Ask The Creator For Help

 

Comment: Kabbalah says that when a person does not ask for help from the Creator, it is a transgression.

My Response: People who are aspiring for the goal of creation and want to reach the correct state should understand that their aspirations consist of two directions.

One is moving toward each other. The other is the realization and understanding that it is impossible to do this because our nature does not allow and will not allow us to do it. The Creator stands in the way between us and does not allow us to get closer to each other, and causes all sorts of problems so that a person understands that without the participation of the Creator, he cannot get closer to others.

Neither man, nor a nation, nor a country, nor the entirety of humanity will achieve anything unless they begin to move toward getting closer to each other with the help of the Creator.

This is when the action such as a commandment, that is, a good action occurs when I try to get closer to others and ask the Creator to participate in this. Then I can definitely count on success.
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From KabTV’s “”Spiritual States” 11/19/18

Prayer For Yourself

 

Comment: Kabbalah says that when a person prays for himself (in principle, this is natural for an ordinary person), it is a sin.

My Response: If a person thinks about himself, then he kind of separates himself from the rest and does not get closer to them. Naturally this distances him from the Creator because the Creator sees us all united in one common whole, as we were before the division into separate individuals.

Question: The Creator does not think about Himself? He does not have such thoughts?

Answer: First, He does not think about Himself. Second, He does not think about each person because He feels us as a whole.

Question: Let’s say I am looking at a person. He consists of billions of cells. I am not addressing a cell, I am addressing an image. And like this the Creator does not see us individually?

Answer: In no way! He does not make even the slightest calculation with a single person. He created us in an egoistic quality in which we feel ourselves existing separately from one another, opposite to Himself,

Question: And what should I understand from this? That the Creator does not consider me at all? He does not even know I exist?

Answer: Whether He knows or not is another matter entirely. He does not take into account your personal individual movements except for the movement toward drawing closer to Him through drawing closer to others.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/19/18

External Actions And Internal Intentions

 

Question: I know that Kabbalah engages in scrutinizing the intention, which is, from its point of view, action. How should intention and action be combined since it is not always possible through an action to determine how good the intention is?

Answer: We must educate a person so that he acts in accordance with his intentions. And then through his external actions, we will begin to understand his internal intention.

Question: Still, we must evaluate a person by his actions?

Answer: We cannot. We do not really know what his intentions are.

Rabash gives a very good example of this: a child is crying, rolling hysterically on the floor, and his father is standing nearby doing nothing. Passers-by ask: “Why do you treat the child this way?” The father replies: “My little son is asking for a pin to poke his eye. I am ready to take him to the doctor, but he does not want to go.”

In this example, we see that external understanding of an external action does not say anything.

Question: So the intention is hidden from us. We cannot determine human morality by external actions. And what is the solution?

Answer: The solution is to come to a state when we can feel the inner desires, intentions, and actions of people, not from the outside as we see them in this world, but from the inside. To do this, we need to rise to the level of the upper world, and we will see the intentions of a person and not his physical actions.

Question: Do you personally never look at the external actions of a person? Are they not important to you?

Answer: It is the external actions of a person that are important to me because we live in such a period of correction when these actions also affect everyone else and draw them in the right direction. Therefore, you need to verify to what extent they show others the right path.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/9/20

Whom To Thank For What?

 

Question: Psychologists have developed a seven gratitudes technique that helps to cope with anxiety. The secret of the technique is very simple: You need to thank. Whom to thank? Yourself, your family, the world, the universe, God, one can choose. When to thank? Preferably in the morning and before sleep. What to thank for? For the fact that you have everything. How do you like this theory?

Answer: For an ordinary, normal person, it is very good.

Question: But a person does not have a feeling that he has everything. Can he say: “Thank You that I have everything”?

Answer: “Everything You gave me is enough for me and I thank You.” Of course, it is good for the ordinary person.

Question: Does this system work if you are grateful?

Answer: Try it on yourself. “When sinners sleep, good for them and good for the world.”

Question: It is called a dream when one says: “I have everything?”

Answer: Yes. And you fall asleep peacefully if it is in the evening. And if it’s during the day, you don’t rush anywhere. Anyway, everything I need will come to me. This is good. People should not rush somewhere, it is all from the evil one.

Question: Does that mean that you like this system of gratitude?

Answer: I like lazy people, although I am not like that myself.

Question: Why do you like lazy people?

Answer: They do little harm to the world.

Question: But really, don’t  you like rebels and revolutionaries.

Answer: Inside yourself. Inside yourself, do whatever you want. Make revolutions and wars, inside yourself. And everything else, let nature live in peace, do not muddy it.

See what nature, this virus, is doing to us. Calmly drive out of town, buy yourself a house instead of your apartment in the city and live in peace. Wife, kids, what else does a person need?

Comment: But nonetheless, all prayers are based on initial gratitude and then there is some kind of request.

My Response: To reach your highest, great purpose—to become equal to the Creator!

Comment: There is no peace in this. There is constant movement.

My Response: Internal peace! Because I am absolutely sure that in this way I will still reach the goal. I give myself to the Creator and in this I go with Him. And He can do whatever He wants. I remain in absolute peace.

Question: But isn’t movement toward Him a constant anxiety, trepidation?

Answer: This is not anxiety. There is not even much trepidation in this. If I am confident in Him, if I have faith that I am in His hands, then I am simply like a baby in the arms of his mother. Held and that’s all. Complete safety, peace.

But I check myself every time to be sure that I am in His arms with more vigor, I get closer to Him despite my ego. And I don’t need anything else. I am in this cocoon.

So, where to rush? Moreover, with other people to do some calculations: who is bigger, who is better, who is higher…

Question: And what about our ever growing egoism? You are constantly talking about it.

Answer: This is to give us an opportunity to be in dynamic closeness with the Creator all the time.

Question: That is, to return to the state again, in His hands?

Answer: Yes. And all is well.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/21/20

Work In The Heart

 

The prayer is called work in the heart because the mind resists it and I have to go against it. That is, I ask the Creator for something that my whole nature resists; therefore each prayer requires special work in the heart because I want to go against my mind and reason, which prove the opposite to me.

However, I do not want to understand with my mind that it is worth working for the Creator. I want to work only with faith above reason.

It is interesting how it works because I feel that everything within me is resisting: I do not want connection, study, altruistic actions, dissemination, and connection with friends. I do not want to use any means that can bring me closer to the Creator.

This inner resistance becomes more and more explicit every day, but each time I have to act in exactly the opposite way. I see this reluctance within me and know exactly where it is in my egoism, but on the outside, I must do the exact opposite.

There is nothing that attracts me to this and obligates me, no one is forcing me, but I myself try to find the strength to do something for the sake of bestowal above my reason. This is how the transition from reason to above reason, above desire occurs. This is the transition from the corporeal world to the spiritual world. The entire spiritual world is built above reason, above my normal desire.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/20, “Work With Faith Above Reason”

“What Is A Prayer? ” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a prayer?“

We are born and raised in a self-centered perception and sensation of the world, which leads to an accumulation of problems in our lives. Our encounter with all kinds of problems is in order to give us a desire to rise above our current perception and sensation, and discover a new world, one of love, care, and positive connection among everyone.

The transformation from our inborn egoistic perception and sensation to a new altruistic one is performed via an act called “prayer.”

What is prayer?

Prayer does not mean reciting words from a book, no matter how holy the book is, nor does it mean asking a higher power to change something in the world, or to benefit oneself individually. Rather, since our entire perception of reality is self-centered, where we aim to derive fulfillment within ourselves on a moment-to-moment basis, then prayer is a sincere request to transform our self-centered approach to reality, and become beneficial to everyone and everything surrounding us.

In other words, prayer is a request for self-transformation, where instead of wishing to egoistically absorb, receive, and exploit others for personal gain, as we do by default, we instead develop a genuine will to think and desire in an opposite direction: to give, bestow, and use our own selves for the benefit of others.

The outcome of an honest prayer for self-transformation from the depth of our hearts is written by the sages in the commandment, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). That is, our prayer should lead us to a state where we feel others as we feel ourselves, thus inverting and correcting the intention upon our ego to one of giving.

Therefore, prayer means reaching a true desire to love others as we love ourselves, as well as a revelation of the full extent to which we actually love ourselves. If our desire is true, from the bottom of our hearts, then we become awarded with help from a higher power that corrects our ego, granting us the ability to love others to the extent of our own self-love.

Filed under: Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Which Questions Does The Spiritual System Respond To Quicker?

 

Question: Which questions does the spiritual system respond to quicker?

Answer: To questions that are asked correctly, sharply, qualitatively and quantitatively, which means, questions that are asked with greater force requesting for the correction of the ego.

If a great egoist, and I would even say if a “criminal,” turns to the Creator, the Creator responds to his request more quickly than to a request of a good boy. Everything depends on the severity of the request.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/4/18

The Vector

 

The point of an action is measured and evaluated only according to its intention. The intention to give more brings a person closer to the Creator, while the intention to receive more removes him from the Creator.

And in the middle between the intention to bestow and the intention to receive is a neutral, zero point from which a person decides where he is: in the spiritual or in the corporeal world.

The entire spiritual world operates in the intention to bestow, and as soon as we act egotistically, we immediately feel the corporeal world. How much to give and how much to receive is not so important anymore. The main thing that puts us on one or the other side of the border between spirituality and corporeality is our intention.

The main test is in what a person is yearning for, not how strong his desire is. A change of intention is like changing the car gear from forward to reverse depending on which I move forward, toward the Creator and the creatures, or backward.

The intention depends on where my heart is directed: outward toward others, toward the friends and through them to the Creator, or to myself. This determines where I go. Do I work for the Creator or for myself? Do I move toward my friends and through them toward the Creator or do I draw closer to myself? All this depends on the intention, and only after on the desire that obeys it.

To test the intention, one must distance himself from the action itself so that it becomes unimportant, and the main thing is: for whose sake am I doing this, and who will benefit from it. This determines whether I am in the Creator’s world or in my own world, in my shell.

The intention, directed outward or inward, divides my reality into two parts: a part that relates to me, meaning “I,” “mine,” and a part outside of me, meaning the friends and the Creator. If I want to exist in the Creator’s world and not in my small, animal world, then I must constantly check the direction of my thoughts.

The Book of Zohar says that people with an egoistic intention have their eyes looking inside themselves, they are completely blind and do not see the vast world around them. They cannot imagine anything but this world, and so they live in it and die.

This life is given in order to change the direction of one’s gaze from oneself outward and to reveal the world of the Creator called the upper world. And the lower world is the one that we see when we look inward at ourselves and care only for ourselves.

I must check where the vector of my thoughts and desires is directed—toward me, toward my benefit, or toward others and through them toward the Creator? That is, where is my heart reaching?
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man”

Success = Work + Prayer

 

We must try to build as many correct relationships, correct qualities, Hassadim, between us in the group as possible and not wait. Usually the inner Klipa persuades a person: “Wait and you will receive everything. The Creator will take pity on you and help you.”

But without our request, without awakening from below, that is, without beginning to work, we will not get help from above. You must know this.

People have been standing on one spot for years waiting for the Creator to give them spirituality. But you have not started working! You must start, and when you are pleading that everything is about to collapse and an unbearable burden is about to fall upon your back, then the Creator will help you. This moment needs to be held and realized. This is the secret of the spiritual work: we start, and the Creator finishes; this is so in every action.

I must act as if everything depends on me. And if in the middle of the way I suddenly find that I can not cope on my own, then I will add a prayer to the actions. Thus, my work and prayer together create the conditions for this to be realized. Remember this, start implementing it, and you will see how it opens the path for you. Step by step, you will certainly move forward.

A person waits for many years and does not want to start the work himself, waiting for a miracle from above. Our egoism convinces us: “Wait, the Creator will take pity on you, He will come, do everything, and reveal Himself to you.” But it will not happen! Until we start working and see that we are not able to cope and then ask for help, the Creator will not come and do it.

It is said: “The Lord will finish for me.” But it is precisely: “He will finish.” It is my responsibility to start it. Therefore, anyone who complains that he has been studying for many years and has not seen success, he simply did not work correctly. He had to start the work, find out that nothing comes out of it, raise a prayer, and demand that the Creator take part in it. Then you will see that He will help.

The Creator wants to participate in your work but only together with you in the same way as we do with children. If a child starts something himself and then an adult helps him, then the child understands how it needs to be done and learns. This work is called the work of the Creator, not of a man. After all, the Creator does it! But only when the person really needs help.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/20, “Sukkot“

Who Benefits From Asking?

 

Remark: Your haiku was posted on Instagram:

Touches of egoism multiply.
I will turn to the Creator —
Let Him control him.

The question is: “The Creator creates, but I am also a creator. Who benefits from begging?”

My Comment: Man (Adam), me. I am always striving so that I have some questions, some requests, some appeal to the Creator. All the time with a question or with an exclamation mark when I admire His actions. The truth is not often, to put it mildly.

But that there were always enough requests so that I was always begging the Creator.

Question: Why does one need to be constantly requesting?

Answer: To correct your egoism. And why did He make it? In order to correct. And He wants to fix it, but He does it only at my request.

Question: Then in what am I a creator?

Answer: I command the Creator to correct what He has done. He is called the “Creator” because he did this, and I am the creator because I ask Him to fix everything from this. And in this I am a creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/17/19

Whom Should We Ask For Help?

 

Question: Whom should we ask for help, the Creator or the group? And how should we do it?

Answer: Only the group, and through the group you can turn to the Creator.

It is even better if the whole group turns to the Creator together. Then you will surely be able to improve both your state and the state of the group because you will begin to feel that the negative impacts that you sense are not directed specifically at you but that they come to you through the group. If you respond to them through the group, it is the best method of correction.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 10/14/18

Who Should I Appeal To?

 

Question: Who should I appeal to if I have a request?

Answer: To the Creator. The Creator is the upper light, the attribute of absolute goodness, love, and bestowal. There is nothing other than this force in the world. There is only me and Him. Everything else that seems to exist, exists between me and the Creator.

The moment I begin to correct myself, the distance between us changes accordingly, i.e., changing attributes between me and the Creator. We, as it were, begin to draw closer to the point of complete adhesion with Him.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/4/18

The Right Request To The Creator

Question: What is the right request to the Creator?

Answer: The request is to resemble the Creator. This means that nothing is more perfect than the highest attribute of bestowal and the absolute, unselfish, whole, love for everyone and everything. So resembling the Creator is our ultimate goal and all the intermediate states are only our aspirations toward Him.

Question: Does this mean that the pain stems from the fact that I am opposite from Him, and that this is only my starting point?

Answer: Yes, but this is also not easy. We need to create a model of how to become like the Creator in the group, so we need to participate in the ten, to feel my individual states in it, our mutual interdependence, and how we affect each other so that the feeling of how connected I am to the friends and how much I depend on them and they depend on me will be in each of us.

My duties and my aspirations should be so interconnected with the group that I will begin to feel that this is my soul. And this is only the beginning. Eventually the connection will be with all of humanity, with the whole world and all the souls, including the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and the whole system of matter, all of creation, the entire universe. All of this is the projection of my soul outside of me, so that in this way, I will attain it better.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/4/18

How Can We Appeal To The Law Of Nature?

Question: If the Creator is the unchanging law of nature, what does it mean to ask something of Him? How can you ask a law for something?

Answer: Very simply. You are referring to an absolute system that is in a state of complete equilibrium in which everyone is mutually and fully connected in their ultimate corrected state.

This means that everything that will happen to us at the end of correction is already there. You turn to this state and ask it to help you reach it gradually.

However, the system cannot immediately take you and place you in your ultimate state.

You must learn this as a result of your requests, as a result of the responses, and as a result of the mutual relations that you build with the right system that you work with on the basis of trial and error.

Eventually you include the whole upper system inside you, become part of it, understand it, and connect to it. This is how you become equal to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/4/18

Does The Creator Hear Us?

Question: Does the Creator hear us when we ask for something or when we thank Him? Does the manner in which the Creator responds to us mean anything?

Answer: If a person wants the Creator to hear him, he must understand the system of connection with the Creator. If a person exits himself and integrates in others, he integrates in the Creator to the same extent.

Then he can ask Him, thank Him, and do anything he wants to, since he is in contact with Him. But if I don’t exit myself in my attitude to the friends, and I don’t get close to them mentally, I have no contact with the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/18/18

Without Faith In The Creator

Question: Why is it bad to live without faith in the Creator?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah does not claim that it is bad. Kabbalah does not compel people to believe in the Creator or to pray to Him. It is only if a person feels a need and a necessity to do so; if he sees that there is nothing else but the revelation of the Creator and adhesion to Him, that he operates this way.

There is absolute freewill when it comes to that. It is as we say that “there is no coercion in spirituality.” Not in any way! When a person comes to our group, one stays if one wants to, and if a person doesn’t want to he leaves, he doesn’t owe anyone anything in any way.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/1/19

Man’s Only Sin

Question: Why do the original sources say that the only sin of man is when he does not ask the Creator for help?

Answer: If we are completely in the Creator, completely tied to Him and without exception, we receive from Him, no matter what desires and intentions we have, even the worst, most rude ones, all that remains for us is to constantly, purposefully turn to Him so that He will change us and bring us closer to Him and reveal what we should do regarding Him.

That is, the sin does not lie in the fact that I did something in relation to another person or to the Creator, but in the fact that I did not ask the Creator to give me the strength to consciously turn to Him, to consciously perceive what I receive from Him.

Question: So, while I live unconsciously, then, in principle, there is nothing to demand from me, there can be nothing to demand from any animal?

Answer: Sure.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/1/20

The Work Of The Creator’s Intermediary

Question: Does the Creator only answer the prayer for others?

Answer: Yes. As a rule, He does not answer a prayer for oneself since this is an egoistic prayer.

Question: And what do the others lack? What should I pray for?

Answer: For everything that they lack.

Question: If they lack money or health, can I pray for that?

Answer: Ask for others. But it’s even better to ask the Creator to be revealed to them; by doing so you will bring Him pleasure. You are only an intermediate element who wants nothing for himself but only to be an intermediary.

Question: And what’s in it for me?

Answer: You are the messenger of the Creator in this world. Is this a bad title? 🙂

Question: I don’t know. I need to try. What will I get out of it?

Answer: Nothing! Only problems, headaches, and heartache. But the reward will be that you are the messenger of the Creator. Although it does not mean that He will treat you any better.

Your job is aimed at bestowal toward the Creator and the world, and you are in between, you have nothing to gain from it nor do you want to. You rejoice in being His intermediary while He knows nothing about you. Your pleasure comes from bestowing to the whole world and you leave nothing for yourself.

Question: If neither the world nor the Creator know anything about it, where does the energy come from?

Answer: You ask Him for energy in order to give wholeheartedly to both. Otherwise you will not be able to do your work.

Question: It follows that He does know that I’m an intermediary since He gives me the energy?

Answer: Granted, nothing is hidden from the Creator. He gives you the energy knowing that you are an intermediary. But you don’t know that He is taking you into consideration. Just the opposite, all the world’s problems are your own, as if you’re at fault for everything happening around you because you didn’t ask Him to correct the world or didn’t do it enough. So you consider yourself guilty.

Question: So, if one feels that he has a special connection with the Creator or that the Creator has a special relationship with him, is it not so?

Answer: These are the special connections, special relations, when you feel yourself at fault for everything, feel worthless, and you’re convinced that you have to serve anything and everyone. This is how a Kabbalist feels.

Question: Who would want to become a Kabbalist if that is how they feel?

Answer: A person realizes that he is on top of the ladder of human ascent.

Question: You are saying that he is experiencing these two states simultaneously. On the one hand, he feels worthless, and on the other, on top of all humanity due to the fact that he is a messenger of the Creator. And the Creator does not know about this?

Answer: The Creator knows nothing about it. A person is a messenger in a small way, to the extent that he can channel the quality of the Creator to the whole of humanity.

But the part where humanity is still suffering, still remaining in its egoistic state, he feels the responsibility to disseminate the knowledge of the true spiritual qualities although they are impossible to convey, but even somewhat, in general terms.

Look at what is written in the Torah about Moses, how he suffered for everyone, what kind of work he was doing without a minute to rest. Because he was a messenger of the Creator. And he died in a nameless place on mount Nevo.

Comment: But everyone respected him. He was a leader of the entire nation.

Answer: The question is what kind of people and what does it mean to be their leader? Everything has to fall under the umbrella of the greatness of the Creator with no other reward.

Therefore, we have to ask for energy, strength, to serve humanity and the Creator! It is one and the same. This very prayer, coming from the heart, is the one that the Creator answers.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah 4/1/20

There Are No Individual Problems, But Common Ones

Question: When we pray for the health of others, do we lose something or on the contrary, receive strength and health to pray?

Answer: If I pray for the health of the other, if I’m in the same system with him, then how can I lose something?

When someone in the system where we are all directly connected with each other falls sick, he thereby signals everybody else that the entire system is sick. It is expressed in him as in a particularly sensitive element, which he represents.

But this problem is not his, it is our common problem. No person is responsible for himself, nobody gets sick for himself, and nobody is behaving badly. All of it is expressed only as a result of breaching the general integral human interaction.

What does it mean to pray or to ask? We connect with each other and try to turn to the upper force so that it balances all the negative qualities, phenomena, which are seemingly expressed through some particular person.

But because it is not his, but our common problem, we have a right to pray for him. It is exactly when we compensate for nature and receive a wonderful response. Let’s try and you will see how it works.

That is why we shouldn’t remain indifferent to what is happening around us: “We don’t care what’s happening in Italy. Everything is quiet here!” Such an attitude will only aggravate the condition. This is a horrible reaction!

Hence, we must think about how we can respond to what is happening, especially now, when the integral viciousness of our relationships is being revealed.

Question: Should we pray for the health of people or the correction of the system? And how should we do it correctly without telling the Creator what to do?

Answer: We should ask the Creator to show us how to connect correctly. We don’t need anything else. If we add to it that we wish to unite correctly so as to form a mutual connection that would reveal the Creator within us with the goal of bringing contentment to Him, then we will turn to Him correctly.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/15/20

What Do We Need To Pray For?

Question: Does the Creator answer only correct prayers?

Answer: He answers all prayers!

Question: If, for example, a person needs money to pay off his deficit with a bank, and he is as if unconsciously praying, is this situation of needing money already a prayer from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Of course. It is the disclosure of any desire.

Question: Suppose he takes a prayer book and begins to pray, to pray for money. Will money appear?

Answer: No. The Creator does not respond to such selfish requests. After all, a person will then think: “I have prayed and received, which means I should pray more.” It just means that the Creator does not let him go.

And if it seems to a person that he has received an answer, then this is also the Creator’s will that he would still think so.

Question: What if he is asking for money not for himself, not egotistically, can he get it?

Answer: I cannot imagine that. There are no prayers at all for fulfillments in our world.

Question: What about prayers for health?

Answer: This was invented later. Although, in principle, we need to pray only for getting closer to the Creator, and this is the fulfillment of all our desires.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/1/19