Two questions I received on the connection between the corporeal and spiritual worlds:

Question: When a person starts developing spiritually, he loses interest in matters of this world, including university studies. I understand that it’s important to combine both worlds, but I don’t feel the connection between spiritual development and academic development. It’s written that the source of suffering is the lack of connection between the different parts of creation. How can I create this connection within myself, between the spiritual calling I am discovering and my responsibility as a student? How can I relate my academic studies to the goal of creation? Am I supposed to find the answer on my own, and see my confusion as just a part of my development?

My Answer: That’s right. Your confusion is part of your development. My practical advice for you is, in your thoughts, create an empty section in your mind that you will use to think about your academic studies, and with the rest of your mind, think about spirituality. Don’t mix one world with the other, and progress simultaneously in both. Good luck!

Question: How do I separate everyday life from the spiritual life?

My Answer: Other than studying Kabbalah in your free time, you shouldn’t change anything in your life. To avoid confusing Kabbalah, the study about “that” world, with life in “this” world, try thinking about Kabbalah with “one part of your mind,” and about our world with another part. Don’t appear different from other people in any way, or from the way you were in the past, and don’t talk about Kabbalah with anyone other than the people you study with. Study Rabash’s articles on the group (ed. see below) and bring them to realization. The most important thing is to be present (virtually) at least in a part of our daily lessons (see below).

Lessons by Michael Laitman:
Daily Kabbalah Lessons given by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD are broadcast live on Kabbalah TV: 3:20am until 6:00am Israel (GMT+2) time, Sunday to Friday, [Time Zone Converter], and are archived on the Kabbalah Media Archive.

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Two questions I received on one’s friends and group in the spiritual path:

Question: Should a person be wary even of his friends on the spiritual path? That is to say, it’s possible that even in the group where you study, not everyone is following the true path. And in general, can one deviate from the true path while being in a group?

My Answer: Once you decide to be a part of the group, you must see your friends in the group as great and infallible. Otherwise, how would you be able to receive the realization of the greatness of the goal and your own weakness? If you follow Rabash’s recommendations on the group (ed. see the related material below), you can be certain that you will reach the goal.

Question: One receives the fuel to progress along the spiritual path from one’s environment (the group). So if a person has a lot of money, can he hire people who don’t have a point in the heart to advertise the importance of bestowal, love for the neighbor, and the importance of attaining adhesion with the Creator through loving one’s neighbor?

My Answer: Yes. For example, one can hire musicians to inspire him with Baal HaSulam’s music. Or he can hire a large group of people who will act out a corrected society for him. However, such an act can only be used to rise out of a descent. When it comes to the quality of bestowal, one can adapt it only among people similar to him, as it is written: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” where your neighbor is someone who is close to you according to your desires and goal.

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A question I received: I take my hat off to you Professor! You’re the most out-of-the-ordinary individual. A while ago, I already understood that it’s impossible to predict your answers, but never did I expect to hear Kabbalistic rap… Professor, I admit that you are an unsurpassable genius. Can you reveal your secret to your eternal youth and lively spirits? How do you manage to do it?

My Answer: It’s very simple Watson! The fact is that Kabbalah deals with, or one who studies Kabbalah deals with, the soul. And this is the only organ we have that doesn’t age or die. The more you engage in it, the younger you become. And this happens to such an extent that you even start feeling a little uneasy: you look and act like a kid while everyone around you is so important, full of Torah, solid individuals who are carrying the weight of the commandments… You, however, remain as a child, as it is written, “It’s better to be a smart and weak boy than an old and powerful king” (Tov Yeled Mizken ve Hacham mi Melech Zaken uKsil). It means that the love and bestowal born in a person from his entrance to spirituality are still weak, but they’re better than the old, powerful egoism that kills itself.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Cracking the Happiness Code
Booklet: Spirit and Body
Booklet: The Structure of the Soul

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Two questions I received on “Who is the Creator?” and “Who am I?”:

Question: On the one hand it says that the Creator is a quality – the quality of bestowal, which the person needs to attain, and which is within the person. But on the other hand, the Creator is always described as something outside of me, someone I must pray to. He’s described as an essence that is separate from me, as a force that controls everything. So who is the Creator? Is He inside me or outside?

My Answer: The Creator is the innermost part of you, but as long as you don’t perceive Him this way, you imagine everything to be outside of you, including Him.

Question: In the morning we say: “Lord, the soul that you have given me is pure… You have breathed it into me… and you will return it to me in the future…” My question is: Who or what is this “I,” “inside of me,” “within me,” etc., that this blessing speaks about? According to the blessing, if the soul is inside this “I,” then who am “I”?

My Answer: You are a desire, an aspiration toward the Creator. That is what the soul is. Everything else is desires needing connection to this aspiration, and you are the one who needs to make such a connection. It is possible to the extent that you feel the Creator’s importance. However, you need to first correctly define who the Creator is: the property of bestowal and love for others.

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today Article: Between Creator and Creature
Kabbalah Today Article: Making Room for the Creator
Article: Who am I?
Baal HaSulam Article: Body and Soul

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Two questions I received on astrology’s connection to Kabbalah, and whether there is life on other planets:

Question: I have been engaged in astrology for twenty years now, and since 1998 I have also been studying Kabbalistic psychology, which is based on the law: “Something born at a given moment receives the properties of that moment.” Why don’t you give lessons on this topic?

My Answer: Because there is no connection between astrology and Kabbalah, even though many try to pass Kabbalah off as being part of astrology. The Torah strictly states: “Don’t do magic and fortunetelling,” because they distract a person from correction, pointing him to false paths and ways to “get around” the Upper Governance.

The only way we can influence our destiny is by influencing the Upper Light, and we influence the Upper Light to the degree that we aspire to become similar to It, by aspiring toward love and bestowal. If this is our true aspiration, the Upper Light descends upon us, corrects us, and changes our state. The Supernal, with the exception of the person, is in a state of absolute rest, and only our positive changes can change our destiny. This is why fortunetelling is forbidden.

Predictions can partially come true, if a person does not do anything to become corrected, because then, such a person is under the influence of nature’s negative reactions to his behavior (i.e. his lack of independent correction) on the path of Beito (lit. in due time), and this path can be predicted. However, when we intervene with the Upper Governance by correcting ourselves, then there is no way to predict the future, since it changes depending on us, along the path of Achishena (lit. “I will hasten it”). The harm done by fortunetelling is twofold:
1. the predictions are incorrect, and
2. they distract people from correction.

As such, there is a corresponding reaction from above: correction, or twice the suffering!

Question: Is there human or animal life on other planets? If not, then how and based on what does Kabbalah explain this?

My Answer: Everything stated in Kabbalah is based on received data. Read some materials on the attainment of reality. If we don’t attain something, we don’t know it. So far, in none of our earthly or spiritual sensations senses (the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of attainment) have we attained anything rational, existing either in our world or the spiritual world, besides ourselves. (As for angels, they are particular forces of the soul and the Creator).

Related Material:
Kabbalah Today‘s Kabbalah User Manual
Kabbalah Today Article: What Is (and Is Not) Kabbalah?
10 Myths About Kabbalah
Chapter 7 from the Book The Kabbalah Experience: Beliefs, Mysticism and the Supernatural

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A question I received: Why are there still so many conflicts between representatives of different ethnic and religious groups? Sometimes even the official religious communities support these aggressive views and actions. What is it about people that makes them want to practice superiority over other nations and ethnic groups, and to do all this in the name of the Almighty?

My Answer: Religions were created after Kabbalah became concealed, by people who fell into egoism. These people took Kabbalistic ideals and passed them off as their own. They couldn’t, however, abide by these ideals, and as such, they could only instruct others to uphold them by threatening them with punishment in the world to come.

Because of how egoism provokes mutual hatred in people, all religions mutually hate one another, but they conceal their hatred, and on the surface, summon the world to peace and love. However, they’ve never had an aspiration for peace and love, and if it were in their power to do so, we would still be destroying each other in religious wars, following their call to make them stronger, like we’ve done in the past.

Related Posts:
The Solution – Excerpts from the Writings of the Last Generation by Baal HaSulam
The Cracks in the Floor of Supposition, and the Firm Base of Attainment
What Is Religion?
Religions are Expressions of Culture, Not Absolute Higher Knowledge
More Muslims than Catholics
The Solution to the Clash of Civilizations

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(A Joyous) News Story: Trust Drug May Cure Social Phobia

“A nasal spray which increases our trust for strangers is showing promise as a treatment for social phobia, say scientists from Zurich University.

They found that people who inhaled the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin continued to trust strangers with their money – even after they were betrayed.

Brain scans showed the hormone lowered activity in the amygdala – a region which is overactive in social phobics.

Drug trials are under way and early signs are promising say the scientists.

Nicknamed the ‘cuddle chemical,’ oxytocin is a naturally produced hormone, which has been shown to play a role in social relations, maternal bonding, and also in sex.

Lead researcher Dr Thomas Baumgartner said: ‘We now know for the first time what exactly is going on in the brain when oxytocin increases trust.

We found that oxytocin has a very specific effect in social situations. It seems to diminish our fears.

Based on our results, we can now conclude that a lack of oxytocin is at least one of the causes for the fear experienced by social phobics.

‘We hope and indeed we expect that we can improve their sociability by administering oxytocin.'”

My Comment: Here we’ve been wondering how to change human nature so people would start trusting each other, being friends, and loving and caring for one another, but now all you have to do is take a sniff, and then you’re already like the Creator!

Related Posts:
* Can Identifying the Chemical Pathways and Brain Structures that Generate Religious Experiences Lead Us to Spirituality?
* When Will Scientists Trying to Control Nature Realize that Nature Is Controlling Them?
* Do Our Choices Originate in Our Brain or in Our Desire?

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A question I received: Does the Creator respond to requests for things that are necessary, or only to requests for correction?

My Answer: The Creator responds to all the requests in one’s heart, because we are talking about the Upper Light’s influence on our desire, and this influence is taking place all the time. The two stand one opposite the other. Nothing depends on a person, on his awareness of the Light’s constant influence on the Reshimo. He can only receive the desire for bestowal and love from his environment. The Upper Light is always pushing him toward this desire, by influencing the Reshimo. That is to say, by constantly influencing the Reshimo, the Light moves him closer to making the decision that it’s necessary to acquire the property of bestowal and love. However, it moves him along naturally, through blows. If a person, however, adds his own aspiration, which he receives from the group, from friends who aspire to it, then he himself evokes the Upper Light’s influence in the same direction. And now he already perceives the results of the Light’s influence positively, since he himself desired it, instead of perceiving it negatively, the way we usually do: When we desire greater egoistic fulfillment, we instead receive an even stronger push toward bestowal, and experience even greater suffering.

A question I received: According to what you said, if two hundred million Muslims will really wish for Israel to disappear from the face of the earth, will their desires come true?

My Answer: All desires of all people are included within the common soul of Adam. However, each desire has its own weight or influence, which depends on many things: What group of souls does the desire belong to – just like in the body some organs are more important than others. It also depends on what they are asking for – whether their appeal is directed toward the goal of creation or against it; whether it’s a desire to hate or to love, and so on.

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A question I received: How does the suffering, embarrassment and shame one feels before society, correlate to his hatred of society?

My Answer: We learn that shame is the basis of correction. The feeling of shame by Malchut in the World of Infinity led to Tzimtzum Aleph – the refusal to receive for one’s own sake. After that, that same shame pushed Malchut to find a way to bestow – to receive for the Creator’s sake.

As that same shame developed further, it continually showed the creature, the soul of Adam, what to do in order to become similar to the Creator. And the same shame drove Adam to sin: Adam wanted to overcome shame all at once, and as a result he revealed his entire egoistic nature (reception for one’s own sake), as well as the opportunity to correct this shame (reception for the Creator’s sake). But this must be done gradually, over the course of thousands of years, inside many individual souls (during their life cycles), by overcoming their repulsion to one another.

When a person begins to study Kabbalah, after a certain amount of time he reveals his egoism, which grows bigger and bigger. As he continues to study, he constantly learns that egoism is evil, but he doesn’t feel this in any way. He learns that spirituality is bestowal, love for one’s friend, and that he can sense the Creator only within this quality, or to be more precise, that this quality is the Creator.

As more time passes, he begins to view egoism as evil, because he gradually discovers egoism’s connection with spirituality, how opposite the two are, and that it’s impossible to attain spirituality together with egoism.

After some more time passes, he’s “set up” from above in such a way, that he feels as if he is “burning with shame,” and that he’ll adhere to the Creator only by renouncing his original qualities. This is when his correction begins. He is willing to feel the burning shame for the sake of acquiring the property of love and bestowal!

A question I received: On the one hand, during the preparation period, before coming out of Egypt (crossing the Machsom), one’s egoism grows. But on the other hand, in order to cross the Machsom, one has to be absolutely pure! He must go from unfounded hatred to love. How does this occur together? [Read more →]

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A notice in Ynet, a popular Israeli online magazine: Good Deeds Day

“On Tuesday, June 17 2008, we invite you to stop for a moment in the flow of life and take part in an Israeli community effort. You can volunteer in your area together with you friends and colleagues in a way that suits you. Each one of you can take part in the day when tens of thousands of Israelis will open their hearts to one another, and we will all feel what mutual responsibility toward each other is. What do you think?”

My Response: This is a wonderful initiative, but in order to produce results, it needs to be connected to the Governing Force, the Creator. Even without mentioning Him, we must explain to people that everyone is interconnected and dependent on everyone else. The whole world exists according to the rule of “love thy neighbor,” and only humans break this rule with our egoism, which is why we suffer.

We can ascend to an existence of mutual responsibility and love for all eternity, and not just for one day. With this aim, we should continue explaining how to achieve harmony with nature, which operates by the principle of interconnection, and we are willing to work together with you in this endeavor. However, without such an explanation together with your efforts, they will be empty. There have been many initiatives like yours, and they all turned into nothing more than a national party.

Related Material:
Article: Rising Above the Ego to a New Level of Consciousness
Article: Cracking the Happiness Code

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