Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I stop being annoyed by people?“

When we see things in others that annoy us, then we have work to do.

What is that work?

The flaws that we see in others, we should try to see them in ourselves. That is, the flaws that we see in someone else are actually our own flaws.

How does this work?

It is because at our core we are a desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, and we wish to enjoy from others. When it turns out that something about another person brings us no enjoyment, then we develop a certain distaste toward that behavior. Therefore, the flaw is in our apparatus of perception, that we wish to primarily use others for our personal benefit.

We should thus try to see that what we dislike in others are actually our own flaws, and if we were to correct ourselves, i.e., to switch the way we relate to others from egoistic—where we seek how to use them for personal pleasure—to an altruistic attitude—where we seek how to bring enjoyment and benefit to them—then we would see no flaws in them.

This is psychological work that is also very realistic and practical. Put simply, if we see something bad in others, it is because we are bad, and if we were to be corrected, then we would see no flaws in them.

What does it mean to be corrected?

Being corrected means perceiving all flaws within ourselves, and that we do not see the world but our own projection—the projection of our own desires to enjoy on the background of a white light, nature’s force of love and bestowal. We are surrounded by an ocean of love, and if we see something besides love, it is because we are projecting qualities that are its opposite.

Based on the video “How to Relate to Others Who Annoy You” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important thing in life?“

This is indeed a question that everyone asks. Our lives are filled with myriad things, and at every moment different things appear more or less important to us.

For instance, if we get tired, then it becomes important to rest or to sleep. If we are hungry, then eating becomes important. If we get bored, then it becomes important to somehow entertain ourselves, and we could continue this list ad nauseam.

How, then, can we find the most important thing in life?

The most important thing in life is to feel something unconditional, eternal and perfect, that we can see through our world—and all the worlds—with no boundaries between life and death, and that we fulfill our every desire, including those that we are still unfamiliar with, namely the desire to acquire the same attitude of love and bestowal as the source force of nature.

There is nothing more important in life. It is the very peak of where everything in existence heads.

How, then, do we reach that state?

We do so by learning how nature—including human nature—works, how our process of development unfolds through the still, vegetative, animate and human levels of nature, what is the final destination to this developmental process, where is our free choice, and how we can realize our choice in order to impact a shift from our transient and limited perception to the eternal and perfect one.

If we gain the wisdom to access such knowledge and a method to implement our fateful transition to attain eternity and perfection, then that wisdom and method becomes more important than anything else.

Based on a Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman at the New York Kabbalah Convention in 2009. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: How should you let a child move into life independently?

Answer: This is a problem. Be that as it may, I think you should not try to let him go until he feels that he can go on his own and do something.

Question: How can you determine that a child is already independent?

Answer: He himself will determine this by his actions, by his thoughts. You will see it on him. But there is no need to rush.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips” 5/18/23

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Comment: Sergey asks: “You keep repeating: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ You keep coming back to this law, saying that it is the most important one. My question is, who is this neighbor who should be loved like oneself? And how can you love a neighbor who has planned and committed many atrocities against you or your home? At the same time, he does not feel the slightest repentance.”

My Response: Yes. But still, nevertheless, we must reassess our attitude toward everyone and see that our attitude toward everyone is terrible, negative, and selfish and that we need absolutely complete forgiveness. For each one of us. I have to condemn myself and ask the Creator to justify me.

Question: Are you saying that I treat my neighbor this way not because he is so bad but because I am so bad?

Answer: Of course. How else can it be?

Comment: He has committed so many terrible actions against me and against my loved ones and relatives.

My Response: Eventually, it turns out that either the Creator is perfect and you are the opposite of Him or vice versa.

Question: I am perfect and the Creator is not perfect? And you say the  Creator is perfect?

Answer: Yes, but in this case I become the opposite of Him.

Question: So if we say that all these are actions of the Creator, then the Creator does all this only so that I can look at myself in that way?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Absolutely everything: tragedies, wars, everything that happens around me?

Answer: Absolutely. Nothing matters; the main thing is the possibility of correcting one’s attitude toward the Creator.

Question: Is this the whole path of man?

Answer: Yes. It is his whole life.

Question: And all this centuries-old history of ours, the tragedies of wars, is it just for that?

Answer: Absolutely only for that.

Question: If a person succeeds, does it mean that the whole chain has worked? In general, everything that happened?

Answer: Yes, like a dream.

Question: That was a dream. And what is not a dream?

Answer: It is not a dream when you justify all this and exalt the Creator above yourself, your opinion, then you will see what it means to exist outside of the dream.

Question: Tell me, when you say “exalt the Creator,” what do you mean by “Creator” in this sense?

Answer: Fate.

Question: My fate? So my fate led me to itself?

Answer: Of course.

Question: My destiny is the Creator? And everyone should think so, each one of the eight billion living people?

Answer: Yes, and by this we unite with each other in one common good desire.

Question: So if we have similar intentions to work on ourselves, then this is how we connect together?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: I see. But I think about myself at this moment that I am bad. I am not thinking about anyone else.

My Response: It doesn’t matter. You are correcting your part in the global desire governing the world.

Question: Then, the last question. We started with “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as the law of life. Where is “Love thy neighbor as thyself” when I begin to work on myself to deal with correcting myself?

Answer: Love anyone but yourself. In what form do you think he exists, how do you imagine him, you have to love him the way you love yourself.

Question: It turns out that love your neighbor as yourself is work on yourself?

Answer: Of course. And what does it call for? Love him as yourself. That is, at the moment when I realize that I cannot love, this is where the work begins.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/15/23

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a question?“

A question is a desire that needs to be fulfilled. Once a desire arises, we need to fill it with its fulfillment.

Where do questions come from?

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we call the place from which questions emerge “Reshimot” (“records”). Reshimot are inner informational data that surfaces in order to become realized. The need to realize this inner informational data is a question.

The realization itself is our actions. When we realize and fulfill this Reshimo (record), i.e., when it turns into a 3D sensation of our world, then we receive an answer.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a question?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 13, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is hidden in The Zohar?“
The Zohar hides nature’s secrets from us in a way where we start understanding that such secrets are unattainable, that nature’s “control room” is hidden from us.

Nature controls our every movement, thought and desire. We exist in an incredibly limited range of perception, one that constantly presses on us, and we fail to understand why everything unfolds specifically the way that it does. This is the concealment we live in.

There is, however, a way to open our doors of perception and disclose nature’s complete picture beyond our limited vantage points.

If we draw closer to nature by emulating its qualities of love, bestowal and connection, then we eventually start disclosing nature’s forces, plans and also various miraculous phenomena. As such, we come to feel and understand nature by becoming like it.

That is what The Zohar teaches us.

Based on KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 21, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I know if I’m on the right path?“
You know that you are on the right path in life when you are satisfied with knowing how to act, what to do, that you can see the path ahead, follow it and progress toward the right goal for yourself.

Your sole guiding light here is your own sensation.

You might get convinced otherwise by all kinds of people, but it means nothing. It is only your own inner conviction that will tell you that you are on the right path in life.

For this reason, Kabbalists say that the first rule in embarking on a spiritual path is that there is no coercion in spirituality. You cannot be forced to take a spiritual direction in your life. Your innermost desire will let you know whether or not you are headed to a goal that will give it the fulfillment it seeks.

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

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Question: What is the spiritual meaning of war? Why does war exist?

Answer: It exists because there are two opposing forces in the universe. When these forces cannot be balanced by the screen, they come into a state of a short spiritual circuit and try to destroy each other. This is called war.

In the spiritual world, there is a short electrical circuit, a collision of opposite forces and properties, like in the material world. This gives rise to wars in our world.

Therefore, we need to form a screen between these forces, i.e., some kind of correct connection between people.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is War?” 4/16/11

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Question: Why do a lot of people gather when you give lectures?

Answer: We have reached a state in our corporeal development when people are interested in learning about their future and also their present because they are not satisfied with it.

This is not about me. What am I really saying? I am only saying what Kabbalah says, what is written in my books and on the website.

Comment: But people are not captured by your words, but with an internal contact, as if some kind of energy emanates from you that clings to them.

My Response: This is actually true because along with this, they involuntarily receive a certain inner force that is the light that exists in the words and images I live by. They are subconsciously drawn to them despite the fact that they do not have so-called tools of reception. But on the outside, they are still affected by the surrounding light that attracts them.

Question: Can a person change at all due to the light you give?

Answer: No. He has to work on himself. He must gather a certain range of feelings and perceptions within himself that will eventually create a prerequisite for spiritual sensations. Without this, nothing will work.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Root of Success” 3/6/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where will history lead us?“

First, what is history? History is the evolution of desires.

It starts from the smallest and simplest desires, which every individual has—for food, sex and family—and our desires increase to bigger ones that play out in society, for money, honor, control and knowledge, where we develop socially through communal, urban, state and finally global relations.

We see people’s struggles according to the degree of our desires’ development. First, we fought each other in our various settlements, and later, as small disparate states. We ended up unifying in various alliances so that we could continue sizing up against each other, and this process brought us to what we have today.

And what do we have today?

Today’s level of our desires’ development brings us to the increasing awareness of our global interconnection and interdependence, which shows us the futility of fighting each other.

Let’s say that one country shuts itself off from the world. What would happen then?

We fail to realize the full extent of what such a phenomenon would result in. The world would come to a standstill. It would affect us on multiple levels, from our most basic ability to operate simple tools and appliances, through to the unavailability of certain foods, through to economic difficulties and several other phenomena. In short, the world would shut down.

We are clueless as to how interdependent we truly are and our lives’ fragility. We cannot have a world war today because no country provides solely for itself. There is mutual dependence between countries at the level of mere essentials that we need for our very survival.

Think of human evolution like a building we started constructing many thousands of years ago. On the ground floor, we had our own garden, cellar, and we planted our own produce, i.e., we had the ability to provide ourselves with our daily needs. Today, we live on the twentieth floor of that building, and we cannot live like we once did on that ground floor.

I remember my childhood in the small town of Vitebsk with a population of a quarter of a million people. We had a small plot and a large cellar where we kept potatoes, cabbages, garlic and onions, like everybody else did at that time. We prepared this produce a year in advance so that the family would not starve, and it was the same for most of the population.

Today’s world is completely different. Today, we have major residential areas and cities with populations of over a million people. If the systems that provide for their essentials break down, then we would experience global-scale crises. We do not realize what would happen if a couple of large countries suddenly become dysfunctional.

Therefore, if we are to impact a positive shift to a more harmonious and peaceful world, we need to raise the awareness of our tightening global interdependence, that the billions of us on this small planet are all on the same boat, and accordingly we should start relating to others as to ourselves, or at least, as to members of one global family.

History is leading us to increasingly connect. If we are to realize our increasing connection positively, then we need to learn how our nature works in this process: that we were born into an egoistic nature that wishes to benefit itself at the expense of others and nature, that we can never be truly satisfied while living in such a nature, and moreover, that we increasingly suffer at its helm.

With growing awareness of our nature, we also need to learn how to invert it into a new nature: to realize our increasing interconnection and interdependence harmoniously by changing our nature from egoistic to altruistic. If we adjust our educational, media and social influences to direct us at this change—from egoism to altruism—then we will experience our tightening connection as an immense new form of satisfaction, happiness and confidence that would fill our lives. If not, then we will continue developing through increasing suffering.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is History?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 13, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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