Question: When you say that a person who attains spirituality burns from the inside and it really begins to be felt, do you take analogies from what you perceived yourself?

Answer: Of course from myself! Everything that exists in the world, a person lives through himself. Look how everyone lives their life: short or long, more or less prosperous, suffering, with problems, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Question: You are talking about such scorching things! Did you really have to go through this yourself to feel all that?

Answer: By going through it, I saw that if I deviated to the right or left line, I would either turn into a “flatbread,” or it would be something perfect—a soft down pillow that would smoothly slow down my train.

Question: So, when you went through these states, did you clearly feel each of them?

Answer: Yes, because a person usually walks in the middle line. He still hits a barrier that slows him down, but it is like hooks grabbing you when you need to stop. These grips slowly slow you down.

Question: And everyone will have to go through these states?

Answer: Of course, it is a must: the right and left lines upon which you build the middle line. It depends in what form, that is, to what extent. In accordance with my soul, I had to study so much and disseminate so much. There are such souls among the souls, not high, but just special. They are required to be teachers or leaders in charge, and so on.

Once we visited a former student of Rabash and he, looking at me, said: “I look at you and how many years you have been doing this. I remember once you had a fight with everyone, including Rabash and refused to go to the coast with him. Then I went with him. And there I asked him: “Rav, why don’t you expel this Laitman? Look what he allows himself!”

Rabash replied: “I would kick him out, but he has a special soul.” I did not understand it then, but now I see that you do not give up, you continue and keep hitting one spot all the time.”

Why am I saying this? Not to spotlight myself. There is nothing special about it because the Creator appoints and removes. But everyone simply has a mission, and it must be fulfilled. I feel it pressing on me, and I am implementing it. Is it possible to escape from it? It is forbidden. Whether you agree with it or not is your problem.

I am trying to agree, to justify the Creator’s plan, in relation to myself at least. Therefore, I have no questions about how I live. I feel that it must be done.

And what is interesting about Kabbalah, the more you study, the more you realize that this image you are playing now does not really exist. Nothing remains of a person! It is in our world, in its history, we remember great or famous people, positive or negative. But there is nothing left at all! That same integral point remains in the huge system, which played its role because the Creator played it that way. And that is it.

So, I have a very simple mission. I am trying to do the maximum of what I feel from my science. As much as it works, it works, as much as it does not, it does not.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To See the Future” 2/5/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I shift my emotions from negative to positive?“

Throughout nature, negative feelings run in parallel to positive ones to sustain the balance. We should thus first understand that negative feelings surface in us from nature in order for us to enter into balance with nature. Doing so will lead us to understand both negative and positive systems in nature, and we will be in between them as its masters.

We thus should not try to suppress or cover up negative feelings, but complement them with positive ones. Suppose that we take a negative feeling like depression: it needs to balance out with joy and happiness. I understand that this sounds far fetched, because joy and happiness are the most distant feelings from depression. However, doing so becomes possible if we engage in connection-enriching learning on a regular basis.

If we are in an environment that regularly explains and promotes to us that negative feelings are an invitation for us to develop to their positive opposites, and which provides support and encouragement to do so, then it is possible to make such a shift.

The process is quite simple to explain, but it requires regular engagement in a supportive environment connected to such learning in order to implement. The process is as follows: A negative feeling arises, and we then have to find its source and its purpose—that the negative feeling arises in us from nature in order for us to seek its opposite, joy and happiness. We then have to learn how to relate to negative feelings as to positive ones, and be equally grateful for negative feelings as for positive ones. By doing so, we learn how to live between the two because there can be no plus without a minus.

If we engage in such a process, then we become masters of our state. We will know what to do with negative emotions when they arise, and we will understand that nature awakens such feelings solely in order for us to enter into balance with it.

Moreover, we need to understand that as we develop into the future, we can expect more and more negative feelings. From one day to the next, things will get worse. I promise. The world will cry and shout, and no remedy will help. If today we can take some pills or shots to try alleviate our pains, tomorrow we will find that they will no longer work. Drugs will not help us in the future because nature will lead us to a state of feeling a complete sense of depression and negative feelings. It might seem cruel, but it is in order for us to reach a much better state, one that we have yet to experience, through realizing the correct solution: that we need to want the positive force, that it would balance out the negative force in us, which is the reason for depression and all other negative sensations.

Based on the video “How to Shift Your Emotions from Negative to Positive” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Is it true that babies have a much greater perception of the world than an adult even  though it seems to us that they do not perceive anything at all?

Answer: The fact is that children’s perception is not constrained, not limited by the framework imposed by society, the environment, conventions, so-called “education,” and so on. It is not yet narrowed to a frame, like with the aperture of a lens, by the requirements of the environment.

Therefore, we can say that it is undoubtedly more open than in adults. We do not see very much. We see everything that society directs us to and restricts us by. Every time we hear or see something from the outside, we constantly include it in ourselves, and as a result, our field of perception narrows and distorts under the influence of the environment.

The perception of a baby is like clean photographic film on which it can record everything directly. Our perception however, can be compared with something worn-out because society with its stupidities coarsens us so much that as a result we perceive only some scanty information from the environment.

Therefore it is of course wonderful to rise above the influence of society, which means to throw away culture and all external conventions, that is to say, external egoism, to drop the inner egoism that was introduced into you, and to begin to perceive the world from your point, which you pull out of there. Then you discover yourself, not what was done to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World Through the Eyes of a Baby?” 2/10/13

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Question: Suppose you need to meet and talk with someone. Do you perform a series of actions that enable you to connect with this person?

Answer: Yes, it is possible. But this should immediately manifest itself on the basis of some common platform: for what, why, what is in the past, future, or present. There should be something in common. If it turns out quickly, then I am ready to communicate.

For example, I have interviews with people who come to our studio. So right away within 10 to 15 minutes, I find out in a polite conversation whether we have a common platform, a mutual understanding, or a common viewpoint on some problem in the world or on all problems in general.

If so, then we have something to talk about. We debate and discuss things in this common field. If it is not the case, then no. Then we politely slip one past the other and that is it.

I never convince anyone that I am right. It is useless and unnecessary. Even if you could politely convince someone that he is wrong and your point of view is right, you should not do this, not because I am afraid to somehow hurt my opponent and leave a bad impression of myself as an arrogant person exerting pressure, but because this will not help.

A person himself must “ripen” from within, and get to the point of view that appears each time at the moment of its maturation. Maybe someday he will agree with you, and maybe you will agree with him. So you should not pressure anyone.

Tell your opponent what you think is the right thing to do. Also to listen to what he thinks. But in no case to try to pressure him. Even if together you want to come to a common opinion by putting pressure on each other, it is also wrong. Let your feelings and mind develop normally and calmly so that you finally feel your next state. It is you who should evolve!

Therefore, I have no need for any discussions with anyone or getting into special contact with anyone except in cases in which some kind of influence on a person who has a special status is possible. For example, I was in Italy where I met with a representative of the European Union and explained our method to him and what can be done to overcome the crisis. He enjoyed taking notes on it. For an hour and a half, I dictated to him what to do, as if he were a student, and he, like a student, wrote it down.

It was very serious work that we did together for an hour and a half. It gave a lot to me and to him. Not because I was engaged in moralizing, as it were, but because I saw that this man really understands the problem and does not know how to solve it.

And he really wanted to find a solution. And I, for my part, felt that this was how it should be solved. In general, we made good contact.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Contacts” 2/7/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can we consider all humans as being ill? If yes, why?“

We are ill in the fact that we cannot distinguish good from evil, and we cannot gather and integrate the good in ourselves so that it gradually covers the evil.

Evil in this case is egoism, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature. We need to reach a sensation that we are complete egoists and that it is our collective illness, and when we feel how this quality is evil—that it is the cause of every shortcoming and pain that we experience—then we will seek some kind of remedy.

Today, we already experience an accumulation of suffering that evokes a luminescence of a good light upon us, which can reveal where the evil is in us. Together with our egoism, we also have a tiny spark, a very small good desire, which we still have yet to fully clarify, but which connects to egoism’s opposite: the positive force of love, giving and connection that dwells in nature.

Remedying our egoism is by learning how to develop and expand the good point within us. Doing so requires applying a method of connecting these points between us in order to attract more and more of the positive force dwelling in nature into such a connection. In the process, we will be able to distinguish good from evil, and amplify the good quality so that it covers the evil. We will then experience a whole new harmonious and peaceful life.

Based on the video “What Is Humanity’s Illness?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does crisis bring people closer?“

I recently received a letter from a lady who explained that she and her husband had to move into their basement after their house got destroyed, and they felt liberated as a result. In her words, she wrote that “caring for others supplanted all thoughts of self,” and she continued to ask about how that happens, requesting an explanation.

Indeed, we host an inner quality where we try to escape from suffering, fear, hatred and other negative states due to our desire to feel good. As a result, we suddenly find ourselves caring about others, and we then realize that it feels right to come together.

Such states of crisis make us lose the feeling of corporeal fulfillment that we usually seek in money, honor, control and knowledge, and all we have left is spiritual fulfillment, where we fulfill ourselves by helping others, and feel like we need nothing else in our lives. It is a spiritual state that emerges out of suffering.

However, the state where crisis and suffering brings people closer together—that we then feel fulfillment in caring about others in order to run away from our problems—is only an elementary spiritual state. Later, we will care about others simply because we receive such an opportunity and feel it as our mission to do so: that we feel a strong drive to communicate the need to increase mutual care throughout the world, and that caring about each other and coming closer together also vitalizes us with new elevated harmonious, joyous and peaceful sensations. In other words, we can learn from times of crisis that caring about others and coming closer together has a special fulfillment that we previously failed to realize, but if we were to voluntarily advance ourselves to come closer together and increase mutual care in society, then we would alleviate the need for crises to bring us to such a realization. We would then progress to greater states of fulfillment, peace and harmony by attracting nature’s positive forces into our lives.

Based on the video “Why Crisis Brings People Closer and Increases Care among People” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the solution to gun violence without harming the liberty and freedom of gun-owners?“

First, I think that it is unrealistic to disarm hundreds of millions of people. The solution to gun violence is in education. Even if somebody had the power to forcibly confiscate everybody’s guns, gun violence would remain a problem. People who would want guns would find ways to get them.

There is no solution to gun violence other than through society’s gradual and systematic education in relation to what leads us to violence in the first place. We as a society need to reach the realization that killing others is bad. Although this message is already widely understood, for instance it is generally at the heart of major religions and spiritual practices, and it is voiced over and over again in a variety of ways, we nonetheless see that gun violence becomes a greater problem from one day to the next. The reason gun violence worsens is due to the continuous growth of human egoism, where the desire to serve oneself at the expense of others proliferates in many ways throughout society, and some people then grab their guns in order to fire back at this seemingly despicable society of egoists.

Therefore, I see no solution other than serious universal education, which begins from a young age and continues throughout our entire lives. Such education should lead us to a state where there is no room for violence. Anyone who raises their hand against another needs to be punished, and understand that they have no right to exert power over the life of others. We should rather relate to others solely in considerate and responsible ways, and lead by example. Nobody has any right to resort to violence. It is simply not within our rights. That is, we have no right to act against the will of other people. It is true that many have taught such principles throughout history, but we see that there is talk and there is action, and we then see several examples of people doing quite the opposite.

What is lacking in educational efforts to make such principles settle into society’s consciousness is the positive force of nature, i.e. the force of love, giving and connection that precedes and begets our existence. We can truly internalize the principle of doing no harm to others by attracting that force into our lives. Therefore, we need to teach the principles of mutual consideration, care, support and encouragement, or in other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to every person without exception from a young age. Moreover, such education should be regular, on a daily basis, and take place on countrywide scales, with all educational systems and influential media involved in educating and promoting such principles. We would then bear witness to a dramatic decrease in gun violence, as such education would have a lasting positive impact.

If such an educational process entered society, then we would attract the positive force that dwells in nature into our lives, and we would also gain a clearer perception and sensation of who we really are, what goes on around us, what causes our suffering and problems, and where we are headed.

Again, such an education is beyond how we normally think about education. That is, it includes teaching of such principles in our commonly-known educational institutions like schools, colleges and universities, but in addition, it requires influential media creators, filmmakers, radio show hosts, creators of TV series’, journalists and writers of all kinds getting on board. All of our social and environmental influences should be primarily focused on communicating messages that lead us to happiness, peace and harmony. Otherwise, our egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—will keep conjuring up forms that suit it, and we see the tragedies and the dead end that such an approach leads to.

Therefore, if we organize our education—our complex web of social and media influences—to create a society of mutually considerate, responsible, supportive and encouraging members, then the way we speak, communicate and think would take a positive shift. At the very least, the extreme tragedies of gun violence would cease, because there would be no room for such actions in a society that has increased in its awareness of why it is so important to rise above basic human egoistic drives in order to positively connect. That is, the desire to enact gun violence in such a society would simply not surface in people. The education itself would grow a common understanding and feeling in people that they would willingly restrict themselves from enacting gun violence, because it would go against everything they value and know.

Based on the video “What Is the Solution to Gun Violence?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Jane Palash on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we deal with negative emotions?“

Negative emotions awaken in us first in order to signal that we have to advance from where we are to a better place. That better place is an essential change in human connections, which ultimately comes down to mutual relations of love.

We currently do not know what that kind of love is. Love means that we feel what is good for others and try to do that for them, and that others try to do the same for us.

Usually when negative emotions arise, we try to find an escape from such feelings. However, such an approach fails to let us realize the positive change that the negative emotions invite us to make.

In order to not escape from the negative emotions, and realize them positively, we need to learn the kinds of relations that we should have in our world, because our world has to reach balance with the greater system of nature that controls us. Precisely that system awakens negative emotions in us so that we adapt ourselves to it, open it up and reveal it.

How does developing positive human connections adapt us to the greater system of nature? It is because nature is interconnected and interdependent as a single system, and its subsystems are in sync with each other, supporting one another. Therefore, developing relations of mutual love “clicks” us into balance at the human level with nature’s own interconnectedness and interdependence, thereby realizing our part in nature.

Based on the video “How to Deal With Negative Feelings” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: There is so much depth in the articles we read! It seems like I have already heard it, read it ten times, and ten times there is something new.

My Response: It is because you need not to read, but to attain. You need to change yourself, to rise above yourself. Then the content will be within you.

Question: Let’s say you look at the text and enter into it, how do you make all these transformations?

Answer: I do not enter into anything. It surfaces inside me. Or you can say that I am speculatively entering the spiritual world inside me.

Question: While studying, for example, The Book of Zohar, you give us certain recommendations: read in this way, think in that way, together, and everyone adapts to it. But you are still talking, and what we hear is limited, we do not really hear what you are asking us to do.

Perhaps this is our fantasy working. How well do your students work with the material that you give?

Answer: I cannot say. They work as much as they can. I am both satisfied and dissatisfied, but this is what it is.

Question: While studying, should a person just endure it or look for something within himself? For example, you give definitions, but they are so abstract that there is nothing to cling to in order to find these images within me.

Answer: Search—everything is within you! I understand that you cannot grasp where it is in you. It is spinning somewhere out there, but it is not clear exactly where. This is the work.

Question: What about fantasy, when a person begins to invent something for himself?

Answer: This is wrong. We need not fantasy, but attainment and work in a group.

Question: What is the difference between attainment and understanding?

Answer: You understand with a brain that is silly and disconnected from reality. You do not know if this is correct or not. Today you understand it this way and tomorrow in a different way. It is logical in accordance with some facts and with some theory that is inside you. This is an understanding or even, maybe, an awareness.

Attainment, however, is something that leaves no doubt and cannot be changed since it is the revelation of the Creator’s system within you to the extent that you have become similar to it. Meaning, this is absolute!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Study Kabbalistic Texts?” 2/16/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “nnnnNAMEeeeee“

What is the meaning of life? At a certain point, we realize that there is no sense in living, that we live in vain. Life passes us by every day, and maybe it would be best if we did not exist to begin with?

Indeed, we have sought the meaning of life for thousands of years, and we as a humanity have yet to find an ultimate meaning to life. It is as if we live in order to ask this most fundamental question in every generation and to not find an answer to it.

The question about the meaning of life arises within us involuntarily. Although it might seem better and easier not to ask about the meaning of life, if it would be so, then we would remain at the animal level. Humans, rather, keep evolving, and our constant development is expressed in us increasingly asking about the meaning of life from one generation to the next.

We cannot help but ask about the meaning of life and why we are here. The mere fact that we keep questioning ourselves will bring us to the point when someday we will start discovering the real answer to life’s biggest question. I hope that such a day will come very soon.

What, then, is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is to discover the meaning of life.

What is it though? We will need to discover it. We live in this world in order to seek the answer to specifically that question, and we all subconsciously seek its answer regardless of age, nationality, gender and profession. We are locked in a constant search for the meaning of life, and we have no idea about the base motivation behind such a search.

It might seem as if some people manage to find themselves in life, saying that they live life well and achieve a lot, regardless of a specific search for the meaning of life, but such people simply convince themselves of such statements. However, the desire to find the meaning of life lives within them as it does with everybody, otherwise they would not be alive to begin with.

Every moment of our life starts with the question about why we are living. We do not realize it, and we thus live through the given moment, and then in the next moment we ask ourselves that same question—”What am I living for?”—and we do so time and again. We continue living in such a way during the course of our entire lives, but we still lack a clear answer. Nonetheless, we re-enter that quest, living through every moment with that question at its basis, and move throughout our lives in such a way. Our life’s flow is a continuous question about the meaning of life and a constant search for an answer that we never discover.

Moreover, the question—“What is the meaning of life?”—precedes our physiological perception. It is our most important and fundamental question. Moreover, it is a question that relates to our spiritual quest. After we ask about the meaning of our lives, our body and our organs start revitalizing and blossoming, and we develop as such.

Eventually, after living millions of diverse lives, we eventually will indeed find the meaning of life, which is to reach a clear perception and sensation of the source of all life. We will all reach that discovery. At a certain point of our development, we will shift from unconsciously asking about the meaning of our lives at every moment, to a state where we will start seeking the meaning of life consciously. That is, we will improve in our ability to imagine what the source of our lives is, and how, on what basis, with what qualities and intentions, we can approach it, grabbing hold of it like a baby to its mother. When we do so, we will then have a certain tool by which we can start connecting with the meaning of our lives, and when we reach that stage, then we will start actively seeking our lives’ source, working out what it wants from us, what we expect from it, and why the entire meaning of life is only to eventually draw and adhere to the source of our lives. At such a point, will we truly start absorbing and understanding the meaning of life.

The search for the meaning of life is a pathway to eternity, and eternity is a state of constantly coming closer to the source of our lives, increasingly holding onto, clinging to, and adhering to it.

Based on the video “What Is the Meaning of Life? Why Do We Ask about the Meaning of Life?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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