In the end, our relationship deteriorated to such an extent there was only one thing left: to agree that we respect each other extremely (George Bernard Shaw).

My Response: Yes.  🙂 That is all that is left.

Question: How is it possible to bring a relationship to this point and not to blow up, break up, or destroy it, but arrive at mutual respect and the ability to communicate?

Answer: “We respect each other”; that is, we know for sure that we should not stab each other nor get too close, but respect each other at a distance.

Question: Is this called rising above hatred?

Answer: We rise above it; we take our relationship into account. And we understand that we cannot achieve much more for now. But gradually, of course, everything can come back again.

Question: What can we do so that we do not let it happen again? We have a bad relationship, we hate each other. But here it says: “We need to sit down and start respecting each other.”

Answer: Break up and gradually start getting closer, this is what everyone generally advises. But get closer gradually so that I clearly understand the boundaries and so does my partner.

I have to see that they are not trying to hurt me, and I have to show how much I am trying not to hurt them. And then, as we start getting closer, we will feel how close we should get. This depends on inner sensitivity.

Question: Is this a necessary path toward further closeness?

Answer: Of course.

Question: What is achieved as a result? Do we connect somewhat or not?

Answer: We can connect in a way that will be even better than with those we had a good relationship with.

Question: So, from such hatred we can come to such closeness?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is this how it happens that from the greatest hatred people come to the greatest closeness?

Answer: That is how it usually goes.

Question: So this is the most important way: break up and start slowly getting closer?

Answer: Yes, it is highly advisable. The whole ancient political superstructure, program, and politics were always conducted this way.

Question: Why do we not hear much about it today?

Answer: We have weapons. That is, everything has been replaced. It used to be that I have a saber and you have a saber; I have a spear and  you have a spear; horses here, horses there. But today, it is all about the number of planes, tanks, missiles, and everything else; therefore, there is nothing to negotiate about.

Question: How can the world come to such everyday simple wisdom? You have just spoken not of higher wisdom, but of our earthly wisdom. Or is it still higher wisdom to operate this way?

Answer: The world has no ideals today. Humanity has no respect for anyone. If before it was the Pope or a special king or someone else, today there is not.

Question: Why are there no ideals left?

Answer: Because force replaces all other considerations.

Question: So, it becomes an ideal for me to be strong?

Answer: Yes, I have a bomb in my pocket and that’s it.

Question: Why is that? We talk all the time about the upper providence, the upper force. Why would it bring the world to such emptiness?

Answer: So that we understand we truly do not have anything at all. We are faced with the need for some real ideals in order to judge and compare ourselves with. In the meantime, there is none of this.

Question: What is, in fact, an ideal?

Answer: In fact, the ideal is, I would say love.

In the age of nuclear power when we can break everything and leave nothing, love is the opposite of it. What else can you do? Nothing. If we could beat each other up and then make up, that is another story. But when we are on the verge of a nuclear conflict, there can only be the opposite of it—love.

That is why I believe, in our days, there is an opportunity to come to such a state, to such a rapprochement called love. Because there is no other way.

In our time, peace is possible for the first time in many millennia! Because I have all sorts of nuclear weapons and so do you. Thus, there is nothing left to do but to put it aside and try to get closer to each other in order to find the benefit.

Question: You have one simple answer: live based on love?

Answer: Yes. As Longfellow, an American poet of the 19^th century wrote: “Bury your war clubs and your weapons… Smoke the calumet together and as brothers live henceforward!” That is what you need.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/29/22

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We are in a state where, after successive exile from Babylon, Egypt, and Persia, we are figuring out the conditions for the ascent to the last degree, meaning the way out of the current global crisis of all mankind.

Now modern global plagues are manifesting in front of all mankind. They have not yet fully manifested, but we are already beginning to be a little aware of them and we feel their approach. Threatening “tsunamis” are coming at us. People are beginning to understand what Pandora’s Box they have opened with their insane, thoughtless egoistic actions.

Today we must put the methodology of Kabbalah into action. I am happy that I have something to do with this, and I can reveal and explain to people what we are obliged to do, what state we are in, what kind of world this is, and what opportunities we have.

I am glad that we can discover this technique within ourselves, like in a laboratory, and then present it to the whole world, show that it is effective, show how to work practically, become an example for all mankind, and return it to a state of upper force, meaning, to the quality of bestowal and love in a kind, quick way, as soon as it’s possible.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14

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Comment: Criticism from the outside is considered an additional proof of the righteousness of the group is purported to be a defining factor of cults.

My Response: I do not think this is correct. Criticism from the outside is the natural criticism of people who do not understand what we are dealing with.

I think that we should not pay attention to criticism. Personally, it does not put me out of temper and does not set me against the critic. I do not disrespect him. There are even philosophers who come out against me. I do not perceive their words as criticism at all.

You can criticize when you understand the subject, when you have a clear opinion about it from the point of view of the knowledge of this subject. What if they do not know it? That is, they themselves have not attained it. Even so there are disputes among Kabbalists because this is science and this is the disclosure of a certain part of the universe—gradual, stepwise, to a bigger and bigger extent. There are Kabbalists who have revealed more and those who have revealed less, like scientists in our world.

Therefore there is discrepancy among them, disputes, and so on. I do understand this. There are some very interesting fights going on there. There are entire books devoted to how each of them perceives the unfolding universe and why. But they discuss it pointedly. Why do I perceive things differently from you? What is the problem? Why are we built in the way that we perceive the same thing differently?

There are different types of souls. Some of them relate to direct light, others to surrounding light, and so on. And it is precisely in their clash, in the process of clarification, that an even greater elevation of both of them takes place. They zealously argue among themselves, but these are people who are in the same attainment, in the same world, they have what to talk about, they understand each other, and their clarifications are very serious.

And what is there to talk about here? If I am reading a novel and crying, or watching a movie on TV and laughing, and a cat is sitting next to me, how can he participate in this? Not in any way. He is only moving his ear toward the sounds I am making and thinking: “What is the matter with the master? I wish he would sit quietly and doze.”

It’s the same with those who criticize. You irritate them with your studies of Kabbalah. They feel that there is something in you that you can explain everything and that your predictions come true, although you are not a fortune teller. Long before the crisis I said that it would come. And when it started I said that it would not end. But they shouted: “The crisis will be over in a year or two.” And now they are silent and do not contradict me.

But who is pleased when you predict such bad events? Moreover, nothing will change because of your predictions.

Everything can change only due to our intensified dissemination, and there is no point in just talking. There will be still more critics. Still more people will slander us, that we, so to say, hate everyone because we are talking badly about the future when we say: “We ourselves are to blame for what is happening.” And so on.

That is, people will of course defend themselves; this is their natural reaction. That is life.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do we build an image of other people inside us?“

We are emotional cameras because we picture other people in our emotions, which are in our desire to receive.

The desire to receive pleasure is our nature and it makes us perceive everyone and everything via how we can enjoy from them.

For instance, if we look at another person’s face, we might register only their eyes and their smile, because we might enjoy those facial features the most. We do not acquire an exact physical photograph of the other person, like how police piece together facial composites, but we build an emotional impression based primarily on what we enjoy from the other person and their features.

Other than people, we also perceive animals, plants and objects similarly—in the desire to receive pleasure, which is ultimately what we are and where we perceive our reality.

Based on the video “How You Create an Image of Other People Within” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Tal Mandelbaum and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Donkey Driver,” Item 106

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 39

Selected Highlights

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Question: Time is usually represented as a river flowing in one direction. Some argue that time is like rain that consists of individual drops. And then our whole life looks like a set of individual frames, like a movie. How do you imagine time?

Answer: I do not imagine time; I imagine actions. For people who measure themselves by the actions they perform, time flows in a completely different way, on a different scale than for others.

Comment: If I understand correctly, time flows in the material world regardless of whether our states change or not, i.e., regardless of us.

My Response: Relative to whom does time change? Relative to me. Does my neighbor live in the same time as me or not? Or does he have a completely different scale? Therefore, it is all subjective.

We live by a mechanical clock by which we measure ourselves. But how this hour passes for him and for me, I do not know.

Question: If a Kabbalist himself consciously changes his states—hastens them, slows them down—then does he control time?

Answer: He controls time according to his connection with the Creator or his distancing from Him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22

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Question: Maybe we cannot create a time machine because our protein world is illusory and exists only in our imagination?

Answer: It exists in you in such a way that you are now sitting in front of the camera and talking to me. And there are ten billion people around you, and so on, and so on. In principle, this is all, of course, your world.

This is what appears to you. I also exist in this world of yours. And I also imagine myself existing in some kind of my own world.

Kabbalists write that in the future all people will unite into one single humankind and become like one organism in their feelings. In this state, time will vanish.

If no one feels like a single person but only as the totality of all mankind, then no one from the future will come to you because there will be no such state when we represent individual people. All of us together will become one person called Adam.

And then, as it is written in Kabbalah, material reality will disappear from our senses because we will not feel disconnected from each other, but we will begin to exist in one common spiritual body.

Therefore, we do not need to create a time machine to soar into the future because it exists in a completely different degree.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 12/25/22

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Question: What is the major difference between the Torah and The Book of Zohar?

Answer: It is only in the style, form of presentation, and absoluteness of the Torah. What is written in it is absolute. There are a lot of expressions in The Book of Zohar that can be misinterpreted.

The Zohar is generally incomplete in itself. Initially, it included about thirty volumes. To date only a small part of it has been found, which means, it is incomplete, fragmentary and cannot claim to be like the Torah.

But in terms of the power of its presentation, The Zohar affects us much more than the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Zohar against the Torah” 1/21/12

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A prayer of many rises before the Creator, and the Creator crowns Himself with that prayer since it rises in several ways. This is because one asks for Hassadim, the other for Gevurot, and a third for Rachamim. And it consists of several sides: the right side, the left, and the middle.

But a prayer of one does not comprise all the sides; it is only on one way. Either one asks for Hassadim or Gevurot or Rachamim.

Hence, a prayer of one is not erected to be received like the prayer of many, as it does not include all three lines like the prayer of many (Zohar for All, “VaYishlach,” Item 45).

In order to come to the common prayer, a prayer for all as one whole, to become one, it is necessary to go through very difficult states of inner scrutiny and to understand that:

1. The spiritual goal is more important than all other goals.

2. It is impossible to reach it alone but only by creating one common yearning from individual yearnings, and then it will be similar to the Creator and the upper light will fill it.

Therefore, only such a request, such a prayer, can be heard, meaning it can cause the corrective action of the upper light.

Reading The Book of Zohar causes us to understand that we must be together because without exiting ourselves it is impossible to reach bestowal, the qualities of the Creator, to exist in the upper world.

It is said: “From the love for the created beings to the love for the Creator.” The Creator gave us the illusion that there are many people around us, and we must destroy this illusion, understand that all this is inside of me, and ask Him to unite the whole world within me.

Then the prayer of many will turn into a true prayer of one.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/09, The Book of Zohar

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