Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I cope with suffering?“

The suffering that we experience expands to our consciousness through the brain, and our attitude to the suffering, how we relate to it, equates to the intensity of the suffering.

Therefore, in order to cope with suffering, we have to realize, in our minds, that nature makes us suffer according to its plan, which is ultimately in order to lead us to a bright and positive future. For the first time in humanity’s history, nature takes us by the ear, so to speak, as if we are schoolchildren, and guides us to realize positive relations, where we will discover a world of light and warmth.

When we reach the final destination that nature is leading us to, we will no longer experience suffering, because suffering hinges on the fact that we see no goal ahead of us. If there is a goal, then the goal absorbs the suffering.

When we apply certain efforts, we can experience those efforts as enjoyable or as painful. There is no difference between pleasure and suffering in the sensation itself, but the difference between the two lies in the idea that we adhere to. If we feel a lack of purpose in a certain effort—that we are headed toward an abyss—then we experience suffering. On the contrary, if we imagine that a certain effort leads us to a goal where we benefit and enjoy, then we become ready not only to endure the effort, but to prolong and even enjoy it.

If we, as a society, calibrate our attitudes to think that nature leads us to a harmonious future, to stability, and to a problem-free life, and we create inputs in our social environment, such as media and art, which projects such an idea to us more and more, then we will be able to further progress in our lives with relative ease. We will then experience an end to suffering.

Whether sooner or later, we will develop to a point where we actively progress in such a direction. We have already engaged in several wars and conflicts, where we fought to the death for the sake of the future, under the guise of certain imaginary values that people invented. Today, however, we have exhausted our man-made ideologies, and all that is left for us to do is work out how we can adapt ourselves to nature’s own form of development.

By fighting for the prominence of various man-made ideologies in the past, we ended up with a lot of suffering and disappointment. Today, however, if we progress toward matching nature’s interconnectedness and interdependence, we will finally end up with a positive result, free from suffering and disappointment.

We will then find ourselves in the most comfortable and blissful state, similar to being in our mother’s womb, but which is in fact billions of times greater. It is a state where we feel completely taken care of. If we attain it in our lives, then it is much greater than the sensation in the mother’s womb because in the womb, we are unaware of the care that surrounds us. By developing such a state in society, then we will experience the sensation of total care with the additions of understanding, awareness and a feeling of achievement.

We will then experience how nature, humanity, and everything in the universe and in all the worlds, envelops us in an all-encompassing kindness. We are approaching such perfection, and if we had no experience of suffering, then we would never gain awareness of it.

Based on the video, “Why Do We Experience Pain?” 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: “The COP26, a UN summit about climate change, kicked off on Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland. Do you think the summit is a critical moment?“

No. It is naïve to think that any significant change will come from an event where world leaders convene from all parts of the world. The summit was a gathering of Prime Ministers and politicians, the same people driving the world toward an abyss. It is like wolves from different parts of a forest gathered to decide what to do in order to make life better for the sheep.

Put simply, to fix our ecological problems, we need to reach balance with nature, which can come about on condition that we reach balance among each other. Such balance will then also permeate the levels under the human: the still, vegetative and animate. Everything that has been destroyed will be restored, and everything will become corrected in general, when we correct our relationships up to a point of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Based on the video, “How to Fight the Climate Crisis,” 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: “Do demons exist?“

Demons are inner forces in us that act to our detriment. We cannot see demons, but we can feel them as inner forces that neither enter nor exit us, but awaken within.

We play host to various positive and negative forces, which we give different names, such as “demons,” “spirits” and “angels.” Accordingly, we might suddenly experience peculiar kinds of negative sensations, like panic attacks, or on the contrary, positive sensations like outbursts of joy.

Most importantly, however, among such forces, we need to hold ourselves in balance: to direct ourselves toward the meaning of life by developing relations of love among each other in order to match the absolute love that exists in nature. If we place ourselves in environments that support our calibration to achieve such balance, then we will avoid being thrown from side to side. Instead, we will become stronger in our ability to rise above their influence.

Based on the video “What Are Demons?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Latiman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will there be peace between the Jews and Arabs?“

One of my students recently updated me on an amazing partnership in sports. Adam Badir is a senior physiotherapist from the Arab village of Kfar Kasem. He worked with an Israeli athlete, Artem Dolgopyat, from the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion, who recently won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

Adam not only took care of Artem at the Olympics, but he also supported him like a big brother, and when Artem received the gold medal, Adam was so moved that he broke out in tears.

My student raised the question as to whether such a special relationship between an Arab and a Jew who are very close could act as an example to resolve the conflict between the two nations.

While, on one hand, partnering in our achievements brings us very close together, and on a personal level, such closeness allows two individuals such as Adam and Artem to perhaps not feel the conflict due to their friendship.

On the other hand, the particular dispute between Arabs and Jews demands a specific kind of treatment. A life of peace is possible on condition that we Jews will positively connect with each other. Our positive connection to each other will accordingly also positively influence our cousins. They will then feel a special compelling force that attracts them to love and connect with each other.

If we develop strong, internal and deep connections among each other, then we will enable such connections to expand worldwide, and our Arab cousins will also connect with us in the process. It is a law of nature, and the wisdom of Kabbalah describes how this law works in detail.

Based on the video “How Can Jews and Arabs Find Peace?” 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 good? What is bad?“

Good is when we make voluntary progress toward balance with nature, i.e. balance with the universal force of love, bestowal and connection. On the contrary, we feel bad when we move involuntarily toward the same balanced state.

If we feel bad, like we are at a dead end and have lost our bearings, then that is actually good. It is because, from such a state, we will find a good solution.

We need to think about where we exist and what kind of nature we are in. Nature is integral and global, containing everyone and everything—on inanimate, vegetative, animate, and most importantly, human levels—in a single harmony.

We human beings need to reach a positive form of mutual connection among each other. By doing so, we will experience a wonderful and good life. It might sound like a children’s fairy tale, but it is not. Everything is interconnected and interdependent, and if we upgrade our attitudes to each other in order to adapt to nature’s interconnectedness and interdependence, then we will experience a harmonious existence. It is simply a law of nature.

When we start positively connecting with each other as a single global whole, with mutual dependence, then despite our petty and narrow egoism, we will start feeling that an immensely powerful force of love dwells in nature. We will discover this great force of love in the close knit and warm connections that we build between us, and we will then start feeling that we exist in a completely different and perfect world.

Based on the video, “What Is Good? What Is Bad? – Good and Bad Defined” 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 thought?“

Thought is the greatest force in nature. It operates above time and space.

Thought is the highest force of human nature. In kabbalistic texts, it is written that “all is clarified in thought.”

Thoughts come from the thought of creation, where we are all omnipresent, and thought is all there is in nature.

We also exist in thought. We feel that we have senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and that we live in a universe with galaxies, stars, planets, and so on.

However, it is all thought.

There is nothing other than thought. There is no matter, only thought. Likewise, all we can control is our thoughts, and nothing else. For instance, the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature are beyond our control.

What does it mean that we can change our thoughts? It means that we can change our attitudes toward nature through other people, through everything that stimulates us. By doing so, we reach what in the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “correction,” i.e. a state of balance with nature that comes from changing the direction of our thoughts—from self-benefit to benefiting others and nature.

Based on the video, “Understanding Human Thought from a Higher Degree,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would you describe a divine experience?“

First of all, a divine experience is not a mystical or religious experience.

A divine experience takes place when we connect with each other and sense the general system of nature. It is an experience in which we feel the so-called “souls,” i.e. the parts that piece together the “puzzle” of this system, and which make it as one. We feel the wholeness and perfection of our connection when we connect into a single body.

By connecting with each other, we rise above our nature, above this world where we sense reality in a detached and contradicting way, and enter a different reality, the so-called “upper world” where we are all interconnected.

The divine experience of the upper world is one of eternal life because we are then no longer detached from each other, but we complement each other. The entire system then lives and breathes as a life of eternity and perfection, which is how we experience it. Accordingly, our entire life is given to us so that we transcend our limited corporeal experience, and enter the divine spiritual experience, where we sense complete fulfillment, eternity and perfection.

Based on the video, “How to Transcend the Corporeal Experience of Life,” 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 a spiritual journey like?“

We have the ability to rise to a level where we can see the origin of our experiences and observe life from a different vantage point.

What is this new perspective we can reach?

It is one where we attribute much less importance to our corporeal experiences and relate solely to the true spiritual world.

When we attain the upper spiritual world, then our world, which we build out of various unreal experiences—where we are impressed by nonsense inflated by imaginations and delusions—no longer impresses us. The spiritual world is a sensation of a single force of love and bestowal above our corporeal sensation, and its attainment means letting our soul guide our spiritual life. When we are guided by our soul, we go through an opening to a state where we mutually complement each other in an eternal and perfect life, adhering with the upper spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection. We then become boundless, rising above the limits of our corporeal sensation of reality.

The ultimate experience we aspire to reach is spiritual revelation, which is known as “the revelation of the Creator” or “the revelation of the upper force” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Creator is the source of reality—the source of our experiences and fate. Through the aspiration to discover and feel such a force, we eventually reach the attainment of life’s source.

Based on the video, “Spirituality: A Journey Above Human Limits,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?“

We live in times of great change. Today’s world has become more interconnected and interdependent than ever before, and in order for us to adapt to such changes, we need to broaden our hearts—not physically, but emotionally.

We need to start feeling that the world is a part of us, and that we care about other people and the world as we care about ourselves. Until that happens, the world will increasingly deteriorate, and we human beings will also suffer more and more. Such a tendency could continue until only a small number of people survive, living life in a very primitive way, and they would finally decide to make that change.

The change that we need to make is entirely up to us. Unlike animals, which instinctively adapt to certain changes in the world, we need to make a decision and ask for this specific change to happen. It is because we are above nature’s still, vegetative and animate levels, which instinctively follow nature’s commands. We have room for free choice precisely in this change—to shift from self-concern to concern about others and the world—and accordingly, we need to digest the changes taking place and intentionally want to change.

Based on the video “How to Adapt to Climate Change” 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: “How do we change our perception of life to become happier?“

We first need to understand how we perceive life, which is through a lens of self-concern. We do not perceive life as is, but we have five senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste, five openings through which we constantly receive information. If we transcend our five senses, then we come to sense a new and different reality.

Everything that we perceive is in our ego, i.e. in our desire to enjoy with an intention to enjoy for self-benefit alone. This ego accompanies and directs us to enjoy every moment of our lives, to gain as much as we can, and lose as little as possible. Nature has programmed us to desire, think and act out of self-concern at every moment, and our bodies do so in very sophisticated and clever ways. Our perception of life is thus very limited, in terms of what we want, what we understand and feel, what we receive, and what we own.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we exist in an eternal, abundant and perfect reality, and our perception greatly narrows this reality to a tiny limited point. We have no idea about the vastness of the options and opportunities that exist in the universe. It turns out that our bodies are our enemies, not our friends, as they force us to live inside them, detached from the abundant pleasure that exists outside.

Therefore, the key to change our perception of life and become happier is to exit the perception of life we receive through our five senses, and enter into a new perception of life: one above our bodies, where we open a new sense that can perceive the eternal and perfect reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah calls this new sense a “screen” (“Masach” in Hebrew), and the entire method of Kabbalah is aimed at developing this screen up to a point where we discover everything we possibly can in our perception of life. By doing so, we gain access to the source of happiness, i.e. we achieve happiness in its eternal, perfect and true form, and thus become happy in the truest sense of the term.

Based on the video “How to Perceive a Different Reality” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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