Question: What is The Zohar?

Answer: “Zohar” means the “upper radiance.” This is the light of the level of the head of the world of Atzilut, which is Arik Anpin. The book is named after this glow because it speaks about the source, which through many different filters, gradually reduces itself and affects us.

Question: Why does The Zohar have a narrative form in the style of a story?

Answer: No! It’s not about people. Neither the Torah, nor the Zohar, nor even the Talmud speak about people but only about spiritual levels.

If you were at some spiritual level, then we would measure your level relative to the height of, say, Rabbi Shimon or someone else. This is how a person is measured, not by his name. What difference does it make to me what his name was!?

The level from which he speaks is important to me, because at this level he breaks through all the screens and sees the spiritual world. It is important to me what this opens up to him. He works like an accelerator of some micro-particles.

Therefore I need this data about him not as a person, but rather with what power and how many electron volts are in his “cannon” by which he breaks through all the barriers and reveals the upper world to me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call,  Entering The Zohar 3/22/13

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Question: There is constructive stubbornness and there is destructive stubbornness. Is stubbornness a good property in Kabbalah?

Answer: Yes, it is good. Every property has a direct and a reverse side in its expression. In diligence there is also a negative side, you can get stuck into something and keep hammering at some completely needless thing. Everything should be balanced.

Harmony is the golden mean, the middle path we have to follow.

Question: Can stubbornness on its own destroy everything?

Answer: Certainly. There is such a kind of stubbornness that does not want to hear any reasons of its mind or others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, Stupid Stubbornness” 4/18/13

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Question: What should be done if a person hears slander against someone?

Answer: Say that you do not want to hear it, cut it off, and in this way you will teach a friend to do the same. This is a great correction for the group.

Question: If women are discussing someone, is it natural for them to group into cliques?

Answer: They can do whatever they want, but then they must understand that they are not walking along the spiritual path with us. The Kabbalistic group must be equal, absolutely homogeneous.

If someone slanders, then in theory he multiplies evil, this diverges like a virus. You can fight this only by having a good relationship with everyone and covering everything with love. If a person is in a group, then he was brought here and we must accept him as a closest one.

Question: How can I teach myself not to give criticism outwardly, not to utter it?

Answer: Through habit, example of others, constant self-criticism, and introspection.

Question: You said that before a certain period, a person is still learning. At the initial stage is it acceptable to gossip?

Answer: No. As soon as a person arrives in the group, we must immediately inform him about this and teach him like a child, and constantly point out to him the inadmissibility of slander.

There must be an awareness of the importance that without this we will not reach the goal. I hope that everyone will understand this, and in the end they will reach the goal. I will not be hurt so much that they themselves break the ties in which they can reveal their highest state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Beware of Gossip!” 3/19/13

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Question: Is it correct to treat all states as spiritual, for example, conditions like drowsiness, poor health, or apathy? Or are the real spiritual states only those that occur in the work of the group?

Answer: Absolutely all states are spiritual, the question is whether I can influence them.

Question: What states in this scenario can be influenced?

Answer: It is not simple to explain. It all depends on each of the participants. It is very complicated.

Question: But is it worth treating the whole process in which a person lives as a game of spiritual forces?

Answer: Naturally. Just that.

Question: What is the participation of the person in this process? After all, it is either passive or active. Or a person cannot understand when he can apply his own efforts and when he says there is “None else besides Him” just as an excuse.

Answer: Our study and our analysis is to determine how to relate to each event, analyze it, divide it into parts, and then synthesize it from these parts into certain blocks.

This is the spiritual work of a person when he divides all of nature, himself, the interaction and reaction into parts in order to understand the Creator. This is what we have to do because we exist here to reveal the Creator, fully understand Him from our lower world and attain the uppermost world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, Spiritual States” 4/17/13

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Question: What does a person discover for himself when he enters The Book of Zohar?

Answer: A person begins to feel the immense world that this book tells about. The world suddenly opens up in front of him from all sides, like a spherical screen.

Moreover, it does not just move apart like a screen, it’s as if it gradually disappears, like a sphere filled with dark light that slowly evaporates, and there is a feeling as if you are in a cosmos of sensations of interconnection between you and the general force, the Creator.

By the way, many of the people who have been in outer space feel that way. They are disconnected from the influence of Earth’s inhabitants, and although they are under constant pressure from Earth, they still feel that humanity has a different purpose, that the universe is full of thought, and that this is a grand vision. They speak about this sensation, not because it exists in space, but because the Earth is not pressing on them there.

Question: How many times have people tried to visualize a spiritual state and invent some images or 3D graphics, but it is all very limited. And according to the sensations, a person perceives only light? How is it possible with the help of words and images to convey this?

Answer: Nothing can be conveyed! No hints! There are articles and if you feel something according to the article, you feel it; if not, then no.

These feelings cannot be conveyed because we are not adequately attuned to them. If in your five senses there is a sensation of salty, bitter, sweet, or some sounds, or some smells, or touches, etc., then something can be conveyed to you. You’ll remember or tune in.

And if you don’t have this sense organ and its archive, if a certain set of impressions is accordingly absent, then nothing can be done.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Entering The Zohar 3/22/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s a good relationship tip that sounds like a bad tip?“

Agree to have arguments on a schedule. For example, agree with your partner that every Friday, you are going to have an argument—to tease and to poke each other. We do such actions subconsciously anyway. They are natural. Nature itself urges us to develop our connection with each other.

However, in order to stay in control and make sure we do not go overboard and become hateful, it is of utmost importance that we maintain the right intention: that our aim for approaching such an action is solely in order to strengthen our connection and our embrace of each other. That is, in order to better connect, we take a step back and look at the other person a little critically, like a game. It is as if we take one step back, and then two steps forward.

While it might appear to be a relationship tip only for couples, it extends to relations on many scales. Moreover, if we would learn how to continually strengthen our relationships in such a way in places like classrooms, schools and workplaces, then we would be constantly mindful of the times when we should be more remote and closer to each other as a means for increasing our connection.

When we learn how to simultaneously hold criticism of others and rise above that criticism, then we gain the key tool for managing relationships. Nature operates according to this principle across many scales. For instance, the pulses of our heart, our brain and our several systems function in such an interchanging way, and learning how to manage these two levels can sync us with nature. It is the key to the ability for constantly growing love: to alternate between the negative and the positive, like night and day.

Based on the video “You Wouldn’t Believe That THIS Would Improve Your Relationship” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: You once said that corporeal love is just a hormonal craving to calm the “evil inclination” and that there is no love within our framework. Did I understand correctly?

Answer: Love is a mutual attraction based on the ascent above mutual egoism, rejection, and hatred that arises in people who consciously work on it.

This feeling arises in order to become integrated with each other: I am in his desires and he is in my desires. To the extent that we rise above egoism, annul it, and wish instead to work with the desires of other people in order to fulfill them, to love your neighbor as yourself, precisely here love appears.

But what does love itself mean? It does not come from us. Precisely because we destroy our personal egoism and become included in each other, light enters into this mutual inclusion. The Creator, who is love, becomes revealed.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hormonal Love” 5/1/13

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Question: A lot of people write to us about the fear that permeates everything, that there is fear for oneself, fear for loved ones, fear for children, fear of death. Moreover, the situation cannot be changed and it is frightening.

The main question is how to overcome fear. Is it possible?

Answer: Let go of the situation. Don’t think about what will happen in the next moment. There’s nothing we can do. We don’t know anything about it. And that’s why it’s best for us to let go.

Question: But is it within a person’s power at all?

Answer: Yes, it is. This is achieved by a little bit of training, but in principle, it is necessary.

Question: So can I exist inside a real dramatic situation, threatened with death, with anything you can only imagine, as if it doesn’t exist?

Answer: Yes. You invent a dramatic situation, to use your words, and you annul it. Or other things: you say that it can’t be, because it can’t be. I already know that I’ll be fine, that I’ll be well. Or I’m not interested in it at all, not even now! It’s the best thing—to let go of the reins and not control anything.

Question: So you think that fear arises from the fact that a person tries to manage this situation?

Answer: He wants to manage it and cannot. That’s where the fear comes in.

Question: And when I let go, I seem to control it, but, as it turns out, from a different side?

Answer: Sure. Think about the fact that of course you will die, of course everything will be after, and something will exist after you. You don’t lock this world up and go somewhere out there. It is not known how this can be imagined. So it’s okay. Imagine this is normal; agree with it, and that’s it.

Question: I understand the general situation that I need to let go. Can you offer a few steps on how to let go of any situation?

Answer: No, different people do it differently. There are people who are starting to think: “What will happen to the world after me?” “How will my loved ones and relatives be?” “What will happen to my inheritance?” “What will happen to my creative legacy?” And so on and so forth.

Question: Then the question is: why is fear given to a person?

Answer: So that he can correct something additional: his attitude to life and death.

Question: What should this fear turn into? If it is given from above, what should this fear flow into?

Answer: It must flow into absolute submission to the will of the Almighty, the Creator, and to the fact that one still has something to do in those moments (there may be a huge number of them) until one really finishes his earthly journey.

Question: Basically, does a person have to do something one way or another? What should he do?

Answer: Calm down. Nothing else. This is what a person should do.

Comment: You once said that the Creator is at peace, and man should come to the same peace.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: Then give us the definition of peace.

My Response: Peace is when the next moment doesn’t bother you. It absolutely does not bother you! Not that you live in it. If you live in it it doesn’t bother you, because you live in it. But it just doesn’t bother you. We must come to this.

Question: Then am I living in this moment?

Answer: And there is no such moment. Don’t think that you exist at all.

Question: That is, I am as if floating on the river, floating and that’s all?

Answer: This is also a bad attitude to life. “Lift the oars” and “float” are also not good.

Comment: This point is not very clear.

My Response: It is not clear to anyone. This is the point at which we achieve absolute calm.

In other words, it can only be this way. “I rely on the control of the Creator. He controls everything, including me in every moment of my existence. And in general, He controls the whole universe and everyone. So I have nothing to worry about. Do I want to crawl into His correction, His governance, His force over all this? No.” If not, then sit still and get on with your life.

There should be no difference between how you exist now and afterward when you decide how you should exist.

Question: Such a point of stillness?

Answer: Yes. This indicates agreement. This means that you agree with the Creator. And it’s not easy. After all, we always want to grab His hand, check what is planned there, and argue that it should maybe be done a little differently.

Question: Is there no need to grab anyone here? Just like that and that’s it?

Answer: Let go.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/30/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it human nature always to fight?“

Yes. Human nature makes us want to rule over others, that by nature we do not like other people thinking and behaving the way that they do.

There is a chance that we can rise above human nature, but it depends on society’s maturity, i.e. a state where people do not even think about fighting others. If we fail to reach such maturity and the ability to rise above human nature, then nature will destroy us.

On the horizon, we see plenty of problems from climate changes wreaking havoc to the possibility of mass starvation. Moreover, together with such tragedies, nations and countries will continue thinking about how to harm each other. Therefore, our world is in need of serious corrections. We have to become positively connected.

Based on the video “Is it Human Nature Always to Fight?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: A friend writes: “I have been with you for two years, and I can no longer listen or hear about the correction of the heart. I don’t understand what it is.” In general, many people write asking for specifics. That is, they understand the specific programs of politicians; they understand economists who create certain precise economic programs that work, but they do not understand what “correcting the heart” means or that it is most important.

You talk about it all the time. Yet, it still does not penetrate the heart and they still want some material specifics.

My Response: It cannot penetrate the heart because of its opponent: the heart itself! You need to act against the heart in such a way as to attract some outer cosmic forces that would change our hearts, turning them toward each other.

Question: So only the heart that is closed can hear about the correction of the heart, but it does not want this correction. How can you make even a little opening in this heart to enter it? How is this done?

Answer: I think after all, the solution lies in our dissemination, in our explanation, and in the implementation of our methodology.

Question: Even if it is not accepted and if the heart doesn’t want to absorb it?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. We have to come to this.

Question: First of all, should the heart or the mind accept it? Should we explain this to people logically? Using regular, human, earthly logic?

Answer: We can explain this through logic, but we are faced with people who say, “You are such dreamers.” Well, they’re right. But what else can we do?

Comment: So, it’s not easy to ignite them. Although it is written that everyone, one way or another, will come to the correction of the heart.

My Response: We have to wait for the right moment; for the critical moment when people realize that they are simply moving toward self-destruction.

Question: What kind of thought and strength do you put into your constant words about correction of the heart?

Answer: It is an upper force, above the nature of this world, which can act through the egoistic nature of our world and make our hearts altruistic.

Question: When you say the “heart,” what are you thinking about at this moment?

Answer: The inner desire of a person is the heart. Today it is directed only at itself. While the corrected heart is directed toward connection with others. That’s all, irrespective of any other conditions.

Question: Is it only the upper force, the upper energy, that can turn us toward each other and not ourselves through our programs and cooperation?

Answer: We can only bring humanity a little closer to this by preparing manuals and other things.

Question: That is in regard to us. But humanity also talks about unification all the time. There are organizations that are supposed to unite. They also somehow implicitly understand this to be good.

Answer: Ok, let them do it, but it won’t lead to anything. There must be an appeal from a person out of this critical state to the upper force: “Come and do it!”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/23/22

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