Question: Our life is no pleasure, but rather an attempt to escape from suffering, which means that in every moment we are looking for an opportunity to suffer less.

We think that we get pleasure by buying a new car or a garage, but in fact we choose slightly better conditions. But this still is not pleasure is it?

Answer: Of course, these are not real pleasures: eternal and constantly growing.

Question: In our world a person sooner or later loses the taste in any pleasure. And when one reveals spiritual fulfillment, doesn’t he get used to it?

Answer: No. He doesn’t have time to get used to it. Spiritual pleasure quickly disappears. But this happens because a person has the opportunity of the next degree, the next filling, and he endlessly advances.

Even when the pleasure of the first degree disappears, new desires are released in which he can immediately advance further and fulfill them. And since these are not egoistic desires, but rather desires for bestowal, they are neither neutralized nor destroyed; they accumulate and grow all the time.

Let’s say I bought a yacht. But after a month I got used to it. I no longer have that inspiration, that song inside, that I felt when I bought it. Pleasure disappears as the egoistic fulfillment destroys itself. Since plus and minus are opposite to each other, pleasure enters desire and extinguishes itself.

But if pleasure and desire are both aimed at bestowal, then they do not extinguish each other, but instead support each other. First, when they go together, they increase each other 620 times and there is a huge surge of ecstasy, the strongest pleasure. Therefore, in our world it is called a Zivug (coupling of opposites).

Even in our world, if a man and a woman correctly understand how to delight, then they please each other not for oneself, but for other. This is where such reciprocity appears, which increases the filling. I don’t enjoy her and she doesn’t enjoy me; rather, we delight each other. Here too, an increase in pleasure is obtained.

But in the spiritual world, this increases by 620 times, meaning it manifests itself as attainment of the deepest layers of nature, the source of pleasure. Moreover, it is not extinguished, but constantly accumulates. This is an accumulating process.

Unfortunately, we do not know how to properly use even the purely bodily, egoistic pleasures of our world. We are only engaged in self-gratification, and we lose a lot when we do so.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Highest Pleasure” 8/12/13

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Question: How does a Kabbalist look at states that seem uncomfortable in egoism?

Answer: He simply analyzes them like a researcher who studies himself and tries to assess all his states as objectively as possible, and most importantly, how in each state to achieve maximum connection with the Creator, with the upper force, because everything depends on it.

The more we attract the Creator, the faster we go through all the states. This is all our work.

I either try to get closer to the Creator in order to move faster, and this is an egoistic path of spiritual development, albeit a spiritual one, or I try to do it to please Him, to express my love for Him, in which case my enjoyment is the feeling of enjoyment that I evoke in Him.

And then I check whether I can do the same actions in relation to Him without feeling pleasure from it so that it does not bribe me and does not reward me.

If I can do it without a reward, this is already a good stage. Or maybe I should receive pleasure in order to please Him even more. In general, there are various further steps.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If the Body Is Uncomfortable” 8/6/13

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Question: Your teacher Rabash wrote that prayer is a work of the heart and the heart is all the desires of a person. How can a person work with his desires if they are not under his power? How can he control them?

Answer: Prayer is an appeal to the upper force, i.e., to the general force of nature, which we call the Creator. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we need to tune in to nature in order to receive the correct response from it, and then nature will be revealed to us.

Therefore, we must change our desires in such a way that they direct us to bestowal.

Comment: It turns out that if I open some prayer book and it says what I have to ask, but I come to some place of the prayer and have other desires, other problems in my heart, then there is dissonance.

My Response: Prayer is what your heart feels. Therefore, it is necessary to tune in to feel: “What does my heart desire now?”

Those prayers that the great sages wrote are what you have to come to. They described desirable sensations, desirable impulses in the heart that you should feel.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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It happens that people fall asleep in the lesson because they are not ready for the load. If they have not studied or do not keep in line with the subject, if it is too early for them to hear such things, then they sleep. It is hard for them.

Kabbalistic information does not add up in their head because there must be forms in our brain prepared in advance, which we associate with each other. After all, behind every word there is some concept, and our brain links them together.

What if we do not have them? Moreover, in addition to mental concepts there must also be sensory ones since we think with feelings and not with the mind. Pure mind is an absolutely abstract concept.

When people encounter this they become overwhelmed with fatigue. It is impossible to put together understanding, knowledge, sensation, the flow of thoughts, the process, and the formula that is given in a sentence from beginning to end (subject, predicate, adverbial phrase), and all of that together. It does not fit within them and they do not understand what they are dealing with.

The body creates a block, a kind of protection, and a person falls asleep. This is good. This is the blocking system, the protective system.

Question: Does a person in this state absorb information better or miss it?

Answer: There are people who can neutralize themselves so that everything flows through them. But this is completely irrelevant to Kabbalah. They can sit and meditate, but still they have nothing left.

If they do not have an internal preparation for Kabbalistic technology, if they have not prepared their tools, then they will not have anything from this. Let them squat or meditate, that is their business.

As a rule, two categories of people study with us: those who are ready for this and therefore they absorb the material, each at their own level; or those who are not ready, who turn off, and fall asleep. It is hard for them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Deep Sleep of a Kabbalist” 7/26/13

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Question: What is holding you in a vice so that you do not move either here or there and act according to your goal?

Answer: The importance of the goal. What else is there in this world except to get out of it into the upper world and connect the elements of all the worlds together? The task of a person is to reach attainment, enlightenment, and fulfillment. But these are just accompanying processes.

The most important thing is revelation of the single force, the feeling that you are filling the entire system of the universe.

Question: How did you build these frameworks for yourself, these rules that do not allow you to move either to the right or to the left?

Answer: I just accepted everything, and I have continued to do so ever since. Like senile forgetfulness, I forgot that there is another way.

But seriously, this is constant daily work on yourself. The most important thing is to have a goal. A person must create around himself an entire system of obstacles or protectors that will not let him out.

I have to work on my blog; I have to give lessons, answer questions, and appear in several programs a day; I have a thousand meetings, rechecking texts and so on. So I have no other place—that’s it!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Do You Protect Yourself?” 6/25/13

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Question: When the Creator draws a person closer to Him, why does He have to lead him through shame and humiliation in society? Why did all the great teachers experience rejection from society?

Answer: In order to help them get rid of egoism. And how else? A person by himself cannot aspire to the Creator. That is why the Creator leads a person through humiliation and in that way directs him to Himself.

The only opportunity to get closer to the Creator is through the humiliation of one’s “I.” And I am ready to pay for it with everything I have starting with the egoism that the Creator created in me and that kills me every day and ending with the problems that egoism causes in society in relation to me.

But I am ready to pay for it in order to nonetheless get closer to the Creator. There is nothing to be done. Thus we begin to attain what it means to rise in spirituality.

Question: Does everyone have to go through this?

Answer: More or less everyone. Nowadays it can be very easy because there are already groups and there is already a methodology. There were times when Kabbalists really suffered a lot, not only psychologically, but also physically. But today it is much easier.

Moreover, a huge number of people today already understand this and are engaged in unification. Or they do not even understand and do not engage in it, but they nevertheless feel from the inside that salvation is still in unity.
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From Dr. Laitman’s Conversation with the Georgian Group 9/15/22

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Comment: Alex writes: “I listened to you in the morning and went to work. But as soon as I drove away from home, I immediately encountered rudeness on the road. At work, they squeeze everything out of you just to make more profit. We never have enough; we are never satisfied. Everyone thinks they are right. Please tell me how to love this world?”

My Response: One can love this world only as rungs to the next world, and not in anyway or for anything is it possible to love it by itself.

Question: Do you mean it is like a step?

Answer: Of course. If you give yourself only to this world it is better not to be born.

Yet if you perceive it as an intermediate stage, then you appreciate it. It is because if you know exactly how to use it (as much as you can because it is not easy), then you can really achieve something.

Comment: But one needs to get to the point that there is another goal, and not just settle in this world.

My Response: If I say that this is an intermediate step and only the first stage, then yes. The main thing is to break away.

Question: Then what is the goal an ordinary person should aim for?

Answer: There is no ordinary person. There are those who are more lucky or less lucky in understanding this world and in making a rung out of it that raises them to the upper world. But in principle, everyone has this opportunity and everyone receives it at some time.

In short, this world is good only because it can be a prelude and a step, a springboard to the next state. We should not wait for the next state after death. The next state is the next degree when we reveal the next world while in this world.

Question: What is the next world like? What should I aim for?

Answer: The next world is such that you reveal that every minute every manifestation of all sorts of phenomena, actions, and forces is all just to bring you closer to the revelation of the truth.

The truth is to reveal the Creator.

Question: What is the “Creator” for me?

Answer: The Creator is the sum of all forces that manifest perfection.

Question: What do they mean by the phrase “perfect love“?

Answer: Perfect love is when you begin to attain a state where you see all mutually opposite forces as mutually complementing ones.

Question: Is it that forces are desires? Do all my desires, hatred, love, or anything else, as if complement each other? Is this called absolute love? Is this what can be called perfection?

Answer: Yes, but there are not just forces here, but an ascent above yourself, a mutual complementing of yourself and the other where you break away from yourself and integrate into the other. That is, this is not just force; these are sensations built on contradictions, and that is why they reveal so much.

But all the same, all this is relative to a person. If this is not relative to a person, then we do not understand and we do not know.

Comment: You keep saying “specifically opposite desires, specifically opposite forces.”

My Response: Otherwise we have nothing to talk about and we would not feel anything. If there are no opposites that are in some kind of state with each other, then we have nothing to say.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/27/21

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Question: If a certain number of your students were in spiritual attainment, would it alter and strengthen the whole process that both the group and the world are undergoing?

Answer: The world would also be drawn to this and would understand the essence of our problems or at least it would make fewer mistakes. It would want to listen to those who understand the universe in full scope with all its processes from beginning to end as well as in its depth.

Then the world will follow such people who will explain how to act to quickly reach a spiritual state because this is the goal of our development, the purpose of our existence.

When we all begin to unite on such a scale, we become integral and break free of the hold of time, space, or motion. We enter the next degree, the next dimension called “man.” But today, based on our development, we are not there yet.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man in Attainment” 7/21/13

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Question: Baal HaSulam kept his disciples at a certain level. And when he died, they fell. How did you manage not to fall when Rabash died?

Answer: I was connected with him internally. I just stuck to him and was by his side all the time.

After his death, I got up every morning and mentally talked with him. I talked to him in a dream. While doing something, I thought: “If I tell him, how will he react to this?”

Very often I broke away from some activity, jumped up and looked at the clock: “Oh, I’m late, I have to run to him!” But he was gone. Or I woke up in the middle of the night with the same thoughts, as if I should go to him.

And these were terrible shocks: “Oh, I’m late!” on the one hand, and on the other hand, immediately the second blow, there is nowhere to run. There is nothing to compare with twelve years of being next to a person who was like a spring of life for you. Nothing.

But for this you need to reach absolute devotion during your lifetime. And it does not just depend on the person: “I want!” It comes with great difficulty and I would say luck. There was an element of luck here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dr. Laitman’s Prophecy” 6/25/13

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My new article on Linkedin “The Legacy of a Giant”

Today, October 7, sixty-eight years ago, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, the greatest kabbalist and thinker of our time, and one of the greatest of all time, passed away. He became known as Baal HaSulam (author of the Sulam [ladder]) after his Sulam commentary on The Book of Zohar. He lived through both world wars, predicted them well in advance, and warned his fellow Jews in Poland that a calamity awaits them long before the Holocaust. He wrote about it, talked about it, and organized the escape of hundreds of families from Poland to what was then Palestine and later became the State of Israel. His efforts were thwarted. The families were intimidated into staying in Poland, and his writings were banned.

Subsequently, Baal HaSulam moved to Palestine on his own and toiled just as diligently to spread the message of unity among Jews and unity throughout the world. Yet, in Palestine, too, his writings were banned and he was threatened that he would be imprisoned if he continued to spread his ideas.

Fortunately, many of his writings survived so we can learn of his greatness and realize his message. Today, it is imperative that we understand his legacy and realize his teaching because, among other things, he detailed how we can avoid a third, nuclear world war.

In the latter years of his life, Baal HaSulam dedicated his time to writing his monumental commentary on The Book of Zohar, the only complete commentary since the writing of The Zohar nearly two millennia ago. In the years prior to his work on The Zohar, he divided his time between writing a comprehensive commentary on the writings of the ARI, which became known as The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and writing essays on contemporary events and processes that shaped the world’s history.

In the 1930s, long before people spoke of globalization or the interconnectedness of nations, Baal HaSulam wrote a series of essays warning against exploitation because we are dependent on each other. Two essays in particular, “The Peace” and “Peace in the World,” analyzed the state of humanity, where it was headed, and what needed to be done.

In June 1940, he published a paper which he sold on the street like a regular newspaper. It contained opinion pieces in which he analyzed the situation in the world in view of the world war that was raging in Europe and elsewhere, and outlined the peril that awaited Polish Jewry. Alas, it was too late to save them. Had they listened to him in the 1920s, things would probably have been very different.

In the 1950s, shortly before his passing, he wrote what he predicted for the world, but never managed to publish it. He hoped that now that the world had seen the horrors of nuclear weapons, people would be willing to rise above their ego and unite. He also warned that if they did not, humanity would plunge into a third, and even fourth world war, both of which would be nuclear, and the relics would still have to rise above their ego and unite in order to put an end to hatred and war.

Baal HaSulam’s legacy is his efforts to help humanity unite. Today we see how essential it is that we understand his message of unity and spread it, as it is the only message that can prevent a third world war.

Kabbalists have always been ahead of their time. Baal HaSulam’s predecessors, too, were misunderstood during their lifetime. It is my hope that we understand the message of Baal HaSulam not centuries after his passing, but now, while there is still time to avoid a global tragedy.

For the writings of Baal HaSulam (not including The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot), read The Writings of Baal HaSulam, Vol. 1, and Vol. 2.

To learn more about the travails of kabbalists and resistance to their message throughout the ages, read A Very Narrow Bridge: The fate of the Jewish people.
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