Andrey writes:

Michael, there is a certain formula: We will never receive what we want until we are grateful for what we have. How do we give thanks for troubles, pain, and suffering? This is what I have now.

Comment:  There are a lot of letters like his.

My Response: Yes, but we must understand that, in general, all of this goes into our piggy bank. The suffering itself and what we are going through, even if we cannot be grateful for it, is still considered a positive for us.

Question: Is it possible to live with this and think that it is necessary to go through these sufferings? This is what I get, and I have to go through it. Is such annulment before the sufferings taken into account?

Answer: The fact is that it depends on the person. It depends on me whether I suffer or not, how many cases, surgeries, and health problems I have endured in my life. But this is life.

Question: Can we say that life is a chain of suffering that one feels or does not feel, but it is still a chain of suffering?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: If you look at the history of humanity, it is a continuous chain of suffering. You say that somehow it all falls into a general piggy bank somewhere. What do I receive from it? This is Andrey’s and everyone else’s question.

Answer: What do you get out of it? What if you do not get anything? Have you suffered in vain?

Comment: That is right! Then there really is suffering. I have to get something out of this; I have to. Someone is told: “You will have a happy life in the next world.” Someone else is told: “Never mind, you will be purified through this.”

My Response: Is it worth making such a calculation? Personally, I try not to do this so that I do not have requests and complaints to the Creator regarding what I will get from this: “Well, now let us make a calculation of how much You owe me.”

Comment: “I was suffering; now You pay me.”

My Response: Yes, there is no such thing.

Comment: Very often, when a person looks back, he says that what I went through was right, or it was not in vain. This calculation that we make afterward, does it turn out to be correct? That all the suffering I went through was not in vain.

My Response: Yes. I do not think that we are coming to a state where we still condemn the Creator.

Question: Even though it sounds here and there, do you still think that we justify Him?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How does He do everything so interestingly? He takes a person through great suffering, and then the person says: “I did not go through them in vain.” How does He show it to us?

Answer: The fact is that everyone suffers, any part of nature: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and even more so humans.

Absolutely everyone suffers! Even the pleasure they experience just covers up a little bit of the previous suffering.

Question: Is it correct to say that I want to go through this life full of suffering, but to suffer as little as possible? Is this the correct formula?

Answer: You can say that too, although you do not have to say it; it does not matter. But according to your nature, you cannot desire suffering.

Question: But is it somehow embedded in my path? You say: “The root of my soul…” Do I one way or another have to go through them?

Answer: Yes.

Question: If I live with the fact that I have to go through them, does it make my life easier? Is that right?

Answer: Yes.
[324538]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/18/23

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Question: How should we work with fear when we feel the presence of the Creator and His greatness makes us afraid of His actions?

Answer: There is no need to be afraid of the Creator. We need to check whether we are moving away from the right path, from the connection between us and the Creator, and ask Him to help us.

In order to be adhered to the Creator all day, you need to read more, listen, and discuss this topic with your friends.
[325347]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “My Adversaries Curse Me All the Day”

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Question: Rabash writes that we are always trying to escape from the work that the Creator has assigned to us. What kind of work am I trying to escape from and what should I do to ensure that I agree to it?

Answer: This is work in connection with friends, with all those who are outside the upper world. But you are ready to be connected with them and to provide them with everything that is missing for their elevation.

Comment: But I am always in tension, which makes me think about my friends and care for them. This internal pressure keeps pushing me away. I do not want to be in it all the time.

My Response: You have to get used to it.
[325243]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is ‘Eating Their Fruits in This World and Keeping the Principal for the Next World’, in the Work?”

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Question: What does every place where there is a lack becomes a place of faith mean?

Answer: When a person lacks something and does not know how to achieve it, he turns to faith. In this case, a desire emerges inside him that develops to the level of similarity with the Creator.

Question: How is this lack formed in us? We unite in the ten, we strive for perfection, and it appears that our Kelim are growing all the time. How does this happen?

Answer: It happens under the influence of the upper light that affects us and expands our Kelim.

Question: I understand that at the time of the lesson I attract a miraculous property (Segula) that corrects me, but here I do not. How to find this indicator?

Answer: This is an internal feeling. There is no other way.

We need to rise spiritually to a level where we attract desires and the light that magnifies these desires, to the point where we can feel the entire universe within us.
[325378]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Rewarded—I Will Hasten It”

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Question: Our spiritual environment includes friends representing very different cultures and traditions. How do we learn to appreciate and accept all the richness and diversity correctly?

Answer: We are absolutely not interested in these cultures and traditions. Our interest lies solely in connection to become one person with one heart. That is what we want to feel above everything else without considering anything else.

Question: Can we examine the goals of each person at our meetings?

Answer: No, we must select one common goal that is most relevant for us today and pray for it.

Question: Why did the Creator give us the right environment and, in addition, the illusion of this world? What does He want?

Answer: He wants you to identify your spiritual desires, refine them within yourself, and pray for the Creator to answer them.
[325401]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Raising Oneself”

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Question: When we talk about a friend’s flaws, do we mean his internal qualities or some external actions? For example, we made a commitment to come to the lesson on time, but my friend does not come, and of course, I see this. Should I justify this flaw?

Answer: In fact, Kabbalists say that everything that I see as wrong in others is only because it is in me. That is, I see in another person a reflection of my bad qualities.

Comment: Yes, but…

My Response: Your reaction is entirely justified, but this is generally true. A corrected person will never see bad qualities in anything or anywhere, even when facing the most disgusting and blatant egoistic properties! Because he does not resemble these properties.

Question: Let us say you and I are in the same group. Do you notice that I am absent from the morning lesson? Do you make excuses for me? Do you think it is your fault that I did not attend the lesson?

Answer: Yes, I am guilty too.

Question: Do you have any complaints against me?

Answer: No. Only regarding myself. But here we are talking about a very high level.

Question: Until we have reached this high level, how should we react when we see damage caused to the group by a friend? Does everyone have to justify?

Answer: You must correct yourself until you see the whole world corrected.

Question: If I alone see some flaw in a friend, I can still say that it is in me, but when all the friends see this flaw, this is an entirely different state. Right?

Answer: It does not matter. We must reach a state where we see the world corrected, and only the Creator manifests there. Regarding this state, we see ourselves as somehow still uncorrected. Therefore, there is no such condition that could not be justified in our world.
[324593]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 1/16/24

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Man’s Blessing Is the Blessing of the Sons, in the Work?”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 3, Part 10, Item 6

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From My Flesh I shall See God”

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Selected Highlights

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Question: A student asked: “Teacher, how can I learn to forgive?” The teacher replied: “Learn not to be offended.”

Do you still need to learn to forgive or learn not to be offended?

Answer: Do not be offended.

Question: Why? Can you explain it to me?

Answer: We need to understand other people and agree with them in advance that offense is all a pure product of our egoism.

Question: If I learn to forgive, then do I learn to forgive him? And if I learn not to be offended, is it me who learns not to be offended? Is there work with my “I” here?

Answer: Yes, sure.

Question: What do I do with it if I am not offended even though I have been very offended?

Answer: I believe that this is in the order of human nature; therefore, I do not feel justified in rising up against it.

Question: Is it human nature to offend? If I have been offended, I must say, “This is human nature”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: At the same time, should I say this is my nature, too?

Answer: In general, yes, but it is not necessary.

Question: Is it possible not to be offended when you, your “I,” are crushed and spoiled?

Answer: It comes with age that you begin to feel and understand that this is human nature, there is no point in being offended. We are talking beyond 70 years of age. And before that, you are still a child.
[325003]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/18/23

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“Not all who want to take the Lord may come and take. This is why we need the righteous of the generation. By adhering to a real teacher, whose desire is only to bestow, and then one should do things that his teacher likes, meaning hate what his teacher hates and love what his teacher loves, then he can learn Torah that will not be a potion of death (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 245, “Prior to the Creation of the Newborn”).

Question: What does it mean to bring contentment to the teacher, and how does this manifest itself in the ten?

Answer: The teacher requires only one thing from you—to approach the Creator through the ten all the time. That is all. Do you want to be liked? Do this action, nothing else is needed.
[325154]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Prior to the Creation of the Newborn”

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