Question: If we talk about spiritual beauty, can it be said that this is the revelation of qualities through the ten? In other words, by displaying my qualities, do I recognize flaws in myself, or do my qualities still reveal themselves and the ten helps me turn them around?

Answer: Until you come to absolute integration between you in the ten, flaws will manifest in each of you, and will affect the others. Therefore, you will constantly need to take care to correct your flaws in timely manner, each time in something different.

Question: Do I see these flaws through the ten or does the ten show them to me? How do they manifest in us?

Answer: Usually, they manifest in connection with friends. But, in general, they are revealed by the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Sightly Flaw in You”

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You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks (Winston Churchill).

Question: Overlook the haters, that is, the barking dogs, did Churchill say this correctly?

Answer: In general, yes. Yet, it is impossible not to react to this. But it is possible to respond correctly.

Question: What does the correct reaction mean?

Answer: Starting with the fact that you do not pay attention. That is, the reaction is internal, externally it is not.

Question: It is clear. What does this do to barking dogs? What does this do to haters?

Answer: It deflates them.

Question: They begin to deflate by not seeing the reaction. Could this really cool them down?

Answer: Absolutely! There is no greater means to cool down an enemy, a hater, than such an attitude toward him.

Question: Previously, they would challenge each other to a duel.

Answer: They were small, prideful people.

Question: So, you think that this is just the ego? Pride?

Answer: Certainly.

Question: Is, in reality, the big one passes by and does not pay attention?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Does it burn inside?

Answer: No, I think it does not even burn. To him, it feels like the right thing.

Question: The question remains: Do we adjust our path not according to the haters but according to criticism, or not? What do you think?

Answer: It is not necessary. If this criticism ties you even more tightly to your roots, then good. This is what needs to be checked!

Question: That is, I have a path that I follow, and if criticism binds me even more to this path, then…?

Answer: Then follow.

Question: Afterward, can you treat critics with warmth and kindness?

Answer: Certainly. It comes from the Creator.

Question: How did your teacher deal with haters? I know there were haters, and there were a lot of them.

Answer: There were many haters, but I tried not to talk about it with him and not communicate with them. And, in principle, we tried not to mention all this between us. Why, in vain, incite some bad feelings in a person?

Question: But there were haters, right?

Answer: Yes! A lot.

Question: And some real ones?

Answer: Yes, from so many sides. Both from the Torah, the study of the Ten Sefirot, the students, and other teachings.

Question: As you say, this tied him even more to the path. What was your impression?

Answer: This straightened him up.

Question: So, can this be taken as advice, if you are criticized, let’s not say harshly “they hate,” but they criticize and try to lead you astray, and then you need to cling to this path even more?

Answer: I cannot tell each and everyone and why.

Question: But what would you say to everyone when they are being pressed from all sides? How can one resist?

Answer: If you are being pressed from all sides, it is best to switch off, step aside, and look at yourself and others from outside. And you will see how right or wrong you can be. Then, make a decision.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/23

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Comment: You said that in reality children never learn from their parents’ mistakes.

My Response: Of course. How could that be? You cannot convey your life experience to another even in our world, much less in the spiritual world.

I remember my teacher sat in front of me on long winter evenings in Tiberias, and I pestered him with the same questions. He looked at me with compassion, eyes full of pity. He had very expressive eyes.

I saw that he sympathized with me, but could not help in any way more than what he was trying to explain, guide, and suggest. Usually, after my questions, he would sigh and say: “Let us read something.” And that was it, nothing else.

I remember I felt very bad. We went with him for a walk in the Beit Shemen forest. This was at the very beginning of my study. I studied with him for about a year, and a year is nothing to study Kabbalah. He saw that I was completely torn to pieces. I prayed: “Help me with at least something!” Such requests are generally not typical for me, but I blurted out: “Help!”

He looked at me with such pain, like a father who is ready to give everything to his hopelessly ill child, but can do nothing to help. We sat on a bench; I can show this place even today. He took from his pocket the article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before” (“Achor Ve Kedem Tzartani”) and began to read to me. This is an article from the book A Sage’s Fruit, which we were just preparing for publication at that time.

In principle, the title of this article can be translated as “I control you from all sides.” I cannot say that I understood anything in it. But what else can you give a beginner?

In this case, we are talking about those people who strive to penetrate the spiritual system; they feel bad because they do not know it and do not attain it, and this pain speaks inside of them! After all, nothing corporeal was pressing on me at that time. I was perfectly settled, healthy, and young. It was spirituality that I lacked!

Question: Can you now evaluate how he perceived you at that moment? You, in fact, were part of him.

Answer: Of course, I was incorporated in him. He perceived me as a small system that needed to be adjusted, and he sympathized with it and really wanted to help it, and it reacted naturally. What else can you do? You just have to keep working with it and wait for the results.

Of course, he was worried about me, but he was worried as a father for a child who was not in a hopeless state. The father has a medicine that he gives to the child every day and sees that in the end the child will recover and do what is needed.

One day I could not overcome myself and did not follow him to take him to the sea. Then he was taken there by another student, who on the way asked: “Why is it always only Michael who accompanies you?” Rabash replied: “I cannot do anything about it. He has a special soul.”

I learned this 20 years later from that friend during a chance meeting. I did not even think about it and, moreover, I was surprised that Rabash said that about me to another student.

Therefore, when you look at a student, you take into account his entire future, and it sets you up to treat him accordingly. You tolerate his antics and lead him forward, or you “hit” him more often, or maybe, on the contrary, you pull him out “by the forelock.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You do not Learn from Past Mistakes” 1/15/12

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Question: You said that there is a certain futility in conveying information when you do not know the other person’s desire. When asked how dissemination should work, you said, “You must take a person’s desire and ‘wear’ it yourself,” meaning, convey this information from your own experience, and only then will it work.

How do you do this? After all, each case is individual, and there is no such thing as a programmed response.

Answer: I never have programmed responses because every time I communicate with someone, I connect with them and become included in their desires.

First, I feel the entire system of creation, albeit at the level that I can perceive it. Just as a person feels our world, I feel the inner system of connection between everything, the place of that person, and my place within it. Based on this, contact occurs between us.

It does not matter what they tell me or even what I tell them. What matters is that this contact is always aimed at reaching maximum connection and maximum integration of this person into the common system of creation.

Suppose there is a particular individual element in front of me, and I connect him to the overall system precisely at the time I am communicating with them. This is what I do with each of my students.

Then, if they continue this themselves, they become an independent element in this system and act within it. But their connection was initiated by me from my side. And they must continue from their side. So, each time I seem to give birth to them on some level, in some world, and then they must continue to live.

Just as animals give birth to offspring and they are blind, unable to hold their heads up, crawl around their mother, so too must a human, who is even more helpless, try to survive, just like them.

Question: You described the state of the student relative to you. How can a student do the same thing relative to someone else?

Answer: People constantly do the same thing in their interactions with each other, but they don’t see it, don’t understand it, and of course, they operate at a much lower level.
[325735]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Effective Transaction of Wisdom” 12/28/11

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Question: You patiently explain the same things year after year. Where do you get such patience from?

Answer: You know me. I am impatient! But I have no choice. That is an example of the greatness of the goal, the vision of the upper picture of the universe prevailing over all my animal qualities.

I am terribly impatient and harsh. I cannot stand people. I am an introvert. I have so many negative qualities I am shocked at myself.

But when I see a spiritual system, get involved in it, and work for it, then all these qualities work the other way around, oppositely. I become patient and explain the same thing twenty times. For many years now,   I start every morning and end every day like this. But it could never have happened before!

I made many revolutions in life until I came to the science of Kabbalah. I am not even talking about myself, but about the fact that this system, once revealed to you, conquers you, seemingly enslaving you. You cannot stop working for it because its greatness, harmony, and perfection will not let you go.

You cannot turn to something different because it is like falling into manure. Will you stay there? No! You still have to get up and dust it off.

While here is the Garden of Eden! True, it hurts to see it unfinished like this, but the system itself is shining on you. So you have to take an active part in reviving it completely.
[325802]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Negative Properties” 1/5/12

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“Not all who want to take the Lord may come and take. This is why we need the righteous of the generation. By adhering to a real teacher, whose desire is only to bestow, and then one should do things that his teacher likes, meaning hate what his teacher hates and love what his teacher loves, then he can learn Torah that will not be a potion of death (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 245, “Prior to the Creation of the Newborn”).

Question: What does it mean to bring contentment to the teacher, and how does this manifest itself in the ten?

Answer: The teacher requires only one thing from you—to approach the Creator through the ten all the time. That is all. Do you want to be liked? Do this action, nothing else is needed.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Prior to the Creation of the Newborn”

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Question: What are qualities that cannot be revealed to someone?

Answer: Some personal impressions and experiences. And although at the preparatory stage they are such that there is nothing forbidden in them, it is still better if a person more or less hides them from others.

Question: Can we share our feelings with the teacher; can we open our hearts to him?

Answer: It is better not to, but you are free to ask questions during the lesson. There is nothing secret that you have to hide; you don’t have it yet.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “One’s Soul Shall Teach Him”

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Question: If we perform all the external work, what about the internal work that helps us cling to the degree of a righteous person, and what actions will lead to ascent?

Answer: Clinging to a righteous person can only be achieved by fulfilling his wishes, i.e., studying and coming closer to friends. Everything we learn is the desire of a righteous person. And if, to some extent, it becomes the desire of the student, then the student is considered to be coming close to the righteous person.

Therefore, we can merge with the Creator only by creating closeness between us and the Creator over all the circumstances that He sends us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Why We Need to Extend Hochma”

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Question: In Shamati 101: “A Commentary on the Psalm ‘For the Winner over Roses,’” Baal HaSulam writes that only the one who has attained the light of faith can say: “My work is for the king.” How does one achieve this during the preparation period?

Answer: During the preparation period it is necessary to strive for unity, and when you reach it, then you will understand what you have achieved.

Question: A person goes through many states and sees that he cannot do anything and that only the Creator can lead us through all states. A feeling arises that during the preparation period, we are preparing a special Kli for meeting the Creator. Is this Kli called Shoshanim?

Answer: It does not matter what it is called. What matters is what you experience. You passionately desire the Creator to take you by the hand and lead you into these states like a little child you take by the hand and he walks with you.

This is what we need to expect from the Creator’s actions on us. And then we will see the whole world from end to end and feel that everything is filled with the light of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Commentary on the Psalm, “For the Winner over Roses”

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Question: How or through what action do we accustom ourselves to prayer so that our hearts agree?

Answer: We explore our thoughts and desires and try to bring them closer to each other.

Question: Are there any example of how to do this?

Answer: When you hear what your friends say, try to be with them in your heart.

Question: The best state for my friends is when they are in faith above reason. Then they have no claims against the Creator. How can I help them have faith above reason? Or is this still a group action? What means are there besides prayer?

Answer: Nothing exists except prayer. You and each of us must listen to the friends and be with them with all our hearts because connection happens precisely in the heart.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Understanding What Is Written in Shulchan Aruch”

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