Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

What Is Hatred?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (psychologies.ru): “Hatred, unlike fear and happiness, doesn’t belong to elementary human emotions and is itself a symbiosis of several simultaneous emotions. The foundation of hatred is disgust, one of the primary emotions.

“Disgust, revulsion, is an emotion with a significant physiological cause and purpose to protect a person from the influence of a harmful object (toxic) on him. This is the reason that vomiting and nausea accompany the perception by the person of something disgusting, revolting.

“The main function of disgust is to bring the maximal contact with the unpleasant or dangerous object to zero. When we experience disgust or revulsion, we run away or become petrified. Fear attracts our attention, whereas disgust, on the contrary, rejects. The disappearance of an object that arouses disgust or revulsion relaxes us.

“Psychological or ethical disgust awakens in us values or behaviors that are unacceptable to our education. Together with this, the natural counter reaction is identical to physiological disgust.

“It is worthwhile to add several additional components to disgust, by which we get hatred. Most of the time, hatred is a product of the mixture of disgust, revulsion, fear, insult and the inability to move away from the object that arouses the emotion.

“If there is no possibility of moving away, this means that it is necessary to annihilate the object. This feeling presents the option sharply and unambiguously: It’s either me or him. Disgust, unlike hatred, presents the option in another manner: Get out of my sight.

“How is it possible to create hatred? The answer is simple. Supply people or a group with disgusting or revolting features, add fear, invoke old insults and suppress the ability to see the good. The more limited the worldview, the easier it is to arouse hatred and there are more reasons for its manifestation. When hatred develops, it limits the perception of the world and fixes the attention only on the object that arouses disgust.

“It is not possible to stop hatred through hatred. Only love, which is the opposite characteristic, acts as a neutralizing force. Releasing oneself from the shackles of hatred is possible when you focus on what you are doing with yourself. This will help in turning away from hatred.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah instructs us not to listen to ourselves, but to engage in connection with others. In this way we remove all characteristics other than love!
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How Does One Break Into The Computer Of Creation?

Laitman_712_03The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about the discovery of the higher system that is concealed within our nature. Behind the nature that we see, feel, and discover with our five senses, there is a system that manages us, our entire lives, and all of our development.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is engaged with discovering this system. It explains how this same system, the upper force, created us, how we exist, how we are evolving, and what kind of state we must ultimately attain.

This entire system is called Elokim (God). Elokim and nature (HaTeva) are the same thing (they have the same numerical value according to Gematria, and this indicates that they have the same essence). However, by the word “nature” we don’t mean the physical nature that surrounds us, but an immense system, a minute part of which is revealed to us, whereas 99.9% of it is concealed.

Scientists also confirm that they have discovered only a minute part of what is happening in reality, but they hope that, through the continued development of science, they will discover what is concealed. But there are strata in the system of nature that we cannot ever discover with our five physical senses because these senses are limited—it’s just five organs of sensing in total and the tools that we create to expand their range.

Here, what we need is an additional, new method in order to discover that hidden system in which the higher management that develops us is concealed. From this system, we can see, feel, and discover for ourselves what our fate is, what motivates us, and whether we have freedom of choice in everything that we do—or does it only seem that way to us, but, essentially, we are not free, and we are only realizing the will of some force, some desire of a unique program?

Question: Does this system manage my life and the life of everyone now and at all times?

Answer: Certainly! This is a general and complete system within which we exist, as if we were within a gigantic computer that determines everything for us, transforming us and moving us through different situations from the beginning of creation to its end.

Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah investigate this gigantic computer?

Answer: Yes. It reveals to us the entire reality, including this world and the upper world. It explains how we move between five worlds and how we attain the final state. A person who begins to recognize and attain this system is called a Kabbalist.

Question: How does this knowledge and attainment influence the a person’s life? What does it give to him?

Answer: When a person becomes familiar with and attains the higher system, the person discovers all of the forces that operate on him and the consequences of his actions. He discovers whether his actions are planned from above or whether he can insert his free and personal component into them. Is this life a “rigged game,” as if it were, in some kind of machine, and there is nothing to be done about it? Could it be that someone is watching it and following it from the outside, carrying out all kinds of exercises and experiments on it that he doesn’t know about, only carrying out the will of the higher desire in this world—or can he attain a state in our world in which he adds something of himself, and, moreover, can he discover the higher desire and obligate it to be involved with him such that he makes his own choices? A person discovers all of these things.

Question: Are you saying that there is some kind of system that manages me now, at this very moment?

Answer: Not just now, but always! It is beyond time, motion, and space.

Question: But I don’t feel it; I don’t feel that someone is managing me. I manage myself!

Answer: Do you feel how your body behaves, how it is managed? No, it has an inner program, and it acts like some kind of mechanism. You don’t feel this, but within it there is an infinite number of states and processes.

Question: I thought that the brain manages my body.

Answer: This is only the way it seems to you. Your body manages a much more complex program.

Question: Who manages me?

Answer: That same gigantic computer, the higher power, manages not only you, but everyone together, all of reality.

Question: But what does it want from my life?

Answer: The higher power wants you to discover it and become its full partner. This means that you will discover what its purpose is, how great, complete, eternal, and good this power is.

Question: How can we break into this immense computer?

Answer: To do this, you need to be a talented hacker.

Question: Which hackers break into this computer?

Answer: Those who learn the wisdom of Kabbalah can penetrate into this computer, into the higher system.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

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Workshop: The Particle Accelerator Of The Soul

laitman_934Question: After two years of reconstruction, the biggest particle accelerator in the world that is on the border between France and Switzerland finally has been reopened. Physicists are looking for the elementary particle, the “God Particle.” Does this mean that the world is in a search for something upper?

Answer: Scientists kindle public interest in this quest because they can thus satisfy their curiosity, as well as get a chance to work. It is clearly impossible to find the “God Particle” this way. It is impossible to touch things that are above matter. Scientists want to discover the “God Particle,” but it is a paradox. If it is a material particle, it cannot be a “God Particle.”

God is spiritual; it is not perceived by our senses or our lifeless machines. Therefore, it is impossible to perceive the “God Particle” by the collider that they built. However, they have already spent billions, which could be have been used for something useful. These experiments are funded because there is a hope that, thanks to them, it will be possible eventually to create a more powerful bomb.

Question: Isn’t there a connection between spirituality and corporeality, between a root and a branch? Can’t we discover the spiritual world through this particle?

Answer: This is absolutely impossible. How can there be a connection between any corporeal phenomenon that is revealed in our egoistic consciousness and something that exists in the world of absolute bestowal?

There is no connection between the corporeal and the spiritual worlds; there is no bridge. We cannot build a passage from one world to the other. There is a great partition between them. Scientists don’t understand what godliness is and what spirituality means, although there were great minds like Einstein and Huge Everett III who realized that they didn’t understand this matter and spoke openly about the limitations of their theories.

Question: Why is it impossible to discover spiritual phenomena through the Higgs boson search with the Large Hadron Collider? Doesn’t corporeality affect spirituality? If it doesn’t, why do we have discussion circles and believe that it does have an effect on people?

Answer: We create a special accelerator of correction in the circles. This is already a totally different process that has nothing to do with quantum physics, but is related to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Something new indeed is formed inside it that is created by the thoughts of people who annul their egoism and wish to connect. Thus, they turn themselves into an amplifier, a great spiritual accelerator, but any physical instruments cannot measure this action. A person comes out of the circle greatly impressed, but it is impossible to assess and measure such feelings that are a result of the connection. There is no connection between the two. These phenomena can be the result of endless reasons since they are merely physiological phenomena in our corporeal body. There is no connection between corporeality and spirituality. There never has been, and there never will be.

Question: Doesn’t spiritual work affect the corporeal life?

Answer: I correct my inner vessels of perception through spiritual work, and then I see and perceive the world that is inside me in a new way because my inner vessels of perception have changed. I see a different world that is reflected differently in my consciousness. It is the result of the change of my attributes, the inner accelerator, which we form in the circle, that changes our attributes, and we see a different, better world. When a person sits in a circle, he is incorporated in a machine that accelerates his development. He is under the influence of the Light, the upper force of nature. Therefore, he suddenly discovers that it is actually possible to connect, that it is really good and that we should do that. People come out of the circles with a feeling of great elation. This isn’t the result of persuasion, like in some lecture, but the direct effect of the Light that operates on us and advances our development.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/15, Writings of Rabash

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Death Is Not The End

laitman_928In the News (from Psychology Today): “Life is an adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. Our classical way of thinking is based on the belief that the world has an objective observer-independent existence. But a long list of experiments shows just the opposite. We think life is just the activity of carbon and an admixture of molecules: we live awhile and then rot into the ground.

“We believe in death because we’ve been taught we die. Also, of course, because we associate ourselves with our body and we know bodies die. End of story. But biocentrism, a new theory of everything, tells us death may not be the terminal event we think. Amazingly, if you add life and consciousness to the equation, you can explain some of the biggest puzzles of science. For instance, it becomes clear why space and time—and even the properties of matter itself—depend on the observer. It also becomes clear why the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned for the existence of life.

“Until we recognize the universe in our heads, attempts to understand reality will remain a road to nowhere. …Everything you see and experience right now‚ even your body, is a whirl of information occurring in your mind. According to biocentrism, space and time aren’t the hard, cold objects we think. Wave your hand through the air—if you take everything away, what’s left? Nothing. The same thing applies for time. Space and time are simply the tools for putting everything together.

“Consider the famous two-slit experiment. When scientists watch a particle pass through two slits in a barrier, the particle behaves like a bullet and goes through one slit or the other. But if you don’t watch, it acts like a wave and can go through both slits at the same time. So how can a particle change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not? The answer is simple, reality is a process that involves your consciousness.

“Or consider Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle. If there is really a world out there with particles just bouncing around, then we should be able to measure all their properties. But you can’t. For instance, a particle’s exact location and momentum can’t be known at the same time. So why should it matter to a particle what you decide to measure? And how can pairs of entangled particles be instantaneously connected on opposite sides of the galaxy as if space and time don’t exist? Again, the answer is simple: because they’re not just ‘out there’—space and time are simply tools of our mind.

“Death doesn’t exist in a timeless, spaceless world. Immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time, but resides outside of time altogether.

“Our linear way of thinking about time is also inconsistent with another series of recent experiments. In 2002, scientists showed that particles of light ‘photons’ knew, in advance, what their distant twins would do in the future. They tested the communication between pairs of photons. They let one photon finish its journey—it had to decide whether to be either a wave or a particle.

“Researchers stretched the distance the other photon took to reach its own detector. However, they could add a scrambler to prevent it from collapsing into a particle. Somehow, the first particle knew what the researcher was going to do before it happened, and across distances instantaneously as if there were no space or time between them. They decide not to become particles before their twin even encounters the scrambler. It doesn’t matter how we set up the experiment. Our mind and its knowledge is the only thing that determines how they behave. Experiments consistently confirm these observer-dependent effects.

“Bizarre? Consider another experiment that was recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Science (Jacques et al, 315, 966, 2007). Scientists in France shot photons into an apparatus, and showed that what they did could retroactively change something that had already happened in the past. As the photons passed a fork in the apparatus, they had to decide whether to behave like particles or waves when they hit a beam splitter. Later on—well after the photons passed the fork—the experimenter could randomly switch a second beam splitter on and off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle actually did at the fork in the past. At that moment, the experimenter chose his past.

“Of course, we live in the same world. But critics claim this behavior is limited to the microscopic world. But this ‘two-world’ view (that is, one set of physical laws for small objects, and another for the rest of the universe including us) has no basis in reason and is being challenged in laboratories around the world. …

“One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that observations can’t be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the ‘many-worlds’ interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). There are an infinite number of universes and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them.

“Life is an adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. When we die, we do so not in the random billiard-ball-matrix but in the inescapable-life-matrix. Life has a non-linear dimensionality; it’s like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse.

“’The influences of the senses,’ said Ralph Waldo Emerson ‘has in most men overpowered the mind to the degree that the walls of space and time have come to look solid, real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits in the world is the sign of insanity.’”

My Comment: From the time of Adam to our time, every Kabbalist attains everything that has been told, moreover, in reality discovers what is happening only within himself, in his consciousness, beyond time, space, and motion.
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The Thought Of Creation Is A Precondition For Pesach

Dr. Michael LaitmanPesach (Passoever) is a holiday that is always with us, because on the spiritual path we always have to be in a state of transition (from the Hebrew word “pe’sach“- skipping over, selecting), that is, constantly moving forward.

Pesach is not an historical story or a point on the evolutionary timeline, but a day to day development, from one hour to the next, every second. It is about the development of the created being in all his parts on the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature. If we want to understand the essence of this holiday, we must look globally at the history of the created being’s development.

A Created Being Free From the Creator

Man was created the opposite of the Creator. The Creator is the attribute of goodness, love, and bestowal, and therefore He can create, expand, unite, and revive. It is a thought or a force whose role is to create the created being who resembles Him.

However, the difference between the two must be determined so that the created being will be able to exist in unity with the Creator. If the created being were like the Creator, he simply would merge with Him.

So what is it to be opposite and at the same time similar to the Creator? This is the only way he can feel himself, feel the Creator, attain Him, and be in adhesion with Him. These are very complex concepts that will be more clear later on.

The created being must exit the Creator, draw away from Him and not feel His influence so that he can develop. He must feel that he is free. How can he be free of the one great force in creation? After all, there is none else besides Him, and everything is included in Him. He doesn’t take up any volume, and there is nothing external to that volume. In our world, there are limitations of time, space, and motion, while in the spiritual world, there is no such thing. There is only one, unique force, which is limitless and rules beyond time, motion and place.

How can the created being appear, have a place, have his own freewill, understanding, feeling, desire, action, influence, a beginning and an end? There is a problem: How can the created being be taken out of the Creator? Another created being that is different from the Creator and opposite Him must be created. There is no other way! You are either totally adhered to Him, and you don’t exist; or you are totally detached from Him, and then you exist.

However in that case, you are completely opposite from him and don’t feel Him at all, since you have no similar attributes, thoughts, or feelings. You are on two different dimensions, and you don’t connect. This is actually the state the created being should be brought to. The created being who initially was created is constantly with the Creator, under His domination, and so all the attributes that are opposite from the Creator are not revealed. Then, the Creator conceals and restricts Himself and the created being begins to feel that he is free of Him, as if he were the only one who exists in nature, in his desire to enjoy.

If the Creator is the attribute of love and bestowal, the created being becomes the opposite, the attribute of receiving and hatred, in order to feel independent. In that case, he is torn to pieces, and each of them is opposite the other. This happens similar to the way that the internal energy of huge masses of celestial objects explode in space. On the whole, this is exactly how the Big Bang in our universe occurred. This is where the evolution of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking natures begins: through the differences between them as one swallows the other in a struggle of opposites.

The Essence of Man – The Struggle of Opposites

With each generation, people discover that they are becoming increasingly more egoistic and opposite one another. Although they understand that they should cooperate with one another, they cannot do so because they are made of two polar forces. One of them stems from the Creator and the other is opposite the Creator. The struggle between these two opposites is the basis of mankind and distinguishes him from the still, vegetative, and animate natures, because the two forces develop in parallel within him, complementing one another. Although they are in constant oppositeness, they still exist in a certain symbiosis.

We are like kids who cannot play together amicably. We must take something from the other: I will not give to him and will not play by myself. In other words, we cannot overcome our egoistic nature.

We were not created equal in these characteristic attributes. We were not made clever so that we could restrain our egoistic impulses with our minds. We can begin to understand that it isn’t about us, but as soon as we engage with others, we begin to work with our egoistic instincts, which are more powerful than our mind.

When we speak about friendship and unity, we truly believe that we must be together, but the moment that we must fulfill that, we forget about it. If I work only according to my mind, I can imagine that the entire world is filled with pleasure, delight, unity, and love. However, the moment I touch my egoistic desire a bit, everything immediately disappears and I want to erase the others from the surface of the earth so that I will not have to see them at all.

We were made that way and our desire cannot be balanced by our minds. It is impossible to naturally attain what all the philosophers and humanists dream of.

In the Cruel Grip of the Ego

Man’s nature is evil, and the more we advance, the more repelled we are from goodness and everything that has to do with good relationships between us. Mutual oppositeness develops inside us and we cannot get along with one another, not in the family, at work, or in daily life—not anywhere and not in any way.

When we expand in our ego, we draw away from one another and reach a state in which space suddenly collapses and becomes limited. We have developed in different directions for many years and suddenly have discovered that there is nowhere else to which we can escape. It is as if we are in an huge building, unable to get out.

However, the ego makes us feel repulsed by one another, and we want to escape as far away as we can from others because we feel the greatest comfort when we don’t depend on others, when we have no relationships with others and actually don’t care about anyone. It makes no difference if we suppress others because we don’t want anyone or anything to begin with. We want to be alone!

On the whole, everything advances toward the state in which a person remains alone. At the same time, there is the growing feeling that we are all in one building, in one limited space, that we depend on each other, and cannot escape anywhere.

What should we do so that a person will feel good and comfortable in this world? If we learn the plan of our evolution, we will see that we were created that way on purpose so that having developed our egoistic desires, we will begin working on connection and unity. This is where we reach a state that we don’t understand at all. How can we join our egoistic efforts, impulses, attributes, and motions?

In Europe, for example, there are more than 30 countries. They are all egoistic and all have huge problems. These problems may be solved together, but not one can overcome its ego and connect with others. They hold different committee meetings and summits, discuss different issues and make decisions, but nothing works out. Nothing! They don’t have a method that can overcome the overall separation. We don’t need to find a centrifugal force but need a centripetal force that will focus us on the point of unity between us. We see that our minds can recognize this problem only partially, but it cannot overcome our nature since it wasn’t made for that.

We are like small, miserable creatures who lead themselves to slaughter. Notice that now we are speaking in a totally calm manner about a third world war, as if it is inevitable and near. We don’t want to have children, and if we do, it is only because it gives us a pleasure, something to worry about, a fulfillment, because we need something in life. There are, however, many people who believe that it is also pointless. They give up having children and we accept that. On the other hand, why do we need so many people on this planet? There is no point in that. Let’s not have children, and that’s it. We usually suffer when someone dies, but if he were never born, there would be no need to suffer.

The Force that Can Unite Us

The current state of humanity brings us to a very interesting point in our evolution. We must discover the force that ties us together above our ego. Otherwise, we will not be able to exist as a civilization. What is more, this force must unite us despite our egoistic nature, which we cannot change and that will continue to develop the way it always has: internally, instinctively, and naturally. Today, it pushes us to perform different new actions, arranging us in our places in our mutual problems and relationships. We must find another force.

Can we attain that by using our mind? I doubt it. I see that even philosophers, scientists, economists, politologists, and sociologists don’t understand that. Although they see that we have reached a dead end, subconsciously they feel that there is nowhere we can find this force, so why deal with fantasies? They don’t understand that there is no other nature but evil, human nature, which we cannot control. We try to establish different organizations, circles, G88, G20, and so forth, but we see that nothing helps and aggressiveness breaks out in different places each time.

These unite against those, on all levels: against oil, for oil, and so on. Different religions are involved here, and historical problems and old relationships are covered by different layers, especially in Europe.

This is why it is so difficult for us. We simply must acknowledge that humanity has no other way because there is no other way in our corporeal frameworks and capabilities. Suddenly, for the first time in human history, and quite unexpectedly, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes forth, claiming that this method can change our reality. It explains that there is no other way but to ascend above our ego and that the ego will develop since we cannot dictate the conditions and the speed of its development. We cannot suppress it because it is against nature, and we must act according to it. We must only produce another force from it, a positive force that will cover the ego. We will then be able to use it properly in order to build the connection between us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us what this force is, how to produce it from nature, and how it covers the ego and tames it. Then, we will begin to work in accordance with the second, altruistic force. This whole method stems from the state called Pesach.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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The Method For Discovering The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I have always felt that some kind of higher force exists that moves everything. But we don’t feel it clearly, and of course not everybody feels that it exists. Why isn’t it revealed? Is it hiding from us?

Answer: That is what is written, “…a God who conceals….” (Isaiah 45:15). But the problem is that we must be adapted to the discovery of this higher force, the Creator.

Of all the forms in nature in which we live, we perceive only a small fraction, a minute fragment of all of nature, depending on how much enters our five senses; seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. By expanding the range of absorption of these five senses, with the help of all kinds of different instruments, we feel a bit more, we see greater distances, hear other frequency ranges, via the radio, etc.

To perceive the higher force, the Creator, we also need to expand our perceptive apparatus; otherwise we don’t identify this force. Likewise, around us exists a multitude of natural phenomena that we cannot recognize.

So there is a method called the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Kabbalah is from the word “reception”), which helps us to receive, to discover, the higher force. And therefore, it is also called the secret wisdom because everything that was hidden before our involvement with this method becomes revealed.

So when a person is involved with the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, it expands his senses in the right direction towards discovering the Creator, discovering the higher force. The person begins to feel it and then all of his questions are resolved. He understands why he is alive, how to live in the right way, what it is possible to achieve in this life, and his life begins to be happier, because he no longer lives like a poor blind person dwelling in total darkness.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/8/15

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Anti-Life Is Victory Over Death

laitman_569_01Today a person perceives life only as reception, absorption, consumption, acquisition, and attainment for himself. That is how he goes around until he gets tired of this life, retires, spends a few years in lines at health clinics, and finally dies.

But there is a possibility of raising ourselves to another level of existence: to conduct life through bestowal and not consumption. And this is not through benevolence and charity, where you help the poor monetarily, rather it is life beyond our ego. Life outside of the ego gives a feeling of anti-life, anti-death, anti-world, as it is said, “I saw an upside-down world” (Baba Batra 10b).

There exists another form of life parallel to our world. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to attain the new form of life. This is an upside down life, not within the ego, which swallows and absorbs everything into it, not within the desire to receive and enjoy, but within the desire to bestow, to love.

This is not the same egoistic love that is familiar to us in this world. Love is when I go outside of myself and am included in the desires of others and then I live within these desires without taking myself into account. A lifestyle like this is not limited by the intensity of pleasure that you can get.

This is not pleasure within the physical body, which cannot eat and drink without limit. In bestowal I am not limited by anything because I go out to others. I am not limited by the life of this biological body, but I am outside of it and that is where I feel my life.

My body remains, but it lives next to me, like a domesticated animal that lives by the side of a human. My inner part that goes out of me and is included in others is called Adam (Man). And that part of me, the biological, beastly body that remains, lives as usual. It lives out its allotted time, going to doctors until it is taken to the cemetery.

Question: But a person struggling with everyday physical problems is not interested in lofty concepts like life outside of the body?

Answer: Every person is concerned about the same questions of life and death. But even normal life is impossible to arrange today without being included in the right network, without balancing our reception and bestowal, and without connecting with each other with the right mutual connections. The wisdom of Kabbalah compels us to organize our lives this way.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/8/15

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The One Who Leads Us Upwards To The Creator

Laitman_165The life of the group is first of all the study. But why do we have to study so much? Why do we study for so many years? The point is that it isn’t an ordinary study in order to acquire knowledge. People don’t come to the lesson in order to know more but in order to receive a portion of Light, the influence of the Upper Light that comes through the teacher.

A ladder made of 125 levels descends into our world from the world of Infinity. We are in this world and the teacher is above since otherwise he wouldn’t be a teacher. A teacher is a spiritual leader who leads us upward to the Creator. He doesn’t have to be in the world of Infinity, but he must have spiritual understanding and comprehension, having attained at least the first stages of the path and is on some spiritual height.

Then he shows us how to ascend. In our world I can find my way by myself. But in the spiritual world there is no path before me and I have no idea what to do and where to put my foot down and which way to go.

Moreover, in the spiritual world I not only don’t know how to make a step forward, but I also don’t have the power to do so. After all, this advancement is in bestowal, in giving, and how can I advance in bestowal if I don’t have this attribute at all and only have the force of receiving?

I have to receive the force of bestowal from above first, in order to bestow and to advance. I can receive this force from above only through the teacher who is the channel through which the Light from above, from the world of Infinity, flows into this world to me if I am connected to the teacher. In that case I receive the power, the knowledge, the right direction, and the support from him and can advance.

I have to advance with the friends by engaging in the study and in dissemination, but this cannot work without a teacher. Therefore, the daily lesson in which we all sit together and study is not in order to study another part of TES, or the “Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” The Book of Zohar, or articles and letters by Baal HaSulam, but in order to connect and to receive a force through the teacher, which gradually becomes the force of advancement for the students.

If you don’t participate in the daily lesson for at least an hour every day, you won’t advance. You can do it in a different time according to the time zone of the country you live in, but it must be during the specific day the lesson took place. If you don’t have enough time to see the whole lesson, then do it for at least an hour. Without that you can forget about advancing in spirituality.

If you cannot dedicate an hour a day for the wisdom of Kabbalah, then there is no point engaging in it at all since you will only have false hopes that you are gradually advancing, but in fact you don’t advance. You should listen to the daily lesson at least an hour a day no matter how much you understand.

It cannot be that a day goes by and that you have missed a lesson. It is as if you don’t eat for a whole day. It is clearly very difficult and a person will not hold on for long that way.
[134983]
From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day One 5/9/14, Lesson 1

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Ending The Old Myths About The Wisdom Of Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: My acquaintances tell me that it is dangerous to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because you can go crazy. Is it true that it is so dangerous and what should one beware of in the study?

Answer: In the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” the main textbook for studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is written that the Kabbalists intentionally spread the rumor that it is dangerous to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because they didn’t want people to come to study. So the wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed from the time of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) almost until our day.

This had to happen because humanity had to develop and the people of Israel had to go through exile. The exile is also detachment from the wisdom of Kabbalah, from knowledge of the system, and a sinking into darkness. So we were in darkness for 2,000 years and this myth has existed about the wisdom of Kabbalah until today. But it was spread by the Kabbalists themselves to keep people away from the wisdom of Kabbalah until its time would come.

And today everything is precisely the opposite. Just as our entire world has transformed, so has the attitude towards the wisdom of Kabbalah changed. The Kabbalists write that from our day and onward everyone must discover the wisdom of Kabbalah and see what it gives to the people of Israel. This is because we cannot solve our problems nor exist any longer without it.

So there is nothing to fear. It is possible to open the book and study, and there are plenty of books that are appropriate for beginners, men and women.

Question: So it follows that in recent years humanity has reached a stage in which the wisdom of Kabbalah must be studied by everyone? Previously this wasn’t so and there even existed a prohibition on its study. But today humanity is found in such a blind alley that the only exit from it is to learn about life existing beyond these boundaries?

Answer: It is specifically the same outlet that is revealed to us through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah that takes us out of the blind alley in which we are now found.

Question: What do you mean by “beyond the boundaries of life”?

Answer: This is life beyond the boundaries of our corruption, a life in a corrected world. The world continues to act according to determined laws and nothing is changed other than our attitude. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us how to manage the forces and the network of connection between us so that everyone will be connected in the right way.

We reach such a harmony, such a unity, in the relationships between us that we discover a unique force between us that helps us rise above this life that is within the body and only for its sake. We begin to feel life on a higher level, and in this manner we go out beyond the limits of this world, this life.

Question: Doesn’t one have to be a great sage for this?

Answer: This is accessible to everyone. In our house there is a refrigerator, a stove, a microwave; do you know how they work? Even if you don’t it doesn’t keep you from using them.

In the same way there were wise Kabbalists who created the method, like a microwave. And there are ordinary people for whom it is enough only to learn to use it. Each one must learn to some degree, similar to how we need to know how a microwave works, in terms of what buttons to press and how to change its states.
[155430]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

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 A GPS On The Road Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If I study Kabbalah, will I know about my previous incarnations and my future so as to bring a little order to my life?  Now I am living only for today, for this moment, without knowing what can happen tomorrow.

Answer: First of all, a person learns exactly with what he is given freedom of choice, what its limits are and how much he can influence his fate. He becomes aware of what awaits him in every situation and in every step. He sees two ways before him, and he has the possibility of choosing between a good way and a bad way.

A bad way is a way of suffering in which fate pushes and goads us from day to day through blows and pokes. But we have the possibility of choosing the way of Light in which we can use the forces of nature that are now concealed from us and take ourselves forward, even before the blows reach us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us to yearn for the next goal constantly, in such a way and manner that we advance more quickly than the blows that come and are rolling along behind us.

Question: Is a person ready to avoid the blows of fate?

Answer: A person is prepared to take himself out from under a blow. This can also be so for an entire people.

Question: Is it possible to understand what the next station is on your road of life, even before reaching it?

Answer: Certainly this is possible because the wisdom of Kabbalah opens and reveals before us the entire program, and with the help of the spiritual forces, we discover in what form we must connect to advance to the next stage, to pass through it smoothly and easily.

The wisdom of Kabbalah makes it possible for us to advance in life as if we had a GPS that constantly tells us what is the best way, when to turn right and when left. It reveals to a person the entire map of his past and future and generally every second in the history of humanity, not only the history of this world, but also between earthly incarnations.

Humanity has now reached a unique state in all of its history as it finds itself in a blind alley. But this is actually a good state because it ultimately obligates us to understand where we are and why this is happening. This critical situation will force us to clarify the question about the meaning of our lives. Then we will discover what we need to do and we will see what rewards we will receive in exchange.
[155438]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

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