Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Feeling Betrayed

294.4Question: When I feel a terrible betrayal, just terrible, when I can barely stand it, am burning up, you say, at this moment or a little later when you have burned out a little, you need to focus everything on where it came from and not on the one who betrayed me?

Answer: On the Creator! What does some small person have to do with it?! He is a puppet, and the puppeteer is the Creator.

Question: So should I start talking and working with the Creator? And let go of this man who allegedly betrayed me. He did not.

Answer: You cannot demand anything from him! He is a puppet! That is all. And you feel calm. You do not see traitors or betrayers around you, nothing and no one. You see puppets. And the Creator above pulls their strings, that is it.

Question: You almost always say that we hate someone, rather than start to change ourselves and our attitude toward the Creator. Is that it?! Is this all our work?!

Answer: This is all. But this is the hardest part.

Comment: So if I can control myself in such a way that I direct all my efforts to work for Him, and only with Him, then everything will begin.

My Response: Then you need to completely redefine, what the truth, lies, devotion, and betrayal are.

Question: All concepts disappear. You have just practically eliminated the concept of “betrayal.” So, it does not exist on the part of someone else, I cannot blame him?

Answer: No. There is no love, no hate, no devotion, no loyalty.

Question: Should I aim the vector at myself, and that is it?

Answer: Yes, but at least it would be beautiful, true, and pure!

Question: Will it be a clear experiment then?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But then I hate Him! I say it with caution.

Answer: Do not worry, He does not hear it.

Comment: I see. Like Guberman’s quote: “He is blind, he does not see your monkey business.” So it is. When I hate a traitor, you say: “The Creator is doing this, setting me up.” Then my first feeling is: “I hate the Creator!” Is that true?

My Response: Of course. Naturally! There is no doubt about it! If you hate anyone at all, it is the Creator. Your relationship is really always with Him!

Question: How does my hatred of the Creator change?

Answer: We do everything only with the Creator. We are connected only to Him. And everything that seems like we are in good or evil relations between us is a pure lie! The Creator sets up such cases, novels, stories, and mysteries that no one could have imagined.

Question: Why is He doing this to us?

Answer: So we would set this whole world aside and deal with Him alone. But in order to do so, we must be pure: either absolute egoists or absolute altruists. He does not tolerate anything else. All else is waste, dirt. Therefore, we need to tune in only to the Creator and deal only with Him.

Question: How does this state of my complaints, hatred, and prayer to the Creator: “Leave me alone!” turn into a different state—love?

Answer: It turns into a prayer, that I want to see His actions behind everything that surrounds me, both in myself and around me. That there is none else besides Him!

Question: Is this the main prayer?

Answer: Yes, for Him to reveal it to me.

Question: Is this the fundamental change within a person? And it changes everything, the whole world?

Answer: It changes everything. It turns everything upside down! It messes with my head! Because I always thought I was connected to something else, dependent on someone else, doing something else. In fact, there is no one and nothing!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/22/26

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Spiritual Leader—A Common Idea

963.5Comment: As is known, someone has to stand at the head of an organization—it is impossible to do without a leader. People need to believe in someone. Someone gives them an example, as you set an example to your students.

My Response: I think my students will understand that only together, in a powerful group that already includes tens of thousands of people, will they be able to achieve something. After all, a spiritual leader is not some individual person, but a common force, a common idea. Its bearer is the group that can unite and lead everyone forward.

In this case, we are not talking about an egoistic world, but about a world of unity, an altruistic world, in which the leader is the Creator. I think that I am the last one who, in some sense, is a spiritual leader in Kabbalah—a teacher and a disseminator who has many students.

My aspiration is to bring my students to a state where only their unity will lead them forward. Only unity!

And when they all become as one and form such an element that will lead them forward, when in their unity they will feel the Creator, then it will be He who will lead them forward, and not some tangible personality with a beard and glasses. Only this way! That is why I am trying to create a kind of stimulator within spiritual leadership.

That is, everything must be set up so that it will be the group! And if it is one person, then a second will appear, and a third, and everything will fall apart, as happened in the past in Hasidic and other movements. All of this led to the wrong path, and in the end everything disappeared.

Comment: But you have very strong students.

My Response: They are not strong in anything, absolutely! They are strong and powerful only from the point of view of egoism, and they should be feared. Precisely those who are considered advanced are in no way more spiritual than the others. On the level of our world, such people simply have a greater ability to persuade and to speak.

Because of this, one must not follow them!

I am warning you: Do not listen to any of my students individually! Instead of me, there can only be only a spiritual directorate. Under no circumstances either those close to me or those far from me. Only this way!

Whoever wants to organize separately, whoever has some kind of “creative itch,” let them go and open new communities. In a Kabbalistic society this cannot exist. Only a general assembly, at the head of which stands the spiritual directorate!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Destruction of Laitman” 9/18/10

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The Limit of Egoism

582.01Question: Do you ever get tired of that pressure of the egoism when people ask you questions? Do you have some kind of limit?

Answer: As soon as the relevance of the questions disappears, I immediately stop answering.

Question: Let’s say an evening lasts five hours. You cannot answer questions for five hours straight, can you? Do you have some kind of resource limit?

Answer: No! Usually the questions end by themselves. There is a certain limit to how much the listeners can be filled, and then there is no point in continuing.

It is the same with lessons. Our lessons run according to time: three parts of 45 minutes each. But sometimes I break this barrier and give, instead of 45 minutes for one part, two consecutive blocks of 45 minutes because I see that there is a serious emptiness there that can be filled.

At our congresses, I first give a lecture for 40 to 50 minutes, and then another 40 to 50 minutes answering questions. After that, the listeners are no longer able to absorb the material. Even that is already too much for them. In other words, if I were to give a lecture lasting an hour and a half, they would not absorb it.

Only if we are trained to study for three hours straight (it is possible to study for five or six hours as I once studied with Rabash for eight or nine hours straight, that is a different matter), then there are no problems.

When you enter your own world, and within it you develop your own qualities and feelings, you live in it and communicate with it from different angles, that is a completely different matter. Kabbalists can remain in it without limit: for days, for a lifetime, for eternity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call.The Limit of Egoism” 9/12/10

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The Kabbalist’s Connection with the Common Soul

945Question: Do you think a person asks the question himself, or is a person like a mechanism that must ask it?

Answer: Of course he is not asking the question himself. This is a common, great desire created by the Creator.

Just as, let’s say, you look at porridge boiling in a huge pot that is bubbling, boiling, and shifting layers, so too are we, all the souls, digesting and connecting with each other, and questions arise; that is, new unfilled voids that are able to rise, rise to the top.

In other words, by rising up, these voids are trying to get some kind of filling, to come to some kind of balance, and therefore, a certain question is being asked.

That is why I always connect not just with those who ask questions or even with the huge audience that listens to me all over the world, but with the whole soul. After all, we are talking about its balance, its fulfillment, bringing it to full correction, and revealing the perfect state in which it exists that is hidden from itself.

I always feel what tremendous work we are doing in this process and how it affects the whole creation. It is not pride, arrogance, or vanity, but the feeling and realization of the opportunity to participate a little in the certain time, in the minimum share that we have been given in the movement towards perfection.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Answer to Any Question” 9/12/10

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Does the Evil Eye Exist or Not?

245.02Question: Does the evil eye exist or not? What do you think?

Answer: It does. But it is not the kind of evil eye where I simply look at you like this.

By our desires, we are all connected together into one common, enormous desire that the Creator created. And therefore, by our desires we can influence one another each from his own level from the root of his soul. Thus, when I think badly of others, I harm myself and I harm them. I cause harm because I act through my desire.

Question: Does this happen involuntarily?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Comment: I have no free choice.

My Response: People do not know this. But why is our world so bad? Because people think about one another in this way!

Question: Because they as if cast the evil eye on another?

Answer: Of course! Does anyone wish good to another?

Comment: That is, of course, a question.

My Response: It is not a question at all!

Question: No one wishes good to another at all?

Answer: Of course not! And it turns out that our entire world lives only on the evil eye, on rejection, on people repelling one another.

Question: Is this what you call our world, the one in which we live?

Answer: Yes. The eye is the highest organ: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

Question: The five senses, and sight is the highest of them?

Answer: The highest. And therefore, we must be concerned with looking correctly at one another.

Question: When you use the word “to look,” what do you put into it?

Answer: To relate.

Comment: What you have just stated—that our entire world is built on the evil eye—is quite a statement. It is built on the evil eye.

My Response: Where have you ever seen a normal attitude of one person toward another?

Comment: Well, not to such an extent.

My Response: It does not matter to what extent, but only in a negative direction!

Question: Is this because I exist? Because my thoughts are only about myself?

Answer: From the outset, we are not directed toward good. From the outset, we are not directed toward a correct attitude toward one another. We set this only under certain conditions—if he behaves in such-and-such a way, then I will also relate to him correctly, and so on. But initially, I have no good toward another. Why should I?

Question: What do you mean, “Why should I?”

Answer: How could it be? Why should I relate well to others? I am asking you as a normal person in this world. Such a thing cannot exist!

Comment: But inwardly, I very much do not want to agree with you that all my thoughts are only to cause harm.

My Response: You are a Komsomol volunteer from the 1920s!

Comment: Yes, but still, one wants to believe that a person at least makes an effort.

My Response: A person is made in evil! A person is evil! There is no getting away from this. Only education can raise him out of this egoistic, envious swamp—pull him out by the ears, wash him, dry him well, hang him by the ears in the sun so that it thoroughly evaporates him. And only after that can one begin to fill him with something good.

Question: Then this entire science of correction, which is called Kabbalah, is it about how to transform these evil thoughts, this evil gaze on which our world exists, into a good gaze?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: That is, how to raise a person from this world into a world of a good gaze, goodness, and so on.

My Response: Yes. That will already be the spiritual world, the upper world, the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/21/226

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The Recipe for Objective Happiness

294.4Comment: When you feel so bad that you are about to give up, they say you must understand that the bad is just as valuable as the good.

My Response: Absolutely! There is nothing good or bad, it is only relative to a person. If a person slightly changes their inner tuning, he or she will see good instead of all the bad. And the opposite can also happen.

Comment: So they say there is value in the bad. Value! It turns out that the bad is my property.

My Response: Sure, there is absolutely no good without bad, and no bad without good. We must accustom ourselves to relating correctly to everything. Because beyond our perception and our division into bad and good, we must accept that the entire world is just absolute goodness!

Question: Then the question is that something bad comes, something I feel is bad, “What do I gain from it?”

Answer: You acquire an objective view of the world. You rise above your egoistic judgment and therefore consider that everything is good and that there is nothing in the world except a single force of goodness, absolute goodness!

Question: Is this such a great acquisition?

Answer: Yes, viewing the world this way is truly happiness and a great opportunity.

Question: Is this possible?

Answer: It is possible!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 2/2/26

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Rise and Shine!

249Question: One needs to train oneself to rejoice. They say that rejoicing is a habit. What do you think?

Answer: I think this is very correct.

Question: Can one train oneself to rejoice despite the fact that one is being battered from all sides?

Answer: You are being battered, so what? Some circumstances come, some forces come and batter you. And you sing. Just sing! This is the most important thing for a person. Because in truth, he does not know what is good and what is bad, or how to relate correctly to life, or how to change his life—whether what comes to him is for his benefit or to his detriment.

Therefore he must accept all of this as good and relate to everything that happens as to necessary good. And so, how can he relate to it? Sing!

Question: Just like that?

Answer: The answer is a simple yes.

Question: Whatever comes, right? Whatever is inside you, like “There is only a moment between the past and the future”?

Answer: No, that’s not it! Better: “Rise and shine! Rise and shine! Try it at least once in your life.”

Comment: Yes. Exactly.

My Response: That is how they used to sing once.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 2/1/26

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The Primordial Nature of Men and Women

627.1Question: A man is inherently unstable in relation to a woman. Let’s say he meets a woman, but after a while, the initial attraction fades. Why does he want another, and another, and another?

Answer: This stems from the spiritual root because he constantly wants to fill and fill, but feels no novelty in the same state.

A woman, it is the opposite; she “sticks” to him because she receives 90% of her desires from him, and only 10% of her own. A man receives 90% of his own desires and 10% from the woman. This is how they exchange their desires through contact.

Of the ten Sefirot, nine are Zeir Anpin and one is Malchut. Therefore, for a woman, it is enough to attach herself to a man; with that, she receives both the desire and the fulfillment. But for a man, this is not enough; he needs constant renewal in Malchut so that new souls can enter her, giving him an opportunity to fill them. If Malchut does not renew, then he has nothing to do with her.

The same happens in our world. If a man does not feel novelty, change in a woman, or flirtation, he quickly loses interest. Psychologists explain our relationships exactly this way and try to help with their renewal.

In our time, when all of this is revealed and completely accessible, fulfillment is disappearing even more. On one hand, this is a common problem on the material level; on the other hand, it leads us toward the need to truly rise to the resolution of different problems.

I think our generation is going through exactly this. It is not just experiencing it, but moving forward. Gradually, it will give this a very simple place to fill its needs, and everything will move to a higher realm.

Question: But why does society condemn a man for adultery if this is a natural, innate impulse that comes from above?

Answer: In terms of global understanding, this comes from religion, particularly Christianity. But in all previous cultures, this was not the case.

On the other hand, we are not saying that salvation lies in total freedom: do whatever you want. We say that a person should “keep his head in the heavens,” and if they have needs, they should satisfy them in a normal, more or less socially accepted manner.

Question: But if a person is in spirituality, does that mean he must have one “spiritual” woman?

Answer: No, that could be even worse. He undergoes all kinds of inner upheavals and changes, and anything can happen in those states.

But that is not the main point; this is not how we evaluate a person. We evaluate him by where his head is, what his goal in life is, not by how he handles his animalistic needs.

This is the fundamental difference between a man and a woman. A woman needs only her man; she must know: he is mine. In principle, this is embedded in her by nature. This is how it descends to us from Zeir Anpin and Malchut of Atzilut.

But a man has no particular attachment here. If he does, then it is for the family, his own place, children, and a household, but this, so to speak, is general; it is not aimed specifically at a woman. This also comes from the higher structure of ZON of Atzilut.

Comment: But initially, at the first contact, a man behaves simply like a Don Juan. And then women always get offended: why are men such scoundrels?

My Response: We see this also among animals. There is nothing different here. In the animal world, the male is very beautiful. Look at lions, peacocks, and swans! They are made that way precisely to attract the female, to bring her into contact, to subjugate her. That is why the male needs such external attributes.

And here lies a contradiction, because a woman, in principle, does not need these external attributes at all. She does not see external beauty in a man; it does not interest her; she simply does not notice it.

On the contrary, she may like a man with a bit of a belly rather than some “Hercules.” She has a different perspective. She looks at a man from the standpoint of genetics; she sees in him a potential father, husband, provider; she evaluates him by completely different criteria than those by which a man wants to present himself.

All of this comes from spiritual roots.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Male betrayal” 8/28/10

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The System of Answering Questions

942Question: When people ask you questions, do you listen to the words or do you sense the person’s inner impulses?

Answer: The thing is that I do not perceive a question as sound. First, I must draw a picture of the person asking the question within myself; then I must transform this picture into a general picture, a general image (not the specific one they are asking me about), and only then compare it with the true existing picture.

After all, a person does not ask quite correctly. It is possible that he does not understand the state he is asking about, he imagines it incorrectly. Then I must reveal an even deeper picture, the true one that evokes his feelings and phenomena. All these several types of sensations, layered on top of each other, must exist within me simultaneously.

Only then can I connect with the questioner and answer their question and everyone else’s.

Comment: That is a complex system!

My Response: It is not a complex system; I cannot do otherwise, what kind of answer would it be? Flat, single-screen. And there must be four screens, like in Windows, one behind another, from the inner screen where the light, the upper force, depicts states for a person, to the outer one, which he is able to feel, and to an even more external one, which he conveys supposedly in words.

I have to feel all this; otherwise, the answer is not an answer. It will be either at the level of external, earthly psychology or some sort of semi-mysticism, something not discussed.

Question: If you put different people in the same studio, dress them the same way, and they all ask the same question, would you answer each of them differently?

Answer: No. Even if several people ask the same question, I think that it practically does not depend on the person. I try to bring the question to a general level and by no means leave it on the private level.

In principle, what private questions can there be? They are all the same. Everyone goes through the same states that differ only slightly in those internal sensations that we cannot compare with each other. As I feel red, warm, bitter, and sweet, so do you, but we cannot compare how. We only conventionally describe the same impressions with the same words. So, I do not think we need to get into these discussions.

The Book of Zohar says that this is a very profound study of how we sense, understand, and adapt something within ourselves. After all, each of us is a very complex system, spread across the entire universe, across all the worlds. So to speak of private and general, at least, not now. This belongs to the level of The Book of Zohar, not to other Kabbalistic books.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Answer to Any Question” 9/12/10

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Growing Pains

208Question: Why do we have certain boundaries in life? If a person crosses them people think he is crazy.

For example, small children are allowed to suddenly scream in public, and it is perceived as normal. But if an adult does this on a subway, then the people around him will say that he is sick.

Answer: The fact is that a small person has great desires, but he has not learned how to work with them correctly, to direct them to a goal, to hold them within certain boundaries in order to achieve some inner balance.

However we think that a grown person naturally has to have this inner balance and harmony.

A child does not have it since he exists under the influence of various forces that develop him. Hence, at times he jumps, or runs, or screams, or repeats the same thing over and over. He is thrown from one side to another. This is normal. This is called growing pains.

The same thing happens in Kabbalah. When a person begins to study Kabbalah, he can be tossed about. We look at it as a completely normal thing. Suddenly he falls into depression, and the next moment he feels good and laughs. After that he rushes into knowledge, then toward sensations, and so forth.

These are all growing pains and they are expected. Hence, we welcome and understand them and try to be loyal to each other, although this may seem not quite normal in a different place. However, here a person sometimes can do some unusual, original actions, but we look at them as normal because we look at him as a developing child.

In our framework, we accept it when a person sleeps during a lesson, skips a lesson, or suddenly becomes angry at everyone, yells at people, and calms down afterward. It means he exists under various developing forces, and hence this is his reaction.

At the same time, outside it is considered impossible for an adult person. There everyone has to be balanced, understanding, and in harmony.

Thus, there is no problem when people exist under the influence of various stressful impacts from above. The greater the number and the more frequent they are, the faster the person is able to advance because from above he is not given more than he is able to realize.

However, if there is a desire to advance him, but he does not use this opportunity then this opportunity is taken away, and he is given an opportunity in some different form, in particular in the form of suffering. Then he already takes a different path, a slower and a harder one.

Question: What does the opportunity to advance mean?

Answer: In essence, it is a realization within a group. No matter how you look at it,  practical Kabbalah is still a realization within a group.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Framework of Life” 10/7/10

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