Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I come out of mental illness?“

Positive relationships in society are the enveloping means for good mental health. Mental illness comes from imbalance in the mind and body, which comes from imbalance in society, which is further caused by imbalance with nature. By fixing our social connections, we bring ourselves into balance with nature, and such balance will positively influence not only our mental health, but also our general health and well-being.

Whether or not we are aware of it, positive relationships in society give our lives a sense of meaning and worth. It is no wonder, then, that the more we become divided, isolated and lonely, as is the case in much of today’s world, then the more we also see mental illness on the rise.

By nature, we are social creatures and our lives are full of relationships: at home, in the workplace, with friends, relatives, acquaintances, strangers, and through various media. On one hand, we all want to feel good and enjoy positive relationships. On the other hand, we find ourselves dealing with more and more inequality and conflicts.

When we are young, we learn that we need to behave and speak a certain way in society, because if we do not, then we can evoke a negative reaction from other people. We thus apply certain rules and codes of conduct to ourselves in order to fit in, and while they may contribute to advancing us personally and getting us into certain career paths, they often fail to serve building meaningful relationships, which is what truly makes us happy and gives us emotional stability. We thus find ourselves living in a world where divisiveness, isolation, loneliness and stress are on the rise, and our health and well-being thus become negatively affected as a result.

As important as positive social relationships are to our health and well-being, and in both preventing and treating mental illness, they are tremendously under-emphasized in today’s world. On one hand, we are evolving outside our past boundaries of several classes and hierarchies, which made our lives much clearer and simple, and have achieved a state of more equality. On the other hand, such equality is superficial and it leads to more and more confusion and anxiety.

The great paradox of our times is that our world has become like a small global village, where our interconnectedness and interdependence becomes tighter worldwide, but on the other hand, we find ourselves becoming more and more internally divided and hateful in our attitudes toward each other.

While it stands to reason that the more dependent we become on each other, the more we should learn, apply and exercise positive relations to realize that dependence harmoniously, the opposite is the case: that we keep trying to use each other for self-benefit, and we wish to impose our own views and egoistic decisions on others. This self-centered attitude contradicts the principle of an egalitarian society, where we are each equally important even though we are each different.

Therefore, we have a fateful challenge to meet in our times, where if we succeed in standing up to this challenge, then we will be able to solve several problems in our world, with mental illness among them.

The challenge is: How can we realize our increasing interdependence harmoniously?

To this end, we need to establish a social-educational system that will open our eyes to the deep level of interdependence in all areas of our lives, which should amplify the indispensable need for positive social connections. We can begin with concrete steps to acquire strong and solid relations.

First, it is important to realize that in this tightly interdependent world, every piece is indispensable to complete the full picture of reality, like in a puzzle. By affecting one another, we affect the whole system, for better or for worse. It is a system that each person is part of and that influences each person directly. Do we want to benefit from the fact that we have positive social relationships and a warm environment? Certainly, every person wishes to live in such a reality. It is then in our own interest to transform our actions and intentions from harmful exploitative ones to mutual understanding and care.

The way to achieve this goal is not rocket science. Yet, it is also not obvious to us because we have not been taught how to do it. However, there is a method of connection that we can implement in order to bring about improvements in our social relationships, and the more we undergo such connection-enriching learning, the more we will find ourselves getting along much better, on one hand, and lessening the cases of myriad problems in our lives, including mental illness, on the other hand.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the creator of life?“

The Creator is the quality of the upper world, the principle characteristic of which is bestowal or giving.

We do not know who or what the Creator is in and of itself. We can only know how we perceive the Creator. As much as we sense the quality of giving, perceiving in a manner of bestowal, we accordingly attain the Creator. Similarly, we can say nothing about any object in our world in and of itself, but only about how it appears to us in our perception.

Therefore, in Hebrew, the language kabbalists use to describe the upper world, the word for the Creator is “Boreh,” which is a connection of two words: “Bo” (“come”) and “Reh” (“see”). “Come” means that we undergo a certain kind of self-transformation, where we attain the quality of bestowal, and then we “see.” In other words, we perceive everything in our sensations.

How can we attain the quality of bestowal? This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah was given to us for. It is a method for attaining the upper world by acquiring the quality of bestowal, and we discover the Creator to the extent in which we sense the quality of bestowal. That is why Kabbalah is defined as a wisdom that brings us “the revelation of the Creator to His created beings in this world” (Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag [Baal HaSulam], “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”). By progressing in the method, we acquire new tools of perception and sensation called “Kelim” (“vessels,” plural of “Kli” [“vessel”]) with which we sense the Creator and the upper world.

Based on KabTV’s “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “A One-Sentence Constitution”

Evidently, the Jewish nation is unlike any other. Even when we want to believe that we are, life, or rather, the rest of the nations, do not allow us to think so. When the State of Israel was established, we sought to run our country according to the rules that seemed appropriate at the time. As a result, we mainly followed the British Mandatory rule, with “leftovers” from the Ottoman rule that preceded it.

Yet, from one election to the next, we are realizing that our system of government is failing; people are dissatisfied and the government is dysfunctional. We cannot be like other countries because we weren’t formed like other countries, and we aren’t meant to be like other countries. We are meant to be an am segula, a virtuous nation, which serves as “a light unto nations” by following a one-sentence constitution: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).

Our sages knew this, of course. Rabbi Akiva declared that this was the great rule of the Torah; Old Hillel said to a man who wanted to understand the gist of Jewish law, “That which you hate, do not do unto others,” and countless other references in Jewish writings testify to the centrality of the concept of love of others and mutual responsibility in Jewish law.

The founders of our country were also keenly aware of this law and its vitality to our success. David Ben Gurion, leader of the Jewish community in Israel before the establishment of Israel, and the country’s first Prime Minister, wrote that “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the supreme commandment of Judaism. With these three words [the length of the sentence in Hebrew], the eternal, human law of Judaism has been formed… The state of Israel will be worthy of its name only if its social, economic, political, and judicial structures are based upon these three eternal words.”

Aaron David (A.D.) Gordon, the ideologue and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism, echoed Ben Gurion’s words when he wrote, “‘All of Israel are responsible for one another’ … [and] only where people are responsible for one another there is Israel.” And finally, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, reviver of the Hebrew language, asserted that “We have yet to open our eyes and see that only unity can save us. Only if we all unite … to work in favor of the entire nation, our labor will not be in vain.”

Regrettably, we have not built our social, economic, political, and judicial systems on these three words, as Ben Gurion had stipulated, nor have we united “to work in favor of the entire nation,” as Ben Yehuda required, or have become “responsible for one another,” as A.D. Gordon specified. As a result, as a country and as a nation, we are failing miserably. If we continue on this path, we will have no future here. In the best case scenario, we will “escape the discomfort until too few remain to merit the name State, and they will be swallowed among the Arabs,” as kabbalist and thinker Rav Yehuda Ashlag put it. In the worst case scenario, we will be dispersed by force, either through war or through civil war.

If we want to avoid this dreadful, but certain fate, we have no choice but to comprehend that our nation is a spiritual one, and as such, our country must be founded on the spiritual law of love of others: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the only constitution that is suitable for our country and our people, and the only mode of governance that will make Israel a welcome state among the nations.

Even Henry Ford, who loathed the Jews of his time so vehemently that he became Hitler’s idol and received from him the highest award that a none German could receive, admired the Jews of antiquity precisely because their social structure was based upon these “three eternal words,” as Ben Gurion put it. Ford wrote, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems … would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”

Today, the paramount task before us is to establish such education in the nation that will lift us above all our disputes and quarrels and establish unity, mutual responsibility, and indeed, love of others in the nation. And since hatred is so entrenched within the nation, this education must encompass the entire nation, on all its factions, equally, and apply to all ages. We must reform our society from one where envy and hatred govern, to one where support and love set the tone until we realize the tenet “Love your neighbor as yourself” in practice. This is Israel’s only viable governance.

Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Today, New Publications | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: To reach the land of Israel do you have to accept the condition of mutual guarantee?

Answer: The term earth refers to the spiritual foundation. The land of Israel is not Palestine or the State of Israel, but a spiritual quality in which people are in a state of mutual love.

Comment: Kabbalah explains that earth, Eretz, is a desire, and Israel are those who strive for the Creator, for the quality of bestowal.

The Torah describes that when people came to Mount Sinai, when hatred arose between them, they were given a condition: either you must unite or here will be your burial place.

My Response: Unification is the main law of nature, and we must realize it. The thing is that after the Big Bang, there was a breakage of our desire into a huge number of desires, and we must unite them.

All nature is striving to its unification only very slowly, gradually, according to its laws. We are required to unite between ourselves on our level, on the human level, i.e., on the highest level of nature.

There the problem arises: we are not aware of it, do not understand it, and do not want to implement it. But we still must complete this task either by goodwill or, as they say, by the stick, to happiness.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/14/21

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Question: Your book Attaining the Worlds Beyond begins like this: “Generations come and go, yet every generation and every individual asks the same question about the meaning of life.” Why is there an exchange of generations?

Answer: When it is hard for us to do some big work, then we divide it into small parts.

Let’s say there is something huge in front of me, I cannot even think about it, it is too much pressure on me. Then I try not to imagine this huge block that I have to build—let’s say, a pyramid or a palace.

In the past, people built large structures for centuries. For example, it took three hundred years to build some cathedrals in Europe. And the ones who started building them knew that only their distant great-grandchildren would see their opening.

So are we. We are faced with a huge problem: we must rise to the level of the Creator from the initial state, completely opposite to Him—in absolute egoism. As it is said: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”

This correction is very slow. The first stage is the realization of the evilness of our nature. Only now, in this generation, we begin to gradually realize our nature as evil, leads us to hopelessness, emptiness, and self-destruction. There is still a lot of work ahead to correct egoism and to ascend.

But humanity, in principle, has passed the most difficult stage. However, it took a long time! If we consider this from the beginning of our world, then the inanimate nature developed for billions of years, the vegetative for billions of years, the animate for hundreds of millions of years, and man for several hundred thousand years.

And spiritual development is even more compressed in us. And therefore, we must achieve it very quickly, in the remaining two hundred and thirty years. After all, the process of correction takes 6,000 years, starting with the very first correction made 5,770 years ago by the first Kabbalist.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up” 8/24/09

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Comment: There is a tradition in Thailand: in order to start a new life without problems and stress, you must go to the temple and arrange your own symbolic funeral. People take flowers, lie down in the coffin, they are covered with a sheet, and prayers are read. First, you have to lie down with your head toward the west, then turn around in the other direction. It costs a trifle—three and a half dollars—only for candles.

During the pandemic, it was a massive ritual because people would come. And after that, they said: “I have come to life. I have started to live.” That’s it! Depression went away, all states disappeared.

Please explain this paradox to me: in order to live, you must die.

My Response: That is correct. Then a person looks at life differently. If he psychologically experiences his alleged death and leaves this current course of life, then he looks at his new life differently.

Question: That is, you really need to immerse into this dramatic situation, really experience it like this? And then you start to live.

Is that why it is so nice in cemeteries? That is, when you walk through a cemetery, or sit there on a bench, look around. You think: how beautiful everything in this world is! Someone was suffering because his car was scratched, someone because his neighbor yelled at him. And all of a sudden, it all comes down to this.

Answer: What you are saying was written in a tractate which is probably 4,000 years old. It is written there that a person who wants to realize himself in a new way should go to the cemetery and sit on a stone. So, this is correct.

I would organize collective guided tours there. And I would seat our government down there for it to think and solve some issues, and some other groups of population.

Question: To ponder upon how perishable life is?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/29/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Advance by Overcoming”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, Item 3″

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to seek spirituality?“

It starts by wanting something more or different to what everyday life offers. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is called the emergence of the desire for spirituality called the “point in the heart.” When this desire emerges, we feel a need to get answers to the question about the meaning of life.

How do we come to such a desire?

It comes after developing over several lifetimes, where we were first like animals, with desires solely for food, family, sex and shelter, and we then developed through desires for money, honor, control and knowledge.

In our first stage of development, we had desires only for food, family, sex and shelter. We still have such desires even if we are completely isolated from society. Our next stages of development—desires for money, honor, control and knowledge—are characterized by desires that emerge in relation to society.

Afterward, the desire for knowledge appears. Sciences blossomed as we set out to discover where everything came from, and to discover our roots. Such a desire for knowledge, however, still only resides within the framework of our world.

Only in the next stage of our desire’s development do we wish to know our real source, essence and purpose: the meaning of life. We then start becoming troubled by questions about our origin, our future, and who and what we really are.

We are egoists by nature. Common to all of our desires is that they are self-centered and want fulfillment. They pressure us and literally control our every move. The ego’s limit in our world is the desire to become filled with knowledge about something above us.

Suffering is at the core of our desires. We shift from one type of desire to another under the influence of suffering. If we are in a balanced state, then we feel at peace. When a new desire surfaces, we then feel as if we lack something and want to experience or receive something new, so we start trying to fulfill our desire’s demands… and this process repeats throughout our lives. In short, we always move toward fulfillment, and move away from pain.

We live our lives trying to fulfill our countless desires. After several lifetimes, we come to a state when one desire is all that is left: the desire to attain our source, the meaning of life.

When this final desire appears, everything else seems to lose its meaning. We then become depressed, feeling emotionally and spiritually empty, as if nothing can bring happiness.

The feeling of life as pointless and inauthentic is an expression of a new desire that is starting to surface in our era, the desire for spirituality. It is a desire that essentially asks about life’s meaning and purpose—”What is the meaning of life?”—even if we do not verbalize it as such. It makes us seek through various teachings in order to find some kind of meaning and answers.

The wisdom of Kabbalah was made specifically in order to fulfill this desire. It is an empiric method that leads to the discovery of the meaning of life—the attainment of the higher reality—and is open for study by anyone who wants to delve into it.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Comment: Nowadays, in connection with the latest events in the world, there has been a terrible increase of anti-Semitism. They do not like Israel, they do not like Jews.

In Europe, in Germany, they burn flags, call us child killers. In England they tell us not to wear kippahs (yarmulkes) and traditional Jewish clothing and to dress as if we are English or tourists. In France, the situation is quite bad. In America, Jews remove mezuzahs from the doors so that nobody knows that Jews live there. And so on, you can list many facts. We have come to this state.

My Response: What could be better than what is happening now? This is to put the Jews on the right track so that they fulfill their purpose. After all, if they do not fulfill it, then literally the world will slide into darkness more and more.

How else can you bring them to their senses? Only by applying more and more pressure. Still, I do not see that it helps much. Although there already was such suffering, such blows upon them, it still did not help.

We must understand why everybody hates us. Also, the anti-Semites must understand why they hate us. We see throughout the history of the Jews and the world, how it is wrapped around the Jewish people. Therefore we have to ask ourselves: Why is all this happening?

They hate us, they love us, no matter how they treat us, they are clearly treating us as something special. What is special about this ethnic group, this people, this race? They even think this is some special race. We need to explain that.

The fact is that it all began in ancient times, somewhere around 5,000 years ago when humanity began to reveal its attitude to its condition: “Who am I? What am I? Where am I from? What am I for?” And so on. These questions were asked by a man named Adam. This is what he was called, supposedly by accident, Adam.

This person began to ask this question, began to reason, to investigate. As a result of his special passion, his thirst to answer this question: “What is a human? What is his purpose, what is he for?” Adam revealed that the world exists in order to attain the upper force that governs it.

It is possible to attain this force only through special exercises when a person tries to rise above egoism, above himself, and to attain the upper force of nature, which only wishes to be in the quality of bestowal and love for others, in universal connection.

In this way, the upper universal connection between all parts of creation is revealed. This upper general force of all the parts of creation is called “the Creator.”

This person Adam revealed this force. He described it in his book Raziel HaMalach (The Secret Angel). This is a small book because at that time they wrote on clay and with sticks.

Adam created the first school where he taught his knowledge, everything he had learned, to the people who were interested in it. Quite a number of people came to him, listened to him. All kinds of beliefs also came from him since different people understood this teaching differently.

This lasted, in principle, 20 generations of his disciples: 10 generations until the disciple called Noah and another 10 generations to the disciple called Abraham. And all these generations of disciples created more disciples around them, and so it went on for hundreds of years.

In the generation of Abraham, the understanding of the knowledge that Adam passed on to them already begins. Abraham taught this to his disciples in Ancient Babylon where at that time were also special conditions. Why special conditions?

Because if before Babylon, before Abraham, the teaching of the system of the universe and the knowledge of where we exist, what surrounds us, what we are connected with, who’s governance we are under, and so on, was all purely individual, then, from Abraham onward, it was already happening in the connection between people. Therefore, Abraham is the first person who created the school of Kabbalists.

In principle, they were studying in some way before, but they were not so dependent and connected with each other. Abraham had already realized, understood, and revealed that the attainment of nature and its upper force depends on the connection between people. Therefore, he put forth the slogan “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is already such a revolution, when you need to move from just pulling yourself up to the level of bestowal and love for others to starting to arrange people to such a state. Here he came into conflict with the egoism that at that time represented by Nimrod, the king of Babylon. And, of course, Abraham had to leave him.

From here begins the group of Abraham, which he called “Yehudi” from the word “Yehud,” connection, unity.

Jew (in Hebrew, Ivri) is from the word “ever,” meaning that they pass from this life, when everyone is for himself, to a life when everyone is for others. They also called it “Israel,” meaning aimed “straight to the Creator,” “Yashar-El,” Israel. This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah begins. That is, in principle, this is the wisdom of attaining the Creator.

Question: If we move from that time to the current time, then is the hatred because Abraham instilled this principle to live not for yourself, but for others, into the people of Israel, and the Jews do not live like this? Can we say that this is written in the spiritual genetics of a person and also not in the spiritual one?

Answer: Of course! Absolutely! This is a record, informational data, that exists in a person. They cannot be eradicated, nothing can be done about them. The only thing that can be done is to change hatred into love through an explanation.

Question: How do the nations feel that there is this record in the Jews and in Israel?

Answer: Subconsciously.

Question: Will this continue until we reach the root?

Answer: That would be good. Let us hope that it does not get any worse.

Comment: But it already was very bad, really. Look what we went through in our history!

My Response: Yes, but you can see how it does not affect anything. It turns out that the only thing left is a really serious mass explanation through an appeal to everybody and especially to the nations of the world, not to the Jews.

It is because the Jews are stiff-necked people. They will not believe and will not go, and will not do anything unless the nations of the world force them. Therefore, we must appeal to the nations of the world and explain to them what the Jews should do. To force the Jews to fulfill this purpose. Then it will work.

This is what we need to do. I really hope that with the help of all our students from all over the world, we will be able to do this.

Question: Is it the responsibility of the Jews to explain to the world and to give to the world the method of connection, unity, and love for one’s neighbor? To do it by themselves and give it to the world?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Will they continue pressing on us until we get to that point?

Answer: “Pressing” is putting it mildly. But the thing is, it will not help. The only thing that will help is dissemination, explanation to all the nations of the world what Israel’s mission is and what their mission is.

It is written that they must raise the people of Israel up on their shoulders and lift them to the mountain of the Creator. This means that they must force the people of Israel to climb the mountain of the Creator so that the Jews will pave the way for all the nations of the world.

Comment: This explanation should enter into the heart, that is what’s important.

My Response: I think that, in general, the ground is prepared for this, and as much as it is impossible to accept it, it will be accepted precisely from its opposite.

The idea in itself is simple. It goes through all the generations, through all the persecutions, through all the exterminations, through all the destruction of Temples, and so on, right up to the Holocaust and our current state. The same thing, again and again.

Comment: But the idea that Kabbalists convey does not enter into ordinary people, into their hearts; that is the difficulty.

My Response: It affects everyone. But the understanding of the idea itself: Where it comes from, why, what drives it, what is the engine, the source of this historical movement, this is known only to Kabbalists.

Comment: I see that it has been mostly present in Baal HaSulam and present in you very vividly! You feel that the time has come, has arrived. This is almost the central point of history for you, the central point of the world!

Antisemitism is a segment in history, and for you it is the central point of the world.

My Response: The world revolves around this.

Comment: To bring the Jews to an understanding and to the fact that they pass this instruction to the world.

My Response: I think not even the Jews, but the world.

I do not think the Jews can take it upon themselves. They are too egoistic, divided, weak and do not understand their purpose and place, their role, nothing! They will never be able to do it with their egoism.

Question: Will the nations of the world be able to force them?

Answer: Yes! Exactly in such a way.

Comment: Yes, but hopefully it does not come to another Holocaust.

My Response: Therefore, we need to do it quickly.

Question: To explain quickly? That is, the nations of the world should understand what they are doing, what they are doing it for? Is this the understanding they should have?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/24/21

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