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

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Inna writes:

Dear Michael Laitman, I am trembling all over when I write to you.

I have been living in Israel for 30 years. My children grew up here. Now the oldest one is in the army. He is in a combat unit at a closed base. The connection with him is very rare. He was just next to me, my child, warm, kind, and loving, and suddenly childhood is over.

This realization that childhood is over is terrible! I have a very strong feeling of emptiness! Here neither faith nor mind helps. The younger children do not help either. It is like a piece of me has been taken out of me. I am afraid for him! I feel like I am sinking into this worry! How do I survive this? How do I hold on?

My Response: You just have to believe. There is nothing else to say here. Believe that everything will be fine, that there is the upper force that arranges the fate of everyone, and it will treat each of us with kindness.

Question: My son, and in general, all our children?

Answer: Yes. It is very difficult to imagine a mother’s feelings. Nothing will calm her down except that he would be near her.

Question: Is that what she should want?

Answer: Yes. He should be near her! Under her heart!
[323740]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/7/23

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Comment: A lion and a bull are having dinner together. The lion receives a call from his wife: “Are you coming home soon?” “Yes, darling, I will be there soon,” says the lion.

The bull looks at him surprised: “Well, you are a lion, the king of all animals. I answer to my wife: “This is none of your business, I will come when I want.” To which the lion says to him: “Do not compare us, your wife is a cow, and mine is a lioness.”

My Response: This is good!

Question: Is respect for a wife a behavior of a lion?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What do you mean by respecting a wife?

Answer: I mean love, understanding, and mutual connection. All this should be present. And I am demonstrating it all loudly and openly.

Question: Are you not paying attention to the bulls who are saying: “What are you doing? You are a lion, the king of the animals. Why are you talking to her like that?”

Answer: No.

Question: Please tell me what comes first: Am I raising a lioness at home, or does a lioness make me a lion after all? What happens first here?

Answer: I think the opposite is true here, the lioness makes you a lion. But I want to say this: What would happen if you talked to your little daughter or your son like that? You would lower yourself and speak softly. Why not with the wife?

You must always feel that you are above everyone, and therefore you must be below everyone.

Question: This is beautiful! Is this the behavior of a real king?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Then I have a question. How did it happen in the world that kings and dynasties disappeared? Politicians came out instead, and mostly not-so-nice ones.

Answer: They all are corrupt.

Question: How did it happen? What happened to all this: with royal nobility, with such an attitude toward others?

Answer: This respect gradually died out over hundreds of years and gave way to pride.

A king should be a king. It goes by inheritance; it goes by ancestral transmission. But then it all changed to sale and purchase.

Question: When was this gene cut off? What happened there? Where did the change take place? If we speak from above. You say that respectful attitude, nobility, is the state of the upper.

Answer: I think it was somewhere in Ancient Rome when they began to sell, buy, and poison each other, then everything went downhill. Before that, the image of the king was practically God’s vicar on earth.

Question: You keep saying that one way or another we must come to the equivalence with the Creator. Is this what is called returning to nobility?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it possible? You just said that it was all falling.

Answer: It is impossible.

Question: Then how to return to nobility?

Answer: This nobility will be replaced by the people. When the people have proclaimed themselves the viceroy of the Creator on earth in fulfilling all the upper laws, then they raise themselves to the level of the Creator and peace will be restored on earth.

Question: What should people become in order to reach this state?

Answer: They should exist in love for each other. This is the only condition. The mass should be as one.

Question: Do you actually see this? Do you not see the kings, do you see the people as one whole?

Answer: Yes, it is all gone.

Question: So, when we say “as one heart” or “as one” do you mean this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Will it happen?

Answer: I may be wrong; I do not know. But, in principle, according to my reasoning, this is how it should be.
[322928]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/27/23

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Question: There is a tale of an old  blind man who was sitting in the shadow of the temple when a passerby asked him: “Forgive me for my question, but how did you become blind?” “I have been blind since birth,” answered the old man. “What do you do?” asked the passerby. “I am an astronomer,” he answered. “I watch the sun and stars.” “But you can’t see them!”, the passerby exclaimed in surprise. “I see,” answered the old man. “They are here.” And he put his hand to his chest.

Can one live like this: blind, but not blind, and as a result you are sighted; deaf and at the same time hear music, and can be a musician? Can a person not feel his inferiority?

Answer: Of course. Because all our senses, in principle, come from our egoism. If we did not have these senses, we could be completely different.

Question: If this sense organ is cut off from me, let’s say I’m blind like this old man who says, “I’m an astronomer,” then how can I not feel that I’m blind?

Answer: Look within yourself.

Question: What will I see there?

Answer: You will see everything: the sky, the stars, everything! Within yourself.

Question: And if, say, I am deaf, can I be a musician? Will I hear music?

Answer: Whatever you want. You don’t need your five senses. You don’t need your body! If we didn’t have a body, we would be so happy and perfect.

Question: So, in this case I don’t feel any inferiority if I kind of live with myself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Please teach me. How to live like this? How to achieve this? It sounds so good.

Answer: This cannot be explained.

Question: Then the last question about the sage. He said, “I am an astronomer even though I am blind.” Why do we freeze when looking at the stars?

Answer: Because this is the opposite part of the universe in which we exist. And it immediately tells us about its infinity and our finiteness.

Question: So, I see infinity in this? And can it be found in oneself, like he found?

Answer: It can be found within yourself. You can connect with these stars. You can feel how they exist.

Question: And with this I seem to be moving into this state of infinity?

Answer: Yes.
[322878]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/16/23

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‘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

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Comment: Our reservist soldiers are fighting in Gaza. They are already fathers, businessmen, have life experience, and are established guys; they are already mature, you could say. They fight shoulder to shoulder and live in military unity, for them the words “mutual guarantee” are no longer just words, but actions.

They want unity in everything and everywhere. It is good for them to live like this. But they see that the country is again in strife, disputes, and criticism. Political campaigns have started again, and they feel bad about this.

Now short videos have started to spontaneously arrive from the battlefield; there are already thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them. The soldiers speak in front of the camera and say: “I, so-and-so, have been fighting since October 7^th. To all commentators, politicians, everyone: If you have nothing to say about our unity, close your mouth!”

The question is this: What do we have to do for them today?

My Response: Support them with our desire for unity so that we do not harm, but only help each other.

Question: Should we then really close our mouths if it suddenly says something against this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it possible to do this, at least in a time of war? Are we really that corrupted?

Answer: I think that at least for the duration of the war, we can do this, artificially. Then it will become a norm.

Question: Can a person say to himself: “I will keep quiet. I am full of criticism, but I am keeping quiet”?

Answer: I think he can.

Question: What is important here? To have some kind of examples or what? How should one feel about this?

Answer: It should just be such a nationwide appeal, to the whole nation. We must understand that otherwise we will not survive.

Question: Do you mean to keep one’s mouth shut if a person wants to criticize something or say something against unity?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you like this appeal: “Shut your mouth”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it a correct assumption that if we do not close our mouths, if we are in arguments, if we are even in hatred, then we betray them?

Answer: We are not only betraying them, we are betraying ourselves and the country, and in general we are leading everything to destruction.

Question: Are we betraying our children too? That is, God forbid, their death, is it on our conscience? Can you say that?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What should a politician, who warned that this would happen, knew what to do earlier, and turned out to be right, do? Today he does not hold back, he talks about the fact that he was right that they did not listen to him. What should he do?

Answer: It is not necessary to say that he was right, so as not to arouse contradictory opinions and reviews against him. We just need to call more and more for unification.

Question: What if it burns in him? He was right!

Answer: It does not matter. He must put peace, connection, and unity above the fact that he burns.

Comment: For the sake of all these guys in order to win.

My Response: Yes! Of course.

Comment: But he is not just a man, he is a great politician.

My Response: It does not matter. No matter what kind of politician he is, and no matter what he is right about, we know that all this is relative.

He should bend himself and act only for the sake of peace and unification.
[323596]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/1/24

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We, the chosen species, with reason and knowledge, have become a toy in the hands of the blind nature, which leads us astray, and who knows where? (Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”)

Question: Igor writes: “I have a hundred questions about this one passage. Why does such a great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, call nature blind?”

Answer: Because it acts according to its own law and does not turn anywhere. And that is why such a movement is called blind.

Question: So it is still directed by someone or something, and it moves without changing. Is this called a “blind state”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: He asks: “Is it blind nature that has led us to war now?”

Answer: This is the so-called blind nature, yes. It controls our egoism, and it leads us constantly, constantly into contradictions among ourselves until we realize the harm of such relationships and want to correct them.

Question: It deliberately brings us into collisions, and the stronger the collision, the faster we realize something?

Answer: Of course.

Question: “How can those who have knowledge and intelligence, as it is written here, be called a toy in someone’s hands? After all, do they have intelligence and knowledge”? That is, us.

Answer: It does not matter. In fact, nature still controls them. It increases or decreases the egoism in each of us and in all of us together, and we are thus controlled.

Question: But do you agree that we are intelligent and knowledgeable?

Answer: Relatively. But not higher than our egoism.

Question: So it is higher than us? Does it decide everything?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Igor asks about the same sentence: “It says that we are being fooled. Somehow I really do not like this.”

Answer: We are shown how limited we are, how stubborn and unidirectional we are, and how we lead ourselves to bad results.

Question: That is, on one hand, they say that we are reasonable, but on the other hand, we can be fooled. Doesn’t this indicate some kind of contradiction, that we are not intelligent?

Answer: No. Our mind works only within very limited boundaries and in no way prevents us from being stupid egoists at the same time.

Question: Igor asks, “They say that it is unknown where it (nature) is leading us. You say all the time that it is known where it is leading us—to unity, love. Yes or no?”

Answer: Toward unity and love, but in a very tough way.

Question: We do not know where it leads?

Answer: Yes, because we are in continuous struggle with each other throughout life, throughout history.

Question: So our task is to succumb to blind nature?

Answer: No! What are we going to do with this? On the contrary, we need to find out that we are in the hands of blind nature and that the only thing we can do is to correct ourselves.

Question: Is this what it wants from us, blind nature?

Answer: Yes. Awareness of evil.

Question: Can we say that we are the ones who are blind?

Answer: Of course.

Question: And that is why we perceive nature blindly?

Answer: Yes. But we cannot do it any other way; it is very difficult.

Question: So, you have no complaints against humanity?

Answer: I have no complaints against anyone.
[321315]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/6/23

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The war reveals to our people [Israel] that everything depends on our connection. Everyone says that the enemies will retreat in the face our unity and that our separation gives them strength. Let us hope that the unity of the nation will only increase until complete correction without wars.

It is encouraging to see how the people of Israel have suddenly united, how people have begun to appreciate each other. No one needs to explain anything anymore. Every soldier on the front feels that he is in his place and wants to stay there. He feels better among his friends there than among ordinary people in the center of the country.

It is such a difficult path, but we are going through huge corrections, the whole nation is, and are honored with unity. When soldiers come home on leave, they say that real life is there, at the front, and they want to return quickly despite all the danger.

This is a huge lesson for all of us, and let us hope that it will leave an indelible mark in our hearts that will never be forgotten. The main thing is to be with all your heart and soul with those soldiers on the front line and pray for them.

At a time when unity and brotherhood are growing on the front, the discord that existed before the war is beginning again in the rear. But this contrast will help us realize how undesirable disunity is and will help us make the right decision.

To anyone who is fighting against a real, obvious enemy that wants to destroy us and throw us out of our land everything is clear. But there is also an inner enemy, and each of us will have to feel that he is standing against his egoism and must grab it and strangle it.

How can we recognize this inner enemy? It is very easy. Everything in me that helps me get closer to others is my friend, and everything that alienates me and awakens hatred for others is my enemy.

This war has softened the hearts of the people. But the nation of Israel has experienced such terrible catastrophes in its history and still has returned to separation. Let us hope that this time there will be no return to the old habits.
[323600]
From the 3^rd part of  the Daily Kabbalah lesson 1/11/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Writings of the Last Generation”

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Question: What are your wishes for Israelis in the new year 2024?

Answer: Precisely for Israelis, apart from striving for connection, I have nothing to say. This striving for connection should be above all, and then we will defeat all those who wish us destruction.

Comment: When you say “striving for connection,” what does it mean to you?

My Response: We must raise the importance of connection above all of our other actions, states, and problems.

Comment: There are political problems; there are security and economic problems.

My Response: It doesn’t matter. The most important thing is connection. All problems can be solved through it.

Question: So if the basis is connection, then will all other problems disappear?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How can we get this into the heart and into the brain?

Answer: I don’t know. Each of us just needs to shut up when he wants to say something against someone! That’s all.
[323549]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/1/24

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Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond
A frog jumped into the water—
A deep resonance. 
(Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Question: The concept of shibui refers to a Japanese aesthetic of a refined understatement in artistic representation. It has an underlying notion of life’s transitory and evanescent nature. This is reflected in traditional Japanese clothing that is more beautiful on the interior than the exterior fabric.

What is hidden beauty?

Answer: Hidden beauty is something one cherishes, treasures! It is more important to him than anything in the world.

Question: And this, it turns out, is not shown off and put on display?

Answer: It is not shown to anyone. Many nations have many prohibitions against exposure.

Question: Is it the same in spirituality?

Answer: In spirituality, necessarily.

Question: But how can I, an outsider, feel this hidden beauty if it is hidden?

Answer: You don’t need to feel it; you should strive to create your own beauty for yourself.

Question: Am I ever looking for another beauty?

Answer: No, you will not find the beauty you are looking for there.

Question: Won’t I find it in others?

Answer: No, no way. You will not be able to find another person who could display your beauty, what you need, or what you prefer.

Question: Is my life the search for my beauty? Specifically beauty?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What other word would you use to define beauty?

Answer: I would call it inner perfection, harmony.

Question: Where is the upper one you keep talking about in this? Where is the Creator here?

Answer: The Creator determines this from above. And we get it below and thank Him.
[322764]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/23/23

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