Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

At The Beginning Of A Fascinating Path

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should I relate to the fact that there are “flavors of the Torah” that can be revealed and “a secret” that must not be revealed, in my work?

Answer: You shouldn’t worry that you might discover some forbidden secret by chance. You should think about the correction of your desires now. When you correct the desires that belong to the lower part of the Partzuf, then the Light called “flavors” will be dressed in them. In this Light you will be able to understand the head of the Partzuf and will begin to reveal the “secrets.”

The secret is not your calculations in your head about how to fill the “body” with the help of the Masach (screen). “To attain the mind of the Partzuf” is to attain the thought of creation, the attitude of the Creator to us, His intention, and not only His desire to bestow good.

As for now, we don’t have such a mind, we don’t have the vessels for this kind of attainment. You will need to build a new logical tool for decision making, which at the moment we don’t have.

After we correct all our desires and adhere to the Creator, this adhesion will raise us to an upper level about which Kabbalists do not write. The wisdom of Kabbalah only speaks about the correction of the desires that must be made in 6000 years.

During these 6000 years the correction ends and the worlds of BYA rise to the world of Atzilut. Then the world of Atzilut together with the worlds of BYA spread downwards from the Parsa until this world. But they don’t tell us about this in the books because this belongs to the correction of the “stony heart.”

We study about how we have to rise to the world of Atzilut. After all the souls that belong to “Israel” and all the souls that belong to the “nations of the world” who cannot rise by themselves but only thanks to the fact that they join “Israel” (and there are such parts in every person) rise to the world of Atzilut and receive the Light there—this is where our work ends.

When we raise all the souls, until the last one, an upper action, called “Zivug Rav Pealim Mekabtziel,” comes, which is intended from the start for the time when all of the AHP de Aliya rises. Then the Light of Gmar Tikkun is revealed—”Rav Pealim Mekabtziel.” This means that it takes all the desires with all their Lights and gathers them into the whole ten Sefirot, and they spread from the head of the world of Atzilut until this world.

This is how the correction of the desires takes place. But what will happen afterwards? The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t tell us. Well, you’ve corrected the desires, what next? You’ve finally fixed the car, where will you go now?

We are only at the beginning of the road; what’s next, we are not told—not because it is forbidden, but simply because it is impossible. We don’t have the mind or the feeling to understand what will happen next. Undoubtedly, however, this future awaits everyone. Our role is only to hasten our development!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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School: The Mirror Of The Vices Of Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we talk about education for adults, there is a fear that people will accuse us of offering something impractical, too detached from reality.

Answer: I totally disagree with you!

Today’s world and the one we propose are absolutely opposed. We must face the truth! It is actually true. There should not be partial solutions! I cannot create a school half-humanistic and half-egoistic, the way it is today.

When a young child comes to school, he could be beaten and robbed; he could be made into anything, compelled to do anything by force, pressure, influence, and some values. He is forced to be the same as everybody else with the worst examples. He can become attached to smoking and drinking alcohol, not to mention the threat of drugs! School is a school of depravity, a school of vanity! One is driving a car, the other gets there on foot.

All the evils of modern society are manifested in children at school in the cruelest way. We need to fight against this! We should start doing something about this. They are our children!

Since we have become insensitive egoists, we treat children likewise, pushing them away as if saying: “Go to your school. They should deal with you there.”

Instead of raising a child as a normal person and creating a future for him, the next society, we neither create society nor make a person a human being.

It does not matter what will be. That is why we do not want to bear children. We simply exist and go with the flow, which carries us to a huge waterfall, to fall into the abyss.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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The “Golden Age” Groups

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the integral upbringing courses, should we gather the elderly into separate groups or can they be in groups with people of different ages?

Answer: I think that we should match people by age. We know just how much age, differences in people’s mentalities, and their manner of behavior influence their perception.

However, ultimately, everyone should ascend, in mutual support and inclusion, above all emotional, intellectual, or age-related attributes that distinguish them from others. But initially we should arrange groups to be as homogeneous as possible.

Question: Should the instructors also be of similar age and qualities?

Answer: Nature is based on the law of similarity, equivalence, and compatibility of qualities. That’s why in this case we must follow precisely the same principles. That is, we should provide elderly instructors for elderly groups and younger ones for youth groups. As a matter of fact, youth groups can be taught by middle-aged people, but not by old folks, that’s clear.

Everything should be structured so as to exclude from the group anything that hinders a correct, kind, and open perception of the course, and to achieve contact and correct understanding between a group and its instructor as quickly as possible.

Question: For the elderly people, should we also form separate groups for men and women?

Answer: No. I don’t think that people of advanced age have a need for that because they are already used to every kind of communication and it is natural for them. I don’t think we should break their views and build some sort of a team out of them, like in the army or sports.

Interaction among them is built not on competition or some other internal impulses, but on mutual assistance and such. They already have a completely different attitude to one another, life, and the world. Therefore, we understand that this is an entirely different psychology.

The so-called “golden age” doesn’t require the same approach as children and especially adolescents. Among the latter thrives a battle for leadership, understanding, and self-expression, while here we are dealing with a relatively peaceful person. Although naturally, we need to come up with another manner of teaching and presenting our materials for them.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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Combining Efforts

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today, several modes of human interaction exist. Generally speaking, you can divide them into two types. One type is when in the process of interaction people develop a need to create some kind of a new project. After they get acquainted with each other, complete a first phase of theoretical education, and unify among themselves, a natural desire arises in them to create some good, kind project that will be useful to other people.

The other type is when people are in the process of solving certain issues in their regular life and then come to the group, receive particular experience, realizations, and support, after which they enter the world again and try to transmit to it the newly received integration experience.

Is it possible to join these two types of people in the courses of integral upbringing for the sake of collaborative actions in the world?

Answer: For the time being we only put such people into groups, which organize joint trips, conventions, and various games. In combining their efforts and material resources, they create a certain prototype of a future society.

It is like a game where in the duration of a few days people unite in challenging conditions set up for them in advance. These conditions encourage them to unite, to mutually participate, to ascend above and exit from oneself, as well as help a person to feel just how much he or she is dependent on others. But all of that is still within the framework of so-called “laboratory” exercises, nothing more than that.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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A Common Feeling, Mind, And Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Suppose that for some time during the integral upbringing courses people “brew” within the group, studying theory and doing practical exercises. But naturally, a time then comes when a person has to study integrality, to exit into the big world, so to speak.

Answer: For that we gradually begin to merge and consolidate the groups, bring them onto television, to discussions in virtual networks. Integral education, the study of integral connection, continues practically throughout their entire life until one reaches the very last level of harmony in human society and in nature.

That’s why gradual consolidation of the groups requires such a state where a person feels equally included into and connected to absolutely all levels of humanity and senses all of humanity inside of himself. Each one of us feels like we exist within a “round” society, not classified by any levels such as emotional level, IQ coefficient, or some other criteria, in other words, in a society that is independent from any innate parameters that we are not yet able to transcend.

Within an integral society, this mutual inclusion assumes such development of a person that he or she is able to use the mind and feelings of another, and through his attitude towards others this person incorporates himself into them and begins to use these “foreign” resources as his own. In this event, the personal “I” disappears in the sense that a common feeling, reason, and heart arise. And it’s as if a person connects to this total unified virtual image of man called “Adam.” Then all the differences between people gradually level out.

These are going to be exactly the conditions that humanity can only dream about: Everyone has to be equal, everyone has to live in the same conditions, states, and so on. That is, each of us will draw from one single mind and feeling, as much as one is able and as much as one desires.

At the same time, nobody will feel lacking because everything will be provided for everyone—the great mind and the great heart will relate to all.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/13/11

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Not Repulsive But Forces To Go On

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is a person who is doing everything he can constantly being pushed back?

Answer: This is wonderful! He is shown how much more he needs to be strengthened. This is how they teach a child to walk. They are moving further and further away from him, as if pushing him away!

The child feels as if they do not want to support him. This is how he understands it. These hands, which support him, seem to always be near, but are constantly moving away, making him feel irritated and as if he has no strength.

How can we be so cruel to a child who doesn’t understand what we are doing with him? The poor child is standing and crying, and instead of taking him and holding him, we are tempting him to draw closer to us, forcing him to walk.

The Creator is doing the same thing to us.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Build Your House And It Will Come Alive!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe same question arises all the time in students: What should I do? With the question about the meaning of my life, I find the teacher and the group, and I begin to study. One needs to correctly organize all of this together so that with the instruction of the teacher and the help of the studies, one will reveal this spiritual form inside of this group.

It is as if I found a whole pile of blocks: This is the group. And now, I am sitting like a little child together with his father and an instruction book with a drawing of how to assemble the blocks into a house.

I look into this book, but this is not enough since I am still small and ignorant. I need an adult to help me. My father is helping me (from the blocks that make up the group) to build a house. This is what we have going on.

Due to the fact that I am building a house, I am gaining wisdom, I understand and feel ever more. And when I finish building this house, I begin to reveal life in it! Suddenly, some kind of small lights begin to illuminate, something begins to move inside of it, some sounds begin to emerge, and scents; it is starting to become alive as if in a wondrous fairytale.

At that moment, when I correctly assemble all of the blocks, everything suddenly lights up and begins to move.

Question: But the father first shows the child how to build the house, and then builds it together with him. Why doesn’t He help us build it?

Answer: Just start building and demanding His help for this. Maybe, you haven’t even started any building in the group, and you are already asking, where is dad? But what do you need Him for, if you haven’t even started?

When you begin to build and you see that you are not able to do it, then you will want Him to be with you. You will go and bring Him in by the hand so that He will help you in this game. But for now, it still seems to you that you will build everything by yourself and you do not need a father.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Universe Of Infinite Wisdom

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I understand how an infant develops. But who knows what genes exist in human society? No one has ever seen how it develops, nor was anyone able to collect data and assert how it will develop going forward. Humanity is our only child, and this is how it grows.

Answer: We can analyze and examine the past, study the developments in philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and this allows us to detect a consistent process and its driving causes. We don’t see future prospects very clearly, but judging by our present state we can still deduce where it will lead us. As with all things, we’re always extrapolating the past into the future.

Nature demands that we observe its laws. Nature is the general organism, which encompasses the still, vegetative, animate and human degrees of development. Everybody goes through this development. First it was the Earth, followed by the plant kingdom, followed by the animals, and finally humans.

This development began with the Big Bang and has been continuing via increasingly greater unification. In every instance, the unification of various parts leads to the creation of increasingly complex and unique organisms, both in terms of quantity and quality.

At first there was only inanimate matter, but then its parts suddenly began to grow acquiring a kind of life, their own individual development. The development then reached the animate degree at which animals develop even more individually. The animate degree was followed by man. These are the results of Nature’s development.

Obviously, this development has its own laws, which we can see by looking at the past. The question is whether we understand them? It appears that we don’t, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

As a scientist, I study nature and the way it develops, developing me as its component thereby. Indeed, even with all our scientific achievements, man can never be above Nature.

We exist in a certain closed sphere that we call “the Universe,” we study where we are and the kind of laws that act here within this sphere. This sphere is infinite, boundless, and filled with unlimited wisdom. And all we’re doing is scraping up paltry crumbs from this wisdom: This is what our entire science is based on.

We don’t study anything other than nature, and within this sphere we also learn something about ourselves. We see that we cannot take control of our lives, and for this, clearly we must study the laws of nature. It’s good that unpleasant problems push us toward attaining Nature; at least, the motivation is to improve our lives.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 1, 12/17/11

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On The Wave Of The Book Of Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: For quite some time now during The Zohar lesson I feel as if I am trying to find the right wave of a radio station, but I only hear noises. We constantly speak about the fact that while reading The Book of Zohar we should tune ourselves to one goal or another, and I can’t do that at all…am I missing something by that or should I just keep on going and it will come eventually?

Answer: The thing is that if we are talking about receiving a wave and not about the Reforming Light, then among all the noises I should find the exact frequency in which I will hear the silence; the silence is what I need to hear. This is the exact frequency of the station. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah this accurate direction indicates that I am getting ready to receive the Inner Light.

Here, however, we are talking about the Surrounding Light, about the Reforming Light, which you don’t recognize when it comes to you. You aren’t working here in order to receive some wisdom, to receive some “station” and to hear something new.

You are here in order to activate the maximum desire, and in it you will receive the power to overcome, not knowledge. After all, you are not looking for knowledge here, but for the desire to bestow, to annul yourself before the Upper, to adhere to Him, to His attribute of bestow, to the power of bestowal, to reach self sacrifice, and the ability to actually incorporate in the group in order to receive from it the power to find this upper spiritual mechanism there.

You are not tuning yourself to the “station” of wisdom. You don’t wait to be shown something like on a TV screen. This isn’t the channel through which the Reforming Light comes. It comes to the place in which you yearn for bestowal most and are ready to annul yourself and develop your connection with others. This is the result of the Reforming Light, which we should expect.

I don’t aspire to understand and to feel the material we study at all. I yearn to understand and feel the actions of bestowal themselves. After all, “to know the material studied,” as Baal HaSulam says in part 155, of the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” means to know the Upper, and not to acquire knowledge. Knowledge in spirituality is the knowledge of bestowal, and it is in the Light that I study how the spiritual tool works. I won’t see it if I don’t have this approach.

After all, what does the Reforming Light bring us? It allows us to relate to the hidden world in which we dwell through the attribute of bestowal. When I begin to relate to the world using the attribute of bestowal, the world becomes transparent and through it I see the networks of connection. It is about these networks that I study, the networks in which I am incorporated, in which I begin to feel like a spider in a web.

When I feel the whole system of connection, I begin to correct it, to pull the strings that are drawn from me and to see upon what I bestow. Eventually, this is our whole study: about how I move the whole system and how with its help I correct my actions and work for this system, and how this whole system moves until the Creator, the general force, is revealed.

This is why I don’t look for the “station” that should be revealed by The Book of Zohar. But the “static” will gradually bring you to search for another “station,” and you will find it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/12, The Zohar

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The Allure Of Mystery

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does creativity depend on the right contact with the environment?

Answer: Power and creativity depend on how much a person identifies more advanced forms of development on his way and discovers the means by which to raise to them.

Every instant, like a small child, he looks for new forms in order to discover the world, not this prosaic world, but the hidden mysterious world.

After all, in the eyes of a child everything seems mysterious and he looks for new opportunities to discover the world more and more. For him the world is divided into the revealed and the hidden: He sees something and something else he doesn’t notice, he hears something and something else just passes by his ears. Sometimes he catches just a few words of what is being said, sometimes he focuses on something and everything else remains outside his sight. He constantly tries to discover what is hidden from him.

This is what we lack…we provide kids with games and the necessary means, and we have to take care of ourselves by ourselves. Our means is the environment, and thanks to it we advance. The environment should be the image of the next level for me. I don’t agree with what I see, but I am incorporated in the group and oblige all the friends to take on newer and more advanced forms. This is all our work.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/10/12, “The Freedom”

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