Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you find your life’s purpose?“

We can find our life’s purpose by learning the higher plan and program of nature that develops us toward life’s purpose at every moment.

By learning nature’s plan, we gradually start feeling what we can realize in our present incarnation, what our fate was in our previous incarnation, how nature operates, why we were created the way we were, and how we develop the way we do under the environment’s influence.

We can then understand how to click into this system and control it. Using our desires and intentions together with guidance based on learning nature’s higher plan, we can enter into nature’s control room and discover how and why everything was created the way it was.

Asking about the purpose of life is the first step toward this discovery. Over the course of history and our individual lives, we develop through desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge, which are all desires that belong to our current level of perception and sensation.

The desire for meaning and purpose already belongs to a higher level of perception and sensation, and asking about the meaning and purpose of life is the seed of its discovery. By learning how to direct this desire at the purpose of life, which is eternal and whole, we learn how to rise above our physical level of existence, and find ourselves living in a higher reality where we perceive how and why everything is operated. Moreover, from such a level of attainment, we also learn how to influence our very destiny.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 20, 2015. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is one reason to live in one sentence?“

The reason to live is in order to reach “love your neighbor as yourself” through which we discover the higher, eternal and perfect existence among each other and with nature.

Based on New Life episode 401 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum Moshe on June 12, 2016.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: Pablo Picasso said: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

This is very much in tune with what you said about questions about existence, questions about life “Why was I born?” are already inherent in the little person and then we somehow lose it.

My response: I totally agree. We do not lose it, it rather disappears from us. We do not want to focus on the question of the meaning of life: What do I need life for? What do I exist for? What was I born for?

For a small child, by the way, this is a very urgent inner question. He cannot ask it, he may not be able to answer it, but he lives with it. He has a very serious demand from both his parents and people around him. If you pay attention, there is an urgent demand in his every action. The small child sitting in your arms demands to reveal the question of the meaning of life.

Question: Why does it all disappear all of a sudden? After all, he demands it!

Answer: The force called the evil inclination appears. And it starts to confuse him.

Question: Do you mean that it is impossible to walk this path smoothly?

Answer: He must contain this evil force in himself, he must fight it, he must find himself at war against it, and only from this fight can he come out as an adult. Otherwise, he will remain Van Gogh. He will be painting for the rest of his life and nothing more.

Question: Will he no longer ask the question “What do I live for?” Getting a lot of money…

Answer: This is not the meaning of life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/22/21

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Comment: There is a tradition in Thailand: in order to start a new life without problems and stress, you must go to the temple and arrange your own symbolic funeral. People take flowers, lie down in the coffin, they are covered with a sheet, and prayers are read. First, you have to lie down with your head toward the west, then turn around in the other direction. It costs a trifle—three and a half dollars—only for candles.

During the pandemic, it was a massive ritual because people would come. And after that, they said: “I have come to life. I have started to live.” That’s it! Depression went away, all states disappeared.

Please explain this paradox to me: in order to live, you must die.

My Response: That is correct. Then a person looks at life differently. If he psychologically experiences his alleged death and leaves this current course of life, then he looks at his new life differently.

Question: That is, you really need to immerse into this dramatic situation, really experience it like this? And then you start to live.

Is that why it is so nice in cemeteries? That is, when you walk through a cemetery, or sit there on a bench, look around. You think: how beautiful everything in this world is! Someone was suffering because his car was scratched, someone because his neighbor yelled at him. And all of a sudden, it all comes down to this.

Answer: What you are saying was written in a tractate which is probably 4,000 years old. It is written there that a person who wants to realize himself in a new way should go to the cemetery and sit on a stone. So, this is correct.

I would organize collective guided tours there. And I would seat our government down there for it to think and solve some issues, and some other groups of population.

Question: To ponder upon how perishable life is?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/29/21

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Question: Why should I, as a man, correct my nature?

Answer: You cannot get away from it. We are not given a choice in this matter. As it is said: “Against your will you are born; against your will you live, and against your will you die.”

We simply have to fulfill our destiny in life, and not just one life but a series of reincarnations, gradual returns to this life. And it does not depend on us; one way or another, we have to complete it.

In the course of history up to the present day, we have been led along an unconscious path. We developed egoistically; we were pushed ahead; we invented all possible variations of social systems, family structure, upbringing of children; we developed technologies and whatnot until we came to realize that all this development leads us to emptiness, depression, drugs, and self-destruction. As a result, we find ourselves today in a global crisis.

The fact is that this is a crisis of the entire humanity, of its hopelessness. But we were not consulted about it. Egoism kept developing and driving us and we seem to be rolling by inertia. And now it has shown us that all this purely automatic egoistic development is pointless, and that its only purpose is for us to realize that it is a dead-end.

And now what? Now the question arises about the next level of existence: “What is this all about?” Nonetheless, people try to run away from the answer, drown in thoughts of fashion, vacations, parties, or anything else. But gradually, all these entertainments start to wear them out. And people are left alone with the question: “What is the meaning of my existence? Life has no meaning. Thus, it is not worth living.”

Man cannot escape it. This is a natural path of development, and we are in it. More and more people in the world are asking this question, they cannot hide from it, bury their heads in the sand, and continue living as before. This is how our nature works.

You do not need to be more educated, less educated, a psychologist, a scientist, or an intellectual to perceive it. I have met such people in South America, in Africa, everywhere. I have students all over the world. It is just that the time has come. The Book of Zohar says that it is our generation that will begin to seriously ask this question, and that is why Kabbalah must be revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Close Up”

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Comment: Vincent van Gogh said, “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

My Response: I would not follow Van Gogh’s advice. A person should feel what his soul is pulling him to and choose his path in accordance with this. And to choose this path soberly, that is, to check whether he has all possible prerequisites for this. And if not, there is no need to hit one’s head against the wall.

Question: What about our wisdom Kabbalah, where in principle, the inner voice often says: “What is wrong with you, look at these heights! How can you?! Is it really possible to reach them?!”

Answer: What does it matter? It does not matter here, everyone has to learn this wisdom, and through it, everyone has to correct their soul. Thus, there are no people here who can say: “I am free.”

I must correct myself, fulfill my destiny. Therefore, everyone has his place in it. Everyone is obliged. The correction of the soul is the purpose of our entire existence, of everyone, of absolutely everyone! So, no one can get away from it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/22/21

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Question: The global luxury goods market, which encompasses both products and experiences—cruises, fine wines, gourmet food—has rapidly dropped for the first time in all countries around the world.

What will a person come to? He won’t need expensive cruises anymore or to travel all over the world?

Answer: This will go away.

Question: Exclusive, beautiful clothes, couturier?

Answer: It will also go away. No one needs it!

Question: Diamonds?

Answer: No one needs them! They’re useless these pieces of glass.

Question: And this is how it will all fall? To what state?

Answer: Until a person has no taste for all this at all. And he will think: “And what is the value of this life? Is there any value in it? Is there something I should gain, some results to finish it with?” And so on. And then the realization of evil will begin.

Question: Do you think that this is a fall to the end, to the bottom?

Answer: I hope so. According to Kabbalah, this is a descent to the bottom. There may be some more spikes. But I think it will all be over very quickly.

Question: And the bottom, is this the question about the meaning of life?

Answer: Yes, it extinguishes everything else, this question about the meaning of life. What do I care about diamonds, what do I care about houses? We will see these billionaires in the future, what they will do with their billions and everything else.

You can close your eyes and make a pink mist around you, as if you were in the previous life and so on, as it was before, or imagine something else. But in principle, when everything happens on Earth, as it does now, it affects even these billionaires through the air, and they also lose the desire for all sorts of jewelry and a life of luxury.

Even on a separate island with all the conditions, there will be not the same environment, not the same air, the wrong atmosphere—neither airy, nor moral, nor sensual, none. A person will have nothing to be proud of in relation to others: “Look who I am, what I am!”

And others look at him: “What do you have? What?!” “Look, here I have a house!” “So what, you’re going to tear yourself apart into 200 people and live in this house?”

“Here, I’m going somewhere!” And where to rush to? I live within myself, I feel satisfied with myself, nothing is needed! Now marijuana will enter the whole world, the world will be engaged in smoke to calm down, and that’s it. Why is all this necessary?

All this will be done perfectly.

Question: But is this also the period before the fall?

Answer: This is a period to calm down from one through the other and eventually come to a normal worldview.

Question: So what will they find the meaning of life in? What will they understand?

Answer: They will understand that the meaning of life is to experience an upper force, eternal and perfect. When we feel it, we become like it—all.

The upper force is kindness, it is the eternal good that fills the whole world. Eternal! And I have to reach its sensation and lose myself in this eternal good. I don’t disappear, I just become similar to it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/19/20

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We all know that education is a big problem. I see how children are brought up in schools. Therefore, children’s depression will not go away! We just need to answer the children’s request.

Depression is a consequence of their inner request. Moreover, this is a huge social problem because it manifests itself in more than one child. We observe this in absolutely all children from different countries of the world.

There is such a thing as depression in animals, especially in pets that live near their owners. I am sure that both wild animals and plants have it.

That is, depression is a feeling of lack of the force of life, which is beginning to be felt in our world. It depends on the person because he must rise to another level so that through him the spiritual upper force, the force of life, passes into our world. And then the problem with the environment, with our health, with social relations, with everything, will disappear.

We lack vitality. We see that everything is exhausted, aging, disappearing, and losing its value, meaning.

We try our best to inspire ourselves with all sorts of fashions, aspirations, to keep each other playing with the help of technology. But if you look at the truth, we need a completely different level of existence, some other level, an understanding of what we are for, where we are going. This is the challenge all of humanity is facing, especially now.

And children in this case should play a very important useful role. After all, we will not get rid of them, this is our problem, and this is our pain. We can deal with ourselves somehow, and when a child feels bad, there’s nothing you can do about it.

So when I look at my children and especially my grandchildren, I start to feel these requests. They exist literally in the baby. It shows that even at such a young age, he is internally missing something in his life. It’s hard to explain. I just see it with my inner vision, from the depth of the nature that I have discovered for myself, but it exists. We’re not getting away from this.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up. Depression in Children” 8/24/09

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Comment: In the last 15 to 20 years childhood depression has become very common. Doctors do not know what to do about it. They cannot find the reason. There can be some reasonable explanations for adult depression.

My Response: It is not just that. We can restrain adult depression. You can force a person to be lower, more limited. But we need to develop our children.

A person who is depressed is given sedatives, tranquilizers, even some drugs just to “put him to sleep.” How can we do this to children? By doing this, we detach them from their natural growth. The manifestation of depression in children is opposite to the tendency that they must develop, overcome, and grow. We encounter a phenomenon here that we cannot conquer.

Question: The fact is that patients are five to six years old children. Why is a six-year-old child depressed and finds that nothing pleases him?

Answer: The question of the meaning of life! Many great Kabbalists wrote about this and in particular Rav Kook and Baal HaSulam.

As long as I can remember, as a child, I had this question. Not explicitly, but it was: “Why? What for? What is all this about?” This question did not allow me to live, did not allow me to rejoice. It was necessary to find an excuse to have fun: to go on a spree, to get carried away with something in order to escape this question. And it was all during childhood.

But let us assume that the soul has no age. Then it will be easier for us. Let’s not look at the young generation as being children.

A soul is a soul. We received it from our past incarnation in which we lived to our old age. And today, in our brand-new young body lives an old soul that has lived on this earth for many generations and has been through a lot.

The fact is that you evaluate a child by its small body, but you should look at its soul. It is already old, wise, and understands that all this is pointless. It has already lived for so long that you cannot confuse it. What will you do with it?

So through depression it gives you its external emptiness and lack of fulfillment. So what if it manifests itself in a small child? And if it was in its thirties, in its forties, is it different?

Depression does not come from life. Absolutely not! We see that there is a lot of depression and suicides among people who have everything in life.

Comment: Usually they say about such people: “They get mad from fat” [unsatisfied from prosperity.]

Answer: No, not from fat. A person simply needs to know what he lives for. And when he has everything and his daily bread is not in question, he really does not see what to live for.

As long as you are forced to take care of your body, you have no opportunity to free yourself for other matters. And as soon as you provide it with everything you need, the question of the meaning of life immediately arises.

This question also appears in children. Why not? I don’t see much difference. The fact that it occurs in children suggests that, after many reincarnations in this world, our souls have come to a state where they actually need the answer to: “Why do we exist?”

Question: You want to say that we incorrectly approach a person from the very beginning by focusing on him as the biological body?

Answer: Of course! After all, this is not a person at all but his animal body. An animal! And how does it differ from other animals?

But its inner part, our “I,” has nothing to do with this body. It goes through many different improvements, dipping into the body, coming out of it, accompanying it. As a result, these metamorphoses lead it to such a development, when—that’s it! We already live in a generation in which we must necessarily answer the question: “What for?”
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From KabTV’s “Close-up. Depression in Children” 8/24/09

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Comment: Now in our generation, simultaneously with emptiness, there is an aspiration for something that a person is not yet aware of. Then, as Baal HaSulam said, it turns out that all this is a game, as in the parable with the slave.

My Response: Of course, this is a great game of nature or the Creator. Nature and the Creator are one and the same.

As a result, we will all laugh at what happened, the way we laughed at ourselves when we were little children, grew up, got confused, played, fell, disassembled, and re-assembled something not knowing what and how. But thanks to such a farce, during many years of development we become adults. We never know what we are doing.

Look at a small child. Does he know anything? But he makes some attempts all the time. In principle, our development is very incomprehensible. It should be incomprehensible. That is what is interesting!

How can I understand in advance my next state if it is more developed than the present one?! In a day or in a minute or in a year I must be better, taller, stronger than today; that is, I must be more developed.

How can I understand it now?! With my mind, I cannot! How then can I achieve it? It is through this messy, diffuse movement.

To us, it seems disorderly, because we do not realize with our brains that there is a magnificent order, a higher harmony, a harmony of a higher level, but I still do not understand it. It appears to me as utter nonsense. We look at the children: “This is creepy! Look what they do!”

I recently watched my grandson. For half an hour, he walked and collected pinecones under the trees, and then scattered them, then collected them again and scattered them again.

Well, collect it once and that is it! No. His nature drives him all the time, pushes him to such interesting actions.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #13

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