Question: I know from my experience that studying Kabbalah is very helpful in the work of a psychologist. Does a professional knowledge of psychology and psychiatry help or hinder advancement in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: It doesn’t help at all. Either you are dealing with standard reactions that go on in the beast called a “human being” and trying to balance these with the influences that it receives in this world, or you are dealing with the upper world. It is one of the two.

I do not know what you mean by “Kabbalah” and how you can use it, I also do not want in any way to diminish your spiritual degree. It could be that you have an initial theoretical knowledge that helps you adapt to reality, but psychology speaks about how to get along in this world, while the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about how to rise up from this world.

It is the same thing with physicists. I often meet with scientists and am interested in all the achievements, but in general we have nothing to say to each other because we have different instruments for perceiving the world.

I can’t imagine how a psychologist could use Kabbalah in daily, practical work. Maybe only by telling a person that everything that acts on you comes from the Creator, so don’t worry everything will be fine.

 However, this is Kabbalistic psychology. It is not intended to calm a person down, but rather, advance the person.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17

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Remark: You say that one must obey his teacher and listen to his advice without any criticism. On the other hand, I heard you say during the lessons that criticism is important and doubt is unavoidable on the path. Moreover, it helps students in their advancement. Please clarify this contradiction.

My Comment: There is no contradiction here. On one hand, in our movement forward, we have to obey the teacher completely since he sees what we should do many steps ahead and we do not; we could not only make a mistake, but could steer off the path.

On the other hand, when we start advancing following the right direction and the teacher, we can figure out all the nuances of our advancement. And this is considered normal. Naturally, all study is based on questions and answers.

Question: And what about criticism?

Answer: How can you criticize the upper Partzuf if you are not on its level? The teacher has his own intentions and his own plans that you know nothing about because he is on a level higher than you. Therefore, everything that is revealed to him is concealed for you.

Question: If a person starts to criticize us, can he go to another teacher, a third, a fourth, and then realize that the truth is here and come back?

Answer: Generally, yes. But the teacher may not accept him back. However, if you do come back and are accepted, hold on to it with a bulldog’s stranglehold and start advancing.

Question: You say to listen to the teacher in spiritual matters, not corporeal life. But my friends in the group tell me that if I want to advance spiritually, I must imitate my teacher in everything. Is it customary in Kabbalah or not?

Answer: That is Hasidism. No Kabbalist would demand their students to imitate him.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/24/17

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Question: Does a Kabbalist teacher choose his students himself or does a student pursue the teacher and ask to be taught?

Answer: It isn’t either of those ways. The teacher and the student are determined from above. They are brought closer to each other so that the relationship is established at a certain distance. As they engage with connection to the Creator, the student gets closer to the teacher.

Question: Did Rabash come and take you from your first teacher Hillel?

Answer: Yes, because I could not leave Hillel by myself. I could not tear myself away from him because my egoism received pleasure, answers, and fulfillments that were indescribable.

And with Rabash, it was the opposite. He sat down and opened Talmud Eser Sefirot. I barely understood a word. Rabash, I, and several other people sat and read throughout the lesson. Here we were dealing with the attraction of the upper Light according to our intention. And with Hillel, I was simply engaged in obtaining knowledge.

Question: What are the connections between a student and a teacher?

Answer: There is a connection between them only through the Creator, nothing else. Everything moves through them for the sake of attaining the higher goal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Question: Society has been trying to create artificial intelligence. The basic laws of the universe clearly regulate this point. The importance of understanding the fundamentals of the programming of reality is simple. Can you explain these simple and important fundamentals?

Answer: This is precisely what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about. But it is difficult for a person to understand this because he is constructed differently. The egoistic mind is incapable of thinking in terms of the spiritual world that is opposite to ours. So only the influence of the upper light will change us, and when it does we will be able to begin to think according to the laws of the upper world.
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Baal HaSulam, in the “Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot” writes: “All the written and printed books are necessarily considered the Taamim of the Torah,” … “And there is no greater disclosure than writing a book.” “The part called ‘secrets of the Torah,’…you will not find even a trace of them in all the books of Kabbalah, in writing and in print.”

And this is really so. In fact, there are no secrets. They are mysteries to us because they relate to such levels of attainment our minds have no grasp of.

This is not the coordinate system, level, or the matrix dimension that we exist in today. So don’t be afraid of any problems. We have a lot of spiritual ascent ahead of us in order to enter such states where we begin to unfold the so-called mysteries.

They are attained by a spiritual mind, not the current one that can only add, subtract, multiply, and divide. A spiritual mind is a state that has no space, time, or movement. A mind that serves egoism is not suited for it.

Here you need a mind that works on the quality of bestowal—outside of yourself. We cannot imagine such a state. It is not a supercomputer but simply states unattainable for our current perception.

Remark: Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that if we unite, heed the inner part of the Torah, than everything will be good; if not, it will be bad. He writes about the possibilities of third and fourth world wars. Actually, most of the journalists today are already writing about it too.

My Comment: What can we do? We have reached the end of the road. We have been speaking about it for many years, and today everyone is starting to agree.

Remark: It follows that if we progress naturally, it will be bad, but if we study Kabbalah, everything will be fine.

My Comment: No, it is not just studying it—implementing it. There is a big difference. I can open a book, lie on the couch, and wait for world peace. No! It is necessary to actualize Kabbalah, in our own experience, in our connections with everyone.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/24/17

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Question: Kabbalists take texts from the Torah, explain them, comment on them, and then say that this is Kabbalah. Is there a difference between the Torah and Kabbalah?

Answer: The Torah is Kabbalah. In Hebrew Kabbalah is called “Torah Emet,” that is, the “true Torah.” It talks about the inner meaning of what the Torah describes in an allegorical language.

In the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam writes that Kabbalists had no other way to explain the structure of the upper world other than by using the language of this world. In fact, the Torah is not written about our world but only about the interactions of forces and qualities of the spiritual world.

Question: What came first Kabbalah or the Torah? What is the difference between them?

Answer: The Torah was written nearly 3,000 years ago and Kabbalah, the science of the control system of our world, appeared much earlier.
[219097]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 9/24/17

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Remark: There are many psychologists taking our Kabbalah courses. One of the lectures is even dedicated to explaining the difference between Kabbalah and psychology because it is not readily apparent.

My Comment: Psychology deals with a person’s behavior—with an egoistic being of our world. It studies the ways he reacts to things that happen to him.

Kabbalah deals with revealing who influences a person, what happens to him and what under influence, how he should prepare for his reaction, and so on. That is, this is a completely different level.

A Kabbalist and a psychologist have not only different goals, but also different audiences. One deals with ordinary people in our world and the other with people who study Kabbalah.

Question: Do you think that one who is attracted to common earthly psychology will not be drawn to Kabbalah?

Answer: Let him study psychology and not confuse it with Kabbalah. It will only harm him.
[218475]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17

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Question: Does a Kabbalist understand people better than everyone else?

Answer: No. A Kabbalist is not a psychologist. He does not look at people’s personalities, it does not interest him.

Conventional psychology is the psychology of our animal egoism. It is unanimously not considered a science because a person’s inner egoistic world cannot be known. We can deduce some patterns through purely experimental means, but nothing more.

Baal HaSulam appreciated psychology because it allows a person to break away from idealistic, religious psychology, which assures us that after death we can attain the future world.

In principle, this must be understood. When a person’s body dies, his egoism does not disappear, it simply loses a certain thickness of its egoistic desire. The desire remains, but not in an absolutely egoistic, earthly form.

Corporeal psychology gives a person a sound foundation with which one can correctly and maturely view the world. After all, the most important approach in Kabbalah is that a person has no more than what his eyes can see, and this is how he should relate to everything. Therefore, Kabbalah is a precise, mature, and sober science, without any philosophizing and psychologies.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/3/17

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Question: How can we envision the connection between us?

Answer: Those who have not reached spirituality and just want to enter it can imagine this connection in different forms. The connections between us already exist, we just do not see them. They will be revealed to us to the extent that we acquire the intention to bestow.

Have you ever seen how laser beams are revealed by using a special spray in the room? After using a special spray, these beams become visible. But without the spray, they were invisible because they had nothing to reveal them.

This is exactly what we need to do because the connections between us already exist. We just need to make efforts for our relationships to become as loving as possible. And then these invisible threads will start to glow and we will feel that they really exist. In this way, we will be able to uncover the network that connects us, which is already available.

We will gradually reveal its increasing and greater complexity and will find that we are all interconnected by a multitude of threads. These links will become more spiritual, that is, aimed at bestowal.

This will happen at every step, as it is said, “the waste of the higher is food for the lower.” That is, we need to constantly improve ourselves in order to make our relationships with each other more qualitative and altruistic.
Ultimately, the whole world will join this network of connections because we are all one spiritual vessel.
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From the Lesson on The Book of Zohar 12/24/17

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In the News (USA Today): “Money can’t buy happiness, but $1.56 million can buy Albert Einstein’s happiness theory.

“Two notes written by the famous physicist recently sold for well above their expected value at a Jerusalem auction house.

“During Einstein’s trip to Japan in 1922 to receive the Nobel Prize in physics, he wrote notes on how to live a fulfilling life while staying at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. When a messenger delivered something to his room, the German-born physicist gave him two of the autographed notes, because he didn’t have a tip available. Einstein said the notes could be worth more than a tip one day. He was right.

“One note, written in German translates to: ‘A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.’

“It was expected to sell for between $5,000 and $8,000, according to the Winner’s Auctions and Exhibitions website. Instead, a bidding war lasting about 25 minutes ended in a sale of $1.56 million, the Associated Press reports.

“The second note, which read ‘where there’s a will there’s a way,’ sold for $240,000, far above it’s estimated value of between $4,000 and $6,000.”

Question: How do such things suddenly become so valuable?

Answer: The value is not in the thought. It was already in the air; it had already been heard. The thought put on a piece of paper is deemed valuable only by the people in the market for such things. It’s the same as any painting. Works of art do not have value in and of themselves. The value is determined by what people are willing to pay for them.

Question: A note from Einstein is worth $1.5 million, but few people know that great Kabbalists had many notes, many pieces of advice for humanity about how to achieve happiness. However, those notes are not worth anything. Isn’t that sad?

Answer: No, I’m not sad, quite the opposite. This is very good because people do not understand anything, even in what Einstein wrote, not to mention what is written in the notes of the Kabbalists. However, they chase after notes from Einstein because these notes have value as collectibles, an egoistic value, and our notes don’t have any egoistic value, and therefore, they are available to everyone.

Only those who really need them will find them and understand.

Question: And for him, will they be more valuable than millions, even more valuable than life?

Answer: Of course. What did Einstein write? With all my respect to him as a person who achieved much, his thoughts still did not rise above the animal level of humanity.

However, any quotation of Baal HaSulam is a completely different world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 11/6/17

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