s own destiny, one’s own type of soul, one’s own advancement. Somebody likes something specific; another person likes something else.

We are moving to the Creator in different ways and at different speeds. Someone walks left, someone right, someone lingers half a step, etc.

I do not see any letters or articles by Baal HaSulam and Rabash in which there are repetitions and that there would be no need to take some grain from each of them.

But it doesn’t matter. After all, when we study them, we come to the state that all this is processed in us, minced, and brings a result.

Question: If the book Shamati evokes a storm of feelings in me, is this evidence that it suits my type of my soul and my destination?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is this the way you can check a book?

Answer: No. All the same, the books of Baal HaSulam and Rabash are what you have. I recommend you not spread out on others.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/10/19

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“The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) begins with these words: “The Creator wished to cleanse Israel; hence, He has given them plentiful Torah and Mitzvot (commandments)…” The Creator has a goal and He works toward it. The goal must be achieved through the process that the created beings undergo. The Creator placed this goal before us and He wishes for us to achieve it not by some miracle, but through our own effort and gradual internal changes.

This goal is primary, it precedes our creation; in order to achieve it, we must go by means of Torah and Mitzvot, meaning, to change our desire with the help of the light that reforms. This goal existed prior to the creation of a person in this world, as was the ladder of spiritual degrees that the person must ascend in order to achieve it. The Creator thought about everything in advance and organized it for us; everything is ready.

We must cleanse ourselves of our egoism and by doing so achieve the goal. But we do not negate it because nothing was created in this world needlessly. Thus, if we have the correct attitude toward our nature, made by the Creator, and strive toward the state He has in store for us, we find ourselves on a given path that we must go through.

It is impossible to skip over this path because we acquire the qualities we need while on it, we purify ourselves. We must cleanse our egoistic desire and, through this work, arrive at the intended goal. Such is the desire of the Creator.

This is how Baal HaSulam starts his article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” trying to explain to us, in the briefest way possible, the beginning, the middle, and the end of the path of the person’s spiritual work and the study of the system of the upper worlds. In this article, one must understand that the higher spiritual laws, expanding from the thought of creation, consist of only two parts: the nature of the Creator and the nature of the creation, which must be opposite to the Creator. The final goal is to bring the creation to the full adhesion with the Creator without changing its nature but giving it a different form, which resembles the qualities of the Creator.

Through studying the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” the system of the upper worlds and its unfolding from top to bottom as a result of which our whole reality was built, we realize that all of it sprung from the thought of creation, for the purpose of bringing us to the final goal. This top-down development of the worlds, the spiritual degrees, states, obligates us to conduct certain actions here below in order to use all the means at our disposal and achieve the purpose of our lives. Our inner work must reflect the spiritual qualities described in this article.

We learn about the light working on the desire, building and disseminating from top to bottom, Partzufim, Sefirot, upper worlds. But in fact, we are learning about the actions we must perform in order to have a clear understanding of what our spiritual work has to be like. Thus, we eliminate all prior misconceptions and clearly see what must be done to achieve the goal.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” item 11.
¹ Minute 5:05

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Kabbalistic Theory of Nature’s Governance

Question: What theory of nature’s governance does Kabbalah adhere to?

Answer: Kabbalah says that there is neither biotheism, nor polytheism, nor the theory of ending guardianship—nothing. There is only one single force that is engaged in human development in order to bring the person to the Creator’s likeness.

For this, the human being was created in the opposite property—the egoistic desire to receive for one’s own sake, which is when one thinks, contemplates, and imagines everything only for one’s own benefit. A person has no single sensation, no single thought in mind and heart that would not pursue one’s own personal well-being.

The person’s correction consists of rising above his nature and overcoming this tendency to do, think and act, subconsciously or consciously, only for his own benefit. He must make out of himself an absolutely inverse model that would only think about others, acting for their sake, feeling pain and pleasure for them.

A person must completely rise above one’s present animalistic essence and instead begin to feel everything outside of oneself, to live only for the good of these external, “outside of one’s” thoughts, desires, and intentions. Thus, there is only one force, even though an infinite number of forces, causes, and sources are perceived within us.

Nowadays, we are already reaching the understanding that the world is integral, and that perhaps only one theory, technique, power, and control program, really functions in it. It just affects us differently. Therefore, we can realize this theory and again return to monotheism. In other words, there is one single force that controls us differently, but with the sole purpose of leading us to its likeness. That is, from our initial state of absolute selfish love for ourselves, we come to the opposite state—absolute altruistic love, outside of ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/10/18

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/25/19

Pushkar is a picturesque market town, a magical oasis located in the state of Rajasthan, India. While I was staying on the south side of the subcontinent, some of my students invited people in the area to an introductory lecture on the fundamentals of Kabbalah.

As a result, two introductory lectures were took place—one in Hebrew to Israeli backpackers, and another one in English for tourists from around the world. Both lectures were conducted in the calming atmosphere that is characteristic of India. And so, tourists sat in a circle alongside curious locals, as they were all listening to the simple message of the wisdom of Kabbalah—uniting the hearts as one.

Naturally, everyone understood it differently. However, everyone agreed that we were all one soul. Thank you to everyone who participated, and you can always continue studying online with the click of a button.

Our online KabU course >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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What does Kabbalah lead us to?

Bluntly speaking, everyone’s nature is to use the life of all creatures in the world for his own benefit. Everything that the person gives to his neighbor is only done forcedly, under compulsion. (Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”)

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that each uses the other in different ways. Only about 10% of people have an altruistic orientation. But still, as the Baal HaSulam emphasizes, they are altruistic selfishly, for their own sake.

What does Kabbalah want to lead us to?

Answer: First of all, Kabbalah teaches us what our nature is: we are absolute egoists at all levels. But we do not need to correct ourselves at the inanimate, animate, and vegetative levels because we are unable to do this.

We need to correct ourselves only at the human level, that is, in society. We must create a society in which we will be harmoniously connected with each other, replace each other, support each other.

Only in a network of connection between each other, in the right communication between us, can we rise above egoism. And then all other levels of egoism—inanimate, vegetative, animal—will also join the human level.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/3/18

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