Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Life Flew By Like A Dream

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does a person really know what he wants?

Answer: He never knows. Ask older people and they will tell you, “We didn’t even notice how life passed by and what we did with it. And suddenly it slipped by. I remember myself at 20 and a little at 30, and the last three or four decades I don’t even remember.”

Question: But it’s possible to live in awareness. What prevents us? Let’s suppose that when I was a child my parents would have told me, “Pay attention to yourself, you are made of desires”?

Answer: If only they would have prepared us how to grasp the world in the correct way! If only the family and school would have prepared us, then it would have been different! Where are that family and school? They don’t exist.

My parents didn’t know how to educate me, they weren’t taught that at school, and they didn’t teach me either. The results are: I lived my life without knowing how to live it, and I educated my children also without knowing how to educate them, and they are educating my grandchildren also without knowing how.

In this way we go from generation to generation. If you look at humanity from the side, you see that our behavior doesn’t at all match our intelligence, our inner ability! Look at how we waste ourselves!

Thus, the main problem with humanity is education. If we would educate one generation correctly, then we would correct all of humanity, we would change all life upon the face of the earth.
[92027]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 11/3/12

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Humanity Will Change. What About A Hermit In A Cave?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Suppose people have been playing for a while and in the process of integral study, humanity changes. Sitting somewhere in a cave is a hermit who doesn’t know about that, how can we advance without him?

Answer: It makes no difference. He will feel it. Distance does not matter.

Question: Will he feel it and run to that group?

Answer: He will connect to the world according to his state and his position. He doesn’t have to run anywhere, but can continue to live on a desert island, or in the tundra, or in a cave in the Himalayas, but he will feel that the world is changing according to the changes in him. After all, the Light operates on all of humanity. If there is a critical mass, everyone feels the changes.
[91980]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 10/3/12

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The Uniting Enemy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we do in the integral group when a harmful person shows up and the moderator has to throw him out? Should we leave such a person in the group?

Answer: We can let him stay only if he can cause useful damage, since above it we can clarify our connection and, our love: “How should we place ourselves against him?” Without an enemy it is very hard to unite, the enemy unites. So on the whole, we have to see and to support such a state of destruction, but to a certain limit.

I think that the group will see the advantage in that and see that it all happens under the influence of nature that intentionally works this way. Just as we have to rise above the inner ego that grows in us, we also have to rise above the growing external ego.

Question: Does this mean that we should educate such people, cope with them and not expel them?

Answer: Not cope with them, love them! Honor them for helping us advance.
[91896]    
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 10/3/12.

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Where Are Our Desires And Thoughts Located?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where is a person’s desire located: in the body, outside of it, in the air, or next to the person?

Answer: There are no desires in the body at all. We can replace every single organ in one’s body, make as many transplants as we want, but we won’t impact the human in that body whatsoever.

When half a century ago Professor Barnard from South Africa made the first heart transplant ever, everybody worried: “What will happen with the patient? What will he feel afterwards?” Nothing at all! The heart is simply a mechanism that pumps blood, nothing more than that.

Even if we make a brain transplant, nothing will change. Our brain is not a thinking unit; it doesn’t form thoughts. It’s only a conductor that connects us with the universal field of reason. Our desires also exist in the same field, and not in our bodies. Our body seemingly exists in that field and merely perceives it. A little induction brought upon us is in fact life that we sense.

Question: In other words, in the integral reason, when a person enters the general field of love, he starts to use his conductor by all 100% and thus develops it further?

Answer: Yes, but it will be not the same brain that we currently have!

We only have a tool similar to an induction coil that picks up the field outside and it triggers certain currents in it. And what we feel is these currents, those of them that we are able to recognize, master, and be aware of. In reality, however, the field that surrounds us is tremendously powerful and intense.

Question: By intensifying our “coil” by 100%, do we expand our awareness?

Answer: It expands only when we connect with others. So, if we want to “launch” ourselves and turn into a reliable “solenoid,” we have to penetrate into and acquire other people’s desires, to contemplate and feel how we can get closer to others and help them get closer to each other.
[92157]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 11/3/12

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The Family Relations Adaptor

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The first condition to establish a connection in a marriage is the ability to feel the other. How can we develop the ability to feel the other and his/her desires as my own?

Answer: If I want love and a positive attitude between two people to cover all our mutual sins, all the bad qualities, I need to find out what my partner likes, what he/she wants, and what he/she expects of me.

First I have to discover in me the need to bestow upon the other. Then I have to answer the question: What can I give him/her, how can I make him/her happy? This new need obligates me to check what he/she wants and what he/she expects.

We have to discuss this so that each one will be able to express him or herself freely and to disclose one’s feelings to his or her partner, the most secret wishes and desires and how each one wants to receive signs of love from his or her partner. Each one should help the other understand him or herself to feel and to start living in the other. They have to feel the other’s desires as one’s own, as if the fillings that they provide these desires are in oneself.

Love is called unity, and it is achieved by incorporating in the other. I ascend above my desires and seemingly restrict them, and don’t use them for my own pleasure. Now instead of my own desires I want to absorb the desires of my partner: What does he/she want, what does he/she love?

I want to feel the other’s desires inside me so that they will fill the place where my own desires are. This means that I place the other’s desires above mine and I suppress mine. Now I work and invest all my powers so that the desires of the other will become part of me and start living in me. By that I build his/her image inside me.

I calculate how I can bestow upon him/her. I make these calculations internally by working with the image that was created inside me, with all of her/his needs, desires, yearnings and hopes. Having built this image in me and having worked on it, I now know how to treat the other.

We do all this work mutually, by discussing things. We help one another perceive the other’s image, as it says: “each one shall help his friend.” Thus a person begins to ascend above his own nature to the other’s nature. This is called “help against,” since we help one another build these images inside us: I build my wife’s image inside me and she builds her husband’s image. Each one now includes two images inside him: that of his/her own and that of his/ her partner.

These images constantly change and become clearer, increasingly reflecting their own attributes. Eventually we reach a state in which we know how to relate to one another. I connect to her through her image that is in me and she connects to me through my image that is in her, thus we reach connection.

The spiritual objects, the Partzufim are arranged according to the same principle. Before the Partzuf of Galgata gives birth to the Partzuf of AB it creates the Partzuf of AB inside it. If the Partzuf of AB wants to connect to Galgalta, it does it through the inner Partzuf of AB that is in Galgalta.

This means that every Partzuf has to build some kind of an adaptor internally in order to connect to the other Partzuf. This adaptor accurately reflects the external Partzuf it connects to, but is only in the former. In a mother there is naturally the child’s image and so she understands intuitively how to treat him.

In physiological terms the womb is an adaptor that uses all the body’s reserves providing the embryo everything it needs, after the birth there is the phase of nursing and the external caring for the baby, but it is always fulfilled by the child’s image that is in the mother.

It says that man was created “in God’s image,” which means according to the special model of the upper (image) which the spiritual father and mother, the Partzuf of Aba and Ima give the lower. According to the same equivalence of form, we too can connect to one another, otherwise there will be no connection.

It is the same in technology: we must always build an adaptor so that two different bodies will communicate, in one part there must be an exit that adapts to the entrance in the other part. If the entrance and the exit match the bodies can connect.

If we understand how this works and know how to establish such an adaptor, we will undoubtedly attain the right mutual connection. Then we must constantly carry on with this work in order to improve these systems.
[91923]
From a “Talk About  New Life,” 7/16/12

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Newcomers And Veterans

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When new people join our group, we have a problem of communicating and connecting with them because we already feel different …

Answer: I understand. There is nothing to be done. Newcomers will gradually get closer to you. Do some work together, invite them to various events; it will gradually pass. Only if the group reaches a critical mass, will there not be much difference and newcomers will enter it easily. The group will not feel that it has been joined by additional new people. To do this, it should create a serious critical mass, for example, twenty permanent members of the group. And when it gradually includes newcomers, it won’t be felt much: the new ones can easily hide and the old ones can easily overlook them.
[92512]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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How Can The Blind Find The Right Road?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We know that we are all egoists. We were led to the group by the awareness that we cannot live like this. However, we still do not have an understanding of the goal; there is no course; we are like the blind. How can blind people show the road to each other?

Answer: A person advances according to his desires. When I really want, I move forward. If I feel good in the current moment, I do not move, but remain there. If it is good there, then I will sit there, thinking about nothing else: I will have no thoughts, no movement—nothing. As soon as I feel bad, then there is movement from bad to better. This is the only way I advance.

If we are in a group, learn, and make some actions, we think that this is enough; we have no inclination to move forward; every day is the same routine, everything is the same. How can we force ourselves to move forward?

Of course, if, God forbid, misfortunes fall on us or the world, it shakes us. And what if they do not? Then, I need to create them on purpose, artificially, otherwise I will not move forward.

Creating problems artificially? Yes!

It is better to create them yourself then if they come from somewhere above. There is nowhere to escape, we need to move forward; only if I bring about this discomfort, these desires in myself, then it will be better for me. I will do this with others purposefully. I gather people and tell them: “Why do we wait for the next hurricane, crisis, or tsunami? Why do they come? To move us from point A to point B. Let’s do something ourselves that will force us to move from point A to point B.”

We have to invent something so that point B pulls us from point A and do something in point A so that it pushes us towards point B, that is, so that we feel bad now and good in the future, so it seems to us. Let’s figure out how to do this, then we will move forward, and we will not need various negative forces that push us.

How can we do this? It is said that “a friend should help a friend.” They help each other by constantly telling how wonderful the next state is and how unbearable the current state is. If so, I convince myself, and if my friends say that all the time and I become convinced of this, then I do not need any negative forces; I will rush forward myself instead of waiting for something to happen or not happen to me.

Envy is the most powerful tool; it is good for moving forward. We need to use properties such as envy, jealousy, and so on.
[92507]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Don’t Worry About The Masses Now, Work On Yourselves!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our group has existed for three years. Before, people would enter and leave the group until the group finally formed. Now we are at a point where there’s no longer an inflow of new strength. Can the reason for this be that we are so used to each other, we sense and feel each other like members of one family and we feel so good together that we don’t want to let anyone else in?

Answer: This can happen. I’m not entirely familiar with the situation to give you an answer. But everything has its time, so don’t worry. You should use this time to study more and to strengthen yourselves. I don’t think that now is the time to conduct wide dissemination. As far as I feel, the situation here is still quite lethargic. It’s best to wait. For the time being you should work on improving your connection with us, try to work more on the materials, translate books, and adapt the material for the local population. Maybe you’ll be able to write articles on the Internet or in small newspapers. Maybe you’ll be able to adapt them for your local population. I don’t think that many people will be joining you right now. After all, a point in the heart becomes revealed only when a person has reached a certain level of egoistic development, and it hasn’t happened here yet. Therefore, you should work more on yourselves.
[92458]
From the Georgia Convention 11/06/12, Lesson 2

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Waving The Magic Wand

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does a person who has transcended the general mind and acquired the attribute of love ever run out of desires?

Answer: No. They constantly grow. The desires are limitless, even for people who are not part of the integral system. I have spoken to many people who live in nature, Indians and also with Jane Goodall who lived 17 years among chimpanzees. Such people have a very clear and accurate feeling that the force of nature is love, bestowal, and a connection between all parts of creation. When a person merges with all this he feels a unique pleasure. This is found in nature. Nowadays science also begins to prove and to confirm the globalization and the integrality of the mutual connection of the world around us.

Question: Does such a person see a sea of desires in different people and with his “magic wand” just fills them all?

Answer: If he can connect to the desires of other people, he can help to fill them. He himself doesn’t have these desires and neither does he have what to fill them with, but he can help others.
[92160]
From KabTV’s “Talks with Michael Laitman,” 11/3/12

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Kabbalah And Occult Teachings

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does Lurianic Kabbalah reject occult hermetic sciences? Can a materialistically oriented person consider hermetic sciences real? Do they actually exist, or not?

Answer: All hermetic sciences are not real; they have no basis for them whatsoever, they’re just a figment of somebody’s imagination, a fantasy. Having my doctorate in Philosophy (the subject of my thesis is “Philosophy, Religion and Kabbalah”) gives me the right to state with confidence that Kabbalah is a pure science.

Because philosophy and any other of our attempts to understand reality are based not on research but solely on reason, which is really based on what is not known, as a rule, they are based on our egoism, but we do not realize it.

As a result, philosophy died a long time ago. All so-called spiritual teachings are gradually vanishing, since people rise above them and see that they are invalid. There are no substantiations or verifications concerning the seriousness of multiple spiritual teachings. They’re exclusively based upon our sensations, but as we all know, feelings can be very diverse; that’s why presently there are about 2800 religions and belief systems, and we see them gradually disappearing.

Kabbalah is not for or against them. It stands aside them; it explores nature as physics or any other regular science does. The major principle of Kabbalah is investigating nature, becoming similar to it, and winning. Kabbalah is a very concrete science; it doesn’t talk about the soul in the way religions do. A soul in Kabbalah signifies an extremely serious and profound attainment and understanding of the world in which we currently live. The purpose of this kind of realization is staying afloat and protecting ourselves from a huge storm that approaches us in response to our ignorance and unwillingness to follow the laws of nature.
[92241]
From the Georgia Convention, 11/5/12, Lesson 1

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