Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will we ever understand the true nature of reality?“

Our five senses disclose to us only a very limited part of the reality surrounding us. We call this part “our world” or “this world.” There are several other objects and actions in our surrounding reality that we do not feel, understand or recognize.

We exist in an immense reality that includes much more than what we currently sense, one where we connect with objects, actions, causes and consequences of literally everything in existence.

In order to understand where we fit in this picture, the purpose of our existence in this reality, and its true nature, we first need to discover it. After doing so, we can then see where we truly are in reality and how it functions. We could then draw conclusions about its true nature, including what is our nature, what is the nature of reality, what is our purpose and role, and how we can penetrate deeper and deeper into reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was made for precisely this purpose.

Based on KabTV’s “Close up. Theater of the Absurd” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 18, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do we live in order to die?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we live in order to develop our soul. We understand that we have an animal body that lives and dies here on this planet. However, our purpose is not to die in the animal body, but to develop the soul while we live here.

What is the soul?

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is written that the soul is “a part of the Creator from above.” What this means is that we have a part of a certain “absolute” within us, and that absolute—called “the Creator,” and which is given other names as well in Kabbalah, such as “nature,” “upper force” and “upper light,” among others—is essentially a quality of love and bestowal.

This part of the Creator from above within us emerges as a small point, called a “point in the heart” or a “desire for spirituality,” among our corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. Developing this point into a soul means wishing for it to become formed such that the quality of love and bestowal becomes born in us.

When it writes in the wisdom of Kabbalah that a person is a part of the Creator, it is speaking on the Creator’s behalf. However, the person requires a great effort in order to develop and attain such a reality.

Therefore, we live not in order to die, but to discover true life, i.e., to attain a life of eternity and perfection through the development of the soul—the quality of love and bestowal—while alive in our animal bodies.

Based on KabTV’s “Close- Up, Beyond the Last Line” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 3, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is it very difficult to control your mind?“

Indeed, we often try to take hold of our thoughts, to change or replace them with other thoughts, and the more we try, the more we realize our inability to do so.

In order to control our thoughts, we need to understand where they come from. Thoughts are upshots of desire. Initially, a desire surfaces, even if we do not feel it. Afterward, the desire enables the mind to realize it, and it enters our thought. We thus think only in relation to what we desire. The question then becomes, how can we acquire, hold onto, and develop that which we desire; or how can we distance ourselves from what we consider undesirable?

We find it futile to control our thoughts because thoughts, which are secondary to desires, cannot change desires. Our thoughts can only change the size of our desires, by increasing or decreasing them. Likewise, we also cannot replace one thought with another.

Therefore, we can only control our thoughts, our mind, by controlling our desires. The question then becomes, how can we change our desires? And the answer to that is: through the kind of social influence that we receive. The values, examples and behaviors that we absorb from our environment influences what we desire, and according to the social influence we choose for ourselves, we accordingly receive a certain direction to our desires. We would thus be wise to choose an environment that leads us to the loftiest of goals, and which influences us with the highest of values.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is justice?“

Justice is when absolutely everybody feels good.

Such a state requires each of us not taking our own individual selves into consideration, but that we each accept everybody and create such conditions that everybody approves of.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 7, 2022.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is universal spiritual law?“

The universal spiritual law is a law of love, as it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

We lack perception and sensation of this law in our world as it exists in a dimension concealed from our inborn qualities. In order to make contact with this law, we need to equalize our qualities with those of that dimension.

We can discover the universal spiritual law and reveal the dimension where we experience it directly by exiting ourselves. In other words, we need to exit the desires we currently feel, which we know as our earthly world, and enter into the desires that are outside of us, which is called the “upper world” or “spiritual world.” By doing so, we can truly feel what is outside of us: the universal spiritual law.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Beyond the Last Line” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 3, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does humanity go to war again and again, when it is already known as an exercise in futility?“

Humanity goes to war again and again because it is part and parcel of our egoistic human nature to feel superior to others by suppressing them. It gives life a certain sense of meaning.

It is the way we have been created. That is, we have been made to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, and it is with the purpose that if we overcome our egoistic makeup, then we reach balance with nature. Moreover, nature gradually leads us to achieve such balance.

Stopping wars that take place physically requires waging wars within us, on our egoistic desires—to rise above our ego and mold a new quality of love and bestowal through the negation and inversion of our egoism. In other words, we can fashion a new, noble and sparkling altruistic quality by inverting our lowly and corrupt egoistic quality that dwells within us.

On one hand, our egoistic desire is our nature, which we cannot and should not eliminate since it is our very matter. However, we can develop an intention to use our egoistic nature in an inverted manner: for the benefit of others. Doing so adheres us to nature’s laws and brings us to the state of absolute balance with nature, a state characterized by the words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Based on “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur on February 28, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What can one get out of Kabbalah?“

At the end of our childhood, our eyes gradually start opening up and we find ourselves in a particular world. We can live in this world without giving it much consideration, simply living “like everybody else” and taking after their example. However, some of us feel a deeper need that makes us feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the idea of simply going through life’s motions.

What we want out of our lives depends on the desires that awaken in us. We all have a desire to explore our surrounding reality. When we are children, we explore our rooms, and the more we grow up, the wider the canvas of our exploration: from our rooms to our yards, then our neighborhoods, our cities, countries, the planet and we then look out into space, trying to figure our what is going on in our universe. After extensively exploring our surroundings over the course of our development, we end up at the conclusion that we find no lasting fulfillment from such endeavors.

Today, even our interest in space exploration has waned. We relate to it mostly in a mercantile manner, for instance, in order to operate mobile devices via satellites or for espionage. We find exploration of distant galaxies much less interesting than we used to. This is because our desires have changed. Our desires no longer aspire to explore cosmic distances, but on the contrary, at a certain point of our development, our desires start turning inwardly, directing us at seeking the source of our very thoughts, desires and qualities.

In other words, our questions gradually shift from how we can best survive and be comfortable in our world, to why are we here. The question “Why?” awakens the more we develop beyond a certain threshold. It is a question about our life’s meaning and purpose. We start asking about the causal factors in our existence, about where we are from and where we are headed.

Our increasing difficulty to fulfill ourselves from one year to the next is not because we have less desires, but on the contrary, our desires constantly grow and the systems we previously created in order to fulfill ourselves no longer succeed in doing so. The more we develop, and the more dissatisfied we become, then the more we try new and different things to fulfill ourselves. Take, for instance, the transition taking place in the attitude to drug use. Today, there are moves throughout the world to legitimize and legalize the use of various drugs that, until recently, their possession and sale constituted punishable criminal offenses. It is all in order to give us a sense of calm and to forget about our growing disillusionment with the world.

In our times, whether or not we verbalize the question or not, we start demanding answers to the meaning of our lives, and not just answers as to how we can live a comfortable existence in our animal bodies.

We feel less and less meaning in fulfilling ourselves in the materialistic manner in which we have developed over the generations. On one hand, we find ourselves needing cars, living spaces and thousands of material goods in order to live comfortably. But on the other hand, we do so in order to simply feel comfortable, and the material items themselves hold no meaning. Rather, we feel a more inner need for something else, which we cannot pinpoint in our world, but which gives us a growing sense of dissatisfaction with our material existence.

This is the question about the meaning of life. It is a question that no science, technology, or even philosophy and psychology can fulfill, as it seeks far deeper, to the very causal root from which everything extends.

In short, our increasing loss of interest in our materialistic existence points to the emergence of a new level of development that is awakening within us, and it assumes the form of existential questions that we will increasingly feel that we need true answers to.

Kabbalah was made in order to answer precisely these questions. Using the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn how to fulfill our innermost questions about the meaning and purpose of life. By applying the time-tested method of Kabbalah, we gain access to the causal level of our existence while alive in this world, and by doing so, we attain an eternal and whole sensation of reality, which completely fulfills us. In other words, the wisdom of Kabbalah was made for answering the question about the meaning and purpose of life in a practical and methodical manner.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the article by Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 24, 2011.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some solutions for technological unemployment?“

The solution to mass unemployment is to setup a system where people’s basic needs are met while they engage in connection-enriching education.

When we start learning, listening to and discussing on a mass scale what our nature is, what nature is in general, how nature works, how we evolve in such a nature, and what we can do in order to positively connect, and by doing so, reach balance with nature, then we will see an immense improvement in every area of our lives. Mass unemployment provides us with an opportunity to implement such a form of education on a mass scale.

We have no need for eight billion people to work for 8-to-12 hours a day. Half a billion people is enough to provide for our basic needs.

If we would evenly distribute responsibilities in order to reach a reasonable level of sustenance, then we would ensure that everyone would receive their optimal living conditions and life’s essentials. Outside of dealing with life’s necessities, say for around five or six hours a day, we would be free to engage in inner self-improvement via connection-enriching education and activities, which ideally would fill our media channels.

One way or another, we will need to rise to a new degree of existence, one where we positively connect and discover the positive force of nature dwelling in our connection. If we fail to undergo such an upgrade via positive means, i.e., via connection-enriching education, then we will receive suffering across the board—on personal, social and ecological scales—until we agree to exercise our free choice and rise to a new level of existence on our own accord. In other words, rising to a new level of existence is our realest work, and the work that so many people today are engaged in is largely unnecessary. If we apply ourselves to positively connect in order to rise to a new level of existence, then we would receive a whole new harmonious, peaceful, eternal and perfect life in balance with nature, and by doing so, we would realize the ultimate purpose of our lives.

Moreover, such work is for everyone. Mass unemployment is a phenomenon that would come to us for the purpose of giving us free time on a mass scale, and that we would use that free time to undergo an upgrade in our consciousness and connections to each other. Doing so requires establishing an educational system on a mass scale, not just education as we usually think about it, for instance, like schools and universities, but education in terms of all the influences we receive from society: from schooling through to the mass and social media we encounter on a regular basis.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Partnership Agreement” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 4, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What was the relationship between ancient Israel and ancient Rome?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Rome and Israel, and their confrontations most notably in ancient times, are viewed from a spiritual perspective, i.e., they represent two clashing philosophies of life.

At the root of the matter, there is a contradiction between the upper force of bestowal, the Creator, and the force of reception, the created being. In other words, there is a contradiction between the qualities of love, bestowal and connection belonging to the upper nature, and to the nature of the created being, which solely wishes to receive fulfillment and enjoyment in its pride, strength, knowledge and wealth.

Therefore, the philosophy of life of ancient Israel, which is the group that emerged from ancient Babylon and became a nation, was formed on the basis of equality—“love your neighbor as yourself”—and accordingly it existed in the sensation of the upper force, i.e., in understanding how it develops in relation to its ultimate goal in life, which is a state where the created being equalizes its qualities with those of the Creator. Such an approach opposed that of the barbarians.

The Romans were barbarians in terms of their attitude to life because they believed that life consisted solely of the body’s existence.

The attitude that the Romans represented is that of the most powerful, proud and domineering egoistic force. This worldview states that conquest, suppression and enslavement give meaning to human life.

Israel, however, represented the meaning of life differently: that the meaning of life is to rise above the bodily drives and reach a state of “love your neighbor as yourself” as a means of equalizing in qualities with those of the Creator, i.e., qualities of love, bestowal and connection. The Roman approach was thus in total disagreement with the approach of Israel. Thus, as two opposed attitudes to life, two philosophies, two foundations, two ideas, they collided and terrible wars broke out between them.

The Jewish people had no such concept of shutting themselves off from others. On the contrary, the approach of Israel was an inviting one: “come and live like us, united.” There was also a special place for other nations in the Temple, according to the principle in the Israel approach that everyone can remain in their religion and philosophy of life, but love should cover all and connect between us. Today, however, nothing remains of this.

It should be noted that we are discussing only the ancient nations of Israel and Rome, which have nothing to do with today’s Italians. These are completely different nations.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Formula of the Creator” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 8, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some life lessons learnt from the Harry Potter series?“

I watched about half of the Harry Potter movie, and the main takeaway I got is that it shows how we have a desire to escape from our reality, or at least to broaden its boundaries.

And we can.

However, it is no game, and it is not for children. In order to exit our current reality, we need to work on changing our perception of reality.

The main barrier standing between where we are in our current reality and entering a whole new reality is pride. That is, in order to exit our current reality, we need to annul ourselves, our egos, and pride is what mainly stands in the way of doing so.

Also, indeed, we need a certain kind of magic in order to leap from our reality to a whole new reality. Real magic is when we elevate our qualities above the limitations of time, space and motion. We can then be unlimited in these parameters.

In fact, there is no time, space or motion. When we annul ourselves, we annul these parameters from our senses, and we no longer control them. In other words, we need to let go of controlling time, space and motion, that we exist in such parameters, and that we hold onto them like how children hold onto their toys, refusing to let go. Even though we are naturally built with a will to control these parameters, when we let go of them, we then discover a perfect and eternal world free from their constraints.

Based on the video “Kabbalist Responds to Harry Potter [Here’s its #1 Spiritual Takeaway]” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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