Question: We often explain the appearance of a person in a Kabbalistic environment and his departure through some events, for example, his fatigue. But surely, he has functions when he was supposed to appear, fulfill his purpose, and then move away, i.e., to realize himself precisely in this way, right?

Answer: No. It is just that a person cannot cope with what he was given. He was given the opportunity to move forward, and he did not cope with it.

Question: Does it mean that if he enters this system, he must fully realize himself?

Answer: Yes. If he was given this opportunity, he can realize himself fully. This is how he should accept it. And we do not know what special conditions there may be regarding him.

Only as the system of connection between us is being revealed, perhaps some conditions will be revealed as to why he could not move on. I would not make any calculations. It is not for us.

We need to advance. We have an open system of connections before us. You can reach the world of infinity, that is, to full connection with everyone, up to the complete revelation of the Creator—the quality of bestowal and love between all.
[305526]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Everyone Has Their Own Purpose” 11/15/13

Related Material:
The Purpose Of Society – 2
The Purpose Of Creating A Group
The Goal Of The Group

Filed under: Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is Ray Kurzweil correct in saying that advances in science will enable man to live forever?“

My question in relation to Kurzweil’s statement is: What is so good about us constantly living all the time? Why live at all if we are never to die?

On the contrary, if we attain the purpose of our lives while we are alive, then we will reach a spiritual, eternal and perfect state, i.e. one where we will have no feeling of a lack. In our current lives, we constantly live out of feeling lacks and the need to fulfill our lacks. However, we can reach a state where we have no such feeling of a lack, but that we have an abundance of everything.

Developing ourselves spiritually has nothing to do with medicine or technology. It has to do with our inner world, i.e. with how we feel that we can give and receive from everyone, and to live in a world is boundless, with no beginning or end. Then, even if our bodies die, we will not feel it as death.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on the rise of right wing politics in Europe and around the world?“

The recent rise in popularity of the right is an outcome of our current stage of human development, where more and more people are seeing that the truth is with the more egoistic and resolute forces, i.e. those who stand by their opinion and not those who paint themselves various colors in the name of equality. The latter period is coming to an end.

We are now entering a more serious and realistic period. Nationalism and right wing politics, however, will not solve any problems. It is only a more realistic option than what we had before.

The more we develop, the readier we become to penetrate beyond the “nice words” that we hear, and increasingly inquire into human nature—all the while adjusting our behavior the more we learn about ourselves.

Our next stage of development toward a harmonious world is for us to realize where our egoistic nature situates us. In short, we live in hostility toward one another, and positive development from here requires learning how to positively connect, and what such connection depends on, i.e. fundamental changes in our media, culture and education systems. We can then take some small steps toward a more harmonious state.

The current rise of the right shows us that we want to view ourselves more realistically. Then, when we come to acknowledge our egoistic nature, we can start thinking about how to truly improve our lives.

I am not discouraged by this tendency toward the right, but on the contrary, I see it is a step toward a more correct and realistic state. It is a state that needs to unfold, and afterward, we can think about what we can do in order to transition to a better state.

Based on the video “The Rise of the Right in Europe – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What was the result of NASA hitting the asteroid?“

Indeed, NASA managed to hit a giant asteroid and divert it from its orbit, and NASA’s director stated that NASA is trying to be ready for anything that the universe might throw our way.

I think it is a positive development, but I also think that the universe is not throwing any asteroids at us to begin with.

If we seek a true sense of security on our planet, then we need to acknowledge the existence of a higher force in the universe that is hidden from us. It is a force that encompasses and manages everything and everyone, and through this force, we can manage the universe.

We connect to this force in our desire, when we want to come closer to it: to make our desire as its desire. What is its desire? Its desire is for us to operate it toward everybody’s benefit, and that everything will connect as a single system. In other words, the general force of the universe is waiting for us—human beings—to activate it in a way that is good and benevolent toward everyone. When we realize the higher force’s desire toward us in such a way, then we also alleviate the blows that we receive from the universe, and will instead feel a major embrace, as if it is hugging us—a sensation of eternity and perfection.

Therefore, if we adjust our inner force—a small desire within us—to adapt to nature, we can then manage the universe and feel secure without the need to create devices that crash into asteroids.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is a saying, “Make your desire as His desire,” and then He—the higher force—will make His desire like yours. The higher force, or general force of nature, is also called “the Creator” in Kabbalah. If we wish to come closer to the Creator with a positive intention, then He will do the same toward us.

In practice, coming closer to the higher force of nature means exerting a positive influence over all people. If we do so, then we will start feeling that we can organize the forces around us in nature, on our planet and in outer space harmoniously.

Based on the video “NASA Hits an Asteroid – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who are the Jews today?“

Around 3,800 years ago, Abraham the Patriarch reached a perception of the oneness of nature, a perfect unity of everyone and everything as a single whole. He taught the ways of attaining the perception of nature’s oneness to anybody who was willing to learn back in ancient Babylon, and the Babylonians who advanced as a group implementing his methodology became initially known as “the people of Israel,” and later as “the Jews.” Every Jew today has a part of that perception, but it is yet to reveal itself, i.e. it exists only in potential.

Revealing the full extent of the perception that Abraham once attained would bring humanity to a state that Kabbalah calls “the end of correction,” i.e. the end of our development from perceiving in an incomplete, transient and divided manner, to perceiving a world where everyone and everything connects as one. We would then discover reality in its entirety: all worlds, created beings and various forms as one system filled with a single light, i.e. with a single force of connection. In such a state, we would perceive the true, whole and perfect reality.

Moreover, reaching such a perception is not a matter of whether a person is a Jew. Being Jewish is not about being born to a Jewish mother, as is commonly accepted in today’s world. A Jew is someone who yearns for connection (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]). Anybody who aspires to positively connect with others is on the way to becoming Jewish. The first stage toward reaching a state of unification is the condition that Hillel stated—”Don’t do to others what you hate”—and afterward we aim to reach the condition of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

People who are born as Jews have certain remnants with exalted and powerful potential that come from a completely different perception of reality than the one we experience today. Also, humanity’s future development will lead to everybody having to reach the same perception as Abraham, where we perceive everything and everyone as one, and toward that perception, it does not matter whether someone was born a Jew or not.

Who is a Jew? A Jew is one who wishes to unite everyone, and who feels the whole of reality in addition to feeling oneself. We are Jews if we feel that everything and everyone belongs to us equally as to everyone else, and we yearn to attain the perception of our lives’ source, the discovery of everything and everyone as one.

Based on the video “Who Is a Jew Today?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Question: How should we treat incidents from a human and Kabbalistic point of view? For example, something is happening, or someone is getting beaten. How should we react to this? Is intervening worthwhile?

Answer: Today we have been put in such a framework that people are afraid to interfere in anything. There are even studies on these topics. People pass by, they are afraid to get involved in conflicts: either you will get a knife in your side, or “it is not my business at all” so that they do not drag you through the courts.

We have created for ourselves such conditions of human community where it is impossible to just stand up for someone, even for simple, normal support or compassion. It is impossible to calm people down, it is impossible to break up a fight, because then they will do anything they want to you.

Humanity is very confused! It tries to compensate with laws for what is not filled with education. Men are not men, women are not women.

Look at how much humanity has changed internally and externally in 20 years, what they are becoming in their desires and aspirations, in everyone’s attempt to solve their questions and problems. It is just incredible! There are the scariest mutations! And where we will end up? We have just started this journey!

Comment: But there are old laws where one has to help the other.

My Response: Today they limit you. These are not the former laws of honor, which were clear to everyone, or the laws of chivalry, or the laws of samurai, or the laws of courtiers, which speak about the honor of a woman, justice, etc. If we are talking about a simple civil society, then we have destroyed it all.

No one respects another. There are no smart or stupid, old or young, men or women. There is some kind of unisex where there is no difference, you are afraid to interfere, you do not have any guidelines. You can be dragged through a legal fight just for some little thing! They will make a case out of it and, in general, do anything. There is no public response to this, because everything is corrupt.

Even during the Inquisition, there was relative order. The most ardent executioners and fanatics still behaved according to some canon.

Today it is very difficult for a person to promote some idea or advocate for something. This is natural. The last cry of dying humanity.

Question: Is it right to strive for honor and justice? Did we live correctly before?

Answer: It is impossible to say what is right and what is not because this is the natural development of humanity. There is no escape. If we do not correct egoism, we descend into really ugly forms.

In accordance with this, we continue to drift in the direction where it is generally unclear what awaits us. The same egoism keeps carrying us. We forget all the old forms when it was more or less balanced at the animate level, and now it is already taking mutational forms.

Children leave home, they do not want to work and do not want to study. And you cannot blame them for that! This is also our egoism, which goes through such stages of its mutational development. But this is also development, so to speak, a period of decay.

Solution is only in education.
[305468]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Fight for Justice” 11/23/13

Related Material:
When There Is No Correct Education
Legal Code Does Not Help
How Should One Respond To Evil?

Filed under: Children, Crisis, Education, Globalization, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Did your teacher have a developed sense of justice?

Answer: Yes, Rabash had impulses to defend his point of view—and quite strongly. Especially when he saw arrogance on the path, he never gave in. Calmly, according to the laws, he demanded what was his. Everything should be fair. The sense of demanding justice was very deep in him. He did not give in.

Question: Is this a human quality or a principle of a Kabbalist?

Answer: I think it is a principle. Sometimes it cost him a lot of nerves and even maybe inconveniences. But he could not help but stand up for justice.

Question: What about you?

Answer: I think I have the same thing and even more. I still bully—and often—if there is such an opportunity.

It depends on how you see insolence, impudence, obvious neglect, contempt, swagger, and all other egoistic pranks. If they are a result of the natural development of a person, like a small child, then you do not focus on them because that is how he or she is, still has to develop, and nothing can be done. This is a natural manifestation of the forces that the Creator has given us.

And if this is not a natural development, if a person wants to subjugate others in this way and uses it for evil and deliberately harms people, then it is very unpleasant to see. I would be happy to stop such people.
[305318]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Secret Powers of the Kabbalist”  10/25/13

Related Material:
Time Makes Its Adjustments
What Is Justice In Practice?
The Upper Goal Determines Everything

Filed under: Q&A, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: To what extent did you feel a different perception of yourself before and after feeling the spiritual system in you? How did you perceive this?

Answer: This perception gradually turned into a sensory, explicit one that you live in, and it is extremely pleasant. It allows you to see everything. Your eyes open, your feelings open, and you begin to understand in what world, in what system you exist; there is no difference between the worlds, there is only one world everywhere.

In fact, our world, such as it appears to all people, does not exist. They seem to be in a state of a disconnection, in semi-consciousness, and even that state is practically absent. They do not know where they are, but I do. I kind of woke up, while they crawl around like blind kittens and do not understand where they are.

Question: But before that you read, for example, The Book of Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot. How did you perceive them? Surely it was different.

Answer: I felt the same way as it does to you. I listened without understanding what it was talking about, and I imagined it as if it existed, nobody knows where and how. I did not feel that it was in me, that it was my sensations, my attitude, either to a person or to the Creator. The Creator is what appears between us. Now I clearly feel it.

Question: When you give directions about how to change, does a person have a chance without this perception that you have, to connect to the system?

Answer: From where? What kind of Kelim (vessels) can he do it with? What means of communication does he have? You do not have a modem, how can you do it?!

Question: Is waiting the only thing left to us?

Answer: Do not wait, but act! Solder the circuit, my friend!

Question: Were you not also preparing for this for a long period?

Answer: Of course, for many years. Nothing comes immediately, only gradually.
[305419]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change Myself” 11/9/13

Related Material:
How Can We Feel The Upper World?
Several Details About The Picture Of The Spiritual World
Superimposed Worlds

Filed under: Perception, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does the Torah have so many strange prohibitions, like eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics?“

First, it is important to understand that the Torah does not describe our world. The Torah is called “sanctity,” which in Hebrew means something different and separate to our world. It explains spiritual laws of the higher spiritual world, and it thus explains what is permitted and forbidden for a person who is in the spiritual world, who attains and perceives it.

We live in a bubble of sorts, the laws of which we have no real understanding. We learn a bit about the laws from the sciences of our world like physics and chemistry, but we are unfamiliar with the real laws.

The Torah, or the wisdom of Kabbalah, describes the spiritual laws that become revealed as the forces of the higher nature. The higher nature is called “the force of bestowal” or an altruistic force, and the nature of our world is the force of reception, or the egoistic force. There is thus one very simple law of the higher nature: that it is forbidden to be an egoist.

In the higher spiritual nature, any action we do for our own benefit is prohibited, while any action that we to for the benefit of others is called a Mitzva (commandment).

About the prohibitions in the Torah, it is written that Hillel told the proselyte that came to him: “Don’t do to others what you hate.” In relation to the Mitzvot, the actions of correction that we do in spirituality, those who are in spiritual attainment, who have revealed the spiritual world, have a clear picture of what is permitted and prohibited. In our world, however, it is not so clear. For instance, a regular person in this world does not see what kind of transgression or harm they commit when they light a candle or a lamp on the Sabbath—nor should they.

In short, in the higher spiritual nature, it is forbidden to use the ego, and it is allowed to use the force of bestowal and love.

Based on the video “What Are the Prohibitions in the Torah?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Taylor

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Question: What does a Kabbalist dream of when he sleeps?

Answer: A cat dreams of mice, Don Juan dreams of women, a hungry man dreams of a loaf of bread. What a person wants, what hurts him, what he is afraid of or aspires to is what he dreams about.

What does a Kabbalist dream about? It depends on what you go to bed with: either issues in the group, the students, or, conversely, serious preparation for the next events. In accordance with this, all sorts of thoughts slip through. I have not seen dreams in the form of images for a long time, they are in the form of thoughts.

Once it was in the form of all kinds of scenes where people argued, debated, and empathized in my dreams. But for the past 20 years or more, I wake up with thoughts of what I was thinking in my dream—thoughts mind you, not visual scenes. I don’t know why.

I think it is because I don’t pay attention to the visual scenes in life: not to appearance or to the world. I’m practically not interested in it. I don’t attach any importance to this. What difference does it make how you are dressed, what accessories you are wearing, etc. I realize that this is all just boosting our egoism, to somehow charm somebody or show who I am compared to him to put him in his place.

Question: Did Rabash tell you his dreams? Did he dream of anything?

Answer: No. I don’t think he did either.

I think visual dreams in the form of images stop happening in the early stages of a Kabbalist’s work on himself. It all goes away very quickly because you rise above this seeming theater that is being played out here, and you enter the world of forces.

For example, if there is some kind of problem on the computer screen, the one who fixes it does not look at the screen, the main thing for him is to fix it on the inside. The screen for him is just an indicator.

So does the Kabbalist. He very quickly passes the stage when the screen is even an indicator for him, and he enters directly into the world of forces. There are no images there, including dreams.
[305041]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What does a Kabbalist Dream About?” 10/12/13

Related Material:
Where Do Dreams Come From?
An Ordinary Dream
A Person Sleeps, The Work Continues

Filed under: Perception, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →