Question: You have spent your whole life studying the meaning of life. But isn’t the meaning of life different for each person? After all, our entire life depends on our upbringing and environment, and therefore, our decisions and thoughts depend on our lived experience. If altruistic goals were initially embedded in us, how would we live, and what would that give us?

Answer: First of all, the meaning of life is not to live, then find its meaning, and then die. The meaning of life must be understood already at the beginning of life.

Question: So is the meaning of life still different for everyone?

Answer: Everyone has their own meaning of life even if it is common to all. We are all like small animals with very similar qualities. There is nothing special in anyone or anything.

There is one nature that truly has the meaning of life, which is to correctly bring itself to the next state, to rise to the next level, and to raise us there as well.

We must understand where our evolution is heading in order to rise to this level and not cross into it the way it usually happens in nature, through various cataclysms that we are facing now.

Let us ensure that this transition does not occur in such extreme, abrupt, dramatic situations. We are in a crisis, standing before a wall in science, in the arts, in human society, in communication with one another, between generations, everywhere.

Question: Is it precisely now, before this wall that the question of the meaning of life arises?

Answer: Yes, and it must be clarified. This is very important. This is what the science of Kabbalah deals with. That is why it is being revealed to everyone and is offering itself to humanity.

Question: So the meaning of nature’s life is to bring us to this question, and the meaning of human life is to clarify this question. What, then, is the meaning of life?

Answer: The meaning of life is to rise by oneself to the next evolutionary level. Just as we have always ascended automatically at the levels of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, now, being at the human level, we must rise to the next, higher level.

Call it spiritual, although it has nothing to do with religions. It is existence in the spirit, in the inner meaning of a person, when one reveals the upper world within oneself.

If we can rise above the nature that exists within us, we will begin to sense a completely different world.

Question: Does this mean that until today we were led by our egoism, which has now reached its limit, and now we must live not egoistically?

Answer: We must rise to the next level but no longer by means of egoism. We must do so with the help of a special force of nature called the light, which we must draw upon ourselves. It corrects us, changes us, and makes us similar to the next, higher level.
[220042]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/14/2017

Related Material:
To Discover The Meaning Of Life
Where Should One Seek The Meaning Of Life?
Discovering The Meaning Of Your Life

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, Q&A - No Comments →

Comment: Several studies have been conducted about the search for meaning in life with varying conclusions about it being beneficial or stressful.

My Response: The main thing is to find your natural point that you already live in. It may still be in development, but you are in it, not floundering about, not knowing where to go.

Comment: But you always say that searching for the meaning of life is good.

My Response: I’m not talking about a state where a person doesn’t understand what the meaning of life is. He must determine what this meaning is and move toward it. Moving toward the meaning of life—when you understand and know how and what, this gives you enormous fulfillment, pleasure, and calmness, together with enormous dissatisfaction, inner imbalance.

Comment: With falls and rises…

My Response: Yes! But you receive tremendous delight from all of it. You enjoy the process. This is the “proud Stormy Petrel.”

Question: And what if you have a fall, despair, when you suddenly think: “Did I choose the right point?”

Answer: But that is still better than being a non-living element, working in some office and sitting at home watching football. Or not? It depends on the person.

Question: Do you trust only the research that you yourself have gone through and verified?

Answer: First of all, I don’t trust anyone in the world. Because there is no one to trust. We see what is happening in the world. Therefore, I rely only on myself. On my own experiments. On my universities.

Question: And they say that after long searches you find the meaning of life, adhere to your teacher, and go? With falls and rises.

Answer: Only this way.

Comment: I remember you once told that you had such descents that you couldn’t even get out of bed.

My Response: That is natural. This is the path of searching. There is no way around it.

Question: And you call this a happy path?

Answer: Of course! Absolutely! “The exhilaration of the battle,” in the fall.

Question: What would you wish people who enter the path of searching for the meaning of life?

Answer: I wish people to enjoy the metamorphoses taking place within them. Everything happening inside them, everything boiling—that is life! Don’t grow old ahead of time. Or at least try not to, internally.
I can’t climb mountains, I can’t struggle with the waves in a raging sea. No. But inside me all of this exists, and all of this gives the sensation of life.

Question: And then a person remains young regardless of age?

Answer: Of course!

Question: Do you yourself feel young in this sense?

Answer: In two ways. On one hand, everything inside me is boiling. On the other, I know how to balance it. Meaning, my ship is still holding steady on all the waves.

Comment: Yes. This I can testify to.
[259033]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/23/19

Related Material:
The Meaning Of Life Is To Learn It’s Meaning
Where Should One Seek The Meaning Of Life?
Don’t Avoid Your True Self-Fulfillment

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: It is difficult to accept that there is only one meaning of life that is common to everyone. Doesn’t each person search for their own meaning?

Answer: It turns out that every day every person is searching for a new meaning, that is, something to derive pleasure from today. But the true meaning of life cannot be temporary: If the meaning has dried up, then there is no meaning. My life will end someday, and even if I cared about others, their lives are not eternal either.

The meaning of life can only be eternal. And if that does not exist and it is limited by the time span of our lives, then we are left with either confusing ourselves by finding an imaginary meaning in some hobbies or not searching for meaning at all, but simply living in the present moment.

Question: When does a person come to the necessity to find the eternal meaning of life?

Answer: It depends on the inner development and the measure of suffering. A person must suffer from the fact that his life passes without meaning. His life can be very prosperous, simply royal, where he lacks nothing but one thing: “But what am I living for?” He may have everything in this world, but it does not fulfill him. It depends on the inner needs of a person.

If we do not fill ourselves with the eternal, true meaning of life, then this is life on the bodily level until this body dies. But if we want to rise to the true meaning, we must always be connected with the goal that answers this question. We need to connect with the upper force of nature that governs the entire universe. Having reached it, we will reveal the meaning of life.

From the connection with an upper force, a person begins to understand that it created everything for a special purpose. And if a person connected with a goal touches some root in this world, then he knows how to use it correctly to give meaning to his actions. He will be able to use every detail of this world correctly in order to connect with the higher meaning through it.

In this way, he sanctifies this entire world and returns it to the upper root from which this world once expanded. It turns out that he learns to use this world correctly. Although these actions are not noticeable from the outside because all depends on the intention of the person.
[220304]
From KabTV’s “New Life 945 – The Meaning Of Life,” 1/9/18

Related Material:
Living with Meaning, Part 1
To Discover The Meaning Of Life
Understand The Meaning Of Life

Filed under: Meaning Of Life - No Comments →

Question: It is very important for a person to feel that their life has meaning. Is the meaning of life universal for everyone or must each person find their own meaning?

Answer: We all have one meaning of life: to reach the peak of human development and to attain the higher force that created us and governs us. We can draw closer to it, understand it, know it, and become its partners. The meaning of our life lies in attaining this force. According to how creation is arranged, there is no other meaning.

We did not create nature, this world, or ourselves. We exist within a system of laws without determining what will happen to us at any given moment nor our reactions. Absolutely nothing depends on us. So what remains for us within this entire system in which we are like fish caught in a net?

We are embedded in a system of forces that act in all possible forms and combinations with one another on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human, and in all times: past, present, and future that connect me with all generations that were, are, and will be. I feel like I belong to them because essentially I am one among billions throughout the many thousands of years of history.

Therefore in searching for the meaning of life, I first analyze the day I am living now, and immediately I discover that I do not understand the meaning. If only I knew the entire process that I and nature are undergoing. But how can a small person know such lofty matters?

In that case, one has to limit oneself to searching for meaning in this temporary, brief life. This means that I no longer ask about its causes and results beyond life and death, but I look only within life itself.

And this is how people live: they want to achieve success, start a family, raise good children, travel the world, become a renowned scientist or musician, etc. Each person finds meaning in what is closest to them.

Perhaps I simply want to have fun, or work only as much as necessary, and in the evening come home and watch television without getting off the couch. That too can be considered a meaning of life.

But the problem is that we do not live according to our own plans. The engine of development continuously turns and rotates us, and pushes us forward in all feelings and qualities, in intellectual, emotional, and inner development. Therefore we change, and yesterday’s meaning of life loses its meaning today. My former childhood dreams have already evaporated.

For example, my grandson at the age of three dreamed of becoming a garbage-truck driver. It seemed to him the pinnacle of happiness: to be the person who controls such a huge machine and makes such a tremendous noise. Today my grandson is ten, and of course he no longer dreams of a garbage truck.

In other words, the meaning of life constantly grows. But does a person living in this world understand what the meaning of life is, or does he or she simply, under the weight of problems, agree with what is? He is not concerned whether there is meaning or not. What matters to him or her is feeling good.

I remember asking my teacher in school about the meaning of life, and I received this answer: the meaning of life is to read a good book, to watch an interesting film…

And a friend of mine, from the age of fourteen, devoted himself to studying the French Thirty Years War. He made it the work of his life and truly became a major specialist on the subject. That is how he found his meaning of life, although later this passion faded.

So everyone finds some meaning in life—in family, in children. But if you ask people what the meaning of their everyday life is, they will not know how to answer, or they will say that the meaning of life is simply to live. If we were born, then now there is nowhere to go; we must live. But for what purpose to live, no one knows. And thus life continues without any meaning.
[220271]
From KabTV’s “New Life 945 – The Meaning Of Life,” 1/9/18

Related Material:
Is There Meaning To Our Lives?
The Desire to Know the Meaning of Life
Find The Meaning Of Life

Filed under: Meaning Of Life - No Comments →

There is a current, there is a boat, and I am in the boat. I must agree that I am floating along with the current. I cannot go against the current. I cannot get out of this river. The only thing I can do is to agree with where the current is carrying me in the boat.

Question: Are my friends also floating in this boat?

Answer: If we put it this way, then yes. We are all floating in the boat along the current of life, in the river of life. It is best to understand that this is the case. You lived one day, you lived it. Another day, again, And so on, and so on.

Question: So you are not in favor of making plans?

Answer: No! These plans will not come true anyway, and we just get upset because of them.

Question: Are you worried that we will be disappointed?

Answer: It depends on what goals we set for ourselves in life.

Question: That is the question. What goals should we set after all? I am floating in this boat, do I want to get somewhere or not?

Answer: If that is your goal.

Question: If the goal is to reach somewhere, then what?

Answer: Then yes, you need to examine it, is it worthwhile? Is it possible? Can you achieve it? If you can, then yes. And if not, then slowly row at least a little closer to it. But still, calmly. Don’t rush.

Comment:: That complicates things a little.

My Response: Why does it complicate things? Should we rush?

Comment: We are used to rushing. We are used to striving toward a goal.

My Response: I do not think that is reasonable in our time. There are periods when you are simply carried along, and that is it.

Question: So in our words: “There is none else besides Him”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And that is how I should live?

Answer: The Creator constantly creates new conditions for us, and whether we want it or not, we will still realize them.

To agree with where the river of life carries us does not mean giving up. It means perceiving the river’s flow realistically and going along with it, understanding that you cannot go against it. There are no heroes who can walk against the stream.

And of course, we would like to change something, but that “something” can only be very, very small in our life.

Question: And where is the joy in this? We still want something joyful.

Answer: Joy is not in the act of throwing yourself into the water and trying to block the river, and so on. Joy is in finding special points of movement along your simple, ordinary life path and trying to move through them.

Question: What do you mean? Are special points, joyful points? Is that what you are saying?

Answer: Whether they are joyful or not, you still must pass through them.

Question: And what we are used to and received joy from was in going against the current, going against nature?

Answer: That is your inner feeling. In reality, no one can go against it anyway.

Question: We have repeatedly said that human nature is egoistic and that a person must somehow rise above this nature. Can you connect this?

Answer: Yes, to rise above your nature means to realize that you are still carried by the current of the river. You may wish to get out of it, but you do not even know where or how, or who is waiting for you on the shore if you suddenly appear there with your boat, etc. So I do not know if that is reasonable.

Question: Does one need to know or at least sense what awaits at the end? Rivers flow into the sea after all.

Answer: You need to choose a goal that seems realistic and matches your abilities, and try to reach it somehow. That is, we must understand at some point that we leave the river of life, get out of it, and somehow sailing further on.

Question: So there should be some stopping points along the way?

Answer: Yes, but honestly, in the end, even though a person may want to become some kind of revolutionary in something during life, in the end, he agrees that this is life, and it ends with death, and afterward, it is what it is.

Comment: That doesn’t sound very optimistic. One still wants to set goals so that are not about conquering death, but at least to somehow overcome it internally.

My Response: On the contrary! When you accept this, you gain a special calmness and a special perception of life, and you perceive it realistically. I am not talking about death. I am talking about how you perceive this flow realistically.

Question: If someone who studies Kabbalah for many years sits in this boat, should his behavior be the same, in your opinion?

Answer: His behavior should be what anyone’s behavior is—striving toward his goal.

Comment: So if the goal is to rise above one’s nature…

My Response: If the goal is to rise above your nature, then it is in the boat with you. You should not jump anywhere or swim to the shore; you should not shout: “Hey, who is there on the shore?”—maybe someone is. You should not call anyone. It all depends on your mood, on your attitude toward what you are going through. And in the end, you enter another dimension.

Question: How does that happen? How do I get pulled out of my nature? I am just sailing in the boat, with my idea, our idea let’s say.

Answer: You are not pulled out, you do not go anywhere. It is just that the illusion in which you existed is simply replaced little by little by the second one, then by the third one, and so on

Comment: And I stop paying attention to the hardships of life, age, illness.

My Response: No, that no longer interests me. I think about how to live through it peacefully and then enter a new life.

Question: How can you be above all this? Above this life that presses on us with illnesses and suffering?

Answer: The best thing is to surrender to it and not resist. Because resistance gives nothing, we know this. Everyone around us goes through such stages and ends the same way. Have a benevolent attitude to both life and death.

Question: And this is what it means to “relate the same way to the Creator”?

Answer: Yes, agree with Him, with what He has done to us, that He has placed us within certain bounds and given us this vector of development.

Question: When they say that each person has his own path, what do they mean? His own path to the Creator?

Answer: Yes, nothing else. And there is nothing especially new here, except as it relates to the individual.

Question: So each person has his own path to the Creator?

Answer: Yes, if a person understands this, then it is called that he is acquiring wisdom.
[350091]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 11/18/25

Related Material:
The Main Wisdom of Life
You Need to Live Now
Be the Boss of Your Life

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News - No Comments →

No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them (Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning).

There is a universal law, and therefore, at any given moment, you must treat everyone as a person who has fulfilled their higher purpose.

Question: Even an enemy?

Answer: All the more so. Then you will act correctly, survive, and reach your goal.

In other words, you create it yourself through your correct attitude toward everyone—toward the enemy, toward the friend, toward all.

By doing so, you shape yourself internally, constantly correct yourself, and in this way come closer to the final goal, to the form that you must ultimately attain.

Question: Is that even possible?

Answer: This, generally speaking, is our path.
[348893]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/4/25

Related Material:
How Do Kabbalists Treat Enemies?
Who Is The “Other?”
Angels All Around

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News - No Comments →

Comment: A person wants to dress nicely. It is in his nature.

My Response: If he is not forced to do so by external circumstances, then in his inner circumstances he can continue to live as he lived before.

Question: In an old robe?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: Then there is no progress.

My Response: Well then there will not be progress of that kind.

Comment: Now you are going somewhat against nature. Look around, everything is built on buying a house, dressing beautifully, fashion. Everything today is like that.

My Response: Everything is needed only to live comfortably for the sake of your goal so that you will not be a slave to things, a slave to time, and a slave to the environment. That is all. And all the rest of your free time, dedicate to your beloved self.

Question: So is that how one should live?

Answer: Yes, why should I work, as you say, for a robe, for a table, or for something else?

Question: What do you mean when you say “take care of yourself”?

Answer: Do what you truly want, what you consider important. What you consider important, not what the environment dictates.

Question: So your advice is to stop?

Answer: Not even to stop, but not to enter into it in the first place. Do not get involved; do not dive into it.

Question: Even if I am internally spinning and restless?

Answer: That should be the aim of such a low level of human development, the animal level of man, so that he does not get carried away into other goals or niches. Live for yourself! Even if it seems egoistic.

Comment: You just gave a very egoistic formula: live for yourself, not for others.

My Response: Choose a goal and live for it. A person must examine his path and direct and arrange it in such a way that he harms no one, including his own life. That is all.
[349200]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/16/25

Related Material:
The Most Important Thing
Human Nature: The Urge To Acquire
Black Friday, Part 2

Filed under: Free Will, Meaning Of Life, News - No Comments →

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it (Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning).

Question: Is this how we should look at ourselves and others? Is this how we should see people?

Answer: At each person, yes, that they are someone unique.

Question: Does this mean I cannot take their life, nor force them, etc.?

Answer: You cannot do anything.

Question: What kind of relationship should I have if we are unique? What is that, that my life and his are unique?

Answer: That you are in exceptional circumstances at every moment, and you must take advantage of this according to the rules of absolute interaction, that is, the absolute balance of you and the surrounding world.

Question: What do we do during war when there are countless casualties?

Answer: Even more so such feelings become more acute then.

Question: So the person who kills and the one who defends themselves somehow come to this state?

Answer: Not everyone. But if one thinks about his actual, genuine realization, he comes to the conclusion that every life is inimitable and unique.
[348965]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/7/25

Related Material:
The Human Mission
What Is The Uniqueness Of Each One?
The Mission of the Kabbalists of the Last Generation

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News - No Comments →

Even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning).

When a person stands before the absolute, before the realization that he cannot change anything, he understands the necessity of changing himself, that the only possible way to do something, to continue a correct existence in the world is to change himself, from this very moment, to the next, and the next, and the next. And so, step by step, live your life in such a way that in every moment you change yourself.

Question: So do you actually welcome dead ends?

Answer: Of course! How could it be otherwise? If a person does not feel a dead end…

Question: So is a hopeless situation the way out for you?

Answer: Yes, it is like a little toy car. It bumps into something and starts to turn. It bumps again, and turns again. And so it keeps trying until, out of all possibilities, it discovers that there is a way out.

Question: So will a person who moves from one dead end to another eventually find a way out?

Answer: Of course, everything is programmed.

Question: So in principle, as a person, should I sing a kind of hymn to the dead end?

Answer: Certainly! That is the very force of our formation.

Comment: But I always want to avoid dead ends. A person wants to avoid them.

My Response: Can you truly make the right decision without reaching a dead end?

Comment: It isn’t likely.

My Response: Not at all.

Question: What correct decision should humanity make today? It is an essential global question.

Answer: The answer is the same in all cases: to annul oneself.

Question: Is this “annul oneself” understandable to your students?

My Response: It must become understandable to everyone else as well.

Question: So what do you mean by “annul oneself”?

Answer: It means that I do not decide what to do, I do not determine the goal, and I do not imagine it for myself and then try to achieve it. I can do only one thing: annul myself before others in such a way that they can achieve their goal.

If I set any other goal for myself besides helping others, it means that I am standing in their way. If I annul myself, then I help them move toward their goal. And as a result, everyone should be busy in precisely this way—helping others achieve their goal.

Question: What then happens to my “I”?

Answer: That is when this “I” is revealed as a collective common self within which the upper force of nature, the only one existing and guiding force, is revealed.
[349173]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/15/25

Related Material:
The Dead-End, the Creator, and the Meaning of Life
Don’t Try to Change the World
There Are No Hopeless Situations

Filed under: Free Will, Meaning Of Life, News, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The question was not just survival, but there had to be a “why” of survival. The question was survival for what? Unless there was something or someone, a personal cause for whose sake to survive, there was survival scarcely possible. (Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, survivor of Nazi concentration camps)

Question: If I look to the future, do I not notice what is happening around me?

Answer: No, you look at everything around you as conditions for achieving your goal.

Question: Are you saying that this is given in order to me to achieve my goal?

Answer: Yes, and all this is necessary for me in order to formalize the end goal.

Question: So at some point, can you even be grateful for the most terrible thing?

Answer: Of course. You feel, and eventually reveal, that everything that happens is only for you, you personally, to achieve your goal.
[348897]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/29/25

Related Material:
What Will Support in Life
Understand Your Goal
Seven Principles Of Survival In Inhumane Conditions

Filed under: Meaning Of Life, News - No Comments →