Served like a hound, killed like a dog (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec).

Question: What do we serve as dogs?

Answer: “Dog,” I think after all, especially in Polish, is an honorable name.

Comment: But “served like a hound” clearly means “faithfully.” Licked from all sides.

My Response: Yes. But not obsequiously, rather, devotedly. And was killed like a dog, meaning, pushed away, neglected.

Question: And if we touch on your constant theme—egoism in this world, how would you consider “served like a hound, killed like a dog”?

Answer: I don’t know. After all, “killed like a dog”—I do not know. If a person wants to be devoted to the right cause or the right goal, then I don’t believe that he was killed like a dog. Of course he perceives everything that happens to him, but in a different perspective, in a different focus.

Question: If a person serves a real purpose, how would you finish this sentence? What’s happening? What would you replace the word “killed” with?

Answer: “Did everything one could and departed.” Insignificant. As he was born, so he departed. He wanted more, but it didn’t work out.

Question: What good is in the fact that one departs the way he was born?

Answer: This is the routine.

Question: That’s how one should depart?

Answer: Sure. Give everything away! Absolutely!

Question: Don’t cling to anything?

Answer: Never. And that’s good. If you think that that’s how the end should be, this is a state of rest when you are not trying to hold anything, but only to let go.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/7/22

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Question: To what extent did you feel a different perception of yourself before and after feeling the spiritual system in you? How did you perceive this?

Answer: This perception gradually turned into a sensory, explicit one that you live in, and it is extremely pleasant. It allows you to see everything. Your eyes open, your feelings open, and you begin to understand in what world, in what system you exist; there is no difference between the worlds, there is only one world everywhere.

In fact, our world, such as it appears to all people, does not exist. They seem to be in a state of a disconnection, in semi-consciousness, and even that state is practically absent. They do not know where they are, but I do. I kind of woke up, while they crawl around like blind kittens and do not understand where they are.

Question: But before that you read, for example, The Book of Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot. How did you perceive them? Surely it was different.

Answer: I felt the same way as it does to you. I listened without understanding what it was talking about, and I imagined it as if it existed, nobody knows where and how. I did not feel that it was in me, that it was my sensations, my attitude, either to a person or to the Creator. The Creator is what appears between us. Now I clearly feel it.

Question: When you give directions about how to change, does a person have a chance without this perception that you have, to connect to the system?

Answer: From where? What kind of Kelim (vessels) can he do it with? What means of communication does he have? You do not have a modem, how can you do it?!

Question: Is waiting the only thing left to us?

Answer: Do not wait, but act! Solder the circuit, my friend!

Question: Were you not also preparing for this for a long period?

Answer: Of course, for many years. Nothing comes immediately, only gradually.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change Myself” 11/9/13

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Question: Surely you saw your teacher Rabash in all sorts of states, including descents. The person who explained spiritual laws and principles to you, in a state of descent, might be completely opposite, might contradict himself. What was your attitude to this?

Answer: Do not be naive. What contradictory states are you talking about? A descent is a state in which you switch off in order to gain new ballast and rise with it. Of course, such states are very, very sharp. A person disconnects from the world, from his own essence, from the mind. He is plunged into severe internal upheavals, but he passes it all.

I cannot say anything about such conditions. It is impossible to convey them, just as you cannot convey to a child your feelings from a symphony, for example. He does not yet have the appropriate feelings; he has not gone through all sorts of ups, downs, worries, sufferings, or feelings of joy. He is not yet flexible inside; his feelings are not yet expanded.

It is the same with a person in our world compared to a Kabbalist. Therefore we need to work on how to expand people’s feelings and to reveal them, then they will begin to perceive the fulfillment that exists in our world—the force, the field in which we exist and that holds all matter.

This is the result of Kabbalistic or integral education.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Confidentially” 10/12/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 20

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does the Torah have so many strange prohibitions, like eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics?“

First, it is important to understand that the Torah does not describe our world. The Torah is called “sanctity,” which in Hebrew means something different and separate to our world. It explains spiritual laws of the higher spiritual world, and it thus explains what is permitted and forbidden for a person who is in the spiritual world, who attains and perceives it.

We live in a bubble of sorts, the laws of which we have no real understanding. We learn a bit about the laws from the sciences of our world like physics and chemistry, but we are unfamiliar with the real laws.

The Torah, or the wisdom of Kabbalah, describes the spiritual laws that become revealed as the forces of the higher nature. The higher nature is called “the force of bestowal” or an altruistic force, and the nature of our world is the force of reception, or the egoistic force. There is thus one very simple law of the higher nature: that it is forbidden to be an egoist.

In the higher spiritual nature, any action we do for our own benefit is prohibited, while any action that we to for the benefit of others is called a Mitzva (commandment).

About the prohibitions in the Torah, it is written that Hillel told the proselyte that came to him: “Don’t do to others what you hate.” In relation to the Mitzvot, the actions of correction that we do in spirituality, those who are in spiritual attainment, who have revealed the spiritual world, have a clear picture of what is permitted and prohibited. In our world, however, it is not so clear. For instance, a regular person in this world does not see what kind of transgression or harm they commit when they light a candle or a lamp on the Sabbath—nor should they.

In short, in the higher spiritual nature, it is forbidden to use the ego, and it is allowed to use the force of bestowal and love.

Based on the video “What Are the Prohibitions in the Torah?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Taylor

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Cultured Meat – a Sensible Step for Civilization”

A newspaper article that was sent to me last week declared, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its first ever lab-grown meat product as safe for human consumption… The product is a ‘slaughter-free’ chicken, grown from cultured cells, which could be rolled out to the public in a matter of months.” If this development is commercialized successfully, and if the proper conditions for producing safe and healthy meat are maintained, and there is a big “if” around that last condition, then I am all for it.

Today most people live in cities. They rarely see the connection between the food they buy in the supermarket and where it comes from. If the vegetables they eat are grown without soil, or if the meat they buy comes from a factory rather than from an animal that was slaughtered in order to produce it, I do not think they care. In fact, many people would be glad to hear that the chicken meat they bought did not come from a real chicken, and no poultry was slaughtered to make their dinner.

Additionally, considering the cost of raising cattle and poultry, lab-grown meat and chicken will probably be cheaper to make and cheaper to buy. For many people, healthy food is a luxury, so perhaps this will make it slightly more affordable.

Also, there is a clear environmental benefit to producing cultured, lab-grown meat compared to meat that comes from animals. Animals need grazing areas, which not only deplete vegetation, but also destroy natural habitat for wildlife.

In the more remote future, I think naturally grown food will disappear altogether. It might be that people will buy boxes that contain food that cannot be recognized as anything we know today, that will be neither vegetables nor meat, but something else entirely. I have no problem with it, especially since I myself am not a big fan of meat. I am not a vegetarian, but I am also not fascinated with meat. As long as humanity manufactures adequate food, I have no problem with producing it in a lab or a factory, and I do not think we should give it a second thought.

What I do think we should think about is our attitude toward the things around us. We need to learn to treat everything with decency and kindness, and understand that we are dependent on each other on all levels, from the mineral to the plant, to the animal, and to the human level. If we understand how vital we all are for the perfection of our planet, how we complement each other, and how our well-being depends on the well-being of all of Earth’s inhabitants, we will conduct ourselves correctly and there will be plenty of food for everyone.
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By this we can learn why the light of Ein Sof departed from His self, in which we cannot utter any word, and became defined by the name “light of Ein Sof” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” “Inner Observation,” Chapter 1, Item 12).

Atzmuto is directly the inner part of the Creator that relates only to Him and that we are unable to attain. This is the essence of the Creator.

But for us, the Creator is what is manifested in relation to us. Therefore, in Hebrew, the Creator is called Boreh, from the two words “Bo uReh,” come, reveal, and see.

It turns out that there is Atzmuto, which we do not attain; it refers to the essence of the Creator, and there is Boreh, the Creator, i.e., His thought in relation to us, which we attain.

The purpose of the Creator in relation to the created beings is to bring them pleasure. But they can receive this pleasure only according to the equivalence of qualities with Him. The Creator is bestowal, love, and emanation, and we must acquire the same qualities. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about this.

Question: Is that why so many people have been created upon whom we can practice to bestow?

Answer: It is for us to try to reach the qualities of the Creator together.

Question: If this is so important, why is this information concealed?

Answer: It is not concealed; no one wants to know it because we need to bestow, to develop the quality of bestowal and love for the other.

Question: Why did the Creator make it so that no one wants it? He could have done it differently.

Answer: This is not possible to explain at the beginning of the study of Kabbalah, but we will come to this.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/30/22

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Question: Why do we feel some relief after crying?

Answer: In the corporeal world, this is the psychological relief of our animalistic organism from nervous tension. In spirituality, when a person cries, he finds sympathy from the Creator in this. His crying is like raising MAN (prayer). Then he receives help from above and can clothe his requests in some specific correct form.

Question: It is said that in spirituality, crying is purification. What do we need to purify?

Answer: Through it a person begins to acquire the screen and reflected light. He can correctly understand and accept the Creator’s attitude toward him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/6/22

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There are two ways in the development of humanity. One way is terrible and full of suffering. There is constant growth of egoism without something to oppose it, when suffering gradually beats us to death time after time, generation after generation, drives us to war, famine, diseases, all kinds of climatic disasters, into all sorts of troubles!

Any problems may arise here! Suddenly, such a disaster can sweep across the globe that half of the population will die of some kind of infection. We have a lot of all kinds of infectious and genetic problems ahead of us, anything at all. Therefore, we are given the wisdom of Kabbalah so that we do not go through all this, and gradually test our egoism, which would push us forward.

After all, we have to reveal egoism from the smallest egoistic level of our world to the great egoism of the highest spiritual degree. If we move from our current state, the lowest on this scale, then until we reach the 125^th degree, we will have to experience enormous, incredible suffering. At the same time, people will not be able to die, because death for them is a salvation, they will not even be able to help themselves by committing suicide.

We see how easily our world turns into people devouring each other. We have no idea how the upper forces are playing with us, how shaky our civilization is.

We need to show the world how we can advance in a good way and gradually establish  our interactions with the help of the upper force. People do not believe that this is possible because there is no way to attract the upper force into their arsenal. Only we have it. We are establishing this contact because we are studying Kabbalah, which passes through us, through me.

The group receives and will receive through me, even if I am not physically there. This connection does not disappear anywhere, it stays no matter what. In the same way, all other Kabbalists are the connecting links, the chain, to the upper light.

Therefore, we need to give this opportunity to people. It is like we are saying to a person: “Take it! Look, I have a tube through which the upper force, the upper light descends. You can take it, correct yourself and behave in the best way in this life, in this world. This will give you spiritual energy, a sense of where you live, why, how, and for what. You will be able to adjust your life correctly.

Now, from this moment on, you will be developing in our world without suffering, in attainment of the eternal good pleasures of the upper world. You will attain the entire universe, the Creator, such levels and such dimensions that you cannot even imagine. This is not Hollywood with its fantastic pictures. You will be a person standing in the middle of the universe, in the middle of all the worlds.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Two Ways of Development of Humanity” 10/19/13

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