Comment: The mysterious Japanese soul is very different from the European one. Their sages are very different from European ones and so is their wisdom. If possible, please comment on some sayings of Japanese sages.

“It is better to be the enemy of a good person than a friend of a bad one.”

My Response: That is true; it is more beneficial for you. You can learn a lot from a good person. But being a friend of a bad one is certainly the worst.

Comment: “Whoever strongly wants to rise upward invents a ladder.”

My Response: Yes. He will find a way to rise.

Comment: “Husband and wife should be like the hand and the eyes: when the hand hurts, the eyes cry, and when the eyes cry, the hands wipe the tears.”

My Response: Beautiful!

Question: “The sun does not know the righteous. The sun does not know the unrighteous. The sun shines not with the goal of warming anyone.” Is that so?

Answer: It all depends on how you look at it. It is all relative to a person—with a goal or without a goal.

Question: But if we speak of the warmth of the Creator emanating from Him, is there really no purpose?

Answer: It is all absolutely thought out and foreseen in advance. Based on the final goal, the final state, all the intermediate states come to us and move us toward that goal.

Comment: “Even if a sword is needed only once in a lifetime, you must carry it always.”

My Response: Yes, that is true. Precisely because you always carry it, you will be ready to use it that one time in life.

Comment: “Grief, like a torn garment, should be left at home.” But a person cannot help but show grief.

My Response: It is a cultural attitude toward the world, toward life, meaning nothing will shake me.

Comment: “When there is love, smallpox scars are as beautiful as dimples on the cheeks.”

My Response: Yes, love smoothes out absolutely everything. “Love covers all transgressions.”

Comment: “No one stumbles while lying in bed.”

My Response: Best of all is to lie down.

Comment: “Yield the road to fools and madmen.”

My Response: Yes, that is true. Because others may understand you, but these ones will not.

Comment: “When parents work and children enjoy life, the grandchildren will beg for alms.”

My Response: That is true. Children must not be given anything for free. You have to push them with all your strength toward acquiring a profession and mastering life, so that while you still exist, they are already building themselves. That is what love for children means.
[241211]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/24/25

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Question: Every desire to receive is a Reshimo [spiritual record] from the withdrawal of the light in which we receive the letters of the Torah. Is this a feeling of fulfillment or a feeling of new emptiness from coming closer to the Creator?

Answer: I think it is emptiness that presses on a person and drives them toward the Creator.

Question: It is said that when the people of Israel gathered at Mount Sinai, they had one intention and one thought. Does that mean we unite in intention and thought even before receiving the Torah?

Answer: No, before receiving the Torah, we cannot unite in intention and thought.

But this is already a step forward. People begin to feel how the Creator corrects them, and how they gradually draw closer to one another into one body, one heart.
[344872]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Concerning the Giving of the Torah – 1”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 144

Why Do We Feel No Taste in Spiritual Work?

If we were to spiritually progress according to the same pattern in corporeality, we would prefer spirituality because it is better for us, or immediately afterward we would prefer corporeality, because it is better. We would thus increase both within our will to receive.

However, if we have faith in those who have already attained spiritual fulfillment, who advise us that it is worthwhile for us too, and convince ourselves that in this world we can taste only fleeting pleasures anyway, and that it is better to yearn for spirituality, we join a group engaged in Kabbalah and begin to learn from them how to be fulfilled by spirituality instead of toiling in vain chasing the pleasures of this world. We perform brainwashing on ourselves and intensify our desire for spirituality.

Does this mean we think “in order to bestow”? No, we constantly imagine that spirituality will give us something, just as all pleasures give us something. This is called growing in Lo Lishma. How do we move from Lo Lishma to Lishma? It is with a special remedy (Segula), because we cannot think for the sake of the Creator by ourselves.

We should not deceive ourselves otherwise. That is the reality. We each think only of our own benefit, and beautiful, elevated words do not change that. We are built in such a way where we think only about ourselves. Not only do we think, but we are truly programmed and structured so that our whole body, brain, hormones, discernments, every cell, and everything at all levels, from mechanical movements to biological ones, move solely in the direction of self-benefit. This is ingrained in our nature. We can say “in order to bestow,” but we will act only for our own benefit.

Therefore, only through a special remedy do we move from Lo Lishma to Lishma. The remedy was given to us by the Kabbalists in their books, and because we are engaged in what the Kabbalists wrote, and they wrote about the spiritual world, we are truly engaged in the concept of the giving of the Torah. The giving of the Torah is the means from above through which we can prepare ourselves to cross the barrier to the spiritual world.

That is, the constant growth of our desire is only one part of the picture. Our desire grows from desires for animalistic pleasures, to money, to honor, to knowledge, and finally to Godliness. But as we approach Godliness, there is a special addition: not only does one desire replace another, but the desire for Godliness needs to acquire an additional form called “in order to bestow.”

It does not matter whether a desire is positive or negative. All kinds of desires grow continuously, from the lowest state to the highest that is revealed in us. If, for instance, our soul has one ton of desire, we are shown only a part of it at a time, one gram, five grams, another ten grams, another twenty grams. It is as if each time a slightly wider opening is made in our box of desires, and we feel more and more desires.

The desires already exist within us. They are simply revealed slowly, and each time they appear as stronger and greater desires. We grow from below upward, from this world up to the end of correction, in the absolute measure of desire. However, besides this, if we want to grow beyond the specific plane called “this world,” the desire must be directed not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the Creator.

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From the side of the Creator, the potential action called thought is sufficient. For the Creator, the end of the action is already in the initial thought; that is, the uncorrected and corrected states of creation exist together and form a black point that is called creation.

Everything else is the development of this point and its awareness of itself, and from itself, awareness of the Creator in order to understand where it came from, who created and develops it.

It is like a movie unfolding inside this point. All of us, the entire universe, all the worlds, exist within it. The attitude of the Creator, of the upper light to it, is called the thought of creation.

Therefore, there is only one thought from which the entire universe emerged—the thought of creation. Within it, all our reward, efforts, and all the experiences along the path are already determined. From the side of the Creator, there is no other thought. But we, the created beings, can grasp it only when it separates from Him and begins to act independently.

Within this thought, other additional thoughts appear: the four phases, the Partzufim, the worlds. We study what, in practice, emerges from the black point, which contains in potential the entire thought of the Creator, the entire process originally embedded within it.
[344399]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/19, “There Is None Else Besides Him”

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Question: What is true gratitude? After all, there is gratitude for the reward, for the fact that the Creator gives us gifts.

It must be for all the states that precede all the work and ascent. What is the right gratitude? What should it come from?

Answer: Correct gratitude must come from awareness of one’s initial state and from awareness of the final state, the ascent.

When I see that the Creator has done all this in me, I must imagine how I would thank the person who has rendered me such a service, and how I would thank Him.

Gratitude to the Creator is a very powerful action. So let us try to achieve this.
[344620]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2025, “Continuing the Convention With an Ascent”

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Question: What is a way to check whether I am in intention?

Answer: The intention for what? To the state in which I want to be. How do I imagine it? What is the state that I want to reach afterward? I cannot imagine the end of correction or infinity, as if I am floating there and there is no difference between left and right.

How can I imagine all these states?! Moreover, everything there is qualitative, not quantitative; there are no distances, and so on and so forth. To imagine such things is to completely lose any kind of foothold.

I imagine a state that is desirable from my point of view, and from that I begin to act. That is all. Do not imagine all sorts of abstract pictures of who-knows-what.

Question: So what is the correct action?

Answer: The action is very simple. If I want to get closer to the spiritual, since for me it is the salvation of my whole life, then I must turn to the group so that it increases the importance of entering spirituality for me, and then I will have the strength for it.

For example, today we have a gathering of friends.: “Why are we doing this? How will we influence everyone with this? How will we awaken together and feel a common force? What do we gain in the end? After all, the next day I will fall from this. Is it desirable? Maybe that is exactly what is good since then new, strong Kelim will gather in me? Today I can speak to several thousand people around the world who see me. And not just several thousand, many more! They can change my life.”

You have something to think about during the day. The result depends on what you will think about, not on what you will do. This is what it means to live in the space of intentions. The action may remain the same, but the result is what you want from it.
[344605]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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When we live with the right intention, we feel eternity, life, and fulfillment within it! This does not complicate a person’s material existence; in fact, it is then that he truly feels what life is.

Question: What if I do not yet feel that it is good yet? What should I do?

Answer: As long as you do not feel that this is life, it seems to you like death.

What should you do? Ask the group! You have no choice. Naturally you will never want this on your own. That is what it means to rise from the animal level to the human one, or more precisely, not to the human level, but to the spiritual one! If you live with intention directed toward the upper force, then you discover it, feel it, and dwell in the sensation of eternal life.

This is already a dimension that gives you a completely new attitude toward everything. If your whole life is directed toward the Creator 24 hours a day, then that is it, you are already living in the same space with Him! It is an entirely different mode of existence.

Question: How can I ask the group to give me this kind of attitude?

Answer: Do not ask, demand it from the group! Bring them the awareness of this necessity.

Comment: But I do not have that awareness in me!

My Response: You do not have it in you, but you can influence the group. After all, are you not always pressuring someone? Don’t you want to impose your opinion on others? You do it all the time; that is egoism! Press on them and it will come back to you in the form of conviction.
[344484]
From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Each time a person passes through the four exiles, one corrects the addition of the desire to receive. And today, as in all the previous stages during which the soul of Adam HaRishon went through corrections, the same system operates. The force of Abraham is revealed opposite all the forces that can be corrected, but have not yet been corrected. These are called “the people of Israel.”

It is similar to the first deliverance from Egypt. Only now the clarification will take place until the same desires that are present in the people of Israel gradually become revealed throughout the entire world. But this will happen only after the people of Israel separate themselves, meaning, after all the souls isolate those desires and thoughts within themselves that they can attach to the one, unique, and unified, for there is none else besides Him.

The desires that they are able to isolate can be passed through a correction called Arvut (mutual guarantee), and in this way, they begin to work on correcting thoughts and introducing them to the idea that only one force operates in realuty, not many.

All other thoughts, called “nations of the world,” that are unable to participate in this for now, must undergo total restriction and not be used.

Thus even though it sounds illogical, the more separate the people of Israel are from all the other nations, the better it is for them—in life, in politics, in everything.

This is against the logic that only by supporting one another can everyone live and sustain their existence. But here, when they mix with others, on the contrary, it leads to adopting their worldview, their Aviut (coarseness), and their norms; it causes delays in correction, and once again pulls the category of Israel into the categories of the nations of the world.

This can only be corrected by escaping, as from Egypt, by isolating oneself with thoughts directed solely toward closeness to the Creator and unity with Him.

So the system remains the same as before. One must be merged with the idea that there is none else besides Him, that He is one, unique, and unified, and the good who does goood to both the wicked and the righteous, that is, to good and even bad desires. Whatever they may feel—good or evil—it does not matter: He brings them goodness at every moment and in every specific state.

Therefore it is necessary to separate all the desires with which one can attain adhesion to the Creator. First, the corrections are carried out by the Kabbalists, then other desires join them (these are called “the people of Israel”), and after that the nations of the world. This happens in each person, in the nation, and in the world with all nations.
[344170]
From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 143

What Is the Difference Between the Size of the Desire and the Coarseness of the Desire?

Size and coarseness are the same thing. Both grow. Therefore, it is written, “Whoever is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater than his,” or that after the ruin of the Temple, the taste of intimacy remained for those who serve the Creator. Intimacy is the foundation of all pleasures. That is, those who serve the Creator are those who work on themselves to increase their desire for the Creator, and accordingly, their other desires also grow. They constantly grow against each other until the end of correction. Also, failures are always given to us according to our ability to correct them.

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