Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

The Whole World is Me

929Question: If my perception paints an external picture of the world for me, and this external picture is actually me, then what is the point of transitioning to a state of bestowal to others if they are me?

Answer: You never actually bestow anything to anyone else. What you do in your life is develop your perception, engage in self-knowledge, self-understanding, and self-discovery. That’s it! Everything that appears to be outside of you are your own sensory organs, which are intentionally made to seem foreign and unrelated to you. This is done so that by attracting them to yourself, you develop the desire for bestowal and love instead of egoistic desire, and you discover that all of it is actually yours. These are your attributes, your desires.

There is nothing in the world that does not belong to you. By integrating these so-called external objects, which are actually forces, attributes, and desires, you form a vessel within yourself for perceiving the Creator, the upper world.

The idea that something exists outside of you that is seemingly not yours and foreign is an illusion. It is you!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Whole World is Me” 2/4/10

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A Light Drug

945Question: After one of your lectures, as a rule, a person comes to study the wisdom of Kabbalah all fired up. He or she felt something unusual. This feeling lasts for a while, and then it cools down. Is this his problem or not?

Answer: No, this is how it should be!

Why should I keep him under my influence? Absolutely not! It is necessary for him to start understanding what I have told him and what I have suggested of his own freewill. Under no circumstances should he be left in a state of enthusiasm because then it will be like a drug for him.

He will no longer receive any sustenance from me. The next time he meets me, he will no longer have that initial admiration and perception. He will turn on the analysis, the requirement of the conceptual apparatus, because he needs to progress.

It is like with children: the first time we can entice a child, but after that, we want to involve them in actions.

Question: Usually, those people who initially admire everything become “seasoned wolves” later on. You look at them and their childlike innocence is gone. But how can a person avoid going into a kind of isolation?

Answer: I cannot say anything here. You do not need to think about what he should be like. He will be as he should be. We do not determine his future states. Whatever happens to him is how it should work out.

The main thing is to give him information about internal development, about external opportunities, what he should do, how he should study, read, work in a group, and disseminate—in short, how he should absorb all the material.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Light Narcotic” 1/21/12

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In Search of Inner Harmony

962.3Question: Usually a person is born and goes through a certain path in life. Most often, by the age of thirty, one enters into a stupor when all one’s plans begin to shake a little, and then he begins to think about the meaning of life.

You came to the wisdom of Kabbalah at the age of 30, and before that was there, so to say, a period of preparation?

Answer: Maybe, although I would not say that about myself. I wanted to come to the study of Kabbalah, it seems to me, at the age of six or seven.

Question: Does the current generation have such an opportunity?

Answer: It does not really depend on the generation. Of course, the current generation has it. But it also depends on how a person feels. As far as I can remember, I always felt that I needed it.

I am not an exceptional person. I just have such an attitude toward life, toward the world, that does not tolerate anything superfluous, everything must be neatly arranged; otherwise, this world is such a big mess that I simply do not want to exist in it. Not because “my head is small,” but because I do not want to tolerate disorder; I must put everything into a system.

In principle, the most important aspiration of such a person is to bring everything they feel in the world into a coherent structure, into a cohesive picture. Only then does the world make sense to them, and the person enjoys perfection, harmony, the interconnection of all things, and their mutual definition, what we on the human level call mutual guarantee.

For him, the system is something that encompasses our universe as its integral part. He must understand the structure of interaction, functioning, management, movement, and development. Without this feeling, he feels bad, he does not feel okay. He feels his connection to the entire system, to the entire cosmos (although it is more than the cosmos) that he cannot help but come to the perception of universal harmony.

That is the inner need I began to feel at four to five-years-old, and when I was twelve to thirteen years old, it became absolutely clear. Searches for the source of creation led me to study paleontology one moment, then astronomy the next.

It is very difficult for a person to navigate in our world where there is no flexibility. This compels him to seek inner harmony because it begins to help him perceive the world in its external rigidity as harmonious.

The lack of flexibility in the world leads a person to enter into the system of creation, to find integrity there, so that everything can be perceived well from the outside, and then he will be able to live. Otherwise it is very difficult for people seeking internal harmony in our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Childhood” 2/14/12

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The Purpose of Dissemination

938.05Comment: You say that dissemination depends on our internal unity. In theory, we want to convey some information. We gather together to do this.

My Response: We gather together for dissemination in order to unite and to find between us precisely the properties that connect us: mutual bestowal, mutual support, mutual guarantee, flexibility, connection, common bonding, even love.

We wish to clarify these properties. Why do we need all this? In order to then reveal the same properties in the rest of the world because the rest of the entire world (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature), the entire mass represents the huge desire that must be completely, organically connected into one whole.

Then in this unified desire that is connected through common efforts, we will feel the property of bestowal and love, which we implement together. And this property of bestowal and love implemented jointly by us is called the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Kabbalah Dissemination” 2/12/12

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The Meaning of the Dissemination of Kabbalah

963.3Question: What does disseminating Kabbalah give a person?

Answer: The real dissemination is attracting souls and desires detached from you to unity and further working with them to achieve unity.

A person disseminates the idea of global unity to those desires that feel as if they were outside of him.

As soon as they begin to perceive it, he engages with them in studying, in unification, and then does everything to come together with them to one whole.

In principle, dissemination itself goes according to the inner desire to unite with everyone. But, beside this, external work is also necessary because you otherwise cannot approach a person at all.

Therefore, you need to give him something external because we live in a corporeal world, that is, in such desires that manifest between us in the form of projections of bodies, objects, books, computers, and so on.

We must use these projections of desires in our imagination, that is, tangible objects and matter. We should use it the way it is perceived by us, although in reality it does not exist; it is simply depicted to us by our desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Kabbalah Dissemination” 2/12/12

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What Can I Do if I Hate This World?

423.03Dina writes:

What should I do with my hatred for this world? Many people feel this way today. People hate this world! They hate it! And many even ask: “Why was I born? Why bring a child into this world?” 

My Response: But it is true. The time is coming when a person will be utterly disappointed with this world. Human egoism is growing and it cannot be filled. People do not know what to fill it with. So every day they live feels forced and unsatisfactory.

Question: What can be done about it?

Answer: Nothing!

Question: Just sit doing nothing?

Answer: Do nothing.

Comment: But still living in this state all the time, I don’t know about that.

My Response: I understand this state. Especially in my younger years, I had many such states: what to live for, why live?

Question: Is the basis of this hatred toward this world, which you do not understand?

Answer: No, it is hatred for the emptiness that this world evokes in you.

Question: But still, first is there a reason for this happening in one way or another?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Today you are certainly relaying and understanding that something is happening to people. And people hate this world for a reason. Why?

Answer: It is to make this world better for you and for others.

Question: Is that what we need to come to?

Answer: The solution exists, but everyone must find it for themselves.

Question: So you are saying that that is why people are brought to such a state?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You also say that this world was given to us by the Creator. We see it this way because He wants us to see it like this?

Answer: Yes, the Creator desires our sound decision about how I perceive the world and how I want to see and feel it.

So that during my lifetime in this world I would make myself into such a being who approaches the Creator with my thoughts, aspirations, and so on. The Creator, having created this world, gave me the opportunity to reveal Him in order to rise above it.

Question: And what do I see? What am I revealing? For now, I am revealing this world that I hate.

Answer: To reveal the hated world in order to rise above it, from a doomed, dreadful, egoistic world to a kind, beautiful world.

Question: So, will I see it like that then?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, if my aspiration is to turn this hatred into another state, to see this world differently, if I constantly, mechanically repeat this, will it work even mechanically?

Answer: It will work even mechanically. For this, I must radically change my attitude toward the world, toward people, toward everything.

Question: By force?

Answer: By force. It is not easy. This is the self-improvement work described by Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24

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Once upon a Death March

566.01Question: You have a student, and I have a very close friend, Gilad Shadmon, who has been with us for 30 years.

His father was in Auschwitz and at the age of 15 he was evacuated as part of the Death March from Auschwitz in 1945. The remaining living prisoners were marched to other camps across Poland. People died of hunger and exhaustion during the forced march and many were shot along the way.

His father recounted that he was with 12 teenagers, 15-year-olds. They were terribly hungry, but when they got hold of a piece of bread, they decided that each would take a small piece and pass it on to the next.

He was one of the first, almost a whole piece of bread was passed to him. At that moment when he was biting into it, he felt: “I cannot hold back, I will eat the whole piece.” But he restrained himself, and everyone else did too. Each took a small piece and passed it on.

This story impressed me a lot. Why do you think he restrained himself, this absolutely ravenous teenager?

Answer: Because he was connected to his friends. What else could have restrained him? And so he held back.

Question: So this is real connection?

Answer: Yes, it does not allow a person—to the point where they would just die on the spot.

Question: So this state of connection you just mentioned, it is higher than everything, right? Higher than hunger, higher than death.

Answer: Probably. I do not know, I have not experienced it. I cannot say.

Question: But you still have confidence that this happened precisely because of that? He saw these guys standing next to him and felt it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Although it is known that starving people—and there are many examples in history—forget everything, even their closest relatives. It is an instinct, they start eating. They are not to blame maybe, those people?

Answer: No.

Question: But here, these are teenagers. Is there still something in this?

Answer: At that age, people can neglect themselves. Adults, not anymore. And younger than that age, children of course, no. But teenagers, yes.

Question: So, something in adults still dies out? And teenagers still feel that there is a future in this connection?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Another question. These were starving people, and we are well-fed today. We do not think about others, that is, those who are hungry, and so on. And even teenagers today who are well-fed do not think about other hungry people.

Why? What happened? Do we need to see it for ourselves, or what? What is needed?

Answer: No, these are completely different circumstances, different areas of consciousness are activated in us, the well-fed. And therefore, we cannot be compared with them.

Comment: So you cannot say: “There was such nobility there…”

Answer: No! You cannot mechanically transfer that.

Question: You cannot compare?

Answer: No.

Question: Can this be called nobility? In the Russian language, there is such a lofty word as “nobility.”

Answer: I do not know if it is nobility. Life just does it like that.

Question: So at that moment comes the realization that connection is everything, above life and death, above everything—connection?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Sooner or later will humanity, the world, come to feel that that is everything?

Answer: It will come.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24

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There Is Nothing Left for Us to Do in This World

627.2Alexander writes:

I am not married, and I have never really had true friends. A year ago, I started watching your programs and realized why this is happening to me. I demanded too much from others when I should have demanded it from myself. But it seems too late to change now. I meet someone, things seem good, and then suddenly I feel intense irritation and I cannot control myself. I say something harsh or just disappear, avoiding meetings. I cannot overcome myself. And it all ends. I have been to psychologists, even to a psychiatrist and a fortune-teller, but it keeps repeating. I do not know what to do.”

Question: What advice can you give him?

Answer: The only advice one can give is to find a group that would support and involve him in connection between them, between all the group members and with the Creator. He should see examples of connection between people and how they rise toward connection with the Creator, and this will set him on the right path.

Comment: You are already moving toward connection with the Creator, such a group that seeks connection with the Creator.

My Response: Absolutely, yes. He must understand that this is exactly what he needs.

Comment: That is, at the level of our world: make friends here, be together here, and here…

My Response: No, that is no longer relevant.

Comment: To live normally, to meet someone, to finally get married.

My Response: Let him connect with those who are given to him from above and realize the correct connection.

Comment: So you are saying his connection should be with those who want to rise to the degree of the Creator, to rise above this world, and not with those who want to settle in this world.

My Response: Exactly.

Question: Will all this continue to expand further? Should we specifically seek such groups? There are sciences in this world, psychology…

Answer: We have to finish up everything in this world. Complete as much as possible and leave nothing for later.

To complete in this world means striving for connection between us and with the Creator and for all this to come into its correct form.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24

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Commitment of the Kabbalist

202.0Question: At one time, while giving lectures, you mentioned the New Age movement but stopped doing it. Why?

Answer: I do not remember why I touched upon that movement. I have always taught pure Kabbalah based on the sources of Baal HaSulam. All the years of my life after the age of 30, I have been doing only this and do not hide that I do not know all the other sources well.

I do not engage in comparative analysis between Kabbalah and, say, Sufism, religions, or philosophies. Not at all! I am a specialist specifically in the field of Kabbalistic methodology.

And every time, I am convinced of how pure, strict, and sharply directed toward the goal of creation it is and how much it is the goal of our evolution. That is why I have no desire to be engaged in anything else! I am not interested in any New Age! There is no need to talk about that at all.

I am not interested in anything other than a deep internal understanding of the upper world through the methodology of Kabbalah because I see how it works.

It takes a person many years to study it, but it fully, tangibly introduces him to a new world that reveals itself to him in his attainment, sensation, in all his states, past, and future. He understands, feels, and comprehends everything within himself!

When you see this, you recognize it when it forms in you and no longer have any questions about other methods that people have invented. You remain only with this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12

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A Soul Divided in Half

423.01Question: Why do we feel that there are some good and evil people and deeds outside of us?

Answer: This is our internal and external perception of reality since everything inside is depicted to us as kind, our own, and everything outside is harmful, evil, alien.

Question: As a rule, a person, no matter what he does can always justify himself. And how can we justify those “scoundrels” that we see outside?

Answer: You should reveal that it is you. Through understanding, reflection, and then through correcting yourself with the help of the surrounding society, to the point that you begin to perceive the world that way.

Question: You often talk about the world as a part of yourself, but at the same time sometimes you say: “They, they, they…”. What do you mean by “they”?

Answer: They are my thoughts, qualities, and feelings that I perceive as existing outside of me. That is, these are my thoughts, but I do not agree with them.

Question: Do you treat them as external factors?

Answer: Of course! How else?

Question: In this case, what is your task? To change these qualities?

Answer: By working on yourself make these qualities feel positive, and then to this extent they will become mine, in my explicit feeling. And to the extent that they do not clearly feel like mine, they will seem external to me.

Being in the spiritual world means that I feel both bad and good qualities, and in general, the whole world exists in me and at the same time outside of me. This duality helps me to correct myself faster and feel the whole world as my personal inner whole, like the ten Sefirot of my soul. And there is nothing but this soul, and all that I perceive is all its parts.

Question: How often do you see progress in your change of perception?

Answer: This progress is start-stop, impulsive, which can be compared to a tiger before a jump: first it sways, and then jumps, then sways and jumps again. And every time you jump, attainment is achieved, the inclusion of some additional, supposedly former external, area.

We study in Kabbalah that the soul was divided into internal and external parts: Galgalta veEynaim–AHAP. Or to the root-soul-body (Shoresh-Neshama-Guf), which a person feels in himself, and to the garments and structures, that is, buildings and the world (Levush-Heichal), which he feels outside himself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We don’t Now It” 1/12/12

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