Entries in the 'soul' Category

Why Should Humans, But Not Cows Have Souls?


Recently, while in Madrid, I had a meeting with a reporter, and he asked me, “Can you tell me, where is my soul now?” I felt uncomfortable letting him down, but I had to tell him, “What soul? What are you talking about?” He didn’t get it: how can there be a person without a soul? Yet it doesn’t surprise him that a cow has no soul. But why should he have one? Right now he may be eating a steak that was made from that cow, but he doesn’t ask what happened to its soul. So how does the cow’s body differ from his own?

The soul is one’s connection with the Creator, with the Upper Light, and it only appears to the degree one is similar to Him. A soul appears in a person once he is above the Machsom, but prior to the Machsom, a person does not have a soul. All our other desires do not constitute a soul – at least not yet, while they’re not corrected.

When a person receives a point in the heart and develops it, then a soul appears within him, which is called “human.” But our animate bodies are not called human. Their only purpose is for us to raise a soul within the body, which will be called our “I.”
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

The Creator Is A Detail Of Your Perception

thin lineThere is nothing but forces in the spiritual world. But the connection between them is determined by your perception (world-year-soul in a ready-made reality). And the Creator is also a detail of your perception. He is something outside of you. That is to say, from within your inner reality, you deduce something that provides and sustains it, and you call this part, “the Creator.” It is you who distinguishes and “depicts” Him inside your qualities.

The same thing is true regarding the rest of the picture (world-year-soul). When you are in the spiritual world, you reveal the spiritual matrix of forces, “world-year-soul and a ready-made reality.” You then reveal a different order of forces that influence one another. They contain an inner part (the soul) and an outer part (the world). And you understand some of the forces, seeing them as cause and consequence; this is the year. They contain an Upper Thought and a force that leads the process; this is the ready-made reality.

Those “Fixing” The Crisis Are Like Poker Players Who Just Can’t Stop


People are currently trying to fix the economic crisis, and they’ll continue to play this game until everything tumbles down completely. They are like poker players who have lost everything, but can’t tear themselves away from the table. It is all a complete lie and a bluff, but people cannot tear away from it because they don’t know where to run or what to do.

Kabbalah is being revealed to humanity particularly in this state, because it is the only means to reveal the cause of the crisis. Suffering will not enable us to see the cause because suffering is perceived on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Meanwhile, the crisis is taking place on the human level: it is the revelation of the breaking of the common soul. The suffering will bring people to the science of Kabbalah, which will reveal the cause of the breaking, and people will then realize that they have to correct their attitude to others. There is nothing else to correct but this.

All the causes are in the spiritual world, and our world is merely a consequence. Because we want to correct the consequences, the Creator sends us more and more disappointment. Everyone knows that all our attempts to unite and to achieve peace are always followed by an outburst of terrible hatred.

Even if the G20 gets together now and signs an agreement to create a single world government, a common bank, a pension for everyone, equal and fair distribution, then an epidemic or some other calamity will still hit us because we do not wish to correct the point in the system that was damaged: the connection between us.

The simple solution is to reach the state of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and Kabbalah gives us a piece of advice on how to achieve this: “I created egoism and I created the Torah (the Light) that corrects it.”

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The Entire World Is A Shattered Vessel

laitman_2009-05-27_8144_wA question I received: What can an average person do in order to speed up society’s advancement toward correction?

My Answer: Today it is becoming obvious that the entire world is a single, shattered vessel. Any person in this world, after hearing the right explanation, will agree with the fact that the world must be connected in a positive manner. Every person will know that this is the only way for him to have a good life.

In other words, it is imperative that we connect at the level of the soul in order to reach correction. The body is just an external shell. This is why today, no one can avoid or wouldn’t want to be included in this process. In every corner of the world, people have heard of the crisis and feel it one way or another.

There are people who feel the general crisis internally as well as externally: they feel that the connection between souls is devoid of internal (non-material) bestowal above the egoistic nature of man. But humanity is still not giving this any thought although they are closer to understanding that they must correct egoism and increasingly utilize each person’s positive forces.

No huge changes have taken place in the world. But now, there is a general understanding that before the crisis, humanity was advancing in complete opposition to spiritual development. The world was striving toward maximum realization of egoism while a few individuals with a point in the heart (Kabbalists) rose above egoism and utilized it for the sake of bestowal. Today, both processes are advancing in the same direction because the whole world is now starting to accept that egoism is evil and must be corrected.

Of course they are thinking of correction on their level. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the direction is now the same. Before, there were some who were for egoism, others who were against; now, everyone is against. It is said that if we don’t control it, if we don’t find some sort of regulator, we will feel bad. Everyone is talking of a regulator. Some speak of a regulator at the material level and others of another, a higher kind of regulator.

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Social Status Doesn’t Matter In Spirituality

America - Optimistic, and Why?A question I received: Why is it that people who have millions of dollars and have seemingly achieved tranquility and complete well-being, immediately seek the next million? Why is it that even subconsciously the question about the meaning of life doesn’t arise in these people?

My Answer: First of all, the question about the meaning of life isn’t at all related to how many millions you have. There are billions of people in this world who are not even remotely interested in knowing the reason behind their existence, although many of them are in very difficult circumstances. A person’s lifestyle has no bearing on whether or not the point in the heart has awakened in him or her.

Each one of us has his own purpose in this life. One person is born smart, and another stupid. Someone will become president and someone will sweep the streets. A person does not choose his profession, or his purpose in life, or whether he will be rich or poor.

The point in the heart awakens in a person the moment he begins to reveal the evil of his normal existence. This happens depending on one’s development. A person begins to understand that at some point he will die anyway, and all the millions he spent his whole life chasing were just there in order to service the society, which imposed its values on him.

If the society he is part of does not consider him a human being unless he has ten million dollars in his bank account, then this will definitely influence him. He will strive to do whatever his environment dictates to him.

And likewise, if someone travels to India and climbs a mountain to meditate, then he won’t need much more than his daily bowl of rice. This is how a person is influenced by his surrounding society. Regardless, in both cases, the point in the heart may be awakened.

This depends on a person’s function in the general system of souls. If his time to wake up has come, then it is due to the fact that he belongs to a subsystem that is now due to perform a correction in the system of souls. Thus, he will begin to ascend spiritually. His material or social status bears no relation to this.

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The Soul Is Eternal


Three questions I received on the breaking of the common soul from my student in Brazil:

Question: In the book Kabbalah Revealed , it says that only 600,000 souls were created, and they were subdivided because of the issue of selfishness. Is the result of the subdivision also regarded as a soul, i.e., a single spiritual entity?

My Answer: The souls do not subdivide or converge, but rather, each soul undergoes its own individual correction.

Question: What happens to the souls that have resolved the issue of selfishness: do they become extinct and cease to exist entirely?

My Answer: The souls simply descend to the level of our world, and then ascend back by virtue of our efforts. Their essence is eternal.

Question: Can a soul be extinguished?

My Answer: Nothing in the spiritual worlds can be destroyed – everything there is eternal. Things merely change their form.

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We Are Brought To Perfection Through The Cure Of Absolute Kindness

laitman_2009-06_3382_wA question I received: If one wants to know whether he lives according to the principle of basic necessity – what should one do?

My Answer: Study. There’s nothing but evoking the Light that reforms through studying and coming to know yourself in relation to others, the society and the Creator. By doing this a person corrects himself.

How it actually works, absolutely escapes us. If you’re feeling down – start studying, for it is written “it’s a cure for every flesh.”  The root of all the problems is the crisis, in other words, the destruction and breaking of the common soul, which means that instead of remaining within love, we fell into hatred. Therefore, all we need to correct is that very root of every one of our problems.

The common soul had been in the state of Infinity and then it broke into a myriad of individual souls, separated by egoism. Such is our state today and because of that breaking, all we feel now is this world instead of Infinity. By correcting the breaking by the act of our uniting, we will once again return to the world of Infinity (infinite and eternal perfection).

Perhaps you are asking about a temporary solution. Let’s say that a person is hospitalized with acute pain and he needs surgery, but in the meantime he is given a painkiller, a sedative (not a cure, nor a treatment).

If a person asks for it, you have to help him. But together with the sedative, you need to explain the situation as it is: there’s a program for his development, and he’s under its guidance; there’s a purpose to his life, which is to reach an eternal and perfect state. All of his states and his entire destiny comes from one Source, and that Source is what cures him.

If he is capable of seeing that all is not random and that he has to suffer incessant blows until he comes to find that everything has been done in absolute kindness in order to bring him to his destiny, this realization will calm him down.  This realization is his painkiller. Together with his studies, he begins his treatment, takes control of his destiny and secures his good fortune.

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The Hidden Power Of The Torah


A question I received: Could we say that the great Kabbalists, who created a connection between the Creator and the created being and wrote books for us, created the method called a Torah?

My Answer: These great Kabbalists wrote books for us. However, they  are not actually books,  but rather a revelation of the connection between us and the Creator. The Kabbalists gave us an opportunity to grab onto this connection through letters and words, which are written down on sheets of paper; in this manner we can take part in this connection.

After all, what is a book and what are the words written in it? We don’t know what it is. Like infants, we touch something. And Kabbalists arranged it so that when we come into contact with a book, wishing to be connected to them through it, we use the force that they created through the connection between them.

It is true that they created the Torah through this. After all, the Torah is actually given to us to correct egoism precisely through these Kabbalists and the special souls who prepared for us this opportunity: their connection. If it weren’t for their actions, we would not be able to achieve our correction on our own, which is the connection between us.  Without the actions of the Kabbalists, we would not be able to rouse the reforming Light.

A simple physical law is in action: if you have the quality of bestowal, Light shines on you; if you do not have the quality of bestowal, Light does not shine on you.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand that without the revelation of the science of Kabbalah in the books, and without studying it, a person will not be able to rouse the reforming Light. He can try to fix his relationships with other people, wishing to build his wonderful world, but he will not receive the force of Light, the force of correction. One needs to be connected to a system that uses authentic books, a group, an understanding, and a connection according to the recommendations of Kabbalists. Otherwise, it is impossible to reach correction.

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The System Of Souls Allows The Flow Of Light Between Them


There is only one creation – the desire to fill oneself with the Creator – divided into billions of partial souls. With their corrected souls, Kabbalists of the past developed a system, by which we can receive the correcting Light. In order to receive it, we must:

  • Attempt to rise above our egoism through unity with others; and
  • Strive to receive the correcting Light through studying their books.

In the midst of seven billion souls there exist special souls, which create a connection among them; these are the souls of Kabbalists.  By existing within the overall system of souls, as if raisins in cereal, they create a connection among themselves, which allows for Light to flow between them.

By desiring to bond ourselves to these higher souls and by reading what they wrote, we aspire to become like them. As a result, their Light also influences us and without the desire for the bonding, the Light cannot be revealed in us. A simple physical law operates here: without the connection, you cannot receive.

But since this system already has such souls that have united with each other, anyone who desires to unite with them and possesses the external means to do so, meaning the books and the connection with a group,  are also utilizing that same Light, which exists between the special souls and which can also shine for others.

This is exactly how adults take care of children. In advance, they develop all the necessary conditions for them to operate in this world. The little one aspires toward the grown-ups and wants to join them, to learn from them; this is how he grows.

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Perceiving The World From Beginning To End


A question I received: When people hear that I study Kabbalah, they ask: “what’s in it for you?” I respond that I attain the meaning of life, feel its taste. “What is the meaning of life?” they ask, wishing to hear a brief answer. How should I respond?

My Answer: Because I study Kabbalah, the world becomes transparent for me. Through it, I see the controlling forces, the system that operates our world. Because of this, I perceive our world throughout, from its beginning to its very end.

I attain the meaning of my life and of life in general, and I see myself in it, from the root of my soul in the common bundle of all the souls, to the end goal, which I must attain. All of this occurs in an endless eternal process, the perception of which is thanks to the science of Kabbalah. It reveals Nature and the Creator to me, and I reveal, attain and control the Nature of all the worlds.

Tell people that they can learn how to use life in the best possible manner and obtain the highest benefit from every passing minute! This is the truth!

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