Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

Power Over Destiny

laitman_277Question: Astrology tends to predict our destiny. However, the important thing is to change our fate rather than to know what’s waiting for us in the future. Is it possible?

Answer: Do you mean influencing your luck and turning the stars to better work for your interests? Yes, it is possible because we are a part of an integral system in which everything is intertwined. So, by all means we can impact the stars.

A human being is the most powerful force in nature, capable of penetrating into any of its integral parts, “spreading” in all directions, learning, attaining, connecting things, and clarifying all rules. We are able to understand the basics of universal connections, become included in the liaisons, and eventually change them.

Only humans are capable of attaining this level, nobody else! At all times, people tried to change their destinies. They did it with the help of religion and mysticisms, astrology, and divination, and with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah. We are free to choose what remedy to use to change our destiny. In fact, all three directions can impact our future.

Question: How can we influence our destiny with the help of astrology? Is it really possible “to rearrange” the stars so that they bring us luck?

Answer: Stars only signify the governance of the Upper Force over us. Stars by themselves cannot influence anything. Stars are the signs of the upper impact. Yes, we can change them, i.e., make the upper governance more beneficial for us. It is possible with the help of religion, mysticism, or the wisdom of Kabbalah – through these three sources.

Religious people pray, they join and pray together, they try to influence events and ask for help from above. By these actions, they change nature since they also are a part of nature. Humans are inseparable from the rest of the world.

We can influence the world around us since our bodies are part of nature. Humans are the most influential force in nature. This explains why when thousands of people get together and pray for something, their desire alters reality. It’s because they are an internal part of nature.

This is why all remedies are good when it comes to influencing upcoming events: religion, mysticism, and Kabbalah. The difference among them is the way they influence nature. Religion makes a strong impact since it is an organized force that has existed for many years, for many generations.

The problem is that it is extremely egoistic. Religious thinking is only about personal benefits or, in the very best case, the benefits of one’s nation without considering possible damages that can be made to other nations: One country prays about conquering another one.

Mysticism is less egoistic because while trying to connect with the stars that “provide” luck, each one of us must give up some portion of egoism. This mystical form requires one to become a little less materialistic and diminish one’s egoistic desires.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the most altruistic methodology that requires loving one’s neighbor as oneself. In this form, it is possible to clearly, directly, and powerfully impact all of nature. If we “are armed” with a correct technology that allows us to beneficially influence the world and thus change its state to the better, we’ll attain similarity with the upper force. Then, our abilities become virtually unlimited.

With the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we develop the properties that are similar to the upper force, the general power of nature that governs the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels. It is the only real power. It is called “the Creator.” We can connect with this force, understand its thought, and together with it, rule the entire system of nature, become its partner.

Question: What are the most effective remedies for changing our destiny?

Answer: The most effective remedy to modify our fate is to join the group that aspires to attain similarity with the upper force, i.e., achieve a state of loving our neighbors, to build the type of connection among friends that impacts our lives in the infinite future, both for each individual and the entire world.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/1/15

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“God-Fearing” Egyptians

Laitman_509The Midrash, “BeShalach”: The Pharaoh chose the best six hundred chariots they had in the land of Egypt. In addition, he took other chariots and appointed charioteers. The Almighty’s plan was that the Egyptian army would pursue the children of Israel until they all drowned.

Where did they get horses for chariots? Hadn’t the animals died in Egypt during the plagues of “starvation and hail”?

The animals were provided by “God-fearing” Egyptians who obeyed Moses’ warnings before the “plague of hail,” and placed their animals in barns. Now, they volunteered to lend their animals to persecute the Jews.

“G-d-fearing” Egyptians are those who revere the Torah commandments and at the same time think only about themselves. They are spiritual criminals! Among them, there are those who exited from Egypt together with the Jews as well as those who stayed in Egypt. In the Torah, they are called “big rabble” (Erev Rav).

On one hand, they obeyed Moses, but on the other hand, they gladly gave everything they had to the Pharaoh.

Question: At some point, they listened to Moses and used an anti-egoistic screen to hide their animal desires. Why all of sudden did they change so dramatically?

Answer: Their duty is to accompany us in our spiritual work and “provide us” with multiple troubles. They had to participate in the destruction of the First and the Second Temples. They partake in all harms that continue happening up to these days. Kabbalah-haters won’t disappear until we reach the final correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/23/14

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Laitman_715Question: Do the stars tell what my own fate will be like? What is so special about the stars?

Answer: Nothing! These elements, the stars in the sky, are constant, and from day to day, from year to year, from epoch to epoch, over the centuries, they go through the same cycles.

Therefore, we can calibrate the position of each of them at any point in time and connect it to our birth, a wedding day, or other events, or make a conclusion about whether to fight or make peace, and things such as that.

In essence, the sky is the time axis in which we exist. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to determine the movement of the stars where we are located. Clear and unchanged laws exist here.

Therefore, based on the date and place of birth, and the date and place of birth of parents and the positions of the planets at this time, you can see how nature affects us. After all, this effect does not come from the stars. Still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature are all on the same map within the same system.

Therefore, according to the law of nature in the still level, that is, according to the movement of the stars and their combinations, we can say that we can influence what is happening on the human level. And even though man and the stars are very distant, the system itself is one.

This is why there are signs on the map of the heavens. Based upon what has been observed for thousands of years, we can say that we can suffer damage or succeed in a particular case, with respect to this or that person or a couple going to get married or entering into some sort of a deal. To some extent, we can imagine this.

It is written in the Torah, for example, that Haman was a great astrologer, and Abraham himself once studied astrology, selling idols and amulets.

The problem is that ordinary people do not have the possibility of a reverse impact on their fate. In order to influence one’s own destiny—that is, the higher power—only one that knows how to do it can do it from the bottom upward.

Kabbalists are the only ones that can accomplish this. As it is written in a very famous saying of the sages, “Israel is above the stars and signs of good luck.” In the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is written how we can connect with each other, to be prepared for it not only to protect ourselves, but also to rule over our own destiny and rule over our luck.

Then, I look at the map of the heavens that the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals to me, and this map reveals the stars and the signs of good luck to me, the so-called Mazalot, the “drops of luck” (from the Hebrew word Nozel, or drain). These are the special lights that fall upon us drop by drop from a higher system, Rosh (head, brain) Atzilut, and influence us by forming all sorts of phenomena at the bottom, within us—the current and the forthcoming ones in the future. All of these forces are called signs of good luck (Mazalot).
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/8/15

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Magic For Sale

laitman_276_04Spiritual Weapon

Question: Is there such a thing as magic? Do we have the possibility to use supernatural force in order to change our reality?

Answer: No. The actual concept of “supernatural” must be reset. If we are talking about what lies above our being, then we can correlate the entire natural phenomenon to this realm.

We cannot influence the movement of Earth and other celestial bodies. However, we can calculate them. Thus many things have crossed from the mystic into the scientific realm.

However, there are still so many facts unknown to us, the roots of which slide away from our perception. In this area we are still weak; we are still standing before nature that we cannot figure out in advance. Meanwhile, a person yearns for security; he needs a “guarantee policy” against all threats.

This is where magic comes from. First, magic provides us with security against threats including enemies, that now a person can confront armed with a spiritual weapon. Second, it is an opportunity to start the attack, to establish one’s superiority, to cleanse the area of wrongdoers that stand on one’s path.

Supernatural for Sale

This is where many people make promises by claiming that they know how to do magic and will assist only if their services will be paid for.

There is black and white magic. If the first one is to cause harm, then the second one, in its turn, promises to help. Such a division, however, is purely arbitrary, just like children when they play bad and good people. A person feels weak before the forces that determine one’s life. A person would want to control one’s own fate and, therefore, comes to see the people “in the know.”

Besides all of this, the death of our bodies really scares us, as well as the unknown ahead. What will happen to my soul? Where will it end up? Can I escape hell and ensure I end up in heaven? This also causes a huge worry upon which others can make good money.

Question: Does this mean that there is no magic?

Answer: No, however, the problem is that everything that we refer to as the inner world of a man is associated with our psychology. As a result, a person can be influenced in such a way that it may seem like magic to one. In that regard, this happens to many believers.

There is nothing you can do about it because such are the properties of our psychology. Ultimately, everything comes from ignorance.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/18/15

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Nature Is Our Home

Laitman_720Question: Do the stars influence the personal fate of a person?

Answer: Such a connection exists. But it isn’t the stars themselves that influence humans, animals, or plants; rather, according to the changes in the position of the stars we can understand which correspondent changes are happening on the levels of vegetative and animate. This doesn’t mean that one influences the other, but according to changes that happen in the heavens, on the level of the still, to which we pay attention, we decide that we must be changed too.

But the stars themselves are not the cause of these changes. It is not on the level of the still. It can remain absolutely hidden from us. But it influences the stars, plants, and people. We don’t see the real cause, and so we have no choice except to link our fate with the stars.

Thus humanity has learned throughout all of its history, from experience. They paid attention to particular plants that followed the moon. Others followed the sun. There were those that opened in the daytime and others that opened at night. From this astrology was born.

Astrology is based upon experience that human beings gathered. Over thousands of years they watched the phenomena of nature in the heavens and on the face of the earth and discovered how one depended on the other, how everything was connected. They constructed records, tables, and pyramids in South America and in Egypt. But all of this teaches only about the mutual connection of all the forces of nature that human beings discovered.

Even people who lived 10,000 years ago had already discovered that our world is global and that all things in it are linked to each other: human nature, the plants that are around him, the animals, nature, and the weather. Everything is connected into a single whole and in every part there are signs of all the rest of the parts, so much so is the system integrated.

Question: How does it follow that in ancient cultures this connection was already known, but because it didn’t since then it wasn’t developed and was even lost? Don’t we get the impression that the ancients were more developed than us?

Answer: The ancient people were more developed than us and were closer to nature. They weren’t afraid of nature; rather, they lived within it and so they understood and felt it. They understood nature better because they attributed everything that was happening with them to it. They connected their entire lives to it: The life of the family and their children, the nature of the person, everything that happens within the family and the community, the weather, the behavior of the animals, and the state of the crop yields in the field.

For them this was one world, and from this perspective, they were more advanced than modern man. Through the development of technologies we have detached ourselves from nature and have stopped respecting and valuing it, feeling it as our home. We will soon have to return to this perspective.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/1/15

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It’s Time To Roll The Stone From The Well’s Mouth

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Genesis,” 29:7- 29:8: And he said, “The day is yet long; it is not the time to take in the livestock. Water the sheep and go, pasture.”

And they said, “We cannot do that, until all the flocks are gathered together, and they will roll the rock off the mouth of the well, and we shall then water the sheep.” 

There are better times and there are less pleasant times in the history of humanity. Therefore the time that “all the flocks are gathered together” hasn’t come yet.

There were times in the history of humanity and the Jewish nation when we were very close to attaining the goal. There were several breakthroughs in the time of ancient Babylon, during the exodus from Egypt, and during the days of King David’s wars, until we finally have reached our time, which is exactly the time that “all the flocks are gathered together.” We have to reach connection because this is the only way we can influence the upper force and begin to change our reality.

The problem is in convincing ourselves and others and in actually realizing and feeling that fulfillment is only through connection. There is nothing but that. We reach a form that resembles the Surrounding Light only to the extent that we connect, and only then can we influence it, work with it, and direct it.

We begin to perform independent actions because we awaken the Upper Light and oblige it to operate in a special way. It is because we discover the need to unite in our connection and thus convey a perfect, ripe deficiency for the Light. Then the Light performs the last action and connects us.

We must convince ourselves that at this point our goal is to gather all the flocks together and to connect the people in the world in whom the desire to fulfill the goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah has ripened. This is the reason we were given the wisdom of Kabbalah, since we will discover everything else along the way when the Upper Light begins to operate in the connection among us. Then we will realize what the Light is, how it operates, discover its effect on us, and begin to ascend the spiritual ladder.

All of humanity has to go through this path but in an easier manner. Israel has to go through it first and then the whole world. People should understand that there is nothing but the connection between us that awakens the Light that Reforms to change humanity. To the extent that humanity changes, it will begin to discover a new world through its new senses that were corrected by the Light that Reforms.

It is because the reality that we feel is totally dependent on our perception. If our desires are egoistic and separated, we feel a shattered world in that shattered vessel, just as we see the world as it appears now. It is not surprising that the situation is growing worse to hasten us to reach connection.

To the extent that we begin to work in correcting our senses, we will feel a new reality. Just as we feel the shattering now in our corrupt vessels, we will feel a perfect world in our corrected desires that are governed by one force, by the Light that operates in our desires, connects, corrects, and fills them.

Therefore, everyone speaks about connection and mutual guarantee these days. It is because it is the only action we have to perform from now until the end of correction, and it must be performed by both the nation of Israel and the nations of the world. The sooner we do this, the sooner we will reveal the Light to humanity and thus fulfill the goal of creation.

It all depends only on the connection between us. We consistently and persistently have to work on this and constantly convince ourselves that this is our only goal. No matter how much a person knows, it has nothing to do with the true reality. The only truth is his yearning to connection and bringing others closer to connection.

“Every man shall help his friend!” We have to explain to everyone the importance of this action and that our future depends on it. Many years go by until a person begins to understand that his ego is doing everything to deceive him and divert his attention from this, as if it is a trivial matter.

Therefore a person listens, but doesn’t hear; so  one rejects and forgets this idea time and time again. But the time comes when we all have to start acting and telling ourselves and the Upper Light that we must reach connection no matter what. Then the passage for the revelation of the soul will open.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/08/15, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Full Access To The Program Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do “prophetic” dreams exist?

Answer: There are people who can predict the future. They enter a special state of trance, as if sleeping, and can see the events that will happen in the future. In real life, these states are yet to be manifested, but they can be seen in a dream state.

Comment: It turns out that some dreams are triggered by past experiences that remain in a person, and other dreams reveal the future, as if we are able to connect to a higher flow of information.

Answer: Yes, this is possible, because each of us has a program of everything that will happen to him before the end of this life, and maybe beyond. And if a person possesses special abilities that allow him to see the future, then he can predict it.

There have been seers such as this throughout history.Throughout the ages, people used them, but in the end, they were usually killed for making unwanted forecasts. It is no coincidence that the future is hidden from us. It is better not to know what is waiting for us and to try to build a future for oneself, thinking it as if is in our power.

Animals do not make any plans for the future, except for the instinctive storing of food for the winter. They do not do it consciously but instinctively. And if a person knew his future, he would just commit suicide because his life would lose all meaning. Therefore, nature has deprived us of the ability to see the future.

However, due to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have the opportunity to improve our future. We can rise above our programmed destiny provided that we can rise to the level where this program of the future was written and then are able to enter that computer, the correct folder, and re-program our entire life anew.

We ourselves will be able to plan the coming intermediate steps and change all the states we go through, except the final one. The final state refers to a higher degree, which we are now unable to reach.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that this is the best and perfect state. And if we want to advance towards it along a good path, we must study it and understand from this how we can gradually realize this bright future at every stage of our development.

Starting today, I can draw to myself the fragments of a good future and realize them right now in my life. This is the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah that teaches us how to realize our good future.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/11/15

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The Connection Between Our Fate And The Stars

Laitman_712_03Question: Is there any connection between a person’s fate and the place of the stars and the sun?

Answer: Of course. We are in a tightly mutually connected system in which there are very rigid laws. We learn about some of them in physics and astronomy, but we don’t know these laws well enough and we have no information about this whole system.

First of all, we only know very little about the part of the creation called our universe, which is a tiny black point in the huge infinite space that we don’t feel at all. This means that the infinite space of our universe, which we do feel, is actually a tiny point.

Therefore, we cannot advance nor discuss or understand these things without knowing the whole system that is beyond our universe. Even if we did know 100% of the laws in our universe, we would only know and attain a tiny part of the universe.

This is the reason we cannot establish a science by observing the stars and the movement of the planets and different signs of success. We simply don’t have enough data in this field.

Throughout history many researchers and scientists studied the planets and the stars and recorded their observations, wanting to connect the way each of them moved with the revolutions of the other stars and planets and also with what happens on this planet—our climate, the warming and the cooling of the planet, the winds, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and hurricanes—with the positive or negative effect they have on plants and animals and also on different types of people.

We really want to know what a certain factor or another has in store for us, to what extent it affects our near and distant future. People have tried to attain that, and as it seems in astrology, they have tried to connect it to people’s lives, to people’s nature, fate, to the flow of life, and to how people interrelate with one another according to the different astrological signs.

We yearn to know the future, that’s all! If we knew the future, if our parents received a detailed map of our whole life, no one would even look at the stars and astrological signs and wouldn’t listen to astrologers.

We have accumulated a lot of data through our studies of nature but we cannot count on them 100%. However, they can at least show us different relationships and interdependencies. This is indeed true, since it stems from the fact that we follow different natural phenomena and see that in the duration of tens and even thousands of generations certain phenomena are connected to others.

There are charts of these mutual connections in astrology according to which we can approximately say what will happen when a certain number of the external conditions match. What is more, there are several options as to how different events can develop.

Just as we observe natural phenomena, collect data, and then establish sciences on this basis, we also do the same thing in astrology. But we cannot call astrology a science because this whole area is completely beyond our control.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/8/15

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Such An Unexpected Person

laitman_752_1Today, we begin to realize more and more that all of creation is one system and that there is nothing coincidental about it. Everything works according to a general plan that is not known to us. We don’t know who invented it and who manages it, but at least it is clear that everything works according to some upper plan.

Therefore, we can predict what will happen in one place or in several places according to what happens in a certain place. Eventually, we begin to examine the entire system as one whole.

This leads us to the question of why we can be so successful on the level of the still nature, but, at the same time, cannot predict anything when it comes to the human level. We can launch a spaceship to explore another planet and make sure that it lands there, takes pictures, and sends them back to us, or even sends it to some more distant stars.

This means that we know how to calculate its movement in relation to the stars, and this indicates that we know the laws of nature at least to the depth of the physical level.

These laws of the mutual connection do indeed exist and it isn’t by chance that everything in the universe revolves, but this is only on the level of the still nature, while on the vegetative and the animate levels of nature on this planet, we encounter problems. As long as we remain on the level of the still nature, we can predict outcomes, the influence of still nature on plants and animals, and the influence of animals on the vegetative and still nature.

However, when it comes to man, everything is much more complicated. We don’t understand how he is incorporated in the general system. As long as we study only plants, we can predict what will happen during the year, in two years’ time, in five years or even in fifty years according to the seasons and the climate. We also can predict to some extent what will happen in the animate world.

However, when we speak about man, we cannot even say what will happen to him tomorrow. The more complicated the object of our study is—the still, vegetative, animate, and the speaking nature—the more such unexpected forces and factors influence it, and we cannot predict its fate.

It is because the most important thing for us is to predict the future. Currently, we exist somehow, but it is interesting to know what will happen the next moment or in another thousand years.

We do understand the connection between the still and vegetative nature to some extent, such as the effect of sunlight on how a plant grows until it withers. Even here, we may be surprised and encounter phenomena that we don’t understand. Suddenly certain species of plants disappear for reasons that we don’t understand.

However, we have no idea at all as to how man affects the whole system of nature. The main thing is that every human being is an individual, a special personality. There is no such thing in the vegetative world where the entire field withers together. This is because we don’t pay attention to one plant but look at the field as one whole. Plants are indeed all connected to one another that way.

Every human being has his own, unique destiny that is different from others. We see that even newborn babies are very different. One is perfectly healthy and the other is very clever. Each one is an individual.

However, we cannot say that about animals. Interestingly, even people’s physical bodies, which belong to the animate level, are very different from one another. The human level radiates on them and gives them a special individuality so that each body receives its own unique psychological and physiological attributes.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/1/15

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An Odd Fish

laitman_764_3Question: How can I develop a new perception that allows me to exit the aquarium of this world?

Answer: First I have to investigate how I live. I have a desire to exit this aquarium, but all my senses operate inside it.

I aspire to break free, but it is only an inner demand that makes me feel clammed up. So what’s next? How can I get out of the aquarium and feel the external world?

I want to leave my fish body inside the aquarium and escape like some bodiless spirit so that my soul will break free of this fish, of the water, of the aquarium, and will begin to live on the outside! This is the desire I feel! This desire stems from the same soul that wishes to exit my body.

And in this case I need a guide that will tell me what to do if I am such a crazy fish. Perhaps there is something wrong with me or perhaps I have already developed to the next level.

This yearning seems abnormal since 99% of the people live peacefully in the aquarium and feel fine, while I suddenly feel that living in a locked aquarium is worse than death and that I have to get out of it. I have to discover the external reality, to know the upper force, to know the world that is beyond the walls of the aquarium that has become a prison for me.

Then I begin to look for a way to perform this revolution inside me and I find the wisdom of Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t teach the beginner what is external to him because at first there is no one to teach. At first I have nothing but the desire to come out of the body of the fish. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches me how to get out.

When I find myself outside the aquarium, I will begin to develop in the new world. The main thing is to get out! The aquarium remains and so does the fish inside it with its physical body and all its senses in the water, but the special desire that has awoken in that fish, which is called the point in the heart, comes out of the aquarium and a new sense develops from it, a new spiritual body.

I don’t identify myself with that fish anymore and it becomes meaningless for me. It lives and I am ready to provide it with everything it needs as long as it leaves me alone. In fact, that fish doesn’t require more than it needs in order to exist: food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. I can provide it with all that as long as it doesn’t interfere with my developing a new sense.

This new body also has five types of sensations: “sight, hearing, taste, smell,” and “touch,” but they have different names: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. Through them I receive five types of impressions that depict the picture of the upper spiritual world in me. This world is called spiritual (Ruhani) since I first develop in it on the still level and then on the level of the vegetative (Ruach – spirit), which is the first level that depends on me.

Thus, I begin to develop outside the aquarium. The fish remains in the aquarium and it can live and die in it. It is still connected to some extent to my new part that lives outside the aquarium, called a soul, but the main point is that I have already freed my point in the heart, which very much wanted to break out.

I have taken it out of my corporeal desires that were absolutely egoistic and have begun to develop externally to them. Now I begin to feel the reality outside the aquarium, which no one else in the world feels and doesn’t even imagine exists.

There are people who think about what there was before they were born or what they will be after their death. Before we are born our matter exists in a different form and after death it will be transformed again, but our birth, our life, or our death have nothing to do with the spiritual world because they are expressed in the matter of the egoistic desire to receive. On the other hand, the matter of the upper world is a desire to bestow.
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From KabTV’s “The Meeting of Worlds” 5/12/14

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