Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Does The Creator Need To Know Himself?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If “there is none else besides Him,” and the Creator gives us all sensations, does this mean that a human being is a tool that the Creator uses to know Himself?

Answer: No. The Creator does not need to know Himself. You would like to say that the Creator created something opposite in order to know Himself from this opposite.

First of all, for one who can do this, it is not necessary to know oneself. If I create something opposite, then I already know what it is. We cannot understand this with our mind; it will not work. No philosophy will work here. If we are talking about the primary source, then this source includes everything. All that comes from Him exists in Him of course.
[95156]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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The Raspberry Spark Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that we have to take our point in the heart outward. I do not understand what that means. If the point is in me, then how can I take it out? I feel contentment, sense this fulfillment, and examine it as an observer. Is this point somehow disconnected from me?

Answer: This is a feeling between you and the other person that is as a calm, warm, really crimson luminous point. It is not even a point, but a small ball between you and him.

It does not matter whether it is a man or a woman, you do not notice. It has nothing to do with sex or a person’s appearance, with anything external. This point just appears, and you look not at this person, but at this small ball, which has appeared between you. And you work for it. It is the most important thing for you.

This ball is a person’s desires, his aspirations. You suddenly start to feel them, and you suddenly start to work for them. You want this ball to grow. It attracts you, fascinates you like a fireball, and you work for it.

Question: But if it does not fascinate me, does it mean that it is me who feels contentment?

Answer: But this is not you inside yourself, you are in this ball, you are in this emerging feeling of love for the other. You are still standing like an observer and still are based on you egoism, but you seek this state. It is already yours; it lives in you.

Try it!
[95154]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Am I Correcting The World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the correction of the world?

Answer: We are on the highest level of a general system because we yearn to be above ourselves. The previous lives have made us the way we are.

There are different illuminations in the world, and this whole system is mutually connected. But the signal comes from above. The Light goes through us to the world and then spreads everywhere. This is called the “correction of the world.”


I don’t correct anyone. If we correct ourselves, then the Light is transferred through us to all the other parts of the world. Most people cannot draw the Light; they cannot correct themselves; they don’t understand; they don’t know; they lack the desires. Try to talk to them about the meaning of life and what does it mean to them. It isn’t good or bad, since in the meantime they have no such desire. What is more, these people make up 99% of the world population, and it is up to us to correct them that way.

On the other hand, Kabbalists speak about our obligation to pass the wisdom of Kabbalah on to them, so that they will feel that there is hope and that there is an ideology of correction, that there are levels the world has to go through in order to be corrected, and that we can ease this path for them and make it simple and quick. They have to know a little about it, only generally. The actual correction takes place under our internal influence on them, since we are all connected in one network.
[95088]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Through The Veil Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we work in the group to focus our intention and to achieve the right desire to ascend?

Answer: We have to imagine the ascent from our world to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) as something that is attainable now, at this very moment. We constantly play it in the group and in the workshops. We constantly imagine it as the desirable state. I want to be constantly included in it; this is my goal in every movement I make. Only if we imagine this goal do we summon upon ourselves the good and beneficial influence of the Surrounding Light from it.

It is a physical law. To the extent that I yearn, I summon the force of the Light upon myself, and it operates and influences me and corrects me by drawing me to a new state.

Question: So does this means that we have to see our friends as great, even if I don’t agree with them and don’t feel that they really are so?

Answer: Of course! What does agreeing or not agreeing have to do with it? Who am I? I am a small, worthless, uneducated person, who has no attainment of the spiritual world. I criticize my friends because I feel comfortable with that, out of my egoistic attributes. It seems to me that they are all wrong and that they are all bad. Of course, I mustn’t accept what I see and hear as the way they really are.

On the contrary, I have to understand that my ego is between me and my group. I see them through the ego and receive everything from them through it.

This means that the questions of who they are and what I receive from them have no solution until I annul my ego.

But when I annul it, I will be able to see what is before me. Then I will see that it is the Creator! Not the friends, not the group, but the Creator! I will see a totally perfect state.

Now, when I am detached from them, inside my ego, when I am in a kind of an egoistic cocoon, how can I judge anyone?
[95085]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Anti-Globalization And A Global Government

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Globalization is actually an example of the unity of the world, but how do you explain the movements against globalization? Globalization also involves the creation of a global government that is rejected by many.

Answer: The point is that the definition of globalization/integration is perceived by many in different ways. I mean by this the forced connection of the world and the unavoidable interdependence of everyone.

It is not expressed in every aspect of life yet. There are areas in which it is expressed and there are areas in which it is less evident, but it is increasing daily. Nature is advancing towards integration and it is unavoidable. We have to see what is happening in nature and not what people like and what they don’t based on their personal interests.

The world is becoming global despite our desire. We are egoists and we don’t feel a need for it at all. Today we already see that we cannot manage the world. People accept the possibility of war. There is powerlessness, helplessness, and people lack the means to manage things.

We are all in one network, and it is expressed more strongly now. By the way, there is a lot of research on this issue. I hope that our inner efforts will wake the world up through this collective network, and they will feel and understand that we are mutually connected to such an extent that no one can feel good if another feels bad. There is nowhere to run. It is like in a family: If there is a problem with someone in the family, then it is your problem; you are connected to everyone! This is how we will feel everyone regardless of distances or anything else.

This is a feeling that comes gradually and will be felt by everyone. It may lead to great problems in the world since there are many who oppose globalization, and we can certainly understand them.

“Let’s separate!” Each of us has the immediate urge to move to a distant place like Alaska and live there in peace. “No matter how long I live, I want to live quietly. Why do I need to think about this globalization all day long?” So there are different protectionist movements that urge governments to defend themselves; we see what is happening in Europe: to separate or not to separate? We will not be able to separate. We cannot!

A few months ago when I went to a convention in Italy, we had a meeting with a representative of the EU. We talked for an hour and a half. They understand very well that they mustn’t separate, that we are all connected, and it isn’t even a matter of banks or military alliances. Today you simply will not be able to separate. You can isolate a certain country, but by that you will bring about its destruction. So globalization is already a fact.

What can we do with this?

Humanity has no tools to deal with it. It is only possible to manage globalization if you are global too, if you have a global sense, a global consciousness, a global approach. You must become integral internally and feel this whole system in its analog, general, closed form. However, we are not managed that way internally, since we are egoists. When you rise above your ego, you begin to feel how the integral analog system, in which everything is mutually connected, operates.

Imagine a large family of 20 people; imagine how you solve your problems in such a family. There are a few thousand dollars on the table, which you have made, and you have to invest it in the family. Just as you take everyone into account in order to solve family problems, you have to take into account all the problems in the world to solve them today. Who can do that?

The desire to separate is great; it seemingly would free us of some headaches, but it is already impossible to break apart.

The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about the possibility of a world war that may force people through the path of suffering to acknowledge the fact that the world is global and integral and we have to solve things differently. But how? By rising above the ego, this is the next level of our development. Nature, together with us, has reached the end of its development on the egoistic animate level and it has to develop to the “human” level. It isn’t part of nature yet. The “human” level is higher than the “animal” level in us. This is what we have to develop by ourselves, and in order to do that we were given freewill.

As for a global government, it is still impossible to establish one. You see how the European leaders have cashed in on this idea and don’t think about it anymore. It is possible to establish global leadership only by people who have ascended above their ego and who feel and understand this system. If this doesn’t happen, then we will see the same things that happened with the Soviet regime.

It isn’t even enough for the global government to be made of people who have ascended above their ego, who would it manage? Who will listen to it? After all, everyone else is an egoist.

So we must first deal with integral education. We have to educate people, to draw them to such a level that they will begin to understand that there is no choice and that we must rise above ourselves. We have to think that everyone should have the same reasonable standard of living, and everything else should be invested in connecting. Either life will force us or we can educate ourselves that way. So the problem is only in integral education.
[95035]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Upbringing By The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that the soul is altruism, that is, the property that is available to few people. When we are engaged in correction and raise the world with us, do we share with the world the soul that we have earned or do we grow the world soul with the Light of correction that comes down to us?

Answer: We do not create anything new. We have very small animalistic, selfish desires, and the Light with which we can manipulate if we become like it. We draw the influence of the Light on ourselves, and the Light causes even greater egoistic desires in our egoistic desires, which, each time, we are correcting.

Let’s suppose that the desire to receive is small, like a dot, with a minimum capacity equal to one. The Light, the property of bestowal, exists in it.

The Light enters this desire: The property of bestowal pumps this dot with its desire to bestow, with warmth, love, compassion, and tenderness. This dot swells, and a huge desire emerges in it. And then the power of Malchut is equal to, say, a thousand. Why did it get such a tremendous power of desire to receive? It’s because the Light filled it in that way.

We say that there is Aviut (the thickness of desire) in the Light. What does it mean? I offered you a cake, gave you some candy, handed you a pillow, and suggested something warm to you. I pumped my attitude into you so that you begin to desire all this. My good attitude toward you is turned into a desire, and then if you do not get it from me, you begin to suffer. Thus, I cultivate a desire in you. This is what the Light does to us similar to what we do with a spoiled child. Thus, It builds us during the descent from above downward.

Then during the ascent from the bottom upward, It does the opposite, but almost the same. It affects our egoism, irritating it, as if crushes it. Under the influence of the Light, the ego swells and becomes bigger and bigger. Thus, we grow.

The egoistic and altruistic components grow in parallel, and at every state, in every world, they are opposite and have to complement each other until we reach the level of infinity.

The Light does everything; it increasingly develops negative desires in us. When you start to study, you have small desires. And tomorrow, you begin to hate others, and then something else, etc. And so it is with the Creator: Today you are afraid to say anything against Him, tomorrow you will hate Him, and the day after tomorrow, you will yell at Him. The time will come; you will grow up and will find out that this is so.
[95093]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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The Difference Between Spiritual And Corporeal Egoism

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The general ego is growing during the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It turns out that we seem to accelerate the growth of the ego. And as long as we delay the connection between us, humanity is becoming more egoistic.

Answer: The ego is not transferred from us to humanity. It does indeed develop sharply, but it is in us. To the extent that you aspire and yearn for the love of friends, you feel that you hate them and are rejected by them. Those who do not yearn for spirituality don’t feel anything. They have the ordinary corporeal animal egoistic urges, and nothing more than that.

If I strive forward to the “plus” with the friends and attain let’s say “plus one,” I immediately feel “minus one.” But if I am on level zero, on the initial corporeal level, I am just an animal. This means that it is an ordinary corporeal ego.

Spiritual ego is a totally different matter; it appears only in order to push me to an even stronger connection with the friends in the group. First it all seemed okay, fine: “Let’s connect guys!” We rent a place, everyone is burning, everyone is working. Suddenly we feel that we cannot even look at each other. This means that a negative spiritual level has started, and that’s a good thing.

Now is the time to rise above it, to rise to the next level “plus two.” And then again “minus two” appears.” And thus, over and over again. Without this zigzag we would not develop.

Can you imagine what ego people who rise have, like Rabbi Shimon’s students who wrote that they were ready to burn each other?

When you reach such a level, these attributes appear in you. So we have to establish an environment. You will not be able to attain this level without a strong group to support you and direct you. It “shakes” you when it is necessary so that you will wake up and see where you are; it obligates you and the others to perform your duties in the group, pulls you to dissemination, wakes you up at night, etc. It is impossible to advance without it.

At first a small ego appears in the group. But if the friends don’t notice it, if there isn’t someone who can help them, the group falls apart. There are many such groups. I hear about it occasionally.

So, we should actually be happy that serious signs of the spiritual advancement appear. This is already spiritual egoism.
[95020]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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The Art Of Working In The Middle Line

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the work in the middle line and how can I feel it?

Answer: The middle line doesn’t actually exist. After all, there are two forces active in nature: the force of bestowal (in red) and the force of receiving (in black). A person is neither one of them. The two forces emanate from above. There is the force of bestowal that created the force of receiving that is opposite from it. These two forces, let’s say plus and minus, exist in nature and everything stems from them: the still, vegetative, and animate. Man is of course a “spiritual creation” and exists in the comparison, in the connection of these two parameters inside him. 


The Masach (screen) is the plus, and the ego is the minus. Connecting them inside him correctly is above his ego, and by following faith above reason, a man stabilizes the middle line. This is the whole art.

This means that on one hand, I want to get closer to the friends despite my ego, since we discover the spiritual world only in the connection among us (the yellow part in the drawing).  And our ego (the black circles in the drawing) remains and grows even more.

Sefirot and worlds appear among us, in which everything is revealed. The upper world is external to us, external to our ego and above it, above the connection between us. Therefore, the whole wisdom of Kabbalah is based on the principle of “love thy friend as thyself.” Why? Because when you work on it, exit yourself, and build a kind of a sensor in the external form, you begin to feel the whole filling upper force. You may call it the Creator or the upper force, whatever you wish.

This is our work, and it is fulfilled in the middle line.
[95017]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Distance Doesn’t Matter

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a group? Are these physical bodies or my inner attitude?

Answer: It is preferable that I see them as physical bodies. It is desirable that I perceive them in my five senses.

When we enter the next level, and are on a real conscious level of mutual connection, distance will be meaningless. This means that we will reach a level that physicists talk about as existing beyond time and space, where certain forces and worlds operate. And it is actually so! Scientists approach this barrier and admit: “Yes, it is possible that there is something beyond this barrier, but what? We don’t know. There the feeling disappears and it becomes impossible to study things.”

In our case, however, this doesn’t happen. If we enter the same area, distance and feeling don’t matter to us. I don’t need to see anyone, I feel a person’s shape, his bestowal, and how I am connected to him in mutual bestowal: He may be more and I may be less (it makes no difference), but we are already on a different level of connection between us.

Then distances don’t matter to me and I don’t feel whether it is a man or a woman, a grownup or a child; it doesn’t matter if we are connected this way. I feel the previous generations of Kabbalists who are in this system, who developed themselves and remain in it. I already have a different feeling, different glasses.
[95014]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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From Individual To General

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does the point in the heart awakening in a person indicate the dead end of material development?

Answer: I wouldn’t say that it’s the dead end of material development, although a person may, in all he does, whatever he may be doing today, feel that he’s reached a dead end in all spheres of action in our world.

In reality this isn’t a dead end of development, but a dead end of today’s paradigm. If we change it, then naturally we will begin to sense a totally different level of the universe. However in an egoistic, individual cognition, not in unity, in struggle with one another, we understand we can’t attain more, and can’t advance any further.

The next level of humanity’s development is global unity and creating a common body of attainment. This is why people can’t continue to develop individually. We observe this in all that is happening to us. We have reached a dead end not only in the sciences, but also in everything else. That is, we’ve reached a certain limit beyond which everything becomes a blur, as though it disappears. Our egoistic organs of perception, which are only directed toward reception, can’t receive any more. In order to expand, we must begin to connect them to each other.

Each one of us has a point in the heart, an aspiration toward a greater, or so-called “out of this world,” non-egoistic attainment, the desire to go from the individual to the general. If we begin to connect these points, to create a connection between us, then the connection of at least ten points gives the power sensor, which is able to perceive the next state: the upper world. This state is followed by further development, which takes place not in an individual but in a collective consciousness and perception. Therein lies the difference between our world and the next level. Only in this!

Hence, if today we’ve reached a dead end, it is only a dead end of our individual attainment of the world. By connecting the aspiration toward the upper world, we can create a new organ of perception for the next level.

This is why our current world is pushing us out of ourselves today; it is showing us that we must become integrated, interdependent, and united. This is why such interaction and great interdependence is being revealed in the world. Through all this, we are gradually being shown the next, gradually revealing the next level of our world.

Let’s hope that we can attain this level. Then we will have to teach this to everyone else. Right now we are at the beginning stages, at the approach to this next realm.
[95010]
From the Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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