Comment: Astrid Lindgren, who wrote the popular Karlsson-on-the-Roof series of children’s books, suddenly said this phrase in a very adult way: “All is vanity of vanities and chasing after the wind. We are all the same. We all were nice kids once. The kids have grown up and will die. What does it matter if your book has been translated into 50 languages?”

Where does this wisdom come from, and why does it come with age: “All that I have written, these 50 languages into which Karlsson has been translated, all this, what is it? This is my life, and I do not even think that this is some kind of end result of my life. I am not holding on to it.”

Does a person come to this only with old age, as King Solomon once did?

My Response: Yes. That is what remains of a person. Everything else already remains in people.

Question: Do I leave with “I did everything I could, and it will remain for people”? Is this the correct formula?

Answer: Yes, it is the correct formula. Because the next generations are going through what you left them.

Question: Let us imagine that this came not to an older person, but to a very young one. Some teenager has already come up with the idea that “everything is vanity of vanities.” Is it good, or is it, in fact, bad?

Answer: It usually comes to people who need to hear it. They somehow process it in themselves.

Question: Does it mean that if it comes to a young man, then it is only outwardly that we see that he is a young man, and maybe his soul is already mature?

Answer: Yes, probably, he already has some preparation for this. Otherwise, he would not have heard this.

Question: If it comes to him at that age, did he come into this world for something?

Answer: Yes.
[323123]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/16/23

Related Material:
The Whole History of Humanity in One Phrase
Contentment Is Worse Than Death
How To Get An Answer To The Question Regarding The Meaning Of Life?

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

‘Tis but a day we sojourn here below,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe,
Then, leaving our life’s riddles all unsolved,
And burdened with regrets, we have to go. …

O unenlightened race of humankind,
Ye are a nothing, built on empty wind!
Yea, a mere nothing, hovering in the abyss,
A void before you, and a void behind!
(Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, #3 and #424).

Question: Omar Khayyam eventually came to the understanding of the meaning of life, that everything he enjoyed and lived for is nothing. Is this a correct conclusion?

Answer: In general, yes. Of course. He simply recalls how much effort he put into it and how he aspired. And in the end, it turned out that all those efforts were not worth it. This is evident from all his works.

Question: This is if we talk about him. But if we talk about any person? If a person suddenly realizes that all this is nothing, then, in my opinion, it’s a big tragedy. Or not?

Answer: No, he should already be prepared in advance that everything has a beginning and an end, and everything is actually nothing. And he calmly agrees with this.

Question: And what then is “something”?

Answer: To live life peacefully among friends, and together with them to understand and realize that the meaning of life lies in acceptance.

Question: So if I accept what is given to me, can it bring joy and peace?

Answer: Satisfaction.

Question: And if I want more, if I want something greater?

Answer: “Wanting more” is not good.

Question: In general, what is the essence of human life? If that is what we’ve come to, it surely wouldn’t be just bleep and gone, bleep and gone?

Answer: It is to understand that it is very limited; one must reconcile with it, and not demand more for oneself.  And it is to try to help others and accept help from them, and thus exist.

Question: Is there joy and happiness in this, and all the components?

Answer: Ultimately, yes. We see that you can’t expect anything more from anything else.

Question: Where is the upper force here? Where is the Creator in all this?

Answer: In the satisfaction of a person precisely from these comforts that he can acquire in his measured, limited existence.

Question: So, in a way, I am saying that everything given to me by You is all good? And that’s it, this is my joy? And is the Creator here?

Answer: That is where the Creator is, in the fact that you are agreeing with Him and that you don’t ask for more.
[322315]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/9/23

Related Material:
Movement toward Discovering the Meaning of Life
What Is Worth Living For?
Do Wars Raise Questions about the Meaning of Life?

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

Question: What is the spiritual work on oneself for an ordinary person?

Answer: A person in whom the question of the meaning of life awakens begins to connect himself with those who want to expand the scope of their knowledge to find out “What am I for? Why me? What is the purpose of existence?”

All these questions push him to expand his feelings: “What kind of world am I in? Is there anything above it? What controls it? Where is the mechanism that sets it in motion? What is the cause and effect of all this? The goal?” When we ask these questions and can’t find the answer, we start looking.

I remember when this question first arose in me, I was only five to six years old, and I felt old, internally dissatisfied, detached from everyone. All the children were running around in the yard doing something, and I was thinking: “Why all this?” And I don’t really want to live, there’s no point.

Of course, life talks to you, you are a little interested in sports (tennis, cycling, running), interested in girls a little, hormonal development is still taking place. But somewhere deep down, this question still sits and does not let you go. You behave as if mechanically and realize the meaninglessness of this.

You go to the symphony, to exhibitions, to museums. You try to somehow cling to this world, to know it, to taste what people consider high, special. But why? You look at a painting and think: “Someone took a couple of months to paint it, painted it beautifully, and then what? What’s the point?” There’s no point.

I remember a teacher at school saying, “The meaning of life is to eat delicious food, relax, go to the cinema, read an interesting book,” and so on. It turned out, as the sages say, “you live involuntarily,” get a little pleasure, relax, and forget about a higher meaning; otherwise, all of life will seem like hell.

And what if you can’t calm down? There are already millions of such people nowadays! These questions oblige a person to begin to expand the field of his feelings.
[322259]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Eternal and Perfect” 12/1/11

Related Material:
Find The Meaning Of Life
Where Should One Seek The Meaning Of Life?
What Do We Live For?

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

Question: A big dog saw a puppy chasing its tail. The dog asked: “Why are you chasing the tail?” The puppy replied: “I have already studied philosophy, solved the problems of the universe, and I have learned that the best thing for a dog is happiness. And my happiness is in the tail. When I catch it, it will be mine.”

“Son,” said the dog, “I was also interested in world problems and also realized that my happiness is in the tail. But I noticed that wherever I go, whatever I do, the tail follows me.”

The question is this. We are chasing happiness. And it turns out to be nearby all the time, here, it is following me. Do you agree with this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is it, can we tell? How can I see it?

Answer: Understand that you do not have to run after it or chase it; happiness is near or even behind you.

Question: Are we in a hurry to acquire knowledge, to acquire everything, and that’s it?

Answer: Don’t chase anything. What for?

Question: But it gives some kind of pleasure to a person.

Answer: You do not have to run anywhere, but you will find pleasure in the fact that you just live quietly.

Question: Is this happiness?

Answer: Yes, it is.

Question: What do you imply by living quietly?

Answer: That I do not have any special goals, especially unattainable ones, but I live in order to live, to live this life in peace.

Question: But how can you live without goals? You have been coming back to this a lot lately in our conversations.

Answer: Yes, because life is like that. It clearly shows us: do not ask too much of it. And all that you have, be satisfied calmly and show this example to others.

Question: That is how you live?

Answer: Yes.
[321772]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/13/23

Related Material:
Care That All Will Be Happy
Looking For Happiness Or Simply Living?
What Separates Us From Happiness?

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

Question: What should be the conditions for people to be ready to solve the task of their development? There must be some conditions under which this will happen.

Answer: Since the goal of our development is concealed from us, because no matter how philosophers struggle with it, we cannot clearly define this goal, and everything that we define collides with our internal disagreement with it, it is too early for us to pose such questions. Humanity still needs to develop perhaps for many centuries.

But as we develop naturally, we will gradually come to the point that we will be able to solve global issues more and more. But, again, at what threshold we will begin to master solutions to questions about the meaning of life is not yet even approximately visible. We do not know what the meaning of human existence is.

Question: Does the fact that humanity, as we see it, is moving toward, God forbid, its destruction, delay its movement toward revelation or not?

Answer: No, I believe all this is interconnected: it is impossible to move forward without falling, without looking back, without disappointments. All this is one path. But we are still in the early stages of development.
[321974]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/27/23

Related Material:
When There Is No Answer to the Question About the Meaning of Life
What Is Worth Living For?
The Perils Of Egoistic Interconnection And Its Remedy—The Method Of Kabbalah

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Kabbalah Study, Meaning Of Life, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: One day, a woman had a dream that there was the Creator behind the counter of the store. “What can I buy from you?” The woman asked. “You can buy everything from me,” the Creator replied. “Then give me health, happiness, love, success, and a lot of money.”

God went into the back room and returned with a small paper box. “Is that all?” the woman exclaimed. “Yes,” God replied, “didn’t you know that my store sells only seeds?”

So, we have everything we need to grow? Seeds are given to us. The main question is: how can we understand this and how can we grow them? Watering, caring for, and so on?

Answer: This is the meaning of life. It is not easy to understand what the Creator requires of you and how you should behave every moment.

Question: Is this “growing seeds”? To understand what He wants from me and how I should behave?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But this initial one, that I do not need anything around, that everything is in me, how can I come to this?

Answer: You just have to believe in it. Everything is built into me; I just have to try to put myself in the right environment.

Question: Is it called “like seeds in the soil”?

Answer: Yes, and then everything that is necessary will sprout in me.

Question: What do I water these seeds with?

Answer: With your sweat.

Question: So my efforts and in general everything that I go through is what I water these seeds with?

Answer: Yes, and they will germinate.

Question: What would you ask the Creator if, say, He was standing in front of you?

Answer: In principle, the maximum wisdom is to agree with Him in everything. Cancel yourself completely before Him so that no thoughts and feelings arise in addition to what I get from Him.
[321486]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/13/23

Related Material:
Write an Appeal to the Creator
What Should the Prayer Be Like?
Prayer Is Essential For Everything

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

In the News (Exploringyourmind.com, “The Most Common Regrets of Older People”): “It’s a curious fact that, when we reach maturity, most of us experience certain regrets. What are they? …

“1. Not doing what they really wanted…

“2. Being more honest about their feelings…

“3. Not having spent more time on what really mattered…

“4. Worrying excessively and forgetting to live…

“5. Missing out on opportunities.”

Question: Most regretted was having spent most of their lives doing something they did not like, and they not having enough strength and intention to change anything.

In your opinion, is this their worst regret?

Answer: Of course. It generally makes life very difficult if a person is doing something he does not like and cannot get used to what he is doing. I cannot imagine this. And a person does not have the strength to change anything.

Question: Is it possible to turn a job you do not like into a job you love?

Answer: In order to do this, you need to go deeper into your job and dedicate yourself to it. And then it may possibly become the job you love.

Question: It means that at some point I can say: “I cannot quit, but my goal is to make it loved”?

Answer: Yes, you can do it if you enter into mastery.

Comment: But it is still unloved!

My Response: It is because you did not engage in it with dedication and from the heart.

Question: Why did not a single person respond: “Unfortunately, I did not look for the meaning of life?” What do you think?

Answer: They are looking for it very quietly, but it is in second, third, or who-knows-what place.

You should just calmly try to find the meaning of life in your circle. This is what you must do. Without this, life is meaningless. But whether you find it or not, and what kind of meaning you find, depends on you.

Question: Can everyone find their own meaning in life? Small, big, high or not so high, but it should be? This is what it is, and this is what a man’s life is?

Answer: Yes. But it does not mean to give in. This is not giving in; no. It is looking for the meaning of life.

Question: But after all, you are saying this to the fact that we have reached some meaning in life, haven’t we?

Answer: We have reached it; we will get there. And we will keep getting to it. A person cannot live without this; this is not existence. But we must understand that this is what we have been given.

Question: Do you personally regret anything in life?

Answer: No, even so, I should have regretted a lot of things.

Question: And you do not? How can you live like this, without regrets? How do you cut them off?

Answer: I cut them off very simply. “The right to forget the years, the right to choose the hours. The right to choose how to live, throwing life on the scales” (Evgeny Klyachkin, Song about Rights).

So there is nothing you can do about it. I personally take this very philosophically. And this is not what makes it easier; although, in fact, it does make it easier too. But on the other hand, this is how it should be.

Question: Is this what you came to: “This is how it should be”? This very phrase, did it begin to define everything?

Answer: This phrase began to define my attitude toward life, toward the world: “I will do what I can, and I will give what I can.”

And I hope that by giving to the world I am improving it in some way. I am not indifferent to the world, and I am not indifferent to people. I want them to open their eyes a little more.
[318075]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/31/23

Related Material:
If You Have Found Your Life’s Work
“Do Not Believe In Yourself Until The Day You Die”
“Do Not Trust Yourself Until You Die”

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

In the wisdom of Kabbalah we study the shattering of the upper world, the upper soul, and its cascading to our world through gradual breaking and destruction.

The very last level of our world is the one that cannot be corrected. We correct it only by existing in our body for many cycles of animalistic life. We need it only in order to start from it and to rise to the first level of the soul.

This is why we must exist. Why should I furnish myself with completely unnecessary things that interfere with this upper eternal perfect goal? I really only need what is necessary, meaning, convenient, comfortable, and good, something that will not distract me from reaching my most desired goal.

It is desired because there I can finally reach perfection and eternity, and stop being connected with this world, its horrors, violence, dirt, and lies. What is the point of messing around with this?

That is why it is so easy for me to be separated from everyone who think and rant about various topics: newspapers, government, politics, slander, vanity, and everything else. I feel sorry for the people! They spend the world, their lives, and all their time and energy on it! I look at them and they are shouting, scolding each other in the Knesset or in a parliament, thinking they are going to decide something.

Nobody will solve anything. It is like playing in a sandbox.

While you are given this animalistic body, provide it as much as it needs to exist normally and comfortably, so that it does not occupy you. You need a bathtub, gas, refrigerator, air conditioner, a car, i.e., things you need for the average normal level of a modern person. If today we distributed everything that is on earth among everyone, our level would be much higher than average. But we do not need this; we need to give everyone a normal average level.

Everything else should be directed only toward the development of each and every one. Everyone must study, learn how to get out of this sandbox, and how to become normal adults, to reach a balance with nature.
[320577]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lost a Million” 11/6/11

Related Material:
The Degree of Development of a Point in the Heart
The Beginning of the Development of Creation
Phases of the Development of the Desire

Filed under: Body and Soul, Crisis, Globalization, Meaning Of Life, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Are internal wars with an evil inclination possible without external manifestations?

Answer: Theoretically wars fought only mentally by the desires of the heart are possible. But when we will get there, I do not know.

After all, we can come to this only after we are absolutely sure that with our own desires, we create a place for wars and all negative actions.

The Creator, as the highest governing force, manifesting itself in external war, influences humanity to realizes the futility of its attempts to correct the world.

Question: What does external war bring out in a person? Does it awaken questions about the meaning of life in him?

Answer: No, we practically do not see this. For how many millennia have people been fighting each other and still this does not help them understand the meaning of life. Suffering does not raise these questions.

I think that they can only be caused by an educational process, by soft persuasion, when we sit opposite each other and correctly explain our point of view to everyone.
[320897]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/29/23

Related Material:
Is Manifestation Of Wars In The Corporeal World Necessary?
War Will Erase Everything
Will There Be A War?

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

Question: There I heard that a very wealthy Kazakh businessman, investor, and  public figure Margulan Seisembayev once said, “The paradox of this life is that everything we really need is either free or cheap. We cannot do without air—the air is free. We cannot do without water—water is free. Food is cheap, we cannot do without it. Sleep costs us nothing. But things we do not need: gold, diamonds, Rolls-Royce are hellishly expensive. That is, the system of values of humanity—and we seem to be grabbing at them all the time—is completely distorted, and this should not continue. Because of these distorted values, we have developed wrong industries.”

Does this make sense?

Answer: It seems so.

Question: In principle, this man is a billionaire, he stands firmly on the ground, and he does not mention spirituality. He does not mention that we cannot do without it. Do you think we can do without spiritual search or not?

Answer: Then our whole life in general has no meaning.

Question: And what is the cost of spirituality?

Answer: Only human efforts.

Question: So, you would add spirituality to this list: air, water, and so on? At the same level? That a person cannot live without it?

Answer: Of course. Then life has no meaning.

Question: At what point does a person suddenly have this feeling, such a click occurs in him that he says: “I did not add the most important element here: the search for the meaning of life”?

Answer: It is when a person asks: “Who am I? Why me? What am I doing here anyway?”

Question: How do I get to this question?

Answer: It does not depend on the person. This awakens in a person from the inside.

Question: So, this question comes to a person from above?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But, in principle, should there be some effort from my side?

Answer: No. If you do not have this question, then you cannot make any effort. But when this question arises, then you are given the condition that you must find the answer to it.

Question: So, this is an expensive thing after all?

Answer: To know about life?

Question: Yes. Where do we fit it in: in the fact that air and water cost nothing, or in Rolls-Royce, gold, diamonds?

Answer: I would put it where all these kinds of rich toys are because a person must pay for it. By canceling yourself, your “I,” searching, and so on.

Question: Are you also saying that one way or another, this point called “the search for the meaning of life” will develop in every person? One way or another, will we come to this? Will everyone come?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, sooner or later, we will pay with our lives for this whole thing?

Answer: Sure. What is life? By the way, it is the cheapest there is. You can see that. And what is it worth?

Comment: It is said somewhere that the most precious thing a person has is life.

My Response: That is what the townsfolk think. I believe that life is the cheapest thing a person has. And he practically gives it away for nothing. Took it for free, gave it away for free.

Comment: But it is still my life!

My Response: So what? It is given to you only so that you suffer and try to answer some questions, which you eventually do not answer and go back to where you came from.

Question: So I played with Rolls-Royces, gold, diamonds, and left. And came again to play again and leave?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is the result of all this?

Answer: If a person correctly manages his spiritual potential, he can achieve the revelation of the meaning of life.

Question: Is there a spiritual potential in every person?

Answer: In everyone. And the purpose of life is to reveal this spiritual potential and realize it.

Question: That is, a person would not have been born if there were no spiritual potential in him? Can I say that?

Answer: Yes. It is not only regarding man; it is any grain of sand, inanimate, vegetative, animate nature, and man, of course.

All we can say about anything that exists is that they are the realization of their inner spiritual potential.

Question: What is spiritual potential? What do you mean by that?

Answer: It is the manifestation of the highest management in a person, the highest desire, the highest intention.

Question: What is it like?

Answer: What it is like should be revealed by everyone in whom it arises.

Question: So, there was a higher intention for all of us and not just us but for everything to be born?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And it had its meaning, its purpose?

Answer: And we must reveal this intention.
[316286]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/23

Related Material:
A Man Sold His Life And Became Happy
The Happiest Moment in the Life of a Billionaire
What We Spend Our Lives On

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