Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Corporeal Activities and Spiritual Advancement

Laitman_049_01Question: Each person has abilities and talents that were given to him from birth. How do we use them correctly in life?

Answer: A person with talents, let’s suppose he is a musician, a painter, or a writer, can certainly combine the wisdom of Kabbalah with his specific activities, but it is very difficult since he invests both intellect and emotions in his creativity, which in principle he should invest in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

When a person is involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah, in the development of spirituality, he spends a great deal of energy in order to yearn for it, with his heart, his soul, and also his intellect. It doesn’t mix well with such worldly activities like science or art.

Question: Isn’t it possible that these talents were given to a person specifically so that he could apply them in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: As strange as it might sound, there is no kind of corporeal activity that can be of any use in the wisdom of Kabbalah except for the art of writing and drawing, and also these tendencies must be used only in order to disseminate Kabbalah, for describing it and bringing it closer to people.

Question: What about theater, painting, and sculpture? Especially if it brings joy to the soul….

Answer: I do not know why people think that the soul is “happy” when it sees some sculpture; I understand that people think of it in this way, but it isn’t the soul.

Observing in this way comes from the physical urges that still control a person, but this will gradually change to a more inner observation.

Man should not in any way destroy, belittle, get rid of, or be ashamed of anything within himself, or blame himself that he still has these urges.

He can enjoy art, literature, music, and anything else, but as a result of the study of Kabbalah, when he begins to come closer to the revelation of the spiritual world, this revelation will be so comprehensive and inclusive, exciting and fulfilling, that he won’t have room in his heart or his mind to be involved with anything else except simple necessary work.

My teacher Rabash explained that the very best thing for a Kabbalist to be was a shoemaker.  He was referring to any monotonous work that allows a person to think about spirituality.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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Contrary To Murphy’s Law

laitman_565_02Question: I have a sensation that someone is next to me all the time. For example, before I reach the pharmacy, he makes sure that they have run out of the medication that I need. And that is how it is with everything. How must I behave when life trips me up in everything like this?

Answer: Everything comes from the Creator. There is no need to be particularly concerned about this. You just need to understand that this is how we are being educated.

Comment: But there is Murphy’s Law, according to which a buttered sandwich always falls with the buttered side toward the floor.

Answer: This doesn’t affect the spiritual world because in the spiritual world there is only one law: the will of the Creator. Everything runs according to His will all the time, and I accept this as a given. So it makes no difference to me if He “arranges” the same situation for me 200,000 times. I always accept every situation as coming from Him for the purpose of my development.

Question: So you don’t try to understand why this is happening, but just take for granted that everything is coming from Him?

Answer: I don’t know why. It is only when I go through the situation and rise above it to a particular level that I can partially discover what it gave to me.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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How Can I Fulfill Desires?

laitman_940Question: How can I recognize my friend’s desires? What does it mean to bestow in spirituality and to fulfill my friend’s desires?

Answer: Your friend’s desire is to reveal the Creator. However, he can do it only if he has the same property of bestowal as the Creator has, at least at the minimal level.

You can help your friend obtain the property of the Creator by working in spirituality together. Then, there will be an action between you and him that will attract the Reforming Light.

Light is a property of bestowal and love. By becoming closer to one another, you will be becoming more similar to the property of the Light, and you will be accumulating the property of bestowal and love between you and your friends. The Light will begin manifesting between you, and you will sense it as the revelation of the Creator. This is the way you should work with your friend.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day Two 5/3/16, Lesson 5

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What Gives Us Hope?

laitman_943Question: What gives us hope?

Answer: The Reforming Light (Ohr Makif) does. It shines from far away and gives us hope and anticipation of future good events.

If you want to experience its effect, you need to be surrounded by people who already have this Light in the present rather than in the future. Then you will start receiving its radiance from them.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day Two 5/3/16, Lesson 5

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The Creator Is Revealed In Love

laitman_940Torah, Deuteronomy 6:25: …And it will be for our merit that we keep to observe all these commandments before the Lord, our God, as He has commanded us.

We need to correct all of our desires from egoistic use to altruistic, to mutual connection with each other. We need to ask the Creator to give us the ability to connect, to become as one man with one heart, and in mutual love, give Him the opportunity to be revealed between us.

Strict observation of the commandments means to observe them not for yourself, but only for bestowal to others when you check all of your desires to their very bottom and don’t agree to any deal with egoism.
The Creator commanded us to “Love your neighbor as yourself” in every desire, in all circumstances that He presents before us.

Therefore, we need to convert that egoistic Kli (Vessel) that we carried out of Egypt to the mutual connection in which love is revealed, and in love, the Creator is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/6/16

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The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And Martial Arts

laitman_954Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah promote involvement with martial arts? It provides training in endurance, the ability to endure pain, team spirit, and developing positive characteristics within you.

Answer: I often heard my teacher Rabash recommend things like that, but only for the purpose of physical readiness and self-defense. I never saw him involved with this himself. He believed that the best thing is walking a lot, swimming, and sometimes working out in a gym. He was a very strong man, much stronger than I, even though I was younger than him by forty years. Rabash was engaged in physical labor all his life. He carried 40 kilogram bags of cement to the third and fourth floor.

So I believe that if it is necessary for a person, he should get involved with martial arts. But in principle, involvement with the wisdom of Kabbalah will balance everything in him. Ultimately, one will choose what is in harmony with one’s spiritual movement.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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There Are No Repetitions In The Torah

laitman_527_04When we are reading the Torah we must not forget that there are no repetitions in it. What seems to us as an address to the past is always just a direction to a new action on a new level.

However, since we have 125 degrees of ascent and on each of them we need to correct all 613 desires (248 desires of the upper part of a soul and 365 desires of the lower part of a soul), on each degree they are repeated in increasing egoism. And we correct them to bestowal and love in stronger connection between them, and therefore it seems that they leave their imprint.

In fact, every time this is a completely new understanding of the world, it’s a deeper and more interconnected arrangement that reveals vast new niches, meaning spiritual spaces! After all, egoism, while becoming bigger, is attracted to the global connection that is revealed to us. And the main pleasure, the filling of the person’s soul with perfection and harmony, comes exactly from getting the general picture of interconnection.

Comment: When I was studying at school and then in university, it seemed to me that teachers constantly repeat the same thing. It is interesting that in Kabbalah allegedly the same laws are perceived differently every time. It seems that everything is already painted and written in the book and suddenly one line makes everything different.

Answer: Yes, it is incredible! And in material nature on all its levels are the same laws. Only what isn’t yet revealed on the still level, begins to unfold a little on the vegetative level, and more so on the animal level, and even more so on the human level. But we see in front of us completely different opportunities and different ways of life.

This indicates a depth of connection between the positive and negative particles inside of atoms—electrons, neutrons, and positrons. The only thing that occurs is the increasing revelation of their connection program, combinations, and mutual dependence, and on Earth appears a developed life. And it is the same in the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/6/16

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The Main Prayer Of Israel

laitman_534Torah, Deuteronomy 6:4: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one. For example, my name is Michael. So I have to say, “Hear Michael, the Lord, your God, meaning the upper force that controls you, is one and only. Therefore, what you are saying now is said to you, Him speaking within you. What you are wishing at the moment is Him wishing within you. What you are thinking about yourself and Him, and about anyone else is also only Him.

And where are you? You are this point of examination that says that everything in you, apart from the point itself, is the Creator.

And then what is your work? It is to make sure that this point of examination as well is fully connected to the Creator and you will become equal to Him.”

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:5: And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your means.

All my desires, no matter what level they are, how I graduated them, and what qualities and directions they have, I must realize are only in order to demonstrate love for one’s neighbor. And from the love for the neighbor I will come to the love for the Creator. The Creator here is a collection of all my relationships to others.

Therefore it is said, “You shall love the Lord, your God.”

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:6: And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart.

In all my desires, that are called “heart,” will clearly be felt the quality of bestowal and love. It is they who will command the heart.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:7: And you shall teach them to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

In all my states I must constantly revive the Creator in me, not forgetting that there is no one else besides Him, and He is the quality of love. I must remember it when I “lie down” and when I “rise up,” in bad states and good states, and also in future states that are called “sons.” To “lie down” means to be in a weakened state. To “rise up” and to “walk” means to go forward by the spiritual degrees.

Question: What does it mean “…and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way…?

Answer: “And speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way,” i.e., in the state when I am inside my heart and in the state when I feel that I am exiting it. The heart of a person is called “house.”

“When you walk on the way” is a state when I change my desires all the time, correct them, and rise above them. They appear in me, but I am not a master of this. I must constantly have only one idea, one goal, and one basis of existence: everything that happens to me comes from the Creator.

I am in absolute connection with Him, no matter what happens to me, even if I am in a catastrophic condition! After all, it comes to me so I will find absolute connection with the Creator in it.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:8: And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes.

It means to tie a “knot in the memory” (Tefillin – phylacteries) on the left hand that is connected to the heart. And Tefillin on the head should be “between your eyes” so that words will remain in the heart and in the mind.

Everything that relates to the heart is the level of Bina. Eyes are the level of Hochma. It means that the Creator will always control your desires and thoughts so they will be directed through two Lights, Hassadim and Hochma.

Question: If I tie a knot on the hand and a knot between the eyes, does it mean that I connect Bina and Hochma?

Answer: It is not just a knot. In the upper form there is a connection between the desire and the Light, creature and the Creator, in it. I want such a connection so it will spread now in my heart and in my mind.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:9: And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

Gates and doorposts are an entry to yourself and an exit from yourself, when you exit into new desires that are not yet developed and corrected by you, and then you enter back, i.e., place them inside yourself. In both cases you must constantly control and check yourself that you are filled only by the Light of bestowal and love.

You must always be with the Creator, with the Light of correction that acts on all four levels of desire, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. Therefore, in both the Mezuzah and Tefillin are four so-called texts, i.e., four qualities.

The prayer “Shema Israel” – (“Hear, O Israel”) became the main prayer of Israel. There is nothing except it. All other prayers are as though additions, expansions for various special cases.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/16

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Desire Directed Toward Bestowal

laitman_569_01Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 5:33: You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.

“The land which you will possess” is a desire (Ratzon from the word “Eretz” land, land of desire) directed toward bestowal and love for all the surrounding ones and through them toward the Creator.

As we have discussed more than once, the surrounding ones are nothing but my inner properties, which I perceive as outside, opposite to me. It turns out that only when I treat them with love, I relate to them in the same way as the Creator. At that time, I adhere with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book,” 8/12/15

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Golden Path To Love

laitman_527_03Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 5:29: Keep them to perform [them] as the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside either to the right or to the left.

Do not turn aside either to the right or to the left means to go along the middle line only, using all your qualities for bestowal and love.

All qualities, whatever they may be, we must accept so that we rise above ourselves in love for them.

When we deviate to the left, we enter the state of uncorrected desires and can’t leave them so. When we deviate to the right, we enter the state when we “float” in the Upper Light, in the quality of bestowal and love, but we don’t participate in it with all our egoism.

Therefore, both sides have to be balanced by the middle line, which is called a golden path to love.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/16

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