Torah, Deuteronomy 4:15 – 4:19: And you shall watch yourselves very well, for you did not see any image on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire. Lest you become corrupt and make for yourselves a graven image, the representation of any form, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the heaven, the likeness of anything that crawls on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters, beneath the earth. And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, which the Lord your God assigned to all peoples under the entire heaven, and be drawn away to prostrate yourselves before them and worship them.

Question: How can we not see the images and statues that surround us?

Answer: There is no Creator and no upper world. We ourselves need to create them within us. This is very difficult to understand, but the wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we perceive the existing reality, how we depict it in our qualities, and how we make sure that, in fact, there is no me, not my body nor surroundings.

There is only a desire within which we perceive everything. All subjects and events are images drawn in my desire! There is nothing else! However, it seems to me that they exist in reality because such are my qualities.

Now, I need to understand why I perceive this world that way, how I rise above it and create a new world within myself from my new qualities. I create it by changing my qualities and beginning to exist in both worlds, in the upper world and in this world at the lowest degree of my qualities where I have idols that I worship.

The matter of our world is given to us in sensations, and then what? Apparently, there is another kind of matter that can come into my sensations, and I will be able to control it.

Therefore, I create new worlds with five degrees in each of them, five degrees of the world of Assiya, then of the worlds of Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon. I ascend 125 degrees to the world of infinity that includes in itself absolutely all of the worlds and everything that exists because I fully reveal my desire in which I previously used to feel something in a very limited form and  called it the world. “World” (Olam) comes from the word “concealment” (Alama).

Now, I move to the world of infinity where everything is revealed fully because all previous worlds become included in it and dissolve there. There, I feel just a white light that is called the Creator, and together with Him, I am on the level of absolute knowledge and a sense of infinity. This is the state we must reach.
[188081]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/17/16

Related Material:
How To Gain Knowledge About The Spiritual Worlds?
We Ourselves Create The Creator
Kabbalah Is The Wisdom Of The Upper Reality

Filed under: Perception, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Comment: Bio-physicists say that a person who knows science asks merely three questions: How was the universe created? How was life in the universe created? And how do living creatures learn to think?

Answer: These are of course, serious questions for scientists.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains everything in a very simple manner. The major force in our world, the Upper Light, created a desire that is opposite from it as something from nothing. This desire is the creation created from what had not existed before. After all, the whole universe is filled only by one Upper Light.

Question: Is there no desire in the Light itself?

Answer: There is a desire in the Light, but it is a desire for love and bestowal, a desire to bestow, to give. And it created a desire to receive that developed under this influence. The Light created the desire to receive,  from the simplest to the most complex organisms.

They are all mutually connected and represent one unique system, one organism that multiplies and buds in different subsystems in four phases laid down in the Light.

The Light gradually develops the initial desire that was created until it reaches a state in which it begins to think, discern, feel, and even begins to build itself independently to resemble the Light. There is nothing new here for Kabbalists, but for scientist this is of course a problem they cannot solve.

Question: Does this mean that they cannot examine this logically?

Answer: No, no way. Science has already accepted the fact that it is finite because everything we receive, understand, and perceive is felt through the filter of our attributes, which are limited. We cannot stand in front of the filter and feel the pure Light because all our desires and thoughts are created by that filter. We cannot attain the Upper Light that created us because we only attain what we feel through the filter.

Kabbalah tells us how to create an anti-filter, which means that the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how we should perceive, understand, and determine our connection with the Upper Light, which exists before the filter, when we are behind the filter of all our attributes and forces.

In order to do so, we have to turn our initial attribute to receive to an attribute to bestow, and then we will begin to reveal the Upper Light inside us, the upper energy, the thought of creation, and the upper mind, and then we will be able to perceive it.

This means that we have to build a model that is identical to the Upper Light inside us because it is impossible to leap over the filter. The wisdom of Kabbalah guides us in building the model of the whole universe, of the whole creation, inside us.

Question: Does the filter exist only in order to diminish the Light and to enable us to perceive it gradually?

Answer: Yes, these are five or ten Sefirot, which diminish the Upper Light, swallow it, and convey it to us.

We can build an identical system inside us that will influence the Upper Light through us outward, and this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is based on. Therefore, everything is inside a person and everything can be attained.

When people remain in the framework of their natural nature, of course, they hit a wall. But eventually everyone will realize that we are finite, that our knowledge is finite, and that there no way out. Thus humanity will gradually understand that the wisdom of Kabbalah has the solution.
[188129]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/9/16

Related Material:
Modern Science On The Verge Of The Unknown
What Brings The World To A Dead End?
The Brain: A Secret That Is Inaccessible To Science

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception, Science - No Comments →

Question: How can I picture myself, the world, and the Creator?

Answer: You should imagine that everything around you is only the Creator and that with regard to a person there is concealment. There is absolute concealment in which a person feels only what is inside him, which is the world that is reflected in his brain on a screen in the back of his head, as Baal HaSulam says, until gradually he discovers that the Creator surrounds him and that he is inside the Creator, inside the upper nature. This is how the truth is revealed to one.
[188073]

Related Material:
An Unchangeable Law Of Nature
When The Sun Does Not Leave The Zenith
One Step On The Way To Wholeness

Filed under: Perception, Q&A, The Creator - No Comments →

Int the News (Hi-News.ru): “Why is there something rather than nothing?

“Our appearance in this universe is too strange an event that words cannot express. The vanity of our daily lives makes us take our existence for granted. But whenever we try to deny it and think deeply about what is happening, the question arises: why the universe is all there is and why does it have and is subject to such accurate laws? Why does anything exist? …As for philosophers, they came to this anthropic principle that our particular universe manifests itself in such a way because of our presence in it as observers.”

Answer: The reason for everything that exists is thought; it is primary and gives rise to matter, the desire to fill itself. It gives the desire, matter, its attributes and consequently matter, the desire yearns to resemble the thought, its Creator.

Question: Is our reality real? How do we know that what we see around us is real and not a big illusion that was created by some invisible force? Could it be that we are the product of an intentional simulation, that our civilization is an illusion and that we are not who we believe we are? What should we consider real?

Answer: Everything is manifested in our sensations, in us, and there is no way we can discover what is beyond us. Kabbalah develops within a person the ability to feel what is external to him by faith above reason and thus enables us to answer all these questions.

Question: Do we have freewill? Are our actions managed or do we make our own decisions of our own freewill? Neuroscience shows that the brain makes a decision before we understand it. Quantum mechanics indicates that we exist in a universe of probabilities and any form of determinism is basically impossible.

Answer: There is freedom of will to explore the intended path of development and to advance along this path either by force or consciously. (See the article “The Freedom” by Baal HaSulam).

Question: Does God exist? We cannot know whether God exists or not. We don’t know about the inner workings of the universe in order to make grandiose claims about the nature of reality and about the fact that there is an upper force behind the scenes.

Answer: We have to reveal the Creator. This is the only way to solve this issue! The method for the revelation of the Creator is called the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: Is there life after death? We cannot ask the dead, so we can only guess. Materialists assume that there is no life after death, but it seems impossible to prove this scientifically.

Answer: Our biological life is born, lives, and dies. The eternal element is the desire, which when connected to the biological body has to undergo different phases and grow. The desire grows by drawing the force that created it, the Creator. We were given life in order to reveal the upper state, in order to attain the Creator’s level in this life.

Question: Can we perceive anything objectively? We can observe the environment only through the filter of our senses, thoughts, and minds. Everything that we feel has gone through a multi-layer filter of physiological and cognitive processes. Our world view is subjective. The only way to check this is by somehow seeing the world through another person’s consciousness. We can observe the universe only through our mind and interpret it only subjectively.

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah develops senses in us that are external to our body, through which we discover the true reality, the upper world and the reason for it, the Creator. Our efforts in uniting the group spur and summon the correcting Light, the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), and it develops a sense of perception in a person that is external to his egoistic subjective filter. This is called the revelation of the Creator and of the upper world to a person.
[188162]

Related Material:
The Reality Of The Universe
Science Is Becoming Convinced Of The Existence Of God
The Universe: The Mirror Of Man

Filed under: Body and Soul, Free Will, Kabbalah Study, Perception, Science, The Creator - No Comments →

Question: In the Torah, many times the future was foreseen: the prophetic dreams of prophets are mentioned and there were people who interpreted them. How does the wisdom of Kabbalah relate to palmistry and seeing the future in dreams?

Answer: The Kabbalists can truly foresee the future, not in a dream but in a state of absolute wakefulness, by way of a special ascent to the next level. This is thanks to acquiring the characteristic of bestowal instead of the characteristic of reception, an altruistic characteristic instead of an egoistic characteristic. By being released from the material somewhat, they begin to feel a higher level, a level of the forces that manage matter. By entering into the field of these forces, a person begins to see the past, present, and future, beyond time.

So for a Kabbalist, prediction of the future is generally not a prediction; rather, it is the present situation, just like all the rest of time. I offer this to everyone, but first they must rise to a level called “prophetic.” To do this, no special skills are needed but desire. All the rest of the prophecies, including palmistry are basically “slight of hand.”
[187549]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/20/16

Related Material:
Seeing The Future And Changing It
Full Access To The Program Of Life
A Kabbalist Can Stop A War

Filed under: Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How do we treat the death of a loved one correctly? There was a person among us and he suddenly disappeared.

Answer: We just stop seeing him, but nothing disappears in the world. These forces remain.

Question: Is it possible to contact these forces?

Answer: It is not given to a man. It is only to the extent that we who remain living improve our actions that we help the souls of deceased people prepare themselves properly for a new purpose and a new life.

Upon returning the next time to this world in material bodies, they will behave correctly and be closer to correction, and in this way, they will complete their mission here in this world.

All souls must reach the upper world during their lives in this world, and if a person dies, then he will receive such an opportunity in the next life. Souls are going through cycles both inside their bodies and outside of them.

Question: If I lost a loved one and continue to live, how can I treat my pain and sense of loss correctly?

Answer: It is necessary to put every effort into correcting our attitude toward the world in order to be as close as possible to the love of others, which the Torah demands from us. Then, love will cover all transgressions. Through this, we definitely will help all of the people that were close to us.

In the same way, we help each other in this world; our souls help each other, too. We all are connected with each other.

Question: However, he is dead, isn’t he?

Answer: Only the body died. However, how does the body matter? We all are connected through the soul, and we are the one soul of Adam HaRishon. When we begin to feel others, we also will be able to feel the souls that are outside of the bodies.

Question: Will we be able to recognize them?

Answer: Yes, but not in the way that we imagine now.

Question: And what do we do with the pain?

Answer: The most useful thing to do in memory of a deceased person is to direct yourself toward bestowal to people. Correct yourself and reach love of others.

Nothing else will help, not money, not other forces or actions, but only good deeds for a neighbor, bestowal, and our helping people to become closer and even to love each other.

You correct yourself so that you are kind to others, otherwise this help will be egoistic. And this is possible only through studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. Then, you will begin feeling lost loved ones, too, as forces. Actually, we all are forces.

Here, everything depends on the perception of reality and the way we see each other. It only seems to us now that we see the real picture. In fact, we see souls, but it seems to us that we see bodies. Therefore, we stop seeing a person after his death. His body disappears, and we don’t see anything apart from bodies.

If only we could see souls. The soul is a force of love and bestowal hidden within a person and almost inactive because he hasn’t developed it, and we also haven’t developed it within ourselves. Develop an ability to see a soul in yourself, and you will see it!

Question: What do I need to do to develop that in myself?

Answer: It is a desire to bestow and love the people surrounding you, and then you will be able to see those that you can’t see now.

Question: Do the deceased see us, the ones that are alive?

Answer: It is impossible to explain. Perception through the desire to bestow differs radically from the perception through egoistic desire. The Torah advises us to love others because this is the only guarantee for a good life. Try and you will see how you slowly begin to understand what happens between life and death.

It is written, “Love covers all transgressions,” meaning that above all of our crimes toward each other, we need to build a bridge of love. Then, we will move to a complete perception of reality, instead of the limited perception we have now.

Then, our grief for the dead will disappear. Eventually, we will begin looking at life through adult eyes and will see life not as the narrow seventy-year interval allocated for the life of an animal body, but eternal and perfect.

The best thing you can do in memory of the deceased is to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. Then, we will understand souls and bodies.
[184401]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/5/16

Related Material:
Life Beyond The Boundaries Of Birth And Death, Part 3
Life Beyond The Boundaries Of Birth And Death, Part 2
Life Beyond The Boundaries Of Birth And Death, Part 1

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that our life is organized in a special way. On one hand we live in a physical body on the animal level, like all animals, with a limited number of years. But during our existence on this planet we receive an amazing opportunity to reach a higher degree of man, Adam, (Domeh – meaning similar) to the upper world that is eternal and perfect.

We can do it if we rise above our material body and start building a spiritual body, meaning a spiritual degree. The spiritual body is completely opposite to how we perceive ourselves today. It is really spiritual, that is, a force without matter. This force is built on the basis that we begin to treat each other completely differently than now.

Now we treat each other egoistically. Even love that we have for families and children is egoistic. After all, we love them because they are close to us and we feel our dependence on them. But if we can build an attitude to reality that is opposite to our egoism, we will begin to acquire the second force, the force of love and bestowal to others, and feel a new reality in it that is a network of connections.

If I come to the environment without the intention to use everyone maximally for my own benefit but change my attitude so that everyone would feel equally good, I see a different world, a world that is united, where all are connected with each other, with the force of love, unity, and mutual bestowal acting between us. And then I can change my perception, my system of thinking and evaluation, and feel myself existing in another world.

If my attitude, my way of thinking, and my perception change, I will see another reality. If I treat the entire world: stones, plants, animals, and humans as myself, seeing them as a unified system, then they all will become close to me. I will feel that I depend on them and they depend on me.

Suddenly I will stop feeling time because the flow of time is a fulfillment of some deficiencies, and I won’t have them anymore. I won’t need anything; all my needs will be in other people only. The concepts of time and space disappear. After all, space is defined by the distance between me and someone else, calculated according to how much I can receive from him for my own benefit.

And now it turns out that the opposite is true, I don’t care whose desire this is: mine, yours, hers…. When I don’t look at the world egoistically, the world begins to change dramatically. My perception of reality changes and I see what Kabbalists call the upper world.

If I treat everyone this way, I feel my body less and less, this animal inside, which is now my “I”. And even if this animal dies, the way it is accustomed in bodies, I won’t feel any loss. This is because I am already connected to everyone and live within them. I don’t live inside of my animal body taking care of it, but I am spread between all.

This new perception of the world through the power of bestowal and love presents a life on the degree called the upper world, eternal life outside of the body. The wisdom of Kabbalah gives us this opportunity by inviting us to engage in such a system of connection and reveal the upper world that is concealed from us now.

It is invisible until we acquire the qualities of bestowal and love. However, it actually exists here, next to us. There are people in our world who, while living in bodies like ours, feel a different connection between all the people: bestowal, endowment, and love.

This method was developed by Abraham and passed to the group of people gathered around him who later called themselves the people of Israel. Israel means straight to the Creator (Yashar-El), meaning our relationships, upbringing, and interaction are directed to the degree that is higher than our current life.

We must reach the degree of the spiritual world here and now, while we exist in the animal body, and so it is written, “You will see your world in this life.” And then a person feels that he has exited the limitations of his body and now lives eternal life. The spiritual world is right here; we just need to feel it!
[184148]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/5/16

Related Material:
Life Beyond The Boundaries Of Birth And Death, Part 1
Controlling Reality During Our Lifetime
It Is Impossible To Empty The Ocean With A Pipette

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →

Question: How do we deal with the loss of a loved one? It is impossible to accept that a person was here right now and suddenly he is gone. The mind doesn’t agree with the fact that our life is temporary. Death seems unreal to us.

Answer: Doesn’t this attitude indicate that our perception is limited, that we are naive, immature, and lacking the understanding of our condition? We are not able to perceive life and death.

Apparently, we are able to perceive just a tiny fragment of our life, like little children, and we don’t know what is really happening in it. An encounter with death plunges us into shock, when someone was living and suddenly disappears. We look at a lifeless body and are astonished that this is not a human anymore, not a friend, not a relative. There was a person and now he is gone. How is it possible?

This person lived in me, was imprinted in my qualities, desires, feelings, and memory. And suddenly he disappeared. How is it possible that a person ceases to exist? Our mind can’t perceive it. And the problem is probably not reality itself, because nothing is eternal in this world. The problem is in our limited perception that is able to see only to the threshold of death.

Why is life arranged this way? Why is a person placed in a limited body that occupies a very small volume in reality? We attach great importance to this body, much higher and more significant than is due a physical body situated on the animal level.

We are used to the temporality of our existence and live very well with it. And not because we are not depressed with this knowledge. But because we live in and can’t see beyond this life, we are reconciled with the understanding of our mortality and console ourselves by masking these questions, convincing ourselves that this is life.

Humanity invents religions and beliefs that tell about the afterlife. People believe them for lack of choice because it is still some compensation for the impermanence of life that suddenly stops.

But in fact, this question requires a much more mature attitude. We can look beyond the boundary of life and death, beyond the borders of this tiny reality that we see around us now.

Would we be able to see reality on a higher level, i.e., stop perceiving it as animals that perceive everything only through their bodily senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch? Would we develop new, out of body organs of perception that are outside of our material body, its animal degree?

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains all this, which is why it is called the “science of perception,” as “Kabbalah” means “reception.”

Kabbalah helps us to open our eyes and see the real, wider reality right here and now, not after the death of the physical body.
[183787]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/5/16

Related Material:
Why Is It Difficult For Us To Bear The Death Of Our Relatives?
Why Is The Hour Of Our Death Not Known?
Why Are We Afraid Of Death?

Filed under: Body and Soul, Perception - No Comments →

Question: In the story of the Israelites exiting Egypt, one of the most significant and biggest events is the crossing of the Red Sea. This event occurs when the Israelites, after receiving Pharaoh’s permission, leave Egypt in haste and a week later reach the Red Sea.

Pharaoh, after a few days, regrets his decision to release the Jews and sends his entire army with chariots and horses to chase them. The situation seemed hopeless to the Jews, they faced the sea and were surrounded on three sides.

At this point, the Creator told Moses to raise his staff—and the sea parted, divided into two halves. As soon as the Israelites crossed in the middle and reached the opposite shore, the sea returned to its usual state, and the Egyptians pursuing them drowned. What does this story about crossing the Red Sea symbolize?

Answer: I think the Torah was given to man to discover his qualities, tendencies, desires, intentions, and thoughts, to realize that a man is a small world that has everything in it: Egypt, the people of Israel, Mount Sinai, the Sinai desert, and the Red Sea. Everything that exists in the world is inside man.

Moreover, by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly we reveal that there is no world outside of man. It seems to me that I am in a room called a studio and there are other people and various subjects in it apart from me. But all this is in me, inside of me. My qualities draw this picture on my internal screen. However this picture is sensory.

Let’s fantasize a little. Let us say that we can live another 100-200 years. Who thought about television 100 years ago? No one! Suddenly the first little black-and-white television appeared, then a bigger one, and then a color one with a few channels.

Let’s assume that in 100 years we will produce a television that will create the complete illusion of a movie, as if you are there, inside, among the people, and even experience different scents. You look at this game and it even involves you, and all these images, created by, let’s assume, laser beams in the air, interact with you.

You project your thoughts and desires on them, and they on you, and all of it is a special program in which you participate and play together with artificial images. And suddenly you discover that you are exactly the same, because what makes you different from them? And they, apparently, also look at each other and at you the same way. This is the people.

Ultimately, we are some kind of a program that materializes in such a form and nothing more. So what is the difference between internal and external? There is none. We are all a kind of holographic, three-dimensional picture that can also be more dimensional. And this is how we live.

Actually, this is what the Torah explains to us. So far it is hard for us to imagine this, but when we really approach spiritual perception this is exactly what is gradually revealed to us. We develop an ability to understand and feel the truth, to live in it, and to be in a constant interaction with it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to do it; therefore it is called the wisdom of reception (Kabbalah means reception in Hebrew), the wisdom of perception. This is why the Torah tells us about all the situations in such a form, meaning it is talking about a person who understands that he is inside a play or a game where the upper thought, the upper program, creates all these images and he exists together with them in this life.

Then a question arises: How does he relate to this great mind and the great desire that controls this theatre? Either he exists in it understanding this fact and searches for the most correct way to play his role, or he lives as he pleases, every moment following his senses and selecting what is best for himself.

The person that lives within himself is seemingly disconnected from others; he doesn’t care about these images, the process that everyone undergoes, and this general intention, the so-called purpose of creation. He lives every minute just for his own benefit, according to his shallow inner feeling. He is allowed to realize his internal personal program.

But it is made clear to him that there is a common program and he can play together with others according to this program. And then he moves together with the global upper thought and desire, called the thought of creation. Between these two things, a person can be in connection with the thought of creation to different extents or in connection with his “animal body,” as long as he is happy.
[183056]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/21/16

Related Material:
The Final Sea – Yam Suf
Property Which Parted The Sea
What Awaits Us On The Other Side Of The Final Sea?

Filed under: Nations of the World, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Comment: In one of the last interviews the BBC conducted with psychiatrist Carl Jung, he said: “We need more understanding of human nature, because the only danger that exists is man himself — he is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man — far too little..”

Answer: The human psyche – is the source of all that awaits us in the future. I am sure that just as we shifted from mechanical to electronic machines in the past and from electronic to computerized machines, now is the time to gradually shift from computerized systems to three-dimensional technologies and instruments and we will gradually discover that this is not what we should engage in at all.

All this is external and crude, while we have to engage in our system, in the internal human being that is inside us.

Inside us are all the secrets of nature. The world is attained and depicted in a person.

We also see this in numerous studies that have been conducted especially on astronauts. There is a great amount of data regarding the changes in a man’s psyche while in space, when returning to earth, etc., which have no scientific basis.

But more reliable data is gradually accumulating about how a person’s hearing and sight totally change when the conditions a person is in change. He can see a sandbox in which kids play from a distance of 300 kilometers, and he can suddenly hear what his friends who are next to him think. So we have to study man who contains all the secrets of nature.

Advancing toward the lower levels of nature—animate, vegetative, and inanimate—is an unnatural direction in the evolution of science. Science has to develop higher! And above man there is only his soul. This is what a person attains by himself. It is actually from his mentality, from his psychology, that he can find the way to the next level.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the highest psychology. It tells us which levels of attainment man is made of and which levels of attainment in him still have to develop, and it tells us exactly how to ascend through these levels, from the feeling of this world, which we see and build inside us, to the feeling of the upper world, which we also have to build inside us. This is the whole problem.

It has nothing to do with wars. Playing with weapons, tanks, and planes are just kids’ games. We have to put an end to that because humanity needs to aspire to something more intelligent and more important.

I still hope that there will be a breakthrough in the right direction and that we will stop thinking about a third world war. Wars don’t solve anything anyway, just as crises don’t.

So let’s engage in the most sublime matter we can, in the human soul.
[181673]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/12/16

Related Material:
Kabbalah And Jungian Psychology
Toward The New World In A Reasonable Way
A View From Above

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Kabbalah Study, News, Perception, Science - No Comments →