Question: Why do people think that play is something childish? “I don’t play,” they say, even with pride: “I don’t play!”

Answer: “Don’t play” at what? At becoming a greater human being? What exactly is it that he does not play at?

Comment: When a person says they are “playing,” they are talking about something made-up. You know: “I’m just pretending.”

My Response: Of course it is imaginary. I’m inventing something. But what does it mean to dare?

Question: So, in your opinion, to dare means to play?

Answer: Of course. To play at something greater, something magnificent; it is striving, aspirations. Like children: whatever game they play, they want to become better.

Comment: But for children it happens naturally.

My Response: Exactly. And it should be natural for us too, but we have lost it.

Question: We have lost it?

Answer: Of course. A young person is given everything and nothing is demanded of them, and essentially, they…

Question: Stop playing?

Answer: Of course.

Question: So this is the root of all depression, drugs, and so on? A person stops playing?

Answer: Life no longer compels them.

Question: Should life compel us to play?

Answer: “What is our life? A game!” Only a different kind of game.

Question: We talk about suffering and so on, but does suffering push us toward the game? Does it say to us: “Play”? If I played, would I not suffer so much? Can one say that?

Answer: I would say that I constantly examine myself and am vigilant in checking to see if a desire to stop has arisen within me. You know, I’d like to make that final move at the last minute with real intent: snap.

Comment: And that’s all.

My Response: Yes, that is good.

Comment: I envy such endings too. You know, when someone walks onto the stage and boom! That’s it.

My Response: Yes.

Question: I want to ask something very relevant now. Is playing the way out of the state humanity is currently in? Humanity is at a dead end, lost in thought.

Answer: Of course. We must play at the state we wish to attain. You know how Kozma Prutkov said: “If you want to be happy – be happy”? It is very true.

Question: What game should we play now, in these uncertain times?

Answer: We must play at friendship and love.

Comment: Your simple answers always unsettle me. Friendship and love, they seem to require something more.

My Response: Is that bad?

Comment: It sounds childish. I’ve told you many times, it sounds childish, fit for children.

My Response: Well then, let people remain trapped in their narrow-minded seriousness. I don’t know what else to call it.

Comment: But you truly say: “Play at friendship and love.”

My Response: Of course. What else does a person really have? When this disappears, life loses its taste.

Question: So this is the main game? Constantly?

Answer: Of course. A flirtation with life.

Question: With life or with another person?

Answer: No, with life.

Question: When you say “friendship and love,” do you mean toward another person, toward those close to us, toward distant people, toward the world? Is all of that included?

Answer: Of course. Everything is included in it. There must be movement.

Comment: But if it is a game, and inwardly I understand that I do not truly relate to him this way.

My Response: That does not matter. Even if I do it deliberately.

Question: So it must be done intentionally?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Even if I do not actually feel this way toward him?

Answer: Initially I may not feel this way toward him, but afterward I create it.

Question: I create this world of play: I do not naturally relate to a person with love, yet I constantly want to love him and want friendship with him. And then this world manifests, this level? Do I step into it? Does it actually happen?

Answer: What happens is what you truly want to happen.

Question: Let me summarize. Our main game is the game of friendship and love?

Answer: Yes, because only a good connection between us—let’s not call it “friendship and love” because that sounds too childish—rather, only a benevolent connection between us, mutual help, and a sense of the necessity for good relations can bring us to a new world. There is no other way.

Question: What do you mean by a “new world”?

Answer: A new world means a new society where I increasingly feel that my physical and emotional well-being depends on everyone around me, and theirs depends on me. We are so interconnected that it becomes impossible to separate one from another.

I must realize that is a law of nature here, a strict, very strict, law that my attitude toward others determines their attitude toward me. This seems very strange to us. But if we try, if we make the effort, then gradually we will see that the world depends only on our attitude toward it, and it will change for the better. In other words, you paint your own world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 5/13/26

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Question: The methodology for creating unity consists of joint actions, joint study, and joint dissemination. What might there be besides these well-known methods?

Answer: Every conceivable joint action. They serve to ensure our efforts—to define what the Creator is and to establish the proper conditions for spiritual advancement toward that end—ultimately meet with success. We must define among ourselves what the Creator signifies and what kind of property it is that can be revealed in nature.

It is a unique property that manifests where (based on the nature of our own properties) there is neither “I” nor “you.” But this state of “neither I nor you” is built precisely on “me and you,”  two distinct entities that unite with one another so completely that the “I” disappears.

Once united, at the very point where these egoistic properties annul themselves, where they succeed in rising above their own nature, they ultimately lead to a state of self-negation. This “negation of the negation” yields an image of the Creator within our desire even though the Creator Himself exists entirely beyond our desire. This is a force that exists beyond the scope of our perception and it can manifest within our desire provided that our desire becomes similar to it.

This is the manner in which we must constantly think, analyze, and gradually progress to this realization. For this, we have a teacher and a friend, or as the saying goes: “A friend, a teacher, and a brother” who offers assistance and  who bears a specific duty in this process. We must make use of the explanation and try to model this condition in ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Gate of Tears” 10/11/10

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Question: What metamorphoses occur between descents and ascents? What the does the transition from one state to another change?

Answer: Such transitions are possible only within a group.

You cannot possibly analyze, perceive, or measure this process, unless it is in relation to a group in which you, together with your friends, strive to unite as one and nullify yourselves relative to your common connection. Within this connection, you reveal the source, the upper force, that can transform you all and bring you to this connection.

In this way you truly are striving to reveal the picture, the state that actually exists. It is the only thing that exists.

All other notions, which are disconnected from this reality, such as: tell me, show me, explain it to me, are all mere philosophy detached from matter, and will invariably be misunderstood. Moreover, such thinking will lead you to believe that you can achieve this by yourself. Therefore, it is impossible to study Kabbalah without realizing the group connection with those who share this aspiration.

A person must traverse a vast number of stages, undergoing countess realizations, definitions, and analyses before becoming ready for this specific kind of uniting and transformation in order to simply stop perceiving oneself and to perceive the collective instead. At that point one will reveal that this collective is, in fact, one’s soul.

Question: How can we use our ascents and descents in a collective manner? How can we tune to that specific wavelength where everyone is striving in the same direction?

Answer: I have spoken about this at length, and now I do not want to repeat myself.

Question: Perhaps there is some subtle nuance that we are still missing?

Answer: Nothing is missing. Everything has been said thousands of times. You have it all. If you use it, you will find the correct model and yourself in it. If not, then no.

Comment: In essence, you have explained this system in great detail many times, but your students still constantly ask about the same thing. You give some explanations and uncover finer gradations.

My Response: It depends on their advancement. I cannot scrutinize it now with you. You do not understand that a Kabbalist can scrutinize only those things that he really senses in the course of a conversation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Practical Kabbalah” 9/28/10

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Question: Do you have a fear of suffering? Suppose you get sick or something else happens to you.

Answer: No, there is no fear. It is unpleasant of course, because it involves pain and disagreeable sensations; in other words, the absence of light within me is expressed in the same way as in others. There is nothing to be done about it; like everyone else, I would prefer to avoid it, but I understand where it comes from, and I do not fear it.

A Kabbalist believes that the plan of the Creator must be fulfilled, and I do everything to align myself with that plan. As for what is intended for my soul, whatever metamorphoses it is destined to undergo, it will undergo. The main thing for me is to prepare myself so that I can be with the Creator in all these transformations even if He performs very unpleasant “surgical operations” on me.

Question: Are you talking about the suffering of the physical body or inner suffering?

Answer: By “surgical,” I mean internal operations. Of course, this could include physical and physiological ones here, naturally.

When Baal HaSulam was asked: “Surely you could make it so that you do not have to suffer before death?” He answered: “I would never allow myself that.” And he indeed had a very painful death. He suffered from cancer, heart conditions, and various other ailments. He endured great suffering. He did not pass away at such an old age, he was around 70. What kind of years are those?

If a person truly understood the extent to which even these sufferings, which serve as a vessel for spirituality, move him forward, and realized that he has the capacity to rise above them, he would not remove them, he would rise above them. But what is meant here is not an ordinary person who simply suffers like a small beaten animal, but a Kabbalist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Sufferings of the Kabbalists.” 10/8/10

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Question: You say that only from unity, from connection, can anything of real value come. People ask you: “What is unity? What is connection?” You seem to explain it, but you do not answer the question directly.

Answer: How is that? I answer directly! I perceive unity clearly; I am in it right now! From this state, the closest one to you, I explain what it means.

But there is a difference between the very first, the lowest state of connection, of mutual guarantee, and the one in which you are.

If I cross this barrier toward you, then I will be like you and will not be able to explain anything. I descend from the degree I am on to the very lowest spiritual degree, and from it, I try to explain to you, who are still lower, what this lowest spiritual degree is. I cannot descend any lower.

Question: What must happen for us to hear you?

Answer: You must generate a profound desire to experience unity.

Question: You speak about mutual guarantee, the power of unity, connection, and all this is, in principle, seems to circle around the same thing, perhaps with slightly different nuances. Recently, you said something concrete: “Think in this specific way and act in that particular way.” That resonates more clearly with people. But will this really work in practice? These things like: smile at each other and treat each other with kindness?

Answer: It depends entirely on your implementation and on nothing else, absolutely nothing else!

You must want it! You must want it a little bit more. And this “wanting it a little bit more” can be achieved through mutual assistance. It is precisely within that small added increment, within the mutual help that you can give each other, that you will attain the shared sensation of mutual guarantee in which the Creator will be revealed.

I explain everything in terms that are absolutely accessible! All that is required is to actually do it. At the very least to start, but I do not see any starting taking place.

Question: So how does one go about starting?

Answer: You need to map out all these actions in writing.

How is any business enterprise built? It begins with general plans and discussions, followed by more concrete details. Then come the development phases, various forms of research, an analysis of the dependencies involved, and so on. But the crucial step to is commence the serious work.

Question: Suppose everyone gathers together and, as it often happens at conventions, feels an intense collective desire for this to happen, will it actually happen?

Answer: Yes, it can happen at a convention, but it is a temporary state, a fleeting desire. Consequently what you will experience is a temporary sensation, a momentary illumination or revelation, rather than a permanent one.

To attain something permanent, you must engage in work, you must cultivate a constant desire within yourself, an aspiration that continuously accumulates. It builds up steadily until it becomes palpable, firm, and deeply ingrained within your very being.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Useless and Worthless People in the Group” 9/26/10

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Question: You always say that we must turn our descents into constant ascents. Is this merely a mental attitude or is it something more? What is the difference between a descent and an ascent?

Answer: It lies in your attitude toward them.

Comment: Suppose a person feels bad, but he understands that, thanks to this, he will connect with spirituality on a psychological level.

My Response: No, that is religion: “I will suffer, and then I will receive a reward.” There is no such thing in Kabbalah. The Creator does not want you to suffer. Since He is in an absolutely perfect state, He wants you to attain this state as well.

Comment: But people say that if you feel bad now, it means you are in a state of ascent.

My Response: Absolutely not! This is simply foolish and incorrect!

An ascent is when I evaluate my state, whatever it may be, solely according to whether or not it brings me closer to the Creator. A descent is when I am unable to evaluate my state on terms of its proximity to the Creator, but instead I evaluate it by how I feel.

Comment: So in any case, regardless of the sensation…

My Response: What importance does the sensation have! If a sensation dictates my attitude toward my current state, this is called a descent. But if my connection with the Creator dictates my attitude toward my state, this is called an ascent.

Question: How do I transform what my “flesh,” my physical sensation, dictates?

Answer: Here lies the little problem: how to rise above yourself.

Comment: But surely I can do this psychologically.

My Response: You cannot do anything on your own. You can say whatever you want, go through all sorts of training exercises, but in doing so, you do not actually change yourself; you are merely training yourself. You can accustom yourself to pain, do whatever you like, it will give you nothing.

There is a vast array of techniques, but none of them alter human nature. A person cannot reach a demand to the Creator that would actually transform him.

Question: How can one use a descent as a means of ascent?

Answer: You must undergo a transformation that you receive the force of bestowal from above, the quality of Bina; this alone can effect this change within you.

Comment: All this seems conceptually clear: the light acts on you and everything falls in place.

My Response: You will understand nothing until it takes place within you, within you!

Such is this wisdom, because it speaks of transformations that must occur inside of you. If you have not experienced them, you will not understand what it is. You may construe a purely intellectual image in your mind, but it will bear any resemblance to what actual reality will be.

It is like trying to explain the concept of a human being to a dog. It may gaze at you with utter devotion as if it is with you with all its soul and heart, but with its dog’s soul, it will not understand you.

Therefore, all sorts of psychological changes are nonsense. You can find a multitude of techniques, throughout the world, but you will not find one that alters human nature. This is a truth that cannot be explained to yogis or to anyone else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Use the Descent” 9/26/10

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Question: Why must a Kabbalist necessarily be married? What is the basis for this?

Answer: A home, a wife, children, and responsibilities are essential so that one may make efforts in our world akin to the spiritual level of the inanimate (Domem).

When you correctly manage all this on the earthly level, understanding that this is necessary for achieve resemblance to the spiritual, this too becomes a condition four your spiritual advancement, and all your efforts are taken into account.

Question: How did this work in your case? You spent practically all your time with your teacher. You didn’t seem to place such a strong emphasis on family.

Answer: Regardless, my family was constantly beside me. So much so that my children also became connected with my movement toward spirituality. They take an active part in it. And no one forces them.

Question: But your wife surely must have thrown tantrums from time to time?

Answer: Never! I cannot even imagine what tantrums she could possible make. I provide the home and the family with everything necessary, and I ensure that the family lacks nothing. I make sure there is always food on the table, clothes to wear, all the basic necessities in the house; that is, I provide a normal standard of living. This is a Kabbalist’s primary concern, this simple earthly, fundamental concern. It is his duty to do this.

Only after that comes the concern for his spiritual development. That is all; nothing more! There are no problems.

The home is a woman’s primary domain. I cannot imagine what else she could possibly demand. To go out to the theater or visit friends? My wife did not demand this; she knew that I was not cut out for that.

Nevertheless, I always devoted a certain amount of time to her to go for a walk in the park, to sit at home, to talk or to listen to something together, especially as we grew older. And aside from that were were the children and then grandchildren.

She always had plenty to keep her occupied. She was fully aware of what I was doing. Had she ever hindered my spiritual advancement, I would have left. Knowing this perfectly well, we maintained a normal, honest understanding between us. Moreover, she helped me in my work with my teacher. She prepared food for him and looked after him; he was an elderly man after all.

A woman must know why she is getting married and whom she is marrying so that later you will not spring any unexpected surprises on her. That should not happen.

She must know that you work in order to provide for her and the children. But beyond the usual normal level of provision, you dedicate everything else to your spiritual development that she benefits from just as much as you do, acting as a full and equal partner in the process.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Spiritual Couple” 9/15/10

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Comment: Sometimes it is a pity that a person cannot endure the spiritual work and leaves.

My Response: There are very few such people. In the time of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, the dropout rate was very high. I estimate that throughout Rabash’s entire lifetime,  between 3,000 to 5,000 people passed through his hands. And how many remained? Probably somewhere around 70 to 80 people. And even that is a generous estimate. In other words, there was a very high dropout rate. Today, it is much lower.

And where can people go? Our time is completely different. Today, it is clear to a person what Kabbalah gives him. We explain this in plain language.

People think that in Kabbalah, you have to penetrate somewhere with your mind and operate there just as one does with everything in our world. Suppose I am a physicist. They teach me how to work at a nuclear reactor, and I do it. That is all. Do I have to change myself for that? No. I received a degree, clearance, and went to work.

But here, no. Here, you must begin to change yourself. The whole science is built on changing yourself and never anyone else. Therefore, Kabbalah is a completely different method.
[356169]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Sufferings of the Kabbalists.” 10/8/10

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Comment: You say that if a person does not cross into the spiritual world in this life, then they will in the next one. But surely this is a waste of time.

My Response: And what can you do about it? A waste of time. So what? When I look at my children, my parents or other loved ones, of course, they will have to return to this world once again. But am I myself in complete correction? No I am not. We will meet again as well. I have not yet finished all my corrections.

Question: Do you think that you will not be a Kabbalist in your next incarnation but simply as an ordinary person?

Answer: I do not know. And maybe I will be born as my own grandson.

Question: Are you afraid that you might have to change your current ?

Answer: If I were afraid of what the Creator does, I would not be who I am.

Question: Aren’t you even afraid that you will lose your present spiritual sensation?

Answer: Well, let it vanish! This is entirely in His power. He could take all this away from me even now.

Do you imagine that my strength, my position, or some personal means hold me in the state in I am currently in? It is only that the upper light has raised me a little and sustains me.

Question: How can one make a contract with the upper light?

Answer: “You do this for me, I’ll do that for you”? “Save me a spot”? In spirituality, this cannot be.

On the contrary, I completely give myself over to the power of this force, and only in this way do I receive the possibility of being in contact with it. I want it to rule within me for me to become a part of it and for it to become a part of me.

And what else do I possess other than the capacity to nullify myself and thereby acquire all the qualities of the Creator?

Comment: I do not know. You have a different perception; therefore, you make different calculations.

My Response: A person indeed must make a calculation. What is there in us besides foolishness, arrogance, and the desire to dominate? Why should I cherish what is in me? What is there in me that would be worth keeping?

After I begin to examine myself, I see that there is absolutely nothing, except for one thing—that spark that tells me that everything else must be changed. It is this spark that I cherish deeply. Everything else in me is flawed.

And I am feel no shame. Therefore, I do not hide anything, I do not try to be good, kind, corrected, or beautiful in the eyes of others. In reality, who am I? I am even worse than others, because I see more in myself due to the influence of the upper light. And it is not that this is pleasant to me. What is pleasant to me is that this is being revealed, and that I can replace my qualities with the opposite ones.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Cycles of life…” 10/8/10

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Question: If a Kabbalist absorbs the illnesses of all people into himself and corrects them within himself, then where is the joy of his life?

Answer: You cannot imagine how much joy that is for him, because by this, he corrects a great deal. He does not simply suffer like a little man in our world who does not know the cause, reason, or purpose of his suffering, through whom suffering simply passes as he moves forward mechanically. A Kabbalist does this consciously; he senses these sufferings, understands their source, and corrects them. Internally, he is happy.

Question: So all the Kabbalists who died tragically were happy?

Answer: Yes, undoubtedly. My teacher passed away in my arms. The point is that all these sufferings come at the level of our world in the form of all kinds of illnesses. The illness runs its course by itself as in any animate body, and he corrects the world by his attitude to the source, to the Creator, to the light, by rising above this.

He does not become healthy, nor does it make him immortal. He still falls ill and dies. But during the course of this illness and death, he carries out enormous corrections and perceives himself as existing within the upper world; that is what it means to be a Kabbalist.

Question: So he must go through sufferings?

Answer: No, in our time, that is absolutely not necessary. All this was in past centuries, when Kabbalists simply performed corrections and thus prepared all humanity for its present state.

Today we look at ourselves and at the world in a completely different way, and we together take part in the general correction. Therefore, a Kabbalist does not need to correct billions of people but only to disseminate Kabbalah and help them so that they will correct themselves. In this way, we will carry out corrections together with them in one group.

Question: How did the method change? If earlier a person had to suffer…

Answer: This was still before the start of our era when the general egoism developing in humanity was at such a level that sufferings themselves pushed a person toward spirituality. And now this can be done by attracting the light through the study of the primary sources and working in a group. The path of light is not the path of suffering.

Question: On the other hand, a person engaged in Kabbalah goes through difficult states, does he not?

Answer: Naturally, these are unpleasant states. But the point is that they are not so much physical as ethical, moral in nature. Serious work and strong nerves are needed here, although in a group, all this happens relatively smoothly.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. The Sufferings of the Kabbalists.” 10/8/10

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