“Suicide: Why Do People Kill Themselves?” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Suicide: Why do people kill themselves?“

People who commit suicide do not want to endure ongoing feelings of frustration and emptiness.

Like any person, they wanted to become fulfilled—and today there are myriad pleasures available to us at the tap of a button—but suicidal people find fulfillment to be completely elusive.

The inner distress they feel within exceeds any sensations that they can receive from anyone else.

What do these people ultimately need?

They need the answer to the meaning of life.

Do our lives have meaning, a goal and a purpose that make our lives worth living? What is our impetus to continue living on in life?

Such questions awaken in certain people, and they drive some people to seek their answers, and some to a pit of desperation, where they would like to invert such questions and sensations, but they cannot, and then they reach the end.

To get answers to the questions about life’s meaning, I recommend checking out the links in my Quora bio, where there is a plethora of courses and other materials available to help people find the answers to life’s deepest questions.

Photo by Lachlan Dempsey on Unsplash.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora, Suffering | Add Comment / Ask Question →

How To Reduce Suffering

Rabash, “Love of Friends” Article No. 6: The most important thing is to always remember the purpose of creation, which is known to be “to do good to His creations.” Thus, if He wants to give them delight and pleasure, why are these three above matters—faith, fear and “Love thy friend”? It means that they need only qualify their vessels to be able to receive the delight and pleasure that the Creator wishes to give to the creatures.

The material of creation is a desire to enjoy. This is how the Creator made us. All forms of desire on the inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human levels only want one thing: to fill themselves so they feel pleasure.

Pleasure is a very complex concept. What happens in the body when it is enjoying?

We perceive everything like animals: “I feel pleasure!” What is pleasure? Where does it take place? In what cells and internal systems? Do you sense a certain kind of fulfillment against some feeling of lack? Does one complete the other?

Based on this, we see that pleasure can only be whenever there is a preliminary need, and only to the extent of its fulfillment can one feel pleasure.

In principle, what should the Creator have done? Only one thing: Having wished to give delight and pleasure to the created being, He needed to create a desire for that pleasure, or a feeling of deficiency. Yet the Creator did the opposite: He created evil, a minus, so that afterward by neutralizing and filling this minus with an opposite quality, the created being would feel the plus.

This is why it is written “I created evil…” and this is bewildering to an ordinary person. Evil, however, was created only in order to then replace it with good. This means that we need to do some work here, a certain manipulation of oneself, or nature, or the Creator in order to come from the feeling of evil to the feeling of good, from hatred to love.

This raises many questions. How could I feel all the qualities that are opposite to the Creator? Why do I have to go through all the terrible sensations that are worse than death? If the Creator wants to give me eternal, perfect fulfillment, does it mean that I have to feel a state opposite to it?

The solution is as follows: I do not have to go through terrible states, emptiness that is “worse than death,” and so on. I simply need to realize that after feeling even the slightest bit of suffering, I can immediately move on to enjoyment. More precisely, I should feel the suffering from the absence of pleasure, and then I will never feel the suffering itself.

This is where the wisdom of Kabbalah is leading us. It is calling on us to strive for connection, kindness, and love, and this is when I begin to feel that I am completely opposite to that. However, at that point I will already be in the positive field, in the field of the Creator, in His half.

This is why the contrast that I will feel when I aspire to clarify what He is and who He is will also be positive, since it is an indication that I am not like Him. Precisely at that point I will be able to demand and ask without detaching from Him. While trying to adhere to the Creator’s property—bestowal and love—I will feel how my “I,” my nature, is tearing me away from Him, and at the same time I immediately hold onto Him through the group.

Thus, I do not have to go through terrible, opposing states, but only small unpleasant sensations, like a baby who is being separated from his mother. This is enough for him to cling to her and always be concerned about drawing closer to her.

Such alternating small states that we go through are called the stages of our development. Each time, while we aim for the Creator through the group and constantly think about how to urge the friends toward Him, I feel how much compared to them I am still not succeeding in this, and in this manner I come closer to the Creator, I acquire His properties.

In other words, we do not have to go through states of darkness, separation, and estrangement, which are opposite to adhesion with the Creator. By working on His side, working through the group, it is enough for us to feel literally a tiny bit of separation from Him each time in order to pull ourselves toward Him, and to carry out our work in this manner.

The Creator’s actions on us will then be felt like small prods and calibrations, the way a mother nudges a child: “This is what needs to be done, give this a try.” They will be felt only in this manner and not in their true form of the enormous black abyss that is “worse than death.”
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 3/22/18

Why Do We Get Problems?

Question: Suppose a person lost a wallet with money. And suddenly it occurs to him that this happened because he didn’t come to the lesson or did something wrong. How can we explain it?

Answer: We don’t. It’s foolish! Do not ever draw such conclusions or connect these things together. Later you will see how wrong you were. And most importantly, it limits you and starts imparting unnecessary clues and connections.

Question: Why are such problems sent to me?

Answer: Because you are an egoist. First and foremost, you have to establish your connection with the friends in the group, and through them draw the upper Light of goodness that will correct you. Then you will not lose wallets if it’s unnecessary. And if it’s necessary, you will.

Question: Does it mean that I can sit in a ten from morning till night and lose a wallet every day? And there’s no use trying to understand what the reason was?

Answer: It’s not that there is no use doing it. It’s forbidden! You will not discover causes and consequences before you fully reveal the whole system anyway.

Question: But does the “cure” still come through a ten? Can I tell myself that if I have any problems, it means that I do not invest enough in the love of friends?

Answer: In any case you hit the mark in a ten!
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From KabTV’s Lesson in Russian 12/11/16

The Process Of Human Correction Has Begun

In the News (vesti.ru): “Europe is paying for all the years that it conducted a colonial policy. To combat illegal immigration, France and England are establishing a special coordinating center.

“The experts in this center will be involved with monitoring the illegal immigration of refugees to Europe. In a word, this is called a deluge; rescue from which is not expected in the foreseeable future. Immigrants from the nations of Africa and the Middle East are reaching Europe in a massive stream. The quality and standard of living in Bulgaria or Romania is higher than in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

“Currently, there is a collapse organized by the Western nations, therefore the stream of immigrants to Europe has broken out. There is no solution to the immigration problem under current European conditions. The European Union cannot limit the flood of immigration, neither physically nor legally. What is left is only to build walls, but no wall will stop the immigrants who want and aspire to the good life in Europe. The European Union began its way specifically with the removal of fences and barriers. Has the opposite process now begun?”

My Comment: The reverse process cannot happen. The process of the mixing of the peoples has begun, as in the beginning of the development of our civilization inancient Babylon. We are returning to the beginning. And we will be obliged to do what they did but did not complete, which was the ancient Jews under the leadership of our father Abraham, the founder all religions, connecting above all the oppositions and differences, as Abraham taught, according to the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

And the correction phase begins from the most egoistic part of humanity, from Europe. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, continuation will come either through the way of suffering with the conquest of Europe by the Muslims, world war, the turning to Israel and the correction of humanity from hatred to love, or, through the way of Torah by accepting the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to rapidly correct the universal ego from collective hatred to love.

Which will they choose?
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A Single Leap To Happiness

Question: There is a Japanese proverb that says: “Troubles will transform you into a precious stone.” How do you relate to this?

Answer: This is Samurai philosophy and speaks about the way of suffering. I think that we have no need for this at all, since we go our own way. Why do we need to go towards happiness through the way of suffering? We can leap above it immediately, as the Jews very well know.

In the meantime, we haven’t succeeded in doing this because we don’t want to listen to the method that we received thousands of years ago, the wisdom of Kabbalah, but it can lead us to happiness in a single leap.

Comment: But nevertheless, when you had health problems, your teacher said that he was envious of you because he saw this as a sign of advancement.

Answer: Certainly thanks to suffering a person improves because suffering works against the ego that wants pleasure all the time. So another system of study and understanding appeared that was opposed to the ego. But this is not the right way!

Christianity says: “If they slap you on one cheek, give them the other cheek also.” This is not right. We must go another way. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains everything in a very simple way. The Creator created life and death, so choose life. With all our might we must yearn for good, for love, for ease, and not burrow into suffering. We have no need for it. To go willingly into exile, suffer there, and this will be better for all people is absolutely the wrong way! The ego intentionally attracts us there and this is not the Kabbalistic approach towards the world, our history, our mission.

The Creator blesses us with peace, happiness, Light, and warmth, but in no way with suffering. For in suffering, the person is not prepared to bless the Creator. He cannot cry and say: “How good it is for me to be with you!” After all, this is a lie. So it is forbidden for us to develop our own suffering. Christianity is based upon this. But from the point of view of the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is absolutely incorrect.

Question: So what does “Rejoice when the wicked are revealed to you” mean?

Answer: It means to rejoice when your defects are discovered within you. You are happy about this and don’t suffer. This is happiness because your personal characteristics are now being revealed, and you see that you can correct them. If they are revealed to you from above, it means that you will surely correct them.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 8/5/15

The World Is Waiting For Happiness

Question: What makes the Jewish people the chosen people according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The Jewish people are considered the chosen people because they are the first who have to learn and adopt the Kabbalistic method and bring it to all of humanity.

But in the meantime, the fact that we are the chosen people is negatively reflected on us because we don’t fulfill our role. This is the reason that we feel the negative attitude of the world towards us. We need to understand why we are excommunicated, why we have suffered throughout history, and why everyone hates us, including countries we have never had any contact with, and why this hatred emerges over and over again. We have to pay close attention to this since this attitude towards us stems from the general law of nature.

If we examine it as a natural process and begin to study and explore it, the wisdom of Kabbalah explains everything very simply: we have to bring the method of unity to the world, especially at this time when humanity is so divided. The world is in crisis: families are breaking up, countries are destroyed, everything is disintegrating, and man is internally shattered. It is actually in these times, according to all the sources, that the Kabbalistic method is most vital and required.

But because we don’t bring it to the world, humanity will increase its claims that we are the reason for all the afflictions because we don’t bring the world happiness, and this is because we are the only ones who can do it.
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From an interview on RTN, New York, 21/7/15

The Cause Of Anti-Semitism

Question: The Jewish people do a lot of good things and good deeds. But I see that non-Jews view it negatively, and instead of seeing us as good, they see us as bad. Why?

Answer: What good did we, the smartest and most educated people, do for the world? Did we perform our mission to be the light for the nations? Why should they love us?

Humanity feels intuitively that we bring harm and hatred into the world. We cannot imagine how this could be possible, so ask, “What are we doing wrong? We do not wish anyone any harm! Why does everyone hate us and not the people who seek to destroy others? For what?” Start to investigate this and try to find the true cause of this phenomenon.

Why does North Korea, with whom we have never had any relationship, hold first place in the world for anti-Semitism? Why such hatred?

Because anti-Semitism exists inside nature, is its law, and there is nothing we can do about it. No amount of logic will help us. If this phenomenon has been observed for thousands of years, then we should take it seriously, and not on the level of feelings. We must get to the bottom of why we occupy one place in nature and the rest of the world another.

I have been studying laws of nature for the past 40 years. Prior to that, my specialty was bio-cybernetics. But over these 40 years I have come to realize that unity is the cardinal foundation that exists in all of nature, and there is nothing one can do about it because we cannot go against a law of nature.

Abraham was not a Jew, but an ancient Babylonian who worshiped idols. But yearning to understand why there was such disconnection in his society, he revealed that in nature, there is a law of unity and that humanity needs to come to unification. All of nature strives for oneness within itself from the time of the Big Bang until final correction, and having revealed this law, Abraham began to teach it to anyone who wanted to learn.

The most sensitive, developed, and responsive people joined him. With them he went out of Babylon. They started calling themselves Yehudim, from the word “Yichud” (unity) orIvrim from the word “Laavor” (to cross over).

Prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, this group fulfilled its mission. But since the time when the last exile emerged, they have not. And until we come together and understand our mission, until we grasp it and announce it to the whole world, we can not expect anything good.

Because ultimately, all the Babylonians, i.e., all humanity, must arrive at unification. And it is we who have to bring this unity to the world.
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From a public lecture in New York, 7/20/15

A Stream Of Goodness

The weekly chapter of the Torah “Bambidar” tells us how the Israeli army was built. We learn how they gathered around the Tabernacle and what was displayed on the flags of each camp, etc.

This speaks about the building of the general soul: about the forces, intentions, and attributes of which it is made. The structure of the general soul reminds us of the structure of an atom, where only those parts that can withstand the radiation of the nucleus, the radiation of bestowal, can be close to the nucleus. It is according to this principle that the camps gather and are classified.

It says that it is forbidden to come close to the Tabernacle since one can die (“the stranger that approaches will die”). This means that your vessels, your desires, may not be able to hold on, and so become egoistic, causing you to die spiritually.

Comment: But all of humanity accepts these words as rigid laws and a threat of physical death.

Answer: The laws of nature are indeed rigid because the system that governs the world is very tough and uncompromising, but everyone still follows the stream of goodness.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

Processing The Emptiness In The Desert

The Torah, “Numbers” 1:52 – 1:53: The children of Israel shall encamp, each man by his own camp and each man by his division. The Levites shall encamp around the Mishkan of the Testimony, so that there be no wrath upon the congregation of the children of Israel and the Levites shall keep the charge of theMishkan of the Testimony.

It says in Midrash Raba that when Moses counted the Jews, dividing and classifying them according to the tribes, the Creator taught him how to become one camp and how to advance, which means how to put the ruined vessel back together.

Four types of egoism on three lines make up the 12 tribes, the 12 parts of the spiritualvessel. The shattered vessel must be corrected by uniting all the parts into one as the people advance in the desert, which means according to the revelation of the ego in every camp and in every tribe.

The Creator teaches the nation how to gather everyone so that each time they absorb new corrupt emptiness, process it internally, and correct it into the attribute of bestowal. This is the advancement in the desert in 40 years (levels). This is how the corrected part from Malchut to Bina must be the accurate unity of the nation and thus conclude the building of their connection with the Creator.

The movement of the camp in the desert symbolizes the processing of the emptiness. This is actually a very unpleasant movement forward since the desert is swarming with scorpions and snakes, the sun is burning, there is no food or water, and everyone is covered with sores. In other words, the desert symbolizes a person’s growing, burning egoism. People feel the connection between them like a sore that touches another sore, and the pain will not let them unite. They must ascend above it, and although the Light that comes doesn’t heal the sores, it formats them into one general, healthy body. The pain and the sores turn into one unified vessel in which pleasure is revealed.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/24/14

Turning Away From The Path Of Suffering

The Torah, “Leviticus”, 26; 36-37: And as for them that are left of you, I will send a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were before the sword, when none pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

If the Israeli nation doesn’t choose to correct itself voluntarily, there is a need for a very tough external force that will suppress the ego and force it to behave properly. This is called the path of suffering. Along this path people realize what they have been through, how far they have diverted from their goal, and that they need to fully understand this in order to return to fulfilling their duty. But in order to do so, their eyes have to be opened so that they become aware of the two forces in nature and how they operate.

You can only demand something from a person according to his level of development. When does a child begin to understand that he is in a certain framework? First he goes to kindergarten where he is taught what is allowed and what is forbidden. This continues in school. It is only at the age of 14-15 that he becomes responsible for his actions and understands that there are certain laws of behavior that if he breaks, he can be arrested by the police. After the age of 18 he is an adult, although he is not yet fully mature.

In any case, we have to bring a person to the recognition of what he is required to do and so he must fulfill that requirement. Only then will it be possible to hold him responsible. This is the reason that we undergo such a long preparation period of thousands of years. The problem today is that even the sufferings we have undergone don’t help us.

The question is if they were enough. At the end of the 19^th century for example, the first settlers arrived in Israel. They were ready to live under difficult conditions such as a hot dry climate, swamps that needed to be drained, and the suffering of malaria in order to build the Kibbutzim. In 10 to 20 years, people began to forget all that. The second Aliya(wave of immigration) began and then the third, but they were different people because the ego kept renewing itself. A person doesn’t believe that what happened to him yesterday can be repeated today. It is not even his fault that it is all erased from his memory since he is a new person each day. Therefore, the main thing is education and the teaching of the principles of national and global unity.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/10/14

You Cannot Escape Yourself

The Torah, “Leviticus,” 26:36: And those of you who survive I will bring fear in their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a rustling leaf will pursue them; they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but there will be no pursuer.

This is about a state of absolute lack of confidence. No one in the world feels fear, uncertainty, and worry like the Jews. We have very special feelings of inferiority, fear, humiliation, dependency, and I would even say, guilt. These attributes are revealed in us in a very distinct manner because our mission and goal is to make the nations of the world feel that they are connected to one another so that the Creator can be revealed among them. Imagine how a person feels who constantly causes others harm by his inaction!

This is how everyone feels! A few years ago, my grandfather’s brother, who emigrated from Russia before the revolution, came to visit me with his family. He and his descendents have been living in England for almost 100 years. They are very well off, but there is something that they feel the same. If we dig a bit more deeply, we will discover that they all share the same feeling of guilt. It does not depend on our circumstances.

In an interview with Larry King, a famous American television journalist, I was asked why anti- Semitism is again rising in the world. This was the issue he found most painful. He is in his 80s, has Russian roots, and although he has been living in America his whole life, he feels that he came from Russia. It seems that it has been so long, all long forgotten, but he instantly understood me. The recognition of our responsibility for the world doesn’t disappear and the Creator will not let us escape it. We have to fulfill our mission, our goal.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/10/14

How Can We Prevent Another Holocaust?

I am a son of Holocaust survivors who were among the few of the Laitman family who survived the Holocaust. Two thirds of my relatives were slaughtered in the death camps. I was born in 1946 and was raised under the dark shadow that the war left on my family and on the Jewish population in all of Eastern Europe.

For me the Holocaust isn’t some distant memory, but a painful reminder of what might happen to us. It is this thought that brings up the constant troubling question in me: How can we prevent another Holocaust?

I feel an ocean of hatred closing in on us. The external signs have never been clearer and international reports indicate an upsurge in anti-Semitism. On International HolocaustRemembrance Day, a question was brought up on the BBC as to whether the time has come to cease talking about the Holocaust, and about a month ago, there was supposed to be a scientific convention in England about the legitimacy of the State of Israel. If this is not enough, an agreement regarding the use of nuclear weapon has recently been signed with Iran, which is more evidence as to why we must not rely on our allies.

It is hard to ignore the clear warning signals as to what is expected. So how can we prevent another Holocaust? In addition to lamenting about the past, we must make room for close scrutiny, examination, and the correction of our current state. We live in a closed system of forces that operate according to the law of connection. When we are compatible with that law, we feel good, and when we are divided and separated, this system, like any other system in nature, forces us to balance ourselves. Sometimes correcting this direction can involve great suffering.

I am aware of how difficult it may be for Holocaust survivors and their families to read what I say, but still the truth must be said. The Holocaust took place because the Israeli nation didn’t keep the law of connection. Why us? Because we have a special responsibility to keep this law. We have a role that was given to us back in the days of Abraham. When egoism tore the people of ancient Babylon apart, our forefather discovered the law that governs our reality, which is the law of connection. The few that learned the method of connection from him became the nation of Israel.

Keeping the law of connection is our life’s goal, and passing on the method of connection and unity is the only justification for our existence as a nation. At the beginning of the 20^th century we received an opportunity to return to the land of Israel, not in order to build a home for the Jewish people, but in order to connect within it. The Jews didn’t take this opportunity and preferred to isolate themselves in their communities in Europe or to integrate within general society. The reaction of the upper system to these actions was the Holocaust. A moment before the world drowned in blood, Kabbalists still cried out that we had to return to our land and unite, but the Jews didn’t listen. Instead of willingly moving closer, the terrible afflictions of the Holocaust brought us closer to one another, and it was as a result of the Holocaust that we received a country.

With all due respect to the United Nations, the real mandate for the existence of this country is our role. The county we received, as Kabbalists say, is only an opportunity to keep the law of connection, which is exactly what the world demands of us. Subconsciously, the world wants us to unite and to also pass Abraham’s method on to them. But we refuse to connect, and this is the source of the hatred they feel towards us.

Holocaust Remembrance Day and Independence Day have to become days in which we all engage in our role as a nation, and they must also be days of reexamining the essence of our existence. During these days, we have to gather in tens of thousands of roundtables throughout the country and talk about the only way of being truly independent—independent of our ego and connected to one another through love of others. This is the only way we can secure our future and our children’s future.

Everything Is Accommodated To A Goal

The weekly portion, “BeHukotai,” talks about the entire world being reciprocally linked and that the system of creation was determined strictly and precisely. We are found within it, and its influence on every person depends upon his deeds and whether or not he accepts the laws of this spiritual universe upon himself.

The spiritual universe is not just what we see around us. Rather, it includes all of the forces and systems that are hidden from us, with only a fraction of them being revealed.

If we become familiar with its laws and maintain them, then everything will be all right. If not, it will begin to whip us through blows.

The system is arranged and constructed such that it takes into account the same object upon which it acts and influences. We partially see this in our world. For example, the system relates to a small child more mercifully and gently than to a mature person, enveloping the infant with concern. He falls, and this is not so bad, whereas, if an elderly person falls, he is liable to break his bones.

In other words, the system is arranged and constructed such that it relates to each one of us uniquely, according to the level of the person, his destiny, his fate, and who and what he is.

Question: In other words, if the person thinks that the system has given extraordinary suffering to him, does it only seem that way to him, whereas the system, in fact, gradually gives him what he can endure in stages?

It could be that he also cannot endure it, but everything has been considered absolutely precisely, according to his fate, his purpose, and the same conditions in which he is found. Everything is accommodated to the same goal that all of us must attain.

Essentially, everything is very simple because there is a beginning and an end, and from beginning to end, everything has been considered in each stage in relation to everyone. On every level, a particular freedom of choice is given to us and we operate within these precisely defined frameworks.

All of us exist and are connected within a single system that manages us. There are those who feel this and those who don’t feel it, those who already have discovered its laws for themselves and have attained some kind of levels, and those who are only beginning or have not even begun to understand the goal of creation.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/12/14

The Route To Bestowal

Question: What drives a person to advance, impurity or holiness?

Answer: A person who is still in the intention of in order to receive, which is called Egypt, is driven to advance by impurity. After all, he does not as yet, have any desires in order to bestow. He doesn’t value bestowal since it doesn’t seem attractive, and so he advances only because he sees a corporeal loss and a spiritual gain.

I can tell you how wonderful spirituality is indefinitely, but you cannot feel it because you don’t have any flavors of it. So you will agree that it sounds very tempting, but you cannot perceive it in order to understand that it is attractive according to the pleasures you are used to: food, sex, family, money, respect and knowledge, or at least part of it!

So a person is given troubles in order to push him to spirituality, but they are intentional. Eventually it is Pharaoh who undergoes the blows, but before that, the nation of Israelsuffers during the seven years of hunger. They are not give bricks, but are  forced to prepare them by themselves and work from morning till night without a rest. Everything is according to the path of suffering and everything depends on the sufferings that we choose. The spiritual sufferings are a result of my drawing away from spirituality. The more we advance, the more qualitative the sufferings become until eventually we reach the exodus, but these are still sufferings. A person cannot advance by living a comfortable life. If he feels pleasure, the pleasure immediately fills him and stops him. This happens all over the world. Give people abundance and they will live without thinking about anything, like animals.

It is only if the deficiency in them grows that they are forced to look for a way to fill it or escape the pain that they not only lack something but that it really hurts. In that case they will reach the filling. Guiding the created being by blows and sufferings is the safest way, because the nature of creation is a desire to receive and not to bestow.

We have to either increase the feeling of deficiency in the desire to receive or increase the temptation to receive. A person is a machine that feels emptiness in its belly. Instead we can prepare a table full of delicacies and thus awaken a person’s appetite, even if he isn’t really hungry.

This means that we can increase the deficiency in two ways, but they both operate from the aspect of receiving and not from the aspect of bestowal. We can draw a person by the force of bestowal only through the group. If I am incorporated in the group, I begin to understand that my progress doesn’t depend on the emptiness I feel in my belly and not on the wonderful dish before me. The progress takes place on a more sublime dimension and begins from lack of bestowal and advances towards an increasingly greater ability to bestow.

So I begin to work with the group, ignoring what I feel in my belly or the plate that is before me, and move on to a new dimension. So far I have advanced on one dimension according to the route on the low level. I escaped from the emptiness I feel in my belly towards the filling.

The gates of impurity, of receiving, are on the lower level and the gates of holiness, of bestowal, are on the upper level.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/14, Writings of Rabash

A Basement For A Beloved Son

What is required in order to discover the good? Why does someone who is born into great abundance not appreciate it? You tell children: “See how much you have! How much I have given to you! When I was a child I didn’t have this.” Yet they wave you off and don’t want to hear this.

They cannot appreciate your goodness since they have nothing with which to compare it. So they don’t understand what kind of gratitude you require from them. They want to go to the movies, they can go; they want a computer, they get it; a new mobile phone, to go on vacation, whatever they want. They have everything, and so they also have no desire for anything.

You tell them that when you were their age, you built a car for yourself from a shoebox and played with this car for two years, and they laugh at you. They are right, because everything is measured according to desire.

They feel themselves on a particular level of satiation and will not move from it in any direction. First one must descend to minus infinity to be able to feel plus infinity afterward.

About this it was said in “Leviticus” 26:10: When I break for you the staff of bread, and ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, and you will eat, yet not be satisfied, meaning that nothing in the world changes except our consciousness. Even now you are found in Olam Ein Sof (the world of infinity), yet instead of that you feel this world because you don’t have the Kelimto perceive Ein Sof.

On one side there is a sack of gold coins, and on the other side there is a mountain of diamonds. In front of you is a table set with a bounty of delicacies, yet you are dying of starvation and suffer from the stench.

Everything depends upon your perceptive Kli. You are in Olam Ein Sof, which never changes. Everything depends only on desire, and desire is built above an abyss that is constantly revealed to a greater degree.

Therefore, it is difficult for our children to feel a reason for living, specifically because they have everything. Baal HaSulam tells a parable about a king who put his son in a basement for 20 years and caused him mental anguish by showing him how everyone else was successful. Others are sitting in a bar or watching the World Cup, whereas you are sitting in a dark cellar full of mice, cursing your father.

This continued until the son discovered that his father was acting from the goodness of his heart and with great love. His father was suffering himself because he had given his son grief. Whereas if you give your children everything that they want from the goodness of your heart, this means that you hate them.

Question: Does it follow that I must intentionally hurt a child in order to educate him?

Answer: You limit him because you want things to be good for him, and you are willing to suffer in order to do this. You do this for his sake so that it will benefit him in the future. It will not be good for him now, as his ego desires, but will benefit him throughout his life.

Or, you want to feel good from the thought of how much you have given him. You think to yourself: “I couldn’t afford any of this in my childhood, so my son should enjoy it.” Is this what you call love?

Tomorrow you will have to give him many times more because otherwise he will not feel that he is alive. You must build a “basement” with great wisdom and put your beloved son in there, and you will suffer many times more than he will. In this manner, you will be preparing him for a good life.

So we have a method by which it is possible to advance towards fulfillment, towards goodness, not by feeling bad, but by being aware of it. This is a very special patent. It is necessary only to understand the principle and that is enough. Then there will no longer be a need to suffer. We are not ready to go through the way of difficult suffering.

The Creator made a special system in which it is enough for us to be aware of the evil that exists in contrast to the good, in order to accept it as a tool and sense fulfillment through it. After all, we are not ready to descend to minus infinity.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Good Place For Developing The Soul

The reincarnation of the souls is like the recycling of water in our world. This is a constant exchange that takes place between different energy levels in which are found our energetic characteristics called the soul.

A soul is something ephemeral, an energy state of a person that is constantly rising and falling. Cycles like these are necessary to realize the constant blending, adhering, and division of all the souls with each other. They constantly create mutual correction, mutual integration, and bring all the individual souls into a single, generally shared state of one single soul.

This state is called the completion of correction, and we must attain it soon. Therefore, both the wisdom of Kabbalah and the crisis have appeared in this world. Not much time is left for us to reach this state, either through the blows of nature, through huge problems, or through learning and proper use of the method of  the wisdom of connection (Integral Education).

Question: In our world are there any energetic places that can fulfill the soul?

Answer: No, there are no places in the world with such unique characteristics. They influence our mental, physiological, and even our emotional attributes, but not the soul, not spirituality, meaning not the ascent of a person to the characteristic of bestowal and love.

Only in a strong group that is created correctly and in which people mutually cooperate in the right way is the focus of a state like this to be found where a person can enter this society and develop very rapidly.

This is not a geographic location; rather, it is simply an energy that is accumulated by many people yearning to discover the central force of the world. Only a Kabbalistic group is a good place for developing the soul.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day Two” 7/12/14, Lesson #4

Don’t Turn To Medicine Men

Question: The Torah says, “Don’t turn to medicine men.” Why is this forbidden?

Answer: In principle, a person should turn only to the Upper Light for help; not to wait for help from below, but to look above. This is the problem. We usually run to doctors and look for something in order to make our situation easier.

Of course, this is not excluded. The Torah tells that it is impossible to manage without it, but only to the extent that it is necessary within the framework of the accepted direction of the society. All other efforts need to be directed to the Creator, the source of the problems.

Question: In the Torah it says that if you get sick, then go to a doctor. You said that your teacher would first go to one doctor, then to another doctors, and only afterward would begin with the treatment. Why?

Answer: You need to hear the opinion of both doctors and then choose one of them. Of course, they need to be respected and serious. And if both of them don’t agree, then go to a third, since from the first two you learn what the third should be. The choice is in your hands. Don’t trust blindly!

In this way, it is forbidden to trust the medicine men. Medicine men are those who don’t turn to the Creator but to all kinds of healing methods with the help of all kinds of spells and other such technology, which are not able to correct the person himself.

However, you can attain peace, tranquility, and good health without correcting yourself, but instead through some kind of alternative means. Thus, with people like alternative health practitioners, one must be very careful.  Without knowing it, they make our path even longer and increase sufferings. We must try to avoid experiences with them.

Very regretfully, a person gets used to acting as the others act in his surroundings and there is nothing to be done about this since a person must live within society. As it is said, “I am found within my people.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14

Everything Is In The Hands Of Man!

Question: When the innocence and fairness of Job is tested time after time though suffering, three friends approach him to express condolences. They hint that he has done something bad and that it cannot be such that blows came from nothing.

But Job does not agree with this, continuing to insist on his innocence. These friends represent the question that we often ask ourselves: Have I personally done something bad for which I receive punishment, or it is something else?

Answer: Nature does not ask whether we did or did not do something. We imagine fate as evil following evil and good following good. But the law of nature does not act according to this formula. If initially it is said that “man’s heart is evil from his youth,” he automatically finds himself in a negative account.

Question: It turns out that the friends’ advice to look for evil in oneself is wrong?

Answer: He will not find it. He will just come up with different formulas by which one should behave, but will not explore nature itself. He does not take into account that the law of “love thy neighbor as thyself” applies to him.

For example, in our world there are different laws of behavior and culture, such as how to behave in the family, in society, in nature, and etc. Where do these laws come from? Are they based on the knowledge of nature, the good? No. Typically, people come up with them according to their calculations, and we must respect them.

It turns out that we initially form relationships between ourselves in a distorted way and then do not know where bad luck comes from. How do we come up with this nonsense in that we say that the Creator gave, the Creator took, the Creator is blessed, and I have nothing to do with it? I feel I’m a saint. I accept this fate as it comes from Above and do not see my participation. How will new misfortunes not come my way?

Question: People tend to think that if misfortune happens to someone, then obviously he did something bad individually. And you describe the system, meaning look not at individual destiny, but the destiny of society.

Answer: It is difficult to consider an individual’s fate because our vision is limited. There are notorious sinners, who feel well. And if I look with my egoistic eyes, I see people enjoy by deceiving others and stealing throughout their lives. They have everything, are even respected, and after death are called righteous. The question is whether or not he can serve as an example. Of course not! One person’s individual life cannot be an example.

Question: If misfortunes come to a person one after another, in the end, he will curse the day he was born. Many people feel that death is better than such a life.

Answer: This is an escape from responsibility, from purpose, and an unwillingness to hear. It is necessary to form public opinion that will help a person hear that there is a goal and that he needs to organize his life. It is neither blind fate nor destiny. Everything is in the hands of man!
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/14

The Meteor Is Already Close

Question: If the upper force is good, why is it revealed in an unpleasant way, pressuring us?

Answer: The higher power pressures us from above in that it aspires to be discovered. Whereas, we are found below as separated, crushed, rejecting and hating each other. The pressure of the upper force from above increases our problems, because He wants to be discovered, but is not.

All of the problems pop up because of the approach of the Creator to us. If you are not adapted to Him, then His approach awakens negative reactions in you.

Question: I don’t understand how the approach of the Creator could be perceived as negative. It would seem that this would be the opposite; wouldn’t it be necessary to awaken some kind of positive results?

Answer: Imagine that you are a child. Your mother comes to you and asks: “Have you completed your homework?” And you haven’t prepared your lessons. So your mother threatens: “Watch out, I will come back in another hour to check if you have finished your homework!” As the hour passes you begin to be afraid of when she will come back because you still haven’t done anything.

How will her approach be felt in this case: good or bad? If you don’t comply with her demand, you feel her approach as unpleasant, you don’t want her to come to check you. Isn’t this so?

And now the same thing is happening with us. We are not carrying out those actions that we must carry out. We don’t want to become like one person with one heart, where all ofIsrael are friends, connected with mutual guarantee (Arvut). We are not becoming like those that we must be, and so the approach of the Creator awakens troubles, disasters, and wars within us and around us.

All of these are the result of the nearing of the Creator. The Holocaust was a result of His approach. That is how the approach of the upper force is revealed if we don’t adapt to it.

So we must prevent the blow through a remedy: Begin getting closer to each other, connect so that we approximate ourselves to the approach of the Creator. Then we will accept this approach as better and better, to the state in which the upper force will be completely clothed in us. There is no better state than this!

Question: Is the upper force like a meteor that is approaching our Earth?

Answer: The higher power is not approaching us with the speed of a meteor, which is 30 kilometers per second. This is a gradual process that began a long time ago. But essentially this “meteor” is already close, and its speed is increasing all the time. The inner and outer tension has grown.

After that a period of calm could come. But even if it comes, it will be for a very brief time. Periods of calm will become more and more compressed, whereas the tension will grow exponentially. This is because we are on the threshold of the general correction and the Creator is obliging us to carry out the correction, meaning to connect among us.

We must come to a state of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” no matter how unrealistic this may seem to us. The higher power is prepared to force us into this through its pressure. But it is desirable to begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because from it, we discover how to attain this in ourselves before we are pressured from above with full force. We can reach this connection ourselves in a good way, without coercion.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: Preparing the People of Israel for Light” 8/20/14