Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some things we can do to help ease our anxiety about the future?“

To understand that it is just anxiety and not reality.

We should look into what we have the ability to do today, understanding that any anxieties about the future are about what might happen later, and accordingly we should calm down.

Fearing the future gives us absolutely nothing. We nevertheless do not know what will happen tomorrow, so why should we get anxious with various worries and concerns?

Based on the video “Anxiety about the Future – A Kabbalist’s View” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where should I start learning Kabbalah?“

Kabbalah is a wisdom that explains the one unique and unified force operating throughout nature.

Today, humanity is reaching the conclusion that it does not know anything about life’s purpose, and that it must know answers to essential questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives: “Who are we?” “What are we?” “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we headed?” We need to know how we should live, and how we can solve our problems and heal ourselves as we head into the future.

Kabbalah helps us reach such an understanding. It helps us feel nature and reality in its full depth and width. We then come to feel that we know the world that we exist in, and that the world cannot be hostile toward us.

Our education center—KabU—is very practical. It is open to everyone, and it can prepare and advance any person toward life’s meaning and purpose on a simple, straightforward and safe path.

I invite you, from the bottom of my heart, to come and study the wisdom of Kabbalah. This wisdom covers all of reality—the still, vegetative, animate and human levels. It covers the entire universe, from its very beginning until its eternal end: what there was, what there is, and what will be.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains what happens to us before we are born, and what happens during our lives, and after we leave this world. You will learn all of that here, and we are waiting to welcome you. Come and feel it for yourself.

Based on the video “What Is the Best Way to Learn Kabbalah?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If death is a punishment, how is heaven a reward?“

There is no death.

Through the study of Kabbalah, we can transition from our inborn transient, egoistic and self-serving desire to an eternal and perfect altruistic desire.

Without such a study, then our egoistic desire gradually fades away to zero, and that is what people identify as death.

Based on a Virtual Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 5, 2018. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some tips for managing stress and anxiety?“

We can overcome stress and anxiety by developing more and more positive connection, friendship and closeness to each other. Otherwise, these and other negative sensations will increasingly disturb us.

If we create small societies in which we develop connections of mutual consideration and support, then we can get rid of fears, illnesses, insomnia and absolutely everything that imposes the stress and anxiety of life upon us.

The more we experience negative sensations like stress and anxiety, the closer we come to understand the need for friendship, cooperation, mutual support and care. Likewise, we will reach the understanding of the need to create societies that will emphasize such values. Otherwise, we will continue developing by accumulating more and more negative sensations over a very long period of time until we eventually wake up to the need for the aforementioned values.

Based on KabTV’s “Blitz of Questions and Answers” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 6, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, on Quora: “Can soldiers be against their wars?“

In 1914, during World War I, an amazing event happened. At a time when half a million people were killed near the Belgian city of Ypres, on December 24, before Christmas, suddenly soldiers began to decorate the German trenches with garlands and various lights. Later, they moved onto neutral territory. Both the French and the British also came out to the neutral territory from the enemy trenches, making a gathering of about 100,000 people. They had been killing each other up until that point, but on that day, they got together and connected: they exchanged souvenirs, sang songs, traded buttons, tobacco, wine and sweets, and played football with cans. In 2014, a football monument was built to commemorate the event.

It was an incredible spectacle. Those who fought to the death and hated each other suddenly started bonding. Naturally, the generals were instantly alarmed. Under threat of death, the soldiers were forced back into the trenches, and war continued. It lasted four years and 20 million people got killed.

A key question that arises from this example is indeed, could it be possible to stop war from the level of the soldiers themselves? We see that the soldiers could end the war if they wanted to, but since they follow their generals’ commands, then it would require the generals to also wish to stop the war, which in turn requires each successive higher level, which makes it impossible.

However, the example is etched in history: People who were killing each other in cold blood, with bayonets, fighting hand-to-hand, where everyone was faced with so much blood and it was not just distant firing of guns and missiles. They literally faced their enemies, felt hatred for them, and in a single moment, it all shifted to a state of bonding.

It shows that even the strongest hatred can be inverted in a moment. A fight could continue for a long time, and then all of a sudden, poof—the hatred dissipates. The reason behind the hatred suddenly disappears.

It is no miracle. It is simply how a program that runs our desires plays out. There is no point in our hatred, nor in our love. We can see similar examples of people who were once seemingly in love, and all of a sudden, they stop loving each other. That love that held them together instantly disappears. It is common to hear divorcees say about their partners, “What did I ever love in them?”

The fact that our emotions can suddenly shift from one moment to the next shows us that any unity we establish should be based not on our feelings, but on an idea. That is, if we circulated an idea of the need to unite in order to reach a complete merging among each other as the most desirable state we could possibly achieve, then we would have a strong basis for uniting.

The foundation of this idea is in a higher root, that humanity was originally created as a single unified consciousness that underwent a process of shattering and dispersion until we found ourselves in a reality where we perceive ourselves separated from each other. While we are in this state of separation, we undergo a certain development until we reach a point where we start waking up to our unified state once again. That is, at a certain point, we start feeling that we are opposite to our most desirable state, that we have suffered enough in our divisiveness, and we develop a new desire to undergo a major shift back to complete unification.

Based on the video “How to Stop War” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is true freedom in a nutshell?“

True freedom is freedom from our egoistic nature, where we are enslaved to the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone in every one of our intentions.

When we become freed from our egoistic intention for self-benefit, we attain true freedom: we enter a state of positive connection where we then enjoy benefiting, supporting and caring for each other.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on April 26, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it possible to reduce overconsumption?“

We can reduce overconsumption and overproduction only if we change ourselves—to start feeling why life is truly worth living.

We cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves to be content and happy with life’s essentials. We would then put an end to the planet’s destruction, the overproduction and overconsumption of so many goods that are beyond our necessities.

Each person has their own definition of their essentials, which is influenced by each person’s specific upbringing. Everyone would thus need an individualized form of learning about self-transformation.

While it might seem utopian that human society would do away with its surplus activity in order to be happy with what we each truly need, our other option is simply self-destruction—a forceful stop to the process where we stop having children and stop our production lines, stalling the planet completely.

That is the choice before humanity as we head into the future: either we learn to get by and be happy with what we truly need, or we will face self-destruction.

When we discuss self-transformation, we are not talking about changing human nature, but the change of human character, i.e. how we each apply our natures.

In simpler terms, our desire that demands “I want!” within each and every person would remain the same, and the change would unfold in the desire’s fulfillment: that we would feel as if we receive everything we need from the world, and that we need nothing else. We can feel such fulfillment when we mutually fulfill each other.

As we head into the future, we will have to figure out how to not destroy ourselves and instead bring ourselves to the realization of the need for change.

Based on the video “Can We Reduce Overconsumption and Overproduction?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is more responsible for our society, men or women?“

There are notable statistics in a report by humanitarian organization Care in relation to women. First, that 150 million more women are starving worldwide than men, and 60 percent of the people starving are women, and also that tens of millions of women worldwide eat last, and eat least.

It points to how women feel a natural responsibility toward their families, their children and their surroundings. About this natural responsibility imprinted in women, the Torah writes that “a woman is the home.”

Women’s ability to give birth is one aspect of why women host such natural qualities of responsibility and placing others before themselves. They have a more instinctive feeling of nature. This is why, in the Torah, the Creator tells Abraham to listen to what Sarah tells him. It describes the inner natural wisdom that women contain.

According to nature’s roots, women are already within nature, whereas the nature of the male is the correction of nature—the ability to overcome nature and guide it with an intention to bestow that is similar to nature’s quality of bestowal. If we held the inclination to listen to the inner natural wisdom of women, then there would certainly be more order in the world and less wars and suffering.

Based on the video “Do Women Feel More Responsibility Toward Society Than Men?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you finish the sentence, “Heaven is..”?“

Heaven is a state where a common force of love emerges between people, which forms a connection of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does nature teach us when a disaster strikes?“
Natural disasters come to show us that we live out of balance with nature.

We are parts of nature’s integral system, and in nature we have the still, vegetative, animate and human levels.

Nature acts as a single organism with interconnection and interdependence among the still, vegetative and animate levels. We are also parts of nature’s interconnection and interdependence, but we lack perception and sensation of it. As such, we are willing to destroy everything as long as the human level is well-off.

Natural disasters come to show us that we cannot continue living the way that we do, that we have to change our attitude to each other: to accept humanity as a single integral system where we are all interdependent, that we have to take care of each other, and if we do not, then our lives will become increasingly grim.

Based on the video “What Do Natural Disasters Teach Us?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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