Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you understand the way that your spirituality has been part of your life?“

People on the spiritual path feel that their daily lives, everything they experience, fits in with this path.

For instance, if you work in an office for eight-to-ten hours a day, you understand that it is part of your spiritual work. If you hold the need to spiritually progress while working, then through your every motion, you let spiritual energy pass through you. Such an approach is necessary in order to reach spiritual corrections, i.e., the attainment of an intention to love and bestow above the inborn desire to receive.

This world’s myriad interactions are given to us so that we influence each other with spiritual energy. Therefore, if we approach our daily lives in a way where we receive spiritual fulfillment from our spiritual studies, and then interact at workplaces and other daily activities among several people who have no spiritual interests, then we become kinds of “spiritual undercover agents,” channeling spiritual content through society to humanity at large. They also feel a positive effect from this work, even though they cannot pinpoint exactly what they feel and where it comes from.

By operating in such a way, we connect to each other and imbue the world with spirituality. Moreover, for people who wish to spiritually advance, it becomes a necessity to do so.

Our world has been created such that we have families, relationships, work and other social interactions—not in order for us to shy away from such relations, but so that through full contact with society, we add our intention to positively connect everyone harmoniously, and by doing so, bring ourselves closer to spirituality. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah states that anyone wishing to attain spirituality should connect themselves to society, build a family and work, as it lets the spiritual forces drawn through the study stream out to society at large. The more we spiritually advance, the more we see that spirituality exists in positive human connections.

Therefore, if you try and apply the intention to positively connect to others with an attitude of love and bestowal in your daily life, you will see success; your friends and coworkers will relate differently to you, and you will also reach spiritual accomplishments while doing so.

We need to see that our connection to humanity holds the potential for our spiritual realization. Thus, with our spiritual circles, as well as with our families, friends, coworkers and others, we should seek to strengthen our inner connection to the spiritual forces of love and bestowal through our spiritual environment, and transmit those forces to humanity.

Based on the World Zohar Week Lesson on February 2, 2014. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you feel about the universe?“

The universe appears to be enormous, but it is in fact minuscule in comparison to the world that we can discover if we rise above the limits imposed on us by our inborn egoistic nature.

If we break free from our egoistic approach to life by developing an additional sense of bestowal, then we enter the perception of a completely new reality existing outside us.

Our inborn five senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste—are senses of reception. They draw information from a source unknown to us, and what we ultimately perceive is an extremely narrow corporeal picture of reality. And within this narrow picture of reality, we perceive a wide and expansive universe with unfathomable space.

However, we perceive such a picture through our five limiting senses. The reason for perceiving through narrow channels that limit the information we receive is so that we will develop a desire to break beyond the limits of this perception, and by doing so, discover a truly wider and broader reality.

The question then becomes, how can we break free from such a limiting picture where we wish to receive into ourselves at every moment? The answer is—by developing a new sense of bestowal. The attainment of a new sense that feels reality not through reception, but through bestowal, will let us exit our physical sphere of time, space and motion, and discover a much more expansive reality than the universe we currently perceive.

The method for the development of this additional sense is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” By applying this method, we can develop a new sense of bestowal and love, which grants us a new perception of the eternal spiritual world. We then discover that another reality exists adjacent to our current one, but it becomes revealed through a new perception and sensation of reality: from oneself outward.

Therefore, it is written that “Love your friend as yourself” is “a great rule of the Torah,” because it points to the quality that we need to develop in order to attain a new sense of bestowal and love. By undergoing this shift in perception, we come to sense the spiritual world and the upper force filling reality.

Based on an interview with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on an Israeli Radio Program, 103FM, on August 16, 2015.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash.

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Question: What does love of life mean to you?

Answer: Love of life is an opportunity to achieve what I really strive for.

Question: What is eternal love?

Answer: Eternal love is a state of absolute fulfillment, which does not entail any opportunities to add something.

Question: What is absolute love?

Answer: The same.

Question: First love?

Answer: It is just a youthful hobby that lyricists invented.

Question: Love without borders?

Answer: Here we mean, probably, eternal, perfect love.

Question: Love for the family?

Answer: This kind of love arises because there are people I must take care of.

Question: What does love of friends mean to you?

Answer: Friends, comrades, this is the small circle of people with whom I wish to climb to the top of life.

Question: Love for the teacher?

Answer: A teacher is a guide that shows me how to develop my soul and make myself immortal.

Question: Love for your neighbor?

Answer: All people on Earth are neighbors. They are parts of our common soul—Adam.

Question: Love for yourself?

Answer: Self-love is selfish love over which one must rise as quickly as possible.

Question: Love for the Creator, what is it?

Answer: Love for the Creator is love for the entire universe, which is permeated with the property of reciprocity and convergence.
[275667]
From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/23/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do people discover true love?“

We first need to understand that we have no idea what true love is. Until we reach true love, we interpret love in all kinds of corporeal and egoistic ways, i.e., where we primarily benefit ourselves from whatever we picture as love.

True love, however, is completely different. True love is the ability to benefit others, to sense others’ desires and to enjoy via their fulfillment. The realization of true love is by nature contrary to how we define love in corporeal terms.

True love is ultimately the unification of humanity into a single common system. We currently experience this system in its opposite form, through egoistic lenses, where we constantly try to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature, and by doing so, feel a certain degree of separation and distance in our attitudes to each other. By aiming to unite above this egoistic state we find ourselves in, we discover our rejection to each other, and eventually arrive at the realization that we need to rise above our differences, and forms bonds of true love. The more that we feel growing distance between us, the more we will develop a sincere desire to bridge this distance with a genuine attitude of love and care.

True love is thus the unification of opposites, when hatred and rejection become covered in a common umbrella of love. The more that we move toward unification above our inborn egoistic distance, then the more we will begin to sense a new kind of atmosphere entering our lives, giving us a much fuller feeling of fulfillment than everything else we have enjoyed to date.

The discovery of true love entering our lives is thus an opening to discover the perfection and wholeness existing in reality. Instead of feeling a narrow and detached sensation of life in our inborn egoistic qualities, we would “click” into a perception and sensation of reality similar to how cells and organs function and feel the whole organism that they are parts of. In such a state, we would feel constant fluctuations between the negative-egoistic and positive-altruistic poles of reality as we would continually cover our differences and divisions with a much greater force of unification. As such, we would feel ourselves in an eternal world where life constantly ebbs and flows.

When we transition from our inborn egoistic mode of wishing to benefit ourselves at others’ expense, to an altruistic mode of wanting to benefit others, we feel our instinctive egoistic impulses as negative forces that we rise above. By rising above the ego, we sense forces of connection, giving and love—the positive and eternal forces dwelling in nature—and complement each other in a common tendency to make that shift.

This fateful shift depends solely on the extent of our unification, where we rise above our differences and divisions and start fulfilling one another. The feeling of mutual fulfillment gives us a sense of eternal life.

To discover this true love, we need only learn how to upgrade our connections, to mutually complement and fulfill one another, and to replace our egoistic lenses where we see flaws in others, to ones where we feel any egoistic impulse as an invitation to unite above the differences.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 22, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is nationalism racism?“

Nationalism and racism share the same root. They both stem from an event that we study in the wisdom of Kabbalah called “the shattering of the common system of Adam HaRishon,” where we broke off from feeling that we all belong to a single system, and became different parts.

The purpose of our lives, while we are alive in this world, is to reconnect these parts and discover the complete system that is above our current perception and sensation of reality.

What exactly these parts are, how they differ from each other, and even how they should connect—is all fruitless knowledge that fails to serve our progress to our goal. In other words, focusing on and examining our differences gives us nothing.

It is important, however, to realize a sincere desire to connect above our differences, where on one hand, we each maintain all kinds of differences to each other, but on the other hand, we rise above them and discover our sublime and harmonious connection as a single whole.

Based on the talk “Communication Skills. Communication Difficulties,” on October 14, 2020.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is gratitude?“

One of my students asked me, as a Kabbalist, what is gratitude according to the wisdom of Kabbalah? Kabbalah is a serious wisdom, and so when it discusses gratitude, it means spiritual gratitude. What, then, is spiritual gratitude?

Spiritual gratitude first and foremost relates to a person with a desire and goal to attain spirituality. Such a person has no knowledge of what spirituality is, but feels an inner need, and eventually starts studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn that the purpose of creation is for all people to discover the harmony and bliss of connecting between the force of creation—reception—and its opposite spiritual force—bestowal. What does this mean?

On the way to discovering this sublime connection, we need to reveal how we are under the ego’s control, and that the ego is an evil and destructive force. Why is the ego evil and destructive? It is because it pits people up against each other, devours nature, our environment, and eventually, it also destroys itself, because it makes us want to enjoy things that provide short-term satisfaction, but which are ultimately bad for us in the long term. The revelation of the human ego as an evil and destructive force is called the “recognition of evil” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. “Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “reception,” and through this wisdom, we discover how we exist in a negative form of reception, where we want to receive and pull to ourselves, and that we do not ultimately benefit from trying to do so.

However, opposite this negative force of reception is a positive force of good, the force of bestowal. The force of bestowal can balance the receiving force, and then between these two forces we can exist in harmony by connecting between the positive and negative poles of reality.

The combination of these two forces is at the basis of everything we create, because specifically by the correct combination between these two poles of reality, we can discover how to live error-free and fix all the problems that emanate from relating to reality solely from its negative egoistic side.

By unconsciously letting the human ego drive our considerations and actions, we let the steamroller of evolution flatten us by delving deeper and deeper into seemingly irresolvable problems on personal, social, economic, ecological and global scales. The ego, without its balancing and regulating connection to the force of bestowal, stands behind every problem we experience in life.

We thus need to learn how to work with our ego in order to know how to balance it with its opposite positive force. When we succeed to invite the positive force into our lives, even in the tiniest amount, against the inborn negative force, we become grateful for having been given the negative force as our nature. In other words, by connecting to the positive force of bestowal above the negative egoistic force, we discover that the negative force is in fact a good force if we can use it as an impetus to increase our positive connection above it.

Balancing both positive and negative force is what King David describes in Psalms when he says, “You have saved my soul.” That is, before we receive the positive force, we only exist in the negative force, and we end up feeling terrible in that state. Then, after quite an extended period of time, we reach the state where we also receive the positive force, and when we do, we feel grateful. The gratitude we feel at that point is spiritual.

Based on “Spiritual Gratitude | New Life with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman | 1139,” February 4, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Watch the full talk here » [27:19]

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you believe will be the next big innovations in humanity?“

There will be no more big innovations in humanity. The era of great discoveries is behind us.

The next major innovation will take place solely through self-transformation, i.e., by working on ourselves to transform our egoistic selves—where we want to benefit ourselves alone—to altruistic ones—where we wish to benefit others.

This egoistic-to-altruistic transformation of ourselves will be at the basis of innovation as we head into the future. On the contrary, if we fail to make such a transformation, then no matter what we do, human society will stagnate.

“Where Is the Business World Headed? | New Life 1255.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is morality?“

Morality is a clear realization of the principle, “Love your friend as yourself,” i.e., a state of absolute positive connection above the ego, where we perceive and sense a completely different reality to the one we feel in our inborn ego. Until we realize the principle of “Love your friend as yourself,” what we define as morality in our world changes the more we develop.

We live in a system of forces, and do not determine the egoistic qualities in each individual. Therefore, we cannot order or define our relations.

Our morals are thus based on the conditions we live in, and they are the outcome of human evolution. They arise from the human ego, which makes us think that how we live our lives is somehow incorrect, that we need to live differently, and by conducting ourselves a certain way, we will all live better lives. In other words, the human ego determines our morals with its control over us.

Based on the talk “Communication Skills: Moral Principles and Social Norms,” October 9, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Watch the full talk here » [54:02]

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there such a thing as a “law of love”?“

Love is a law of nature.

Everything is born and lives through love. However, hatred is necessary for love to exist because love needs to become established over another property, otherwise we would have no sense of it.

There are thus two contrasting properties in nature that mutually complement and designate one another.

Based on the talk “Communication Skills: Love as a Law of Nature,” given on October 22, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Watch the full talk here » [30:45]

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some people abuse children? Is there some psychological reason for this?“

It is due to the human ego, which is the nature of every person and holds us back from relating to others as to ourselves.

Some people find themselves harming others—whether children, the elderly, or others whom they perceive as able to be their prey—simply because they enjoy such abuse. They feel a great pleasure of control that suddenly fulfills them.

Nothing can get such people out of this need to control. We see how abusive tendencies surface even in well-educated and well-mannered people who might have been philanthropic their entire lives, and all of a sudden, they cannot hold themselves anymore and explode. Usually, it is because they feel that nobody can control them, and so they express their own control.

There will be no end to such upsurges taking place in certain people until the human ego—the desire to benefit at the expense of others—inverts into its opposite form—a desire to positively connect with others above the ego’s harmful drives.

Moreover, we can expect more and more such incidents to occur since the human ego is constantly growing, demanding more and more fulfillment, if we fail to undergo this transformation.

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