Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a spiritual journey like?“

We have the ability to rise to a level where we can see the origin of our experiences and observe life from a different vantage point.

What is this new perspective we can reach?

It is one where we attribute much less importance to our corporeal experiences and relate solely to the true spiritual world.

When we attain the upper spiritual world, then our world, which we build out of various unreal experiences—where we are impressed by nonsense inflated by imaginations and delusions—no longer impresses us. The spiritual world is a sensation of a single force of love and bestowal above our corporeal sensation, and its attainment means letting our soul guide our spiritual life. When we are guided by our soul, we go through an opening to a state where we mutually complement each other in an eternal and perfect life, adhering with the upper spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection. We then become boundless, rising above the limits of our corporeal sensation of reality.

The ultimate experience we aspire to reach is spiritual revelation, which is known as “the revelation of the Creator” or “the revelation of the upper force” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Creator is the source of reality—the source of our experiences and fate. Through the aspiration to discover and feel such a force, we eventually reach the attainment of life’s source.

Based on the video, “Spirituality: A Journey Above Human Limits,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?“

We live in times of great change. Today’s world has become more interconnected and interdependent than ever before, and in order for us to adapt to such changes, we need to broaden our hearts—not physically, but emotionally.

We need to start feeling that the world is a part of us, and that we care about other people and the world as we care about ourselves. Until that happens, the world will increasingly deteriorate, and we human beings will also suffer more and more. Such a tendency could continue until only a small number of people survive, living life in a very primitive way, and they would finally decide to make that change.

The change that we need to make is entirely up to us. Unlike animals, which instinctively adapt to certain changes in the world, we need to make a decision and ask for this specific change to happen. It is because we are above nature’s still, vegetative and animate levels, which instinctively follow nature’s commands. We have room for free choice precisely in this change—to shift from self-concern to concern about others and the world—and accordingly, we need to digest the changes taking place and intentionally want to change.

Based on the video “How to Adapt to Climate Change” 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: “How do we change our perception of life to become happier?“

We first need to understand how we perceive life, which is through a lens of self-concern. We do not perceive life as is, but we have five senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste, five openings through which we constantly receive information. If we transcend our five senses, then we come to sense a new and different reality.

Everything that we perceive is in our ego, i.e. in our desire to enjoy with an intention to enjoy for self-benefit alone. This ego accompanies and directs us to enjoy every moment of our lives, to gain as much as we can, and lose as little as possible. Nature has programmed us to desire, think and act out of self-concern at every moment, and our bodies do so in very sophisticated and clever ways. Our perception of life is thus very limited, in terms of what we want, what we understand and feel, what we receive, and what we own.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we exist in an eternal, abundant and perfect reality, and our perception greatly narrows this reality to a tiny limited point. We have no idea about the vastness of the options and opportunities that exist in the universe. It turns out that our bodies are our enemies, not our friends, as they force us to live inside them, detached from the abundant pleasure that exists outside.

Therefore, the key to change our perception of life and become happier is to exit the perception of life we receive through our five senses, and enter into a new perception of life: one above our bodies, where we open a new sense that can perceive the eternal and perfect reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah calls this new sense a “screen” (“Masach” in Hebrew), and the entire method of Kabbalah is aimed at developing this screen up to a point where we discover everything we possibly can in our perception of life. By doing so, we gain access to the source of happiness, i.e. we achieve happiness in its eternal, perfect and true form, and thus become happy in the truest sense of the term.

Based on the video “How to Perceive a Different Reality” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is up with all the violence today?“

Today’s society has become very individualistic. One phenomenon in relation to today’s society is that in the past, we had more of a sense of belonging to the family, and we were enveloped in a certain kind of calmness, we had different attitudes toward each other.

Today, we have lost that sense of calm. The world consists of nearly eight billion complete strangers. Moreover, we can even feel ourselves as strangers within the same household, with children feeling detached from their parents, and spouses also feeling detached toward each other. We have largely lost our feeling of our household, our family, our relatives, and our fellow citizens in our cities and countries.

Altogether, today we have no feeling of inner connection to other people. Perhaps this is a positive state in relation to our future, i.e. that it is a state of transition toward feeling a global humanity with no differences between people. However, in the meantime, we see that the natural ties that existed between us for thousands of years are being torn.

Another phenomenon is that we are generally under much more stress today because more and more of us cannot keep up with the pace of life. By nature, we are not built for the kinds of stressful lives that we experience in today’s world. Our nervous system cannot function normally at such a fast pace. It is like we are keeping a car engine running at high rpm’s. How long can we keep that up? Eventually, we must decrease the load and take the car for a tune-up. The increasing tendency to commit violence thus also comes as a result of our increasingly individualistic society operating at such a fast pace of life.

Based on the video, “Why Is Violence on the Rise?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Yael Leshed-Harel.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do so many people get divorced each year?“

A very large amount of people get divorced in our times because their love eventually turns into hatred, and no one teaches them how to build a relationship that treats both love and hatred as necessary in a healthy relationship.

How are both love and hatred necessary in a healthy relationship today? It is on the condition that we can navigate these opposites so that they complement each other, thereby strengthening the love.

By learning how to navigate the complementarity of these opposites, hatred will then never shatter the relationship, making us want to break up, but will act like a spice that adds flavors to a constantly-blossoming love.

We need to discover negative aspects about our partner, and to do so precisely in our desire to strengthen our love. Then, negative phenomena in our relationships would not cause us to run away from our partners, but the resistance would only strengthen the love, and we would feel our love grow more and more.

Based on the video “The Need for Love to Cover All Crimes in Relationships” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I get connected with a higher source?“

We can connect with a higher source by inviting that higher source into our lives. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the higher source is called the “upper light.” It is an abstract force and informational field.

How can we invite this higher source into our lives? One aspect of doing so depends on the amount of people who aim the concentration of their desires to be connected as one, and to use this higher source for the sake and benefit of others. This altruistic approach to others is the key to connecting with that higher source.

Inside us, we have a desire that we can develop into what Kabbalah calls a “Kli” (vessel/tool/receptacle) for creating a connection with the higher source, the abstract upper light. A central aspect in establishing such a connection is our desire: what do we want from this connection? If we organize ourselves in a group, and focus solely on rising above our self-aimed desires in a common direction to a common form—one of positive connection among us and with that higher source—then we will experience a significant transformation: the reception of new knowledge, forces, qualities and relationships with others. In short, everything that stands between the person and the world will change. Moreover, the more people in the group we work with, then the greater are the forces that we receive in order to implement such a change.

If we wish to be connected with the higher source, the upper light, in order for it to change us, to give us the strength to positively connect above our individual desires, then by our correct yearning, we generate a positive future form within us. We then raise a demand for that transformation, and connect to the field of the upper force with our desire.

Based on the video “How to Connect to the Field of the Upper Light” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can Israel change public opinion that they are committing Apartheid against Palestinians?“

We, the people of Israel, need to construct ourselves according to what made us the people of Israel to begin with: that our connections to each other will be based on the tenet “Love your friend as yourself,” and that we would think, want and act accordingly, generating an atmosphere of mutual support among us.

If we choose to take this path, then we will attract certain forces to ourselves that would make it impossible for anyone to harm us, and which would also invert the growing negative public opinion against us into a positive one. That is, by realizing what made us the people of Israel to begin with, we realize our role in the world, become a conduit to attract positive forces to ourselves, pass those forces onward to humanity at large, and as such, we would see public opinion shift to a positive form.

We are all egoists, i.e., with a sole concern for ourselves alone. This ego, the prioritization of self-benefit over benefiting others, which develops to a desire to exploit others for personal gain, is the cause of the world’s increasing problems and crises. We, the people of Israel, were once granted access to a special wisdom that can connect us positively above our egos. In our current era, the ability and the wisdom to positively connect above our egos has started becoming a global necessity.

Therefore, the more we fail to implement this wisdom upon ourselves—the longer we take to implement positive connections above our egos—the more people around the world will suffer, the more they will subconsciously feel that we are to blame for their problems.

We can thus expect public opinion to grow increasingly negative against us until we wake up to the special wisdom and connection that we need to realize, which has the power to invert the amassing negativity against us into a positive, supportive and favorable opinion.

Based on the video “Israel’s Best Defense to the War of Public Opinion Against it Is Unity” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum Moshe and Oren Levi.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are a list of good opened ended questions to ask people (first time meeting or talking) for starting a conversation?“

What is a human being?

How do we perceive our environment?

How do we perceive life?

How do we change throughout life?

How can we change our perception of life, to see a happy life instead of a sad one?

How can we know more about who we are?

We unfortunately lack complete understanding about life and the world, and in order to better understand them, we need to understand human nature, which is also unclear and unknown to us.

If we hold more conversations on such topics, we will find that life is full of phenomena that we previously paid no attention to, and which will then start opening up to us.

Based on the video “How to Have More Meaningful Conversations” 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: “What is the significance of eating together?“

When we are together, we can enjoy an atmosphere of mutual connection, giving and helping.

There is thus an immense growth in the reception of spiritual fulfillment. Why? It is because we open our hearts to each other.

Spiritual fulfillment is felt in our hearts. The more we wish to benefit others, the more we open a place in our hearts that can become filled with a spiritual sensation, i.e. a pleasurable sensation of giving and bestowal.

Our inclination to eat together extends from our spiritual root where we are connected as a single whole: the soul or system called “Adam HaRishon” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. What we can learn from such a state is that if we wish to reach a complete and whole sensation of fulfillment, i.e. spiritual fulfillment, then we should devote ourselves to connecting positively to each other.

Based on the video “What Is the Spiritual Meaning of Eating Together?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum Moshe and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What happens to human consciousness after death?“

Nothing disappears in nature. Rather, everything transitions from one state to another.

Consciousness thus transitions from one form to another, from one carrier to another, that is, if we consider that it even exists in us to begin with.

Consciousness is not necessarily inside us. It surrounds us. We could say that it exists in a completely different dimension, and our brain is like a modem that tunes into consciousness to the extent that it needs to realize itself at a certain moment.

In other words, there is a general, collective consciousness, and there is the individual’s consciousness, which we each receive from the collective consciousness. The individual consciousness that we each receive passes on from one carrier to another. It remains in reality, only changing its structure and design, similar to how our body decomposes into basic elements and reemerges as different forms.

The self that we each currently identify with is not our physical body, but it exists in consciousness. In and of itself, consciousness is information that exists beyond the parameters of time, space and motion, permeating the entirety of nature. Information thus does not disappear, but changes its medium, and we have no ability to point out exactly the form and the place of its existence.

Consciousness is always collective, but our level of awareness of the collective consciousness depends on the extent to which we each participate in it. Accordingly, to the extent of our participation in the collective consciousness, we can expand our individual consciousness. In other words, by increasing our connection to others, we gain more of the picture of the collective consciousness that exists outside our individual consciousness. However, no matter how much we perceive and attain of the collective consciousness, it is always within the limits of individual consciousness.

Therefore, concepts of death and the corporeal world in general are illusory and nonexistent. Rather, everything is omnipresent in consciousness.

Based on a Kabbalah lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 25, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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