Comment: Suppose before going to bed a person is still quite alert and asks to be woken up at a specific time in the morning. But when he is being woken up in the morning, he simply cannot get up. Is there a similar state in the spiritual realm when a person cannot rise?

My Response: It is precisely this state that is very clearly manifested in the spiritual realm.

What does it mean to “go to sleep” from a spiritual point of view? You are immersed in the next level where you understand nothing. It is like a dark night for you. You have no orientation within it as if you are asleep. During such “night” states, which you work out very thoroughly inside yourself, you bring yourself to the morning.

How do you know that you will come in the morning and there will be a light that will illuminate everything from within (you will begin to think, feel, understand), and suddenly this state will begin to manifest itself as wakefulness, as awakening?

This happens because by leaving the previous state where you still had control over yourself yesterday during the day, you have already laid the foundation in advance to awaken again, but on the next level.

You connected yourself in advance with the general managing system and completely disconnected from the possibility of doing anything in this darkness.

How does a sleeping person know that he will wake up? Where does he have this internal alarm clock?

He kind of turns it on inside himself. We do not have this in our world. But in the spiritual world, we deliberately perform special actions as if forcing the surrounding nature to awaken us. That is how we work with the environment.

And then it turns out that it works in such a way that we wake up, meaning a person’s eyes open to that night state that is now turning into day. What was unclear, completely incomprehensible and entangled suddenly starts to manifest, unfold, be realized, and sensed. So, instead of night, day comes.

So, what is the problem then? The thing is that there is no night or day outside of me. But when I begin to feel new sensations, a new mind, new thoughts, new understanding, it means that what used to be perceived by me as night is now perceived as day.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Sleep” 8/13/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where can we be free?“

We are controlled by laws of nature.

There is a general force of nature, and two opposite forces—bestowal and reception—extend from it.

We exist between these forces, and both of these qualities affect us.

Then, the question arises: How do we develop under the influence of these forces? Where do we act? Where are we free? How do we accumulate and correlate these two forces within ourselves? How can we build ourselves out of them?

These are the questions that the wisdom of Kabbalah engages in: how we receive these two forces in an optimal balance, and with their help, shape ourselves so as to resemble the very laws of nature, to arise and reach equivalence of form with the force of bestowal in nature. These very laws gave us the opportunity to control the pace of our progress in accepting them upon ourselves.

That is the point of our freewill.

How could we act if we do not have freewill? Who would we be? Would we just be like robots, always under control?

Until now, we have always been under control. What does it mean?

Nature as if injects a drop of egoism–the desire to enjoy at others’ expense–into us, and then it does so a little more, and a little more again, and we then get the impetus to move toward all kinds of egoistic goals. The more our egoism inflates, the more we become willing to move to increasingly gain at the expense of others. Nature constantly squeezes the syringe into us until it eventually infuses us with the full amount of egoism.

Our era is characterized by the syringe of egoism having become completely injected into us, with no more egoism left to inject. That is why we have nowhere left to run.

Where do we head from here? What do we do?

Moreover, egoism has become global and integral. In the beginning, we felt good because we reached egoistic global connections in the world and thought that everything would be fine. However, when such connections started depending on everyone, we turned out to be nature’s opposite.

At this juncture, we find ourselves with a major dilemma, and we need to work out what we do about it. Where our fully-inflated egoism coupled with our tightening global connections brings us to increasing problems around the world, today we require a new form of connection-enriching education that would have the ability to guide us on how to change our egoistic connections to altruistic ones. That is the key to a shift to a harmonious and peaceful world.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Is the Creator a pervert?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 2, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Question: What influences your opinion at certain periods of time? Students? Events? What makes you start saying certain things?

Answer: My opinion about the world, about its governance, about the system of governance does not change.

When this entire huge system, the upper world, and then our world change in their interaction, then I can also say something new and perhaps even relevant about our world and its interaction with the upper world.

In principle, this system is absolutely clearly built for me. I see it, I feel it, I understand it. If there are any changes in it, then we can talk about them.

If there were no serious changes in our world under the influence of the upper world, if today the corporeal world was not awakened from above to its balance with the spiritual world (because it is precisely the lack of balance that we experience as a general, global, integral crisis), then I would not talk about anything. I would study the wisdom of Kabbalah as a theory, without any connection with our world, which will be embodied in our world who knows when.

I studied it this way in the 80s and 90s and did not believe at all that I could live to see all this being clearly embodied. And suddenly, it started.

Kabbalah appeared in an explicit form. I see how all this is spinning in the world in accordance with the upper governance. And I see it clearly!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Influences Laitman?” 8/20/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What movies would you like to see made?“

I have not seen a movie like it before. It would be one that leads its viewers to serious inner changes.

We would enter the movie as people who think solely about ourselves, who have no single thought about others. Or if we could think about others, then it would be only in order to get something from them. That is how we are by nature.

From such a state, we would need to start understanding that finding happiness in others is of primary importance. In order to undergo such a transformation, we need to change human nature.

What does it mean to feel our happiness in others? It means that when others feel good, we also feel good.

How could such a state be possible? On the contrary, we currently feel good when we are better off than others. Naturally, one way or another, we try to lower others so that they become lower than us. We thus need to reach the opposite: that we instead elevate others above ourselves.

If there were a movie that directs its viewers in such a way, then I would be all for it.

But it would be a flop. No one would get excited about it.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” on May 18, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Do you see the same picture of the world that I see?

Answer: No. I see the world in a completely different way—completely interconnected. In this rigid structure, there is a clear connection between me, you, and everyone else, like tubes that connect us together into one single system. Like balls and tubes between them, this is how I see the world.

In the meantime, each of us an egoist, closes himself from others. Thus, the system cannot do anything; there is no circulation in it. The circulatory, nervous, and lymphatic systems stop; life in the body stops.

Before, we could do whatever we wanted. Nature itself supported us from within because we existed in the development of our egoism. Now, we have reached the peak of development, we have become isolated among ourselves, and that is it. Now if you do not want to be properly connected with others, you will not be able to exist.

This is how I see the system, and very realistically. I see in it everything that humanity does and how anti-systemic it is.

Question: It turns out that you suffer the most from this?

Answer: On one hand, yes. On the other hand, I see that humanity will come to this anyway, even through great suffering. In what way, good or evil, I do not know, but it will come.

Therefore, if I have at least some opportunity to show something, to give some source without any connection with me, I do it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is to Blame for the Pogroms?” 8/13/11

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Question: You say that intelligence comes from actions. How important are actions?

Answer: How can you do without actions? On the basis of what would you gain intelligence?

I keep performing actions like a child who does not understand anything. After all, you cannot jump to the mind right away.

There is a desire called “heart.” And there is a brain, a mind that develops only to the extent of desires in order to serve, fulfill, and acquire them. It coordinates the movements and directs me so I fulfill myself. This is our egoism that acts in this way.

That is, when I want to fulfill any of my desires (food, sex, family, power, fame, knowledge, and so on), then the mind turns on. But if there are no desires, then the mind does not turn on; it is as if it does not exist.

It is only a servant of desires. Therefore, the more a person is beaten, the smarter he becomes because he is looking for a solution of how to make sure he is not beaten.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mind is in Action” 8/19/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the future of money?“

Today, we need money to feel secure, and in principle, money acts as a connector: I give you money, you give me money, and we each earn from each other and win over one another at each other’s expense.

It is a copy of our inner attitudes to each other: what we each want from each other is expressed in the amount of banknotes that we exchange with each other.

We approach an employer, work for them, and get paid. That is the relationship we find not only in stores, but throughout society, including between spouses. We express our relationships in a kind of monetary equivalent because we constantly wish to receive something from others. Therefore, today, money is the equivalent of our egoistic efforts, where we desire to enjoy at the expense of others, and wish to receive a certain payment for our efforts.

Eventually, money will demonstrate its failure in its ability to connect us on an egoistic level, and it will then need to convert into a connector of altruistic relations. And indeed, at a certain stage, we will be able to measure altruistic efforts in monetary terms, i.e., as amounts of our giving to each other.

In other words, the shift from egoistic to altruistic relations does not require making any major revolutions in changing our current systems. We only need to change our attitude to what has been created, and discuss how we upgrade the quality of our relationships.

Yet, the shift from egoistic to altruistic relations is a major change because we then gain an addition of a soul, i.e., the quality of bestowal. In this soul, the quality of bestowal, we start feeling that we live on the next, higher level of existence: the spiritual world where we feel eternity and perfection.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Money of the Future” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 16, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would one go about studying the works of Isaac Luria?“

Like Moses brought us the Torah, the Ari brought us the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The Torah and Kabbalah both discuss the revelation of the Creator—the quality of love and bestowal—to the created beings. At Moses’ time, the revelation was through the Torah, and at the Ari’s time, the revelation was through what became written in his Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) and his Eight Gates. The Ari’s revelation of the Creator is communicated in a different style and language, with descriptions of vessels, lights and the person’s work.

From the Ari’s time onward, we entered into a period of studying spiritual qualities and their connections, and the ability to enter such a study of the spiritual world depends on the connection between the students. We who study the works of the Ari thus try to connect among each other as much as possible in order to achieve the revelation of the Creator as described in the Ari’s texts.

It is as Rav Chaim Vital, the Ari’s student whom he left to organize his writings after his death, explained about the Ari’s approach to the connection of his students:

My teacher cautioned me and all the friends who were with him in that society to take upon ourselves the commandment to-do of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and to aim to love each one from Israel as his own soul, for by this his prayer would rise comprising all of Israel and will be able to ascend and make a correction above. Especially, our love of friends, each and every one of us should include himself as though he is an organ of those friends. My teacher sternly cautioned me about this matter. – Rav Chaim Vital, Shaar HaGilgulim, Introduction, 38.

Connection between the students is thus a key condition of studying the works of the Ari. As Rav Chaim Vital mentioned, there is a need to feel that each student is a single organ in one body, and the students need to be mutually dependent in their spiritual aspirations as is the interdependence of healthily-functioning bodily organs.

From the time of the Ari onward, a generation began where people’s desires grew to a new level, and they were ready to feel what the Ari passed on. In other words, desires in humanity underwent a certain development whereby more and more people could no longer simply believe in holy matters, but new desires meant new ways of yearning to discover the spiritual world.

Studying the works of the Ari thus involves longing to connect to the goal that he attained in his heart and soul. By dedicating ourselves to such a goal, we can become rewarded with our eyes opening to the spiritual world and the revelations that the Ari describes in his texts.

Therefore, together with the need for connection among the students to study the works of the Ari, there is also the requirement of calibrating the intention to the study. Rav Chaim Vital also discussed how the Ari guided his students to adjusting such an intention:

My teacher would say that the heart of the intention of reading in the Torah depends on aiming to connect one’s heart to its root through the Torah in order to complete the upper tree and complete the upper Adam [man] and correct him, for this is the whole purpose of man’s creation and the purpose of his engagement in the Torah. – Rav Chaim Vital, Pri Etz Chaim, Gate “Conducts of Learning,” Chapter 1.

Moreover, we cannot understand the writings of the Ari directly, because they are quite concealed. In order to unlock them, we require Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s (Baal HaSulam’s) accompaniment and explanations.

Baal HaSulam went to great lengths to write detailed commentaries on the works of the Ari, including the monumental six-volume set, Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). It is not only Baal HaSulam’s efforts to interpret the works of the Ari through which he gives us access to understanding the Ari, but Baal HaSulam attained the Ari’s level of spiritual attainment, which is what let him understand the Ari and explain his works. Baal HaSulam himself wrote about such an attainment:

Know for certain that since the time of the Ari to this day, there has not been anyone who understood the method of the Ari to the fullest, as it was easier to attain a mind twice as great and twice as holy than the Ari’s than to understand his method in which many hands fiddled—from the one who first heard and wrote them through the last compilers, while they still did not attain the matters as they are in their upper root. Thus, each inverted and confused the matters. And now, by the Creator’s will, I have been rewarded with a conception [impregnation] of the soul of the Ari, not because of my good deeds but by a higher will. It is beyond me, too, why I have been chosen for this wonderful soul, with which no one has been granted since his passing until today. I cannot elaborate on this matter as it is not my way to discuss the concealed. – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “Letter 39.”

Therefore, since the time of the Ari onward, there was a change in the conditions for entering spirituality because of a change in humanity’s development of desires, and the Ari was the bearer of the change in the method of spiritual attainment. He brought us the wisdom of Kabbalah, and studying his works requires connection among the students, calibrating the intention during the study to the spiritual goal, and that we use Baal HaSulam’s texts as a prism through which we can penetrate into the Ari’s teachings.

The Ari was a very special soul and a giant among Kabbalists. He lived and worked in this world as a merchant, but simultaneously acted at spiritual heights above time, space and motion, and it is difficult to speak about such levels of greatness. The Ari is indeed a very special phenomenon, and it is truly a gift that we have the ability to enjoy his works.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the “Memorial Day for the Ari” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 23, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Question: You say that we should not feel sorry for a person when he receives blows; otherwise, he will not overcome them. How can we find the line between feeling sorry for him and pulling him out of the descent?

Answer: You can pull a person out of a descent, but very carefully so as not to harm him. You understand that the descents are given to him so he can rise from them, begin to feel new states, and master his next one. If this does not happen to him, then it is a pity.

In no case should you help him. You should help him only so that the process he is going through really happens correctly, that is, to bring him closer to friends and contact with others, to give him the opportunity to understand the meaning of what is happening so that he treats his descent correctly, realizing that a descent is not a descent, but the acquisition of a new egoism above which he must now rise.

Comment: When people use this method, it seems that in principle, they do not feel what they are doing.

My Response: We all are in different states. There are people who are beginners, and there are still those who do not understand. There is nothing you can do.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harmful Pity” 8/22/11

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Question: One of your videos talked about the road to heaven lies through hell. Michael  asks: “Does one not become cruel after going through hell?”

Answer: If a person goes through very serious trials, I would even say oppression, of course, it could make him cruel sometimes. But I have met people who, after suffering a lot in the dungeons of the NKVD [the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs] and others, on the contrary, had their hearts aching for others, they empathized with them very much, and made them softer.

Question: Were there any that broke down?

Answer: Not that they broke down but assumed the same behavior and became like their guards.

Question: You say from time to time that suffering makes one softer. Those who have become better and begun to empathize, has suffering softened them? And those who have not, did they, in a way, say: “Then we will do the same too?”

Answer: Yes.

Question: Does it depend on anything or anyone?

Answer: It is virtually inexplicable.

Question: So it could be that a kind man entered the dungeons and came out as a beast, while a cruel man entered the dungeons and came out as a good man?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can this be explained?

Answer: I could not see cause and effect. I have talked to people for whom hitting their heads against a wall and losing consciousness was a break, a respite. Such were the sufferings.

And they came out as normal people, very compassionate.

Question: Is it very hard to explain?

Answer: Do not try to explain it now. This is a long story.

Question: Then let us “rise above the ground.” Is this path ordained for every person, one way or another?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Where does it come from? Where?

Answer: It is hard to say. I would simply say: we do not know.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/12/23

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