Entries in the 'Religion' Category

Compulsory Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (eadaily.com/news): “Soon the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris will become the largest mosque in Europe. It is not in the power of barbed wire and the military to stop the hundreds of thousands who are suffering. Ninety-eight percent of the refugees are young men, apparently from ISIS, which threatens to flood the infidel nations through them.

“The residents of Munich held a demonstration supporting the immigration policy of the government. As a result of this, the European communications media activated a propaganda virus transforming the population into zombies. People are gradually losing the capacity for independent investigation of what is happening. For some time now, It has been no secret that the instructions and money for the journey of refugees to Europe has been granted by American companies. They organize and direct them according to required paths; otherwise the migrants would not have reached the borders of the European Union.

“They give each refugee a one-time stipend of 2,800 Euros, a furnished and equipped room (or an apartment to those with a family), an allowance of 399 Euros per month, payment for medical services and language schools for the entire period (until the language is learned). In the schools, they cancelled religion classes and removed the crucifixes from the walls. The Imam of the city of Hereford is demanding the introduction of lessons in Islam for all the students in schools, and the Minister of Education is ready to agree. In the city of Eschweiler they banned the ringing of church bells upon the request of the residents, because it disturbs the immigrants. Now they hear only the Muezzin there, and they call the Christmas holiday the ‘Winter Holiday.’ In the month of Ramadan they suggest to the workers in many companies not to eat or to drink so as not to embarrass the Muslims.”

My Comment: The Creator will do whatever it takes for us to implement the program of creation. if we don’t proceed consciously towards connection and unity, this will happen through compulsion from above.
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In What Way Is A Kabbalist Different From A Psychic?

laitman_281_02Question: In what way is the “sixth sense” that a Kabbalist acquires different from the abilities of a psychic?

Answer: There are some people in our world that are more sensitive than others. And they are called psychics because they can disclose various material phenomena that are invisible to others.

But Kabbalists are not involved with this. A Kabbalist won’t predict the future, manufacture amulets, or give blessings.

He is only concerned with the correction of the entire creation so that the forces that come into our world will act more favorably for everyone. If he were to be concerned about someone according to his choice: yes for some and no for others, this would no longer be bestowal and love for others.

A Kabbalist is concerned about everything being better for the entire world. He won’t allow himself to do something special for his relatives and for himself and forget about the others.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/16/15

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Myths About Miracles

laitman_531_02-jpgQuestion: One of the myths about the wisdom of Kabbalah is that it is about magic, talismans, and other wonders.

Answer: This is indeed a myth. There is no such thing in the wisdom of Kabbalah. There are no red strings, holy water, or blessings—nothing!

Kabbalists only study and explore the upper system in order to become part of it, to enter the spiritual world, as it is written, “May you see your world in your lifetime,” and teach this to others.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 8/9/15

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The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is Not A Religion

226Question: You receive a lot of criticism on your position that Kabbalah isn’t a religion and has no connection to Judaism. Please explain to me why the great Kabbalists who lived in our times Baal HaSulam and Rabash were Orthodox Jews and in no way said that God is just nature and not a personality.

Answer: Baal HaSulam explained this in the best way in his article, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.” We know more from Ramchal (Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) about the wisdom of Kabbalah for people who are not Jewish. And all of the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about the development of love for others, and religion talks about the carrying out of corporeal Mitzvot (commandments).

The definition of the wisdom of Kabbalah is: a system to reveal the Creator to the created beings in this world. Religion doesn’t aspire to achieve the same goal (revelation of the Creator through love of others) as Kabbalah. Thus it is not the same thing.

Thus your proposal that God is a personality simply makes me wonder if maybe you are an idol worshipper.
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The Sixth Sense

laitman_276_01Question: Is there any connection between Kabbalah and religion? Is Kabbalah a religion?

Answer: Kabbalah is not a religion; it is a science. Kabbalah is about the part of reality that is hidden from us but with which we have an opportunity to work, like in science. Therefore, Kabbalah is called a science.

Through special actions that we perform on ourselves, we can reveal our senses for perceiving a higher level. We have five corporeal senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—through which we perceive this world, but in a very limited form. Yet we perceive it to some extent and live accordingly.

We cannot even imagine that in this world around us there are so many other phenomena because our senses do not reveal them in a manner similar to that we cannot see what happens far away without binoculars, or without a radar we don’t see what exists in the air except the sound waves that are in our voice diapason, and so on.

We have so many instruments that we created in order to broaden the range of our senses. But they can only expand them while the science of Kabbalah creates an additional sense, “the sixth sense,” through which we can reveal the rest of reality, which is hidden from us. Then we know what we live for and how to live correctly. This is precisely what a person needs to attain.

Question: What kind of additional sense is it?

Answer: This sense works like our corporeal senses, only our five senses act in the form of receiving, consuming, attracting within all the data that is outside. And this additional sense, which we develop through Kabbalah, operates according to the desire to give, bestow, and love.

We come outside of and rise above ourselves, and thus we are not limited by our body with its five senses. Our spiritual sense exists outside of our corporeal body. It is like we deploy this sense onto all of reality. Then we can perceive everything. In fact, this sense is the soul.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/9/15

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Meditation And Mirages

Laitman_728_01Question: I have heard that some people who meditate feel elevated and enlightened. They sense a whole gratefulness, which fills the entire world connected into whole one. What causes such a feeling within a person?

Answer: This sensation comes because people suppress their egoism with the help of the Eastern meditation and they start feeling one system. After all, they annulled their egoism, which was tearing this system into many parts. However, this is still not an elevation above the material world, above egoism.

They see the structure of reality, but they cannot govern it and exist inside it. This is only anticipation, a mirage, and a sensation of the wholeness of the world. In our world there are a lot of people who without any meditation feel that the nature is whole and everything is interconnected within it.

Scientists and all ordinary egoists come to the same conclusions. They also understand that the world is one system and therefore we have to protect animals, the ecology,  and follow the law of balance in nature. A person feels all of this in his ordinary egoistic desires and he does not demand to rise above his egoism.

The force that elevates one above his egoism is a completely different force. It can be attracted from nature only through unique exercises according to the method of Kabbalah. This force in reality gives us an opportunity to rise above our egoism and enter the next level of existence.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/25/15

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A Single Leap To Happiness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There is a Japanese proverb that says: “Troubles will transform you into a precious stone.” How do you relate to this?

Answer: This is Samurai philosophy and speaks about the way of suffering. I think that we have no need for this at all, since we go our own way. Why do we need to go towards happiness through the way of suffering? We can leap above it immediately, as the Jews very well know.

In the meantime, we haven’t succeeded in doing this because we don’t want to listen to the method that we received thousands of years ago, the wisdom of Kabbalah, but it can lead us to happiness in a single leap.

Comment: But nevertheless, when you had health problems, your teacher said that he was envious of you because he saw this as a sign of advancement.

Answer: Certainly thanks to suffering a person improves because suffering works against the ego that wants pleasure all the time. So another system of study and understanding appeared that was opposed to the ego. But this is not the right way!

Christianity says: “If they slap you on one cheek, give them the other cheek also.” This is not right. We must go another way. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains everything in a very simple way. The Creator created life and death, so choose life. With all our might we must yearn for good, for love, for ease, and not burrow into suffering. We have no need for it. To go willingly into exile, suffer there, and this will be better for all people is absolutely the wrong way! The ego intentionally attracts us there and this is not the Kabbalistic approach towards the world, our history, our mission.

The Creator blesses us with peace, happiness, Light, and warmth, but in no way with suffering. For in suffering, the person is not prepared to bless the Creator. He cannot cry and say: “How good it is for me to be with you!” After all, this is a lie. So it is forbidden for us to develop our own suffering. Christianity is based upon this. But from the point of view of the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is absolutely incorrect.

Question: So what does “Rejoice when the wicked are revealed to you” mean?

Answer: It means to rejoice when your defects are discovered within you. You are happy about this and don’t suffer. This is happiness because your personal characteristics are now being revealed, and you see that you can correct them. If they are revealed to you from above, it means that you will surely correct them.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 8/5/15

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Omens, Amulets, Feng Shui, Etc…

laitman_627_1Question: Are omens, amulets, Feng Shui and other methods important in the process of our spiritual growth in any way?

Answer: Spirituality means love and bestowal above and in contrast to our egoism. This property appears in us only as a result of the influence of the Upper Light (Surrounding Light) on us.

We can awaken and summon the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) by mutual efforts in the group. This actually sums up the whole Kabbalistic method. Everything else refers to how by increasing the mutual love and bestowal among us, we use our new common attribute to attain the upper world that operates only according to this principle.
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Time To Come Out From Hiding

laitman_533_02We know how much suffering people who were involved with the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah went through since the time that the method of the Ari began to be introduced in this world. And this is not because of someone’s evil will but because we exist in a broken system.

And the moment that you begin to go out with your spiritual idea that is directed towards connection between people, you immediately put yourself under fire from all directions.

Someone who was neutral and even supported you also comes out against you. After all, you are arousing anti-egoistic forces and egoism is the nature of the whole world. So we see that there aren’t any people in whom anti-Semitism isn’t hiding, after all, it comes from nature. It is possible to ignite the fire of this hatred in everyone.

Correspondingly, anyone who hears about the wisdom of Kabbalah hates it because he is in the nature of the broken desires. And if he is attracted to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is only out of curiosity. But in fact, he hates it, and to the degree that he gets closer to it, he hates it more and more, until he abandons it.

There has to be great help from above and work in this world, so that together they will influence a person, and he will cross the potential Machsom (barrier) standing before him, leap above it, and rise to his first spiritual level.

We know how the first Hasidim suffered; they were arrested and put in prison in Russia and in the Ukraine. Against them was the Mitnagdim (the movement against Hasidism). Those religious Jews hated the Hassids who wanted to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah so much that they made efforts to imprison them and condemn them to death. The fire of hatred burn in the religious Jews regarding those who tried to open the wisdom of Kabbalah and spoke about connecting people and revealing the hearts that this hatred is felt to this day, even though modern Hassidism is no longer the ideology it once was, and therefore, there is not as much opposition to it.

We know how much Baal HaSulam suffered. When he published the newspaper, The Nation it was immediately shut it down. He planned to write 50 articles continuing with “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” and “Peace in the World.” But instead of 50 articles, he only published four as he was forced to stop because the newspaper was shut down. He said: “If so, then the generation is not ready for this, and there is nobody to write for!” How many new ideas would we have gotten if he hadn’t stopped?

Even during my life with Rabash I saw how much it was difficult to be involved with studying Kabbalah. Today there are many such groups, and if you sit in your corner and don’t go out, everything is okay, there will not be opposition. But the moment that you go out, you will get blows. Like the Jews who lived in exile in the closed ghettos, the Kabbalists lived among the Jews.

But the time has come when we must come out of hiding not for the sake of some abstract idea, but because the correction in our generation is possible only with the inclusion of masses of people. The connection between them is the only condition necessary for revelation. It follows that if I don’t connect to others, I don’t create the conditions, the means, the basis, the bearer in which the Light can be revealed.

And then all of my studying would be in vain; it would bring no added value that would allow me to realize myself and truly merit the discovery of the Light, the revelation of the Creator, raising myself to the first spiritual level. This is possible only if thousands more will connect with this. Even though the power of each is minimal, together they are strong in quantity that works together with the qualitative force that worked in previous generations.

And so we have received the opportunity to fill the desire that is burning in us. It burns a bit in each one, like a thin candle. But if we connect many candles together, a gigantic blaze is created that is prepared to illuminate with spiritual Light.
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From the Talk about the Importance of Dissemination 3/19/14

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The Difference Between The Secular And Religious Approach

Laitman_631_4Question: What is the difference between the religious and secular approach to life? For example, I consider myself a secular person, but I always have an internal conflict, and it is difficult to figure out where in me the secular person ends and the religious one begins. The same division exists in the entire Israeli society.

According to the latest poll: 50% of the [Israeli] population are completely secular, 17% observe the traditions but do not consider themselves religious, 13% observe traditions and consider themselves religious, 12% are religious and 8% are Orthodox religious.

Answer: Secular people believe that the world is governed by laws of nature and there is nothing else except what we see and discover through science. The secular approach to life means that the world should be taken such as it is, according to one’s feelings, without relying on any upper forces, destiny, life after death. Any unsolved phenomena are no more than a figment of our imagination and fantasy.

The secular approach is the real approach. Inside it are many varieties that define man’s relationship to himself and society, but they are not to the level of the difference between the religious and secular approach.

The religious approach is based on the belief in the upper force that created the world and puts us in the conditions that we have to perform. If we fulfill all the wishes of the upper force, we deserve the award, if we do not fulfill them, we will be punished.

There are different kinds of relationships with the upper force, of attitudes to reward and punishment, to a person’s participation in this and one’s freedom of choice. But the point is that religious people take into account the existence of the upper force, a higher design, program, the purpose of creation. Thus, the center of creation is no longer the human being, but the Upper Force, the Creator.

Because people believe that the Creator arranges and organizes everything in response to one’s behavior, they have to continuously relate their lives to the Upper Force. That is, they think that one is dependent not on the laws of blind nature, but on the Upper will. Therefore, it is necessary to pray to the Upper, ask, be ashamed, repent for one’s past actions.

Many different religions and beliefs once existed and vanished or are still existing today Religion has a great influence on the world and on humanity. During the past two thousand years, humanity has evolved under the influence of religion, first after the destruction of the Second Temple Judaism arose, and then from it came Christianity and Islam.

All these religions are fighting among themselves, and there are very complex relationships between them. Each religion has many movements: Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christianity, Shiite and Sunni in Islam, and many streams of Judaism.

Every synagogue in Israel is somehow different from the rest. Not to mention the conflict between the secular and religious who are not able to organize their lives so as not to interfere with each other but want to impose their own view on others.

I do not want to judge who is right and who is wrong. But such a conflict exists only in Israel. For example, in the US or in Europe there is no conflict between religious and secular people. If you are a Jew, no one cares whether you attend the synagogue on Saturdays or only on major holidays.

The Jews abroad feel they belong to one nation. In Israel, there is a conflict, because religion is not separated from the state and is involved in a power struggle. Thus, it appears into the area of general interest, where our desires clash. Over the years, this conflict increases because everyone believes that the opposite side wants to grab a piece from it.

This confrontation in society is gaining strength, leading to such hatred and division, which had never existed among the people of Israel. And I do not think that it is the result of a different approach to the world. It’s just a struggle for power in our lives—desires of some to control others and the state so that it serves their interests, be that of the secular or religious community.

The struggle is for the state, for power, for the state treasury, and using it for their own benefit.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/21/15

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