Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is Kabbalah considered a hidden wisdom?“

The wisdom of Kabbalah is called a hidden wisdom because only people who use it correctly can disclose it.

What does it mean to use the wisdom of Kabbalah “correctly”? It means that its practitioners construct a system of connection among each other in which they reveal the teaching.

It is a teaching that does not come from our own minds. It is written in several places that the wisdom of Kabbalah has no need for intellectually smart people. Instead, it needs people who work on their hearts, i.e., people who calibrate their desires such that they influence each other. By doing so, they influence the system of connection that exists between them, and they accordingly receive a special influence called “the Creator”—the upper force of love and bestowal that illuminates within the system of connection that they construct.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on September 28, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there any proof of the need for human connection?“

Nature itself provides no proof of the need for human connection. We can identify various examples of such a need for survival purposes, but there is no proof of such a need in nature itself.

In our lives, we reach various forms of connection other than a human-to-human connection that is felt at the level of our emotions. In such a place, we need to bring ourselves to connect against our egoistic desire that constantly pulls in the opposite direction, i.e., which aims at self-benefit over benefiting others, and using any kind of connection not for the benefit of everyone, but for the benefit of an individual or a group that benefits that individual.

Only by connecting above the ego can we reach a harmonious connection, as it is written, “as one man with one heart.”

However, human-to-human connection does not happen naturally and instinctively, as it does in nature’s other degrees: the still, vegetative and animate.

Specifically, connection is unique to the human level in that we resist and oppose each other according to our nature, as we can see throughout history, and that in order to truly connect, we need to rise above our egoistic nature.

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the Sefirot?“

The word “Sefirot” comes from the word “Sapir,” which means “glow” or “illumination.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that there is a spiritual force of love and bestowal, which it calls “light,” and when we adapt ourselves to this force, we let it enter our desires and it shines in them. We then call the desires in which the spiritual light illuminates, “Sefirot.”

The process of spiritual attainment is one of rising above our inborn corporeal desires with a spiritual intention to love and to bestow. The more we do so, the more we reveal the Sefirot.

We discover these Sefirot in the place of what are called the spiritual worlds (Olamot), from the word for concealment (He’elem). That is, the more we rise in spiritual degrees, the more we reveal the illuminations of the Sefirot and the concealments upon our perception and senses disappear.

Based on KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 27, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What should I look for when I look at nature?“

You should look for how smart, perfect and eternal it is.

Nature is good. Where there are no people, there is goodness.

The human is the only creature that harms others and himself. Nature without the person does not do so.

Why does man possess this evil quality? It is in order to acknowledge that we are evil, that we must change in a direction toward goodness, and to bring ourselves to goodness through self-recognition.

If we will know how to correctly participate in nature, then indeed, by the laws of nature, and not by artificial laws of our own, we will be able to live harmonious and peaceful lives.

We need to learn from nature how to behave, how to cause no harm to anyone, how to support and help everyone, and to see everyone as beautiful, good and drawn to a perfectly-connected state of love.

Based on the video “This Is What to Look for in Nature” with Kabbalst Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/eited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is nature so beautiful and people are the opposite?“

A recent study published in the journal, Science Advances, discussed findings that living near plants for long enough can extend people’s life spans by 2.5 years.

Indeed, we are parts of nature that consist of the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, and their interconnection leads us to bear witness to such phenomena.

The question is whether people can soothe and calm other people’s lives similarly to how plants can do so?

We can, and even more so. Whether we feel people around us as aggravating or as calming depends on the extent to which we view them as important and close. We thus need to urge ourselves to change such that other people feel closer and closer to us.

And on this point, we indeed encounter the question: Why does nature seem so beautiful while people seem the opposite? It is because our ego, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others, rejects the egoistic nature of other people. We like plants, for instance, because they generally bring us no harm. People around us, on the other hand, can drive us crazy.

We should thus switch our attitude to other people in a way where we check ourselves in relation to them: “How will I appear in their eyes?” Why? It is in order to become a positive example to them. Then, perhaps as a result, they will also change by the example that we show them.

If we come to see nature as a force that constantly directs everything and everyone toward goodness, harmony and peace, then we can perceive beauty in nature on all of its levels—still, vegetative, animate, and especially the human level. It is because we then see the need to align ourselves with nature’s positive force, and our own aim in that direction, particularly at the level of human connections, leads us to seeing the beauty in people as well as in nature.

Based on the video “Why Nature Seems So Beautiful and People Don’t” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi.Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Robert Lukeman on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “The Memorial Day for the passing of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam)“

Today is the Yahrzeit, the Memorial Day for the passing of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam). According to the custom, we need to mark the date and day of the passing of our teacher, Baal HaSulam, the great Kabbalist who paved the path for the world’s correction.

Thanks to him, we know how to act in order to not get confused and err in the path of the Creator, i.e., the path of connecting among each other in which to discover the Creator’s eternal and perfect quality of love and bestowal.

Baal HaSulam’s entire path and his teaching is based on Kabbalists who preceded him, and we are thus happy in that there is such a teacher who can guide us on a path that advances us to the purpose of creation during our lives.

Baal HaSulam left us many texts. He was the only Kabbalist in the 20th century who wrote commentaries both on The Book of Zohar and the writings of the ARI (Kabbalist Isaac Luria), and he also wrote several essays that explained Kabbalah’s basic concepts and fundamental principles so that any person could learn Kabbalah’s fundamentals and progress to the purpose of creation.

He taught a few people, and mainly it was his older son, the great Kabbalist Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH), who wrote the entire method of spiritual development for us, which is suited to us living in our times, i.e., to the souls that now descend to the world.

I invite everyone to watch today’s Daily Kabbalah Lesson where we studied the article, “The Order of the Work of Baal HaSulam” by Kabbalist Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH).

Also, if anyone is new to the wisdom of Kabbalah and to the method of Baal HaSulam, then I recommend getting started with courses that my students put together in our learning environment for beginners, KabU, in order to get a structured grounding in Kabbalah’s fundamentals (see the links in my bio).

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

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you love an evil person?“

Yes, you can love people who perform even the most despicable of acts because within them is a point of a soul.

We have to understand that there is a difference between bodies and souls. People who do good or bad in the world have no souls.

A soul is called “a part of Divinity from above.” We are made of desires to enjoy, which are called “body,” and their base enjoyment is at a corporeal level where we aim to enjoy through pleasures for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. Eventually within our desire to enjoy emerges a tiny point of a desire that stems from a higher spiritual degree, above corporeality.

Instead of wishing to enjoy for personal benefit alone, this tiny point of a desire is rooted in a world filled with the quality of nature itself: love and bestowal, beyond the limits of our corporeal desires. If we have such a desire, then we have a part of the soul, and if we feel no such desire to rise above our corporeal desires in a manner of love and bestowal upon others and nature, then we have no soul, not even its starting point.

We can liken this point of a desire to a seed that needs to be placed in the right conditions, such as fertile soil, with moisture, air and a certain amount of sunlight, for its development into a blossoming plant. In other words, we have to place this point of the soul into a protected place that is capable of developing it into a fully-grown soul, which can love, bestow and connect similarly to nature’s boundless quality of love and bestowal.

Kabbalists define this point of the soul as it emerges among our corporeal desires as “the point in the heart.” That is, the heart is our corporeal desires, where we feel transient pleasures and a temporary existence, and the point in the heart is the desire that is rooted in the soul, where we can feel complete harmony, peace and an eternal existence.

If we feel such a desire within us, a point that raises questions about the meaning of life, why we are here, who we are, what is reality, why there is so much suffering in the world, and other fundamental existential questions, then we can place such a desire under conditions that can develop it into its state as a soul. That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches—how to develop the point in the heart, inflating it with various means up to a certain volume, and within such a volume, to grow a feeling of love, bestowal and positive connection to everyone and to nature itself. In such a state, we attain our soul.

Therefore, in relation to the soul’s development, we can add love, care and aim to give it whatever necessary in order for it to blossom into its eternal and whole state. However, in relation to the egoistic desires, there is no need to love any of them. Kabbalists call the ego, i.e., the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, the “evil inclination,” and it is ultimately in a state of death. It is bound to be destroyed from its outset because it can feel no lasting pleasure and fulfillment according to its very nature.

Therefore, we can develop love not toward the egoistic part of us where all destruction and suffering are sourced, but in the part within every person called “human,” the point in the heart that can develop into a completely loving and bestowing intention that can bring life and light into the world.

The egoistic desires within us are opposite to nature’s altruistic and eternal form. They are thus not considered “human,” which is a word in Hebrew, “Adam,” that stems from the word for “similar” (“Domeh”), from the phrase, “Adameh le Elyon” (“similar to the most high”). In other words, a human being is one who develops their point in the heart in a manner that is similar to nature’s force of love and bestowal, and by doing so, we rise to the human level in similarity with nature where we discover the eternity and perfection of nature’s altruistic quality. In such a state, we can “love thy neighbor as thyself,” i.e., we discover the common force of love, bestowal and positive connection that is in our soul, and which connects our points in the hearts together into one soul.

No matter how evil any person is in their egoistic desires, it is possible to constantly aim at awakening the point in the heart—the part of Divinity from above—within every person, and try to direct its development above the egoistic desires in order to discover nature’s quality of love, bestowal and connection—the soul where we all connect equally in our common desire that is similar to nature’s.
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Based on “Ask the Kabbalist” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 12, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you think life on Earth would be different in the next 500 million years?“

In 500 million years, there will be nothing on Earth because our planet and our universe will be nonexistent.

This is because we perceive the world through uncorrected senses, i.e., through senses that perceive in a manner of wanting solely to enjoy egoistically, at the expense of others and nature. The moment we correct our senses so that we perceive in an opposite way—by wanting to bestow delight upon others and nature—we then rise above our world and feel a different spiritual reality.

Today, discussing such a spiritual reality above our current egoistic senses seems fantasy-like. However, when we attain such a reality, we will feel how our egoistic perception is in fact the unrealistic fantasy, and that true reality is through a mode of bestowal upon others and nature.

The correction of our senses takes place during a period that Kabbalists call “6,000 years,” starting from Adam HaRishon (Heb. The First Man), and it translates to us having just over 220 years to go in this current level of reality.

In our world, Adam HaRishon was the first man who corrected his senses from egoistic to altruistic, or in other words, from complete opposition to nature’s laws to entering into equivalence and balance with them. Before Adam HaRishon, there had been people living for several years. However, just over 5,780 years ago, a man called “Adam” discovered the spiritual reality, the true form of the universe, for the very first time. By doing so, he also discovered the program by which humanity develops and how it will appear at the end of its development. He wrote his findings in a book called “Raziel ha Malach” (“The Angel Raziel”), and he is considered the first Kabbalist.

All people are destined to undergo the transition from egoism to altruism and to discover the spiritual reality similar to what Adam HaRishon went through. When we do so, we will feel a different spiritual reality, and the corporeal reality will then become swallowed within the spiritual one—we will simply cease to feel it. We will then only sense phenomena that unfold at a higher level of existence, above our world.

The lower reality in our egoistic senses then disappears because our five bodily senses will seemingly evaporate and not be felt. We currently accept our world as it appears to us because we are made in a way where we hear, see, taste and breathe, i.e., we use senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. They provide us with a sensation of living in a certain reality. If we had different senses, then we would sense a different reality.

The evaporation and disappearance of this world does not happen in an instant, but gradually. It is because, as we start to positively connect and spiritually rise in our sensation of reality, we lose our egoistic mode of sensing reality. We can somewhat compare it to how we do not feel the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature in our own body. Take, for instance, our hair and nails, which are the vegetative level on our bodies. Do we feel them growing? We do not. They either grow, or they do not grow, and we can cut them and they continue growing. They cause us no disturbance.

It is similar to when we rise to the human level of existence, which is characterized by our developing an intention to bestow above our inborn egoistic desire to receive. We will then not feel the animate level—our desire to receive—in comparison to the new human level that we develop and identify with. When we all develop into the human level of existence, we will then cease to feel the animate level. We will stop perceiving reality as solid the way we currently do. Rather, we will increasingly perceive it as forces and qualities.
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Based on “Ask the Kabbalist” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 19, 2008. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “In one sentence, what is the essence of the method of Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam)?“

Through the love of others, to come closer to the system in which the Creator can become revealed and enjoy from His created beings.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 20, 2023, “The Purpose of Society – 1.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is life a test?“

It is written in the Torah that we each go through tests in our lives through which the upper providene examines us. Indeed, our lives are a test.

It is most obvious in the story about the exodus from Egypt. “Egypt” represents our egoistic desires, and the more we prepare ourselves to exit our egos, the more we start feeling our ego working on, controlling and overcoming us, and we too constantly try to overcome it.

The increasing difficulty to overcome our ego is called “the burdening of the heart,” which brings us to feel that we are entirely under the ego’s rule, under Pharaoh, and we feel it as our enemy.

Why do we come to feel the ego dwelling inside us as our enemy? It is due to a tiny point of a desire in us called “Moses” that attracts us to the other side of our ego: a reality of positive connection among each other with attitudes of love and bestowal in our midst.

In this game with the upper force of love and bestowal called “the Creator,” as well as with Pharaoh, Moses, the people of Israel (i.e., those who share the common point of a desire to rise above the ego) and the Egyptians, we start discovering these forces operating inside us. We start seeing how we are lost under Pharaoh’s rule without the upper force of love and bestowal (the Creator) to pull us out.

If we go through life knowing that it is our Egypt and that we have to rise to a higher level and not remain in the ego, where our inner Pharaoh and Egyptians want to hold us, we will then learn how to use our lives in a way that brings us all to a state of total harmony, peace and happiness. We then come to see life as our aim to escape our egoistic nature and head out to what is called “redemption,” which is the sensation of the upper world, eternity and perfection.

Our lives are thus indeed a test and an opportunity. If we constantly try to see where and how we are being operated upon, and try to hold onto the thought that beyond our egoistic desires there is a higher force of love and bestowal that wishes for us to become mature beings by rising above our egos, then we can view our lives as a test—as our own test on ourselves.

We can then exercise what it means to live above the ego in a reality where the upper force of love and bestowal fills the connections between us. By doing so, we draw those loving and bestowing forces into our lives and accordingly rise to the eternal and whole spiritual life. If we do not apply such a test upon ourselves and continue letting our egoistic desires determine our every thought and movement, then we simply disappear when we die, and we then just reawait our next chance in the next lifecycle.
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Based on “Ask the Kabbalist” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 18, 2008. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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