Entries in the 'Suffering' Category

When It Comes to the Global Crisis, We Cannot Afford to Procrastinate

When It Comes to the Global Crisis, We Cannot Afford to ProcrastinateA question I received: Why do you draw a connection between the financial crisis and a “global Kabbalistic revolution?” Isn’t this going a bit too far?

My Answer: There is a state of standalone objects, and there is a state when they unite into a system. That is when new and special laws are revealed – the laws of globalization, communication, interaction, and interdependence.

Standalone individuals in the animal kingdom are egoists, but as soon as they join together, a law is revealed that enables their system to survive. This law obligates them to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the system, for their society. Of course, in the animal kingdom this happens unconsciously; it is embedded in the animals by nature and they follow it blindly. The human level differs by man’s self-awareness. Man must carry out the same laws of nature consciously and willingly.

Hence, as long as we were not united, there was no need to take the system into account, nor to follow Nature’s law of “bestowal and love for one’s neighbor.” However, as soon as a tight interconnection emerged in Ancient Babylon – the first global civilization (global with regard to that time period, in a compact area), then a crisis was immediately revealed – our imbalance with the natural law of the human community, “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

In Babylon, we managed to solve this problem by annulling the very system or civilization. We separated from each other and scattered all over the world. However, today we are connected and there is no place to run. We can try, but by so doing we will only go back to the past. We can’t even imagine what comforts we will lose, because no country in the world today can be self-sufficient. This would be like going back to feudalism. Our development, its forms and pace are predetermined by nature and its integral law. Hence, if we go against it, we will perceive our opposition to it in the form of terrible suffering.

This is why Kabbalah says that the only option we have is to recognize the natural law of the human community, which is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Of course, this type of relationship can be adopted only when every individual will be corrected from “for the sake of oneself” to “for the sake of others.” This can be done with ease if:

1. The society and the mass media will support and encourage this, and look down on those who do not do this (however, not by means of punishment);
2. People will study Kabbalah (for the masses, superficial familiarity with Kabbalah will suffice) and thereby attract our future state, which already exists.

I think that “procrastination is like death” – in the literal sense of the word.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Do You Get the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage Across the River? (How Do You Solve the Global Crisis?)
Laitman.com Post: The Solution – Excerpts from the Writings of the Last Generation by Baal HaSulam
Article – “Lecture in Arosa”

Economists Don’t Care About the Cause of the Financial Crisis

Economists Don't Care About the Cause of the Financial CrisisWhen I speak to economists about the crisis, I find that they and I are interested in different things. They are not interested in the cause of the crisis, and are willing to accept my explanation of it. What interests them is the evolution of the crisis, and what needs to be done here and now – by a bank or a family.

For now, my propositions that what needs to be corrected are the relationships between everyone – both organizations and people around the world, sound naïve to them, because they do not yet see the cause of the crisis – the lack of kind connections between people. These connections must come from the understanding that we are all part of one organism, and we can cure this organism only by mutually caring for all of its parts. That is the only way to solve this global problem and all the crises that are gradually becoming revealed in humanity today. They are being revealed because our egoistic development has brought us to the point where we are all united within a single organism.

With regard to the global crisis, the process has begun, but this is just the beginning. There is a lot to say about it, and we will talk about it much more in the future – its causes, progress, purpose, and possibilities of softening it – “the path of Light” that Kabbalah offers instead of “the path of suffering.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Remedy for the Global Crisis
Laitman.com Post: My Article on YnetNews – A Kabbalistic Interpretation of the Economic Crisis
Kabbalah Today Article: What Is Happening to Our Economy?

Analysis of the Crisis

Analysis of the CrisisIt is written, “The only people one does not envy are one’s children and one’s students.” I am proud of my students. Hence I am proud to publish texts and clips that my students send to me. The following was sent by my student Tasha Fridkin from New York:

An analysis of the crisis
It is known that the laws of nature work regardless of whether we know about them or not. No one will test the law of gravity by jumping out of the window, since we know the result from our life experience.

However, few people know that besides the laws affecting our physical bodies, there are also laws affecting our souls. We don’t see the souls in our world, and the interactions between them are also concealed from us. Nevertheless, this does not make the laws any less strict – they still inevitably affect us even if we don’t clearly perceive their influence.

According to these laws all of our souls are interconnected into one harmonious and balanced system that is based on the principle of bestowal. Every individual contributes the most he can to the system, taking only the necessary minimum from it.

Humanity, however, has developed differently. It has reached the state where every individual desires to give the minimum and to use everyone else to the maximum to get personal gratification. Moreover, we have even stopped noticing this. Every person wants to win the lotto – to spend a dollar and win a million. But where does this million come from? It comes from a million people who spent one dollar. In other words, every individual wants to snatch from everyone else, for his own self benefit. And this is considered absolutely normal.

But there is an imbalance between our spiritual and corporeal existence. The violation of the spiritual law evokes the apparent and tangible manifestations in our physical world, such as the current financial crisis. This crisis is but a particular manifestation of the general crisis of all the social connections. The financial system is the most vulnerable one, similar to the blood in an organism, connecting and permeating the entire worldwide community. Nothing has changed in any part of the financial system; the crisis is purely psychological. We have revealed our incorrect usage of the connections between us, and as a result we have lost our trust of the system and the entire system has collapsed.

That is to say, we have reached a state where the externality – the structure and principles of our integrated systems, is losing importance compared to the internality – our thoughts and intentions when using these systems.

If every one of us will not change our attitude toward the people around us, adopting attitudes that match the connections between the souls, then we will continue to oppose the laws of nature. Then these laws will affect us more and more negatively. No one can run away from this; there won’t be any place on earth where one can hide, waiting for things to improve.

The world is crumbling. If you want to be saved, then start with yourself – with your attitude to the people around you. No one else is going to save you.

The world is built by every one of us. The world is our common home, and it is built according to the laws of nature. It can either bring us enormous, inconceivable abundance, or – if it is founded on egoism – it will bring us inconceivable suffering, which will nevertheless force us to change.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Remedy for the Global Crisis
Kabbalah Today Article: What Is Happening to Our Economy?

The Rate of One’s Spiritual Development Depends On One’s Efforts


A question I received: Strange things have been happening around me over the last several years. The people I really looked up to before are now hitting rock bottom in life, or doing things that go beyond any accepted social norms. I used to be very driven, but now I’ve lost all desire to prove anything to others.

I have this feeling that all the people whom I used to know well and looked up to, are not who they were. I am rude to my relatives, and constantly feel ashamed of it because I love them. I feel annoyed at the elderly, repulsed by people’s faces, and I hate my own body.

I’ve been studying Kabbalah for seven years and watch the lessons every day. It is very burdensome for me to attend Congresses and group meals, but watching the lessons over the Internet is a delight. I feel like I really want to avoid seeing people in person. Is this normal?

My Answer: Everyone has their own speed and stages of development. If you study systematically and work on dissemination during your free time, then you can be sure that every state will pass. You will work through it, and then the new stage will come. They will keep alternating like this all the way until the full correction.

However, the rate at which they alternate depends on your efforts, and this constitutes your only influence on your entire path to the Creator. If your development is happening at a natural speed, then you experience pressure (suffering), which forces you to change. However, if you stay ahead of nature’s (the Creator’s) pressure by aspiring on your own, then you won’t experience suffering, but on the contrary, will feel joy and inspiration. The choice is yours!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: It Takes Time, Effort and Experience to Reveal the Upper World
Laitman.com Post: There Are No Speeding Tickets In Spirituality
Laitman.com Post: Freedom of Will Lies in Acceleration
Help Share Kabbalah

The Remedy for the Global Crisis


News Report (from Project Syndicate): The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon stated, “We all recognize today’s perils: a global financial crisis, a global energy crisis, a global food crisis. … Climate change ever more clearly threatens our planet. …today, we also face a crisis of a different sort – the challenge of global leadership. Nations can no longer protect their interests, or advance the well-being of their people, without the partnership of the rest. Yet I see a danger of nations looking inward rather than toward a shared future. I see a danger of retreating from the progress we have made, particularly in the realm of economic development and fairness in sharing the fruits of global growth.

My Comment: Even if everyone will understand that the source of all the world’s crises, including the climate crisis, is human egoism and its negative influence on Nature, they still won’t find the remedy for the progressing General Crisis. They will not understand how to change man’s nature, and that’s because this is impossible to do in our world, whose entire nature is egoism.

There is a law that states “The general and the particular are equal” (Klal U Prat Shavim). Just like a regular person is brought to Kabbalah by suffering and the question, “What is the meaning of my life?”, so humanity as a whole will be compelled by suffering and crises to come to the question about the meaning of its own existence, which is not wealth, power, fame or knowledge. Then it will find the answer to this question – that the meaning of life is to reveal the Creator.

That is when humanity will reveal the science of Kabbalah, the means to attain this. By definition the science of Kabbalah is “The method of revealing the Creator to the people in this world,” as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Does a Kabbalist Feel About the Current Events?
Laitman.com Post: Disasters and Diseases Come to an End When Humanity Unites Above Selfishness
Laitman.com Post: Ervin Laszlo and Michael Laitman – From Chaos to Harmony
Kabbalah Today Article: What Is Happening to Our Economy?
Kabbalah Today Article: The Hurricane Within
Article – “Lecture in Arosa”

Financial Crisis Causes Spike In Anti-Semitism

Financial Crisis Causes Spike In Anti-SemitismNews Report (from PRNewswire): NEW YORK, Oct. 2 — In the wake of the collapse of major investment banks and the government’s proposed bailout of financial institutions, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is reporting a dramatic upsurge in the number of anti-Semitic statements being posted to Internet discussion boards devoted to finance and the economy.

Hundreds of anti-Semitic posts regarding Lehman Brothers and other institutions affected by the sub prime mortgage crisis have been submitted to discussion boards dealing with finance, with many more arriving by the minute. The messages rail against Jews in general, with some charging that Jews control the government and finance as part of a “Jew world order” and therefore are to blame for the economic turmoil.

My Comment: Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” items 66-71, (summary):

When the people of Israel make efforts to elevate the soul, then the nations of the world recognize this and value them. But when the people of Israel lower the greatness of spirituality, they cause the nations of the world to prevail over them, to accuse and humiliate them.

Spirituality can only be elevated through the study of Kabbalah. Then the nations of the world acknowledge that Israel is special, because it has the method to correct the world. But when the people of Israel do not engage in elevating the goal of creation, then the nations of the world degrade them, considering them useless and harmful to the world.

Hence, Israel’s fate depends only on the study of Kabbalah, and its entire descent was caused by the neglect of Kabbalah. Woe to them who neglect Kabbalah – their actions cause hunger, poverty, war, violence, pillage, killings and destruction in the world.

The Talmud says, “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.”

The Tikkuney Zohar says: “Woe to them who cause poverty and ruin and robbery and killings in the whole world.”

But if they will reveal the method of correction to themselves and the world, then all the nations of the world will recognize the importance of Israel and they shall carry out the words: “And the nations of the world shall take Israel, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall posses them in the land of the Lord” ((Isaiah 14:2). And the words of The Book of Zohar will come true: “That through this composition, which is The Book of Zohar, they will be freed from spiritual exile by the Creator’s mercy” (Nasah 124). Amen!

Additional Comment: However, it’s also possible for things to take a different turn. The “patriotic” forces of every country, combined with the middle class that has fallen into poverty, may create a situation similar to Germany in 1929, when people will start demanding a powerful centralized government and compensation for their degraded state. This is how Fascism and Nazism arise.

Baal HaSulam writes about this alternative to the path of Kabbalah in the book “The Future Generation.” Russia is perhaps closest to this than any other country.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Does Everyone Hate Israel?
Laitman.com Post: The Solution – Excerpts from the Writings of the Last Generation by Baal HaSulam
Laitman.com Post: The Writings of the Last Generation
Laitman.com Post: Where Is the World Going – Nazism or Global Unity?
Kabbalah Today Article: Unraveling the Zohar – a Wakeup Call

Why Does the Creator Give Us So Much Suffering In This World?

Why Does the Creator Give Us So Much Suffering In This World?Questions I received on faith above reason, belief in oneself, and the purpose of suffering:

Question: Sometimes this world looks so wonderful, but in spite of it I try to hold on to the point in the heart. Is this the meaning of advancing with “faith above reason?”

My Answer: “Faith above reason” means “bestowal above reception.” It’s when you prefer to be inside the quality of bestowal in spite of the egoism that weighs you down, regardless of all its pleasures. Your entire reward lies only in remaining in this state, because it pleases the Creator, even though no one knows anything about what you are doing, and no one will find out.

Question: Why don’t I believe in myself? I am stuck in this.

My Answer: That’s good – rely on us!

Question: I don’t understand why the Creator is giving me so much suffering in the corporeal world. How can I unite with Him in this state?

My Answer: He wants you to come close to Him precisely from this state, and hence He gives you an aspiration toward Him. See the article “There Is None Else Besides Him.”

Question: How do we overcome despair, blows of fate, and hopelessness that haunt us on the path to the spiritual world?

My Answer: By receiving support from the group in study, dissemination, and revelation of the fact that the Creator is one – that “There is none else besides Him,” that He is Good and does only good.

Question: Two months ago I studied Kabbalah a lot, but now I am in a descent. Over the last month I started feeling a need for respect and honor. Before I do anything, I prepare ahead of time to acquire respect and honor. What should I do?

My Answer: You are advancing wonderfully: it’s taken you just two months to start seeing your true nature! Be grateful for the realization of evil and start trying to correct it. You will soon learn that this is impossible to do, and then you will ask the Creator to help you do this!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Faith Above Reason Is Bestowal Above Reception
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 1 – “Perceiving the Creator (Faith Above Reason)”
Laitman.com Post: Be Happy about the Descents!

Love Is Providing Others With the Means to Fulfill Their Point in the Heart


Two questions I received on love:

Question: What is “the suffering of love”?

My Answer: There is no love in our world. What we call love is the aspiration for pleasure, or to be fulfilled by pleasure. In other words, corporeal love is one’s attitude to that which gives one pleasure. It is measured by the degree of one’s fulfillment from the source of love.

Spiritual love works differently. It’s when a person rises above his egoism and no longer depends on it. He then begins to perceive the desires of others as his own, and unites with the entire desire that was created by the Creator (with the common soul, Adam).

Once he acquires this property of bestowal and concern for fulfilling desires outside of him, he then finds the Creator – the general quality of love, inside this common desire. In this case, “the suffering of love” is when one suffers because he still doesn’t love the Creator, or in other words – because he is not inside the property of bestowal completely.

Question: If spiritual love can only be felt toward one’s neighbor, then it is probably impossible to love those who are not part of my close environment (spiritually speaking)? And when we say “love for others” this means that we understand the egoistic nature of others and realize that these egoistic qualities are temporary?

My Answer: That is absolutely correct. But in addition, it’s also necessary to provide them with a way to become acquainted with Kabbalah in a form suitable for them, and to put it in front of them discretely, so that as soon as their “point in the heart” (a desire for something other than this world) will surface, they can immediately discover the means to fulfill it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Look for Love In This World
Laitman.com Post: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself – That’s Your Reward!
Laitman.com Post: Spiritual Labor Pains and the Future of Kabbalah (Advanced)
Lecture: Unconditional Love
Chapter from The Kabbalah Experience: “Spiritual Work”

A New Year’s Wish to the World

A New Year's Wish to the WorldA question I received: This New Year what would you wish to the people who rule the world – the presidents?

My Answer: I still remember the times when one person who believed that he knew how to fix Russia and even the entire world, climbed atop an armored car and spoke such nonsense that it still makes people feel sick to this day. But they went ahead and performed their experiment – and attained the usual horrific results. Such experiments still take place in every country of the world to varying degrees, and they always prove inadequate, whether it’s done in Russia or America, the Third Rome or the Third World.

All the world’s rulers are like little boys who pretend to be grown ups. They don’t realize that they live inside nature and are parts of it. They don’t know the laws of the world they live in, and instead invent their own laws. Within this “lawful” world they build their own small “play world,” complete with made up relationships and laws. Obviously, these do not correspond to the natural laws of society.

Notwithstanding, everything in nature has its own place and law. Animals follow the laws of nature blindly and instinctively, and hence they don’t make mistakes. Man, on the other hand, was created free in order to complete himself, and to reveal – within this realm of freedom –  the laws of nature, the Creator. By doing so, man becomes equal to Nature or the Creator.

However, instead of doing this, man is performing experiments on himself! Until the times of Ancient Babylon, man developed on the animate level and his behavior wasn’t so different from nature. But as soon as his egoism began “acting up,” he decided to build a “tower up to the sky” and people started “speaking different tongues” – stopped understanding one another. As soon as this occurred, man was offered the chance to learn about the purpose of his creation – to attain the level of the Creator, as well as the means to attain this goal – the method of Kabbalah.

Just as Kabbalah predicted 4,500 years ago, we are now finding ourselves in the Global Babylon once again. We have to grow up and learn the laws of nature, instead of inventing our own, artificial laws. After all, there are laws of nature for every kind of behavior – including private and social, and ignorance of these laws evokes Nature’s negative reaction, which we perceive as suffering.

One way or another, Nature will compel us to become similar to it. And if we are opposed to this, it will bring us there by force. Hence, today we – each and every one of us – are more than ever in need of revealing and understanding what Kabbalah says.

My wish for the world’s rulers, and for all the people in the world, is to study the laws of nature and of society that Kabbalah explains. Kabbalah speaks only about this, explaining how everything develops – gradually, logically and lawfully.

Our dissemination of Kabbalah around the world is expanding, and is tipping the whole world over with its force, quality, and connection with the Upper Light. Hence I truly wish everyone SHANA TOVA” (a happy New Year) – and I am optimistic that this will indeed be so!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Another Pointless Conference of the World’s Leaders
Laitman.com Post: Attaining Correction With Less Bloodshed
Laitman.com Post: By Disseminating the Wisdom of Kabbalah, You Correct Your “Self”
Laitman.com Post: Spiritual Labor Pains and the Future of Kabbalah

Don’t Fight Egoism Alone – It Will Always Win!


A question I received: I began studying Bnei Baruch Kabbalah through the arionline.info website in April. It appeared I had a set schedule and steady life for a time. Then I heard that a man studying Kabbalah should have a family in order to be corrected even further.

As I tried to find a mate, it put distance between me and my studies, and it seems that I was “handed over to a cruel ruler.” I ended my relationship with that girl, and I’m trying to get back to the studies, but now I feel as if my hunger to satisfy my corporeal urges increased 50 fold and now there’s a battle in me, and I fail each time. It’s as if Pharaoh gets stronger and stronger and my own self-hatred for giving in is getting bigger. I’m trying to see the Creator in all of this. What should be done?

My Answer: You lack a connection with other people like you. Only the group can help you get out of the confusing states correctly. Don’t fight egoism alone – it will always win! Or it will deceive you, making you believe that you won. Let’s talk when we meet at the congress in Saint Louis!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Consequences of Egoism’s Growth
Laitman.com Post: This Path Can Only Be Surmounted by Those Who Walk It
Kabbalah & Relationships – “Today, It’s Spiritual Relationship or No Relationship”
Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder) – “The Importance of the Association”