Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I become more spiritual?“

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes in his article “The Freedom” that our single means by which we can change our state is by choosing a suitable environment.

“There is freedom for the will to initially choose such an environment, such books, and such guides that impart to him good concepts. If one does not do that, but is willing to enter any environment that appears to him and read any book that falls into his hands, he is bound to fall into a bad environment or waste his time on worthless books, which are abundant and easier to come by. In consequence, he will be forced into foul concepts that make him sin and condemn. He will certainly be punished, not because of his evil thoughts or deeds, in which he has no choice, but because he did not choose to be in a good environment, for in that there is definitely a choice.

Therefore, he who strives to continually choose a better environment is worthy of praise and reward. But here, too, it is not because of his good thoughts and deeds, which come to him without his choice, but because of his effort to acquire a good environment, which brings him these good thoughts and deeds.”

If we continually choose a more powerful environmental influence that guides us to spirituality, then we become worthy of spiritual progress.

Choosing and strengthening a suitable environment for spiritual progress is primary to becoming more spiritual, and not performing what we usually consider as “good deeds.” This is because we are ultimately not in control of our behaviors. Rather, our environment determines how we think and behave, and so if we place ourselves into an environment that guides us spiritually, and increasingly strengthen our connection to that environment, then it moves us in such a direction and we become more spiritual.

Photo: World Kabbalah Convention at Ganei HaTa’arucha, Tel Aviv, Kabbalah.info.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is an example that nature can be so cruel?“

There are no such examples, because although I understand how people can perceive nature as being cruel, nature is not cruel at all.

Nature is a quality of absolute bestowal and love, without a shred of self-interest. When we feel nature in our opposite quality of egoistic self-interest, then we experience the opposite end of nature.

When I was a child, my mother scorched me about getting low grades at school. It made her anxious and distressed, but even though I experienced her as cruel in those moments, she was in fact acting lovingly and caringly toward me, wishing for me to develop as optimally as possible.

Nature is total altruism, and our quality is egoism. We feel opposite to nature’s kindness and love to the extent that we think and act contrarily to nature. This is the source for all of our negative feelings and suffering, and it is why we perceive ourselves as living in a bad world.

Yet, nature does nothing bad. It holds a constant benevolent attitude, and due to human nature’s opposition to nature in and of itself, we feel myriad phenomena in life as bad and evil. We need not blame ourselves or nature for this, it is simply a given situation that we were born into.

However, we have been granted an egoistic quality in order to be able to correct it and make ourselves as altruistic and complete as nature. Moreover, the more we evolve, the more our ego grows, and the more we feel our opposition to nature as one that causes greater and greater suffering in our lives. This development is in order to lead us to a point where we develop a sincere desire for self-transformation: to change our egocentric self-aimed modus operandi into one that is balanced with nature—altruistic, caring and loving. The process of changing ourselves to become more like nature is called “the process of correction,” and we have been given a method by which we can undergo this correction with more awareness and understanding than if we were left to our own devices.

For the time being, however, we have no such awareness, and we are like the child who does not understand why our parents are yelling at us.

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you overcome fear?“

We can overcome fear by establishing positive connection to each other above all the phenomena that we are afraid of.

Positive connection is one where mutual support, encouragement, kindness, understanding, care and love prevail over all differences, problems and fears.

We would then generate a balanced and peaceful atmosphere that would make our every interaction positive and fulfilling.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I learn to live in the present? What does it mean to live in the present moment?“

Every moment, how we can be in a mutual relationship with nature, and how to communicate with it such that we understand how it influences us and how we should optimally respond.

Doing so will make our lives meaningful and complete.

We will enter into a constant relationship with our closest partner—nature—and start feeling how we merge with the outside world in the present moment.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is freedom of speech and what are the limits of free speech?“

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression definitely require limits. The first limit is that we should not hurt or offend anyone.

Causing no harm to others should act as an inbuilt “constitution” that first and foremost determines the limits of our free speech. It is similar to how we consider it a criminal offense to break into another person’s home and cause damage to its property.

Suppose I have a neighbor whose father passed away, and I start making fun of his father. It would be disgraceful and disrespectful to my neighbor, and I would awaken hatred by doing so. How could I let myself do that? It is completely irrational.

If we want to hurt and offend others, then it is precisely these desires that require correction. Their correction initially needs a restriction of their outward manifestation. Afterward, we need to bring ourselves to a state where we hold nothing against anyone in the world other than our own self, and we can then truly be considered free. In short, we can be free in every aspect of life on condition that we each refrain from harming each other.

In such a state, we can have criticism, disagreements and arguments, but we would need to learn how to not awaken hatred in each other while doing so. We would therefore need to regularly engage in connection-enriching learning, to elevate our sensitivity, empathy and inner intelligence so that our common goal to live harmoniously, peacefully and happily with each other would envelope all of our thoughts and aspirations.

In short, we cannot let ourselves hurt each other. On the contrary, we have to respect each other. We each feel different ideas, people and objects in differing levels of importance according to where, to whom, and how we were born and raised. One person considers something to be very important, and another person considers something else to be very important. However, above what we each consider as important, we should try to see what we all have in common.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I not be afraid about coronavirus?“

I think that the coronavirus will keep spreading and that it will lead us to a situation where we will be simultaneously afraid of it, and accustomed to its place in our daily lives. Moreover, our fear of the virus will have no impeding effect on our day-to-day functioning.

We can add the coronavirus to a long list of risks that we have learned to live with. Yet, we would be wise to learn how to observe a few rules that the coronavirus sends our way. Moreover, we can expect other crises to surface, and at each juncture we will have to adjust ourselves.

In the future, we will also look back at the coronavirus pandemic in a positive light, in that it served to align humanity’s relations more closely with nature’s interdependence and interconnectedness.

Firstly, it compelled us to consider how we were living our lives, and think of how we could renew and improve our relations.

Secondly, it slowed down the consumerist train we were riding, giving us room to differentiate between our life’s essentials and what we could do without.

Thirdly, it showed us clear examples of how nature restores itself when we calmed ourselves down for a few moments.

We are still in the midst of a major lesson in interdependence that this virus brings us, from the need to exercise mutual dependence in our respective localities—maintaining personal hygiene, wearing masks and upholding social distancing conditions—to witnessing our tight global interdependence in how the virus surfaced as an outbreak in one part of the world, and quickly spread to become a global pandemic.

I have spoken and written at length about crises being opportunities for us to seek better connection with each other, and that they serve to progress us to a state of balance with nature.

Fighting the coronavirus head on is futile. We will increasingly discover how viruses are impossible to fight. They are inside us. Our bodies have billions of viruses, and so there is no point in fighting our own bodies. We would thus be much wiser if we learned how to align ourselves—our thoughts and desires—to positively connect with other people and nature. Our bodies will then healthily support our aspirations to realize the fullest meaning of living as human beings, i.e., adjusting our attitudes to each other in order to match the tightening interdependent and interconnected conditions that nature sets for us. We will then experience life much more happily and healthily.

Photo by Yohann LIBOT on Unsplash.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will deep fakes impact society for the next few years?“

That there is technology that can show people on video saying and doing things that they did not actually say or do, and that this technology will enter our lives more and more in the coming years, should lessen our belief in things that we see online, and even more so, that ultimately the entire reality we perceive, i.e., through our five senses, is deceitful.

The feeling of distrust in everything we see and hear will serve to enhance our desire for truth, and we will then be compelled to seek out different sources in order to find the truth.

A sincere search for truth will eventually lead us to the need for establishing different forms of communication to our current ones, where we will learn how to positively connect until we unify above our divisions as one human society with a single heart.

In other words, we will have to correct our hearts, which are selfish at their core, and invert the way we sense reality to one that is altruistic, i.e., where we prioritize benefiting others over self-benefit.

When we reach a feeling of genuine concern and responsibility for other people, sincerely wishing for their best, then we will open up a world where no lies and deceit exist. After all, could we lie to anybody whom we truly love?

By aiming to positively connect, to love one another, we align ourselves with the deep-seeded interconnectedness and interdependence in nature. We then come closer to feeling the positive force dwelling in nature within our common love and care for each other. This sensation of love that we discover among human society when we correctly connect is the ultimate truth: it is nature’s source quality, and it has the power to completely fulfill each and every one of us.

Watch a video where I discuss this topic further here:

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are Kabbalah bracelets used to ward off the “evil eye”?“

Authentic Kabbalah teaches how to feel the quality of bestowal, which is not in us, in which the “other world” is manifested – felt in the quality of bestowal.

Ayin ra, the evil eye, is envy, the main quality of selfishness.

(Edit added on November 23 by Dr. Laitman)

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A popular delusion about Kabbalah nowadays is that it can ward off evil eye with bracelets. The wisdom of Kabbalah does have an explanation for how to deal with the evil eye, which of course requires no bracelets, but it first calls for an understanding of what the evil eye is.

So, what is the evil eye according to Kabbalah?

To understand the Kabbalistic definition of evil eye, we need to understand how Kabbalah defines human nature—as an egoistic desire to enjoy at the expense of other people and nature. As is written in the Talmud, the Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination [egoism], and I have created for it the Torah as a spice” (Kiddushin 30b).

Evil is what has been created, which is the ego, a desire that prioritizes self-benefit over benefiting others. If we live by the principle where the better off we are individually, and the better we feel compared to other people, and even more so, the worse they feel then the better we feel, then it is considered as living according to the dictates of the egoistic “evil inclination.” Our entire human nature, which bases our every desire, thought and action, is therefore evil. This is the reason for the world spiraling into increasing crises the more we develop, no matter how good we consider our intentions and actions.

Kabbalah thus defines “evil eye” as our egoistic intentions toward each other, where we view or think about others in terms of what we can reap from them, and not in terms of how we can benefit them.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for transforming our inborn egoistic intention into its opposite altruistic form, or in other words, from desiring to benefit ourselves alone, to wanting to benefit others and nature. Performing such a transformation of our egoistic nature into its opposite giving form is called a “correction” (Heb. Tikkun).

We are currently in a very significant transitional era. On one hand, we experience myriad negative effects from the evil eye, i.e., from our egoistic human nature seeking to exploit others and nature as much as possible for self-benefit. On the other hand, the suffering we accumulate by trying to fulfill ourselves individually at the expense of others is gradually leading us to a state of helplessness and desperation. When we reach such a state, we will become riper to undergo the fateful transformation of our egoistic nature into its altruistic opposite.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that can help accelerate this transition, so that we experience it more smoothly, with more understanding, awareness, and ultimately, joyously.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a prayer?“

We are born and raised in a self-centered perception and sensation of the world, which leads to an accumulation of problems in our lives. Our encounter with all kinds of problems is in order to give us a desire to rise above our current perception and sensation, and discover a new world, one of love, care, and positive connection among everyone.

The transformation from our inborn egoistic perception and sensation to a new altruistic one is performed via an act called “prayer.”

What is prayer?

Prayer does not mean reciting words from a book, no matter how holy the book is, nor does it mean asking a higher power to change something in the world, or to benefit oneself individually. Rather, since our entire perception of reality is self-centered, where we aim to derive fulfillment within ourselves on a moment-to-moment basis, then prayer is a sincere request to transform our self-centered approach to reality, and become beneficial to everyone and everything surrounding us.

In other words, prayer is a request for self-transformation, where instead of wishing to egoistically absorb, receive, and exploit others for personal gain, as we do by default, we instead develop a genuine will to think and desire in an opposite direction: to give, bestow, and use our own selves for the benefit of others.

The outcome of an honest prayer for self-transformation from the depth of our hearts is written by the sages in the commandment, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). That is, our prayer should lead us to a state where we feel others as we feel ourselves, thus inverting and correcting the intention upon our ego to one of giving.

Therefore, prayer means reaching a true desire to love others as we love ourselves, as well as a revelation of the full extent to which we actually love ourselves. If our desire is true, from the bottom of our hearts, then we become awarded with help from a higher power that corrects our ego, granting us the ability to love others to the extent of our own self-love.

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

Equality takes place when we all fully invest ourselves into the creation of an integral society. In the ensuing integral inclusion of all people, we become conditionally equal.

In such equality, we will receive and give as much as it is possible for each one of us individually to do so. It is impossible to measure every individual and determine the amount that they owe and need for themselves. If we, however, connect in a way that motivates us all to build an integral society, then we will reach this conditional form of equality.

Such equality is conditional because no two people are equal to each other by nature. If we were equal by nature, then we would already experience oneness. Equality thus lets each of us express ourselves individually as maximally as possible, while participating in a common collective action.

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