Saturday, April 1, 2017

Is It Necessary To Return To This World?

Laitman_709Question: For a person who attains the spiritual world, is there a possibility that he will not return to this world again?
Answer: For a person who hasn’t completely finished attaining the upper world, there is no other possibility to attain it in a final way other than to return to this world and attain the upper world within it. In this case, his existence in this world will be different.
The main thing is to begin the breakthrough to attain the upper world, and then the movement in it in all incarnations will already be different.
Question: How is it possible to differentiate between the imagination and the reality of attaining the spiritual world?
Answer: Before attaining the spiritual world, a very negative reality of our world will be revealed, on the face of which a person discovers the truth.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/20/16

Revenge, The Defeat Of Egoism

Laitman_155Question: Where does the feeling of revenge in a person come from?
Answer: The feeling of revenge comes as a result of a very difficult defeat of the ego, an ego that experiences humiliation. In such a situation, a person is ready to do anything; he has no other choice. A situation in which you insult the most central point of my ego, if you show me that I am zero, and you do not leave me an opportunity to exist, this feeling arouses a feeling of revenge in me.
If I thought that I was higher and you “push” me off of that summit, showing me that I am nothing, then an extreme reaction is formed in me toward the factor that produced that emotion in me. In such a situation, I am not only ready to kill, burn, and trample, but I also want this factor to disappear form this world, in any form!
Question: Is it possible to arouse an emotion like this in a Kabbalist?
Answer: Certainly, Kabbalists experience emotions much more acutely than others. However, the Kabbalists understand that these feelings come from the Creator and come only so that a person will draw himself back to Him.
Question: In a humiliating situation, the average person will take vengeance. What would a Kabbalist do?
Answer: The Kabbalist will correct himself until he reaches a state in which that emotion will not be felt as humiliation in him even a little, because that feeling comes from the Creator and not from anyone else. This is because“There is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
Question: Why is it, that among particular peoples, revenge is raised to the rank of tradition and passes from generation to generation, while among other peoples this is not so?
Answer: This is related to upbringing and the period in which they are living. There were periods when a “blood feud” was a very widespread custom. It was impossible to tolerate defeat, and only a duel could erase these feelings.
In the whole history of mankind, there have been many periods when a person who felt great humiliation calculated how to proceed. Today, egoism has become so great that it has created special mechanisms of protection. Otherwise, with every blast of a horn from a passing car, we would see drivers shooting each other.
Today, a Kabbalist doesn’t relate to insults, forgiving, or taking actions in response to an insult. Basically, we must not take it to heart in order not to feel humiliated, even though, in fact, life is an immense source of humiliation.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/21/16

New Life #830 – The Reason For Hatred In The World

New Life #830 – The Reason For Hatred In The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel
Summary
The basic matter of creation is the desire to receive, which develops the levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.
The human ego develops since there is a spark of light in it, which means the force of bestowal that drives it. In the past, Abraham explored the hatred that erupted among the people of ancient Babylon and discovered the method of reaching love. Then he taught a group of people who wanted to attain how to ascend above the ego. Those who joined Abraham later became the nation of Israel and were internally different from everyone else.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #830 – The Reason For Hatred In The World,” 2/28/17
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One Kabbalist Is The Friend Of Another

laitman_565_01Question: Who does a Kabbalist consider a friend, and does he have many friends?
Answer: A Kabbalist has no friends. For him, every person who engages in the search for the attribute of love and bestowal along with the whole group is a friend.
The root of the word “friend” – “Chaver” in Hebrew stems from the word “Chibur”– “connection, unity.” People with whom I can connect in unity in order to discover the meaning of my life are called my friends.
Question: Does this mean that a Kabbalist has no friends with whom he can, let’s say, go to a football game once a week?
Answer: No, when I was young, I had many friends I was close with until the age of 20 to 22. Then, we separated, and each went his own way. Some went to the army and some to university.
Today, they invite me to their gatherings, but I don’t find the time, energy, and desire to be with them because we are totally different and have no common goals or desires. We have nothing to talk about, except perhaps to remember what things used to be like 50 years ago or how life has gone by, but we don’t have a common present or future.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/11/16

From Whom Do We Receive Gifts?

laitman_565_01Question: In spirituality, do we feel a taste of the Creator Himself or what He gives us?
Answer: It’s the same thing; therefore, it is also written, “Taste and see that the Creator is good” (Psalms 34:9), see how tasty He is.
Question: I can enjoy relationships with you and the gifts that you give me on the physical level. What gives me enjoyment in the spiritual world?
Answer: In the spiritual world, something like this doesn’t exist. What you receive from me is myself. After all, even in our world, it is the same thing. My image is created within you as a result of what you get from me, and my being outside of you is only an illusion. It seems to you that I exist. But in fact, I don’t exist.
Question: But am I not receiving a gift in the form of an object that pleases me?
Answer: You receive it from the Creator. But in the meantime, this gift exists within you, as a physical gift within your emotions, and it seems to you that it was given by me. That is how the Creator places Himself before you.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/20/16

A Woman Who Supports Her Husband Will Achieve Spirituality

Laitman_631_3Question: In history, were there cases in which the man was engaged with the wisdom of Kabbalah and his wife sat at home with the children, but by supporting him she also reached spiritual attainment?
Answer: We have examples like this. Two thousand years ago, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, who helped him in everything, reached the greatest heights of attainment.
Question: Could there be a situation today where a woman who supports her husband reaches spirituality without opening a book even once?
Answer: If a woman supports her husband in everything, devoting herself with all her desire, the husband can even be lazy, but if she pushes him forward, obligates and helps, she can attain more than he. Everything depends on the yearning of the person. Moreover, a woman’s desire is more demanding and serious.
I cannot say what is preferable in our world, being a man or a woman, everything depends on luck. If a woman has a serious and proper yearning for the goal, then it could be that her realization as a physical woman and as a spiritual man will be more successful.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/4/16

What Interferes With Our Attainment Of The Upper World?

laitman_622_01Question: What do the limitations of our perception, our consciousness, and attainment depend on? What is preventing us from beginning to attain the upper world now?
Answer: Only narcissism prevents us from attaining the upper world, because the higher dimension is built on bestowal and love. And the physical world is built on reception and hatred.
Question: Why? After all, I don’t hate anyone. There are those I love, those I like.
Answer: I love them because they satisfy me egoistically because my main, natural desire is to have pleasure. And whatever I don’t receive pleasure from, I hate.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/27/16

What Dies And What Remains?

laitman_756_2Question: From the point of view of the wisdom of Kabbalah, what dies and what is left after the death of the body?
Answer: Nothing dies and nothing remains. Everything happens only in our consciousness, within which we live. There is nothing that will actually disappear, be born, and develop.
Only desire exists, and when we talk about the world of the still, vegetative, and animate, about people in our world, these are all our inner desires that portray such a reality for us.
I am compelled to repeat this so that people will gradually get used to the idea that our world doesn’t exist. It is only portrayed within us, as is the entire universe.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/6/16

What Will Be The Way: Long Or Short?

laitman_547_05From “The Crisis and Its Solution” (Arosa Forum 2006)
How does humanity realize the need to become similar to nature? They will come to it from hopelessness and from the realization of egoism as evil! One can advance toward the realization of evil by choosing the path of suffering or the short path of correction.
However, the path of suffering is not the path; this is just an amount of time that is needed for the realization of all the horrible consequences of one’s stubbornness and egoism.
Nevertheless, one can choose a short and easy path of correction: if a person receives knowledge about the world’s structure, causality, and purpose, he accelerates his realization of evil and does not need to realize egoism as evil under the influence of sufferings.
Humanity is gradually advancing to the understanding that it is necessary to adhere to the middle line. Today, it is clearly evident from the clashes that occur between the left and the right in human society. An example of this is the United States after the recent elections. In Europe, too, will soon begin a ruthless struggle between the ultra-right (Nazi) parties and the ultra-left liberals.
We won’t reach peace this way because each one wants to defeat the other. Both don’t understand that there must be a middle line between them that is based on their connection and common goal. The world doesn’t have this method yet, and therefore, it will lead either to war or to continuous struggle.
The struggle won’t end until both sides realize that throughout the general structure of creation, there have to be the right and the left sides and the middle line between them. And it is necessary to know how to build it.
Until this happens, they will continue to fight with each other. This struggle between the right and the left resembles the period of formation of the planet Earth. At first, the forces of fire were winning and everything was burning, then the forces of cooling were winning, and the glaciation began.
So the periods of warming and cooling alternated every thirty million years until the Earth finally stabilized and reached the middle line, or the middle state.
Today, we still live on the volcano because inside the Earth, everything is burning, there is tremendous energy. Yet, we live on the thin layer of the Earth’s crust that covers all of it from above. The same thing happens everywhere; any life appears as a result of the interaction between these two opposite forces.
Therefore, we need the recognition of evil and its correction through balancing it with the good forces. However, the good and evil must be balanced and equal, and must complete each other because this is the only way to reach the middle line. After all, only in the middle line is it possible to advance from one degree to another, from the beginning to the end of the spiritual path.
In essence, the difference between all the degrees is in the greater and greater revelation of our egoism, the desire to enjoy, which obliges us to build the right line against it in order to reach the middle line.
The long way is when we learn from our own mistakes, without the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah and without knowing how to build the middle line and how to organize society in advance so we would learn, as in the laboratory, how to create a correct mutual connection between all.
If we try to do so, we can take a short, perfect, comfortable, and kind path with the wise leader ahead. If we don’t, we face a path of great sufferings. Baal HaSulam said that we’ve entered the era of Mashiach.
Now we discover that humanity is seeking its path and doesn’t know where to advance further. These are the clear signs of the era of the Mashiach (the Messiah) that will become more and more clear.
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Unfortunately, People Don’t Learn From Weak Blows

laitman_547_05Question: The crisis of 2008 showed that people don’t learn from weak blows. Could a global ecological catastrophe or even a nuclear winter already be embedded in the program of nature? And if they can’t be avoided anyway, is it best not to think about them?
Answer: If we are facing some kind of terrible catastrophe—biological, ecological, financial, climate problems or a nuclear war—it doesn’t relieve us from the need to act in order to avoid the blow. We cannot just wait calmly until it happens.
We have no right to think so, because we understand that it doesn’t end there. In his short-sightedness, a person thinks, “Well, if I die, then I’ll die.” But it isn’t as simple as that. We can’t die and disappear because we are in an eternal process inside the cycles of life, living and being born again and again.
All these births and deaths are, in effect, the renewal of our small animal desire to enjoy that gradually grows and develops, taking on new forms.
This circle can end only when we begin to build our soul from two opposite forces, egoism on the one hand, the negative force, and nature on the other hand, the positive force that we need to acquire and add to our egoism.
Midway between these two forces, we will be able to advance, and we must do it with understanding and awareness. There is a way of natural development—the path of suffering by which nature urges us forward.
There is also a way of hastening time (Achishena), to which we must move. After all, we need to rise to the degree of a man (Adam), meaning similar (Dome) to the upper force of nature, the Creator, who understands, feels, and realizes according to His desire and free choice the entire purpose of creation.
Therefore, we won’t be able to just bury our heads in the sand and say, “Well, in the worst case, we will die, but for now we’ll just live and have fun.” This is a childish approach to live, not suitable for an adult.
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New Life #829 – Religions And The Development Of Man

New Life #829 – Religions And The Development Of Man
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel
Summary
What does the return to religion today indicate? How did Abraham discover the upper force? What was the impact of this revelation on humanity and why did popular religion emerge?
There is a trend of returning to religion today as a result of the growing egoism. People are looking for meaning of life. Religion tells us that there is a force that manages us above nature, that we should believe in it and obey its commandments. We don’t need to “believe” in order to reveal the Creator; we need to work and to acquire the attribute of love of others.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #829 – Religions And The Development Of Man,” 2/14/17
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What Is Prayer?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion from Facebook: What is prayer?
Answer: Prayer is an appeal to the upper force of nature to correct one’s egoistic inclination.
This is the only thing that the upper force accepts as the right request, a desire, a sense of deficiency, that attracts a positive force, correcting this deficiency.
Question: And what about the millennia of prayers humanity raised in the course of history?
Answer: They cannot be considered prayers because only a request to correct one’s egoism and to replace it with universal love for everyone is called a prayer.
If you do not ask for this, you don’t appeal to anyone. The upper force responds only to this request because the property of love and bestowal is all that it contains. Whoever asks this force for the property of love and bestowal gets it to the extent that they have a true desire. Whoever doesn’t ask, doesn’t receive it. You can cry as much as you want about everything else, it’s “a voice crying out in the desert.”
Question: Then what is the purpose of the purposefully composed prayer books that people recite prayers from?
Answer: By reading these prayers, a person raises his desire not toward correction, but toward all sorts of personal benefits: money, health, and so on. None of this works.
Question: What should I ask for in order for it to be a true prayer?
Answer: You should ask only for a supra-egoistic property: bestowal and love of others. Everything else is a waste of time.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/3/17
Laitman_632_4Question from Facebook: How do you deal with anti-Semites?
Answer: Anti-Semites are people who instinctively feel that there is a source of their good or bad existence within the Jews. Feeling their dependence on Jews, and at the same time suffering in this life, they hate the Jews.
We need to explain to them the real reason for their hatred and work together on correction; otherwise, we will not accomplish anything. It is impossible to annihilate the Jews because they must carry out their mission.
Even if an additional world war breaks out in which half of the Jews and half of the rest of the world are killed, in any case, we will ultimately reach the same common denominator.
It is necessary to explain this to everyone and to try to explain this to the Jews themselves, because they are the true opponents of the correction of mankind.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/1/17

Thursday, March 30, 2017

The Value Of Each Soul Equals The Value Of The Whole System

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person’s soul has its own individual root, a point in the heart, that is not related to anything or to anyone. There are different states in it that are divided mainly into male and female, high and low, right and left, etc.
This means that there is a significant distinction between the souls according to their attributes. This has nothing to do with the value of the soul because if it is a closed system, if a certain part, even the smallest one, ceases to function, the whole system will come to a halt. Therefore, the value of every soul is equal to the value of the whole system.
At the same time, there is a great difference between the individual souls; each one is different from the others. But in the ultimate state, which we will eventually reach, all the souls are equal. On the way, there can be male and female souls, souls of children and of adults, souls from the right line or the left line, etc., and even with regard to height, there are souls that belong to each of the ten levels.
Question: Suppose there is a male soul in a body of man and he has to attain a certain part of the soul or the whole soul, and then he has to return to another life. Does that mean that he has to be in a male body again?
Answer: We needn’t think that it has anything to do with how the soul resides in a body in our world. I don’t want to talk about that because then it will be difficult for us to avoid the wrong impressions.
A person’s body doesn’t determine anything, whereas the point in the heart that one has to develop is eternal. I have to think about how to make it complex and integral, integral with the other points, and how to unite with as many people as possible in mutual bestowal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/6/16

Jewish Business News, “Starving People Make The UN Fat”

In my regular column in Jewish Business News, my new article: “Starving People Make The UN Fat
“More than 20 million people face starvation and famine.” Where has the UN been until today? Gorging at their expense.
On December 20, 2016, the Internet site Big Think wrote about Swedish billionaire László Szombatfalvy’s launch of an “international competition in order to find a better system for world governance.” To explain the reasons behind the competition, a letter published on the foundation’s website states that “The greatest threats we face today transcend national boundaries; they therefore need to be addressed jointly by all countries based on an increased realization of our mutual dependence.”
And if one might ponder why Mr. Szombatfalvy did not approach the UN for this sort of undertaking, as that should be the default entity for carrying out global transformations, the fund’s website reflects the billionaire’s view of the UN. According to the site, “Our current international system – including but not limited to the United Nations – was set up in another era following the Second World War. It is no longer fit for purpose to deal with 21st century risks that can affect people anywhere in the world. We urgently need fresh new thinking in order to address the scale and gravity of today’s global challenges, which have outgrown the present system’s ability to handle them.”
Indeed they have. Less than a week ago, Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, stated that “more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease.” Mr. O’Brien also said that “$4.4bn was needed by July to avert disaster.”O’Brien has been in office for nearly two years now. Where has he been for the past two years? Where has the UN been? Starvation of twenty million people, nearly 1.4M of whom are children, does not happen overnight. Why has the UN not alerted the world that this was unfolding? All of a sudden, harrowing images of emaciated little children are taking over the newsfeeds. Could the warning not be sounded earlier?
As Mr. Szombatfalvy noted on his site, the UN is a defunct, irrelevant entity. It is rotten to the core. The sole interests of the politicians and diplomats who serve in it are their paychecks and promoting their careers. The billions of dollars the organization already gets could have cured the world’s problems several times over. They could have shipped a few million of the 1.3 billion tons of excess food trashed each year and solved this crisis, but they have no interest in doing so. Starving children bring in donations. Feeding them would dry up the flow of money and kill this cash cow.
To understand just how warped the perception of the UN is concerning its task, consider this piece of information concerning the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). On its Frequently Asked Questions page, UNICEF USA refutes the “vicious” and unsubstantiated rumor that Caryl M. Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, “earns more than $1 million.” In truth, the organization proclaims, Mrs. Stern “earns $521,820.” Indeed, a CEO who is a role model of austerity.
In Search of Viable Governance
To “find a better system for world governance,” as Mr. Szombatfalvy put it, we need to start at the root cause of all the problems. In 1964, Nobel Prize laureate in physics Dennis Gabor wrote, “Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.” More than fifty years later, we are still reluctant to accept the truth in these simple words.
In fact, we have been told since Biblical times that “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21), but until recently, when we began to talk about the narcissism epidemic engulfing the Western world, we obstinately tried to circumvent the problem rather than solve it.
Over the eons, humanity has tried every conceivable means of governance—from slavery to feudalism to capitalism to liberalism, to fascism, Nazism, communism and every other ism in between. But if you look in the annals of history, you will find that we have been swaying from one brutality to the next. More than anything, our history is one long bloodbath. We have not found a single means of governance that is both sustainable and guarantees the well-being of all human beings. And the reason we have not found it is that we are narcissistic and selfish to the core.
Therefore, if we truly want to help ourselves and others, we must address two issues. The first is provision of sustenance. In a world where so much food gets lost or wasted, it is unconscionable to let other human beings starve. The food already exists, so all we need is to collect and ship it where it’s needed. The second issue in the healing process is a long-term educational program that will prevent crises from recurring. This is the issue I would like to focus on.
You Cannot Know Unless You Try
In a TED talk given in May 2010, acclaimed American sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis stated that human beings form a kind of superorganism. Approximately eighty years prior, acclaimed commentator of The Book of Zohar, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, wrote that “we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society.” He also added that “in our generation, when each person is aided for his happiness by all the countries in the world … the possibility of leading a good, happy, and peaceful life in one country is inconceivable when it is not so in all the countries in the world.” Ashlag admitted that “people have not yet grasped this,” but stressed that it is only because “the act comes before the understanding, and only actions will prove and push humanity forward.”
In other words, we will not feel that we are a single superorganism (as Christakis put it) until we begin to act as one. Once we begin to “experiment” with this, we will suddenly realize that this has been the case all along, yet we were unaware of it.
Consider this interesting fact: The only nation to have survived since antiquity is the Jewish nation. The Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman nations have all vanished. Only Judaism remains. Numerous scholars, philosophers, philo-Semites and anti-Semites have pondered, “What is the secret of his immortality?” as Mark Twain asked about the Jew.
The answer is that there is a fundamental difference between the Jews and all the other nations. The secret to the endurance of the Jews is the adhesive of unity. The original Jews were completely unaffiliated, coming from different tribes and cultures. The only thing that held them together was Abraham’s idea that mercy and love are the foundation stones upon which to build society, and that whenever the ego erupts, they should cover it with love instead of fighting or parting ways. This approach had held the Jews together through crises and wars for approximately 1,500 years—from Abraham’s time until the ruin of the Second Temple some two millennia ago.
Moreover, history has proven that this “cement” of unity that covers egoism is so strong that it not only sustained the Jewish people longer than any other nation, but kept them in tact through countless attempts to destroy, disperse, and exterminate them. Although today’s Jews have forgotten what had sustained them for centuries, the persistent strength of that adhesive is still strong enough to keep this nation in existence.
Implementing Unity above Enmity
This historic proof is our key to solving the world’s problems. Unity over egoism is the one mode of governance the world has not yet tried. But in the face of current crises—the risk of another world war, mass starvation, accelerated global warming, and pollution of natural resources—I think that we have no other choice but to give this approach a serious consideration. Of all people, it was notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford who wrote, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.” On this point, he could not be more right.
As Ashlag said, “the act comes before the understanding.” Today, we are implementing Abraham’s principle of unity above enmity defacto. After numerous successful unity events throughout the world, including in conflict zones such as in Israel, with Arabs and Jews (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 [the latter is in Hebrew, switch on the Subtitles option]), we are certain that we can reinstate our forefather’s method in large scale. Even people who have tried this notion independently, after reading my book, Completing the Circle: an empirically proven method for finding peace and harmony in life, have testified to its positive impact on their lives.
In my view, until we deal with the heart of the problem, which is the egoism in human nature, and do so specifically in the way that Abraham bequeathed to his disciples, by bonding atop their animosity, we will find no remedy to our woes. The notion that we need not suppress our unruly egos, but simply exert to unite above them may be a novel idea to some, but in my view, we have run out of options and this is the only way to spare humanity many more years of needless torment.
And finally, I would advise Mr. Szombatfalvy, that if he wishes to try out Abraham’s method of connection, and help the world “find a better system for world governance,” as he put it, to take our free materials and spread them the world over. Our non-profit, voluntary organization does its utmost to circulate this notion of unity. If he or any other capable and understanding individual may assist us in this task, we would be more than happy to provide whatever is required.
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Never Again!

Laitman_130I was born in 1946 and grew up in the shadow of that ruthless war that took the lives of millions of people in a terrible tragedy called the Holocaust of the Jewish people. The Holocaust has impacted me personally. Although my parents were lucky to survive, two-thirds of my relatives were killed in the death camps.
For this reason, the Holocaust is not some distant memory for me, but a painful reminder of what might also happen to us. The question, “How can we prevent another Holocaust?” is not an idle question for me. I ask this question with all the pain and the responsibility that I feel.
I feel how an ocean of hatred is drowning us. The signs of the impending disaster have never been so evident. All international reports regarding the unprecedented growth of anti-Semitism are clear warning signs.
On the International Holocaust Memorial Day, a question was asked on BBC as to whether it isn’t time to stop talking about the Holocaust. A scientific convention is going to be held in England about Israel’s legitimate right to exist, and an agreement has been signed with Iran regarding its nuclear plan, which is more proof that we cannot count on our “allies.”
All this is a cause of great concern regarding our future.
We can still prevent another Holocaust, but it is not enough to mourn the past in order to do that. Tears should give way to critical analysis of our current situation and a search for other means to correct it.
Why? Because we are living in a closed system of emotionless forces. The law, according to which this system operates, is homeostasis, which means the harmonious balance of all the elements in the system.
Therefore, if we act in accordance with this law, which means that we aspire to establish good and harmonious relations, we feel good, but if we are divided, this system forcefully rebalances us with it. Sometimes such a correction involves terrible suffering.
I know how hard it is for Holocaust survivors and members of their families to read these lines, but the truth has to be told. The Holocaust happened because the nation of Israel did not act according to the law of unity. Why us? Because we have a special responsibility to fulfill this law ever since the days of Abraham.
Abraham, the founder of our nation, discovered that everything is managed by the law of unity. When the people of ancient Babylon were divided because the ego grew, Abraham began to teach the Babylonians the method of unity.
The few that followed him were called the nation of Israel. The implementation of this law is the reason our nation exists. The only justification for our existence as a nation is to convey this law within us and to all the other nations of the world.
In the beginning of the last century, we received a chance to get back to the land of Israel, not in order to build a home for all the Jews in it, but in order to reacquire the unity that we have lost. Unfortunately, we did not do it then. Most of the Jews of Europe preferred to remain in their local communities or to assimilate.
The reaction of the upper system to that was the Holocaust that started at the beginning of the 1920’s. Long before the world was flooded and suffocated by blood, Kabbalists felt that a great tragedy was approaching and called the Jews of Europe to return to their land and to unite, but they did not listen to the Kabbalists.
Instead of uniting into one nation of our own freewill, we got closer to each other due to the terrible suffering during the Holocaust. After that we received our statehood.
The real mandate for the existence of our country is not the UN declaration, but our mission. According to Kabbalists, the state we received was given to us only in order to fulfill the law of unity. And this is exactly what the world demands of us.
Subconsciously, the people of the world want us to attain unity between us and to convey the method of Abraham to them. We have refused to do that so far and thus invoke anti-Semitism. It is actually this refusal that could be the cause for the next Holocaust.
Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel’s Independence Day have to become days of fulfilling our mission, days of recalculating and reassessing the existence of our nation. On these days, we should gather around thousands of roundtables all over Israel and the world and understand how we must attain true independence, independence from our egoism, and learn how we can ascend from unfounded hate to brotherly love.
This is the only way we can ensure our future and the future of our children and to confidently say, never again!
[157660]

What Did The Creator Create: A Body Or A Soul?

Laitman_720Question: You claim that according to Baal HaSulam, man descended from the ape. Could it be that Baal HaSulam was wrong? After all, it says in the Torah that the Creator created man in His image and His likeness.
Answer: It isn’t only Baal HaSulam who says that man descended from the ape. Many other Kabbalists write about that. When we speak about man, it should be clear what man we refer to. If we refer to a man who is flesh and blood in our world, we refer to the level of the animal, and in this case, we should agree with what the books say.
Three hundred years before Darwin, a great Kabbalist the Ari said that man is the next phase that descends from the monkey, which is the intermediate phase between the animate level of nature and man.
Our animate state is accurately attained by Kabbalists. Moreover, when the Ari wrote about it, it was not a new idea about creation and the development of man from the ape since it was already mentioned in The Book of Zohar, which was written in the second century.
Kabbalists saw this process by seeing the development of the upper forces, and they described it in just a few sentences, which were enough to understand everything. When we examine the system of creation, we divide it into five levels according to the five phases of the spreading of the Direct Light. Therefore, when we speak about a certain object, we have to talk about it on all levels of its development.
Man is called a soul without a body. Just like any other animal, the body undergoes its phases of development and dies, while the soul only accompanies it. The body helps the soul develop. This is its mission. As long as a person has not acquired his soul and has not begun to assemble it from the shattered parts, he exists in a body.
When a person begins to correct his soul, that is, his intentions from receiving for his own sake to bestowal unto others, he is no longer a monkey and not man in our world but a human being (Adam). The human level symbolizes man (Adam) that resembles the Creator, even it is only in one small part of the desire that emerges in him. The small part that is corrected is called Man (Adam). From this perspective, there are no human beings in our world; there are only apes that resemble man in their shape. If we speak about humans, we call them souls. Therefore, it depends on what we speak about and on which level.
Question: What did the Creator create: a biological body or our soul?
Answer: The Torah speaks about everything, but it basically speaks about the soul. Everything we see around us doesn’t actually exist, but is inside us in the form of different desires. The replicas of our desires are imprinted around us and are called “this world.” Objects in the form of the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature, which we see, represent impressions of our internal attributes.
We are in a matrix in which there are only forces that depict ourselves to us, and everything that we see inside us and outside ourselves, are like on a computer screen. When we see our internal desires, which are aimed for our own sake on the screen, they depict our world to us. When the internal desires and forces are aimed at the sake of others, they depict the upper world to us. This is how we are made.
[201128]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/4/16

New Life #828 – Between Religions And The Wisdom Of Kabbalah

New Life #828 – Between Religions And The Wisdom Of Kabbalah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel
Summary
What does religion provide us with? How does the wisdom of Kabbalah teach us to get to know the upper force and what is the goal that people of all religions have to reach according to this wisdom?
We don’t know what we are living for, and religions offer a person something that is beyond this life. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the internality of Judaism. It is the method of revealing the Creator to man while still in this world.
[202313]
From KabTV’s “New Life #828 –  Between Religions And The Wisdom Of Kabbalah,” 2/14/17
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What Does The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Say About Goyim?

Laitman_507_05Question from Facebook: What does the wisdom of Kabbalah say about Goyim?
Answer: In the wisdom of Kabbalah, a person is considered a Jew not according to nationality, but according to the yearning to truly attain the Creator, meaning according to the degree of equivalence with the characteristics of the Creator, which means according to the acquisition of the characteristic of bestowal. If he doesn’t have an inner movement like this, he is called a “Goy,” meaning a nation.
Those inhabitants of ancient Babylon who felt a yearning like this and gathered around Abraham, who taught them about union and attaining the Creator through union, began to be called “Goy Kadosh (holy nation),” meaning a holy people. Holy means people who operate according to bestowal and love between them to attain the Creator.
Therefore, in the word “Goy,” there is nothing bad or pejorative; it simply means a people. And Goy Kadosh are special people who are naturally attracted to attaining the Creator. That is what the wisdom of Kabbalah says.
Religion doesn’t affect us at all, it is a departure from the wisdom of Kabbalah into the physical world, a kind of additional accompaniment to our world.
[204073]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/1/17

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Why Are You Scaring Us?

laitman_547_05Question from Facebook: Why do you keep scaring us in your posts all the time? You keep saying that humanity is like a little rabbit hiding and shaking under a bush.
Answer: Of course! This is what I see people behaving like! On the one hand, they try to harm each other, and on the other, they are afraid to be treated in the same manner. This is how our whole life is managed.
If we don’t change, of course it will be bad!
I “frighten” people in order to warn them in advance of the sufferings, so they could avoid suffering. It is just as we say to a child: “You shouldn’t do that, you will fall, you will get hurt, and it will be painful.”
My intentions are very good, but what can I do if people think that I am just saying that? It is just like parents who want to protect a child from trouble, but cannot avoid what will happen! I will try to be gentler.
[203756]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/15/17

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