Question: How can we connect and annul in front of friends who do not adhere to our method?

Answer: There is no need to connect with them or annul before them. What will you annul and connect? You must have a common goal and a common methodology to achieve this goal.

Rabash writes: “We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam, the way by which to climb the degrees of man and not remain as a beast…”

That is, we take upon ourselves the condition that we are going to approach the Creator according to the method that Baal HaSulam and Rabash describe to us. You can say: “It is possible to do it through other techniques.” Please, you can be with them, but not with us. You cannot combine one with the other! With anything! No way!

The science of Kabbalah is not philosophy and not any other science or methodology! You cannot come in here and start figuring out how to diet, how to do some exercise or whatever!

There is nothing in Kabbalah that concerns the earthly body. And there is nothing in it to do with your spirit! Because it does not exist either. It deals only with attainment of the Creator and that’s it! Discard everything else. You can do it, of course, but know that it is at the corporeal level, which is at the level of your body and nothing more! Not a spiritual body but an animal.

Question: Is there a difference between partnership and spiritual connection?

Answer: Of course there is!

But partnership is like a company. And spiritual connection is inner unification that can occur only under the influence of the upper light over which I do not have control. At the same time, my friends and I ask the Creator to unite us.
[294003]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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Question: Psychologists, religions, and spiritual movements often tag pride as the greatest evil. Pride is behind insults, diseases, wars, and all kinds of sufferings. Author Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth contends that there are 41 evidences of pride, which include: self-infallibility, a patronizing attitude to others, a sense of self exclusivity, feeling like a victim, bragging, the ability to put an opponent in his place, and so on. All these evidence pride within us, but in disguise.

Why is pride given to a person?

Answer: This is our main quality!

This is precisely our egoism, which supposedly wants to raise a person above others. Pride is given in order for me to realize how sinful, vicious, insignificant, stupid, weak, etc. I am. It is in order for me to understand in all my actions and thoughts, that is, in my mind and desires, that if I want to do the right thing, I must act only by the force of connection with the Creator.

Question: Does it mean that it is not evil, but rather good?

Answer: Of course! It was created to show us how insignificant we are if we are under the control of pride.

Comment: Psychology and religions say that it is the greatest evil. Yet you, after all, say that this is the greatest good.

My Response: Evil leads us to absolute good. It is what the Creator created: “I created evil and gave the Torah, the upper light, to correct it.” So, go and correct yourself.

The Creator created pride so that we would realize our insignificance in it, and would want by all means to get rid of it, and therefore, to find strength, to find the mind to turn to the Creator so that He would do it. Thus, pride leads us to the Creator, helps us find a connection with Him, and allows us to reach the height of the Creator.

Question: What does pride turn into in this case?

Answer: Into complete agreement with the Creator. There is nothing left of it but joy in obtaining the greatness of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/4/21

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In the News (Times of India): “Low stress and anxiety levels are observed among people who experience … in the decreased activity in frontal lobes, attained during meditation. 24/7 working frontal lobes, processing complex information and events all the time, when experience lower to none activity during meditation practice or prayer, delve into the realm of enlightenment where there is no stress, hassle or worry. Lower activity in frontal lobe is linked with the ‘feelings of surrendering one’s will completely’, states Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist, and the author of The Metaphysical Mind: Probing the Biology of Philosophical Thought. When our egoistic mind submits itself completely to something infinite and larger than itself, it experiences enlightenment.”

My Response: Certainly, because a person erases everything within himself in general. He greatly reduces his ego and sort of dissolves.

This is an incorrect state because at the same time he annuls his “I,” his personality, he wants to be in a passive state of merging with the surroundings in the form of an inanimate element.

Comment: Scientists, however, call this moment balance and proximity to nature.

My Response: Of course if I turn into a stone, then I am close to nature. On the contrary, if I am an egoist who wants to know, discover, feel, and try, then this is already an “I” existing in nature in its individual form.

It is wrong to lower your ego because it is against progress, against development, against evolution, and against nature itself. This brings us closer to the inanimate level. We simply have no way out, this way we come to a state of balance, peace, an undisturbed state.

Yet, in principle, it is necessary to advance to the point where we clearly use all our egoism, everything that can possibly appear should be revealed and developed in us, and at such a huge egoistic peak of feelings and mind, we are in balance with nature.

Question: Does it mean that it is the desire that affects the work of the brain? The more you develop the desire, the more actively the brain begins to work and serve the desire?

Answer: The brain exists only to pursue the desire. If the desire has a task to achieve, the brain helps us to be filled with what we desire.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Anamnesis” 2/19/10

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Comment: When certain physical or moral deviations are revealed in a secular environment, this does not cause much shock as long as these people do not distinguish themselves from others, do not pretend to be chosen by God, and do not dictate to others how to behave.

When such a phenomenon is revealed in Orthodox circles, it is shocking.

My Response: The fact that religious people want to show that they are special is not important. Biologically they are absolutely the same as others, they do not have any special attitude and internal urge to be different. But all the same, in this environment there are very good relationships, communication, mutual aid funds, and a certain amount of support.

Their society is built in such a way, purely selfishly, that it has systems of mutual assistance. This is ordinary, earthly Judaism, which helps people in many ways and gives them certain moral and physical protection although at the same time it preserves our development.

Religion is not meant to correct man. Religion is just like house-building, a conventional practice. Just like a habit that a person has from his father’s home, his mother’s food, that way of life, religion gives him a certain environment, a shell for existence: do such and such actions, organize your life in such a way, it will help you in life.

And when egoism begins to develop, it outgrows this framework, and only the observance of external rituals remains from the whole religion while there are no moral attitudes left internally.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Return” 2/19/10

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Question: Jerusalem has always been considered the heart of Israel and the whole world in general. How did it happen that Jerusalem today became the center of hatred among the Israeli people? The most negative events flare up there: hatred between the religious and secular, hatred of religious movements among themselves. What is the reason?

Answer: Since the Jews are the group of people who left ancient Babylon with Abraham, who preferred spiritual development to material development, over hundreds of years they developed spiritually, achieved becoming one with the Creator, and were at the level of the Temple. This is when a person becomes one with the Creator in his heart and begins to feel as existing eternally.

Therefore, upon leaving Egypt (egoism), they realized the call “to become like one man with one heart,” that is, to unite with each other in such a way as to completely overcome all kinds of selfish differences and mutual repulsion.

And then they achieved not only mutual rapprochement, but also mutual love. Therefore, Rabbi Akiva, although he was not born a Jew, was the greatest sage at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, and he urged: “Do not forget that love your neighbor as yourself is our most important commandment.”

Nevertheless, unfounded hatred broke out among his twenty-four thousand disciples. They fell from the spiritual level and ceased to feel their community. And the spiritual world, the Creator, is felt only in community, in a single integral desire. Therefore, after falling to an egotistical fragmented level, they lost the feeling of the Creator, the feeling of the upper world.

Since then, mutual hatred, mutual repulsion, among the Jews is much greater than among the rest of the nations of the world. However, from the outside, it is perceived as mutual assistance of Jews to each other, but only because there is a mutual hatred of all nations toward the Jews, which keeps them together.

Mutual aid between Jews is manifested when there is a common external trouble. But as soon as it disappears, then immediately there is mutual hatred and mutual rejection. This is what we see everywhere, and especially here in Israel.

This is not particularly felt abroad because there is nothing for the Jews to share; there is no state pie, there are no big points of contact with each other. Jews live among other nations, and therefore, everything is diluted. They need to feel that there is someone who can help them, sympathize, that he hopes for you and you count on him. It works there.

And in Israel where there is no such reason, a terrible, mutual hatred appears, especially in the religious part of it, so much that it leads to very unpleasant manifestations.

In this respect, a religious person today does not differ from a secular person because he does not pursue the goal of improving himself. A person is not brought up knowing that he has to love another individual, help him, take care of him, merge with others into one whole, and merge with the whole world.

Religion is not Kabbalah, not human correction. People built their usual life out of it. It teaches them the mechanical fulfillment of the commandments for which they will allegedly receive a reward in the next world. That is, it is addressed purely to human egoism.

Believers will continue to demonstrate themselves like everyone else, they just have it in a closed society, veiled. Therefore when suddenly something happens, special cases appear that cannot be hidden. In fact, absolutely the same vices exist there as in the non-religious part of society.

I hope that all this will lead us to remember our main commandment “love your neighbor as yourself,” that we should be a light for all the nations of the world.

We were favored by God to set an example in uniting with each other, like at Mount Sinai, and to attract the whole world to this. In this case, we will truly become the element in the world that we must be.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Return” 2/19/10

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Question: Religions do not talk about the value of this life. Follow more commandments and you will go to heaven. In principle, does this approach completely cancel both mind and all questions?

Answer: No, this approach is good for the normal social scheme of society. But they really do not say that there is value in this life, only beyond its borders.

But Kabbalah says something different: You must attain your world in this world. Open the upper world here and now, and then you will find that you are in eternity, infinity, perfection.

This spiritual world is here. We don’t feel it. Expand this sense organ in yourself, open it, and from it you will see the upper world. It is yours. And when your body dies, you will not even feel that you are dying.

By developing a higher level, we automatically stop feeling the previous one because we begin to feel the flow of life on a different level.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up—Mystery of the Sphinx” 2/5/10

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Question: Some researchers assert that the tendency of people to believe in miracles can be explained physiologically in that a certain part of our brain is responsible for irrational thoughts and another part is responsible for correcting them.

Throughout millions of years of existence we have narrated all kinds of myths and fairy tales to each other in order to connect all kinds of natural phenomena. Therefore, the belief in miracles and the attempts of science to explain them logically is probably inherent in us at the genetic level.

Do you also think that believing in miracles is a physiological tendency? Where does it come from?

Answer: A person wants to learn, to believe, and to feel what is beyond one’s comprehension. A person keenly listens, closely looks, and tries to go beyond the boundaries of his feelings. This is why miracles attract us so much.

Question: From your point of view is this good or bad?

Answer: It is good! This is a human attribute! One does not run away, but on the contrary, tries to get closer, to understand this “miracle” if, of course, it does not repel him.

Question: What if he just believes in miracles and does not even try to explain them? Let’s say he has a tendency to believe.

Answer: This already depends on his calculations, what he wants to achieve from such an attitude to miracles.

I would not say that we should be afraid of miracles, try to run away from them, limit them, or put them in some kind of religious framework. We just need to look for a scientific, real explanation for everything that seems to us to be a miracle.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/30/21

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Medium published my new article “Protestant Americans Becoming Unaffiliated Is Not Good News for America”

According to a recently published Pew research, in 2007, 78% of Americans identified as Christians. Now, in 2021, that number is down to 63%. At the same time, the share of Americans who identify as having no religion (nones) went from 16% to 29%. When you look at the Christian population, you will find that the share of Catholics in America has changed very little, and the vast majority of Christians who become nones comes from Protestant denominations.

Taking into consideration that this development is not a result of a revolution, but a gradual and voluntary trend, I think it is a problem. It is a deflection from the spirit of the founders of the nation, and quite a rapid one at that. If religion becomes a matter of culture, without any commitments to certain codes of conduct, it will not be good for America.

Religion used to give people a sense of belonging and a purpose. It gave them a moral code and a system of rules by which to behave at home, at work, and everywhere throughout their lives. People would learn the laws of their religion at childhood, and would continue with them through their lives. It was the people’s “philosophy” of life.

Religion no longer gives people any of that, so they leave. For the most part, as the survey shows, they do not leave for anywhere in particular. They don’t venture into other religions, at least not yet, but rather away from their own faith, and often away from faith altogether.

Today’s young people do not need religion; there are no advantages in it for them. In Russia, the authorities are reviving religion after decades of being stymied under the Soviet regime. They are doing it to keep people in check, so they do not go too far to the extreme Left or the extreme Right. Instead, religion is used to manipulate the public and control it.

But America is not Russia. Americans do not feel about religion what the Russians feel, and so the whole structure is crumbling.

Ironically, the only part of life where religion can still give answers that people might want to hear is death. We are all afraid of it, and religion has comforting answers. Because contemporary life offers no comfort over the passing of our loved ones or the fear of our own demise, we suppress the fear through distractions. Video games, online broadcasts, movies, and other forms of entertainment are taking the place of religion. But for those who still believe in the afterlife, religion offers a welcome comfort.

Previously, religious centers also served as community centers where people would gather for community meals or to celebrate holidays. But today, people keep more to themselves and have no interest in community life. We have become very materialistic; everything is a bargain, a give and take relationship. People want to see immediate results, and religion does not offer it. At best, it provides a soothing promise of a good future in the afterlife, but fewer people need it as a source of comfort, so religion is losing its appeal.

The ebb and flow of people moving into religion and out of it will continue, and it will eventually lead people to ask about the meaning of life. They will begin to ask “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” and they will have to answer these questions or they will find no reason to live, no meaning in their lives. It is already happening in the younger generation, and it will continue to expand across all age groups.

Once they come to that point, they will find that the meaning of life is not in comforting answers about the afterlife or in imagining a world where everyone follows the strict rules of one particular God of one particular religion. Instead, they will find the meaning of life here and now, among us, in nurturing mutual concern and care for one another. People will find meaning in giving and helping, rather than in taking and defeating others. They will fill their hearts with love for others, and love itself will be the meaning of their lives.

Granted, it is a process, and we are not there yet. At the moment, matters seem to be growing darker, but isn’t it always the darkest right before the dawn?
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Question: Why is all of humanity divided into Jews and other nations in our world?

Answer: A clear division of humanity into two parts occurred once in ancient Babylon. The small civilization that existed suddenly plunged into huge egoism.

The Babylonians decided to build a tower to the sky to reach the Creator, to fight with Him, i.e., with nature. They became so egoistically opposite that they stopped understanding each other.

This is how two concepts of further existence appeared. One of them was formed under the leadership of Abraham; the second was under the leadership of King Nimrod.

Abraham believed that the egoism that manifested itself, which makes us reject each other and forces us to be separated, was created specifically so that we would rise above it. If we do this despite the fact that we are in contradiction with each other and remember how we lived together when there was one law and one nation, then we will reveal a completely new form of existence in connection with each other.

And then, feeling ourselves above material nature, we will feel a completely different life: eternal, perfect, and not within the boundaries of our animal existence.

Abraham said that egoism is the means of our elevation. Let’s treat it this way, separate ourselves from it, look at the ego from the outside and begin to rise above it. Egoism will constantly grow, and we, constantly rising above it, will become like a common force of nature: love, bestowal, unity, harmony.

This was the methodology revealed by Abraham who became one of the leading ideologists of that time.

And Nimrod’s theory said: “No, egoism develops in us in order for science, art, and human society to progress. Let’s develop together with the ego, not rising above it, not looking at our egoistic nature from the outside, but living inside it.” Naturally, this theory received great support because it does not require a person to fight with himself.

So humanity was divided into two parts: a small part went with Abraham (literally a few dozen people) and the rest followed Nimrod. Abraham’s method was for connection, and the second was for separation.

Otherwise how can egoists who mutually hate each other get along on a small piece of land? Then the Babylonians settled all over the world. This is written in the book Genesis Rabbah, in the works of Josephus Flavius, and in other ancient sources.
[288406]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. The Difference in Souls” 12/11/09

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Question: Why do you only accept Kabbalah as the knowledge of the universe? The universe is one, the Creator is one. Why are you so categorical?

Answer: The more you study Kabbalah, the more you see that it includes all other methods. Nature does not reject them, but simply explains how humanity passes them at different levels of its development.

All of them take place until a person comes to a state where he can absorb a universal picture of the universe, the world, humanity, its development above his egoism, and then he comes to Kabbalah.

Therefore, Kabbalah was hidden until our time and only now is it gradually developing so that as a result of searching humanity goes through many different stages of development under the influence of other private methods that are studied within egoism, and not by rising above it, it comes to the conclusion that within egoism itself there is nothing to look for—just to get out of it, to rise above it.

By having gone through all these stages and studied them, I personally see the roots of all possible methods and theories, and therefore I teach only Kabbalah. I insist that it is nature that is the universal system for changing a person in this world and raising him or her to the highest level.

There are two forces in nature: reception and bestowal. Kabbalah aims to ensure that a person, working with egoism, can rise above the power of receiving and master the next level of nature—the power of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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