Question: Why does Kabbalah say that every person should change himself? If we are all one common system, let Kabbalists change everything.

Answer: How can I change you? You have your own egoism, your own qualities; I have my own, and I have no power over you. Every person must reach this state, and everyone can and must ultimately control their own fate. That’s when he will reach an understanding of a common idea, a common thought.

Question: So Kabbalah gives a person the opportunity to become the master of his own destiny and not just predict some events?

Answer: Kabbalah does not make predictions at all. This is exactly what is forbidden in Kabbalah, because you go deeper into predicting the future, instead of changing yourself so that this future will be good.

Question: So, in principle, predictions change nothing?

Answer: Of course. This is just a game, and therefore Kabbalah forbids it.

But there is immortality! And it is very easy to reach this degree. I invite everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Secrets of Immortality” 1/7/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there free will in this world?“

There is no free will in our world. Free will is possible only if we have an opportunity to rise above the egoistic nature of our world, i.e. the nature where we wish to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature, which determines our decisions and behavior.

We consider ourselves free for as long as we do not think about it and identify ourselves with our animate body. But if we rose above our body a little, we would see that it strictly obeys the laws and processes it is subject to.

We think that we determine all kinds of choices in our lives. However, we are placed in certain conditions and given certain inner qualities, while our desire to enjoy runs like an engine according to a simple principle: maximum pleasure and gain for minimum effort and investment.

We calculate according to this principle at every moment, direction, place and in relation to everything. That is how nature works. It takes into consideration various conditions, such as how tired and healthy we are, and how much risk is involved versus the quality and quantity of enjoyment—and accordingly passes out decisions. We can thus see how we remain in the ego, and how there is no free will in its range of functioning.

We have to realize that we can realize our free will by controlling and being above our desire. The more we stay in our egoistic desire, the more we remain as obedient puppets, fully controlled by egoism.

If, however, we wish to take control of the situation, then we have to manage our desire, which is done by rising above it. In other words, we can experience free will, but only above desire.

Then the question becomes: How can we rise above our egoistic nature in order to realize our free will?

That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah engages in.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on November 26, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the importance of humans to the Earth?“

The importance of humans to the Earth is that we truly realize what it means to become human, and fulfill our role here by doing so.

Becoming human means adjusting our attitude toward people and nature on all of its levels—the still, vegetative, animate and speaking—so that our attitude aligns with the altruistic attitude sourced in nature.

In other words, we need love. By increasing love in our relations, we can stop the spread of hatred. By failing to add love in our relations, we let hatred abound and thus find that we become increasingly imbalanced among each other and with nature.

Planet Earth feels human attitudes, whether or not we feel love, hate or anything else. We live on a living organism, which is now suffering.

In order to alleviate the Earth’s suffering and to make the Earth happy, we need only wish to create a positive, mutual and balanced life, that we become the source of this newfound balance, and we will then also bring balance to the planet, to the atmosphere, and to everything else in nature.

When we reach balance among each other and with nature, we will experience a whole new abundant and perfect life.

Based on the video “It’s Time to Reassess Our Relationship With Nature” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why should you care?“

If we fail to reach mutual care in our times, then we can expect ourselves as a humanity to regress, rather than progress, as we head into the future.

Any current progress we make is for profit purposes. If there were no thirst for money, would medicine and surgery continue developing? Nothing would develop. We would live as if in a primitive society.

However, in our times we will feel a growing awareness of the need for mutual care. For the time being, however, the modern world does everything possible in order to obscure it, even though it is crucial to its survival.

Today, human egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—undergoes immense exponential growth, and we cannot object to its demands. Our overblown egoism could lead us to such disastrous states as nuclear wars, or nature itself will trap us with its own disasters, and it would all be in order for us to reach an agreement: that we invert our attitudes to each other, to solely consider the other’s benefit without taking ourselves into account.

By making such a fateful shift in our attitudes to each other—to become more caring for each other—we would see the dark picture of the world fade away, and a new harmonious and peaceful world open up to us.

Based on the video “Here’s the CONSCIOUSNESS SHIFT We’re on the Threshold of Making” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the root of depression?“

Depression is rooted in our nature, which is a desire to enjoy.

If we fulfill the desire to enjoy with a suitable fulfillment, then we feel good. But if we do not give the desire to enjoy what it wants, then it starts eating us alive, and we call that feeling “depression.”

Ultimately, the solution to depression is in finding a way to bring our desire to enjoy fulfillment that is constant and increasing.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: how we can receive that which will make us feel good and better all the time. It is a sensation like nothing we have experienced in our world. Think about being hungry, and then you get to eat as much of your favorite food as you want, and in addition, the pleasure from the food together with your hunger just keeps increasing the more that you eat.

In order to fulfill ourselves completely, we need a new fulfillment that extends from the same root as our depression, our empty desire, and which can thus become fully compatible with that desire.

Based on the video “Depression’s Causes and Solution [in 2 Minutes]” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Damir Samatkulov on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there anything which is more important than love?“

Love is simultaneously life’s most elusive and most important quality.

It is the source of life.

Without love, there is no life. Without connection, there is no creation.

But we should be careful to understand what love truly means: Love means love of the other, without involving oneself in the relationship.

But how can we love anyone or anything regardless of ourselves? What does it give us? What does love project onto us? Why would we love?

We accumulate countless positive and negative experiences in our lives with their numerous insights, so it sounds strange that love is all that remains.

But it is truly so because there is nothing stronger than love.

Based on the video “Why Is Love Most Important in Life?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where will this path of consumerism lead us as a futuristic, global society?“

As a consumerist society, we are headed to a state where we will see that humanity becomes increasingly devoid of meaning.

We do not need over 90 percent of what we keep ourselves busy with. All the while, nature also lets us know that its resources are limited.

We will come to realize that we are done with consumerism, and that we need to rise to new and completely different values.

We need to reach a state where our entire range of desires to receive—food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge—will invert their direction from reception to bestowal, to giving. We will then feel how our fulfillment changes at its essence.

Based on the video “Where Are We Headed?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Tomasz Frankowski on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I connect myself with the spiritual world?“

We connect with the spiritual world by rising above our ego.

What is the ego? It is our inborn nature that desires to enjoy at the expense of others and nature.

Rising above this nature means bestowing good onto others, even though it is not to our own benefit. In other words, we place a restriction over our own benefit: we stop thinking about ourselves, and solely consider the benefit of others. Doing so makes us similar to the qualities of the spiritual world, those of love, bestowal and connection.

The key here is that we work on our connections with people. Our ego operates in relation to others, and by rising above our egoistic forces of wishing to receive from others for ourselves, and wishing to benefit them instead, then to the extent in which we do so, we enter into a perception and sensation of the spiritual world.

We thus connect with the spiritual world by correcting our connections to each other. We then start understanding, discovering and perceiving the spiritual world not as outside of us, but that it truly envelops us.

Based on the video “Is Your Spiritual Connection Real or Fantasy?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: The philosopher-enlightener Voltaire described the idea of achieving universal peace as an armed overthrow of rulers because they are not interested in preserving peace. Or it could be done by a revolution from below when enlightened rulers establish peace in the interests of the people or the nation.

Can peace be established either by the forces of the masses or by rulers from above?

Answer: Neither one nor the other. In general, the phrase “peace is established” does not add up. It cannot be.

Peace is born from the awareness of the need to unite opposites through our efforts. We must constantly make these efforts because everything is dynamic, and then there will be peace.

The necessity of peace comes from the realization that all of nature is dynamic and therefore needs unification of all opposites. In such a state they all get the opportunity for maximum development, mutual help, and mutual complementation at the same time. It is most important. If we find these two conditions that can coexist together, then we will achieve peace.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 3/4/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is a spiritual person?“

A person with spiritual attainment is one who starts feeling the upper reality of love, bestowal and connection, and who lives in that reality. It is a person who rises to a level of connection with the reality beyond everything we know and feel in our current reality. There are no words to explain the sensation, and about it is written, “Taste and see that the Creator is good.”

Based on a video “Who Is a Person With Spiritual Attainment?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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