News Report (from The Telegraph): Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren did their best but according to a leading Egyptologist, they came nowhere near to an accurate portrayal of ancient queen Cleopatra.

Using images from ancient artifacts including a ring dating from Cleopatra’s reign 2,000 years ago, Cambridge University’s Sally Ann Ashton has pieced together an entirely different image that shows her as a mixed race beauty. …the monarch came to power at the tender age of 18… Cleopatra was a temptress who ruined two generals of Rome – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

My Comment: I think the men will agree with me when I say that this is a perfect example of our subjective perception of reality. Reshimot (informational genes) constantly change inside us and they determine our desires. This, along with the influence of the society’s Reshimot, determines our likes and dislikes. As a result, even this will seem like a “Cleopatra.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The World Is the Perception Inside Our Desires
Laitman.com Post: History Is the Unraveling of Reshimot Inside Us
The Kabbalah Experience: Chapter 5 – “The Desire for Pleasure: Discovery and Correction”

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A question I received: What stages will we have to go through to get to the end of the crisis?

My Answer:
1. Economists and manufacturers believe that apparently, the crisis is necessary in order to “change” our world: to rid us of excess manufacturing facilities, to shift to new technologies and means of production, to raise the consumers’ qualification when it comes to assimilating the newest forms of production and services. This is why the crisis has to go through the stages that it does: restriction of production, optimization of business, implementation of new technologies, elimination of physically and morally outdated products, cautious growth and assimilation of new products.

2. Kabbalah says that the crisis will change our society: every person will assume his objective, rational place in the integral human society. This will happen by virtue of one’s desire to receive what one needs and to give everything that one can. One will enjoy the well-being of the society and the revelation of the Upper Source of fulfillment, the Creator, which is revealed through “love for one’s neighbor.” The path can be long and difficult, one of wars and famine (this is the natural egoistic development), or it can be quick and pleasant, by means of revealing the Creator and His plan, and by coming closer to Him (the Kabbalistic development).

See the article “Freedom of Will” and others.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Cause of Suffering and Crises In the World
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Society of the Future
Laitman.com Post: The Possibilities of Our Development – War or a Peaceful Transition

Filed under: Crisis - 1 Comment →

A question I received: Do the thoughts of someone who’s advancing in spirituality influence the world more than the thoughts of someone whose point in the heart hasn’t awakened yet?

My Answer: Our egoistic desires and thoughts (the heart and mind) don’t have any influence on the world, since they are entirely controlled from Above. So why is it written that all of man’s thoughts and desires affect the world? It’s because the world is influenced by the degree of one’s lack of correction, or one’s discrepancy with the Reshimo that surfaces in him. However, the world isn’t affected by one’s personal aspiration.

In other words, when one has uncorrected desires and thoughts, he influences the world with their lack of correction. However, the only conscious and direct influence we can have is through a desire that matches the Reshimo or the direction of our development. In other words, it’s possible only by realizing the Reshimo correctly.

Indeed, everything depends on the force of the screen, the quality of bestowal – only this influences the world. Thought is the most powerful force in the world. And generally speaking, the greater a force is, the more concealed from us it is. When a person rises spiritually, the power of his thoughts increases. Physical forces operate only in our dimension of time, place, and movement, whereas spiritual forces are not limited by space, time, and place. See Baal HaSulam’s article “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Evil Eye Is Our Own Egoism
Laitman.com Post: The Only Point of Freedom Is Your Reaction to the Creator

Filed under: Spirituality - 3 Comments →

From item 40 of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” by Baal HaSulam:

“And I know that it is completely unaccepted in the eyes of some philosophers. They cannot agree that man, whom they think of as low and worthless, is the center of the magnificent creation. But they are like a worm that is born inside a radish and thinks that the world of the Creator is as bitter and as dark as the radish it was born in. But as soon as the shell of the radish [of one’s egoism] breaks and it peeps out [comes out of the egoism, of the intention, “for his own sake,” and enters bestowal and love for others], it wonders [in awe of the Upper World that it revealed] and says: “I thought the whole world was the size of my radish, but now I see before me a grand, beautiful and wondrous world!”

Filed under: Perception - 1 Comment →

Three questions I received on the future of the world:

Question: You mentioned that the governing of the world must change to that of love your friend as yourself, one man with one heart. Why don’t you and your group start with a working model of such a system to serve as a beacon and inspiration for the rest? It would be easier to start on a smaller scale rather than a big one.

My Answer: Due to the current time and circumstances, we cannot close ourselves off but must devote all our energy to disseminating Kabbalah in the world, as it is the means of preventing the world from falling into the Third World War.

Question: What do you mean when you say that we are now entering Biblical times?

My Answer: I meant that we have to start observing the Biblical principle, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Question: In reference to your post, Unity for the Right Purpose Can Stabilize the Banking System, I hope you are not speaking of a new world order, one government, one bank, one currency, and everyone being monitored with chips implanted in their bodies.

My Answer: All of humanity is an integral (global) organism. Hence, everyone must submit to one law of total interaction on all levels of our activity. This means, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Last Generation,” that eventually there will be one spiritual government, which will regulate all the activities of the world’s inhabitants.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Baal HaSulam Describes the Conditions of Life in a Globalized World
Laitman.com Post: The Possibilities of Our Development – War or a Peaceful Transition
From Chaos to Harmony: “The Evolution of the Correction Method”
Article: “Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Building the Future Society”

Filed under: Unity - No Comments →

News Report: (translated from pravda.com): Excerpts from the article “The Crisis of Desires,” by the Ukranian Deputy Minister of Finance and presidential legal advisor, N. Poludenny: The desire and its satisfaction (pleasure) are the basis of man’s energetic-informational nature. We are woven of desires. Our crises will multiply, evolve and intensify until we realize that we must change our perception of the world. First and foremost this means altering the vector of our desires and acquiring the perception of unity between all people in the global system of our world.

Today everyone is talking about restoring trust – trust in the financial system, in the government, and in each other. People presume that this is a matter of an individual’s psychology or the psychology of the masses. In reality, however, trust is a spiritual category, whose root lies in a global spiritual state called “faith.” Confidence and loyalty are derivatives of this state.

These states are impossible as long as people realize their desires with a “minus” sign. And on the contrary, when a person changes the vector of his desire from “receiving for his own sake” to “giving for others’ sake,” he automatically enters the state of confidence, restoring others’ trust in him, and acquiring faith (at the very least, faith in his own abilities).

My Comment: Bravo! Let’s hope that everyone else will soon recognize the reason for the crisis as well! And when they do, people will begin searching for the means (the strength and the method) to correct our nature – and they will reveal Kabbalah.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: People Are Beginning to Open Their Eyes
Laitman.com Post: In His Holiday Greeting, President-elect Obama Speaks of Unity
Laitman.com Post: Pope Decries Self-Interest In Economic Crisis
Laitman.com Post: Gordon Brown, “Seize This Moment of Change to Create a Truly Global Society”

Filed under: Crisis - 2 Comments →

Questions I received on parallel universes, the Zeitgeist movie, the year 2012, and Jesus:

Question: On a show called “The Universe,” scientists explain the possibility of parallel universes and that they will soon be able to mathematically prove their existence. I know these worlds aren’t the spiritual ones we learn about in Kabbalah, but is it possible that for every spiritual world that exists, there is a corporeal universe – parallel to this one – that also exists in direct relation to each spiritual world? And if so, and also given the fact that all of creation exists for the purpose of correction, could other corrections be occurring simultaneously on these other parallel corporeal universes?

My Answer: There is nothing in existence besides what is described by Kabbalah: our world and the five spiritual worlds. See Talmud Eser Sefirot and Baal HaSulam’s drawings.

Question: I read your blog post where somebody asked you about the Zeitgeist movie. I watched that movie as well, and I’m shocked because I saw many Kabbalistic ideas in it. I really encourage you to watch it. I would like to know your opinion about it – similar to that about the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”

My Answer: I tried to watch it, but couldn’t keep going after a few minutes…

Question: I have read and watched numerous things that had dealt with the year 2012. 2012 was said to be “the end of the world.” I also read that by December 21st, 2012, it will be a new age and the attainment of the highest individual human potential. Does this have anything to do with Kabbalah?

My Answer: No. Everything depends exclusively on us – and on you!

Question: Some teach that Jesus is the middle line, yet I strongly believe that he does not move like a Kabbalist. I wanted to know if I was right or not to feel this way about Jesus?

My Answer: Kabbalah speaks only about the Creator and man, about how man can attain the Creator.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There Is No Coercion in Spirituality
Laitman.com Post: Where Is Jesus Christ in Kabbalah?
Kabbalah Today Article: A New Direction
The Path of Kabbalah: “Between Creator and Creature”
Lesson on Shamati #82: “All Worlds”

Filed under: Q&A - 1 Comment →

The blog “Kabbalah and the Meaning of Life” has just been released in Dutch:

Kabbalah het Doel van het Leven – Michael Laitman Persoonlijke Blog

The first Dutch Congress was held at the end of December, in Amsterdam. Over 40 of our friends gathered together in order to unite and to coordinate their trip to the International Congress 2009.

Related Material:
Kabbalah website in Dutch

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News Report (from Psychological Science): (By Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University) When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ – your toe is flattened in both cases – but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape the recipient’s experience.

My Comment: This comes from the Upper Root of our relationship with the Creator: if we desire to receive without paying attention to Him, the Giver, then we perceive what we receive as this world – bitter, difficult, and temporary. However, if we desire to feel what we receive together with Him, the Giver, then we feel the Upper World, which is eternal and perfect. Then, when our world disappears (when the body dies), our perception – the sensation of the Giver we attained – stays with us forever, as do He and we.

For example, suppose I receive a present. I enjoy it. But then I begin to feel that it has a defect. This helps me to think about the Giver. My egoism cannot stop thinking about Him and asking, “Why isn’t this gift perfect”? As I think about the Giver’s action, I start to scrutinize this action (which is the thought of creation). I examine: what is happening to me from the moment when I started being aware of receiving something from Him, and what is His goal for doing this?

As I reveal His behavior, I begin to understand Him and see that He is kind, good and loving. I start to feel something new: I forget about (and lose the perception of) the gift itself – of our world and our life. What remains is only He and I (without the gift) and our relationship, the sensation of the Upper Life that emerged by virtue of the gift. But we don’t need the gift any longer.

Related Material
Laitman.com Post: Learning to Understand the Creator Is the Key to Happiness
Laitman.com Post: A Gift Is Appreciated Only as Much as the Receiver Values the Giver
On Roots and Branches
Article: “The Alternative of Our Life”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Acting Mind”

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The year 2008 ended with the financial crisis. But in truth, the crisis began decades ago – in art, science, the family (divorce), education, the general depression, drug abuse, and useless professions. However, like the true egoists that we are, we reacted to it only when it got to our wallets. The crisis was revealed through none other than the relationships we’ve created, which became global. We discovered that we are interconnected and interdependent – and full of hate for each other. When this happens in a family, the couple gets a divorce, but what are we to do? Therein lies the real crisis, and our future depends on its solution.

2009 will be the year when we will realize that we are all one family. People will recognize that their egoistic nature is evil; they will begin to open their eyes and to think differently. This will make it easier to live through the hardships. People will feel that Nature, which created the egoism within us, is forcing us to change. By correcting our relationships, we can accelerate and mitigate the course of the crisis. Suffering and the will to survive will force us to start observing the Biblical commandment of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” – and then he crisis will be replaced by a world that’s good and full of Light. This is what I wish for you in 2009!

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