Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are major spiritual awakening symptoms?“

We have been evolving over thousands of years, and at a certain point, we start awakening to questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives. They are the first awakening that we receive toward spirituality, and they become our principle concern the moment that we start rising above our animate existence.

Unlike animals, our desires evolve from one generation to the next. We feel the desires of the next level of evolution, and our sensation of emptiness constantly grows, forcing us to seek new and different kinds of fulfillment to what we previously had. We thus gradually develop a more and more pronounced question about the meaning of life, which increasingly preoccupies us.

Newer and newer ideas surface in us, and we develop increasingly complex systems as a result of our growing unfulfilled desires. Science also develops in relation to the questions we have in each generation, and we can see the vast difference between today’s science and science a few centuries ago.

Moreover, the question about the meaning and purpose of our lives manifests itself first and foremost in certain individuals. Over the course of history, we have been driven to make breakthroughs in several areas, whether it be art, music, literature, poetry, science and technology. Our desires constantly grew according to a scale starting from mere survival necessities—food, sex and family—through to social desires—money, honor, control and knowledge. From one generation to the next, our desires become increasingly refined.

According to the great Kabbalist, the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria), the question about the meaning and purpose of life started emerging in humanity as a whole toward the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. The technological, scientific and cultural revolutions in Europe thus became the trigger for the emergence of a totally new attitude to life and religion. Many people started no longer fearing being non-religious and getting punished for dissent, which signaled that desires in humanity grew to a new level where belief started falling short in the new demand for proof that had started evolving.

At the start of the “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) wrote:

Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts as to whether we should study the wisdom of Kabbalah will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’

We could say that everything unfolding in the world today is due to us not finding an answer to the question about the meaning of life. We can see what humanity engages in and what it leads the world to, and it is all because people fail to understand what they exist for.

We mostly wish to file away the question about the meaning and purpose of life, and instead engage in much more immediate and concrete pleasures, keeping ourselves busy in order to avoid asking the question. It is because the question, if we engage in it without finding an answer, brings us existential suffering in addition to the suffering we experience in relation to our daily survival.

However, the reason that Baal HaSulam discusses the meaning of life in his “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” is because he wants to show how we need not have any lofty goals or special thoughts in order to embark on the spiritual path. Very simply, if we feel bad and we do not know why we are alive, and such questions keep surfacing in us making us feel uneasy, and that we need to get these questions answered in order to justify our existence, then we can start taking steps on the spiritual path.

The wisdom of Kabbalah was made specifically for answering the question about the meaning and purpose of life, and it is open to all, regardless of age, gender, background or any other seeming differences.

Based on a Virtual Lesson on January 31, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it feel like to sell your soul?“

Human nature is a desire to enjoy and it divides into a few levels: individual desires for food, sex and family; social desires for money, honor, control and knowledge; and a tiny desire for spirituality.

Our soul is where we feel fulfillment.

If we dedicate ourselves to fulfilling corporeal desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge, we experience transient fulfillment in such desires, and by doing so, we attain no eternal soul. This is considered selling our soul to Satan, as the Hebrew root for the word for “Satan” is “Hasata” (“diversion”), i.e., that such desires divert us from attaining our eternal soul.

If, however, we dedicate ourselves to fulfilling our spiritual desire, then we can attain and discover our eternal soul while living in our world.

Our spiritual desire emerges initially as a tiny desire among our corporeal desires, which in Kabbalah is called a “point in the heart.” This desire is felt as a certain kind of emptiness and uneasiness, a feeling that our other desires cannot entirely fulfill us, and it leads us to question the meaning and purpose of our lives. The stronger we feel this desire, the more we traverse teachings and environments until we eventually find a method for attaining the soul while we are alive in this world. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for the soul’s attainment. It is open to anyone, but those who have a sincere desire to discover the meaning of life will be those who reap the maximal benefit from the method.

Based on a Virtual Lesson on April 3, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can you end suffering in life?“

We first need to understand the source of suffering in life, and then we can implement a method to end it.

In order to understand the source of suffering, the wisdom of Kabbalah explains a key interaction between two fundamental forces in nature: one is a force called “light,” the force of love, bestowal and connection, also known as “the upper force” and “the Creator” (“Boreh” in Hebrew), which means “come and see” (“Bo” and “Reh”), because we need to attain this force as a clear perception and sensation in order to believe it. This initial force created the second force: the creation, which is also called “the created being” or “the desire to enjoy”—a lack of fulfillment, opposite to the initial upper force.

The upper force develops the desire to enjoy, making us feel as if we need and want several different kinds of fulfillment. We are essentially made of a set of desires—food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge—and we each feel an instinctive urge to fulfill ourselves via these desires in differing extents.

If we fail to fulfill these desires, we suffer, and this suffering extends from sensations of emptiness to those of outright pain, the latter of which can even become intolerable.

Desires for food, sex and family are natural bodily instincts shared by all animals. By contrast, desires for money, honor, control and knowledge are social desires based on comparing what we have in relation to others, and such desires are unique to humans.

The source of suffering is thus the inability to fulfill these desires. In Kabbalistic terms, when the light (pleasure/fulfillment) does not fill the desire, then it suffers, and the suffering can be intense or slight, long-term or momentary, collective or individual.

Understanding that our desires’ lack of fulfillment is the source of our suffering, we thus find ourselves in a constant race for fulfillment. The problem is that our desire to enjoy only knows how to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, and thus we pit ourselves up against each other in a tug-of-war, each pulling to their own corner. That is why any kind of fulfillment we sense in this current setup is only transient, after which we once again feel empty and desire a different fulfillment again and again.

The solution to this predicament is to invert the direction by which we enjoy. If instead of wishing to receive fulfillment for ourselves alone at the expense of others, we would develop a new desire—one where we wish for the benefit of others—then we would enter a new level of life where we would feel constant fulfillment.

Image: Left: Direct reception of pleasure into the desire leads to its extinguishment. Right: The intention to benefit others redirects the pleasure, allowing for continuous fulfillment.

Our desire to enjoy for personal benefit alone immensely limits and narrows our sensation of fulfillment to very tiny and transient moments, and most of the time we feel emptiness and suffering in order to push us to seek fulfillment. On the contrary, the desire to benefit others holds unlimited potential for fulfillment, because by aiming to benefit others, we enter into balance with the initial force of love, bestowal and connection that is on the opposite side of reality, wishing to bestow just like it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that teaches us how to undergo such a transition. “Kabbalah” means “reception” in Hebrew, because it teaches us how to receive fulfillment in a way that is ultimately adapted to nature, a fulfillment that does not fade away but which constantly increases.

On one hand, Kabbalah has become quite popular, but on the other hand, it is a hidden wisdom, because its results are felt in each person’s sensations and desires. Nevertheless, it is open for everyone, and it lets us understand how to work with our desires in order to receive fulfillment in an unlimited manner. By doing so, we become truly happy as we rid ourselves of suffering at its very source.

Based on “New Life episode 736: The Origin of Our Suffering” [28:27] on June 23, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalists Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we achieve spiritual maturity?“

A spiritually mature person is one who ceases to pursue self-aimed enjoyment, and in its place, seeks love, bestowal and positive connection to others.

Similarly, in our corporeal lives, as children, all we know is how to receive self-aimed enjoyment, and we run after one fun thing after another. Then, at a certain stage of corporeal maturity, when we become adults, we have to assume a more giving and responsible role in society, to work and to socially contribute in various ways. However, even an adult in our world, who works and contributes to society, functions according to a fundamental self-aimed desire to enjoy.

Reaching spiritual maturity means that we invert the aim upon our desires from “for our own benefit” to “for the benefit of others.”

By doing so, we cross a barrier between our corporeal world and the spiritual world. The essence of our enjoyment thus also changes: Instead of enjoying by moving from one self-aimed enjoyment to the next among desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge, we instead enjoy from being connected to our life’s purpose and source—the spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection that exists in absolute eternal perfection. In other words, spiritual maturity means living in love, bestowal and positive connection to others, not for the sake of the enjoyment it brings us, but for the sake of connecting with the source of our lives.

Spiritual maturity thus comes after establishing a connection and a degree of resemblance to the spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection. By doing so, we rise above our life’s corporeal degree, where we seek egoistic enjoyment.

If we take a snapshot of human evolution in order to see where we currently are in relation to such spiritual maturity, as a humanity, then we can see that we are in the process of transitioning to a new era where we no longer extract the same kind of enjoyment from corporeal pleasures like we once used to. We no longer see a rosy picture ahead of us anymore either. In the past, we were able to resort to different systems in order to replace our current ones. This is no longer the case today, as we can already envision the bankruptcy of the directions that we have tried. We simply do not anticipate the reception of any special new enjoyments in life anymore.

Such a state is part of our natural evolution: we have reached a limit in our corporeal development, and the time has come to transition to a new spiritual paradigm. In plain English, this means that we find lesser and lesser fulfillment from running after pleasures all the time, in order to realize that true fulfillment in our forthcoming era is to instead chase after the source of all pleasure—the spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection. Moreover, if we fail to apply ourselves to this transition out of our own will, then we will experience more and more negative sensations—dissatisfaction, emptiness, depression, loneliness, stress, anxiety and other forms of suffering—in order to prod us to realize the need to spiritually mature. We will simply be cut off from being able to enjoy anything, and we will then start asking fundamental questions about our lives, such as “Why is this happening?” “What is the meaning of all this?” “What is this life for?” “Why is there so much suffering in this world?” and “What can I do about it?”

In other words, we will start asking not about enjoyments themselves, but about their source. The more we ask those kinds of questions, then the more we will be led to seek new and different environments to the ones we engaged in until now—ones that will help us mature spiritually.

As long as we enjoy ourselves in this world, we do not ask about the enjoyment’s source. However, as soon as we stop enjoying life, and also see no future goal that draws us to enjoy by way of moving toward some worthy goal ahead of us, then we start feeling ourselves as immersed in a serious existential problem. We then start asking fundamental questions about the purpose and meaning of life, and not simply how to enjoy ourselves while we are here.

At such a juncture, we start understanding that if we want to enjoy life, then we need to come closer to life’s source, which means inverting the aim by which we enjoy from “for our own benefit” to “for the benefit of others.”

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on December 30, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you understand the way that your spirituality has been part of your life?“

People on the spiritual path feel that their daily lives, everything they experience, fits in with this path.

For instance, if you work in an office for eight-to-ten hours a day, you understand that it is part of your spiritual work. If you hold the need to spiritually progress while working, then through your every motion, you let spiritual energy pass through you. Such an approach is necessary in order to reach spiritual corrections, i.e., the attainment of an intention to love and bestow above the inborn desire to receive.

This world’s myriad interactions are given to us so that we influence each other with spiritual energy. Therefore, if we approach our daily lives in a way where we receive spiritual fulfillment from our spiritual studies, and then interact at workplaces and other daily activities among several people who have no spiritual interests, then we become kinds of “spiritual undercover agents,” channeling spiritual content through society to humanity at large. They also feel a positive effect from this work, even though they cannot pinpoint exactly what they feel and where it comes from.

By operating in such a way, we connect to each other and imbue the world with spirituality. Moreover, for people who wish to spiritually advance, it becomes a necessity to do so.

Our world has been created such that we have families, relationships, work and other social interactions—not in order for us to shy away from such relations, but so that through full contact with society, we add our intention to positively connect everyone harmoniously, and by doing so, bring ourselves closer to spirituality. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah states that anyone wishing to attain spirituality should connect themselves to society, build a family and work, as it lets the spiritual forces drawn through the study stream out to society at large. The more we spiritually advance, the more we see that spirituality exists in positive human connections.

Therefore, if you try and apply the intention to positively connect to others with an attitude of love and bestowal in your daily life, you will see success; your friends and coworkers will relate differently to you, and you will also reach spiritual accomplishments while doing so.

We need to see that our connection to humanity holds the potential for our spiritual realization. Thus, with our spiritual circles, as well as with our families, friends, coworkers and others, we should seek to strengthen our inner connection to the spiritual forces of love and bestowal through our spiritual environment, and transmit those forces to humanity.

Based on the World Zohar Week Lesson on February 2, 2014. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you feel about the universe?“

The universe appears to be enormous, but it is in fact minuscule in comparison to the world that we can discover if we rise above the limits imposed on us by our inborn egoistic nature.

If we break free from our egoistic approach to life by developing an additional sense of bestowal, then we enter the perception of a completely new reality existing outside us.

Our inborn five senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste—are senses of reception. They draw information from a source unknown to us, and what we ultimately perceive is an extremely narrow corporeal picture of reality. And within this narrow picture of reality, we perceive a wide and expansive universe with unfathomable space.

However, we perceive such a picture through our five limiting senses. The reason for perceiving through narrow channels that limit the information we receive is so that we will develop a desire to break beyond the limits of this perception, and by doing so, discover a truly wider and broader reality.

The question then becomes, how can we break free from such a limiting picture where we wish to receive into ourselves at every moment? The answer is—by developing a new sense of bestowal. The attainment of a new sense that feels reality not through reception, but through bestowal, will let us exit our physical sphere of time, space and motion, and discover a much more expansive reality than the universe we currently perceive.

The method for the development of this additional sense is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.” By applying this method, we can develop a new sense of bestowal and love, which grants us a new perception of the eternal spiritual world. We then discover that another reality exists adjacent to our current one, but it becomes revealed through a new perception and sensation of reality: from oneself outward.

Therefore, it is written that “Love your friend as yourself” is “a great rule of the Torah,” because it points to the quality that we need to develop in order to attain a new sense of bestowal and love. By undergoing this shift in perception, we come to sense the spiritual world and the upper force filling reality.

Based on an interview with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on an Israeli Radio Program, 103FM, on August 16, 2015.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do people discover true love?“

We first need to understand that we have no idea what true love is. Until we reach true love, we interpret love in all kinds of corporeal and egoistic ways, i.e., where we primarily benefit ourselves from whatever we picture as love.

True love, however, is completely different. True love is the ability to benefit others, to sense others’ desires and to enjoy via their fulfillment. The realization of true love is by nature contrary to how we define love in corporeal terms.

True love is ultimately the unification of humanity into a single common system. We currently experience this system in its opposite form, through egoistic lenses, where we constantly try to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature, and by doing so, feel a certain degree of separation and distance in our attitudes to each other. By aiming to unite above this egoistic state we find ourselves in, we discover our rejection to each other, and eventually arrive at the realization that we need to rise above our differences, and forms bonds of true love. The more that we feel growing distance between us, the more we will develop a sincere desire to bridge this distance with a genuine attitude of love and care.

True love is thus the unification of opposites, when hatred and rejection become covered in a common umbrella of love. The more that we move toward unification above our inborn egoistic distance, then the more we will begin to sense a new kind of atmosphere entering our lives, giving us a much fuller feeling of fulfillment than everything else we have enjoyed to date.

The discovery of true love entering our lives is thus an opening to discover the perfection and wholeness existing in reality. Instead of feeling a narrow and detached sensation of life in our inborn egoistic qualities, we would “click” into a perception and sensation of reality similar to how cells and organs function and feel the whole organism that they are parts of. In such a state, we would feel constant fluctuations between the negative-egoistic and positive-altruistic poles of reality as we would continually cover our differences and divisions with a much greater force of unification. As such, we would feel ourselves in an eternal world where life constantly ebbs and flows.

When we transition from our inborn egoistic mode of wishing to benefit ourselves at others’ expense, to an altruistic mode of wanting to benefit others, we feel our instinctive egoistic impulses as negative forces that we rise above. By rising above the ego, we sense forces of connection, giving and love—the positive and eternal forces dwelling in nature—and complement each other in a common tendency to make that shift.

This fateful shift depends solely on the extent of our unification, where we rise above our differences and divisions and start fulfilling one another. The feeling of mutual fulfillment gives us a sense of eternal life.

To discover this true love, we need only learn how to upgrade our connections, to mutually complement and fulfill one another, and to replace our egoistic lenses where we see flaws in others, to ones where we feel any egoistic impulse as an invitation to unite above the differences.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 22, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is nationalism racism?“

Nationalism and racism share the same root. They both stem from an event that we study in the wisdom of Kabbalah called “the shattering of the common system of Adam HaRishon,” where we broke off from feeling that we all belong to a single system, and became different parts.

The purpose of our lives, while we are alive in this world, is to reconnect these parts and discover the complete system that is above our current perception and sensation of reality.

What exactly these parts are, how they differ from each other, and even how they should connect—is all fruitless knowledge that fails to serve our progress to our goal. In other words, focusing on and examining our differences gives us nothing.

It is important, however, to realize a sincere desire to connect above our differences, where on one hand, we each maintain all kinds of differences to each other, but on the other hand, we rise above them and discover our sublime and harmonious connection as a single whole.

Based on the talk “Communication Skills. Communication Difficulties,” on October 14, 2020.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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

One of my students asked me, as a Kabbalist, what is gratitude according to the wisdom of Kabbalah? Kabbalah is a serious wisdom, and so when it discusses gratitude, it means spiritual gratitude. What, then, is spiritual gratitude?

Spiritual gratitude first and foremost relates to a person with a desire and goal to attain spirituality. Such a person has no knowledge of what spirituality is, but feels an inner need, and eventually starts studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn that the purpose of creation is for all people to discover the harmony and bliss of connecting between the force of creation—reception—and its opposite spiritual force—bestowal. What does this mean?

On the way to discovering this sublime connection, we need to reveal how we are under the ego’s control, and that the ego is an evil and destructive force. Why is the ego evil and destructive? It is because it pits people up against each other, devours nature, our environment, and eventually, it also destroys itself, because it makes us want to enjoy things that provide short-term satisfaction, but which are ultimately bad for us in the long term. The revelation of the human ego as an evil and destructive force is called the “recognition of evil” in the wisdom of Kabbalah. “Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “reception,” and through this wisdom, we discover how we exist in a negative form of reception, where we want to receive and pull to ourselves, and that we do not ultimately benefit from trying to do so.

However, opposite this negative force of reception is a positive force of good, the force of bestowal. The force of bestowal can balance the receiving force, and then between these two forces we can exist in harmony by connecting between the positive and negative poles of reality.

The combination of these two forces is at the basis of everything we create, because specifically by the correct combination between these two poles of reality, we can discover how to live error-free and fix all the problems that emanate from relating to reality solely from its negative egoistic side.

By unconsciously letting the human ego drive our considerations and actions, we let the steamroller of evolution flatten us by delving deeper and deeper into seemingly irresolvable problems on personal, social, economic, ecological and global scales. The ego, without its balancing and regulating connection to the force of bestowal, stands behind every problem we experience in life.

We thus need to learn how to work with our ego in order to know how to balance it with its opposite positive force. When we succeed to invite the positive force into our lives, even in the tiniest amount, against the inborn negative force, we become grateful for having been given the negative force as our nature. In other words, by connecting to the positive force of bestowal above the negative egoistic force, we discover that the negative force is in fact a good force if we can use it as an impetus to increase our positive connection above it.

Balancing both positive and negative force is what King David describes in Psalms when he says, “You have saved my soul.” That is, before we receive the positive force, we only exist in the negative force, and we end up feeling terrible in that state. Then, after quite an extended period of time, we reach the state where we also receive the positive force, and when we do, we feel grateful. The gratitude we feel at that point is spiritual.

Based on “Spiritual Gratitude | New Life with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman | 1139,” February 4, 2020. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Watch the full talk here » [27:19]

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you believe will be the next big innovations in humanity?“

There will be no more big innovations in humanity. The era of great discoveries is behind us.

The next major innovation will take place solely through self-transformation, i.e., by working on ourselves to transform our egoistic selves—where we want to benefit ourselves alone—to altruistic ones—where we wish to benefit others.

This egoistic-to-altruistic transformation of ourselves will be at the basis of innovation as we head into the future. On the contrary, if we fail to make such a transformation, then no matter what we do, human society will stagnate.

“Where Is the Business World Headed? | New Life 1255.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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