Entries in the 'Science' Category

The Universal Law Of Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanMost people understand that only one force acts in the world; let’s call it the force of Nature. They give it different names: one force or one God. However, it isn’t some person but the law, the universal equation of all of nature that Einstein was looking for in order to connect all other laws and equations acting on all levels of existence into one.

Kabbalah found such universal equation eons ago: On one side of it, there is the Light (Y), on the other, the will to receive (X), and in the middle, function (F) that mutually connects, equalizes them: an anti-egoistic screen. This is the formula, and it is very simple!

Our desire is “multiplied” by the screen and gets equalized with the Light that we, to the extent of our following this formula, are able to accept. There is nothing else, except these three components!

But the Light is a constant value; it doesn’t change. Meanwhile, desire constantly changes; however, it happens irrespective of us. Our job is to keep maintaining the screen: the balance between the Light and desire.

It is the only equation that exists in nature. All other laws derive from it: the laws of chemistry, physics (at the still level of desire), botany and biology (at the vegetative level), zoology and medicine (at the animate level), psychology (at the level of human perception), and, finally, the laws of the speaking level (at the level of upper worlds).

Everything is governed by one and the same simple equation. It’s a shame Einstein is not here today; he would finally put his mind to rest. But, truth be told, he was moving in the right direction by trying to connect light (life) with mass (matter, desire).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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What Is The Formula Of Inspiration?

Dr. Michael LaitmanAny kind of art form, including painting, music, and dance, and all means of self-expression are also considered “science” because they come from the same ego, the desire to enjoy. Just like I research this world, meaning I study my egoistic qualities in relation to the Light, in the same way through dance, art, or music I study my own expressions on the background of white Light.

Both reflect the existing regularities. However, in the arts I study my specific, individual qualities, whereas in science I research my desire on the level of our common egoistic nature. That is why we all discover the same phenomena, calling it science.

What is physics, for example? It is research of how I see my own nature on the background of the white Light. We all receive the same results, calling them “facts” because we research them on a level where we all have the same qualities (on the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature).

However, there is also a higher level of egoistic nature called “human or speaking,” and it is not the same in all of us because it contains a unique spiritual root for every person and our own freedom of will. Therefore, when using it we dance, sing, draw, or play musical instruments, and every person’s result is very unique. However, it all comes from the same will to enjoy.

Kabbalah provides a general approach to the perception of reality. It only seems to us that the strict scientific laws are completey unrelated to free art, while in fact, both are products of our egoistic desire. When we all do something the same way, we consider this form to be constantly existent in nature, declaring it a law and building our sciences upon it.

However, when we compose music, then one person composes one melody and another person composes a different one, whereas a third will compose a different one yet. We end up with thousands of different melodies, which is why we say that it is not a science because every person does it however he wishes.

On the “human” level we no longer observe the precise “scientific” regularities. This level includes psychology and all forms of art: painting, music, and dance. However, they are also “science,” meaning forms of my desire’s expression on the background of white Light, which we can see and study. Yet we can only do so practically.

It’s just that now, on the human level we are unable to understand these forms. But when we develop this “human” layer with the help of the science of Kabbalah, we will be able to research it completely scientifically and precisely. We will then understand why we draw, dance, or sing the way we do, and where it comes from. Then it will turn into a precise science that studies the expression of our desires on the background of white Light.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/10, “A Handmaid that is Heir to Her Mistress”

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The Dawn Of Philosophy

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom ancient times and almost to our present day, the Kabbalists walked parallel to philosophic thought, until its flame died out. Throughout all our history we have been propelled by our growing will to enjoy which pushes every new generation to accomplish increasingly greater deeds in the field of the ego. By actualizing our desires, we utilize our sound egoistic reason in order to acquire, amass, capture, develop, and so on.

But today egoistic development has come to an end; the time has come for correction. The ego in our world has exhausted itself, having been revealed to its full measure as was needed.

Now, looking at the world enclosed in this “wrapper,” we cannot find anything else with which to fill our lives. And when this renewal ceases and there is nothing else to enjoy, man finds himself in trouble.

This is the present situation in the world. What direction do we develop in? Should we fly to Mars or at least to the Moon? What for? Submerge to the ocean floor? What for? Look for species unknown to science? What for?

These days we don’t need anything anymore. The egoistic desire has been fully manifested, and no new whims or aspirations emerge in us. The game is over. This signals the end of philosophy and, in general, the end of the entire rational consumer approach which calls for us to use our reason so as to fulfill our desires. The desires fade, and the mind, which is their direct consequence surrenders its position.

Soon we will see humanity grow increasingly dumb. Looking at it from the standpoint of Kabbalah, it will be downright shocking to see what people are saying, what they’re writing, what TV shows they’re watching. We will come to a point when people will turn into little kids, playing “games” the likes of which would have been considered demented 50 to100 years ago.

This is why philosophy is dying out. Over the past several decades it has been desperately trying to save itself, having been left on the roadside of history. It is no longer being taken seriously since our supply of desires has run out.

We’re no longer seeking any great achievements. Hence, we don’t need human reason, and so the majority are quite happy limiting themselves to the level of the animal one. The cycle is complete and now we must give a faithful account of the “work completed.”

So, while the philosophers were “on top,” the Kabbalists kept quiet, waiting for the egoistic development to conclude. And now that it has, we find ourselves at a breaking point: With the old behind us, we must now reveal the next stage.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, The Zohar, Introduction, “The Night of the Bride”

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Sound Yet Irrelevant Complaints

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, Introduction, Article “Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You,” Item 161: Rabbi Shimon said… “Once, a philosopher from the nations of the world came to me. He told me, ‘You say that your God rules over the whole of the heaven, and all the armies and the camps do not attain or know His whereabouts.’ This verse does not give Him much respect, for it is written, ‘For among all the sages of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.’ Why this comparison to people, who have no persistence?”

On the spiritual path, questions arise in a person; it is as if a philosopher starts talking in him. In this case, this happened to Rabbi Shimon. A philosophical thought crossed his mind, a quite logical and rational question of this world about the Creator.

Surely, this “philosopher” is intelligent, and his postulates and arguments are true. It is said, “Believe the wisdom of the nations.” In other words, nothing in this world can withstand logic and common sense.

The wisdom of Kabbalah does not reject this. It’s just that it uses a different program, a different mind, a different approach. That’s why it’s unintelligent to apply the logic of our world to the spiritual reality. These are two incomparable things, different Kelim (vessels).

Needless to say, questions cross your mind, and there’s no doubt that you can prove your case to everyone since others use the same type of logic as you. According to the information inside the egoistic desire, your complaints are reasonable. The starting point, the approach, the analysis, and the result, everything is correct. Everything to do with our world obeys its laws.

However, we are talking about the study of the spiritual world where our laws don’t work, where our logic and perception are helpless. This is what the authors of The Book of Zohar are trying to explain.

In this case, what can I do at all? Without mind and perception, what have I got? A drop of seed? Exactly. I’ve been given the point in the heart, and from the very first moment my work on it is above the level of this world. I unite with the other points which I was brought to, I attract the force of unity with the help of the books that also do not belong to this world, and all this is to reveal the force of bestowal.

The field of my action from beginning to end is separated from our world. The earthly approach is forbidden here. This is an altogether different “territory,” a state of a higher order where the questions of “philosophers” lose their ground.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, The Zohar, Introduction, Article “”Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You”

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Life With Many Unknowns

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person living in this world does not know what will happen to him at the next moment. He does not understand why the things that happened to him yesterday happened and from where his thoughts and desires are now originating. He feels that he is controlled by unpredictable forces, as if he is hung in the air in relation to his past, present, and future. And he tries to find some kind of support, searching for an explanation to the universe with the help of logical reasoning and hypotheses.

His ego grows and asks more and more questions about life, and about what awaits him after death. The more strength we acquire through the development of technology, which opposes nature, the more powerfully nature comes out against us, forcing us to find the answer about how we are governed and what is the meaning of life. As a result, we feel as if we are in empty space.

When man lived in caves and chased mammoths, he thought that he knew everything about his life. He felt and understood the world much more than we do. We, on the other hand, are unsatisfied by any of the existing theories. We need a clear answer because we are unable to properly arrange even our day to day lives. So many questions arise that we are unable to cope with them.

It’s like mathematics: In order to find one unknown, it is sufficient to have one equation. To find out two unknowns, you need two equations. However, in our lives we end up with many unknowns while having less and less data or facts with which to build a formula.

The philosophical and religious explanations of the past no longer work on us; we cannot rely on them. We demand facts and proofs, meaning attainment. If we knew that we do not have any freedom of will, then we would build a completely different society and relationships in it, a different system of punishment and justice. The problem that Kabbalah proposes to solve is not theoretic, but very practical: to determine where and how we can influence and realize this opportunity.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, “Body and Soul”

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A Screen In The Black Cosmos Of Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are inside an ocean of Light; all we need is a Kli (a vessel or instrument) in order to reveal it. It’s like cosmic space that seems absolutely dark to us. I enter outer space and there is nothing blocking the sun from me any longer. So why don’t I feel the light; why do I see everything around me as being black?

It’s because the light does not have anything to collide with; it does not come across any boundary. There has to be something that stands against it; then we will feel it. If you put a boundary next to you in outer space, then the light will collide with it and you will suddenly see that it is there!

If you take the boundary away, then there won’t be any light once again. That’s because the light is not felt in any way by itself – not even material light! If it weren’t for the atmosphere around the earth with all its particles of air, we would not see the light. We would be surrounded by darkness just like on the moon because there would be nothing to stop the photons, the particles of light.

Therefore, the only thing we need is a Kli for revealing the Light. First of all it must be opposite to the Light, meaning that it has to be a desire to receive because the nature of the Light is the desire to bestow. Besides that, it must match the Light according to the type of action – it has to be “for the sake of bestowal.”

When our desire to receive acquires the intention “for the sake of bestowal,” it will become a vessel for revealing the Upper Light.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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An Integral From Zero Until Infinity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The material reality is described by Einstein’s famous formula in the theory of relativity: E=mc2, which relates mass to speed. Is there an analogous formula in the spiritual world relating the will to receive to the will to bestow?

Answer: I don’t think Einstein’s formula can be applied to the spiritual reality because it talks about the limited nature of our material world, about what we can maximally extract from matter with all its manifestations (mass, speed, and energy).

Any formula indicates a limitation, but spirituality is not limited by anything. In spirituality we attain the maximum limit that is described by the formula: “He and His name are one.”

That is to say, we connect the entire will to enjoy with the entire force of the Light together with all the corrections, and we attain such unity among them that everything unites into one whole. The result is Infinity.

This is the maximum realization in spirituality. The material formula of the theory of relativity is about the boundaries of time, motion, space, energy, mass, and speed, but in the spiritual world these boundaries do not exist! That’s because you connect to the Upper Force, the Creator, and you become infinite like Him, without any boundaries!

In spirituality there is no formula because any formula compares conditions on one side to conditions on the other side, assessing how they can be in balance on account of one another. Energy cannot be greater than mass multiplied by the speed squared. But in spirituality that is not so! By completing opposites, we attain infinity. It’s as if we take the integral sum of all the forces of the universe, from zero until infinity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/10, “Body and Soul”

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Our Main Trump Card

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If we create a virtual spiritual environment for children in all the study groups in the world, will this affect the acceleration of time, as it is written, “Israel accelerates the times”?

Answer: Education would seem like a secondary aspect, but in reality it is the most important thing. If we provide an example of the right upbringing where our children blossom like flowers and excel at everything, including education, their behavior, their ability to perceive and to express themselves, then we will be able to show the world the new humanity. No one will be able to withstand this example.

We will show that this kind of education system can be organized not just in one place, but it can be done in a virtual form in many places all over the world. Thus we can create a new generation of humanity.

The current generation has a problem because it has no continuation; there is no next generation. All the suffering experienced by parents and even by people who don’t have children or a family, is accumulating together. If we set up a network with a system of educational television in the main languages of the world, we will be able to strengthen the social connections among children, organize special children’s camps, and much more, and then no one will be able to provide anything better. After all, the national education systems continue to fall apart.

This is the trump card that will allow us to win! When people see that every child who is educated in this network is successful in all the subjects, stands out with his good behavior, correct attitude to life, understanding, and his physical health, then there is no doubt that this will tell all.

It is impossible to copy this system; others can only join it because its foundation is common unity, while copying it would mean disunity. Therefore it won’t give a separate group or country the same result.

This system can only be organized based on the principles of unity: the world is global, the connection is integral, the necessity is to unite, and all people are brothers. It turns out that the world will have to accept our method, which will take on a systematic, scientific form.

Our network must be diverse and include children from different countries. We have to show that they all study the same primary source and the same method, and are all connected together. They are the new humanity with universal values, which is what evolution demands from us.
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From the talk on education on 10/31/10

Quantum Physics And Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where is the connection between quantum physics and Kabbalah that you refer to so often?

Answer: As a result of multiple experiments, quantum physics had to include an observer into the research results to acknowledge the fact that everything that happens depends on the observer as well as his observation. It doesn’t happen autonomously, but rather depends on who is viewing it, how it is viewed, and whether or not anyone is viewing it at all.

The observer is an active and essential part of any process. We never see the world void of our own presence. The world exists only within the observer’s perception.

Kabbalah is familiar with this law and described it thousands years ago. It explains  that everything is revealed, researched, and described only in respect to the observer, and we cannot say that the world exists outside of him (see Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”).

Another law of the quantum world (the world of Light of our world): One particle can be in two places at the same time. It does not happen by it traveling from one place to another instantaneously, but rather by it being in two places simultaneously.

Kabbalah ascertains that a “place” does not exist; the object that we see exists only in the observer’s perception and he senses himself within the boundaries (restrictions) called time, space, and motion, which do not exist outside of us.
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Quantum Uncertainty Of An Uncorrected Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls“: There are three periods in a person’s spiritual growth:

1. The spark of the soul that alternately flares up and dwindles;

2. A particular soul, when a person perceives himself as part of 600,000 souls, the common soul;

3. Coming close to perfection, the common soul, because his egoistic desire has been fully corrected and no longer poses an obstacle. This enables him to become completely unified with the common soul of Adam.

There is a point here that is difficult to explain, similar to the principle of uncertainty in quantum physics. The fact is that there aren’t “many creatures,” but one single creation. Every person who perceives himself as creation is that creation, while everyone else in relation to him are not independent creatures, but parts of his own soul.

Therefore, even though it seems to us that there are billions of other creatures in existence, in spirituality, a person attaches all these parts to himself and in relation to his free choice, they are all at the end of correction. He is the only part that can be deemed as existent, from his perspective.

However, it is precisely in this separated form that he is considered non-existent and he has to attach himself to spirituality, to the common soul! He has to accept all the other parts which seem “foreign” to him as if they already are in the spiritual world.

He has to understand that “every person judges others to the degree of his own corruption,” and in fact they are already in the final, corrected state, while he is the only one who is not. So who is called creation, the only one that exists? It is precisely the one who isn’t yet “created” and still needs correction.

When we acquire the spiritual vision, we will see the world in this way. Baal HaSulam describes a very high state here. When it says that only one soul exists, it doesn’t mean that everyone just unites into one common soul, but that there are no separate souls in existence in all of reality.

This is a temporary illusion we have as a result of the three coordinate axes (time, motion, and space) through which our picture of the world is refracted. When these axes disappear and we stop being dependent on them, we will ascend above them and will see a reality where only one creation exists.

To achieve this we have to correct our egoistic desire, which is what evokes this illusion in us that there is a reality existing in time, motion, and space on the level of this world.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “600,000 Souls”

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