Question: Let’s say a person is studying Kabbalah. But in the world around him all kinds of negative actions, hatred, intimidation, etc. are happening. You say: “It does not have any effect. Follow a clear path toward the goal. And everything that happens is, as it were, special effects that distract you; they simply divert you from the main path.”

But what for? If a person does not pay attention to these “special effects” and focuses on the goal, why are they needed?

Answer: It is in order to work them through. You must rise above them and connect with the goal. These “special effects” and everything that is created in the world are needed to direct you toward the goal, to lift you up, to sharpen your movement, and to accelerate it. Only for this! It is in order to more sharply orient you on the goal and accelerate the movement toward it. Nothing else.

Comment: So if someone puts a knife to your throat, you say, “Excuse me, I have to run to the lesson now”; or something else. And you say: “Don’t be afraid, it is all for your own good.”

Answer: Yes, this is how everything is arranged. And this is felt when a person works on himself in order to somehow create the image of the Creator within himself. He sees that from all these images that are created by him, before him, inside him, and outside of him are all so that he can correctly form the image of the Creator within himself.

Image means qualities, not some visual image, but, let’s say, character. The character of the quality of bestowal and love.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. External factors or why does everyone hate Jews?” 9/14/10

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I am not in favor of suffering. There are many examples of people choosing suffering and believing that this elevates them. This is incorrect.

Question: What does it mean not to suffer?

Answer: If you clearly understand, and you have the conditions where your suffering alleviates someone’s difficulties and helps them progress, then yes. But if this exists only in your imagination…

Comment: You have raised the bar now by saying: “If my suffering makes someone’s life, fate, and soul easier for someone.” You did not say “for me,” but “for someone.”

My Response: For someone else, of course.

Question: So if it serves as an example for someone, and I do this in order to set an example that it is possible, try it?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: That is high!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/5/25

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Question: Can you give an example of how to rise above an egoistic state?

Answer: The most common state a person goes through is when something “unpleasant” is orchestrated from above, some kind of negative incident, and then they are manipulated, supposedly revealing it to the whole world. Because of this, a person finds him or herself in a constrained, intensely anxious, stressful state, terribly afraid for their good name.

They are pressured from above to show how much they love themselves and how unwilling they are to sacrifice their ego for any thoughts about spirituality, how they are even ready to run away from spiritual work just so they would not be exposed or revealed in any way, so that their insignificance would not be shown. These are the usual exercises carried out from above on our egoism.

But it is easy to talk about this, and when you are actually in such states, living through it is almost impossible. A person constantly wavers on this borderline, back and forth: either spirituality is important to me, or my ego, my shame. They keep examining and re-examining this. This condition is given so that they constantly try to understand that they must follow the path of bestowal and rise above their shame. This cannot be ignored.

I believe that one day films and books will be created on this topic and the time will come when it will be published, not only in a purely instructive format as it is today, but also in more popular styles accessible to many.

We know that today our sources are understood by only a small percentage of the population. Therefore, (just as Baal HaSulam dreamed) we will have to write new books, create new films, and new media tools that will emotionally bring a person into these states, because reason alone cannot achieve much. These tools should prepare a person through feelings, inner definitions, and inner analyses for the perception of spiritual influences.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Over the Machsom” 9/12/10

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Question: Is everything we do during the preparation period aimed at becoming disillusioned with our abilities?

Answer: Of course! The first phase is necessary to confirm that my entire being is singularly egoistic in all my thoughts, actions, and desires.

This egoism disconnects me from the Creator; that is the main point. I am not just an egoist, no. The egoism disconnects me from the Creator so much that I start to get angry at myself, at others, and at Him, and wonder why this is happening. I am in a struggle between Him and me and don’t know whether to justify Him or not for what is happening to me.

The most unpleasant, terrible things, happen to me with such inner scrutiny and analysis that an ordinary person does not face. To show me the lowliness of egoism, I am given situations in which I am terribly embarrassed in front of society and very afraid of “exposing” my bad thoughts and desires so as not to be judged or marginalized.

Such sensations are deliberately sent from above to shake a person so he would rise above his states, will not treat them carelessly, and would realize they are all products of his egoism. That is, in order to be in the property of bestowal, you need to think not about yourself, but you must be above yourself, not to avoid shame, but to truly reveal that the property of bestowal is worth paying anything for.

Thus, there are such internal scrutinies that you cannot describe. I believe that, in the future, there will be works of art that describe what Kabbalists discuss in their articles, but in a more artistic, psychologically detailed form.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Over the Machsom” 9/12/10

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Question: You once said that there are many souls that are revealed without clothing in bodies in this world. The body is a help for interaction between souls. But there are forms of souls that are not able to understand where they are. Does it mean that there are souls that perceive this world and others that do not feel this reality?

Answer: In the beginning, a desire was created that was obligated to descend to the very bottom, to a complete disconnection from the light. Only from this lowest state, standing on it with its own feet, does it begin to properly attain itself. But not in the place where we are now, in bodies, because the lowest state is considered to be the state in which we begin to feel the Creator.

Our current state is completely disconnected from the true reality. We exist as if in an unconscious state. We are turned and moved around, but we ourselves, in essence, do nothing. Various actions are performed on us, actions we must go through in order to develop the initial feeling of the light in ourselves, that is, the quality opposite to ours.

As soon as we become able to feel it even a little, to become aware of it, to understand it, then we will immediately find ourselves truly existing on the minimal spiritual degree. And our prior state is like an embryo in a mother’s womb, that cannot be spoken of as existing because the mother does everything for it, and it is only a preparatory process for the birth of the organism.

Although we speak of it as something that exists, something that cannot be killed, still, in any case, it is nobody and nothing. Right now, we are in exactly such a state.

But as soon as we rise to the first spiritual state, its growth begins. That is, we will continuously grow head upward, higher and higher, until the world of infinity, passing through 125 degrees, just as, for example, a human being grows from zero to 125 centimeters.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Soul Without a Body,” 10/5/10

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Comment: Any system, any hierarchy, is built on a leader.

My Response: No. In Kabbalah, the leaders are different. Our leader will be the one who completely annuls himself in relation to me. People still do not understand how strict the hierarchy is in the spiritual world.

In any corporeal sciences or in any corporeal achievements, you can surpass your teacher, move forward and further, as, for example, in the development of sciences. The same applies to children: We want them to develop even more and deeper.

But in Kabbalah a very interesting process takes place. There are two paths in it—from top to bottom and from bottom to top, from the world of infinity to us and from our world to the world of infinity.

Receiving information and spiritual instruction occurs from the top down, and therefore it goes through Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David, and so on, that is, through all Kabbalists, and ultimately through my teacher and me to those who are my students and even those who are not.

Suppose people listened to us for a bit, picked up this contact, and they disappeared to who knows where; it does not matter. Even if they live somewhere else and study with someone else, it is not important. As a result, they will come to the same result and then, as if, return back.

What do I want to say? In receiving information from above, a student must annul himself before me. This is called the condition of learning from me “mouth to mouth” (“peh el peh“) on the common level of the screen. This is very important! Baal HaSulam writes about this in many of his works.

I cannot say this to the students, because, first of all, there are those who will think that I need their worship, or that they should completely “erase themselves.” The student must gradually understand what it means to cling to the upper, and on the other hand, he must try to be independent all the time.

Any spiritual state consists of two opposites, and the problem lies in our adapting us to it. Therefore, I am very sorry that sometimes such rejections of students from me occur. But nothing can be done.

Either they do such stupid things themselves that can only be compensated later by many years of searching and by other alternative actions of correction instead of those that they should have done earlier.

It was the same for me with my teacher. There is no such thing as going through it absolutely smoothly. There were many small, stupid distances from him: disobedience, even neglect, depending on the level at which all this is evaluated, measured, weighed.

I am absolutely certain that there has never been a student in history who could completely, from the first moment to the last, annul himself before the teacher, so that information would flow into him from top to bottom in the same way with as a fetus in the mother’s womb, when it completely annuls and therefore becomes an integral part of her body and thus develops.

I see that what happened to me happens very often to my students. I was not the most compliant student; on the contrary, there was something in me…

Question: Is it better for a student’s advancement when he is compliant or rebellious?

Answer: It depends on the root of the soul.

Comment: You know that there are students who do everything without question. On the other hand, there are those who resist.

My Response: This is not the kind of resistance and this is not the kind of submission. Submission can stem from pride, while resistance, on the contrary, from the desire to feel as quickly as possible at the junction of contact, in contradictions, where a person must change himself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pyramid” 9/18/10

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Comment: You once said that 99.9% of people who study Kabbalah leave before they reach the initial state.

My Response: Usually, in their attempts to ascend, many fall from this path. Then in the next cycle, or after several years, they try again. It is very difficult.

In principle, 99% leave because they do not understand or do not realize that 99% of their effort is the effort of the upper light. The light works on them, and they need to contribute only 1%.

But this participation must be very subtle, delicate, and selective. It must be precisely such that it draws the influence of the upper light upon oneself. A person, when he carries out certain actions, should assume that through these actions he is drawing the upper light onto himself, and see his future and his fulfillment in this alone. It is as if you are waiting for air, for something that does not depend on you, it will come, and that is it!

This is the state that we must have, where we act with all our strength—we study, we try to unite, to disseminate, anything—and on the inside there is this feeling of waiting. This is the concept of “awaiting the Messiah.”

This is why Jews were called “zhidy”—from the word “to wait”—those who wait for redemption. This is the redemption.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Soul without a Body,” 10/5/10

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Question: Lately, I cannot understand what faith above reason is. Could you explain how one reaches this state, and what it actually is? As I understand, it is given by the Creator, and without this faith, one cannot move anywhere.

Answer: Faith above reason is that the intention to bestow and love are higher (in importance) than the intention for one’s own sake.

This happens under the influence of the surrounding light that descends during study, and while participating in the group, and dissemination. Until the light gives you this quality, you cannot understand it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/08

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Comment: You have a very broad mind, but the human brain cannot perceive and sense the entire universe so broadly. There is wisdom in you.

My Response: This is a consequence of spiritual attainment, not because on the earthly level I am intelligent. On the earthly level, I am not Newton or Einstein.

Question: Then where does your vast knowledge come from?

Answer: The fact is that I have a completely different volume of desire. In my desire, I look at everything that happens in this world as a game of little children. I see our world on a level that I can easily grasp, understand it through-and-through from top to bottom and from bottom to top in its entire volume, in all its connections. For me, it is like a sandwich.

I see it consisting of four parts: still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of matter, and see how they interact with each other and gradually develop so that the human level will finally rise upward, into the spiritual world, and pull all the other levels along with it.

I see this purely speculatively, visually, but precisely because I have developed a spiritual Kli, a spiritual desire, within myself. Otherwise, I would not be able to see with such volume and such clarity from top to bottom and, so to speak, manipulate it.

I have spoken with scientists in our world with great minds who contain so much information based on the fact that “someone said,” “someone thinks,” “according to this,” NS “according to that.” They drown in an enormous mass of information, unable to chew it. Because they rely on knowledge, and therefore, it is difficult for them.

Question: But you cannot see through all the states of other people, can you? You are not omnipresent to see everything as if on a plate.

Answer: Yes, I see nature in general. Of course, I do not know all the states, all the metamorphoses, everything that happens and passes through each one. I simply know the general plan of development. I have gone through it myself and therefore understand what the others must go through since the path of the individual and the path of the whole are absolutely identical.

I know the nature of all transformations and changes, and therefore, it is no secret to me. I do not know a person’s private states; I am not a psychic who can look at another person and say what he is thinking, like Wolf Messing.

Kabbalah, by the way, does not give such abilities at all (to do some kind of extrasensory tricks in our world, perform various stunts, add twenty-digit fractions, numbers, and so on). It does not allow seeing the past or seeing the future in a private sense; it simply gives the general system of all development. You feel how you pass through this system, and understand from what you are now going through, how it must develop further.

You do not enter private souls. And why is that needed? What difference does it make what I might see in others?

Question: So, you recall the states you went through, and only because of this can you understand what is happening with a person?

Answer: Of course, only from my own experience and only up to the degree on which I am today. If you ask me about what is above this degree, I can only guess, I am not certain, absolutely not certain.

Moreover, all my experience tells me that all this is absolutely incorrect. On the contrary, if you tell me: “What do you think: will it be this way or that way,” I can tell you anything, and it will still be unpredictable.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Reason and Feelings” 10/5/10

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Question: You say that everything spiritual is feelings. What are feelings?

Answer: Feelings are what happens in the desire, and desire is our matter. That is, we are talking about matter and the form of matter. This is what we study in Kabbalah and what we can sense, analyze, and reproduce. Therefore, absolutely everything is in our feelings.

Comment: But feelings don’t have a specific location.

My Response: Desire is the very place in which you sense what you feel. My desire is the only reality. And all the objects surrounding me only seem to exist. In fact, they are drawn for me in my desire. Besides desire, there is nothing. Matter is desire.

Comment: In reality, this is something inexplicable.

My Response: It simply cannot be grasped.

Comment: Neither feelings nor desire can be conveyed in any way. Only if, as you say, there is a common form. If someone has experienced it, they can convey the feeling.

My Response: That is why I try, in some way, to push students to start writing emotional works about everyday situations that would lead a person to a certain awakening, similar to a spiritual one, and would accelerate their development.

Question: Is it possible to convey Kabbalah in this way? Can you take all the explanations from the heights and transmit them in a sensory form?

Answer: Yes, try to present all this in the form of various novels. One can, of course, write purely psychologically about a person’s inner states, even when he doesn’t intersect with others. Or one can base it on his relationships with a group, with friends, with animals, with women; it doesn’t matter.

That is, the foundation is always the same, only more complicated. Just like in our world: There are more intelligent people, there are less educated ones, but the foundation is always the same—emotional.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reason and Feelings” 10/5/10

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