Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Where There Is No Death

537Question: You said that a person must understand this system we exist in. Then everything start to fall into place for him?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: We can say that the world is interconnected, but we cannot really picture this. Is it actually like that?

Answer: It is like that, yes.

Comment: And these connections are, as you said, benevolent.

My Response: These connections are benevolent, and they do not end in this world. They continue in the next one as well. Therefore, we must also understand where we are, and how we are included in one another, how this kind of interplay happens between us, so that we have no way out. We have to be in a good state toward each other all the time.

Question: Meaning, I leave and return, leave and return, and everything is within this system?

Answer: Yes, everything is within this system. This is what is meant by saying that there is no death, so to speak, and everything is infinite.

Comment: That is beautiful! How can a person grasp this?

My Response: There is no need to, it is very difficult.

Question: But will he come to this understanding?

Answer: Yes, we must be prepared for this, but on the other hand, we must be ready for this and understand that it will be better for us this way. We must not look at it as a tremendous obligation.
[352443]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/26/26

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Does the Evil Eye Exist or Not?

245.02Question: Does the evil eye exist or not? What do you think?

Answer: It does. But it is not the kind of evil eye where I simply look at you like this.

By our desires, we are all connected together into one common, enormous desire that the Creator created. And therefore, by our desires we can influence one another each from his own level from the root of his soul. Thus, when I think badly of others, I harm myself and I harm them. I cause harm because I act through my desire.

Question: Does this happen involuntarily?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Comment: I have no free choice.

My Response: People do not know this. But why is our world so bad? Because people think about one another in this way!

Question: Because they as if cast the evil eye on another?

Answer: Of course! Does anyone wish good to another?

Comment: That is, of course, a question.

My Response: It is not a question at all!

Question: No one wishes good to another at all?

Answer: Of course not! And it turns out that our entire world lives only on the evil eye, on rejection, on people repelling one another.

Question: Is this what you call our world, the one in which we live?

Answer: Yes. The eye is the highest organ: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

Question: The five senses, and sight is the highest of them?

Answer: The highest. And therefore, we must be concerned with looking correctly at one another.

Question: When you use the word “to look,” what do you put into it?

Answer: To relate.

Comment: What you have just stated—that our entire world is built on the evil eye—is quite a statement. It is built on the evil eye.

My Response: Where have you ever seen a normal attitude of one person toward another?

Comment: Well, not to such an extent.

My Response: It does not matter to what extent, but only in a negative direction!

Question: Is this because I exist? Because my thoughts are only about myself?

Answer: From the outset, we are not directed toward good. From the outset, we are not directed toward a correct attitude toward one another. We set this only under certain conditions—if he behaves in such-and-such a way, then I will also relate to him correctly, and so on. But initially, I have no good toward another. Why should I?

Question: What do you mean, “Why should I?”

Answer: How could it be? Why should I relate well to others? I am asking you as a normal person in this world. Such a thing cannot exist!

Comment: But inwardly, I very much do not want to agree with you that all my thoughts are only to cause harm.

My Response: You are a Komsomol volunteer from the 1920s!

Comment: Yes, but still, one wants to believe that a person at least makes an effort.

My Response: A person is made in evil! A person is evil! There is no getting away from this. Only education can raise him out of this egoistic, envious swamp—pull him out by the ears, wash him, dry him well, hang him by the ears in the sun so that it thoroughly evaporates him. And only after that can one begin to fill him with something good.

Question: Then this entire science of correction, which is called Kabbalah, is it about how to transform these evil thoughts, this evil gaze on which our world exists, into a good gaze?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: That is, how to raise a person from this world into a world of a good gaze, goodness, and so on.

My Response: Yes. That will already be the spiritual world, the upper world, the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/21/226

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Change Your Perception, Not the World

715Everything that happens to us is initially done by the Creator, but we cannot see this. Baal HaSulam writes that the science of Kabbalah is a method of “the revelation of His [the Creator’s] Godliness Creator to His creatures in this world.”

I am not performing any action here through which I would be able to change the reality, the governance of the Creator, His influence on me. I am not performing any action that would change anything in me or around me; I am merely revealing what is happening.

I gradually discover what is actually happening in the existing reality when people around me, then the Creator together with the environment, later me and the Creator, and ultimately only the Creator become a factor in fulfilling the Torah and the commandments.

The fact that people from outside facilitate the fulfillment of the Torah and commandments does not mean that they are the influencing factor. In truth, it is the Creator, but in a concealed form, and His desire is to be revealed.

We must pay attention to this, because we deviate from the goal by thinking we are going to change reality. We are going to reveal reality! The difference lies in our perception, in the revelation relative to us, and only that. Here, there is a very fine line, a barely perceptible point. If we grasp it correctly, we acquire the right attitude toward what we are going to do, toward what is going to happen.

I am not going to change the world; I want to change my perception, nothing more! That is all I need required because everything is created perfectly, and only my perception is damaged; that is the only that I need to fix. Then I will be able to feel myself in a bright world full of abundance and goodness, my senses will perceive everything as it truly is!

To attune yourself to the correct approach is 90% of the work. Based on this, it is necessary to understand that the correct direction is that you attune yourself to bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/26, Rabash, “Lishma and Lo Lishma”

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A Deposit Invested in Your Name Awaits You!

278.03The Creator made only one state, a desire filled with light, the world of infinity. We are in this infinity, but we do not feel our true state because our desires were intentionally corrupted, and now we feel this malfunction. We feel a corrupted world of infinity, whose entire immense desire was divided into an infinite number of parts, and each part into another 613 desires.

The whole problem lies in the fact that instead of the intention to bestow, an egoistic intention arose, one for oneself, to fill oneself, and to care for oneself, instead of uniting.

To correct these 613 individual desires means “to hear His instructions,” all “613 counsels” on how to attain the corrected state. And when we achieve correction and replace today’s egoistic intention with the intention to bestow, we reveal the light that fills our corrected desire in the world of infinity.

It is as if we return to infinity, regain consciousness, and receive the entire light that fills our corrected desires in which it was always present in the form of a hidden, secret deposit! We return to the good state in which we always existed, only we did not notice the delight that filled us because it was delight from bestowal!

We were tuned and directed only to the range of reception; therefore, instead of the vast pleasure, we sensed only a tiny force that sustains life, which was given to us so we could return to the corrected state!

Thus, we follow the 613 counsels in order to correct our 613 desires, receive in them the 613 lights, and thereby reach the end of correction. But this final state already exists and is waiting for us to feel it within our intentions of bestowal! Therefore, these 613 commandments are called “Pkudin” from the word “Pikadon” (deposit),  a deposit originally placed by the Creator into our account, awaiting our correction.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/10, Rabash “The Importance of a Prayer of Many”

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Kabbalah and LSD

600.01Question: LSD is a separate category of drugs. If, as you say, it is just a certain illusion, then why does it cause a person to feel sensations that Kabbalists describe?

Answer: Taking LSD is not a solution to a problem; it is a disconnection from reality; meaning, it is not a conscious correction of oneself within society where you become a useful member, and express yourself as loving and caring, like a mother toward others, and where every member of society perceives you this way, and you perceive them the same. Such relationships are characteristic of the society of the future.

But those who take LSD detach from reality while not connecting with others. They do not want even the smallest contact! They enjoy experiencing all kinds of rosy visions within themselves.

Yet Kabbalah speaks about something entirely different: a very real, very difficult path of correcting a person, where he controls himself and acquires screens, meaning forces, that allow him to rise above his egoism, above each of its measures.

This is a very clear path carried out in connection with other companions, where together you go into battle against your own nature.

All this is completely opposite to the disconnection from reality, to the solitary floating, abstracted from others, that consists of perceiving some internal excitations. I see no connection between Kabbalah and taking LSD. It is a completely different approach, and works on completely different material. It is not you working, but chemistry. You can inject anyone with a drug, and there you go; he already supposedly floats in another dimension.

A person does not change his nature in this. He returns again to the same world, and that is it. Of course, he can tell how good he felt. But what next?! What does he change through this?!

You are suggesting: “Let us make an injection, and then for years not work on our nature.” But we must change our nature, and become godlike people, similar to the Creator; meaning, we must rise above our egoism into the quality of giving and love, into the correct mutual engagement between us, reveal in this engagement the higher world, eternity, perfection, and exist within it.

At the same time, our world does not disappear. We sense two levels of existence: our world in its full material form—we go to work, have children, raise them, serve in the army, do everything necessary—and simultaneously we feel ourselves on a higher level. A person exists on two levels! And one level does not cancel the other but helps it.

On the earthly level, each person is a useful member of society to the extent that he behaves normally as a simple human being. He does not shout: “Let us love each other!” and so on.

But internally he works toward the others so as to bring them closer to the quality of giving and love, to the correct interaction between themselves as one organism. I have never seen or heard that people who take LSD strive for this.
[351945]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah and LSD, Part 1” 10/6/10

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Perceiving from the Outside In

235Question: Do you remember the time when you understood nothing of what was being discussed in the science of Kabbalah? Perhaps you could roughly understand the structure of the worlds, but when you actually sensed them, how unusual was this impression or feeling?

Answer: It was very unusual, because you begin to perceive reality “from the outside in.” This is the most important epiphany at the beginning of the path. You understand what is written is not about the outside, but that our perception, our brains, our impression of reality are designed to see everything outside of ourselves and feel outside of ourselves.

You begin to realize that all this exists in you: the group is in you, the people are in you, all that is happening, all events are in you, and, naturally, this results in unity in the group, mutual guarantee, and all else.

Such a correct understanding of this process and what Kabbalah generally says about how a person combines all this within himself, is, of course, a huge revolution. This is an indescribable event. It turns everything upside down.

From that time on, a person begins to change, to treat himself, others, his studies, and his teacher differently.

Question: You said that a person begins to perceive reality “from the outside in.” Is this crossing the Machsom?

Answer: Not yet. He just treats himself and his surroundings differently, realizing that all this is inside him.

You can even say it more simply, without clever concepts. I realized that everything depends on me, on my correction, that I will achieve spirituality not somewhere far away but in me. It is in me that the quality of the Creator, the quality of love and bestowal, will appear, that is, such a property when what is outside of me and inside of me merge into one whole, without boundaries.

From that moment on, I began to have a different attitude to the science of Kabbalah and how to realize it, not through logic outside of myself but precisely in me.

Question: Does it usually take time?

Answer: It takes a lot of time.

Question: And then there is a transition, a complete inversion, which you mentioned. What happens to a person if there is already an inversion?

Answer: No, in this case, the inversion is carried out simply in relation to the science of Kabbalah, how it should lead you forward: either it should reveal some area outside of you, some laws, connections, or reveal everything inside you. When you begin to realize that this must happen within you, you radically change your attitude toward everything.

Question: And yet, there is a completely different perception behind that “wall”?

Answer: Yes, but it is impossible to convey it.

Question: Not at all possible?

Answer: Not at all.

Question: So how did Baal HaSulam explain spirituality to his grandson, who immediately “ran off”?

Answer: He explained to him that it is impossible to make the transition to the spiritual world through human strength, only with the force of the upper light. And so, he “ran off.”

Question: Did he not show him that world?

Answer: No. You cannot do that. He just told him, purely logically, how much a person should change, and he decided that it was impossible to change.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Before and After the Machsom” 10/8/10

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The Photograph of the Creator

115Spirituality has only the form that you build for it yourself by your desires. From above we are given only an informational record (Reshimo), and we must build the form ourselves. From above, from the upper degree, we are also given strength and mind for realization, but according to our request.

It seems to us that some ready-made world will suddenly fall upon us from above. There is nothing to wait for. I build it myself through my efforts. I myself draw this world against the background of the light.

I draw the image of the upper one, and to the extent of my efforts, it becomes more and more true. I do everything that I am capable of. I draw all kinds of forms. Sometimes it turns out better, sometimes worse, and sometimes I make mistakes. I create them and erase them until I succeed.

And in the process of my work, I suddenly see that the upper one begins to help me! He clothes within me like a hand in a glove, and works. He helps me like a mother who plays together with a child and helps him build a house out of blocks. When I try to do something and it does not work, I suddenly feel that it is He who helps me understand that it should not be this way but the opposite.

But all this comes thanks to my efforts because I tried to build something. And He also awakens the beginning of this effort within me, but I must continue it myself, find its sprout, and begin to work from it. This is what is called: “I, the Creator, am the first and the last.”

We ourselves must build the connection between us, this “house,” the place where the Creator will be revealed, the “picture of the Creator,” using our own material. Without this, He has no image at all. I project Him onto myself, onto my desires, onto that part that I can make similar to Him.

And on this desire, as on a foundation, as on a screen (and in spirituality it is indeed called a screen), I begin to see His picture. It begins to appear on this screen like a photograph lowered into a developing solution. This picture that manifests on my screen is called reflected light. And thus I receive two spiritual forces: the screen and the reflected light.

All of this must come from me myself. This is why the necessary time of preparation for entering the spiritual world—“from three to five years”—is required. The time of concealment is the time of my attempts to build this picture. And afterward the spiritual world is revealed; and what it turns out to be in reality is difficult for us to even imagine.
[4686]

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And This World Will Melt Away Like a Fog

707Today, we have come to a state in which millions of people around the world have begun to ask questions: “Why are we suffering? Why do we live? What is the purpose of our life? Does nature have some kind of program in regard to us?”

That is why the science of Kabbalah is now being revealed; it is precisely this science that can provide answers to these questions. Overall, all these answers come down to one thing: Kabbalah reveals a different reality to us.

The science of Kabbalah is a method of revealing the upper reality, i.e., a reality beyond ourselves, beyond what we currently sense. From this, each of us needs to pass through a certain inner barrier that obscures that second half of reality from us in which we already exist even now.

It is as if a light suddenly turns on, and we see that there is something else here. And this is indeed so. Only it is not the light we are used to that turns on, but the upper light, and in it we begin to see another reality that was previously dark, invisible, and imperceptible, namely, the reality of the upper world.

Only then will we understand what is happening in it and all the reasons for what is happening, that is, what our essence is. And already here, in the upper world, we will see that we are souls, not physical bodies, not the animate part that exists in us. We are the part of the human in us that is eternal, perfect and is a divine particle from above.

We are eternal, perfect creations, living in a different reality and in a different form of existence. Our purpose is to ascend and live in the upper, spiritual, eternal world, beyond the limitations of time, movement, and space, as well as of our perception of reality.

And what will happen to this world? For some time, this world will also continue to exist, until we attain the upper reality. And according to the measure of the attainment of the higher degree of the spiritual world, the reality of the lower degree will fade and become less and less discernible until it disappears completely.

Kabbalists say that we must come to this here and now, in this life, in our world. At the same time, nothing should change except the revelation of the upper world for us.
[38523]
From a lecture “Kabbalah for the People”  1/4/11

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Unraveling the Riddle of Nature

765.1The mechanism of entering the upper world is the mechanism where a person builds a screen for oneself, explores oneself, studies one’s egoistic nature, and gradually changes it into an altruistic one. At the same time, they do not disconnect from others; on the contrary, they draw them to themselves, and include them within themselves, just as a mother includes the desires and the entire essence of her child within herself.

In the same way, each of us must include all of humanity within ourselves because this is how we expand ourselves.

I only have a point, an embryo of contact with everyone else, and I can expand like a womb expands when a fetus develops inside it. In its normal state, the womb is, say, the size of a small pear, and as it expands it becomes like a huge soccer ball.

That is how my embryonic soul represents a point, called “the point in the heart.” As I accept others into myself, they enter this point, and it begins to expand, to swell, and turn into a womb, into my AHP, which includes everyone, up to all of humanity, or at least the small group of like‑minded people with whom we work in this way, each relative to the others like a womb.

Thus I begin to perceive all of humanity within myself (not somewhere outside, abstractly, but precisely inside myself) and to relate to it as to the most precious thing within me, like the organism of a mother that is set up to devote itself solely to the development of the fetus.

This is the basis of correcting egoism—including all others within yourself as your most precious integral part, and working on it. In doing so, you completely replace the introverted perception of the world with an extroverted one. In truth, it is not really extroverted, but it is called so because it is connected with others. But these “others” are no longer others. They are already the closest, most precious part of you.

When we reach such a state, we see that all of creation, all of nature, is absolutely one single whole, and there is no life and death, no transition from one state to another, everything is eternal and perfect. A person rises above all limitations of time, space, movement, life, and death; everything disappears. He clearly enters an entirely different dimension.

At the same time, until the very last moment, this world does not disappear; you continue to exist in it physically. And only when absolutely all souls, that is, all people, change their attitude, their nature, to a single love, a single inclusion in each other, then all the worlds and our world as well, that is, the entire illusion of existence in our egoistic dimension, will gradually disappear because it is given to us only so that we would perform this work upon ourselves.

We were deliberately, artificially pulled out of a unified state, separated, given an awareness of “self,” so that now, through our own efforts, we could gather again. Today humanity is entering a stage in which our nature, our earthly existence, this little world and our sensation in it will push us out, like labor pains, into the higher dimension, and force us to enter it through our problems.

We have no idea at all what is happening in the world. The ecological upheavals will be such! And you cannot do anything against them. It is they that will bring humanity to the necessity of uniting against a common enemy, nature.

This nature will reveal itself when we all must unite. There are no Arabs and Jews here, no Russians and Americans, no Africans and Europeans! Here all of us are tiny little humans against a huge nature.

And then we will see that this nature has its own form, its own plan, its own intention, its own brain, its own mind. And therefore it addresses us in this way on purpose and teaches us to become wiser. In this way it will force us to become connected with one another and to unravel the riddle of why it acts this way. We will discover in it a cause‑and‑effect influence upon us, a sense of rationality. Let’s not place ourselves above it. Who are we? Little bugs. We will see that we exist within a vast mind that compels us to grow gradually.

Therefore all environmental shifts inspire great hope for imminent positive changes in human society.
The Creator will force us to come closer through the pressure of the surrounding nature, and will compel us in some way to seek interaction and mutual assistance.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah and LSD” 10/1/10

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Should We Believe in the Sages?

908We must take upon ourselves faith in the sages (RABASH, Article No. 4, “What Is a Flood of Water in the Work?”).

Suppose I am ready to believe the words of wisdom, but what does that mean? Do I understand the words of the sages? What is their message?

First of all, in the wisdom of Kabbalah we do not deal with bodies. There are no bodies, there are souls. The bodies that appear before us are images of an imaginary world.

I exist within desire, which manifests itself in various forms: still, vegetative, animate, and human. Sages are corrected souls that exist within the shattered system of Adam HaRishon. They can serve as help and support for me; they can be guides and educators for my shattered soul.

Accordingly, this is how we should receive their advice. For example, The Book of Zohar tells us about the ten sages of Rabbi Shimon’s group, as well as about the prophet Elijah, Moses, Aaron, King David, King Solomon, and others.

We do not perceive them as people who lived in our world, but as corrected desires, corrected souls. They exist within the shattered system that is gradually beginning to revive. They themselves are already corrected partially or completely, and they participate in the correction of the entire system.

“Rabbi Shimon said… Rabbi Abba said…” I read in The Book of Zohar. For me, these are not people who attained and speak about the upper world; for me, these names are degrees of attainment.

Through these words I study the ladder of spiritual degrees: on one level reality appears one way, on another differently. It is as if the Kabbalists are telling me this, but for me they are forces, vessels of perception.

Each sage embodies a certain spiritual concept, power, force, or quality for me. Before me are not the names of historical figures, but the names of spiritual phenomena and degrees.

“Faith in the sages” means: I want to attain the same bestowal as on the degrees about which I read. “Faith” means bestowal.

During the study, a person must include himself in this and strive to understand how it will influence him. Whatever the book speaks about, I want to penetrate the spiritual essence of every word. This is what it means that I believe the words of the sages.
[31115]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/10, Rabash, “What Is a Flood of Water in the Work?”

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