Development Of Egoism And The Method Of Connection, Part 5

The Method Received at Mount Sinai

Question: The method that the people of Israel received at the foot of Mount Sinai was given to them on condition that they would become “as one man with one heart.” What is this?

Answer: The condition “as one man with one heart” means to be in our connection as similar as possible to one common, unified upper force and to feel that we are unable to do this ourselves. When we invest a certain amount of effort into connecting, we develop a strong desire to become similar to this force.

Such an aspiration to a state where we together want to become as one common whole awakens the upper light. The upper light affects the person or people who awakened it, and it performs certain spiritual actions upon them; that is, it gives them the strength to connect, to rise above their egoism.

Question: What was new in this method that Abraham did not have?

Answer: Firstly, egoism changed. If egoism is bigger, not in quantity but in quality, then, of course, a different method and other actions are required.

The new egoism requires new means in order to rise above it, to start working with it, and to connect with each other precisely because of it, despite the fact that it separates people.

Therefore, this method is called “the method of connection.” The force that we need to apply in order to connect is called “the upper light” or “the Torah.”
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/1/19

“Is The Esoteric Kabbalah Even Approaching Legitimacy?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the esoteric Kabbalah even approaching legitimacy?“

Kabbalah is not a form of esotericism.

People want to label Kabbalah as esoteric or mystic, and connect it with blessings, curses, charms, and many other phenomena. These labels became linked with Kabbalah because there was a prohibition on the study of Kabbalah in the masses for 1,000s of years since humanity’s spiritual desire still hadn’t ripened. In the 16th Century, when the Ari (Kabbalist Isaac Luria) lifted the prohibition on the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, claiming that the time had come for Kabbalah to be revealed to humanity, he also mentioned the prohibition on the use of charms and blessings, since they have nothing to do with Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is a science that teaches the law of reality, of which we are a part. Through this science, we discover those rules and the spiritual world, which is the reason for everything that happens here with us. They are collective rules, which encompass the laws of all the sciences in our world.

Kabbalah is not another belief or an imaginary view of life. Instead, it offers precise and clear laws that depict the structure of the upper worlds.

It is when we study Kabbalah that we first acquire knowledge of the world outside our own. We discover the higher, spiritual world, and then we gradually attain the ability to affect it. Through tests and experiments, we learn how to do it, and then we enter the comprehensive reality.

At this point, we begin to work not from within our own bodies, but from our souls, which are our true essence. The human being is not the physical body that is replaced at the beginning of each new life. The human being is the soul that we currently do not sense.

The purpose of creation is that we will act from within our souls, from the upper world, and live at the highest degree possible, rather than in the lowest (our world), which is at an animal level. By discovering our souls, we attain contact with the upper world, and thus achieve a whole, complete, eternal and blissful life.

Our World Is A Black Dot

Question: You say that our world doesn’t exist. In what sense does it not exist and why? What does “illusory” mean, and whose illusion it is?

Answer: It is our illusion. In reality, our world does not exist.

What does “in reality” mean? In the property of bestowal, which is the only thing that exists in reality; our world does not exist.

Our world is the property of reception, it is pure egoism. And the world itself does not exist, it is purposefully created as a ghostly and illusory one so that we live in it as at the starting point of our true spiritual development, so that we exist outside of the spiritual worlds, outside of true existence.

Our world is simply a black dot.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20

New Life #1200 – Communication In Relationships

New Life #1200 – Communication in Relationships
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Rather than blaming, putting down, or confronting others, we need to find a way to communicate so that the other person can receive it. We always want to be right, but by conceding to an angry person, one disarms them immediately. Every fight can be stopped with a kiss. Children also need to be allowed to express all of their emotions, including anger. Accepting others as they are without wanting to change them is important. Instead, my focus should be on changing myself.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1200 – Communication in Relationships,” 1/16/20

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Awaken The Ten With My Efforts

The time has come to begin to advance toward the holy goal, that is, to the revelation of the Creator to the creations in this world. Everything is in our hands; nothing prevents it from us. All the events taking place in the world that supposedly delay us actually help us advance toward the goal of creation, to a better understanding of life’s purpose. They help us realize how much our world needs a spiritual ascent: not to be corrected in the same place but to rise to a spiritual level.

It will become increasingly clearer to every person in the world that there is no way out and that cardinal changes in our existence must begin here. Existing in the present form, we will run into a dead end time after time. We have no chance to continue living like this.

The time has come to use all our strength and open the path to a spiritual, perfect life, to open it to humanity as quickly as possible. In fact, all people subconsciously wait for this, but have no idea what it depends on.

Our Bnei Baruch group is made up of people who the Creator has invited to enter the spiritual world and draw close to Him. We must understand our responsibility and realize this opportunity. We have two weeks of very intense spiritual work before us, and we will try to make every effort, to the utmost extent, and will certainly achieve life’s lofty goal.

There are times that are determined from above, and there are times when we trigger ourselves from below. We have set aside this special time for our gathering, the World Kabbalah Convention, and we approach it through great and long efforts. At the same time, we see extraordinarily fearful events unfolding in the world. Yet, it is amazing how nothing stands in the way of our friends traveling to Tel Aviv for the convention. We await everyone with even greater impatience than usual, ready to welcome them with open arms.

Let us hope that for the time remaining before the convention, we will better prepare ourselves for connection so that in the depths of this unity, we will begin to reveal new qualities in which the Creator calls for His revelation. From our efforts to unite together as much as possible and even more, we will see how the Creator shows us the conditions for His revelation. We must feel it.

We need only reveal the need to achieve equivalence with the Creator, to want to feel Him precisely in His very quality of bestowal. May He give us the quality of bestowal, and we will be happy to work with Him. We await that quality, although we do not even know exactly what it is. We ask the Creator to work on us, we are ready for this operation. Let Him make this change in us, implant the quality of bestowal in us, develop and teach us. We want to be clay in the hands of the master, let Him model His likeness from us.

What is required of us is only an initial desire and no more. We have no real need for bestowal, and are unable to understand what it is; we just accept that the Creator will make of us what He wants. This is enough for the Creator to begin to correct us.

It is difficult to realize how connection between friends, between people, can be connected with the attainment of the Creator. Why does the revelation of the Creator suddenly depend on unity of egoists above their egoism? If they hate and repel each other, but nevertheless make efforts to unite, these efforts, penny by penny, accumulate to a large amount, and they build a connection network.

Inside, this entire network is filled with hatred, forces of rejection, and stretched over it are our timid attempts to connect with each other. The system of hatred is as solid as iron. Atop it, we try to sew these iron blocks with thin threads, but as we try, we manage to knit them more and more. We begin to discover that in these very thin threads connecting us with each other, there is a special quality: the upper force of the light, which is much more powerful than the iron rods of egoism. We thus begin to feel each other.

It is a very long process, and it repeatedly leads us to despair, but time does its job and ultimately saves us.

We must believe that the Creator will organize the group and the friends for us so that we have the opportunity to reveal Him, to become like Him, and thereby give Him contentment. Everything has already been arranged from above, and all we need is readiness, a little effort, and it will happen. The Creator arranges all the conditions for us above and we need only give our quota of effort that is in our ability to give. Everything is already calculated above. The upper one is ready to help us and as soon as we complete what we need, we will immediately find the correct result. The Creator will open up and ask: “Well, where were you? I have been waiting so long, but you were not there!”

We will reveal all this as soon as we will provide our desire, the Kli, which is in our power to reveal.

We are ready for revelation; we need only combine our despair, efforts, and aspirations, and it will be sufficient. The power of prayer depends on two factors: on the awareness of one’s powerlessness and one’s lowliness. On one hand, we feel that we have insufficient strength to reveal the Creator, but desperation from the insignificance of our condition is even more necessary. And if we combine these two feelings together, then this becomes enough for the right appeal. The Creator sees that we have realized our worthlessness and is revealed to us.

If the Creator does not help us, then we are lost. You have to feel it with all your gut. We really want to achieve merging with the Creator due to the equivalence of our qualities, to become bestowers, and we ask only for this. Otherwise, this is not life.

There is nothing more to do, we have reached the limit: if the Creator does not give me the quality of bestowal, then I disappear. If He does not connect me with the group, I am lost. I pray to let me cleave to my friends in order to support them with all my might, to serve them, to give and to help them achieve their goal. What will happen to me is unimportant, I want only their good. In order to do so, I come to the convention in order to help my friends achieve their goal, and completely annul myself.

We go through many different states. Sometimes such apathy attacks that a person is incapable of any movement in feeling, thought, and words; one is completely disconnected. And sometimes a person burns with desire, ready to turn mountains. The rest of the time, one is somewhere in the middle between the two, in different states in mind and heart.

The question is how to awaken ourselves in every state for the sake of the ten. We should not wait for the Creator to awaken us, and we should not awaken ourselves individually, but we should wake up with the help of ten, awakening the ten by ourselves. That is the whole point. Everything is only through our connection with the ten: to awaken them with our own efforts and then be inspired by them and act.

Even if there is no feeling and thought for the Creator, but we perform material actions in relation to the group, then this all adds to my account.

Therefore, we do not have to await the Creator’s mercy. The Creator’s worker is the one who works: where the Creator does not awaken him, does not give any incentives, one seeks how to add effort oneself, like an old man looking for something lost even before losing it.
From the Tish 2/14/20, “Preparation for Convention”

Development Of Egoism And The Method Of Connection, Part 4

Method of Connection: Before and After the Egyptian Exile

Question: What is the difference between the method of Abraham and the method that the people of Israel received when they exited Egypt?

Answer: It is all about connection.

Abraham also called people to unity. But in those days in Babylon, there was no particular hatred, no one killed each other. The Babylonians simply suddenly ceased to understand each other, which led them to an insurmountable rejection from each other. It was necessary to somehow soften, to overcome this rejection. As it is written, “Love will cover all crimes.” In principle, it was possible for them.

In Egypt, however, people’s egos have grown so much that the inclination to kill was revealed in them. They not only disagreed with each other, but were ready to destroy whoever was against them. So they could not remain in egoism because it threatened them with what is called “the Egyptian plagues.” It was necessary to exit it and rise above it, which in general they did.

They rose above their separation and in order to connect at a new level, they received a method called “the Torah.”
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/1/19

Purpose Of Disturbances

Question: There are different types of interference at different levels according to the four stages of the development of nature.

The first type is an inanimate level disturbance: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc. Plant and animal level interference include various diseases and viruses. Human level interference include some kinds of psychological deviations. Is it possible to calibrate these types of interference?

Answer: It is possible.

Question: Depending on the structure of each person, does nature, the Creator, know how to apply pressure on everyone?

Answer: Of course. This happens in accordance with the structure of the soul, that is, our inner desire that we must balance and merge with the Creator.

Comment: Suppose, a rejection arises from unification within a Kabbalistic group. I understand that this obstacle is against my egoism and is given to me so that I can acquire the Creator’s altruistic ability not to think about myself.

My Response: This is regarding your action. And regarding the state in which you must determine, that there is none else besides the Creator and only He influences you, what should you do here? How can He influence you, give you some tasks, obstacles, so that you can still train knowing that this is all from the Creator and not from anything else?

When, for example, they write unflattering things about you everywhere, blaspheme you, or you have a fight with your family, or when you see that you are doing wrong, acting egoistically and you condemn yourself, how can it be that you do it yourself if there is only one force that makes all this happen?

Thus, you must change your attitude toward yourself, to others, and to the whole world, for only one single reason: “There is none else besides Him.”
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/25/19

“Do Men And Women Experience Falling In Love Or Being In Love Differently?“ (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do men and women experience falling in love or being in love differently?“

By nature, men and women are two opposites. Thus, by default, men and women experience nothing in the same way.

There is a saying that men love with their eyes, and women love with their ears. We can see how a man can lose his mind when he sees a beautiful woman. An attractive woman can distract a man from any serious task. However, this does not mean that he is a bad husband or a bad man in general. It is simply his nature. A man can be completely in love with one woman, but can occasionally stare at others, and one has nothing to do with the other. It is simply part and parcel of man’s nature.

The situation with women is completely different. According to nature, a woman cares about the home environment. She builds a family nest and sees to it being comfortable and welcoming. Regardless of the fact that today we live in the so-called “unisex” era, the natural urge of the woman—before it comes in contact with various social and media influences that can redirect the woman’s natural desire in myriad directions—is to take care of her very own home. Therefore, she requires a man who can sustain it. That is why women are more likely to fall in love with smart and wealthy men rather than with handsome ones.

In a woman, a man looks at the purely external and corporeal features that attract him. Even if behind the beautiful “interface,” he finds a girl who could be considered as silly, he is okay with that. As long as the woman falls into his idea of beauty, then that is enough for him.

However, it is not with the case with a woman. She judges a man not by his appearance, but makes a precise calculation whether she can build a comfortable family nest and raise her children with this particular man. Therefore, a woman can get used to any kind of man, but only as long as he aligns with her nature.

New Life #1199 – How To Approach People

New Life #1199 – How to Approach People
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

A Kabbalist is an expert in approaching people. He finds, within himself, something similar to the other person and gives them the feeling of being understood, known, and agreed with so the other can open up. A Kabbalist listens with interest, knows what the other wants to hear, and expresses joy from the relationship. A Kabbalist shows that his heart is open to receive the other.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1199 – How to Approach People,” 1/16/20

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Is Love Without Hatred Possible?

Question: I am sure that hundreds of thousands of your students around the world feel love for you, disassociated from hatred.

Is this an exception to the rule when students love their teacher? Such a format exists in Sufism where students love teachers without hatred.

Answer: Love without hatred is impossible. If you feel only love, it means you have not yet realized that within this love there is unrevealed hatred. Both feelings must be together.

Just as, let’s say, there is no positive particle without a negative one in nature; there is always an opposite particle to it, and they are connected accordingly. It is the same with us. Hatred must be revealed alongside love. We build love above the hatred.

Moreover, we will be unafraid of this hatred because it will become an indicator of our recurring remoteness and closeness. Thus, we will be in dynamic closeness with each other.

Comment: But it is sacrilegious to even think that there might be hatred for the teacher.

My Response: I assure you that it exists. Do you know when it will appear? As you advance, you will soon feel that you have demands from the teacher, that you disagree with him, that you are ready to literally shake him to get what you think you need and he does not give. It will come.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/29/19

“What Is A Black Hole? How Can We Understand It?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a black hole? How can we understand it?“

What we know about black holes is that inside them, time stops, laws of physics do not apply, and their gravitational field consumes everything, including light.

In our world, we live within three dimensions: time, space and motion. Each of these dimensions conditions the other.

The human mind can comprehend nothing beyond these dimensions. We can make measurements, receive results, and even build models, but in our current limited perception of reality, we are unable to piece together the whole picture.

Why?

According to the law of equivalence of form, it is in order to understand that reaching a different nature requires attaining its qualities.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah can help us. Kabbalah gives us an opportunity to expand the boundary of our perception and receive an additional sense with which we can penetrate the unknown. We will then be able to perceive exactly what is inside a black hole, and how we observe from that point.

We live below the speed of light. If we take the universe into consideration, we seem to be very primitive, as being under something means being completely ruled by it, controlled by this light that we exist within, and unable to realize an independent sensation of ourselves within this reality.

However, by becoming closer to the qualities of the light and rising above our nature, we will then gain complete knowledge and sensation of our universe, including what we now perceive as the secrets of the black holes.

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Development Of Egoism And The Method Of Connection, Part 3

The Development of Egoism Is a Law of Nature

Question: It is written, “For the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Why from youth?

Answer: Egoism begins to develop in a person from youth. We see this in modern children. Previously, children were friends, played together, and connected to each other. And now this does not happen.

Today, children are constantly competing, suppressing each other. It comes from their nature, they are born this way. Up to the age of two or three years old, they are still absorbed in themselves, and when they begin to notice the world around them, and first of all, their own kind, they have a desire to take everything that others have.

The development of egoism is a law of nature. As a consequence, there is separation between people.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/1/19

New Life #1198 – The Israeli Bubble

New Life #1198 – The Israeli Bubble
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Israelis live in a bubble because we do not feel reality as it is. We are prideful and self-centered. We have a strong ego and enjoy looking down on everyone else. Nevertheless, we imagine a picture that we like in our minds and perceive ourselves differently than how others perceive us. Only troubles can get us out of this bubble, connect us, and help us realize our destiny. By nature, Jews are different in that we have a tendency for connection and love of others. We are hated because we are not showing others how to achieve correction, perfection, and connection. If we connect, we will reveal the upper force and every goodness for humanity.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1198 – The Israeli Bubble,” 1/7/20

Why Sanders’ Lead In The Democratic Race Should Concern American Jews (Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “Why Sanders’ Lead in the Democratic Race Should Concern American Jews”

I met a chief psychiatrist in New York during a joint conference years ago who said he was of Jewish descent. When we started a conversation about Jewish traditions, the only connection he recalled was his grandfather’s name, Chaim, a Hebrew name. This kind of episode is common in people who have distanced themselves from their Jewish roots. Some decide to revive connection with their roots only for personal gain and to make their anti-Semitic views appear kosher. Bernie Sanders is a case in point.

Why should this worry American Jews?

In the last few weeks, particularly after winning New Hampshire’s primary and Nevada caucuses, Sanders appears to be the Democratic frontrunner in four out of five polls designed to determine who is the preferred candidate to challenge Donald Trump in the next election. Since his presidential ambition has been recently invigorated, Sanders has conveniently shifted his political strategy from indifference about his Jewish background—as highlighted by multiple American publications, including The New York Times—to embracing and highlighting his heritage, portraying himself as potentially the first Jewish president in US history.

His new image as a liberal Jew sympathetic toward minorities, and as an old-but-skilled politician, is helping him gain popularity among the Democratic party’s left-leaning base, many of whom still think socialism is the solution to American inequalities. The Jewish card is also useful for advancing his anti-Israel agenda more freely in a similar manner to George Soros, who is accused of being behind multiple organizations against Israel.

Among his other anti-Israel positions, Sanders stated that he would condition military aid to Israel upon Israeli changes in policy toward the Palestinians. But the future of the US relationship with the Jewish nation is not of primary concern if Sanders is selected as the Democratic presidential candidate since, in the end, Israel’s future should depend on no one other than the people of Israel.

The problem that I foresee, should Sanders be elected, will be for American Jews. Undoubtedly, Jews will take the heat—as always happens when economic crises occur—for the certain failure of his populistic approach based on socialistic principles.

As history has shown, when populist socialist regimes fail to fulfill people’s expectations, National Socialism—Nazism—emerges. This certainly could happen again and the atrocities we thought were gone for good could resurface—a nightmare for American Jews.

At the outset, socialism appears to have the solutions Americans seek. The government lightens the load on the people’s shoulders, taking care of their basic needs. However, socialism falls short because it fails to take the egoistic quality of human nature into account: the fundamental need to fulfill oneself before any other person.

People innately lack motivation to truly benefit one another. As explained by Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) in his article “The Peace,” written in the 1930s, but just as relevant today as in the past: “Where would the worker or the farmer find sufficient motivation to work?’ For his daily bread will not increase or decrease by his efforts, and there are no goals or rewards before him.”

The Trump administration might not be the final panacea for all American problems, but its pragmatic economic approach of boosting the financial and industrial sectors is aimed in the right direction for today’s world. This is because, while we are still egoistic beings each aiming to benefit ourselves at the expense of others, and currently make no strides to correct the human ego so that a sincere desire to benefit others would become a leading value in society, then a pragmatic economic approach to grow financially and industrially provides a clear measurable foundation by which a country can sustain itself, both from within, and in connection with other countries.

In contrast, the socialistic view, which depends on ideas of equality and kindness being upheld by society and the government, might be pleasant to agree with in theory, but in practice, personal benefit at the expense of others will remain as top priority, eventually shattering such a setup. The government could never impose on people a true motivation to contribute to society with an earnest desire to see everyone fulfilled and secure. A prosocial and altruistic desire to benefit others among society can be achieved entirely via regular engagement in connection-enriching education. The basis for such a form of education can be found in the wisdom of Kabbalah, a methodology that provides in-depth understanding of how nature operates, including the egoistic human nature, and how to rise above the human ego in order to attain a genuine desire to benefit others.

Jews, who long ago received this method at the foot of Mount Sinai, can spark such a learning process in society by first refreshing their knowledge of the principles of connection, and then implementing positive connection among themselves by rising above internal differences. By so doing, Jews would become a positive example of how to build relations of mutual support, consideration and altruism as a launch pad for a better world. Such an elevation above the ego of a critical mass of people within humanity will hold the power to unify society above its myriad differences, thus erasing any totalitarian threats. Moreover, this forward-looking shift is independent of any politician or regime. It depends on our desire for positive change and our commitment to apply ourselves to educational programs aiming to unifying us above our differences.

Panic Over The Coronavirus Reaches Israel. Here’s What We Can Learn From It (Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “Panic Over the Coronavirus Reaches Israel. Here’s What We Can Learn from It”

The coronavirus made Aliyah to Israel. Israelis are now panicking over the virus filling its media headlines. Nobody knows how the virus spreads, whether through water or air, migratory birds or a group of South Korean tourists. Until the root of the virus is found, any and all answers are “right.”

However, some of the responsibility is with us, i.e., humanity. We are all under special pressure requiring that we somewhat contribute to the toil with this phenomenon. Therefore, in addition to the Ministry of Health’s guidelines and recommendations, we must balance judgment, and look to diagnose the root cause behind the spread of the threatening virus, the general cause of all our troubles.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, human nature is a desire to enjoy. This desire grows and requires maximum enjoyment for minimum investment. The more it grows unrestrained, the more it wants to enjoy at the expense of others. Thus, the egoistic desire, where we each want to enjoy at others’ expense, counters nature’s general desire: the desire to give pleasure.

When we exit balance with the harmonious nature, which operates altruistically, we receive feedback signaling that we need to revise our direction and realign ourselves with nature. Such feedback can appear as a viral outbreak, a protest in society, a mass shooting, a hurricane, a terror attack, i.e., any number of forms on personal, social and ecological scales.

All the ups and downs that humanity has experienced, including market turbulence, crises between individuals and countries, and even the breakdown of the family unit, occur as a result of an imbalance between the desire to receive, the individual nature, and the desire to give, the global nature.

It could be argued that pains soften us and make us more adept to come closer to nature, but nobody desires suffering, and there is no commandment to suffer.

Therefore, until we learn to how to positively connect in society above each person’s desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, we will continue to fall, time and again, in myriad different ways.

The ego’s most powerful expression is in rejecting our connection to each other.

Nature operates in order to bring us closer to each other, and if we fortify ourselves inside our ego, then nature strikes twice as hard.

Blows from nature could increase to a point where humans will have no choice but to understand that only together can we deal with the blows, otherwise we will die.

Nature gradually develops us to a state of perfect connection, and on our way there, we need to deal with the ego that resists connection with others. Eventually, we will reach a state where if we fail to connect, then everyone will fall, and if we succeed in our connection, then we will all rise to a higher level of consciousness.

If we saw the complete system of nature, we would be surprised at how even the tiniest amount of connection or disconnection between us influences nature’s collective system for better or for worse.

Why is nature’s complete system concealed from us, then?

It is because, if it were revealed, we would have no consciousness: we would be like rocks, plants and animals, which all act in an instinctive balance with nature, lacking free choice.

Since the bonds connecting between us are invisible, we need to regularly listen to explanations of how we are connected and how we can discover those connection, to discuss the complete system of nature and our role in it, to acknowledge our egoistic desire to enjoy that is opposite to nature’s altruistic quality, and to amplify our need to come together.

Moreover, we need not wait for crises to connect us forcefully. Instead, we can awaken ourselves to connect simply because we can feel much better by connecting than by being divided. In other words, there is a positive force dwelling in nature that reveals when we connect, and by discovering that force, we experience much higher states of happiness, confidence, love, freedom and peace than we could ever experience if we failed to make any motion to connect.

How Should One Relate To The Death Of Loved Ones?

Question: How does Kabbalah interpret death? What is the correct attitude toward the death of a dear and beloved person who is close to you? What is this philosophy?

Answer: There is no philosophy here because our body is an animate organism that dies like a body of any animal. It has a certain lifespan, dies, decomposes, and returns to its primary elements.

And our inner part, inner properties, remain. They do not go anywhere and are called the “soul.” These properties continue to exist, just not at the level of our world because they have nothing to dress in, but outside the vestments of the physical world.

Then follows the next reincarnation and the return to new bodies. The soul does not disappear as the body does, it reincarnates into new bodies all the time. This theory and practice has been tested over the course of centuries and has existed for almost 6,000 years. In addition, there is serious evidence of it, a lot of literature devoted to it. The wisdom of Kabbalah examines this question at the physical and mathematical level. There are no problems here.

The problem is different. We can, without dying while existing in our body, start feeling the world of souls. If the body does not interfere (in Kabbalah the body refers to our egoism, not human flesh), if we neutralize it, then we start feeling the upper world, the world of souls. It is as if we died and exist beyond our physical body.

Therefore, the problem is how to neutralize egoism. And the wisdom of Kabbalah enables us to do it.

Question: Does the pain about the deceased and sorrow about loved ones remain?

Answer: There is no pain or sorrow. Those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah clearly feel and understand that this is the reincarnation of souls and there is no room for concern.

By entering the inner state and starting to feel the souls, we relate to our animate body completely differently. There is nothing special about it. It is given to us for a short time only so that we could move on to the sensation of souls.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/26/20

What Is The Difference In Connection Between Men And Between Women?

Question: What does connection mean? What is the difference in connection between men and between women? Indeed, over the past few decades, many women have begun engaging in Kabbalah, which was not the case in previous generations.

Answer: Indeed, women began to strive for Kabbalah, and this is correct, this is the call of the time. We welcome this. However, there is a difference between female aspiration and male aspiration.

On one hand, we know in past centuries there were great Kabbalists at very serious levels of spiritual understanding of the Creator. It is said: “And everyone will come to Me from small to great, and My House will be called the House for all the peoples of the world.” That is, to reach the Creator and connect with Him is not only a male duty, but also a female one.

But for women there is a slightly different platform for this since the female egoistic desire is more focused on procreation, on the family, and therefore it is more fixated, clamped, and constrained inside. As a result, it is much more difficult for women to unite in tens. Therefore, we do not insist on this.

In addition, frankly, we still do not know how to work with women’s connection because we are just starting to enter this system. With men, it is more or less clear. Over the several years during which we have been conducting an “operation” to unite men’s tens, we have gained some experience and we already have quite serious achievements.

But with women, we do not yet know what to do. The main problem is that a woman learns from men because we only teach men internally and women perceive it all through the virtual channel of our connections. So what they do, how they unite, is a question.

For men, direct connection between friends is necessary when they work together in the ten, and study and disseminate together, etc.

For women, I believe that only education and dissemination is more acceptable. A group association so far does not play any role for them, and, conversely, it can interfere with them.

Question: Are workshops suitable for women as a means of connection?

Answer: Anything but a ten. We see that there are such negative forces that a woman in our world cannot yet overcome. It is quite possible that over time she will succeed because our world is moving toward greater disintegration, destruction, and the emergence of negative properties. And this will have to be somehow restored.

Question: Is it more difficult for a woman to unite because her egoism is greater?

Answer: She has a different form of egoism. It is aimed at oneself, family, children, and so on. Therefore, it is very difficult for her to feel another woman as close to herself. Between women are such partitions that they cannot destroy. And for men, this is practically nonexistent.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/11/19

Passing Spiritual Knowledge In Times Of Abraham

Question: How did Abraham teach the tens of thousands of people who gathered around him if there was not yet a Pentateuch that set out the commandments?

Answer: At that time, people were at a level where they understood it from within themselves.

Comment: Abraham wrote several books of which only The Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira) has reached us. I have read it many times, but it does not say anything about connection.

My Response: In The Book of Creation, Abraham wrote about the upper force that influences people. He wrote this book so that we could understand the upper force the way he described it.

To do this, we must have the appropriate tool. This tool is connection with other people in which the upper laws are revealed.

Question: However, it was not written anywhere specifically about connection. Was it obvious to them?

Answer: Yes. This is called the “Oral Torah,” which Abraham explained to his followers.

Question: Rambam wrote: “Abraham sowed this great principle in their hearts and wrote books about it.” However, these books describe what a person feels in connection with the Creator, with the upper force of nature. Does it mean that communication between people was passed by word of mouth?

Answer: This is a practical wisdom that Abraham passed on to his disciples Isaac and Jacob.

Question: Were they not his children?

Answer: You can call them “children,” it does not matter. However, Kabbalah refers to the disciples through whom the method of correcting human egoism was passed onto the entire nation, to the entire group of people who gathered around Abraham in Babylon.

All this is described in the Torah through one person. First what happened to Abraham, then to Lot, and so on. Where are the other tens of thousands of people that gathered around him?

The fact is that description does not take into account the number of people Rambam spoke about, but only their spiritual level. The spiritual level is already 70, 50, 10 people, and so on—it does not matter because in spirituality we do not count the number of heads, but the strength of their connection with each other.
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KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/24/19

“Is Optimism Better Than Pessimism?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is optimism better than pessimism?“

There is a point of view that being optimistic is more beneficial than being pessimistic, that optimists live longer, and that they are more successful. However, this is not what we see in reality.

Naturally, every quality has its opposite, e.g. left and right, light and darkness, men and women, and so on. Each quality balances another, giving it a premise for future development.

Our society is a locked interdependent system. If we want to be healthy and progress in this system, then accordingly, we need to be both optimists and pessimists.

We all have optimistic and pessimistic qualities embedded in different proportions. Some people are naturally more optimistic while others are more pessimistic. Despite being unable to change our innate characteristics, we can learn how to use them in specific ways so as to make a meaningful impact on both our individual lives and on society in general.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to do so.

Optimism and pessimism manifest only in relation to something or someone. In order to balance these opposite qualities within us, we have to create a kind of resistor or management tool, which provides us with an opportunity to select when and where each quality needs to be used and in what proportion.

A single person is incapable of doing so. Therefore, in order to create a regulating device between optimism and pessimism, we need to participate in the creation of a society that provides each member with an opportunity to train such a fusion in a common network of interaction, aimed at a common goal of harmonious social connections. I always have a part of a person I have to contact within me, and he has the part of me within him. Interaction between us helps to reveal those properties and start working with them.

In today’s modern society, where various characteristics that are distributed among humanity create rich diversity, we need to understand how to complement one another, and how to use the method of connection that leads us to succeed in building a complete system. If we stick optimistic and pessimistic attitudes and together for a common goal, we will see a perfect picture.

World Kabbalah Convention 2020

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/1/20

3 days.
150 countries.
26 languages.
5,000 participants.
3,000 virtual connections.
World Kabbalah Convention 2020.
Thank you 🙏🏼