Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Attaining The Wisdom Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: All of reality is the Light and the Kli, the Creator and the creation, myself and the neighbor. Then why does The Zohar seem so complicated and confusing?

Answer: The Zohar seems complicated and confusing to us because we haven’t attained the unified picture. To us, “myself” and “the world,” my desires and thoughts, the forces operating in this entire reality, and all the things filling it seem separated from one another, broken. Therefore, this force of the breaking gives me an extremely complicated and confusing picture. It’s all because I do not see it in unity and the division brings me confusion.

To the extent we can see all of these details of perception united together, not in our mind since that won’t help, but rather in our feelings, and to the degree we desire to connect all of these things together—me, the neighbor, the Creator, the studies, the group, the environment, and everything that exists—that is how much Light these efforts will bring me. The Light will in turn cause me to see a more unified picture, all of whose elements will start to slightly unite.

All wisdom comes from the unification of all these opposites which begin to support each other and be interconnected. The more distant and opposite all of these details of the picture of reality used to be, which I now see as united together, supporting and complementing one another, the deeper I attain the plan of creation, the program of creation, the process we go through.

From all these opposites I begin to live, to feel this incredible wisdom, to unite the upper governance into one, and to relate it to the single force. All of this happens as a result of the Light’s influence on my broken desires and thoughts when I want for the Light to connect them into one.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/11, The Zohar

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Knowledge And Fantasy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When a person is convinced that he can feel the Creator, is there a way to test whether this is a real sensation or a religious fantasy?

Answer: One must not try to convince a person that what he is feeling is not real. After all, you cannot put your head on his shoulders.

Let us say that you really know something, and he does not, but he incorrectly imagines something. If you were to pressure him and try to convince him that you are right, then instead of the image he was previously imagining, he will receive a new image from you. However, it will also be an imaginary image, even if to you this is an obvious fact and the truth (although this is also questionable). Once it goes over to him, it merely will become a new fantasy.

This is why Kabbalah does not allow this. One should not get himself involved with trying to convince people otherwise, even more so because your truth also changes all the time. When you rise from one degree to another, all your previous knowledge fundamentally changes.

You constantly experience polar states as you are thrown from side to side until you cross the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). It is written: “Do not trust yourself until the day you die (meaning the death of your egoism).”

This is why you should not be changing anyone’s mind. We only explain to people how helpless we all are in the given situation, and we encourage them to genuinely examine things, to have a sane approach. This is considered to be a direct attitude: We have five senses, so let us only rely on them.

However, it is written that it is possible to acquire additional senses. Once we develop them from a scientific, sane, and logical approach, without taking anyone’s word for it, and discover another reality, then we will begin to examine it. We will then begin to understand it and acquire new knowledge, once again based on the same principle: “A judge has only what his eyes can see,” on the basis of a real sensation.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Useful And Harmful Fantasies

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If imagination interferes with a scientific approach and leads to religion and philosophy, then how can there be imagination that helps with scientific research?

Answer: The imagination that helps us is not an abstract form separated from matter, but a form of the upper one clothing onto us. Every informational gene, Reshimo, has two parts: information about “today’s” desire (Reshimo de Aviut) and information about “tomorrow’s” Light (Reshimo de Hitlabshut).

For example, there are a couple of Reshimot, Gimel de Aviut/Dalet de Hitlabshut, “3/4.” When I realize Reshimo “3,” I will be able to receive the form of the upper one from the degree “4” within it, and this is referred to as creative fantasy. I do not receive it for realization, but only as an example.

Reshimo de Hitlabshut suggests a new future form to us because it is always a degree higher than our current state. These are “memories” that have stayed with us from the expansion of steps from Above downward, and now we can ascend because of them.

Man operates like a machine. If we have these informational genes, Reshimot, then we are able to work due to them, but if we do not have them, we can’t. If one’s entire memory were erased, he would not consciously know how to move a finger. Have you seen the helpless behavior of newborns? They are not able to make even the smallest conscious move.

Everything only comes from Reshimot, and if I am able to correctly realize my desire (Reshimo de Aviut) on my degree, then I will be able to receive the degree of the upper one which clothes onto me (Reshimo de Hitlabshut) as an example. The fantasy helps us work on this basis.

This is not an empty fantasy that has no grounds to it, but a real form which is meant to manifest.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Searching For Wise Allies

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today, there are numerous organizations in the United States, which are trying to find solutions to the crisis and ecological problems. They claim that in the nearest future, America will face hyperinflation which may lead to social disintegration and civil war. This is why they advise making changes in the social infrastructure. Are there any grounds for cooperation between us, and what can Kabbalah offer them?

Answer: The broadest platform for cooperation is the fact that the world is facing an escalating crisis which isn’t accidental, but rather a natural process governed by Nature.This crisis involves multiple areas. Hence, it is able to serve as reliable grounds for cooperation since it presents tangible proof on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, even including humans on a societal and individual level.

Nowadays, this tendency is evident to all and is normal. A person who views it from more or less higher ground understands that it isn’t really up to a person. If we look from an even higher point of view, the following questions arise: What should we do with this tendency? Is it a program of Nature which has a desire, plan, and final purpose?

At these levels, we can, indeed, seek allies with whom we may be able to discuss such things, but they have to be real partners who are inclined toward a realistic, scientific approach that excludes religion, philosophy, and ungrounded claims. By analyzing these factors evident to all, we need to examine how to reach the point where everyone will admit the need to reform human society and reach an agreement. The majority do acknowledge that the world is in crisis, ecosystems are threatened, and the financial crisis isn’t over yet, but the question is what do we do next?

After all, if we don’t do anything, there is no point in talking about it. Then the officials who cover these issues up are right. It’s true that we will die tomorrow, but today, we can still enjoy life. Some numb themselves with drugs, others manage not to think about it at all, yet others gamble in the stock market as if they were playing “Monopoly.” We are not talking about these, however, but rather about people who are searching for how to resolve the crisis.

On the other hand, we should discuss the fact that the world has turned global and integral. Global means that the crisis is pulling the entire world in, and no part of it can be left out. It is integral because all of us are connected by all types of relationships, internal and external, such as thoughts, technologies, industries, banks, and even to the point where we don’t know or understand anything.

Whether we like it or not, we are all in the same boat. Now, we have to decide what we should do. At this point, Kabbalah can offer its solutions by giving a person clear, simple, and logical explanations about the value of our inner connection, how it is built, etc.

If Kabbalists enter within the entire external movement toward oneness, it is enough for our correct intention, which we are able to build based on our nature, to link with this great human society that, so far, participates just physically, without intention. Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation” that there will be people who will come and say: “We are willing to join you and do our part. Just tell us what to do.”

If we gradually manage to build a correct attitude in each part of society, at the proper level, it will give us an opportunity to get closer to the solution. I think that this is exactly the form we need to employ for our work while developing educational methods for children. It’s all because humanity is yet to face very serious problems.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/2010, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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A Motivation To Be Born Sooner

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Baal HaSulam writes that before starting to study Kabbalah, it is necessary to understand what it is. How can everyone learn its language if it’s so complicated?

Answer: To understand what the wisdom of Kabbalah is means to acquire the screen in order to rise above one’s egoism and see spiritual actions. Then, you will be able to understand a Kabbalist teacher and learn from him what to do next. You will comprehend and be able to verify all that he will tell you in practice, right here right now, as it is done by regular students in this world.

But until you are born in spirituality, how can I explain anything to you? It is as if I would be telling about this world to an unborn child that is still in the mother’s womb. So do Kabbalists speak to us from another world. We reside in this world, within its sphere, like in a bubble, while we are being told what is taking place outside of it.

Therefore, Kabbalistic texts work for us only as “miraculous remedy” (Segula). The articles are written for the beginners, but The Study of the Ten Sefirot is written for those who have been born in spirituality, who are already "spiritual babies" that can be told about the upper world. Thanks to it, they will advance and will start exploring the new world they were born into.

As for those who are still inside the mother’s womb, it is only a stimulus, motivation to be born as soon as possible.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/2011, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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A Question On “Practical Kabbalah”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do you think about “practical Kabbalah,” a connection with the Sefirot?

Answer: I regret having to disappoint you, but none of this has anything to do with true attainment. There are no red strings, holy water, or ceremonial actions in Kabbalah.

Any person in the world with the desire to learn, regardless of their sex, religion, or nationality, can attain through the proper study and only through it. It’s as if they do not have a body. In other words, clothes, habits, and traditions do not matter. All of these things have absolutely nothing to do with Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is a science, and when we study it, we begin to perceive this world as a more connected, global world. This gives us a new perspective and a new life. We rise from a level where everything ends inside my body to a global, external level where I float outside of time.

This needs to be felt. I promise you that if you were to begin studying and enter this wisdom, you would feel that this is the way this works. A person of our world must rise to the degree of eternity.

Everything Kabbalah predicted has come true. Two thousand years ago, Kabbalists wrote that the world will enter a new phase of development when The Zohar will be revealed, and we will have to begin to work on our correction. I did not believe this when I started studying Kabbalah in the mid-seventies, but this really happened twenty years later, in the mid-nineties.
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From my lecture in Paris 2/1/2011

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A Beginner’s First Questions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the Creator?

Answer: The Creator is the upper force that controls and brings into action the entire system. We reveal Him as much as we resemble this integral system. To this extent, we connect with the Creator, the general governing force, and become as eternal and perfect as Him.

This is the degree that every person must reach, sooner or later, if not now. Every person will have to become aware of this common system and attain the Creator.

Question: Do angels exist in the spiritual world?

Answer: Angels are forces. “Angel” (Malach) comes from the word Malchut, force.

Question: What are Sefirot?

Answer: Sefirot are specific qualities that are present in every soul, but in different combinations. This determines all the differences between us.

Question: What is “correction?”

Answer: Correction is the adjustment of our vision, our perception, which enables one to see the way the world is connected in reality. Nature is global and integrated. It does not break down into separate parts, the way we are used to dividing it in biology, zoology, botany, geography, and so on.

Nature includes everything. It is the general picture. Correction is in my newly acquired ability to see everything connected into one picture, and I, myself, also enter it together with everyone else. This is why holistic medicine is so popular in our time as it approaches the entire organism and the world in general as one whole.

Question: What is a soul?

Answer: Our soul is the part of the eternal system that we attain. We become included into this system over 125 degrees until we merge with the entire system in general. Every person must ascend the entire 125 degrees.

We have at most 230 years left (until the expiration of the 6,000 years) to complete our correction, to reveal the global, integrated world, and become completely included in it. However, we can do this sooner.

Question: What is “reincarnation?”

Answer: A person who has not completed the correction of his inclusion into the common, global system must keep reincarnating to continue his correction until he will stop being included into the common system as its part, and every one of us will “diffuse” or “spread” throughout the entire system. We will continue to reincarnate in this world until we correct ourselves this way.
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From my lecture in Paris 2/1/2011

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Religious Resistance To Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is there such resistance to learning Kabbalah on the part of the religious, Orthodox world?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah became revealed thanks to Adam (“the First Man”) 5,770 years ago. He wrote a book about it entitled Raziel HaMalach (The Angel Raziel). This teaching continued through his students, and twenty generations later, there came Abraham, a sage who lived in ancient Babylon.

Abraham worshiped stars, spirits, and trees and made idols until the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed to him in the global form. He wrote about it in Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation).

Abraham led his disciples out of Babylon and into the land of Canaan. He organized a Kabbalistic group out of them, which lasted until the very fall of the Temple. All of them lived interconnected as a global, integral society, as one man with one heart. However, 2,000 years ago, at the time of the fall of the Temple, they fell from brotherly love into unfounded hatred.

This event was what is called the “fall” since they fell from the global world into our human egoism. That is how they lost the sensation of the spiritual world, the upper dimension, and started to feel just as all of us do now, meaning as existing only in our world, each one separately, egoistically.

Instead of living in the wisdom of Kabbalah and the collective, integral system, they began to experience only our world, as people still do today. At that time, Kabbalah, which is wisdom, attainment, knowledge, and spiritual science was replaced by religion and religious faith. After all, the spiritual world disappeared from their view.

This is the form we exist in to this day. Religions such as Judaism sprang up, which gave birth to Christianity, followed by Islam. All of these religions exist because the spiritual, global, and integral world is hidden from us.

However, as it unfolds, there will be no place for religions. They will become the cultural traditions of a nation. This is why there is such resistance between Kabbalah and Judaism, which has continued for the last 2,000 years.

Religious folks hate Kabbalah because it explains to them that they live in the dark and don’t understand where they are and what they are doing. However, there will come a time, and specifically in our days, when we will have to rise from the level of blind faith to the level of spiritual knowledge.
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From my lecture in Paris 2/1/2011

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Don’t Show A Fool A Job Half Done

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Who is more interested in the correction – we or the Creator?

Answer: The Creator. He would not awaken us otherwise.

Question: Then why is it our job to awaken the rest of the world?

Answer: He is the interested one, so what do we care? Well, the fact is that we do not have a choice – the Creator obligates us. He awakens us so we would awaken the rest.

Question: But why didn’t He awaken the entire world?

Answer: We will find out about the entire system and about each person’s role and connections with everyone only once we attain the absolute, corrected system, whereby every person will include this full system entirely within him.

Then you will find out why all the souls have been on this path and have gone through this correction. It is impossible to ask about this now, while we are in the middle of the path. This is similar to the development of a fetus which suddenly grows a hand, then the tongue, then the leg, then a tail-like piece which appears and then disappears, then the eyes appear, and so on. We do not understand all these forms of development.

“Don’t show a fool a job half done.” For now we are fools, which means that we still lack the Light of Hochma, the Light of Wisdom which has to spread through our desires or Kelim.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

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I’m Lying, But Honestly

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is one thing to play something with someone, but it is another thing to play on the inside, artificially. How do you do this?

Answer: You understand that you must go from one state to another. You are experiencing one of the states right now, but the state that you want to attain is still in your imagination. You paint it in your mind and imagine what it can be like.

If I were to ask you, “What exactly are you imagining? What do you want to attain?” You would say, “Love and bestowal.” Well, aren’t you lying? Of course you are! But you are told that you have to bestow, and you seem to agree with this.

Very well. You have friends, so start building this relationship of love and bestowal among all of you. Go ahead.

But now you’re no longer in the mood for it…. Well, that’s natural. You are not supposed to want to do this. Just carry out simple mechanical actions. Sit together with the friends, think about it a little, or as much as you are able. The key is that the Light comes when you study and then suddenly you feel that you gradually agree with this aspiration and this development.

Now it is important for you to advance in this direction. You do not want it very much on the inside yet, but you already understand that this is important. The states keep changing and that is how you advance. You move under the influence of the Light, but you are also able to do the things that are meant for you to do.

This is why the breaking of the Kelim took place. It was to prepare the necessary condition for us: We are able to begin to attract the Light that Reforms through mere physical actions, without any desire. I exist among everyone and I hate them all. I cannot concentrate; in fact, I am unable to even think of love and bestowal. I do not care about the friends. I want to be alone with the Creator in the entire world.

Yet I still make some slight actions externally, even if I do not like it and even if I am only able to do what I am told. This is the beginning.

And then hatred becomes even more apparent. Yet, together with it, the importance of the goal also becomes more apparent. I see how important it is to attain bestowal and how far I am from it.

And finally, the importance reaches a limit. Bestowal is the only thing you want, but on the other hand you hate it and are incapable of it, being completely cut off from it. That’s when you cry out – when these two poles assume their final forms in your perception and reach their final power.

This is what is referred to as the “gates of tears for the poor in spirit.” You feel that you do not have anything and you can no longer tolerate that.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/11, Writings of Rabash

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