In the News (from psychologytoday.com): “A new study has confirmed that humankind’s capacity for love and friendship sets us apart from all other species. Researchers at University of Virginia have found that humans are hardwired to empathize with those close to them at a neural level.

“People in your social network literally become entwined with your sense of self at a neural level. ‘With familiarity, other people become part of ourselves,’ …

“Humans have evolved to have our self-identity become woven into a neural tapestry with our loved ones. James Coan said, “Our self comes to include the people we feel close to. This likely is because humans need to have friends and allies who they can side with and see as being the same as themselves. And as people spend more time together, they become more similar.” …

“‘The correlation between self and friend was remarkably similar,’ Coan said. “The finding shows the brain’s remarkable capacity to model self to others; that people close to us become a part of ourselves, and that is not just metaphor or poetry, it’s very real. Literally we are under threat when a friend is under threat. But not so when a stranger is under threat.”

“‘It’s essentially a breakdown of self and other; our self comes to include the people we become close to,’ Coan said. ‘If a friend is under threat, it becomes the same as if we ourselves are under threat. We can understand the pain or difficulty they may be going through in the same way we understand our own pain.'”

My Comment: In general, we are parts of a common network, a web of relationships. We have yet to discover its universality. Accordingly, we can understand the extent to which we each shape each others’ lives, which means that a complete connection between us will bring us to a perfect existence. Out of necessity, everyone becomes close and connects as in a network.
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Question: How is it possible to feel and see the poor as rich, the fool as wise, and the sick as healthy if a person understands and reflects that all the evil that is around him are his uncorrected characteristics that are intentionally given to him by the Creator for his advancement, and also connects every action that happens in his life with the one and only Creator?

Answer: All of this is discovered along with the feeling of the Creator because it belongs to the full perception of the world that was created by Him.
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Comment: Scientists have discovered that every object, from cars, birds, or people’s faces to the letters of the alphabet seem different to people who know them from those who see them for the first time.

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah differs from other sciences since it immediately shows a person the world on the next level, and so all the current and future studies, which always reveal something new to the ego are not considered new according to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Kabbalah immediately provides us with the basis for the egoistic perception of the world and that which is above the ego, therefore everything that exists on these two levels, and between them, a person who studies Kabbalah begins to perceive absolutely correctly.

There is never an actual face or form, so a person’s perception depends only on the extent to which he is an in absolutely objective state, that is, rising above all his sensations.

After all, everything that we feel we sense in our desires, characteristics, and feelings. If our attributes changed, we would see the trees, the sky, the birds, the earth, people, and everything that surrounds us differently from the way they are depicted to us now. It depends on our internal attributes.

If a person from another planet came here, he would perceive everything in this world in a totally different manner than the way we perceive it in our attributes. It is therefore impossible to say that there are forms in this world, sights, attributes, or laws that are objective and independent. Everything is revealed and exists only in a person’s individual attitude.

Let’s become acquainted with different objects and the world more deeply, meaning what they represent. And then we would cease to see our world and instead would begin to see the upper spiritual world: the forces, the mutual connections, the intrinsic properties, which are now depicted to us as corporeal objects.

And if we penetrate more deeply, we will cease to see corporeal objects since they don’t exist. We will only see the properties rather than the material bodies.

If a person has been married for forty years, for example, he is used to seeing a certain figure instead of his wife, and she also perceives him as an image that is built by his attributes, by their mutual relations, etc. People get used to each other and don’t pay attention to certain attributes that each one has.

This can somehow be compared to what would happen to us if we began to acquire the attribute of the upper world. We would simply see it instead of our world. It is just as a wife sees her husband in a totally different manner than a stranger would see him, since for her he is a more internal image than the external image.

This is also how we would see the internal image of our world that is called the upper world. We would see forces and attributes, not the external wrappings that our five corporeal senses depict for us.

Everyone can do that. We only have to learn about the upper world, and then the internal attributes that match its attributes will appear in us. We will begin to feel it just as it really is and our world in the form of objects will disappear.

Question: If I see a table, a wall, you, etc., on the dimension of this world, will I see forces when I rise above this dimension?

Answer: Yes, forces that depict in you such objects that don’t really exist.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/10/16

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Question: Scientists who studied 42 babies came to the conclusion that babies see things that adults cannot see.

Answer: This is typical not only of babies. I remember that we were having lunch once, and my wife was serving the meal to everyone around the table when our little daughter who was about two years-old pointed at an empty chair and asked her mother why she didn’t serve him anything, as if someone was sitting in the empty chair.

Question: In the above study, scientists refer to the same things. Babies from the age of six months to three years notice different small and “unimportant” things that a grownup wouldn’t notice. Babies also can see mysterious figures.

Answer: This assertion has a strong basis. Babies have the feeling of the upper world. A small child suddenly can begin to pray, although he doesn’t understand anything, is not connected to the Creator, is not raised in a religious family, and has not read or heard anything about it yet. However, he already feels that since his internal nature pushes him toward the upper level, so young children have this inclination until it gradually disappears because of the external influences of our world.

Question: Does this phenomenon have a Kabbalistic basis?

Answer: Of course, the Reshimot (reminiscences) are the basis of a person’s nature, and it develops for a while. If a person continues to develop it, he continues to grow naturally into the spiritual world, but since we don’t develop it, it remains in us in its embryonic phase, and only our ego and our body develop while the spiritual part remains inside us.

Question: Do people who begin to engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah seemingly return to the phase of infancy?

Answer: Not only that, they return to their embryonic phase, and when a person goes through spiritual levels, he feels to some extent as if he were in his mother’s womb and then as if he is born and develops.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/12/16

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New Life 689 – Where Do Our Thoughts Come From?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

There is no stronger power than the power of thoughts. Animals live according to an instinctive operating plan, which man doesn’t have so that he can develop unlimitedly. Where do our thoughts come from? They come from the general computer of nature, from the upper force.

Every state we undergo in life is meant to help us advance to the recognition of the upper force. If we paid attention to every thought we have, we would begin to identify the upper thought.

This is exactly what the wisdom of Kabbalah engages in, in how to perceive the upper leadership and how to identify it. Thus we begin to follow every thought and desire that awakens in us with intention of discovering their source in order to be adhered to the upper thought, to the upper force, that there is none else besides Him. The only way to identify the upper force is by using the formula of “love thy friend as thyself.”
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From KabTV’s “New Life 689 – Where Do Our Thoughts Come From?” 2/9/16

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New Life 688 – Levels Of Thinking
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The desire to enjoy is the matter of creation and it is divided into 4 levels: the still, vegetative, animate, and man. The more the desire to enjoy grows, the more power of thought it requires in order to be optimally filled. The power of thought serves the desire and it is especially evident in young children, while grownups hide their aspirations.

We can study creatures that are on a lower level than we are with our mind, but we find it difficult to study ourselves since in order to learn who I am, I have to rise to a level that is higher than me, to the level of Godliness, and I can do that by using the wisdom of Kabbalah. The power of thought that is greater than that of man is called the power of the Creator, which is the upper thought that connects everything. When a person discovers the upper thought, everything changes: his accounts, his values, and his plans, and he begins to discover that reality is actually himself, and then the desire to bring everyone to the same recognition awakens in him.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life 688 – Levels Of Thinking,” 2/9/16

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Question: Sergio Canavero, an Italian surgeon, plans to perform a complicated human head transplant, following experiments that have been carried out on apes in the US. According to the Italian doctor, the first operation on a human being will be performed within two years’ time. Do you believe that this is possible?

Answer: Why not? A head transplant is merely a technical issue, that’s all. If they don’t solve this issue now, it will happen in another 10 to 20 years.

I remember the first human heart transplant that was performed in South Africa in 1967. Everyone held their breath and waited to see whether the person in whose body that heart was planted would begin to think differently. We have very primitive ideas regarding the human body, and we think that there is some spirit living in it and that it is transferred to another along with a heart or liver.

Question: Still, the idea of a head transplant is a bit scary.

Answer: Yes, the head is the major part of the body. The thoughts that come from the head control the body.

Question: How do the thoughts come to the head?

Answer: This is a different matter altogether. There must be a different kind of transplant here. We need to connect to the upper modem in order to do so and learn to receive signals from the upper mind. This is a flight in a totally different class.

There is actually nothing in the head except for grey matter. The head is like a computer that is fed by the outside world, and there is nothing else inside of it. If you study the head, you will find nothing there since our knowledge is not inside our head, but is external to us, just as all of reality is external to us. We are merely vessels that perceive what is in space and nothing more.

We need to get into this space to the level where all of the information is: energy, knowledge, and most importantly properties. The attributes are the most important part because the information, energy, and knowledge are technical entities, while the attributes belong to the upper level of nature called the Creator. The uppermost attribute is the attribute of love. However, in order to penetrate the attributes, a person needs to undergo the special training that is studied by Kabbalists, the essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The work of attaining the Creator’s attributes is replacing the head, which a person performs during his lifetime in this world without any transplants. It isn’t a transplant but a gradual ascent to the level of the upper information, the upper properties. I invite anyone who is interested in that to come and study.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/5/16

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New Life #514 – A System of Forces
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

There is a lot of information in the place we exist. As we develop, we communicate with this database, with everything that touches upon a link with the forces. This is an area in which there are many questions. It is an area that is completely unruly.
Kabbalah makes it possible for a person to build five additional spiritual senses (soul). With them he feels beyond this world.

Everything that I feel, I absorb with my “desire to receive.” I have the ability to open the desire to bestow to expand my perception. Through the desire to bestow and the five new senses that work outside and not inside, I feel a higher world. This perception doesn’t depend on my body, so I will sense an eternal, unlimited, and whole life.

The person then begins to see a round world, that everything is linked to everything. He begins to move toward connection. The spiritual world is the system of connection between us, the connecting link between everyone. It creates a new attitude toward life in him.

In the links between us, a stream of information about everything is found, about giving, about love, about links of mutual guarantee (Arvut) . The information streams between us all the time, between our desires.

The entire creation can be summed up as a desire for pleasure. A person who can restrict his desire to receive and wants to bestow, goes out to a network and he sees others who have the characteristic of bestowal in it. Like a flower that was closed and opens, he sees from one end of the world to the other, feels everything and understands everything.

The first tip on the way to opening your “flower” is – open your heart!
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From KabTV’s “New Life #514 – A System of Forces,” 1/29/15

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New Life #513 – Regarding Illumination and Spiritual Attainment
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

A person who is working according to the method of Kabbalah reaches illumination at some point. He feels that the world is full of a good force, love, and connection. This is like a cloud that descends upon the Earth. Then this passes, he continues to work; his definitions of what is considered an ascent and a descent change.

He wants to improve. For several years all the fundamental data in him are corrected, and he then enters into permanent illumination.

All of the evil that we see in the world is because our characteristics are broken. If we correct the ego, we see goodness. All the people in history who discovered the Light, found the tendency to love others.

The Rav chose the method of Kabbalah not because he was a Jew, but because this was a scientific method appropriate for everyone. In Kabbalah there are no physical exercises, there is daily training, studying the sources, and a group where we connect.

A person who discovers the Light sees that everyone is found within it unconsciously; his role is to help everyone feel the power of goodness, love, and connection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #513 – Regarding Illumination And Spiritual Attainment,” 1/29/16

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Question: Is the spiritual world we attain the same for all or does each one have his own spiritual world?

Answer: The spiritual world we attain is the same for everyone, but each one attains it from some different perspective, in his own properties, just like our world.

In our world we are also supposed to exist in the same volume, but we still attain it in a different way. This happens because each of us has a different set of basic properties, the criteria through which we attain the world.
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From Lesson in Russian 12/27/15

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