Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Going Beyond The Limits Of Time

Laitman_197_01Time is an internal, personal, psychological, selfish option when I measure time as the difference between the time when I want something to aspire to something and when I realize that desire. I feel that time is always a lack of contentment.

If I were to receive what I wanted immediately, as soon as I wanted it—if the desire had been realized at once—I would not feel time. This is called being above time. For example, if receiving the desired happened with infinite speed, time approaches zero.

Our entire nature exists below the speed of light, and all the processes are rate limited. Because of this, we have time. After all, time, speed, and distance are related.

Theoretically, if we were to receive that which is desired at once, we would not sense time.

When I reach a state in which time would equal to zero—that is, if speed were infinite and the distance were reduced to zero—would space turn into a point? When can I perform an action, and immediately perform it, at the same moment, as soon as I wish? This is possible only in the act of bestowal, which depends on me.

If we moved away from the current connection between us in which each person receives from the other, to such communications when each person bestows upon the other and can bestow—he has something to give and the other desires to receive from him—then we would not feel time in the least.

Time is a habit. It is a purely psychological parameter, and this is talking scientifically.

In essence, what do we need if we are talking about real life implementation, about the correct management of time that is given to us? We need to know how to achieve the action of pure bestowal by which we rise to the level where we exist outside of time, space, and motion.

Indeed, if time equals zero, there is no motion and no space. Everything is located in the same place, at that point. We can reach this state if we change our attitude from reception to bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/22/15

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How Not To Waste Time

laitman_928Question: Sometimes there is a feeling that it is difficult to manage one’s time, that we waste it. What should we avoid in order not to waste time?

Answer: The entire universe consists of two forces, the forces of bestowal and reception, plus and minus. We all live in the force of reception, and therefore are limited.

Indeed, how much can you receive of something from someone? I am not able to receive freely from some sources as I wish. Perhaps a spoiled child whom his or her parents love with absolute love can get from them whatever he or she wants, but their options are limited.

But if my desires grow and I am in a society where everyone is like me, then we are not able to fulfill our desires. Therefore, people are steeped  in drug use, depression, and so on, because they cannot fulfill themselves.

The force of reception is very limited, but the force of bestowal is not. Indeed, you can give without limit, “If I benefit from it with a good mood and a sense of life, I would give gladly.”

Our problem is that we are organized in such a way that we get pleasure from receiving, but not from bestowal. It is only if we give to our children, relatives, and loved ones that we derive pleasure from giving. The more we give, the more we enjoy. We have only a few such examples, but these are limited in time and do not grow in strength from giving pleasure.

Here you can continue to explore further: What would life be like if we organized it not by the receiving force, but by the force of bestowal? If we all had been born or could develop the force of bestowal and live in this paradigm, then it would not be limited regardless of time.

We would feel time differently—not with a sense of a constant lack of fulfillment when I feel the time between what I want and when I receive what I wanted. On the contrary, time would shrink to zero as measured between when I want to give and when I give.

If I can give and I have something to give, then I have no time. The sense of time disappears. Then we speak not from time, but from action. In other words, we leave the time frame. This is stated in modern physics and most of psychology, in the psychology of bestowal and not receiving.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/22/15

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Living For The Soul

laitman_537Question: You said that every person must attain his own soul. Can you explain how I will behave once I attain my soul?

Answer: A person who attains his soul begins to see the spiritual world, the upper system that governs us. He begins to see everything above time, motion, and place.

The soul’s perspective isn’t from the birth to the death of the physical body, but from zero to infinity; to the height of the whole ladder a person climbs toward his soul. He will behave only for the benefit of the soul, just as at the moment a person’s behavior is determined only by pleasing his body, his egoistic desire.

A person who discovers his soul feels that this is a totally different life, as it is written, “I saw an upside down world.” Then, he begins to live for the soul since this his greatest eternal part. Previously, he felt pleasure in a totally different manner. The Light that fills the soul fills a person with pleasure that is 620 times greater than all the pleasures in this world.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/10/15

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Science And Consciousness

Laitman_083Opinion (David Chalmers, Australian Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist): “Consciousness is the most mysterious phenomenon in nature. Why do we have consciousness? The answer is unknown. Physics explains chemistry, chemistry explains biology and psychology. But consciousness is beyond the normal definition of our world.

“Consciousness is fundamental. Physicists accept particular aspects of nature as basic: space, time, and mass. They deduce and derive the basic laws that govern nature. These characteristics and laws are not explained in any other form, and upon them a model of the entire world is built. If it is impossible to explain consciousness by means of the basic existing elements (space, time, and mass), then that must also be included in this list, accepting consciousness as a basic element of nature.

“Consciousness is universal. Every system has consciousness to a particular degree: Not only people, flies, and bacteria, but also the elementary particles. Even a photon has consciousness. Does a photon have understanding or thought; is it tormented by worry about where it is being carried with the speed of light? No, but there are possibilities that photons have some kind of subjective feeling, something that precedes consciousness.

“It could be that the connection of consciousness to physical processes is a connection of consciousness with information. There, where information is being processed, is where consciousness is also found. The integrated processing of information, as with humans, is integrated consciousness. The simple processing of information, this is simple consciousness.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah maintains that everything is only in the human. And everything that seems to us as outside of the human only seems that way to us, but essentially everything is found within us, and outside of us there are no other creatures. Consciousness is connected with information, which depends only on connections with the Upper Light, the characteristic of bestowal.

Only the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) and the Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light), in all the forms that are created (still, vegetative, animate, including humans) maintain consciousness, to the degree of the development of the ego within them and the ascent above it. See Lesson Number 1 from April 5, 2015. We are “swimming” within the Upper Light, in the higher consciousness….
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Where is the Soul Located?

laitman_628_3Question: Were there people in the past who found their souls? If so, where are the souls of those people?

Answer: Throughout all generations, there were many Kabbalists. The first of them was Adam HaRishon followed by twenty generations of Kabbalists until Abraham, after him appeared Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc…. up to our time.

All these Kabbalists attained an extraordinary condition, a special vessel called the “soul” in which they revealed a higher power and eternal life. We all have to do it too.

Question: Where are their souls now?

Answer: Here we face the question: What does “where is the soul” mean, i.e., is there a place where a soul dwells? When we perceive spirituality, we begin to realize that there is no such thing as a place. Today, even quantum physicists state that there are no such things as place, time, or motion. All these parameters are relative; there is nothing tangible or real about them.

When we stop absorbing into our ego, going outside our selfishness in the direction of our neighbors, we start feeling the external reality that is beyond the boundaries of our ego. Then, all these conventions of time, motion, and space disappear.

Question: What if we die before we attain this state? After all, all these Kabbalists whom you mentioned lived many thousands of years ago…

Answer: The body dies, the animal level rather than something that belongs to the soul. If during one’s life one reaches the level of bestowing to one’s neighbor, i.e., one perceives one’s soul, this sensation of the soul is grasped. This part of us never dies.

My teacher Rabash said that if a person who attained spirituality dies, his physical body is like a shirt that he takes off in the evening and throws in the laundry. No more than that. Our physical body compared to our inner soul.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/10/15

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Our Reality Is Not Real

laitman_739Opinions: Eugene P Wigner: “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, page 169).

Erwin Schrodinger: “Consciousness is not measurable with a natural formula. For consciousness this is an absolutely basic conclusion. It cannot be explained from the point of view of something else. What we see in the form of physical bodies and forces is none other than forms and different versions in the structure of space. Plato was the first to envisage the idea of timeless existence and to emphasize it—against reason—as a reality, more [real] than our actual experience…”

Albert Einstein: “If we think of the field as being removed, there is no ‘space’ which remains since space does not have an independent existence. Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it. It is understood that there is no physical space, ultimately in nature everything is present or not, depending on human thought. This is the function of our conceptual schema (of the mind). Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

In his later years he said, “It is necessary to find possibilities of refraining from the temporal sequence (space together with time) in general. But there is no hint of an idea, in which of the elementary concepts it is possible to use a theory like this.”

Max Planck: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

Niels Bohr: “The general view of the world in terms of objects that really exist ‘out there’, without any connection to our observations (objective reality), was absolutely destroyed from the perspective of the quantum factor. Everything that we call real is composed of things that cannot be considered as real. If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet”.
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So As To Not Remain A Lump Of Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe whole world is an egoistic state of matter. Everything that is in the still, vegetative, and animate levels exists only in order to preserve itself in the best way possible.

In human matter it is even more exaggerated since I want to sustain myself in the best possible way compared to the rest of the environment of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. I have to be in the most comfortable state so that the whole universe will engage in serving my ego. This is a person’s natural inclination. If we could only see how we restrain ourselves internally just because we don’t want to suffer. I ask myself why I should torture myself just because I am not Einstein or Picasso. I don’t want to feel sorry as if I am cutting a part of myself off, accepting that I will not be a Tolstoy or Shakespeare…

The ego has a defensive reaction for every desire that isn’t fulfilled, but wherever I can, I want to grab and subdue everything for my own sake. This is our nature; a person is ready to swallow the whole world.

We cannot change our nature by ourselves. It was created and is sustained in us and in the whole universe thanks to a force called the Light. This force is invisible and not felt in any way by our senses, as it constantly creates, develops, and sustains the ego.

But inside the ego, there is a separate point that doesn’t belong to it, a point that scrutinizes the egoism. The Light that operates on the ego also affects this point. It begins to develop and feel where it is; asking itself, “I’m in some kind of nature? Who am I? Where am I?”

If this point seriously develops in a person (in fact this point exists in everyone, in some more and some less), it begins to ask itself: “What do is this for, why and from where? Why was I created? Was I created in order to suffer? If so, then I curse you as the source that has condemned me to such an existence. If it is for another purpose then what is it exactly? I demand an explanation from You!”

When a person demands an explanation from the Light, the Creator, he comes in contact with Him through the point in the heart, because this point is man and everything else exists in the animate state.

What can actually interest me? It can either be my own nature and how I exist within it in maximum comfort for several years and make as little effort as possible and receive as much pleasure as possible. Or, I yearn for my root, for my source, asking: “Who are You, the one who created and manages me?” This is the highest form of yearning in the dipole of the ego and the point that can develop within it.

The moment the point in the heart begins to develop, it can immediately be given its non-egoistic method of development that is fulfilled only under the influence of the upper Light. If this is what I want it to come to me more often, to have greater influence over me, it is revealed to me in my logic, understanding, and feelings,  in its goals and plans for me because it is the source of power, information—everything.

This is actually what the point in the heart or the human being in me demands. Then I am given the Torah and I begin to work with it. Anyone in whom this inclination is invoked should value it and truly fear that it could disappear and that he will remain a lump of stone of the ego or the beast.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/30/14

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The Wisdom Of Connection In An Era Of Isolationism

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn everyday life we generally hide our egoism. If I depend on my enemy completely, my ego begins to disappear and hatred evaporates. There is nowhere to escape to and I start to look for how to love him and cause him to love me. The self-preservation instinct begins to work, and I cannot hate someone when my life, the most precious thing I have, depends upon him.

But in our case, we are not succeeding. The hatred is being revealed between us more and more and the separatist movements are taking over the world. The more that our world is discovered as whole and mutually connected, the stronger the opposite trend becomes.

Each one aspires to isolation and ultimately we will reach the same situation as in ancient times, where every city and area became a separate nation. The whole world will be divided into such kingdoms.

On the one hand, egoism is growing, feeling its limitations and areas of control with more precision. And in this way, it separates itself from the others. As a result of this, the world in which seven billion people are living will create 10,000 nations that cannot get along with one another.

Even solitary individuals are no longer able to get along with each other. There was a time when families would live in one room: parents, children, grandchildren. And today two people cannot live in peace in the same apartment. This is called hatred.

To the same degree that our interdependence is appearing, the desire to shatter this dependency, separate and move away from each other is appearing as isolationism and separation. These two tendencies will not disappear and will develop more and more within human society, and there is no way to resolve this! Both will grow to the skies and there will be no possibility of solving this conflict.

The art of connection is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. Ultimately the relationships between everyone—children, adults, in schools, at work, in international relations and within society—will reach such a state that we will not be ready to speak to one another and will need the wisdom of connection!

This wisdom will be required simply to be able to arrange normal relationships at work, in school, in the family and in all areas of our lives. People will need this wisdom because hatred, rejection, the inability to speak to one another or even look at others will reach such a threatening degree that we will not be able to bridge this gap.

It will not be possible to overcome the lack of desire to see and feel others. A person will search for isolation so that nobody will be near him, and he will not want to get close to anyone. But on the other hand, he will have to sit in class at school or university and be in connection with others.

Today, one person cannot do anything; even scientists carry out research in large groups. In addition, in our jobs everywhere, we need to connect in teams. But a person will lose the ability to cooperate even with one person who is like him as this hatred will grow to such a degree.

So the wisdom of connection will be very much in demand. The whole world is going to need it.

We need to understand that all of the spiritual worlds: the five worlds, Olam Ein Sof (world of Infinity), the entire ladder of levels, and the Partzufim are revealed in us through the unnatural connection between people. According to nature hatred and interdependence are revealed in us. But if we arrange for a connection between these polar opposites, the hatred and dependence, and communicate with others above our intellect, desire, and all calculations, we will discover new relationships and a new world.

Now we feel this world through our five senses, meaning the five kinds of egoistic connection between us. We see everything through our egoism, meaning that in every situation we search for the opportunity to be confident and enjoy. Thanks to the wisdom of connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah, we will reach new relationships above the egoistic relationships, which are relationships of “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (“Leviticus” 19:18), and within the connection between us we will begin to discover the five additional senses: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut.

Within these senses, we will discover phenomena called spiritual worlds, until attaining the complete connection called Olam Ein Sof. The spiritual world is revealed in the connection between us, in the levels of our relationships that go from total detachment to complete adhesion. This is the ladder of spiritual levels.

To the degree that I try to develop love above my egoism and hatred, I discover the levels of the spiritual worlds. So it isn’t necessary to search for the spiritual world in any other place, such as in books or mechanical actions with the hands and feet. Everything depends only on work in the heart and how much I can connect emotionally with others above the rejection and hatred without wanting to delete or annihilate it.

After all, everything is built precisely above the hatred, as it is written, “Love covereth all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12). So with love built above the hatred, I will discover a new world called the world of men. After all, we are all within this world and will be connected as one and receive the form of Adam – man  (Domeh – similar to the Creator).
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14

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Disorder In Nature Or In Me?

Laitman_728_01Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot U Masbirot,” Item 11: …On the other end, when we regard the order of existence and sustenance in the modes of existence of the whole of reality, large and small, we find confused orders, as if an army is fleeing the campaign sick, beaten, and afflicted by the Creator. Their whole life is as death, having no sustenance unless by tormenting first, risking their lives for their bread.

Question: What is the meaning of “sick, beaten, and afflicted by the Creator?”

Answer: On the one hand, we see that nature has prepared and arranged everything for us, all the laws that govern the life of the created beings. But on the other hand, everyone devours each other and everyone benefits from the troubles of others. Each animal thinks only about how to devour another to fill itself, for its entire life, it spends its time looking for food.

A person worries about food even more than other animals. Prehistoric man lived like the animals and ate whatever he could find. He had no way of keeping food and preserving it and therefore had to look for food and collect roots and fruit. This was his daily worry. He had no spare time to do anything else but that. Man lived like an animal and was constantly busy looking for food.

Then man learned to domesticate animals, and so he began to cultivate domestic animals like cows, dogs, chickens, and so forth. He developed agriculture and didn’t need to hunt for food anymore since he had a farm with animals living by his side. There was no need to look for plants to eat since he could harvest his crops in his field. People ceased to wander from place to place and began to settle on their lands.

But this didn’t make their lives easier. It seemed that they could live in peace, but wars and disputes over territory broke out and people began to enslave other people. Life became worse than a dog’s life. On the one hand, everything seemed to be ready on nature’s part, but the management of the still, vegetative, animate, and especially man seemed to be very confused.

Why is there no peace among all parts of nature, and why can’t the prophecy, “And a wolf shall live with a lamb, … and a small child shall lead them” be fulfilled? Instead, everyone devours everyone else. We don’t understand why nature is this way. We have gotten used to this kind of life, but it is wrong. Why is life so? This is where people begin to doubt godliness. Everyone thinks that he can manage the world better than the Creator because he sees the great disorder in nature.

However, we must change ourselves and then we will see that nature and the Creator’s attitude toward us is correct. We must only connect to the upper force, and it will fix us and make us equal to it, which means that it will make us human beings.

The moment we change, we will perceive a different world. This will be a world that is totally good. Suddenly the wolf will dwell with the lamb and will lick it as its own cub. The little child will come to play with them. Everyone will help one another. Then, I will see that life always has been that way, and only I saw that everything was the opposite because my perception of reality was corrupted. I looked at the world through glasses that were totally shattered and therefore thought that the world also was shattered. Now, I have been given new lenses and I see that the world is wonderful, round, beautiful, and pure. It seemed totally shattered before because of my perception of reality.

Therefore, our goal is to correct ourselves to such an extent that we will see the whole upper providence as good and benevolent—the only force that operates in reality, the attribute of love and bestowal.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/14

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The World To Come, Here And Now!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what way is the world that I am seeing now in my life different from the world to come about which it is said: “You will see your world in your life,” (Berachot 17a)?

Now I am now alive and see what everyone sees, a world full of hatred. What kind of benefit do I have from this “immense” computer about which you speak, that brings the entire system to a state of separation, hatred, and distrust in our relationships with each other?

Answer: I see this entire gigantic, higher mechanism and how He plays with us to bring us to develop so that we will become like Him by rising to His level. It is said, “And the children will return to their father in heaven (the Creator),” (Vayikra Rabbah 1:3). Then I begin to justify Him, understand Him, and see in what manner I now need to behave in order to live on that level  at all times and not have to wait!

The moment I begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, I have the possibility of ascending to this level of the force that manages this.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 4/12/15

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