Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is suffering and depression a result of bad past life karma?“

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we discuss Reshimot, which are records of the past or information about past actions that are engraved on our soul. Reshimot pressure us and determine our present and future.

However, our behavior can change the influence of these records from the past, making it so that they become perceived positively in the present.

It all depends on us.

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

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Question: Vladimir writes: “My friend, who works in a bank, told me about a global reform. The bank’s managers have replaced all men from the cash desk with women. He said that the bank conducted an analysis of many years of monitoring. It turned out that ten percent of male cashiers, working with money, cannot resist and start stealing. And among women, this tendency is much less than one percent.

He asks: “Why can’t men resist having a lot of other people’s money in their hands? After all, it is believed that women love money more. What is the weakness of men?”

Answer: First of all, women are more disciplined. They are more responsible. They have less craving for theft compared to men. They are more loyal. So it is natural.

Question: Why can’t men hold back?

Answer: Men are like children. I can now steal a little something somewhere, buy myself something special, some kind of toy or something else, I will do it, I cannot resist.

Question: So at that moment does the money stick to one’s hands?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And in a woman is there some inner shame to steal?

Answer: Women are very independent and sustained. A female thief is nonsense.

Question: What is at the root here? You keep saying that a woman is a greater desire to receive, egoism can be bigger. And at the same time, you are now justifying them in this way.

Answer: This depends not just on the desire to receive, it depends on independence. Women are more independent. They feel responsible for themselves and for their future. And they feel themselves in a relatively threatening world.

Question: Will she also be afraid?

Answer: Yes. Man does not have this feeling. Again, not from intelligence and not from physical strength or courage, but because he is like a child. Because men lack internal, hormonal development like women, they feel like children.

Question: What is “hormonal”? Do you mean adulthood?

Answer: Yes, adulthood. And that is why they do not have it.

Question: You mean the responsibility to give birth to a person?

Answer: Of course! They can sit on a bench and drink beer, chat with each other, and do something else of that sort. In general, it does not matter what. A woman always has some kind of responsibility for herself, for her relatives, for her mother, for her children, and so on.

Question: Can you say anything good about men?

Answer: Nothing. What can you do? That is who we are.

Question: Then what can be done with a man who has money sticking to his hands?

Answer: This is a problem. He needs to run away from this job. That is all.

Question: So this is the advice: stay away from work with money? So that he is further away from money?

Answer: Yes. This is the first call to prison.

Question: And in the upper root, what is it with the male and female parts?

Answer: The male part just needs a big correction and immediate one, and the woman needs a softer and non–urgent one.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/18/23

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Question: Previously, people traveled from place to place and the journey took a week, a month, and so on. Now they can be in another place in two hours. If everything in me consists of desires, then what is this desire inside of me called a journey?

Answer: The fact is that our desires have become bigger, more egoistic, and more dynamic. Therefore, I have such desires in me when I imagine airplanes, ships, and all kinds of means of transportation including rockets. In general, this is all an expression of my new egoistic desires.

I create these models and mechanisms within myself. All this is in my desires, there is nothing else. I see the whole world inside my desire, including all artificial or natural things.

What does natural mean? Natural is something that was created without my participation.

There is physical, biological, and social nature. Physical nature, obviously, goes on by itself. Biological nature, i.e., vegetative, animate, and human nature does too.

Social nature, however, is what we do in human society, what we create ourselves and add to nature in order to exist more comfortably. We invent all kinds of toys, devices, that help us live comfortably, to see further, hear further, work less, be more lazy, fulfill ourselves with all sorts of videos, sounds, and so on.

Our ego invents all these devices for its enjoyment. But it is possible to be fulfilled without any hardware, devices, and nano-technologies. If I cannot provide myself with pure fulfillment, the light, then my ego creates egoistic pleasures, and they require huge efforts from me.

Kabbalah offers pure fulfillment. Why should we invent some huge devices in order to be fulfilled? It is possible to be filled with joy without any physical means.

Question: How exactly does the replacement of corporeal fulfillments with spiritual ones happen?

Answer: It depends on how I work. If I work in the direction “for my own sake,” then of course I have to invent all sorts of mechanisms and search for how I can fulfill myself with something else at least a little, and so on until I reach a state where I cannot be fulfilled by anything.

But if I am being fulfilled “for the sake of bestowal,” then I have a completely different kind of fulfillment and everything depends only on me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Journey Inside a Person” 6/2/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the difference between the terms ‘god’ and ‘creator’?“

PhD in Philosophy & Kabbalah, Russian Academy of Sciences (Graduated 2005)Thu
The words “God” and “Creator” evoke different feelings.

Religions, beliefs and people in general more readily relate to the word “God” as a certain power that fills the void around us, existing outside of us.

The Creator, however, creates the world, us and everything in us at every moment, which evokes a need for us to react to such an influence on a moment-by-moment basis. By calibrating our reactions in a certain way, we can come to perceive that we are the Creator’s creation, and that the Creator is a single, eternal and perfect bestowing force that created us for a specific purpose.

In Hebrew, the word for the Creator is “Boreh,” which is a combination of two words, “Bo” (“come”) and “Reh” (“see”). That is, the Creator is an extensive name that involves our dynamic participation in order to reach the Creator’s revelation.

Therefore, “Creator” is a more obligatory term than “God.” The Creator expects something from us. What does the Creator expect from us?

It is that we discover our complete dependence on the Creator, that only the Creator can make us equal to Him, and that we will start demanding corrections from Him—to invert our egoistic nature into His bestowing nature.

We can ask the Creator to do something and He does it. That is, on one hand, we are powerless like characters in the Creator’s script, but on the other hand, we are in control: that without our request and demand, we could never reach a revelation of the Creator’s eternity and perfection.

How can we ask the Creator to do something?

It is like how small children demand something from their parents, they stubbornly stick with their demand no matter how many times the parents tell them “no.” This ongoing demand from the Creator leads us to a state that Kabbalists call, “My sons defeated me.” We then start feeling that we are His children and that He created us precisely in order to develop such a relationship with Him.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on April 28, 2022, and on May 22, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: You often say that in addition to studying texts and practicing Kabbalah, luck is also important. What do you mean by luck?

Answer: By luck, I mean that a person should be careful not to miss a single moment in life. Luck is not favoritism. Luck is when I make the most effective use of every moment to absorb everything I can from every circumstance.

As they say: “Look for luck.” I do not know where it is, but I am prowling like a dog, where can it be? That is what I mean by looking for luck.

I want to make my students more feeling and sensitive in order not to miss every moment.

Question: In any case, do you focus on the main core of students with whom you can communicate more deeply?

Answer: No, my lesson is designed for a more or less average level of students, or maybe a little higher.

The rest are gradually catching up. I am still focusing on the more internal part, on more complex material, in order to force the others to improve a little.

Someone understands five percent, someone fifty, and someone seventy or eighty. But what can I do? I have to develop a methodology both in breadth and depth and a little upward, and show that it covers everything that exists in our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Accessible Kabbalah” 7/15/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why did the orchestra stay on the Titanic until the end?“

Various accounts of togetherness and nobility during the time of the Titanic’s sinking show us how crises enable people to support and look out for each other.

For instance, while the Titanic was sinking, its orchestra kept playing until the very end, while people were being put into boats and panicking onboard.

There is also a story about a billionaire who chose to remain on the ship until the women and children were saved first, and accounts of women who chose to stay with their husbands and end their lives together as they had lived together.

It is natural for men to suddenly feel obligated to save women and children under such circumstances.

As for the musicians who played together until the end, their connection in one place evoked the force of connection that dwells in nature to hold them together.

If we sought to connect with the force of connection dwelling among us, then it would bring about such togetherness that would alleviate much crises and suffering that we experience in our lives. All it takes to evoke this force of connection from its concealment is that we hold onto one another. It then appears among us.

It is also the solution to fear. If we each focus on the benefit of others, we then do not feel ourselves. We feel others in place of ourselves, and leave fear behind by doing so. It is because fear emerges from self-concern, and when we replace self-concern with concern for others, we then leave no room for fear to surface.

If we strive to positively connect with each other, we then start feeling as parts of a common and higher entity, which is filled with goodness and peace.

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

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Question: Why did the English language actively spread in the world?

Answer: This is a consequence of age-old conquests. At one time, Greeks had the dominant position in the world, then the Spaniards with the Portuguese, then the British.

When the British appeared on the historical stage, they had a well-developed fleet, their ships could reach India and other distant places.

The French were weaker in this area, but still there was great competition between England and France for the conquest of America. The British could not fight for South America since the Spaniards had already settled there and a serious war was underway for North America.

As for the language, there was a big debate in America about which language to take as its basis: German or English. Many were inclined in favor of the German language because Germany was a very developed country.

All kings, including the English ones, were from Germany, which supplied the rulers to the world.

Therefore, most of the kings of England did not know English and spoke only German.

But as a result of the fight between the Germans and the British for power in America, the victory was for the British, so the English language took the lead. Since America began to actively develop, the English language began to spread rapidly around the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dominance of America” 5/15/11

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Question: You have explained for so many years that we should be mutually connected, and only a few hear it. But even those who hear still continue to resist it. Why?

Answer: Because we are all egoists. Of course, we do not want this. But what you hear, slowly adapt inside yourself, and agree with, although you cannot implement it, already means a lot. Nature challenges us. We do not understand it yet, but at least we are starting to hear it.

Today we must definitely equip human society; otherwise, we will destroy ourselves.

Countries need to come to an understanding that people should work only for what is necessary for existence without any excesses. Development should go toward the public domain, not the personal one.

We have entered a new world; new laws of nature exist around us, and we need to understand them in order to learn how to live in a new world; otherwise, we will be lost in it.

Nature is inanimate. It has no sympathy for us. It does not matter if you are thoughtful or not, religious or agnostic, smart or stupid. If you follow its laws, you feel good; if you do not, you feel bad.

Now, when we are together closed into one global humanity that depends on one another, if someone somewhere does not comply with the laws of nature, I suffer from this. That is, we need to come to a common consensus and literally study the new world we find ourselves in.

The new world is an addition to physical, biological, and social nature. Today we depend on the structure of society. We must make it the same as physical and biological nature: global, integral, interconnected, and structured into inner harmony.

To do this we must study nature and arrange ourselves into exactly the same structure as nature itself. Then we will be fine. If not, it will simply destroy us. We are leading ourselves to destruction. If I do not follow the laws of nature, I suffer. I can cry all I want, nothing will help.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that we need to be mutually compliant, mutually connected, mutually loving, and bestowing, that is, to be in harmony with each other. If we succeed, everything will be good; if not, it will be bad.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Future Society” 6/11/11

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Question: You have repeatedly said that you can deceive your ego and somehow learn to use it and that egoism is like a donkey that runs after a carrot. How can you deceive your nature so that it allows you to go the right way?

Answer: There is no need to deceive your nature; you will not be able to deceive it. There are many means, when you look at others and connect with them, when you learn from all of humanity how to come closer to everyone, when you examine the surrounding society and learn something, they teach you, they tell you, and you gradually become imbued with it.

But the most important thing is that in all these attempts there is nothing required of you except the desire to make yourself a global, integral community with everyone. That is all. Just make an attempt, and through it you want to become good and big. This desire is enough.

As soon as it is manifested on your part, the good attitude of nature immediately appears toward it and you begin to change. All you need is a desire, like a small child who wants to be big. You need nothing, just this kind of effort, “I want,” and that is enough.

Then you come to a completely different inner structure, to an integral community, and to a feeling not of I, but of we. You begin to perceive the world around you as your world. Previously it seemed to you that you wanted to conquer it so that it would be yours. It is in this form that you will receive it when you begin to connect with it in the form of we and not in the form of I or mine.

The world will not be mine, but ours, and you will feel this “our” world as your own, as absolutely safe, absolutely even, and open.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Deceive Yourself?” 5/28/11

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Question: Should we give money to children?

Answer: Generally, yes. It depends on what it is for, but for sure, we should. On the one hand children should understand the value of money, and on the other hand what can be done with it and how.

Question: Did you give money to your children?

Answer: Of course.

Question: How do we raise confident children?

Answer: This is a problem. The most important thing is to show them that they can be confident in themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips” 5/18/23

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