Question: Must I examine my every desire, thought, and response? Or is my work just to contemplate how the upper force works within me?

Answer: A person doesn’t need to examine anything within oneself! You don’t know how to do this and you don’t need to know how! You don’t have this system; you don’t have an internal expert who has it. We don’t have to do it.

We just need to read Kabbalistic books and pass the material through ourselves as through a meat grinder. Think, feel, and let the information move through you again and again. And most importantly, you should participate in group activities. You will see how it helps. It is enough for a person to grab an hour a day to learn and another hour per week to be together with the group.

That is how it was during the time of my teacher. I studied many hours every day, three hours in the morning with the group, after that a few hours with Rabash personally. But once a week we had a gathering of friends in which we read the article that he wrote for that week. When we gathered together, we tried to unite and realize what was said in the articles about the unity of friends. A total of one hour was devoted to this, a maximum of an hour and a half per week. Besides that, we studied the wisdom of Kabbalah a few hours every day.

But a person doesn’t need intensive work like this today. It is enough to study one hour per day and participate in a gathering of friends another hour per week. Especially since it is possible to do all of this virtually today and that is enough to establish strong relationships and to clarify all of the relationships and the principles of mutual cooperation of group work. We also arrange conventions that I highly recommend every student to take part in.

If a person will use the possibilities for learning and will participate in our shared activities, this will draw him forward. He will feel how he changes, how the world around him changes. He will begin to understand it more and suddenly will see that in fact it is different, complex, and managed. Moreover, he will be able to participate in management to the degree that he becomes adapted to the positive force that manages the world.
[191621]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/17/16

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Question: At what point does Kabbalah become a science?

Answer: Kabbalah becomes a science when a Kabbalist is engaged in it.

A Kabbalist is one who has achieved the state of “receiving for the sake of bestowal.” A person who possesses such properties understands the Creator’s actions within himself and in the universe. He becomes a researcher of the entire space revealed before him.

Therefore he is called a Kabbalist. Those who study Kabbalah are the students of Kabbalists for now since they are on the path to the attainment of the spiritual world.
[189591]
From the Convention In Moscow, Day Two 5/3/16, Lesson 5

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Research (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science): Psychologists from Yale and Harvard University conducted a series of studies.

“Human prosociality presents an evolutionary puzzle, and reciprocity has emerged as a dominant explanation: cooperating today can bring benefits tomorrow. Reciprocity theories clearly predict that people should only cooperate when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus that the decision to cooperate should always depend on a cost–benefit analysis. Reciprocity theories clearly predict that people should only cooperate when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus that the decision to cooperate should always depend on a cost–benefit analysis. Yet human cooperation can be very uncalculating: good friends grant favors without asking questions, romantic love ‘blinds’ us to the costs of devotion, and ethical principles make universal moral prescriptions. Here, we provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, that reputation effects drive uncalculating cooperation. We demonstrate, using economic game experiments, that people engage in uncalculating cooperation to signal that they can be relied upon to cooperate in the future.

“Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers.

“People who help others non egoistically and for no self benefit are perceived as more reliable and therefore help others,” which means that they want to seem more reliable and can be counted on and accepted to work and so subconsciously they do things that are considered desirable by others. …

“…we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs.”

Answer: Of course this is how such people want to be accepted.  So they promote themselves to acquire some “profit”:  gain social status, are promoted at work, etc.

Question: Would they behave differently if there weren’t this self-benefit?

Answer: Of course! Egoism is our nature, it requires calories, energy, an investment. Where does this energy come from? We have to see what we can get it from in the future; how we can fill ourselves. It is just lifke a gas tank in a car which you fill at a gas station.

People are ready to give a lot for the future reward that illuminates for them: for being spoken of favorably, for being promoted at work, so that their children will be proud of them, neighbors will respect them, etc. It is worth a lot!

Otherwise why do we buy a certain apartment or a certain car and spend a lot of money on it, when we could live in perfect peace and quite well without them.

Our actions cannot be free of greediness because our nature doesn’t allow us to do so! We have to spend calories on everything, joules (energy measuring units), no matter how we measure it. Therefore we have to receive this energy, which means that there has to be something that provides us with this energy for which we work, and if we don’t receive it, we cannot work because we are all mechanisms! We can only operate only if we have available energy or if it illuminates for us in the future.

Comment: But the researchers at Yale and Harvard don’t even mention egoism.

Answer: Of course not because they don’t understand it. They believe it is natural for a person who gives to do so and that there is no egoism in him and even quite the opposite.

Comment: But they did conclude that such actions are rewarding.

Answer: This is not considered egoism. Egoism is the clear fulfillment of our desire in order to harm others. If I bargain with someone in order to buy something for a cheaper price and he wants to sell it for a higher price, it is normal. It is human nature, but it may be the opposite case.

The painter Modigliani, for example, painted with “blood” because he was so hungry he couldn’t hold a paintbrush and fell exhausted at his easel. This is considered a noble soul, self-sacrifice, not selfishness. But in fact, this is overt blatant egoism.

A person lacks the clear accurate understanding of his nature; he loves to distort everything. Humanity is still immersed in its games, in confusion.

We must understand that nature operates according to a very simple principle: If there is energy, I turn around; if there is no energy I stand still and that’s all. Therefore, if we do something, it means that there is a hidden benefit in it, and if we wish to work without it, we have to know how to connect to an upper source of energy by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and become a perpetual motion machine.

Then we will receive energy from an external source as if we are connected to an invisible pipe of energy for the sake of others. If we receive it, we will be able to work, but not in any other way.
[191202]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/24/16

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Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 7:16: And you shall consume all the peoples which the Lord your God gives you; you shall not spare them, nor shall you worship their gods, for that will be a snare for you.

Any theories, methods, and goals that don’t pursue an accurate and acute goal—adhesion with the Creator in the equivalence of form with Him—should be abolished on the vine.

It is necessary to move away from those teachings that are very close to Kabbalah so they won’t captivate and confuse a person. After all, he doesn’t know the whole method yet, he isn’t at the end of correction, so that, from the pedestal he has reached, he could look at everything and evaluate. Therefore he must strictly follow only genuine Kabbalistic sources, without moving to the left or to the right!

By the way, there is a lot of unnecessary literature in Kabbalah that is written by people who haven’t attained or have just begun to attain the upper world. Therefore, it is necessary to study Kabbalah only through authentic sources.

Question: Is this the “trap”?

Answer: Yes, and a very big one! The trap, like a tidbit, lures you, but the trap slams shut. That’s it. It is difficult to get out of there. And you don’t know when it will slam shut. Once in the trap, you start to think that you are on the right path.

Unfortunately I have many students who were with us on the path, but due to some pretext left it and went into other currents, and it is hard to get them out.

It is possible that they think the same about us that we are on the side and they are in the main current. There is nothing that can be done, the future will tell.

Remark: In principle, does “serving other gods” mean serving material egoistic purposes?

Answer: It means serving any egoistic purposes, which includes everything that exists in our world.

Question: What does trap mean in a person’s internal work? Let’s say he is moving to the land of Israel and tomorrow, figuratively speaking, has to enter it, but suddenly falls in serving other gods…

Answer: Usually it happens before we enter the land of Israel. However even after we enter it, the huge war to destroy all idols continues since we begin to work with the same egoism that we left in Egypt and convert it into altruism.

The thing is that the egoistic desire is at the bottom. We exit it, 40 years we are above it, mastering all above-egoistic qualities, and then we begin to gradually raise egoistic qualities converting them to altruistic ones. And this is the entry to the land of Israel. In fact, the land of Israel is the same as Egypt in the correct, converted state.
[191074]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/13/16

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Question: At the gathering of the 18^th Knesset, a compulsory education law was passed regarding essential subjects (mathematics, physics, and others) for the ultra-Orthodox schools. However, the ultra-Orthodox are introducing another bill to nullify this reform.

How do you feel about the proposal of teaching essential subjects for a general education in all schools?

Answer: I don’t understand the ultra-Orthodox’s fear. This doesn’t include history, social sciences, culture, or art. These are subjects that are essential today for every person to apply for any job.

Maybe they are afraid of being left without their electorate or that people will become more secular, will begin to work and leave their communities in which children grow up without a profession;  they don’t have degrees and must study in a kollel [institute for advanced Talmud and rabbinical literature study] for a poor people’s scholarship. The problem is compounded by the fact that they receive very large benefits from the state according to the number of children in the family.

If you consider the situation from the perspective of the future, on the one hand, in any case everything is going toward a reduction in the number of places to work because robots and automated machines will enter our lives so much that we will simply not be able to find work for everyone. On the other hand, in spite of everything, it is necessary to give a person a minimal job besides studying Torah. At least, that is what the Americans did. But it could be that to a particular degree this caused them to begin to become distanced from religion, from Jewish communities and to gradually spread all over America. The problem is serious and as far as it seems, the Orthodox are considering this issue.

They must stand guard in relation to their community and they are doing this magnificently. They use whatever they can get from the nation and from local self-management organizations. They are good politicians who can see everything correctly, predict developments, and come to agreements. They understand what they must do. There is a thorough understanding of their internal problems, but externally they always present themselves as one single monolithic force.

Comment: In principle, this is a type of preservation….

Answer: This preservation is correct because in their perception there is nothing new in the world, “If we wait 30 years, nothing will happen.”

Preservation like this is justified. So I think that they know what they are doing and all of our secular views about their behavior, in which we immediately denounce and judge them, is derived from a point of view in which everything must be changed immediately and be constantly clothed in another form.

While they assume that changes can wait, the main thing is to hold their community together, under one roof, behind one fence and not allow it any way to dissolve or to disperse anywhere.

Comment: According to Kabbalistic theory, the ego is growing and one way or another it will always win, meaning that the barriers will be breached….

Answer: This will only be in the end of days. First everything will come from the secular strata of the population through the moderate religious Jewish communities. And only at the end, when all the rest will already be close to correction and unity, then the Light of correction, by way of the external strata, will it gradually manifest in them.

Until then, they will be against any changes; they will hate the wisdom of Kabbalah and this will continue until the end of days.
[191050]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/24/16

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Question: If satisfaction of my material needs depends on my scientific work, why should I give it up? How is it possible to provide everything that is imperative for life in order to be free to engage in spirituality?

Answer: If that is your job and it doesn’t harm anyone, you can continue to be involved with it as much as is necessary. At the same time you should be involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah and later you will understand how much everything is harmoniously integrated together. You can go on like that for the rest of your life. Do not think that it is impossible to be involved with anything besides the wisdom of Kabbalah. You will find out for yourself and see that your scientific field and the wisdom of Kabbalah can be compatible. And it could be that you will suddenly discover that you can add one to the other, explaining the wisdom of Kabbalah through science and science through the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: Why was a person given talents by the Creator if after reaching the wisdom of Kabbalah, he doesn’t need to use them?

Answer: Every talent is not worth anything in comparison to what the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals. I understand the trepidation. I went through the same misgivings myself, when it seems that something unknown, not apparent and secret is revealed in front of you and you yearn for it, try to find it. But gradually this will disappear. Engage with your science and it could be that with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah you can add new facets to it and you will truly make new scientific discoveries based upon what you get from it. This is absolutely possible.

I have a few students who are engaged with scientific work in various fields and all of them try to use the wisdom of Kabbalah in their professional activities. Incidentally, I welcome science and am always happy to talk with scientists. A few times per month in the studio we have arranged meetings with scientists. We talk with them about how the wisdom of Kabbalah can connect and mutually complement the same science that they represent.
[190575]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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In the News (Veche.Razved): “Academician, Head of the Department of Neurosurgery Centre of Neurology and Neurosurgery, neurosurgeon Arnold F. Smeyanovich has over 47 years of practice and has performed brain surgery on nearly 9,000 patients. …

“Yes, I can see before me a substance, the cells of which are filled with so much knowledge that I want, like Newton, to take my hat off to every researcher it. It is not clear how it ‘works’. On any signal from the nerve, ears or eyes it creates a ‘picture’. But in the end, one realizes that it is – a monkey, that is – a lamp, and this is – himself? It is clear that the brain is more powerful than any supercomputer. …

“The most amazing thing is that consciousness has no place in the body, and the relationship of the brain and the mind – is all a complex mystery. Probably, the Creator controls it.”

Answer: Today scientists are no longer afraid of talking about the concept of the Creator, and with this they confirm that this is beyond understanding, the mind, and modeling.

That is, they understand that, in accordance with some definite action of exciting an area of the brain, there is a special type of configuration of a complex relationship between them. Beyond that? They do not know.

There is a box here, there is a box there, and some kind of connection is made between them and a further connection somewhere else. But the essence of this is not understood. It is not understood what is truly happening inside, what is the thought that is imprinted in a person and gives one a sensation of the existence of a particular volume.

The thought draws a picture for a person that influences him; it becomes something, it influences him and there is the processing of information. Where is all of this? It is not in the brain.

There is, in fact, only one gigantic “brain” that I would call a force field, in which absolutely everything exists. We call this field the Creator. We are constantly connected to this field and are more or less found within it.

We must try not to limit ourselves to the gray matter or tiny particles, but understand that there is nothing besides this force field. Unfortunately, we don’t perceive it in its full capacity; we don’t see how everything is mutually connected into one unique and complete whole. The true picture of creation evades us and so it seems to us that how and where are not understood.

But it is specifically the discovery that the characteristics of the brain are infinite and that it is only that part which comes into biological contact with the spiritual supercomputer that will bring us to accept the fact that we are in fact found within the Creator and that the mission of humanity is to discover our communication with Him.

From the News Item: “Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine John Eccles…believed that the brain does not ‘produce’ thought, but only takes them from outside. … Where do theories, hypotheses, and discoveries come from? – It is not known to physiologists. I also think that the brain – being in the being, is a mystery.”

Answer: That’s right. So therefore it is necessary to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

From the News Item: “- When I see how beautifully arranged the heart and brain are, which has no analogues in nature, I have no doubt that here was not without God’s hands. The great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov wrote that ‘the brain of the individual is a body of thought of the world of thought. It is necessary to recognize the existence, in addition to the thoughts of the brain, another, higher, world. ‘”

Answer: Yes, certainly. All of us are connected through the so-called brain. But this is not a brain but the soul.

Comment: When Smeyanovich was asked, “What do you think, where is the place of the soul – in the brain, spinal cord, heart?” He responded, “I think that this substance does not need a place. If it is, then the whole body – is the hostess.”

Answer: No. The soul is an immense force field; it is the power of the higher intelligence in which we exist.

Question: Is it possible to say where it is located?

Answer: First of all, in the upper world there is no location, space, or movement. Secondly, our bodies do not exist. This is an illusion that is portrayed in us. The Book of Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah openly say, that we imagine ourselves and our world in volumes and very limited forms, that in fact, don’t exist. Rather, this is an illusion.

Question: Are academics capable of reaching this understanding?

Answer: Theoretically or in some other way they will guess, but they will not be able to reach this scientifically. This requires the possession of another vision.

They will gradually reach the wisdom of Kabbalah, become removed from their “gray matter,” and begin to perceive the world through the desire to bestow.

In the meantime, the principle for perceiving the world takes place in the investigators through the intellect, but it must happen through one single desire. To the degree that a person is integrated within it, he begins to perceive the true world.
[189955]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/4/16

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New Life 747 – Love Is The Building Block Of Reality
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Even if we don’t identify it, everything in reality is divided into four phases. After the desire to receive is filled with Light it feels the oppositeness between its state and the Light, and restricts itself.

In this process we learn the relationship between man and the Creator is possible only after the person build a love of the Creator.

It is from this process that we learn that the connection between a person and the Creator is possible only after the person builds love for the creator. The main goal of our life is to reach the revelation of the Creator during our lifetime, the general force of giving.

This world is like a playground in which we practice developing hatred and love, receiving and giving. We have some desires like those of animals: food, sex, family, and some human desires: money, respect, and knowledge.

When a person’s ego begins to develop, he begins to ask what he lives for and then he discovers that life is aimed at a special goal, which is the revelation of the upper force that manages us. The revelation of the Creator provides a person with the answers to all his questions since He is the root of everything, the force of love and bestowal.
[190117]
From KabTV’s “New Life 747 – Love Is The Building Block Of Reality,” 7/14/16

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Question: How do reading books like, The Book of Zohar and the Shamati articles influence a person and how can we read them correctly, with what intention? What must we want?

Answer: We must read with an intention to achieve the purpose of life, resemblance to the Creator, the characteristic of absolute love. That is what the first articles of Rabash talk about.

Question: When reading the Shamati articles, is it enough to want to feel the hidden meanings of the text so that the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light)  will influence the reader?

Answer: This is enough, but this is possible only on condition that the person participates in the practical realization of the text within a group.
[191169]

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New Life 746 – The Four Phases At The Foundation Of Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

The four divisions in the foundation of nature are found in every detail of creation. It is very important to be familiar with them. Creation consists of a total of two forces, the force of giving and the force of receiving, which are also called Light and Kli.

Division 1: The desire to give creates the desire to receive.

Division 2: After the Kli receives the Light and has pleasure, it begins to receive the giving characteristic of the Light.

Division 3: The Kli understands that in order to realize its desire to give, it must receive the Light with an intention to give to it.

Division 4: After the Kli feels how much the Light loves it, a total desire to enjoy this is awakened in it.

This process is called the Four Phases of the Direct Light (Ohr Yashar) and is found at the foundation of creation, before the formation of the universe. At its end, there is a Kli that receives Light and feels its contrast with the Light. So it restricts its desire to receive. Every detail in reality is built from these four parts, in the technique of relationships between people in every area. In this process, the Light builds the fundamental cell of life, a desire to receive that will ultimately want to resemble the Light. It is important to understand these four phases to understand how we can bring the creation to correction.
[190117]
From KabTV’s “New Life 746 – The Four Phases At The Foundation Of Life,” 7/14/16

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