Entries in the 'Creator' Category

In the Beginning G-d Created the Heavens and the Earth

Get Through the Night, and Welcome the DawnA question I received: “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Why? What was the motive? What was the plan? How could the Creator make this world without thinking through all the consequences!? This is proven by the story of the flood where G-d said “I will blot out man whom I have created… for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:7) – as if He didn’t know this was going to happen.

My Answer: There are only two things in existence: the creation – the will to receive Light, and the Creator – the Light, the will to give pleasure. As long as the creation is equivalent to the Light and wishes to receive “for His sake,” in order to please Him – it receives the Light. And if the creation does not desire to act “for the sake of Creator,” then it is opposite to Him, because He desires to please the creation. Then the creation does not feel Him or His Light, but instead feels complete darkness, a black copy of the Light – our world.

“In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth” means that He created the qualities of bestowal and reception. What for? In order for man to intermix these qualities within and make a free choice about which of them to use: egoism or altruism. You can read the rest in my books (available for free download).

Related Material:
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The Path of Kabbalah – Chapter 2.1 “The Purpose of Creation”
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Confidence

Dr. Michael LaitmanHow can we be confident if we don’t determine anything in our lives, live in the moment, and have no idea of what is to come in the next? Only the revelation of the Creator and fulfillment by His light can give us the feeling of being one with the universe, and the understanding of the cause (the beginning), the process (our lives), and the goal (the end) of our personal lives and of everything that exists.

For this reason, only to the degree that we adhere to the Creator do we acquire the feeling of confidence, because we gain qualities and forces that are above nature and thereby connect to the Upper Governance.

Feelings of uncertainty, confusion and anxiety will continue to grow in order to force us to reach the goal and obtain true confidence!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Deals Only With the Actual Attainment of the Creator
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There’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate

thin lineNews Report (from The Independent): In an article called “Scientists prove it really is a thin line between love and hate,” Steve Connor, The Independent’s science editor, reports: “Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits in the brain responsible for it are the same as those that are used during the feeling of romantic love – although love and hate appear to be polar opposites … the ‘hate circuit’ shares something in common with the love circuit.”

My Comment: According to Kabbalah, the difference between love and hate lies only in the aim of one’s intention: “toward oneself” or “away from oneself.” Furthermore, if we begin doing systematic work to acquire the feeling of love, then we will feel that we “come out of ourselves.” There – “outside of ourselves” – we will feel a completely different flow of time, space and perception, to the point that we will cease perceiving ourselves, and replace “self” with “others.” By transferring the center of perception from “inside of us” to “outside of us,” we will feel the Upper World, the Creator. We will feel this precisely in the desires of others!

Question: What is the spiritual root of unrequited love?

My Answer: There is no such thing as unrequited love in spirituality! It exists only in our world, when one’s egoism doesn’t feel that it could be fulfilled by one’s partner. It’s because our egos distance us from one another, and everything is built upon using one another.

However, when there is a spiritual connection, then everything is built upon bestowal and complementing one another. To the degree we are corrected, this definitely happens.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Love Is Providing Others With the Means to Fulfill Their Point in the Heart
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Lecture: Unconditional Love

All the Pictures We See Are Formed Inside Our Brains

Our "I" Is Outside of Us!Two questions I received on perception and dreams:

Question: We don’t perceive actual sounds because actual sounds are filtered by our ears and the brain receives only a part of the information – the part that the brain can perceive. Does the Creator’s Light enter the soul in the same way? In other words, is it the portion of the Light that our soul can receive without being harmed?

My Answer: Baal HaSulam explains in the “Preface to the Book of Zohar” that nothing enters our brain; everything is formed within it. It only seems to us that the things we perceive are outside of us. In reality, the only thing outside of us is the simple Light. All that we perceive is a picture that our brain depicts on the background of the white Light.

The brain depicts pictures out of Reshimo (informational data) that constantly surface, one after another, from the archive of our memory and enter our consciousness. Thus, our consciousness plays pictures and we perceive them as if they are happening outside of us.

Why does this matter? Because you can decide which movie will be played inside you! The science of Kabbalah allows a person to change the movies and even to be the director, and then the whole world will be your actors. For more on this, see the article “Preface to the Book of Zohar.”

Question: Where do dreams come from? How are they made inside people’s heads?

My Answer: When we are freed from the daytime experiences and the rigid boundaries of reality, when our mind is cleansed and prepares for new work, then the brain’s wandering currents create all sorts of strange and random pictures. This happens during the process of sorting and reloading the data inside the brain. It’s pure physiology!

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Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (“Pticha”) – Item 1


Preface to the Science of Kabbalah (“Pticha”) – Item 1, summary:

1. The Creator’s plan is to create the creatures in order to delight them. This is why He created the will to receive pleasure – the pleasure that He wishes to bestow. This desire is the creation that was created.

The Creator’s desire to fulfill is infinite, and therefore the desire to enjoy He created is also infinite.

The pleasure (the Light) creates a matching desire (Kli or vessel) for itself. Hence they are completely interconnected from the very beginning. Nevertheless, the pleasure is primary, and the desire it created is secondary. The pleasure determines the desire, although both stem from the Creator.

The Light exists in the Creator from the very beginning, whereas the will to receive (pleasure) He created is something essentially new, which never existed before. That’s because the only desire the Creator has is to love and bestow.

Desire is the essence of the creation, its matter. All of the various creatures originate from it; they are different “portions” of the desire. All the events happening to them are changes in their desires.

Everything that the desires or creatures have, everything that fulfills their desires, is Light or pleasure which comes directly from the Creator.

Therefore, everything that exists is comprised of the Light and the Kli, and comes from the Creator. It either comes directly – as Light, or indirectly – as the desire, which is absent in the Creator, but was created by Him for delighting the creatures.

Related Material:
Download PDF version of Pticha

It’s Time to Make a New Movie About the Global Crisis

New MovieA question I received: Are you still collaborating with the scientists who were in the film, “Ups and Downs in San Francisco”? The film’s ending was very promising for future collaboration. I’ve also found another community of scientists on the Internet. Perhaps you’d be interested in working with them as well?

My Answer: Although scientists are revealing the crisis (and you don’t have to be a scientist to see it), mankind as a whole – scientists included – do not yet understand the nature of the crisis nor its consequences. They don’t understand that our global connection has made us completely different from what we were before. We are now a unified community. And Nature (or the Creator) regards us completely differently as well: today He demands that we be equivalent to Him; He demands unity!

Since people don’t realize this yet, conventional science continues to receive funding, which means that the old science continues. If something will happen to make people pause and reflect, then it’ll spell the end of the funding. This is why I continue to conduct TV interviews with scientists in my studio, but I no longer look for opportunities to give lectures in their midst.

I think that it’s time to make a new movie about the crisis and its solution, similar to “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” – but this time, about the global, human crisis of our civilization, which includes small crises such as the financial and social ones.

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The Reason for the Failure

The Special Power of KabbalahI see that the main reason for the failure to correct man’s nature is people’s neglect of the Creator’s Light, both in their hearts and minds. All the people turn only to the observance of simpleminded actions, as though it were possible to carry out the commandments only with the body, without the soul.
Rav Kook, Letters, Vol. 1, pages 160-161

Friends, Let’s Join Hands!

Friends, let’s join hands
So each of us won’t perish on his own:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn_Pa4iuxvU]

We are living in a global, interconnected world, where everyone depends on everyone, and on “the flap of a butterfly’s wings” in a “small village.” We have to join hands!

We have to make the world round, instead of polar. We have to become friends and relatives, instead of enemies and competitors.

We have to follow the law of Nature or the Creator – “Love they neighbor as thyself.”

We must only decide that there is no other way to live, and desire to live in this new world. Then – from above – we will receive the mind and forces to do this. This is what Kabbalists have done for centuries.

If we don’t, then the crises will grow worse, and through them the Creator or Nature will force us to observe His laws of Globality, Harmony, Unity, and Adhesion with Him.

The Source of Women’s Loneliness

sourceThe loneliness a woman feels is a unique natural phenomenon. Its source are the Creator’s words addressed to the woman in the Torah: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” In what sense will he rule over her? Precisely because a woman will feel drawn toward a family, kids, a husband and a home. There are few women in our world who feel that these desires are fulfilled.

Why did the Creator make these aspirations so deeply rooted, taking up a woman’s entire world? It was done for the purpose of evoking such a connection with her husband that would reveal the Creator between them, as it is written: “Husband and wife, and Shechina (the Creator’s revelation) between them.” It’s in order for the Creator to become revealed to people. Only then will loneliness disappear from the world.

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Relationships

Bringing the Alienated Souls Closer to the Creator is Not a Vice

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: I think that the main problem that people have with you is that you teach Kabbalah to everyone, even secular people and non-Jews.

My Answer: Here’s a quote about this by the Rabbi from Breslav in Likutei Yedut Meshulash, chapter “Emet Ve Tzedek”:

“In every generation there is judgment over the righteous. This argument is mostly about the righteous who draw closer the souls that are most alienated from the Creator, because the quality of opposition is revealed on the scale of the souls and jealousy arises in the heart of the world. Sometimes jealousy arises in the hearts of the sages, forcing them to contradict those who are righteous who bring the souls so close that it seems to them that their actions are wrong. This happens again and again, and continues, and it started back when the tribes of Israel argued with Joseph.”

So I’m not worried, and I suggest you relax as well!

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Article: “Who am I?”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
Baal Hasulam Article: “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”