Humanity is moving forward. Once it believed only in spirits, in hidden forces of nature: wind, sun, moon, earthquakes, sacrifices, etc. There are still many similar beliefs on Earth today that exist to this day. Some of them will only vanish with the revelation of the Creator.

But as egoism develops in humanity, the ego begins to demand greater revelation, greater comprehension, and a stronger foundation for any action. A person becomes lazier and more egoistic; they want rewards, and demand clear understanding, knowledge, and compensation for their efforts.

That is why, in ancient times, over many centuries, various movements and forms of worship emerged. All of them were also tied to the specific characteristics of each nation that were beneficial to their elites.

But the key point is that all these beliefs are referred to as “faith,” that is, as blind faith—believing in something that a person does not reveal, does not see, and does not feel. Yet when someone begins to work with this, everything in him is purely psychologically shaped into a kind of knowledge, a conviction so strong that one is ready to give their life for it.

Question: Is blind faith close to faith with knowledge?

Answer: There is no actual knowledge here because no one is revealing the Creator. But gradually a person reaches a state where they must do so.

The first person to reveal the Creator was Adam only 6,000 years ago. Although for many centuries before that humanity sought to know the Creator, it remained in a state of faith and not knowledge. Adam HaRishon was the first who attained the Creator. That is, he gained clear knowledge, and the ability for mutual, two-way communication: “I speak to Him, and He responds.” Adam began to work within this interaction.

This kind of attainment of the Creator by a person in this world is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. Only then do we move from faith to knowledge.

The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is based on knowledge. It calls each person to rise either from the level of nonbelief—which is also a kind of faith, a belief in the absence of upper forces, a program of development, etc.—or from the level where upper forces are accepted on faith, to a state where a person reveals the Creator’s governance and begins to interact accordingly.

Thus, in our world there are two completely different approaches to human behavior. That is why there are over 3,000 various belief systems. We can see how much they differ across different regions of the world.

For example, in South America it is customary to dig up the bones of ancestors, wash them out of respect, and rebury them. In China, other types of worship exist, and in Japan, still others. People come up with all sorts of methods. This is one path.

The second path is Kabbalah. It is intended for those who cannot function within blind faith; they need knowledge.

Kabbalah leads them to the revelation of the upper force, not just belief in it where people invent various methods, systems of behavior, and interaction, but actual revelation. A person is shown models of behavior with the upper force, mutual closeness, communication, development, and so on.

Question: So when Baal HaSulam writes “religion,” should we always interpret it as “Kabbalah”?

Answer: Baal HaSulam specifically means Kabbalah because nothing else is connected to the upper force.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 7/10/2017

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Comment: Researcher Jerry Burger replicated Stanley Milgram’s controversial and infamous experiment of testing people’s willingness to inflict pain in the form of electric shocks on others in increasing increments at the prodding of an “authority figure.” After the experiment started Burger offered subjects full payment for participating in the study even if they chose not to continue inflicting increasingly stronger electric shocks on their counterparts. His study yielded nearly the same results as Milgram’s that was conducted some 50 years earlier. Compliance rates of subjects inflicting suffering at the behest of the studies’ authority figure were only slightly lower in Burger’s study and he too found no difference in the rates of obedience between men and women.

My Response: If the experiment had been conducted under more natural, real-life conditions, the researcher would have found a 100% willingness to exploit others in any form just for the smallest personal benefit or even without any benefit at all. Because the worse it is for the other, the better it feels for me. This is how a person measures his state, it is measured relative to others.

Events will inevitably lead us to reveal our evil nature and to recognize the evil force that rules over us to such an extent that we would agree to change it toward good and love.

In essence, whether we receive or give does not really matter. The main thing is to feel fulfilled!

If we were born with the quality of bestowal instead of reception, we would not understand how it is even possible to receive instead of give.

This transition is nothing more than a psychological shift. After all, the main thing is to be fulfilled!
For now, a person sees fulfillment only in himself, and measures it relative to the downfall of another.
[2732]
Entries in the section ‘Development of Egoism’

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The ARI is a great soul who descended to our world in order to open the gates of wisdom to us. And therefore, as Baal HaSulam writes, from the time of the ARI onward everything depends on man, who must correct himself and then be able to reveal the Creator, become one with Him, and reach the goal of creation.

Before, prior to the ARI, this was simply closed to ordinary people since the souls were not yet ready and needed to go through a certain path of development and mix with each other.

The ARI symbolizes the period of Messiah (Mashiach); therefore, he is called Mashiach ben Yosef, and from his period onward the wisdom of Kabbalah began to take the form of a method of correction. And before it was intended only for selected individuals in a special form.

We must respect the Kabbalists who were in Safed at that time next to the ARI and recognized his greatness. They appreciated him. RAMAK was already old, famous, and respected, but he came to ARI’s lessons and sat like a student. Although he was twice as old as the ARI, he was known and revered as a great Kabbalist.

Thanks to him and several other Kabbalists who appreciated the ARI, he was protected from opponents of Kabbalah. After all, he had only a few young (26-year-old!) students. In those days, the attitude toward Kabbalah was not at all friendly. It only seems to us that everything was allowed, as they like to write about that now.

This is somewhat similar to the fate of RaMCHaL: he was persecuted for studying Kabbalah, expelled from the ghetto of Padua, the city where he lived. Until the Vilna Gaon declared to everyone about his greatness, and he was left alone.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam Preface “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: There are people who study Kabbalah who have previously tried many paths, including drugs. But when they come to study Kabbalah, most of them automatically stop using them. Does it turn out that this is a side effect of Kabbalah? In theory, does it cure drug addiction?

Answer: Yes, Kabbalah works precisely as a side effect. After all, it affects only the person who wants to study it, who finds a purpose in life, but at the same time his body pulls him toward drug-related fulfillment. And then an internal struggle arises in him as a result of which he leaves drugs. But there are those who are unable to overcome it.

I do not keep track of my students. I am completely indifferent to what a student is like, what he comes to me with. These can be people with any inclinations, with any distortions. Today, all of this is generally considered the norm. So I do not look and do not delve into it. I am not interested in it.

It is said in Kabbalah that it is a remedy for all the problems of humanity caused by our egoism. And since it cures egoism, it should cure almost everything—from common illnesses to all kinds of distortions that exist in our time and are already accepted as the norm.

I teach Kabbalah, and to the extent that people adapt to it and are able to apply it, it affects them.

I had a severe ulcer and other problems. I suffered a clinical death, with great losses of internal organs, and saw how all this gets restored; how the more a person advances in Kabbalah, the younger, more vigorous, stronger, and more resilient one becomes, because the person is supported by the fact that one is dealing with the upper force, with the light.

This is not just some kind of personal faith, but a real upper energy. I feel it in myself. It does not let you do foolish things or strive for unnecessary achievements in this life in order to become, for example, a great athlete or someone else. But this energy gives you the opportunity to function day after day for many years, to lead people toward something exalted.

That is, Kabbalah is indeed a source of great power. I think that by studying it, humanity will see how it is cured of all problems.

Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that all the problems in the world: murder, theft, drugs, terror, diseases, mutual hatred, betrayal, family discord, problems with children, basically everything that separates us from perfection by even a single gram,—all of this is born out of our egoism. Only Kabbalah is capable of correcting it and bringing us to absolute perfection, eternity, and peace.
[346347]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Kabbalah and drugs” 8/27/10

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Question: What is Kabbalah’s position regarding non-believers and religious people? I see that you seem to constantly navigate between them!

Answer: You are right.

Religion views the Creator similar to a human being, i.e. changing and depending on the person’s actions. Each religion presents both the Creator and His messengers as it likes. They are forced either to coexist or to try to destroy each other because their view is based on faith, meaning it is unprovable. Whoever is stronger is “right.” Or they act as if the others do not exist, each in its own flock.

But they all share one thing: they see God as treating a person based on how the person treats God and others. That is, God changes, is sometimes angry, sometimes compassionate. This is how a person interprets it from their life and fate.

So God can be bribed, you can “pay” for paradise, or appease Him so that He will treat you well. You can atone for sins or buy off punishment. You can give charity to ward off a blow of fate. It is all built on the idea that a person’s external behavior changes God’s attitude toward them.

Atheists treat God like nature, unchangeable and mechanical, and it does not have its own mind and plan, it does not depend on our attitude toward it, but only on our “mechanical” actions.

Kabbalah sees nature and the Creator as one and the same. But He has intelligence, a plan, a purpose. He has feelings. So in the process of development (evolution), He created the human being exactly as we are: with feeling and mind, with two opposing systems, like an egoist who wants to enjoy every moment of existence. He created us this way so that by using the method of Kabbalah and the forces of nature (the surrounding light), a person would change themselves and become similar to the Creator.

Through this a person gains true independence (otherwise they are completely driven by nature and egoism, and are not free), perfection, eternity, and adhesion with the Creator (the status of the Creator).

The Creator in Kabbalah is unchanging because He is absolute, absolutely good, and therefore cannot change; only something less-than-perfect can become better or worse, but not the absolute.

Therefore turning to the Creator is really turning to yourself and convincing yourself of the need to correct yourself to become like the Creator, the model of goodness.

So atheists try to remake the world, and the religious beg the Creator, while Kabbalists correct themselves and thereby correct the world.
[46915]

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Baal HaSulam made it so that if an ordinary person follows his way, he can achieve Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator just like a dedicated wise disciple. Before him, one had to be a great wise disciple in order to be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator (RABASH, Assorted Notes 75, “The Work of the Greatest in the Nation“).

We received this opportunity thanks to Baal HaSulam, who revealed the wisdom of Kabbalah to us and brought it closer. And we see that by following his method, we are indeed advancing and gradually drawing nearer to the Creator. Only small steps remain to reach the first contact with Him.

The actions of the Kabbalists are multifaceted. The Kabbalists worked to develop the wisdom of Kabbalah itself, its methodology, and also to make themselves a channel for conveying the upper light to us. That is, they tried in every possible way to bring the Creator closer to us, both from His side to us and from our side to Him.

And Baal HaSulam acted specifically for the last generation, so that “even an ordinary person, following his path, could be rewarded with adhesion to the Creator.” We hope that we too will be able to merit this.

Know for certain that since the time of the ARI to this day, there has not been anyone who understood the method of the ARI to the fullest…as they are in their upper root… .

And now, by the Creator’s will, I have been rewarded with a conception [impregnation] of the soul of the ARI, not because of my good deeds but by a higher will. It is beyond me, too, why I have been chosen for this wonderful soul, with which no one has been granted since his passing until today (Baal HaSulam, Letter 39).

The whole difficulty of the wisdom of Kabbalah lies in the fact that although all Kabbalistic books are available for reading, it is impossible to understand them without the detailed explanations of a teacher who constantly works on the student to develop his mind and arrange his soul. Kabbalah cannot be studied independently, and even studying with a true teacher takes many years.

A student needs a recognized teacher who is in spirituality, who will serve as a channel of connection to the upper light, and organize each step of his spiritual work just as one cares for an infant in our world. Without this, growth is impossible, as if an infant were left alone in the forest.

There are many people who passionately wish to attain spirituality and begin to study. But if they have no teacher, they may extract purely mechanical knowledge from the books, which in no way brings them closer to the Creator.

After all, this work is extraordinarily difficult and can only be done under the condition of continuous care of the student by the teacher and participation in a proper group. It is painful to see how people get entangled in all kinds of methods of their own invention.

Baal HaSulam separated the wisdom of Kabbalah from all fabrications, so that a person who wishes to engage in the work of the Creator would clearly know whether he is on the right path or not. And therefore, there are forces that try to distance people from Baal HaSulam.

We hope that despite everything, we will succeed in spreading his method in the widest possible way and to give every person the opportunity to attain the realization and revelation of their soul.

RABASH writes about Baal HaSulam in the “Introduction to the Book Pri Haham”: “Such a soul descends into the world once in ten generations.” In truth, it is impossible for us to comprehend the true height of his soul, just as small children cannot understand who their father and mother are or appreciate the home in which they are growing up—for that, one must first grow up.

We hope that we will grow and understand who our teacher truly is, he who even today serves as the connecting link between us and the upper force. We will try to realize his method; it is the very same method of ARI and RASHBI. There is no other method; one only needs to know how to correctly implement it. And it is truly possible to feel that within Baal HaSulam an inclusion of the soul of the ARI occurred.

Baal HaSulam gave all his strength to slightly bring down the wisdom of Kabbalah from the heavens and bring it closer to us. He thought only about how to write books that are accessible to the modern generation and to spread them. We do not understand how much this man sacrificed so that we, 60 to 70 years later, could take these books and extract from them all the principles of spiritual work.
[214315]
From a conversation at a meal on the day of remembrance of Baal HaSulam, 9/30/2017

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Question: Can we say that the great Kabbalists who created the connection between the Creator and creation and wrote books for us created a method called the Torah?

Answer: These great Kabbalists wrote books for us. But in reality, these are not books, but rather a revelation of the connection between them and the Creator. They gave us the opportunity to grasp this connection through letters and words written on sheets of paper, and in this way, we can participate in this connection.

After all, what is a book and the words written in it? I do not know what it is. It is like a baby touching something. The Kabbalists made it so that when I come in contact with a book and want to be connected to them through it, I already use this force that they created by connecting with each other.

It is true that in doing so, they created the Torah. After all, in reality, the Torah was given to correct egoism precisely through these Kabbalists and special souls who prepared this opportunity for us—the connection between them. If they had not acted, we would not be able to achieve correction, to connect between us, to awaken the light that returns to the source.

After all, a simple physical law operates: If you have the quality of bestowal, the light shines on you; if you do not have the quality of bestowal, there is no light in you.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand that without revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah in books, without studying it, a person will not be able to awaken the light that returns to the source. He can establish connections with other people in wanting to build his beautiful world, but he will not receive the force of the light, the force of correction. He must be connected to a system that uses true books, a group, an understanding, and a connection according to the recommendations of Kabbalists. Otherwise, it is impossible to achieve correction.
[4347]

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Question: Do you remember the time when you wanted to go to a meeting of friends with RABASH’s students, but he was against it? You were eager to get there, you wanted to be in the group, you arrived, and you didn’t like the picture you saw.

Answer: Yes, I understood why he didn’t want me to go there. Because basically there was no friendship, no love.

I had been communicating with them for many months and I saw that they didn’t even talk to each other, they shied away from each other, they didn’t like each other, they condemned each other, and they had a false opinion about each other. And suddenly I saw that they were sitting together, singing, talking about friendship, about love for one’s neighbor.

It was a blatant lie! It could be so in some other place, either in the theater, or in politics, or somewhere else. I understand when politicians say one thing and think another, because that is our world.

But here, when everything has to be turned inside out, when you have to “rip your heart out,” “to get out of yourself,” and really try to achieve unity with your comrades…! You have no other way out, no other means to reach the higher world, because you reveal it only in unification! And suddenly such blatant hypocrisy, such lies! It just infuriated me!

When I returned to Rabash, he smiled and said: “I told you not to go there.” And that was it, I never showed up there again.

Question: But as far as I understand, this is the essence of the whole job, when you have to justify all these people, whatever they may be?

Answer: No! Absolutely not! After all, they did not initially strive for unity!

I can justify the people on the street because they have nothing to do with it. They are in a state where their nature forces them to act one way and not another.

I fully justify them because the Creator, through His actions, causes certain reactions in this egoistic desire, which is a person that we observe in our world. Therefore, there is no Hitler, Stalin, Rabindranath Tagore or anyone else here; all of them, both good and bad, are puppets, and there is no reckoning with them.

The only calculation is that the Creator does good through one person and evil through another. But by and large, the person himself has absolutely nothing to do with it; he is given such a desire, an aspiration, and he fulfills it.

But here, when people hear, see, feel, and understand, they inherited their spiritual aspirations from their fathers who were students of Baal HaSulam and are now close to such a great, last Kabbalist as Rabash… .

We are already in a completely different era, in a different time, cut off from all the previous great Kabbalists, who represent the chain from the first Kabbalist Adam to the last RABASH. We are in a completely different era, the era of universal correction.

And therefore, if those people who heard, saw, and understood all this acted in such a way that they did not even treat each other as friends, and suddenly they were sitting together, singing songs about love, about how to reveal the Creator because through this a person penetrates into the higher world, it is obviously a blatant lie. I don’t understand!

Of course, when I returned from there, I realized that I had nothing more to do with them, absolutely nothing! And then I asked Rabash: “What’s next?” He replied that maybe I needed another community.

And then I started looking for people in Tel Aviv who are interested in Kabbalah, and I brought them to him. However, among them too, no matter how hard we tried to create a community of friends, nothing worked. The thing is, I wasn’t ready, and they weren’t ready. They tried to unite with each other, to build something, but it didn’t work out.

The only thing that can be said is that apart from our group, nowhere else can we seriously and normally, not only study Kabbalah (a person can sit and study alone), but namely, unite. Unfortunately, not to my happiness and not to my joy.

I would like to see the whole world dotted with groups of people studying Kabbalah, each independently, even independently of others, no matter what method. The main thing is that there should be unification, because in unification the Creator is revealed.

But we see that this is not happening. We hope that this will happen in our group, because we feel from congress to congress, from lesson to lesson, how we are moving toward unity.
[345929]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Kabbalist’s Failed Experiment,” 9/19/10

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Comment: It turns out that there are hundreds of millions of atheists in the world. By some estimates their numbers near 1 billion.  It is projected that their number will continue to grow.

My Response: The main reason is that a person is developing. But atheism is also a religion. It is the religion of nature, not godlessness.

For atheists, their deity is progress, technology, money, or something else. It is still a belief in something higher than oneself.

Question: So what is true faith then?

Answer: True faith is the revelation of the upper force—clear, absolutely attainable, analyzable, and synthesized within oneself.

Question: Is it felt?

Answer: It is a felt absolutely completely, up to full connection of a person with the upper force, when it “dwells” in him and becomes he himself. A person becomes filled with this upper force, and then it acts in him, with his consent, and through his mutual effort.

This is all described in Kabbalah. There is only one true religion, and that is the wisdom of Kabbalah, the science of revealing the Creator, of a voluntary, conscious, gradual rapprochement with Him, that is, adapting oneself to this upper force of nature.

And the upper force is bodiless and timeless. It has no whims, no conditions, only the revelation of the opportunity to merge with it, to attain its level.

Question: What are the qualities of the upper force?

Answer: Absolute bestowal and love, nothing else.

Question: But why doesn’t that attract a person? In theory it should attract him!

Answer: It is the opposite of human nature. If a person has a predisposition, a yearning to attain the upper force at any cost (meaning, “I have no reason to live except for this!”), then he goes for it, no matter what, and is ready to sacrifice everything.

But if this yearning is not given to him from above, then he remains on the earthly level, and exists to serve his animal body. Of course, everyone has to take care of this animal body, but he exists for the sake of it.

Then he is a so-called human, that is, an animal, highly developed in some way, who lives and dies, lives and dies, until this yearning for attainment, for merging, for rising to the Creator develops in him.

Question: Is it bound to develop?

Answer: In everyone! And after us, the animate, vegetative, and inanimate nature rises to the same level. We pull everyone along with us! And all of nature integrates into this upper level, into the Creator.

Question: Then is it rightly said that “Man is the crown of creation”?

Answer: In that case, yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/21/24

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Starting from Adam, the earlier a Kabbalist lived, the closer he was connected to the root and the higher he stood. All those who came after him received the light through him.

But for those who want to connect with the ray of light coming from infinity, the last, closest Kabbalist is always more important, because it is he who connects and unites us with the light, with the Creator. For us, this Kabbalist is Baal HaSulam.

He writes that he was honored to convey the wisdom of Kabbalah to us. And we are honored to have such a soul revealed to us that brings us the methodology of Kabbalah, thanks to which we can reveal the Creator.

The writings of Baal HaSulam are the only ones suitable in our time for achieving the spiritual goal. Only the books of Baal HaSulam carry the light necessary for our correction. To prepare for them, the articles of RABASH are required.

The revelation of the Creator to creations, i.e., spiritual liberation, must become complete for everyone,  that is, their teaching is a teaching for the whole world.
[21326]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/10, Dedicated to the memory of Baal HaSulam

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