Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

There Is No Greater Love…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I practically help my friends in the group who feel hatred towards me to rise above this enmity?

Answer: They love you more than your mother does. It only appears to you that they hate you. It’s written: “Everyone judges according to their own flaws.” You might change your attitude towards them in an instant and discover that there is no greater love than the one that emanates from them to you. I feel this way.
[43538]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

Related Material:
All That Is Bad In You Is Your “Self”
What Do We Gain From Love Of Friends?
The World Is An X-Ray Of You

Ask The Creator!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that for the women to be able to carry out their function, they must turn to the Creator with a request. What does this mean?

Answer: The women should try to unite in order to create a great collective force and to convey their desire to the men. Women don’t have to connect with each other; they are incapable of that. They can unite in opposition to men, to “fight” against them. This is the nature of a woman; she can do that, in a good way.

When you begin to engage in this, you’ll feel that in relation to spirituality, to put pressure on the men, you cannot unite either. In the corporeal world, perhaps you can plan a joint action against the men, but you have no power in the spiritual world. Why? The Creator wants you to ask Him to participate in this with you so that He can help you unite and put pressure on the men correctly.

It turns out that from the very beginning, performing the correct spiritual action, you will feel that you need the Creator’s help.
[43540]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

Related Material:
There’s No Development Without Women
The Right Kind Of Pressure
Our Strength Is Our Weakness

Where Does The Creator Dwell?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where does the Creator, the upper Light, reside?

Answer: It is said about it: “I dwell among My people.” What does “among My people” mean? Among My people is among those who desire to reveal Me, the force of love and bestowal, to carry out the notion of “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” This is My people, among whom I dwell.
[43542]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

Related Material:
I Dwell Inside My Nation
The Creator Does Not Exist Outside
The House For The Creator

Until The Last Drop Of Poison

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our egoistic race is turning into a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s clear that it would break at some point, but no one can stop its motion.

Answer: It’s true. Egoism is our only nature. If we had one more force, opposite to it, we could stop. However, we have no other force.

It has to become crystal clear: We are all arrant egoists. Boundless self-love forces people to drink the cup of poison to the bottom, until the very last drop. Even at the moment before death, they will not be able to stop.

It’s impossible to convince anybody of anything: Everybody will be left with his thoughts and will not hear the warnings. I can deliver a speech before the entire world, bring all the data, write all the facts, invite leading scientists and the most prestigious public figures, and together we will cry out: “Friends! Brothers! We are heading to our death!” Their response will be: “Really? What are you talking about?!” And the public will return to their business of burning the rest.

Everybody is an egoist; each one of us is like a machine and cannot act differently. Someone spins; someone leaps; someone moves back and forth. We are created in this way and are not capable of anything else. People don’t hear calls coming from a higher degree and existing above human nature.

Only by uniting among ourselves will we help them recognize the problem. Only then, having understood the situation and sensed the threat that it carries, will people be ready to listen to us at least a bit. And united with them internally, we will give them the Light that Reforms.
[43401]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/2011, Talk on The World’s Overpopulation Problem

Related Material:
An Infusion Of The Force Of Unity
The Sense Of Direction In the Spiritual Realm
The World Does Not See A Solution

Accept Us In Your Assembly

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does the network of connection between the great Kabbalists of the past also work on the souls that have not yet awakened spiritually?

Answer: No, these people don’t turn to them for help. You can study the Torah, read thousands of books, and this will not change anything in you. Moreover, even if you read the texts of Kabbalists with the intention to advance, the question is whether you are in the group, whether you desire to create together with others the same form of connection that exists between these Kabbalists.

Do we desire to create in the bond between us the same network of connection that exists between these Kabbalists? Do we want to move from the connection between the broken souls that think only about how to enjoy all sorts of earthly pleasures to the connection which unites our holy forefathers, the great Kabbalists of all generations? Do we wish to move from the broken system of connection between souls to the corrected one? We ask them to help us become similar to them so that they accept us in their assembly.
[43271]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
I Want To Be A Grownup!
Resting In The Hands Of The Great Kabbalists
A Net Enveloping The Universe

Resting In The Hands Of The Great Kabbalists

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What corrections did the Kabbalists of the past perform for us?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes in “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 11: The sages of the Talmud have made the path of Torah easier for us than the sages of the Mishnah. This is because …they have provided us with a new means instead of the penance presented in the above-mentioned Mishnah, Avot: the “Light in the Torah.” It bears sufficient power to reform a person….”

Why did the sages of the Talmud replaced the path of asceticism (“live on bread and water, sleep on the ground, lead a meager life, and exert in the Torah”) only with the study of the Torah? It’s because they corrected the network of connection between them. This general system of souls already contains the souls that act in it, and we can avail ourselves of their help.

After the breaking, the broken souls exist in the general system of souls. And although in the diagram we depict them as if scattered in a sphere, the system has a strict hierarchy which existed in the world of Nekudim before the breaking. The souls break and fall down following the same hierarchy: each one according to its level of Aviut (the thickness of desire), meaning that the souls with a bigger Aviut fall lower.

This system contains special souls, thousands of Kabbalists who are bonded together by a special connection. This resembles a skeleton of the spiritual system.

Reading their manuscripts, we evoke the illumination from the network of connection that they have built between themselves. This illumination corrects us, and we can avoid the path of suffering and deprivation which people followed in the past, without awakening the Light, but rather subjecting themselves to suffering so that it would help them destroy their ego.

We can’t follow this path. We are weak and unable to fight our ego directly. We can do it by awakening the already existing network of connection. We as though rest in the hands of the Kabbalists of the past, as a newborn baby in the hands of a caring mother, and they look after us.

We connect with their manuscripts, especially The Book of Zohar, the texts of the ARI and Baal HaSulam, and receive from there the Light, the care of these great souls.
[43274]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, The Book of Zohar

Related Material:
Accept Us In Your Assembly
I Want To Be A Grown-Up!
How One Can Inherit “The Fathers’ Merit”

Whom And What Does My Uniqueness Serve?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Based on my teaching experience, I see that Kabbalah reveals the uniqueness of an individual, but it does this in its own way. What’s the secret here?

Answer: My craving for exclusiveness comes from the Creator but in a spoiled form. I realize it through examples: I learn from the world how to be exclusive. For example, I want to be a famous soccer player, follow latest fashion trends, am drawn to wealth, strength, deception, or dream of a career as a mafioso or a university president.

In any case, I learn from the environment which imposes certain values on me. They pull me to what suits me more according to my nature. Each is impressed by something else; most importantly, it is to demonstrate one’s exceptionalness.

Thus, during my development, society dictates bodies of laws to me, and I have to express my uniqueness according to them. I cannot decide anything by myself. For instance, if I found myself in an environment of drug traffickers, I would follow them, dreaming about an exciting career of a drug baron because I wouldn’t see any other examples.

It turns out that in this world, I throw my uniqueness at the mercy of society. It seems to me that I rise above everybody, but in reality, I serve them. Ultimately, I do what they want.

On the other hand, developing spiritually, I receive from the environment the realization of the greatness of the Creator, the greatness of the will to bestow. This is an abstract idea, and I don’t know what it is. Through studying, I receive the Light that Reforms. Again, I have no idea what it is and sense only the result of its influence.

What evolves in me? It’s the point in the heart with its “spiritual genes.” Thus, I develop myself and realize my exclusiveness only in spirituality. Here, everything is decided by the Light that Reforms. I correct only my external form, and my “I” develops within.

If we could recognize our “spiritual genes,” each would see himself or herself in the final state, the way he or she should be. However, a question arises: What is my uniqueness? If it’s already incorporated in me, where am I myself?

I express myself in the realization of my own exclusiveness. I attract the Light to grow a human from my “spiritual seed” and thus acquire an addition to my studies, the coefficient of development: adhesion with the Creator, His form, the ability to be in His place.

Thus, each of us actually realizes his exceptionality in order to become like the Creator, to come to adhesion. I am not growing just in size; along the path, I obtain everything He has, clothe into His garment.
[43309]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Exclusive And Unique
Be The Chief Of Unification
The Group Is The Place Where We Meet

A Net Enveloping The Whole Universe

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that each of Rabbi Shimon’s nine students represented a separate Sefira? Can Kabbalists like that exist in our time as well?

Answer: The ten Kabbalists who made it possible to write The Book of Zohar are the ten main Sefirot. Each of them, by attaining the root of his soul, understood that he belongs to one of their main ten Sefirot, and then their inner unification produced such an enormous force that they could fully reveal the upper Light and “splash it out” on us. That is why this book is called “The Zohar,” according to the name of the Light that shines in the upper part of the world of Atzilut (GAR de Atzilut).

I don’t think that today we need Kabbalists of such high stature. They have already revealed everything, have illuminated the entire system of souls, and then all the other Kabbalists joined the same system. This produced an entire corrected net of souls inside of the common system of souls, which are not corrected yet.

Now, if we want to correct ourselves, then it’s enough for us to read The Book of Zohar and as much as we can, with all our might, to try to join its authors, their souls, as well as the Kabbalists who follow them. They became the corrected part in the common system of souls, and if we want to join them, then we will be able to use all of the Lights and forces that operate in their mutual unification. That is how we will be able to use the Light of The Book of Zohar.

Essentially, we have already received everything! There already exists a corrected system of souls inside of the system that still hasn’t corrected itself. We have the book at our disposal and all of the science of Kabbalah in general, which we study by the method of Baal HaSulam. This is enough for us!

It’s clear that there will still be new revelations, we will explain everything more and will better understand what is written in this book. But from above we have already received everything in order to complete our correction.

Kabbalah is studied in a group. And every person in the world who feels that he has to correct his soul and aspires to reveal why he exists, where the root of his life is and its reason, will eventually find his way into the same net—into one of our groups. There he will begin to reveal what we are doing and how to reveal the root of the soul, how to reveal the spiritual system in which we exist, although we are there in an unconscious state for now. So how can we come to realize this system?

When we come to the group and start studying, then at first we see people in front of us. But then, after we have studied for some time, we begin to understand that these are not people, but an internal connecting net that unites us.

For now this system is dysfunctional, but we are trying to reveal a certain connection in it, looking for a force that could correct us, make us one person with one heart, bring us to love for the neighbor, mutual guarantee, and mutual unification.

This mutual aspiration toward one another in order to reveal the connection between us in the unity of hearts brings us to the sensation of that net. We feel that it exists. We suddenly begin to feel that it is present. And then, inside of this connecting system, we see ourselves and all of the great Kabbalists that enter this net as its corrected elements and support it, conducting Light inside of this system, nourishing it by the Light of unification, love, and mutual participation among all its elements.

It doesn’t matter how we sit together: physically or virtually. The most important thing is that we feel together and want to become part of the same system, to join the Kabbalists. And if we read The Book of Zohar, then we pull nourishment, force, understanding, and spiritual sensation from these souls, from that corrected net, just like children pull it out of adults. This enables us to become part of that system ourselves and attain mutuality, connection, and concessions, canceling ourselves and uniting with everyone.
From the program about Lag B’Omer on 5/17/2011

Related Material:
The Teacher Connects Me To Life
Knowledge Is Passed Down The Chain
The Chain Along Which The Light Is Passed On

Unity That Will Find Response In All The Worlds

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the difference between our unity with the group, with all of humankind, and with nature?

Answer: The fact is that everyone who begins to engage in spiritual work becomes more individualistic. The group also becomes rough, clearly defined in itself; everything is mixed and bubbling inside. The groups have difficulties merging with each other.

When this mixture starts to connect, especially during the conventions, it gives a tremendous spiritual force because suddenly, within a few days, everybody coalesces together in the same material, in a single burst, in the same songs, in the same daily schedule. This affects everybody and releases a huge amount of spiritual energy. This is why the conventions make such a strong impression.

In other words, the more we are opposed to each other, egoistic—each of us individually and the groups as a whole —the greater spiritual potential our unity passes on to the world. This immense potential truly shakes everybody up.

We cannot imagine that our unity injects such a strong reviving infusion into the world, and the world charges forward without even knowing where and how. This infusion gives the world powerful energy for the next state. Accordingly, we advance as well because we cannot move forward faster than the world.

In the past, Kabbalists could reach the world of Infinity and our world kept on rotating as it was. But we are in a period of global correction and should realize this correction. So, our movement will be only in accordance with the movement of the world! And for that reason, we must take this fact into account during our conventions and to think as much as possible about everybody, not just about our friends everywhere, but about the entire world.

The world is beginning to sense that problems exist, and these problems cannot be solved. Anxiety is seizing the world, and humanity feels that it simply distracts itself to avoid becoming frightened and going insane. We know how it’s done: It’s better to give painkillers to the terminally ill in order for them to feel no pain and leave quietly. The world is preparing itself for this state and would even wish it. If people knew that they could take such a pill and not wake up tomorrow, evidently, it would be salvation for them… But it’s not that easy.

We have to understand that our unity is necessary for the world. A huge responsibility is placed upon us! Thus, we are uniting not only to spend a good time together. We have very serious goals. We don’t even realize how global and universal they are, and how they find response in all the worlds.
[43226]
From the Virtual Lesson, Fundamentals of Kabbalah Series 5/15/2011

Related Material:
Responsible For The World
Unity For All
The Convention Will Revive Our Collective Soul

Fear Begets A Plea, Love Begets Gratitude

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What kind of prayer do we need in order to move from the shadow of egoism to the “holy shadow,” the screen on our desires?

Answer: A more correct question would be: What should we be afraid of? In fact, we don’t know what a “prayer” is yet. So far, it is easier for us to understand fear, caution, trepidation, and worry, all that I should be avoiding.

A prayer is the sensation in the heart. And the heart can feel either fear, which is regarded as the first commandment, or love, which it feels having learned to perceive this fear.

There are only two basic commandments: fear and love. Fear leads to a prayer, a plea; love begets gratitude. Therefore, you have to discern what state you are in. If you feel that you are lacking fulfillment, you are in the state of fear. And what should you be afraid of, the fear of loss, or what state should you be avoiding? Ask yourself!

If you are afraid that something bad may happen to you, you should clarify for yourself that “there is none else besides Him.” And if you fear to lose something you have today, scrutinize how to work based on the principle of “if I am not for me, who is for me?” These clarifications are, in fact, the real prayer.

You can’t stop scrutinizing it; on the contrary, you should engage in this scrutiny as much as possible. The key is to discern each state, and it’s all right that the next moment you will be confused just the same and won’t differentiate yourself and all the factors affecting you: your “Self,” the environment, and studies.

In the process of this scrutiny, you will constantly develop by the four stages of HaVaYaH at each new degree. Just don’t come out of these internal clarifications:

  • who I am and who is controlling me,
  • how I should view the force that is driving me,
  • how we should bond among ourselves and seek one another,
  • how to become partners and not leave each other, despite all the concealments and problems,
  • how I can rise above, justify, and use them to come to understanding and love.

[43187]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/2011, Shamati #8

Related Material:
Fear Is The First Step Toward Love
Prayer And Gratitude
Fear That Won’t Let You Stop