Question: There is a well known parable regarding judgment taking place above—to hell or to heaven. The famous preacher’s turn comes; he is calm, and suddenly he is sent to hell. He asks, “Why to hell?! Right before me, a reckless driver was sent to heaven.” He is told: “What were you thinking? Everyone was asleep at your sermons. Meanwhile, when he was driving people, everyone was praying.”

How should we relate to this? Should we be led to prayer while we are alive; how should this happen?

Answer: We are being led. If we strive to reach a connection with the Creator, then all sorts of obstacles and conditions are put to us, and we involuntarily see that we cannot fulfill these conditions in any way, only if we get serious help from above.

Question: Does this mean that if we strive to connect with the Creator, then we can be grateful for all these things and obstacles?

Answer: For the stick.

Question: You keep saying, “Kiss the stick that beats you.” Then we kiss it? Otherwise what happens?

Answer: Otherwise we move along with our egoism, the way a fish swims, in such twisty ways.

Question: How should we treat everything that leads us, but is not yet directed, to the goal of creation, to prayer?

Answer: We have to push each other. We have to give an example. We need to shake things up a bit.

Question: How can I, an ordinary person who does not strive for the goal of connection with the Creator, someone who strives to live calmly and simply on our earth, also relate those misfortunes and troubles as things that should lead me to prayer?

Answer: Naturally a person does not want suffering, prayer, or anything.

Question: And how should I relate to this? Should I run away from them?

Answer: Of course. It’s best to run away from them and that’s what everyone does.

Question: This means I can run away if I’m not striving for anything, but I just want to live this life well on this earth?

Answer: In this case, “There is no need for suffering, and there is no need for rewards.”

Question: And what is the advice to such people?

Answer: The advice to such people is to try to live in peace, or even lower, quieter, and calmer. Try to go through life like this.

Question: Is this in order for the waves to pass over us?

Answer: Yes. But this is fate. There are some people who want it; there are those who disagree with this and those who disagree and yet with a couple of blows, they then agree.

Question: So one way or another, these blows bring a person down if he is here and wants to live his life here?

Answer: It depends on the root of the soul.

Question: And what is your advice to those who strive for the Creator and for connection?

Answer: For them, the most important thing is to get closer to the Creator, and it doesn’t matter in what way: either through getting a couple of blows on the way or any other way.

Question: So, one way or another they will and should treat these blows as help?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it correct to say that this parable is intended more for those who are directed to the Creator?

Answer: There is always suffering, but if they are not critical and are instead ordinary everyday sufferings, etc., then they are always good.

Question: Is this the way to relate to them?!

Answer: Yes.

Question: What happens if I start to treat them this way?

Answer: I mean the suffering that does not distract from building a right life or a right connection with others and with the Creator. If there are too many of them, then this is a different sort of suffering.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/4/22

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Question: How can you put something into a connection that could affect an ordinary person?

Answer: I must invest an altruistic intention in my work and in everything I do. I want people to feel that their salvation is in the connection between them because we find a special upper force of nature in it that can do for us all the best that we wish. In any aspect: health, family, education, upbringing, mood, social relations, peace, and security, in whatever we want.

This is life like in paradise. Even more than in paradise. Because from our world we move into a spiritual state without any sense of death, even a physical one. We simply rise to the next level.

Just like I do not feel inanimate matter in my body or even vegetative matter. I cut my nails and hair and do not feel any loss. In the same way, I am gradually losing the feeling of the animate level, once I rise to the next level into the correct relationship between people by creating this level in the connection between us and living in it.

I begin to feel myself only at the level of “human” and come to the state of eternal perfect existence. This is what we must come to.

Comment: But you say: If a person himself does not want to make internal changes, you can invest whatever you want in him, but it will not affect him in any way.

My Response: No, under the influence of society he will want to change because we are a consequence of society. You cannot do anything about that! If society is permeated with this idea, then a person inevitably agrees with it and acts in the same direction.

Question: When you communicate with someone or give lessons, how do you influence that audience or that person you are in contact with so that it changes him?

Answer: I just act out of myself. Since I am the bearer of this idea a person who communicates with me through my materials in any kind of media becomes infected with it, and gradually it begins to work inside of him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Invest a Part of Yourself” 8/30/13

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Comment: Prayer in the heart arises automatically, that is, any lack that manifests itself: I want to drink, I want to eat, I want, I want.

My Response: Every living being, everything that exists, has it.

Question: What does the Creator think about this?

Answer: Nothing. He Himself awakens these desires and He also fulfills them.

Question: Does He want me to ask? Or is there no point in this?

Answer: If you ask against your nature, above your nature, then this is a completely different matter. You consciously turn to your nature and to the Creator, and you want to change yourself.

Question: If, for example, I am ill and I want to be cured, then, in principle, is there a point to ask the Creator about this; after all, He caused this disease?

Answer: The request helps in any case. Any address to the Creator helps. It is better to turn to Him and ask for anything just to be directed straight to Him.

In fact, prayer should consist of the correct direction, called Kavana, intention, and then it will be very effective.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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If I transfer my inner yearning, my cry, into an appeal through the friends to the Creator, then it turns into a prayer. The prayer should come from a few people together, from at least two people but preferably from the ten (from the Minyan). Then the Creator will surely hear it and answer it.

The prayer from the ten means that we all feel this demand, but of course each in his own way. We want to connect because in this connection we reach the quality of Lishma, we reveal the Creator, and through our connection we connect with the Creator. Then into this connection He can give us the necessary force of unity, the feeling of unity and connection with the Creator.

All this is attained within our connection; therefore, this word should be like a guiding beacon for us.

Each of us has his own prayer from his own state because none of us is similar to the other. But all of our prayers are connected in the Creator. He is the source for all of us, and therefore He understands us, connects us, and fills us. Everything is done by the Creator; this is His work. This is why whatever we are engaging in is called the work of the Creator.

We connect our prayers because we understand that none of us will achieve anything without a common connection with the help of the Creator. Therefore we turn to Him and ask Him to connect us and raise us to a higher degree in order to become bestowing like He is. When everyone becomes included in this, we reach complete bestowal, which is then passed on to the Creator.

We begin with a common prayer with our ten; we feel how far away from each other we are, then we come closer, again we move away, and again we come closer, as if waves are passing over us.

The ten is our foundation, but around it we begin to feel many other such systems that want to connect with each other like star systems that connect into one galaxy. The galaxies connect into a metagalaxy, and so we connect more and more, and each time reveal details deeper into each individual and broader into the general connection.

This is how we discover the work of the Creator; we delve into the particular and into His essence and greatness inside the collective, and we feel how He fills and controls everything.

We are searching for connection by depicting it in all possible forms and by asking the Creator for it. I want to embrace and include everyone, to understand and feel everyone, and to connect with everyone. Through that I begin to feel like I am filling the entire universe. This means that little by little I am beginning to attain the general Malchut.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/22, “On the Verge of Lishma“

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Question: How can you check if you are in a state of Lo Lishma from which we come to Lishma?

Answer: Lo Lishma means that a person strives for the truth. He has heard and theoretically has an idea of what it is, but at the same time, he is still in the intention to receive for his own sake.

If we measure Lo Lishma on a scale from 0 to 100%, in a case of a friend who borrowed $1,000 from me, then 0% Lo Lishma is when a friend is obliged to repay the $1,000 to me.

1% Lo Lishma is when he returns $999 to me and I accept it as a repayment of the entire $1,000. And 100% Lo Lishma is when he gives me back $0, an empty envelope. I check it with my senses, I see that there is nothing there, and I accept it as a debt repaid in full. That is, it shows how much I can go above my desires to receive.

But of course, all this progress is possible only due to the influence of the surrounding light. When we move from Lo Lishma to Lishma, the direct light begins to act.

Baal HaSulam gives such a definition of Lo Lishma in the article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 12: Indeed, practicing Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma means that one believes in the Creator, in the Torah, and in reward and punishment, and engages in the Torah because the Creator commanded the engagement, but associates his own pleasure with bringing contentment to his Maker.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, Shamati #64 “From Lo Lishma to Lishma“

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Question: Can we say that inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature also prays on their own level?

Answer: Any creature, even the inanimate, not to mention the vegetative, animate, and human, prays. At the heart of all of them is desire, but only a person who is learning how to do this can correctly direct this desire. Then his desire becomes directed correctly and works for his benefit and for the benefit of everyone.

Every creation has Hissaron (lacks, needs), which the Creator created. Thus, the desire of inanimate matter is to preserve its form, and this, in a way, is its request.

A person, however, has the opportunity not only to preserve, but also to change himself, and to ask about it consciously.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Question: What is the mechanism for activating the work of the upper forces in the system when many people pray? Let’s say that a large number of people are beginning to raise a request to the Creator, what mechanisms are activated in this case?

Answer: We proceed from the fact that we are one single spiritual object called the soul or Adam.

If we really want to engage this single spiritual object in which we are all included, to connect ourselves in it, and to raise the common desire of the object Adam to the Creator so the Creator corrects it, fills it, and brings it closer to Himself, then in the end this happens. And from this we feel positive consequences.

A person with his prayer triggers huge processes in the common organism called creation or humanity since he acts through the upper force, the Creator. Therefore a small human can launch huge forces of nature.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Question: What is the difference between thought and action? We always judge people by their actions, but thoughts practically produce the same actions. Let’s say a person wants to kill someone, we do not judge him by his thoughts.

Answer: In our world, we judge a person by actions, and in the spiritual world by thoughts. That is the difference. Therefore, we must correct our thoughts, as they say, intention.

Comment: Surely people do terrible things in their thoughts! They would have killed each other already.

My Response: This is why we are below the level of the spiritual world; we do not have its forces; otherwise, we would have taken this force and destroyed the entire world. But you are given the opportunity to have it only to the extent that you can make correct use of it and not in any other case.

The spiritual program is created in such a way that there is always an intention first and only then an action. Therefore, as soon as you may have some bad action and a bad intention before it, you immediately fall from this degree and do not have the strength to move on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Thoughts and Actions” 9/8/13

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Question: Does a person born in our world already have an intention? Is he born not just with the desire to receive?

Answer: Yes, but they are small, micro intentions.

Question: We see that a small child has a desire to enjoy. Yet you cannot even say that he enjoys for his own sake. But when he grows up, he shows such, one might say, cunningness that he does it consciously for himself, he consciously uses others. Do we have a desire, a mind, and another function?

Answer: We have mind, desire, and intention. The most important thing is the intention. It determines where a person aspires in his actions.

With the help of the mind, we can change the intention. Desire itself is purely mechanical. But how we can elevate the intention above the desires and change the nature of the desire itself—for our own sake or for the sake of others—is already a human ability.

The mind is a very important function. Thanks to it, we can change our intentions.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/2/22

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Question: If some deficiency arises in me and I understand that the Creator caused it, should I still add some external words?

Answer: Yes. Speak from yourself and as much as possible. And the Creator will understand and translate everything as needed.

Question: But this is one layer. Is there an even higher level, to ask for some things that are against my desires?

Answer: Against your desires and most importantly for others. If you are asking for others, for the whole world, for everyone, and you want them all to become wiser, better, closer to each other, softer, kinder, and you want to be inside of them, then these are the simplest and most effective prayers.

The Creator is a general force within which we exist. He can hear the prayer of any desire. This is what works here. I don’t have to talk or speak in any language, whistle, or sing. We launch our desires.

Question: Is it a kind of physics? Is there a single huge force and each of our desires also a small force? And is it felt?

Answer: Of course, physics. And why should it act somehow in a special way? We can direct the forces of nature ourselves, nurture them, and concentrate them. We can manage all of nature.

Comment: When you read prayer books, it seems like some kind of lyrics, and you are talking about forces.

My Response: The prayer book says what we should desire. And to really come to this, we need explanations and education. It is necessary to study.

I suggest reaching out to us to learn how we can change our lives with the help of prayer. Good luck!
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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