Question: The intentions of others are hidden from a person. Why is that? If everything were revealed, life would be easier.

Answer: Then you would be an animal. It is arranged precisely so that people would be able to change themselves by gradually revealing their own intentions, correcting them, and reaching proper connections.

Remark: I am confident that few will agree that people have only egoistic intentions. There are good people and bad people.

My Comment: That is according to your criteria. We are born as absolute egoists. If we evaluate ourselves that way in regard to the spiritual world, we will discover that we are completely corrupted creatures.

Question: Why is it hidden from a person that his or her intentions are egoistic?

Answer: If it were revealed, one would not be able to exist. We would eat ourselves alive. We need to correct ourselves gradually, to the extent that our negative qualities are revealed. We need to compare them to the positive qualities, disclose the various miasmas, problems, and illnesses between us, and treat them.

Question: If I feel the intentions of another person and thereby I realize my own egoistic intention, can that be considered an attainment?

Answer: To some extent, yes
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/25/18

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Question: Does a person’s intention to inflict harm on another affect the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature? Kabbalah says that destructive hurricanes and other natural disasters are a manifestation of our actions toward each other. How we should understand this?

Answer: Since all nature is integral and completely interconnected, our impact on any of its parts affects all other parts. The higher the level of nature that we influence, for example, people, the more it affects all the lower levels: animals, vegetation, and the inanimate.

In contrast, if we exhibit some attitude only toward inanimate nature, it has a lesser impact on vegetative nature, an even lesser one on animate nature, and still less on humans.

It turns out that my bad attitude toward another person permeates the entire pyramid. This is the source of ecological problems and of everything else. We ourselves cause hurricanes, natural disasters, and other problems.

Previously, we were unable to affect anything with our intentions, but everything changed at the beginning of the last century. Look at what we did during the 20th century! Kabbalists say this is because humanity entered a completely new state.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the world population was two billion people, and this is about as much as the planet can sustain. Today, it has grown to eight billion. This suggests that over the past 100 years, we have really driven our system out of balance.

Question: Does this mean that two billion people cannot endure the current level of egoism and therefore there has to be eight billion?

Answer: If we were developing correctly, we would not need eight billion people.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 03/25/18

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A person does not automatically turn to the Creator as soon as he feels he cannot cope. He just falls into despair, he will either sleep or cry from powerlessness.

Only if there are friends close by who are not in a descent and despair like he is, then their support, together with his desperate state, will form in him a correct appeal to the Creator.

This is the only way it is possible. A person alone will never turn to the Creator, neither in a good nor a bad state. He can either thank or curse the Creator, but it will not be a prayer.

A true prayer must consist of ten Sefirot as a spiritual vessel: the nine higher Sefirot and Malchut. Therefore, he must be impressed by nine friends and attach his empty, suffering, dark Malchut to them, and so an appeal to the Creator will be born in it.

A prayer is a spiritual vessel in which the full HaVaYaH, the ten Sefirot, must act. Therefore, a person cannot pray alone or for himself; it is simply impossible.

The true prayer, which the Creator hears, can arise only when one is included in the group and receives from the friends their intentions, impressions, and support. Then with his lack and with what he receives from the first nine Sefirot of the friends, their support and properties, he can turn to the Creator.

After all, one cannot use just his bad state. But if he connects with his friends, then his prayer is no longer a bad feeling. The Creator does not harm us, but gives us an occasion to unite with friends and with Him. Therefore, prayer can only be within the society and about the society.

It is here that we need Arvut, mutual guarantee. If we achieve it, then everything will continue smoothly.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/18, Writings of Rabash, Vol. 3, Article 877 “Three Prayers”

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Question: What is a soul?

Answer: A soul is a desire that is similar to the Creator, meaning a desire with an intention of bestowal and love. A soul doesn’t exist in anyone; a soul exists only when we create it from our egoism.

Question: Recently a desire has arisen in me to pray only for the purpose of thanksgiving by means of reading Psalms; “My soul, bless the Lord” (Psalms 104:1) and “My soul, praise the Lord!” (Psalms 146:1) is all I can say in prayer. Is this correct?

Answer: Look at the Psalms I shortened on my Twitter.
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Question from Facebook: According to you there is no God. If God doesn’t exist, to whom and for what do people pray?

Answer: A god that we can imagine and depict to ourselves does not exist. God is the force of bestowal and love that exists around us, but we don’t feel. We need to discover it within us to the degree that we become equal with its characteristics, then God will exist for us.

Question: What is prayer for you?

Answer: Prayer is a request to the Creator that He correct you and make you similar to Himself, i.e., bestowing and loving.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/23/17

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Prayer is my last action in relation to the Creator. In response to the prayer, He will make a correction. That is why everything ends with prayer. Before it, we need to prepare, to find out exactly what I am asking for, in what way, and for whose sake.

Prayer includes all the requests that the creature raises to the Creator. Of course, this does not happen all at once. It is not expressed in any words or sentences, but is based on clarifications, one after another, and requests for help until we come to the perfect prayer.

The Creator is the full HaVaYaH that exists in the world of infinity and contains absolutely everything. Therefore, if we want to get something from there, we must make a precise request, just as in a computer: exactly what address to go to, what password and command to use, etc.

This request then passes through all the stages and enters Malchut of the world of infinity where there are endless possibilities. All the Kelim and all the Lights are there from the beginning, as it is written, “the end of the action lies in the initial thought.” That is, the completely corrected state exists there in all its splendor.

If we work correctly, we join this system. Based on our request, we find the right place in it and extract what we need from this general “memory” where desires and Light already exist in unity. This influences us and promotes us to the state we requested in our prayer.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 56”

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Question: What does it mean: “The Creator hears everyone’s prayer”?

Answer: The Creator is the upper system, the system of Bina, called Elokim.

This system hears all of our pleas because we are its consequence; we live inside Bina—not at its height, but inside of it—since it gives birth to us, takes care of us, and supports our existence so that we would desire to become like it. It is completely bestowing and we are all receivers. That is how we were created.

Bina gave birth to us and takes care of us, and we gradually reach a state where we find that we are opposite to it. We do not care that we are opposite to it; we do not even identify that this is so, but an aspiration to attain this degree of Bina awakens in us.

This aspiration is called the point in the heart. This point awakens us because the degree of Bina is always working on us. This goes on until we start to turn to it, wishing to come closer to it. We suddenly feel that it is important. We aspire to it as if yearning to return home, to attain our source.

What do we aspire to? To the root of our life, the place where it originates. We aspire to our source in order to find answers to the questions—“Where do I come from? Why do I exist? For what purpose?”—because the root contains everything. We do not know about the future, but the root exists, without a doubt.

Therefore, we aspire to Bina since we contain a spark from there. This spark connects us to the degree of Bina. Our will to receive is completely on the degree of Malchut, which Bina gave birth to.

This is how we exist inside an inner sensation between two worlds: between the degree of Bina, the upper world, and the degree of Malchut, the lower world. This is already contained in us. Now our work is to constantly respect, awaken, and grow this spark. That is what we do with the help of the work in the group.
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From the 3d part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/17, “Working with Disturbances”

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It seems to us that a request to the Creator is a means for correcting the Kli, the vessel of the soul, while as a result of our work, we begin to feel that the request to the Creator is the Kli itself and not a means of correcting it.

And if my appeal to the Creator, the desire that I raise toward Him, is true, constant, and growing in its incessant aspiration to Him, then I will feel this request as a complete correction.

What are the corrections? It is the raising of the desire, not the answer to the prayer to fulfill it. Raising the desire to the Creator is already the end of the work. Thus, I express my attitude toward Him. Do I receive something from Him? It may be that I do not get anything. And what should I receive if I turn to Him? Only my appeal to the Creator is already in itself—everything. I do not need anything else.

If I do not stay in the Kli that receives for itself, then I want to have only a request to the Creator. And if in response I do not hear, do not understand, do not feel, and do not see anything, you are welcome; it is even better! And then in my striving, in the power of bestowal, I feel how similar I am to the Creator.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/17, “Work with Disturbances,”

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Question: Is it enough to have an intention for spiritual relationships or do we need actions as well?

Answer: Actions are also required for spiritual relationships. After all, if there are no actions, it means that there are no relationships. If I relate to someone with love, then I want to show him that I love him through my actions.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/11/17

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Question: What role does intention play in building any relationship?

Answer: Intention means absolutely everything. There is nothing except for intentions.

Desires are given to us; they are broken, sorted, scattered, and arise in us according to some special program. Therefore, the main thing is the intention: for the sake of what, in the name of what, for whom am I going to do something or even just to think. The main thing is where I direct my thoughts, feelings, and aspirations.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 06/11/17

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