Question: Is it possible to achieve the same harmonious balanced state to which the study of Kabbalah leads just by going on vacation to rest?

Answer: As long as a person is not sufficiently developed he can simply go on vacation and be satisfied. He travels away from the city, leaving his job, competition, disconnecting from news, and calms down.

But we are talking about people who become aware that they are dominated by the evil egoistic force. Here, a vacation will not help because a person feels that he cannot rest peacefully. He cannot get rid of the thought that his empty life is slipping by, which will end without any benefit.

A person becomes desperate that he cannot realize himself in life. He cannot lie in a deck chair by the pool or the sea and enjoy. Egoism, the desire to enjoy, is burning in him, not letting him rest. He does not see where he could fulfill himself. His life is empty.

We see that today this mood is very common judging by the quantity of drugs and antidepressants humanity consumes. Everyone suffers, but many already have come to the realization we must get out of this dead end.

Here, you can explain that there is a solution, not just a sedative suppressing the evil force temporarily and letting our animal body rest like a cat who basks in the sun and thinks of nothing.

The method of Kabbalah allows us to reveal the positive force of nature and establish balance between the two forces, negative and positive, combining the plus and minus in oneself. When the plus and minus come into balance, then between them we discover the spiritual world, a higher dimension, our next state, the future world.

Then, we see ourselves not in this world lying on the beach under the sun by the sea, not surrounded by material objects like stones, plants, animals, and people, but existing in the field of forces that govern our world. We rise to the level of these forces, and there find the source of happiness and fulfillment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/18/14

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Question: How do we grow a new Einstein?

Answer: It does not depend on us, and it is unlikely that we need it. Mr. Einstein didn’t do anything good for us; moreover, he helped build the atomic bomb and told us that there are properties in our world that we cannot understand.

It would have been better if he and the rest of the nuclear physicists had done nothing. We would survive well without nuclear power and certainly without the atomic bomb. Therefore, we do not need an Einstein or a generation of spiritual leaders.

I believe that the science of the 20^th century did not benefit mankind, but not to deny its achievements, science did quite a lot. However, in fact, almost all of it has turned against us. Of course, we aren’t working as hard as before. We have washing machines to replace the hard work of washerwomen. Huge companies manufacture semi-finished products, and we are ready to buy food that only needs to be heated up in the microwave.

This is all clear, but what does this give us? What do we do with the remaining time that we have? We fill ourselves with even more worries, and as a result we are depleting the earth of its natural resources.

I don’t see that people have become happier in our century. People used to listen to music, went to the theater, were interested in literature and read thick novels. Today, a person can read only two lines and can’t read more. If the first few minutes of a film doesn’t catch his interest, he turns the television off.

How did it come to this? In what way is a person happier today than he was a century ago? In the fact that now he doesn’t work so hard? But what is it that relieved him from work?

It turns out that the “Einsteins” brought us nothing but harm, although they were good people.

Despite the fact that I love science and strongly welcome it, I cannot say that science mixes with the selfishness of man. Einstein turning out an evil bomb is not good. Therefore, we must correct man first, and then develop science. Otherwise, we will develop it to our own detriment.

I would gladly go back one hundred years and instead of science, introduce compulsory integral education for everyone. Only to the extent that it could help mankind would I allow people to develop science. Then science would benefit humanity. As a result of integral education, a person must come to feel the whole world and that it is one single unit. Then his research would never have resulted in the creation of the bomb. He simply could not do anything harmful to us, the same way as any man who aspires to do what is useful.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15

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Question: So far, I cannot say that I have been studying Kabbalah. I listen to your radio program, watch TV and movies. I just can’t get an answer to one question. In your book, Kabbalah for Beginners, you wrote that the process of studying Kabbalah is about reading the sources, contemplation, and group participation…

What exactly will raise us to the Creator? How will the worlds be divulged to a human being? Will it happen through reading, thinking, and interacting? Are there practices that teach contemplation, prayers, dreams interpretation? Is it possible to instigate or change certain desires in us?

Answer: The attainment of the upper world occurs in developing our property of bestowal. Inside this property, we will be able to sense the superior nature “of giving and loving.” In order to develop such a property, we need to join a group (preferably 10 people) and work on building these kinds of relationships among us. The entire Kabbalah and the Torah in general speak only about this process!
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In the News (psyfactor): “300 years ago, at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, European philosophers naively believed that the human intellect would soon dispel the ‘darkness of prejudice’ since all the false opinions and views are in sum the result of illiteracy and ignorance of scientific facts.

“It would be enough to ‘educate’ people about the truth so that they would reject the former prejudices and begin to behave according to the claims of reason. This optimism collapsed at the beginning of the 20^th century. We know that the development of science does not transform human society into being more rational, and that in parallel with the growth of knowledge, the amount of wild myths also increases.

“Modern people ignore facts if they are against their personal opinions and views. And attempts to change the false opinions and views of people arouse the opposite effect, the reinforcement of prejudices. Only if one recognizes the fact that one must add to a person’s pride about himself, increasing his personal assessment, will he recognize the truth of the facts and change his opinion.”

My Comment: Man is a desire to receive and to have pleasure. When we play with this desire, leaving him the possibility of filling himself with pride, and in the case of loss, we can change his opinions and views. We only need to direct him towards fulfillment of pride about himself, elevating his self-esteem, and he will move on to this option, and it will no longer make a difference what other facts I have.
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 In the News (postnauka.ru): “…The uniqueness of Maslow’s theory is that he treats each person in terms of a hierarchy (superordinate structures) of needs, the apex of which is the need for self-actualization. It defines self-actualization as a man’s desire for self-actualization, to actualize his potential. This desire to be what the person should be.

“Moreover, as noted by Maslow, self-actualization is not determined by social roles, status, position. For example, one person self-actualizing as the perfect parent, and the other as an athlete, and the third as an artist, and so on. Nevertheless, a significant role in the development of personality Maslow assigns social environment.

“The basis of the pyramid of needs are physiological needs: the need for food, sleep, etc. Above these is built the need for security, stability, freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos, a need for social structure and order. Above the need for security, Maslow puts the need for belonging and love, and above it – the need for respect and recognition. The top of the pyramid, as has been said, is the need for self-actualization.

“One of the most frequently asked questions: Why is it a pyramid? Maslow believed that only individuals reach the top of the pyramid and become self-actualized, i.e., reach their identity or self. Most people operate on the level of satisfying their physiological needs. Part of humanity meets the physiological needs and security needs, that is, feeling well-fed, clothed and sheltered, the other part, except those needs, meets the need for love and belonging. Then there is this group of people, which reaches the level of acceptance, confidence, a sense of the importance of private utility.”

My Comment: Baal HaSulam’s pyramid is a pyramid of corporeal desire— food, sex, family— bodily desires, and the needs for wealth, honor, knowledge—social desires—next, above these desires is the desire to attain the meaning of life, the source of life, that appears in a person from Above in the form of a Reshimo, an informational gene of his previous spiritual state. The Reshimo leads a person to a teacher, a Kabbalist, and under his guidance and instruction one discovers the 125 levels of the spiritual attainment, until he reaches the top of the ladder, the state of the complete correction of the ego and the resemblance to the upper force.
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Opinion (David Chalmers, Australian Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist): “Consciousness is the most mysterious phenomenon in nature. Why do we have consciousness? The answer is unknown. Physics explains chemistry, chemistry explains biology and psychology. But consciousness is beyond the normal definition of our world.

“Consciousness is fundamental. Physicists accept particular aspects of nature as basic: space, time, and mass. They deduce and derive the basic laws that govern nature. These characteristics and laws are not explained in any other form, and upon them a model of the entire world is built. If it is impossible to explain consciousness by means of the basic existing elements (space, time, and mass), then that must also be included in this list, accepting consciousness as a basic element of nature.

“Consciousness is universal. Every system has consciousness to a particular degree: Not only people, flies, and bacteria, but also the elementary particles. Even a photon has consciousness. Does a photon have understanding or thought; is it tormented by worry about where it is being carried with the speed of light? No, but there are possibilities that photons have some kind of subjective feeling, something that precedes consciousness.

“It could be that the connection of consciousness to physical processes is a connection of consciousness with information. There, where information is being processed, is where consciousness is also found. The integrated processing of information, as with humans, is integrated consciousness. The simple processing of information, this is simple consciousness.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah maintains that everything is only in the human. And everything that seems to us as outside of the human only seems that way to us, but essentially everything is found within us, and outside of us there are no other creatures. Consciousness is connected with information, which depends only on connections with the Upper Light, the characteristic of bestowal.

Only the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) and the Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light), in all the forms that are created (still, vegetative, animate, including humans) maintain consciousness, to the degree of the development of the ego within them and the ascent above it. See Lesson Number 1 from April 5, 2015. We are “swimming” within the Upper Light, in the higher consciousness….
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Question: What is the difference between the religious and secular approach to life? For example, I consider myself a secular person, but I always have an internal conflict, and it is difficult to figure out where in me the secular person ends and the religious one begins. The same division exists in the entire Israeli society.

According to the latest poll: 50% of the [Israeli] population are completely secular, 17% observe the traditions but do not consider themselves religious, 13% observe traditions and consider themselves religious, 12% are religious and 8% are Orthodox religious.

Answer: Secular people believe that the world is governed by laws of nature and there is nothing else except what we see and discover through science. The secular approach to life means that the world should be taken such as it is, according to one’s feelings, without relying on any upper forces, destiny, life after death. Any unsolved phenomena are no more than a figment of our imagination and fantasy.

The secular approach is the real approach. Inside it are many varieties that define man’s relationship to himself and society, but they are not to the level of the difference between the religious and secular approach.

The religious approach is based on the belief in the upper force that created the world and puts us in the conditions that we have to perform. If we fulfill all the wishes of the upper force, we deserve the award, if we do not fulfill them, we will be punished.

There are different kinds of relationships with the upper force, of attitudes to reward and punishment, to a person’s participation in this and one’s freedom of choice. But the point is that religious people take into account the existence of the upper force, a higher design, program, the purpose of creation. Thus, the center of creation is no longer the human being, but the Upper Force, the Creator.

Because people believe that the Creator arranges and organizes everything in response to one’s behavior, they have to continuously relate their lives to the Upper Force. That is, they think that one is dependent not on the laws of blind nature, but on the Upper will. Therefore, it is necessary to pray to the Upper, ask, be ashamed, repent for one’s past actions.

Many different religions and beliefs once existed and vanished or are still existing today Religion has a great influence on the world and on humanity. During the past two thousand years, humanity has evolved under the influence of religion, first after the destruction of the Second Temple Judaism arose, and then from it came Christianity and Islam.

All these religions are fighting among themselves, and there are very complex relationships between them. Each religion has many movements: Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christianity, Shiite and Sunni in Islam, and many streams of Judaism.

Every synagogue in Israel is somehow different from the rest. Not to mention the conflict between the secular and religious who are not able to organize their lives so as not to interfere with each other but want to impose their own view on others.

I do not want to judge who is right and who is wrong. But such a conflict exists only in Israel. For example, in the US or in Europe there is no conflict between religious and secular people. If you are a Jew, no one cares whether you attend the synagogue on Saturdays or only on major holidays.

The Jews abroad feel they belong to one nation. In Israel, there is a conflict, because religion is not separated from the state and is involved in a power struggle. Thus, it appears into the area of general interest, where our desires clash. Over the years, this conflict increases because everyone believes that the opposite side wants to grab a piece from it.

This confrontation in society is gaining strength, leading to such hatred and division, which had never existed among the people of Israel. And I do not think that it is the result of a different approach to the world. It’s just a struggle for power in our lives—desires of some to control others and the state so that it serves their interests, be that of the secular or religious community.

The struggle is for the state, for power, for the state treasury, and using it for their own benefit.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/21/15

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Opinions: Eugene P Wigner: “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, page 169).

Erwin Schrodinger: “Consciousness is not measurable with a natural formula. For consciousness this is an absolutely basic conclusion. It cannot be explained from the point of view of something else. What we see in the form of physical bodies and forces is none other than forms and different versions in the structure of space. Plato was the first to envisage the idea of timeless existence and to emphasize it—against reason—as a reality, more [real] than our actual experience…”

Albert Einstein: “If we think of the field as being removed, there is no ‘space’ which remains since space does not have an independent existence. Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it. It is understood that there is no physical space, ultimately in nature everything is present or not, depending on human thought. This is the function of our conceptual schema (of the mind). Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

In his later years he said, “It is necessary to find possibilities of refraining from the temporal sequence (space together with time) in general. But there is no hint of an idea, in which of the elementary concepts it is possible to use a theory like this.”

Max Planck: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

Niels Bohr: “The general view of the world in terms of objects that really exist ‘out there’, without any connection to our observations (objective reality), was absolutely destroyed from the perspective of the quantum factor. Everything that we call real is composed of things that cannot be considered as real. If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet”.
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Question: Why did the first settlers in Israel lose their main internal essence of the mutual relations between them and just accepted socialism with all its implications and mistakes?

Answer: The fact is that in Israel there was mutual exclusion between Kabbalists and traditional Judaism, between Rav Kook and the religious people. Rav Kook called for unity, for the Light that is reflected in his writings, while the other Jewish leaders continued to educate their followers according to the principles laid down in exile.

They didn’t welcome the spiritual revival of the nation according to the principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself.” So far this condition has not been met because they are awaiting the arrival of the Messiah, that is, some force, some special circumstances, that will reveal the love of others in us. They don’t realize that this is only possible due to our own internal work, as the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us. From the Kabbalistic perspective it is totally wrong to tie the fulfillment of the law of “love thy neighbor as thyself” to some upper illumination or to a certain person or leader.

After the first wave of settlers in Israel, there was a delimitation between Kabbalah and Judaism. After all, the masses that came to Israel totally rejected religion, or clung to its ordinary corporeal frameworks. The number of Kabbalists among them, was very small and no one listened to them. Moreover, they were afraid to speak in public, afraid they would create a situation that would force them to leave the country.

It soon became clear who belonged to which camp among the settlers that caused the division among society according to political, economic, spiritual, and physical principles. This led to great problems. None of the famous Kabbalists who lived here were able to speak openly about spiritual correction. Rav Kook for example, used a language that could not be understood; therefore, everyone regarded him as an ordinary ideologue, not a Kabbalist.

The great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam tried to publish a paper to reach the people, but he wasn’t able to achieve anything; the paper was shut down under the accusation of pro-communist ideas. After all, if you pursue the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself, it is perceived as a communistic principle.

Thus a quarter of a century after the first Zionist congress in Basel, the situation in Israel is that we have to revive everything all over again today. There are many people and movements opposed to the Kabbalistic approach of creating one nation since each one is trying to grab a “piece” for himself to become a tiny king in his own community.

We see how divided and torn apart modern Judaism is; a huge confrontation exists between the religious and non-religious factions of society. The entire nation is divided into many sectors.

I think that today we can speak openly about the wisdom of Kabbalah and with an appeal for the love of others, as a consequence of the deep frustration people are now beginning to feel and realize as a result of the cumulative experience gained over 150 years of development.

Therefore, we have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the first settlers and the founders of the country to call for practical actions based on our internal constitution of love thy neighbor as thyself.
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From KabTV’s “About Our Life” 5/7/15

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In the News (from thetheoryandpractice.ru): “Genes determine everything for us! They find the best partner in life for us so that we can reproduce ourselves with healthy offspring. Unconscious DNA testing for compatibility takes place with the exchange saliva in the first kiss. Genes also choose friends for us: friends have 1% of the same genes, the same as it is with fifth generation relatives.

“People prefer to associate with those with whom they have the same perception of smell, yet different immunity (so that everyone will not get sick at the same time). The genes choose the appropriate environment for their own distribution—they push us into a particular society. Characteristics of human nature are results of the genes.

“Bacteria may release psychoactive substances that enhance religious feelings. There are trillions of bacteria living within us that use the human body exclusively for their own interests. 3,000 species of bacteria live within the human body. Most of them populate the digestive system, and are nourished by the same food, and they have their own taste preferences.

“If food composition—the ratio of the proteins, carbohydrates and other nutrients—is appropriate for the development of the bacteria, they encourage their host by releasing substances that improve the health of the person. If the food composition is not to the taste of the bacteria, they release toxins. In this way the bacteria shape our sense of taste and determine our diet.

“The activity of the brain depends upon forty genes and is activated by the bacteria.

“In a spoonful of water there are five million bacteria and five million viruses. The bacteria are 80% of the total biomass of the Earth. The entire biosphere is a system for exchanging genes between various micro-organisms.

“Parasites damage trees, flowers, animals, every life form. If the behavior of the subject becomes different, if he puts himself in danger, it is because of the parasite that actively controls the subject through various chemicals.

“A flatworm is so eager to get out of the body of the mouse into the body of the fox that it transforms the mouse into prey for any predator, slowly but surely. Nematodes color ants like the red berries that the birds into which they want to pass indulge themselves with.

“Toxoplasma first inhabits rodents, from them it passes to cats, and from there to a human. People who are infected with toxoplasmosis stand out in their behavior: They often lose self-control and are unable to be freed from worry. In addition, the toxoplasma slows down a person’s reaction time. So some people prefer adventure, epinephrine and eternal searching, while others are satisfied with the television remote.

“Neurons. A person makes a decision much later than it is made by the neurons. The brain alone decides how to act. The conscious choice of a form of behavior is only an illusion that conceals the true processes that are happening within the human brain without any connection with himself. The acceptance of a decision is the attainment of the active threshold of particular neurons that signal the motor cortex of the brain to launch rational or emotional behavior.

“Neurotransmitters. Neurons determine our desires. The source of the various senses are neurotransmitters—chemical substances that provide for the passage of electrical current to synapses that connect between nerve cells.

“The feeling of happiness depends on the amount of serotonin in the tissue of the brain, and depression is the result of a lack of this substance. Another neurotransmitter, dopamine, causes us to yearn for food and sex, and not for higher goals. The more the level of dopamine rises, the more the system of ‘reward and punishment’ develops.

“The arousal neurotransmitter norepinephrine influences our behavior. Our ability to concentrate, our level of energy, our motivation to act, relaxation, memory, good mood and our behavior in times of danger depend on norepinephrine. The discovery of the neurotransmitters leads us to conclude that we are not the masters of our emotions.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah explains everything in a simple form: We have freedom of choice; nothing that happens depends on our desire. We are compelled to do everything, even if it seems to us that it is our desire.

Cooperation between higher forces that are hidden from us manages the biological substances in our bodies and arouses desires, thoughts, decisions and actions in us.

Freedom of choice is given only to make the acceleration personal spiritual development possible. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we can realize it. With everything else, we are always left with the illusion of freedom of choice in our decisions and actions. And this is despite the fact that science will continue to prove to us how much we don’t have freedom of action.

In general, the wisdom of Kabbalah defines our lives as existence on the animate level and the level of Adam; this is our only spiritual development, in the direction towards equivalence with the Creator.
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