Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is the path to truth difficult? Is it necessary to seek the truth? Why?“

Finally in this dull, secluded village to find him gone. In the ramshackle hut by the fire sat true.
He had never seen a more old and ugly women.
– You – Really?
Old, wrinkled hag nodded solemnly.
– Tell me, I have to tell the world? What kind of message to convey?
Old woman spat into the fire and said:
– Tell them that I am young and beautiful! – Robert Tompkins, “In Search of Truth.”

This allegory states that we seek the truth, and if it is the truth, it can often appear as an old hag, while if it is a lie, then it seems beautiful. And so the question emerges: is it really necessary to seek the truth?

Yes, we need to seek and strive for the truth. The truth could indeed be very ugly, but it is the sole higher truth, above everything, and this makes it unique and worthwhile.

Can the truth be beautiful? If we see it as such, then it is a sign of blurry vision on our behalf, that we cannot see normally and we simply sell ourselves to it.

When, then, do we feel the truth? In order to feel the truth, we need to rise above and detach from our inborn egoistic qualities, which make us wish to enjoy for self-benefit at the expense of others and nature. We can then draw closer to the truth, discover it, and what we find would be our only truth.

Rising above our inborn egoistic qualities means rising above our ideas of ugly and beautiful, and where we will evaluate what we find enjoyable and unenjoyable according to completely different values.

In our egoistic desires, “enjoyable” is that which momentary fills us with pleasure for self-benefit alone, and “unenjoyable” is when we cannot receive the pleasure that we wish for ourselves. The different values that we can discover above our egoistic desires are the contrary: that “enjoyable” becomes the ability to give contentment to others and nature, and “unenjoyable” is that we do not or cannot give contentment to others and nature.

How, then, can we accept the truth?

We need to rise above ourselves in order to view the world from a higher level. We then need to understand what we seek, where we are and where this truth we seek should be.

Likewise, we require much courage to seek and not deviate from the path to truth. According to our egoistic nature, we run away from such a search, and we thus need to feel a certain compulsion in order to embark on the path of truth, and to stay directed at it.

And what truth do we seek?

It is the meaning of life.

We can discover, achieve, reveal, understand, evaluate and feel the meaning of life if we rise above ourselves.

What does it mean, to “rise above ourselves”? It means first that we stop evaluating everything based on our personal tastes and understandings, the myriad evaluative systems we have in our egoistic intellect and sensation.

The difficulty in achieving the truth is thus due to the need to rise above our very selves, the “I” of the person. If we fail to do so, then we will always be under the thumb of our egoistic desires, which feed us with constant lies and which hold us at an infinite distance from the truth.

Yet despite the incredible difficulty in attaining the truth, more and more people feel an attraction to it and are willing to undergo various searches and efforts in order to find it. We have to be prepared for the fact that the truth is an old ugly hag though, according to the above allegory. And we can agree to that precisely because it is the truth.
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Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur on July 17, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Felons of Israel”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “General Preface”

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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic, “Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement”

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Selected Highlights

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Today, new circumstances are being revealed to the world, which we must study. And we can’t because we’re made of the wrong stuff, the wrong system, and we don’t understand it. We look and don’t know what to do with it; we don’t understand the new forces and new connections.

We are shown like s a primitive man, some kind of electronic device. I can smell it, taste it on my teeth, and yet what the other is like inside, I don’t understand because here there is a completely different system, different connections, and different principles. They are not in me!

I am not adequate to the circumstance that arises in front of me today! It requires that I have the properties of bestowal, integral and global relationships, and mutual guarantee.

There is no such thing! It is all just being born. Just as I am gradually developing a method of explaining these circumstances, it is still far from the simplicity that I would like to see in it and from the kind and form when I can go out to everyone and say so, that everything becomes clear to everyone at once. I feel these birth pains in myself.

But that is how it is born! And if we go toward this mutually, each from his side, then in the end we will meet quickly.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You Didn’t Say Something” 9/3/11

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Until now, a person has been undergoing internal transformations instinctively. Nature has been changing us, and we have been changing the world according to our needs. Today we are the ones who must change ourselves corresponding to the world that appears in front of us.

We have entered the direct line. Now, nature no longer changes us from the inside. It itself is beginning to change in front of us, which has never happened before. And we have to adapt to it and study it. This means we have to desire a revelation of the Creator (the Creator is nature) in order to become similar to Him or to nature, either one, it does not matter.

Comment: For me, this method makes sense. I understand that inner changes occur precisely because one studies the wisdom of Kabbalah. However, I hear that some of your students and people who are not involved in the study constantly ask “What should I do?”

You do not take the method of Kabbalah, but simply say that one has to change himself. People ask you “How can we change?” But it seems you try to divert attention from this.

My Response: No! You are the ones who do not hear what I say because your egoism does not want to hear that you have to change.

Comment: But the changes take place when one studies Kabbalah, they do not simply happen on their own.

My Response: It is not necessarily so. They occur in those who have a point in the heart. Those who do not have the point in the heart do not have to study Kabbalah at all.

In order to change, 99% of humanity has to do certain actions. They have to create an appropriate environment that will constantly tell them that they have to be mutually connected, to compromise, and to unite because this is the law of nature, that global law that today begins to manifest to a greater degree within human society.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You Didn’t Say Something” 9/3/11

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I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster (Warren Buffet).

Question: Do you agree with this?

Answer: This is true, of course.

Question: Must one strive to be loved? Is this the right direction?

Answer: A man would like to be loved; at least to finish with such a result is good.

Comment: But we are very often forced to take some unpopular steps.

My Response: We are in a completely opposite world.

Comment: Where no one loves anyone.

My Response: Of course. How can we even express such ideas here as “in order to be loved.”

Question: And if I do everything for this? Here he is, a billionaire; he donates, he wants to be loved, and he comes to this thought. Is this the right thing for these people to do?

Answer: No, he will not correct the world in this way. All his actions will again turn into egoistic ones and they will not lead people anywhere.

Question: So when you say “to be loved,” you mean something different from what he does?

Answer: Of course.

Question: So what do you mean?

Answer: I cannot advise him on anything because it is useless.

Question: He no longer needs it, so advise us. What does it mean to live like this, to be remembered, and to be loved? What does a person need?

Answer: It is only necessary to engage in education. Only education! Otherwise, nothing will happen in the world.

Question: So you claim that the most respected job for a man is to be an educator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How does he educate people then?

Answer: He must explain to them in every possible way what the purpose of creation is, that only in realization of the plan of creation can a person achieve happiness.

Question: What do you mean by the purpose of creation? Should he also attain this purpose of creation?

Answer: The educator himself must attain it and then convey to people that when a person himself does good to others, he fills and enjoys himself.

Question: Let us delve deeper then if possible. What do you mean by good?

Answer: By good I mean filling another person with what he desires.

Comment: But he has a lot of different desires.

My Response: No! This already depends on education, fill him with the right kind of education so that he would require a normal minimum filling.

Question: This needs to be clarified. A person needs to be clarified in such a way that he lives on such a normal filling and does not require something big, billions of dollars, and so on?

Answer: And feels that if other people can be led to this, then this will be the complete happiness.

Question: That is, in order that people live, rejoice in the necessities that they have, and do not demand anything more beyond that? Is this what you call a correct education?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you not want to move on, to say something higher?

Answer: When I cut bread, I cut it into slices. So this is the first slice.

Comment: Then let us stop at the first slice
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/7/23

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Question: How is the memory of past states of ascent and descent useful to us, and how do we use it correctly?

Answer: We have experience, and therefore it is good that we do not forget past states. We can apply them to present states and anticipate future ones. This is how we learn.

Question: How is the Creator’s humility manifested?

Answer: By the fact that everything comes from Him, but He conceals Himself.

Question: Is it possible to be in constant striving for faith above reason?

Answer: You cannot be in it all the time, but you should strive for it every time you have such an opportunity.

Question: How can we direct our connection to unity with the Creator?

Answer: Everyone should turn together from every heart to the Creator, and you need nothing else.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/23, “The Need for the Creator’s Salvation”

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The third matter is the restriction and the screen placed on this vessel of reception, which is phase four, in return for which new vessels of reception were made in the ten Sefirot, called reflected light (Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 17). 

Baal HaSulam writes that the third fundamental concept of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the restriction (Tzimtzum) and the screen (Masach).

The fact is that when the light descends from above downward, it must reduce itself at each degree in order to give the lower ones that exist at each degree the opportunity to find themselves. Therefore, the light restricts itself, i.e., it constantly decreases as it descends from above downward along the 625 degrees of the worlds.

In order for the lower ones to be able to attain the light, they must acquire the screen, which is a method of being similar to the light. At the same time, the lower ones, not wanting to receive the upper light, make a restriction on themselves because they want to use it only for bestowal, just like the Creator.

To the extent that the created beings can receive the upper light for the sake of bestowal, like a guest and a host, they understand each other, reveal themselves to each other, and exist in a mutual connection.

In other words, there is the Creator and creation. Some kind of pleasure is emanated from the Creator. But this system, called the Creator or the upper force conceals these pleasures from the lower ones, so that we, the created beings, can consciously and independently reach these states. This is what the worlds are made for.

The screen is an anti-egoistic quality or a force that allows us to fulfill the fundamental law of the universe—the equivalence of qualities. Because of the screen, we make restrictions on receiving pleasure for our own sake, and thus we coincide by our qualities with the upper system.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23

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In our world, we feel independent because we do not have a feeling of connection with the force that is shining from above and in relation to which everything is very simply built. Everyone has his own position relative to it and at every moment wants to change his state. As a result, he changes it according to the general scheme. That is, everything exists according to such a definite, clear, rigid order that there is no need to calculate anything in advance or do anything.

The calculation is only relative to the person: how well does he want to move forward in his subjective feelings or not, and nothing more. Everything is very simple.

Everything comes only from sensations. First comes the desire and then the awareness of what you feel in it. This desire may be such that you do not feel anything in it yet. Then some sensations appear.

Although the desire already has some kind of fulfillment, some kind of sensory information, you may not feel it yet, it is below the threshold of your sensitivity. Then you begin to feel it as pleasant or unpleasant, and then realize: is it pleasant or not, what are the causal consequences, and so on.

That is, awareness is born much later than sensation. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about the way to attain, reveal, and begin to feel everything, and then, in accordance with this, you will begin to understand.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World Through the Eyes of the Creator” 10/11/11

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