Who Can Consider Himself A Kabbalist?

Question: I have undergone a transformation and I consider myself a Kabbalist. Is that possible?

Answer: First, one must determine and define who is a Kabbalist.

A Kabbalist is a person who is connected to a group of Kabbalists and who in the connection with his friends, discovers the Creator. The mutual attainment of the Creator in the group enables him to be a Kabbalist who receives the revelation of the upper force.

If you have undergone a certain personal experience, I must tell you that unfortunately it is only an illusion and a misconception.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/11/16

Educate Children To Be Human

Question: How can a woman determine what is necessary for the home and family and what is superfluous?

Answer: If a woman works on herself correctly and understands a little about psychology and education, then she will not behave irrationally. She needs to think about how to raise her children so that they will be human, that they will be able to continue on their own after that.

Everything is rapidly changing today, and by the time those children grow up, there will be completely different professions and occupations. The most important thing is to educate them to be human so that they will always relate to life, to others, and to themselves correctly.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/4/16

Help Create A Family

Question: Is correction possible with asceticism and isolation? If not, then why is this so widespread?

Answer: This is widespread because people are used to this form of life. In ancient times, they behaved this way to allegedly “kill” the flesh. But this does not correspond  to Kabbalistic principles.

The mortification of the flesh doesn’t come from and has nothing to do with Kabbalah. Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, one must not remain single.

We need to help single people organize their lives. By the way, helping to establish a family is a great Mitzvah (commandment). Therefore, the friends in a group, especially women, should help each other to create families.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/4/16

Competition Without Losers

From “The Crisis and Its Solution” (Arosa Forum, 2006)

As a result of society’s purposeful influence, everyone will aspire to receive only what is necessary for his existence from the society and spare no effort in his work for the society’s welfare.

To consume only “necessary for the existence” doesn’t mean to lead a meager life and subject ourselves to limitations. However, gradually due to integral education, the better understanding of and researching of our lives, we will suddenly realize that 99.9% of all goods that we produce only do us harm.

After all, the human body is an animal. We can’t feed a cow with cakes or accustom a horse to drink champagne. Similarly, our body requires simple, healthy, and varied food, that is most suitable for it. We must come to this through integral education.

Therefore, necessary for existence means all that is required for our animalistic body. We need to find out what is the most beneficial for it, and then include this in the educational program.

This opinion is passed to a person gradually and without any pressure. Perhaps it will take one or two generations, but in the end, humanity will switch to healthy consumption.

Question: How is it possible to decide what food is considered healthy because different things are suitable for different people?

Answer: All the advices about healthy food that we receive today come from the desire to sell something. Don’t forget this. Thus, it is obvious that all the products we buy, having believed advertisements, are useful only to those who sell them. We’ve never read a piece of advice that is really intended for our benefit.

Now all the lies about global warming are revealed. There is a group in the UN that fuels rumors around global warming and receives billions of dollars each year to allegedly fight it. But in fact, all these measures don’t give any results.

And everything is this way because our egoism can’t do anything good. It is obvious that a huge supermarket can be replaced by a small store, and that will be enough. A person doesn’t need a hundred kinds of cheese; there is no need for this.

Of course, there should be healthy products, several varieties for different tastes. But this diversity shouldn’t come from competition, from someone’s desire to earn.

Competition should be in who produces the most healthy and delicious products. That is, the original motive for competition is completely different. The product should be the best, most delicious, yet cheap, and should not harm the environment.

Nobody is going to forbid and limit anything. We just need to eliminate this principle of competition for the sake of profit and to develop competition around who brings more benefit to people. Nothing more is required! Everything is determined by the upbringing of a person, and as a result of integral education, his head will gradually begin to rise above material interests.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/5/17, “Mismah Arosa (Arosa Document),” “The Desirable Result”

New Life #837 – The Process Of Spiritual Conversion

New Life #837 – The Process Of Spiritual Conversion
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

The process of spiritual conversion begins when a person begins to identify an inclination toward adhesion with the Creator within himself, when questions about the essence of life arise within him. That is how Abraham began his search and development process.

From a good relationship with others, a person begins to feel the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #837 – Jewish Culture: The Process Of Spiritual Conversion,” 3/9/17

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The Work Of A Person And That Of The Creator

Question: What is the inner work of a person, the work of the soul?”

Answer: Kabbalists call the efforts against one’s desire work.

Let’s say I want to lie down, but despite that I get up and go to work. In our world, this is what we call making an effort. But we forget that if I get up and go to work, this is already my will. It means that I overcame my desire to lie down on the couch and watch football and decided that it would be better to go to work and earn money. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to get up and set off for work to waste my energy there. Even if by overcoming, I’ve nonetheless,used my desire.

That is, I exchange one desire for another because I see this as a clear benefit. This is the physical work in our world, work that everybody performs: athletes, artists, workers, it does not matter who and how. If a person can overcome himself and accomplish something, it is his material, physical work. What if he cannot? Approach with a whip and he will want it.

In other words, if by shaming, condemning, inflicting suffering, or affecting a person in any other way it is possible to change his desire and force him to perform a particular activity, this is called the work of our world. In the end, he’ll want to do the work to avoid suffering.

By definition, spiritual work is impossible to perform. A person inherently cannot do it by himself because the upper Light or the Creator does it for him. That is why this work is called the Creator’s work.

The truth of the matter is that I have to ask the Creator to perform this work for me. Meaning that my requests and pleas are the preparation for Him to correct me—this is my work.

He has to perform the work because the property of absolute bestowal and love are completely nonexistent in the framework of my nature. And in accordance with the way I am created, I am not capable of performing the spiritual work.

That is why I have to persuade the upper Light that I really want for it to do it on my behalf. So, why would this work be written on my behalf? Because I’ve succeeded in persuading the Creator. I did everything for this to happen and that is why it’s considered my work, although it is called “the work of the Creator.” This means that He performs, but I beg and plead for it to happen.

This is the only possibility for a person’s free will in our world, in our condition.
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From KabTV’s lesson in Russian 12/18/16

Are We Guarded From Above? Part 6

Question: Everyone wants to make their lives as safe as possible. In Judaism there are all kinds of traditions and symbols that are regarded as means of guaranteeing protection from above: a mezuzah for the protection of the individual and their home, or prayers, such as the traveler’s prayer, the blessings of the home or the business. Shabbat also is considered to be a means of protecting the person who observes it.

Do all these methods actually guarantee our protection from misfortunes?

Answer: All these provide nothing more than a psychological effect. It gives an individual an inner experience of calm and confidence, but they do not impact the occurring events. First thing that Abraham did was to destroy all the “idols,” that is, all external symbols, that can affect our fate. This symbolized the beginning of his spiritual path.

So if today a person believes that external objects and actions can guarantee them protection from above, it is considered idol worship. Traditional commandments of Judaism are not meant to guarantee us protection in this life. Kabbalists created them in order to give people a feeling of belonging to the nation of Israel, in order for them not to forget about their connection with others, about the Torah. But by following them, they are not changing their fate.

A person donates a few cents before getting onto a bus so that the bus does not explode; he as if wants to buy for himself a kind reaction from the Creator for a dollar. But even in this way, he is connecting himself with the system, with the society. This is why I do not laugh at this tradition and view it as beneficial for the wider masses. However, that which is good on one level, is called idol worship on a higher level of development.

Question: It is said that the home with a mezuzah on its doorway is protected by the Creator. How does the mezuzah protect those who are in the house?

Answer: It does not, in no way. It provides purely psychologically comfort, a positive feeling. It is a way for a person to calm themselves. It acts like a tranquilizing pill, nothing more.

If an individual really wants to be under the protection of the upper force, he must study it and enter into contact with it. He needs to know in what way to fulfill the desire of the upper force, not to get what he wants, but to act according to the purpose of creation for the benefit of the entire system.

If he does this, then of course he becomes desirable in the eyes of the general force of the system, called Creator, and he guarantees for himself correct, positive, and fast advancement.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life,” #818, 01/26/17

What Is Hatred?

Question from Facebook: What is hatred?

Answer: Love and hatred are forces that drive a person and manage the world. What I suffer causes me to hate the source of suffering. What I enjoy causes me to love the source of pleasure. This is how these forces are expressed in our egoism. I appreciate everything only according to whether I feel bad or good as a result of whatever I encounter, as a result of the filling.

Comment: A person is usually intimidated and shaken by the word “hatred” and regards it as a very extreme situation like war or murder.

My Response: A person has to ascend a bit to the philosophic level, because we are part of nature in which there are two feelings, love and hatred, or pain and pleasure, which constantly manage us, and if it weren’t for these two opposite phenomena, we would not be able to exist. We would not be able to feel life if it weren’t for the constant feeling of love and hate.

Question: Why do you often say that true hatred exists only on the way to love?

Answer: Because that is what it is meant for. If our desire to enjoy is not filled, then we suffer, and if it is filled, we enjoy. This is what everything is based on.

It is very simple: there is a small cell and if we don’t fill it, it suffers and hates the source that doesn’t fill it. It wants to change it, convert it, and destroy it, as long as it doesn’t suffer. But if a source that fills it emerges, then the attitude toward it is called love.

There is nothing but that.

However, there are still various systems of memory and restoration systems, which build the relations between us.

Question: Does that mean that we constantly feel love and hatred toward the Creator?

Answer: Everything that we feel in the corporeal world is what we feel toward the Creator because there is none else besides Him. Everything around us are His revelations with regard to us. He sends us a feeling of suffering or of pleasure toward which we feel hatred, repulsion, or the opposite, attraction and love.

Question: If we hate someone, does that mean that we hate the Creator?

Answer: Of course, because there is none else besides Him. He is the one who organizes everything for us; all our calculations should be made only with the Creator.

If a person begins to focus himself only on the Creator and understands that only He exists before him, everything will be peaceful and good, since he knows how to manage his relations with the Creator. He knows what he has to do so the Creator will be felt as good, fulfilling, loving, and kind with regard to him. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/18/16