Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

A Kabbalist’s Perspective

Laitman_145Question: Do Kabbalists who look at the world through the attribute of love and bestowal they have acquired see all the flaws, cruelty, and acts of violence in the world?

Answer: That depends on the perspective through which I look at such circumstances and phenomena. A Kabbalist can see them in the ordinary form like all the other people. He can also see their spiritual roots and can see them in the parts of the corrected state until it is completely corrected.

Everything depends on how a Kabbalist wants to use these states. They all exist in the spiritual world, but a Kabbalist chooses which is the most beneficial for him.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

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Spiritual Attainment Is Sensual

Laitman_036Question: How is it possible to know that a person has ascended spiritually in internal contact with the Creator and that it is not the ego deceiving him?

Answer: This is a complex matter, yet I think that it is possible to feel it to the same degree that a person understands the books and the Kabbalah lessons in feeling.

If a person feels that the lessons are having an influence on him and he wants to feel them more, this testifies to his advancement. The main thing is feeling because spiritual attainment is sensual.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

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Do We Reach Beyond The World Of Atzilut?

Laitman_198.jpgQuestion: The four phases of the development of the creature are found above the world of Atzilut, but if we don’t attain this, how can we talk about it?

Answer: What is above the world of Atzilut we attain within the head of the world of Atzilut. Baal HaSulam described the world of Ein Sof when he was in the head of the world of Atzilut.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/22/17

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In A Kabbalistic Society

laitman_938_03Question: What is the practical implementation of the principle of “The King’s glory is in the multitude?” After all, wherever there is crowd, it is usually the opposite situation.

Answer: Indeed, you will not find anything wise where there is a crowd, but only stupid fantasies. But in a Kabbalistic society, it isn’t a crowd that gathers, but outstanding people who want to overcome their egoism and raise their yearning for the Creator above all the obstacles.

Thus they unite, each with his own unique, upper impulse, and this is actually what determines the shared outcome that we attain in the connection between us, and in it, we reveal the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/17

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A Convention Is The Unity Of Internal Impulses

laitman_282_01Question: What is a convention, not in the physical sense, but inside a person?

Answer: A convention is the unity of all of our internal impulses to reveal the meaning of life, which means when a person asks, “What am I living for?”

This question is hidden in each of us, and it is called a desire. When all of these small desires connect into one desire, it is possible to receive an answer about the meaning of life, and this is precisely what we get together for.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/17

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The Creator Is More Jealous Than A Woman

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator deliberately puts various obstacles in our way so that we cannot cope with them, overcome them.

Why? So we will reach out to Him, ask Him, look toward Him, and draw near Him! He gets very jealous if we look at each other instead of looking at Him! He is more jealous than a woman! I say this in all seriousness.

It is very important! That is why the Creator constantly puts us in such situations that we are unable to overcome—so that we would yearn for Him, request that He help us. That is how parents sometimes behave toward their children: on one hand, they want the children to do something on their own, and on the other hand, that they are compelled to get the parents help.

In case of the Creator, it is quite simple. From the very beginning of our journey, if we are walking the right path, then every step that we make, we are never able to do without the Creator—never! In our lives, we learn how to walk, then walk on our own, grow up, and become adults.

In spirituality this is not so. In spirituality, our need for the Creator is constant; it only grows stronger and stronger, and then we truly come to a greater adhesion with Him. After all, the Creator opens up the system to us, but we do not know how to operate within it.

After we exert efforts in the connection between us, we increasingly open up the place where He has to explain and fulfill. And then He is revealed, always in response to a request for Him! There is none else besides Him.

Therefore, if we are unable to connect, it is natural and good. We only need to remember who puts these obstacles in our way—He does, so that we will turn to Him.
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The Creator’s Amazing Invention

laitman_423_02Torah, Deuteronomy 21:10: If you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord, your God, will deliver him into your hands, and you take his captives… .

The Torah describes laws that everyone who works toward being like the Creator and is in a state of constant battle within him or herself should know.

A person represents the entire world. To the degree we reveal reality, we begin to realize that all that is seen outside of us is really a reflection of what exists within us. And that is why all people, the inanimate, vegetative, and animal worlds, the entire universe, exist within me; they do not exist outside of me.

In referring to the Torah, we say that a person must behave in a certain way toward animals or plants, meaning the animal or vegetative levels of egoism within a person. The same applies to the inanimate and human levels.

“Men,” “women,” “virgins,” and everything else described in the Torah are our desires. When we work with them, this is how we define, sort, and bring them to the appropriate order of correction. The desires stay, we only change the method of their realization.

Those desires that were initially directed toward egoism and self-indulgence, we rework in order for them to serve others. Here a question arises: “What others if everything exists in me?”

This is the trick: actually, everything exists in me, but given this, when I see everything as being outside of me, it helps me to change my relationship from being directed inward to being directed outward; that is, I change only my internal vector.

In reality, I am not going out of myself; rather, I begin to accept all that exists outside of me as existing within me, as my personal qualities. Therefore, I begin to experience that I include the entire world within me. This is the state of “a person is a small world,” which Kabbalah speaks of.

Then, inside this world that has now become mine, I begin to exist, experience, and understand all things. This world is not egoistic. But it is inside of me because I changed my vector by not using everything for my personal “I,” but for those who appear as others outside of me.

In this way, I correct my egoism (desire to receive) to the desire to bestow. And this desire is inside of me and cannot be attributed to another; only its vector is corrected. This is how I begin to sense the Creator, the upper force, filling me.

That is why I don’t need to run from anything. I become a system that is called soul or Adam – Man. Does anyone else exist besides me? No one. I alone, and the Creator within me.

It is almost as if I begin to “swallow” the entire world, strangers become part of me. This is what is called “love your neighbor as yourself.”

How can he be my neighbor? He is part of me! But in this moment, he appears to me as being distant; that is why I attempt to bring him closer, until I become one with him.

Along the way, there is a constant battle. It is impossible to consistently imagine that everything that exists outside of me, including outer space, is all in me, and I am just looking inside myself, watching the “film projector and a screen” that constantly spins in front of me that which I see as outside of me.
This is the Creator’s amazing innovation that exists within a person.

If each of us would only see all this just from their own perspective, but we see animals and fish,, we even see other people who have similar experiences. This means that I consist of multiple egoistic desires, each of which exists as I do.

In what way then does my desire, my “I” that I am now trying to figure out and altruistically transform, differ from the desire that is appearing to me right now as the person next me? And he sees the world just like I do, and we understand each other and are able to speak with each other.

What is this desire next to me? For instance, across from me sits a friend, affirming, “Yes, I see it like that also.” What then? Am I in him and he in me? It means that in me is some friend who exists absolutely independently, decides independently, and corrects himself independently.

In order to understand this, we need to unite. But, aside from uniting, each of us also continues to remain in their individual egoistic desires and intentions.

It turns out that each of us, like a pomegranate, consists of many of seeds. And this entire totality creates the sense of the whole world being like a beehive in which, on the one hand, there is a division into a tremendous number of honeycombs, and on the other hand, their unity gives us the sensation of the Creator. We are not able to experience this quality within ourselves in any other way.

Each is an individual, and each experiences the world within him or herself. The assembly of all individuals, when they do not merge, but only unite above themselves, creates a level, which, on the one hand, consists of 600,000 parts, and on the other hand, is as if a single unit. That is, below it is 600,000 parts, and above is unity, in which the upper force is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/10/16

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The Years Do Not Go By In Vain

laitman_219_03Question: Compared to my group, I feel that I lag behind in understanding the necessity for connection between friends. Because of this, I am considering leaving the studies.

Answer: Each one reaches his moment of connection with the group. For some individuals, this takes a few years, for others 20 or even 30 years, as Baal HaSulam writes.

But the moment comes for everyone when he begins to feel that the means for spiritual development comes from connection in a group. And he begins to grow in it. The years that go by do not pass in vain, and specifically those who patiently walk in the dark, as Baal HaSulam writes, gradually rise to great spiritual heights.
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The Secret Of Kabbalah Conventions

laitman_942Question: What is the secret of Kabbalah conventions?

Answer: It is a special secret that can be told only to those who participate in the conventions. Others will not understand.

The point is that when people are interconnected internally, they form one big common desire.

If the connection takes place according to the laws of the spiritual world, when people nullify their egoism, individualism, their natural impulses for separation, and try to overcome them, then a very serious force of overall interconnection emerges between them, which they artificially create through the efforts of their will.

Then, to the extent they prevail against themselves, they show the good power of nature—the power of unity, the power of love.

The secret is that if we unite in this way, we reveal the upper positive force of nature, which does not exist in our world. It is called concealed power. And Kabbalah is called a secret science because it reveals this concealed power.

Becoming owners of two opposing forces: the negative – egoistic force and the positive – altruistic, which we extract together, trying to unite, we close both forces on ourselves and begin to reveal the upper world between us.

Question: Is it important for us to be in the same room while trying to unite, or it is not essential?

Answer: In general, this is important, because a person is like a small, limited animal, and has to rise exactly from the place where he is.

Question: What would you recommend to those who cannot come to the convention?

Answer: Those who for some reason cannot come, it is desirable to be in touch with us and participate with us in all the events in real time. But if such an opportunity does not exist, then it is possible at some other time.

The most important thing for those who cannot come to the convention is to get together with others who aren’t coming and to be with us during lessons and meals.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/2017

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Divorce Is The Very Last Thing

laitman_543_02Torah, Deuteronomy 22:28 – 22:29: If a man finds a virgin girl who was not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found the man who lay with her shall give fifty [shekels of] silver to the girl’s father, and she shall become his wife, because he violated her. He shall not send her away all the days of his life.

“A virgin girl who was not betrothed” is a desire with which a man can work. What happened between them obliges him to use this desire in the right sense. It did not belong to anyone, he took it, and began to use it with his intention. So, this desire fits his intention.

But, he began to work with it not by mutual consent, i.e., without preparation. After all, in order to implement the correct linking of desire with intention, he must discover a way to approach all his desires. They need to be properly processed, analyzed, attributed to certain qualities, and how to work with them to bestow established.

There are such desires that can be used correctly by preparing the screen in advance (this means “to get engaged”). And there are some that cannot be completely counteracted. And there are desires, to which you can approach exactly as above.

In any case, there is a system of correction. Was this maiden (desire) engaged or not engaged, i.e., was not yet ready to communicate with me or with others and whether this egoistic desire was already ready for use with the intention of giving or not, all this must be clarified in order to work with it. Only this is allegorically written in the Torah.

“The man who lay with her shall give fifty [shekels of] silver to the girl’s father,” i.e., he must pay, and this is a correction. Whether he pays before or after what happened, he must correct this desire so that it fits under his screen for use to bestow.

“He shall not send her away all the days of his life” means that he paid, and she is his. He is obliged to accompany this desire until a complete correction, which is why he cannot divorce.

Divorce is a very difficult procedure—when you have to make sure that you are no longer able to work with this desire. But if you have already taken this desire, then you must try to make it to the end. Divorce is the very last thing.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/10/16

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