Question: Are we to blame for our suffering?

Answer: No, the Creator who created evil inclination is to blame. This is what He said: “I created the evil inclination, and I gave a method to correct it.” But if we manage to transform evil into good, we will obtain the same level of existence as the Creator Himself.

Everything in our world is arranged so that man himself would unearth all the problems of his nature, his evil inclination, and he himself would discover how to correct it. Moreover, these problems can be easily overcome; all we need is to just systematically and correctly use the method of correction.

If people start asking these questions, it means they are ready to start using this method, and then they will gradually understand why everything is created this way and not otherwise. They will realize that the Creator is a special force of nature that includes in itself the entire world, the entire nature, and all upper levels, which are unreachable to us yet, but which we will reveal.

By correcting our ego, deliberately created by the Creator to be so savage, enormous, universal, we become the masters of the entire nature: both of our world and all other worlds. We rise to the level of eternity and perfection, even without falling into death, but simply by rising to the next degree.

Nowadays humanity has reached such level of development when the question about the meaning of life arises in most people in the world. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it means that we are ready to discover the upper world.

Question: So why do we suffer when the thought of creation bring contentment to man?

Answer: It’s because we don’t correct ourselves. If we know how to do it and start entering the method of correction, we will immediately feel better and better, climbing the steps of the benevolent ladder.

Comment: In this regard there is a very interesting legend. A man exhausted by thirst is standing beside a stream with clear spring water and trying to fill a dirty glass. The water seems to him unpatable, bitter, he can’t drink it and he curses the dirty stream (in this way we often curse the Creator who sends us suffering).

When he finally understands that the problem is not water, but his glass, everything changes. He cleans the vessel, the taste of the water changes, and he realizes that there always was spring water in his glass while he was suffering.

Answer: Yes, this is our life. If we manage to draw correct forces from it, we will be able to constantly enjoy it. And if not, then vise versa.
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Comment: There is a new attraction in Shanghai called “the game of death.”  A person is asked a question, and if it is answered incorrectly he is placed on a conveyor belt and sent to a simulated crematorium. After the supposed cremation, he is placed in a capsule, which simulates a womb. And after a while, he is “born again.”

People find the game very thrilling. They say it allows them to think about the purpose of life.

Answer: There is nothing we can do. A person is pushed toward the truth by the fear of death or by feeling that he has no choice and he is unable to control his life. This isn’t a philosophy but a real feeling that every living cell is finite.  And even if a transformation into some form is possible, life will eventually come to an end.

Question: Why do people fear death? What do we gain from it?

Answer: First of all, it gives a sense of the futility of life. We forget about this, begin to save something for a rainy day, to leave something for our children and grandchildren, etc. We cannot even imagine that in 500 years one of them would not be alive.

This process is inevitable and we keep feeling our way around making efforts to feel that our life means something, but there is no solution. There have been many beliefs based on the fear of death throughout history, like ancient myths about reincarnation that existed long before religions appeared.

People who begin to ask themselves “what is the meaning of my life?” reach the wisdom of Kabbalah. If people asked this question in a clearer more accurate and direct manner, he would be brought to the wisdom of Kabbalah because they would not be able to answer it in any other way. All the other answers including religions are tricks.

We can only receive an answer to the question about the meaning of life if we reveal the Creator, the only force of nature from which everything generates. We are familiar with its mechanical, electrodynamic, psychological manifestations. But we have to discover its purpose, the direction of its movement, and its force of life. We have to discover the Creator, to be in contact with Him, to understand and to feel Him, and then we will understand who we are and what we are living for.

If people examine the question about the meaning of life more seriously,  it will bring them to the answer found in the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/5/16

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People have been developing for thousands of years, and at some point they start to awaken the question of the meaning of existence; it is the main concern of a person if he has raised a bit above the animal level.

People don’t evolve like animals, which actually don’t change from one generation to the next. The desires of each generation change as every generation feels the desires of the next level of development and the feeling of emptiness constantly grows. Consequently, the question about the meaning of life begins to preoccupy us more and more.

We suddenly begin to wonder about things we hadn’t thought of before, and the sciences also develop according to the questions that come up in every generation because the questions that preoccupy a person in the 20^th century are different from the questions that concerned him in the 10^th century.

The question about the meaning of life that is manifested in humanity at a certain point is revealed only to certain individuals. Throughout human history there were special people in whom the question about the meaning of life arose that led people to compose music, literature, poetry, and to paint pictures. All this pushed us forward, developing science, technology, and machinery. A person not only aspired egoistically to a better material life, but also searched for the meaning of life.

Our desires are upgraded according to a scale of desires. First, the desires that are associated with our corporeal existence awaken: desires for food, sex, and family. Then human desires emerge, which are associated with internal fillings: desires for wealth, power, and knowledge. All the desires are transformed from one generation to the next and become finer, sharper, and more internal.

People began to feel the question about the meaning of life at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. The technological, scientific, and cultural revolutions in Europe were the trigger for the emergence of a totally new attitude to life and religion.

People no longer feared to be non-religious or to be prosecuted for dissent, which means that the ego grew to such an extent that a person could longer act like stereotypes anymore.

In the beginning of Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam writes: Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts as to whether we should study the wisdom of Kabbalah will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” So this question remains unanswered.

We may say that everything that happens today is because we cannot find an answer to the question about the meaning of life. We can see what humanity engages in and what it leads the world to! And it is all because people don’t understand what they exist for. “In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? The years that we spend, we spend searching, chasing, and suffering or even more precisely, who do I delight by living the way I do?” No one! It is indeed true that historians have grown weary contemplating it, and particularly in our generation. No one even wishes to consider it.

Why should I be preoccupied with the meaning of life if I understand that I will not find an answer? It is better to abuse drugs or alcohol in order to suppress the internal question that makes a person feel worthless.

After all an animal doesn’t ask that question, it simply exists by fulfilling its basic desires for food, sex, and family, while desires for wealth, power, and knowledge do not exist in the animal nature. It is the same with humans on that level so it is easier for them to live, while people in whom human desires develop feel miserable.

Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy of flowing mindlessly in the currents of life as always.

That’s what we are trying to do subconsciously. We eat sleep, work, meet with friends, watch a football game, engage in hobbies, only to keep ourselves busy and avoid asking this question. After all, this question is worse than death; death is a momentary solution to the problem while one can live with this question for a very long time and come to nothing at the end except for self-torture.

This is the reason that Baal HaSulam specifically chose this topic as the introduction to his book Talmud Eser Sefirot. In this introduction he wants to show that a person doesn’t need any special thoughts or high goals in order to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

If he feels bad, doesn’t know what he is living for, and this question keeps bothering him—because he cannot live for no reason and has to justify his life—then he has to discover the wisdom of Kabbalah because it actually provides the answer to the meaning of his personal life.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/31/16

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Question: Why do you believe that only the wisdom of Kabbalah gives a correct and true answer to the questions about the meaning of life, building a family, human society, and education?

Answer: Simply because that is at the same level; as a consequence of the nature that created it, a person cannot reach the need to become aware of the question about the meaning of life, all the more so in solving it when he himself is within nature.

Einstein talked about this when he said that in order to jump on a table, one must jump above the table. What this means is that we need a system that is “above ourselves.” This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah provides. By studying its wisdom, it becomes possible to attract the power that will elevate us, the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light).
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Question: Is there a concept in the wisdom of Kabbalah that is analogous to emptiness?

Answer: Emptiness is a special category of desires that cannot be filled, and therefore feels empty of the content it would like to have.

A person who asks this type of question is starting to feel the desire to attain and know the meaning of life, why life comes to an end, what happens after one dies, and why life is so absurd and random.

In other words, emptiness is a desire to attain something that remains unattainable for the time being because our matter is a desire to be filled with pleasure and satisfaction, and if the filling is missing and does not exist, it is called emptiness.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/31/16

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Today we need to prepare people for the new world the same way that we prepare kids for our world. We should realize that we have to play against our egoism in the same way a little child plays. We are required to artificially evoke this new world in our imagination.

Obviously, we’re deceiving ourselves in this way. Yes, I lie to myself because my egoistic nature forces me to snatch for myself anything I can lay my hands on. But I must be different because otherwise I will not rise to the next level, the level of an integral human being, Adam. I can only rise to it with the help of my environment, which I myself need to create.

So it follows that ultimately I have to examine: “What exactly is this new type of humanity? What can bring me to it? What sort of environment, influence, can shape me into anything? How can I create this environment for myself so that I will change?”

It turns out that, in a way, I elevate myself. I grow through that. In the process I become aware of all the forces of nature that I need to change and use in order to change myself.

By building this new society, a person reaches the highest level of nature. I begin to attain the entire mechanism of my development and understand the full depth of the engine that works in the evolutionary process. I step onto the level of the creator who alters one’s own self.

Can you only imagine what a superb psychologist a person becomes for himself! This is why I believe that this science is the most necessary one in our current state.

From this it becomes clear that we need to teach people about psychology of an individual human being and of society, about freedom of will, and to tell them about the forces that act on us and through which we can influence ourselves. In other words, we ourselves are building the society that is going to change us.

We should study and examine ourselves very well, our inner qualities, both personal and social, through all kinds of connections based on mentalities, habits, and lifestyles. And accordingly, we have to build an integral external influence on humanity as a whole and on each of its civilizations, nations, cultures, and so on.

This is an enormous undertaking, but it is the work of making a true human out of us, and therefore this is noble work. We will create a human being from an animal.

The task we are facing is enormous. The efforts of a tremendous amount of people are required here, and first and foremost of those who are testing all these processes on themselves, who study them, raise objections, discuss, and simultaneously attempt to do something. All of humanity should participate in this, absolutely everyone, young and old! Every person needs to be engaged in this process for a very long time.

If we desire to rise to the next level of our development, the level of the integral image of “Adam,” we need to give ourselves to this pursuit completely and to tend to our beastly, physical state only to whatever extent is actually necessary so that this animal could exist comfortably and not interfere with our creation of Adam out of ourselves.

This shows us why the current condition of humanity is leading us towards that against our will, as well as the reason for the crisis and the enormous amount of the unemployed.

Before long armies of billions of the unemployed will appear and as a result, only the most necessary enterprises such as manufacturing of foodstuffs, clothes, construction, and so on will remain, and only to the extent and quantity required for a normal existence. Only a certain number of people will work in these enterprises, or perhaps everyone a little bit of time. But all of them, regardless of whether they’re working or free from work, will have to pursue integral education.

With that humanity is freeing tremendous egoistic resources that previously were busy manufacturing unnecessary things. They will all be gradually transitioned precisely towards building the next stage: the creation of an integral society.

We won’t be able to avoid it. We need to progressively make our way towards this because only movement in that direction will smooth out our current threatening state, which leads us toward a world war.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Opinion: (Michail Barbolin, The Institute of Adult Education, The Russian Academy of Education): “It is well known that the concept of good and evil are relative. Where is the line we need to adhere to in order not to harm either oneself, or the others, or nature? Where is the mechanism which would regulate and guide human behavour? How can we arrange a world, where not only we will bring no harm, but will also know how to organize life? To accomplish this, we need to grasp the meaning of life, the meaning of modern civilization, and from there, to determine the necessary changes in society.

“With the advent of man, his destiny in this life is inherent in his essence, which he must realize by manifesting morality, interacting with the environment, and realizing love and duty.

“The meaning of life is the result of systemic activity of the human body. Its form of expression is a mental representation, as reflected in the way of life.

“The significance of meaning binds the psychic activity and the objective reality, and at the same time, belongs to the subject and object, connects the mental and physical worlds. Providing a qualitative change, the meaning of life acts as the law that connects people and actions.

“Personality is a set of social relations.

“The law of the meaning of life integrates the moral qualities of the inner world of man and their manifestations. Through the thought and meaning, man’s nature, the self, which does not concur with nature, and material actions get adjusted.

“The deep meaning of life is in an endless continuation of life through the way life.”
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In the News (from The Huffington Post): “Occupy London protesters have driven a small tank to a former magistrates court where they intend to hold mock ‘trials’ of bankers and corporations accused of financial greed.

“Occupy plans to use the court for a series of mock trials of bankers and other figures it considers to be part of the ‘1%’ responsible for the financial crisis.

“A spokesperson for Occupy London told The Huffington Post UK that qualified solicitors will conduct the trials, and that anyone accused will be invited to defend themselves.

“A list of people and companies to be tried in the courts will be released soon, the movement said.

“‘These trials will be about economic crime, about companies that have not paid their taxes or people who have made profit out of the recession,’ said Spyro, a spokesperson for the organisation.

“‘We need to see justice,’ he said. ‘Our court will be a symbolic peoples court.’

“The movement said that the building was chosen because it was a highly ornate, visible and expensive development that had been abandoned for many years.

“‘We want to give back to the public,’ Spyro said. He added that Occupy was not concerned that its message would be diluted by PR stunts, and argued that ‘PR is a good thing.’

“The organisation also rejected the criticisms on Twitter and other social networks that the ‘prosecution’ of the 1% could have an unpleasant resemblance to ‘show trials.’

“‘Ours in an open movement,’ the spokesperson said. He added that the public would be welcome to watch the trials.”

My Comment: The rich should be afraid, and that’s why it’s in their interest to introduce integral upbringing for society so that it can understand that our egoism is the cause of what has happened, and now we all must get out of it. We need to rise above it in unity, abundance, reasonable consumption, and the realization of the higher level of nature. “The Phantom of Gaddafi” is flying over them, and as soon as the masses are jobless and hungry, it can descend upon them….
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Question: There many groups and communities in the world which pursue all kinds of goals. Does a connection without the points in the hearts help people rise above egoistic desire?

Answer: The point in the heart is a desire to reveal the root; it is a part of the Creator from Above. I have a black point, the need for something that I can’t even define. In this life, I lack a sensation, an understanding: What is this life for? Why does it exist? Where is it from? What is its purpose ? Who is controlling me?

I start having questions about the purpose of life. It’s as if from Above, there is a thread wired to me, a channel of forces and the upper management, and I wish to attain it, to know the reason to live. I ask questions which a regular person is scared to ask, embarrassed to raise.

These questions eventually merge into one: “What is the meaning of life?” Without answering it, I don’t see why I should live at all. I need to break the lock on this “jewelry box.” And if my question digs into the very essence, the source of life, it means that I do have the point in the heart.

A person with the point in the heart comes to the group that studies this specific question: “How do I find the purpose of life, its source? How do I uncover the upper governance and join it with all that I am?” A person cannot quit half way on this path for his desire is toward the very essence of creation, and nothing will stop him now. He is ready to face the Creator and doesn’t succumb to any limitations. No matter how hard others may try to hold him or her back, no matter what they may say, the person just doesn’t care.

Such people come to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There is another kind as well, those who are still thinking. Their point in the heart has also woken up, but it is still “wrapped” in all sorts of covers. So, they are satisfied by mysticism, holistic practices, eastern philosophies, meditation, vegetarianism, naturalism, and so on. All of these trends start with the same question, and this is why they are so popular in our times. On the subconscious level, man feels that it’s time to transcend somewhat, it is time to change…

Thus, gradually, we do advance. We have to wait until people check these directions. In the meantime, their desire grows, so little by little, they will quit their quests and come to the source, to the method that can reveal it to them. Such is the path.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2011, “The Freedom”

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A question I received: There are people, groups, and organizations that see themselves as one whole and close to nature. They say they love each other, plants and animals. Is this “love your neighbor?”

My Answer: “Love your neighbor” is a law of Nature, a condition in the world around us. This condition is suddenly being revealed to us now because we have grown into it, similar to a child that grows up to be an adult and suddenly has to abide by the laws of the society.

Imagine that all the media channels suddenly announced that everyone has to follow the law of “love your neighbor” by the end of the year, and anyone that won’t be able to do this will be executed. This is not funny at all – this is the condition Nature has set for us. However, we are unable to see it.

So, what are we going to do? We have to learn how to attain “love for your neighbor.” We must find out what this law means, what Nature wants from us. We cannot avoid this law – we must learn it. But how?

Through studying. This is the only means that will enable people to understand that there is no place to run and the only solution is to be corrected by a special force of Nature. This special force influences a person who desires to be corrected, to attain the degree of “love your neighbor.”

It is like a wave or frequency among billions of frequencies, and you will perceive it only if you desire it. Nature requires you to tune in to the frequency where you will feel that the only thing you want is to love your neighbor! Then this force of Nature will come and correct you.

All other attempts will lead us to a crisis, in order for us to find this path to the goal. Other directions are gradually dwindling all around us. This is called the “Egyptian plagues,” and they will eventually make us see that there is no other choice. When we find ourselves in total darkness, we will be willing and eager to run away and attain just one thing – “love your neighbor.” Where did the people run to from Egypt? Only to love, as evidenced by the unity that later took place by Mount Sinai.

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