Holidays From The Perspective Of Kabbalah

Question: What does a holiday mean from the perspective of Kabbalah?

Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there are various levels of the Light that come down upon us. Their intensity determines a special state called a holiday.

“Holiday” in Hebrew is called “Hag” from the word “Mehuga” (arrow), which constantly turns, repeating its circles. In other words, a holiday is something that repeats from year to year. However, it repeats in such a way that at that time a certain Light comes down and brings everyone under it into a special state.

Thus, in the spiritual world, you may exist in the state of “New Year” while I am in the state of “Pesach” (Passover). In addition, one does not interfere with the other. For you, it is one state; for me, it is a different one. Everyone has his own time and his own levels.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/31/17

Spreading Kabbalah: The Fuel For Correction

From the time of the Ari and onward, the wisdom of Kabbalahwas permitted to be spread among all the nations of the world.After all, the world entered the era of the Mashiach (Messiah), and therefore any spread of the knowledge of Kabbalah is to the benefit of correcting the world.

And before that, there was a prohibition on the spread of Kabbalah, as it accelerated the development of the world, which was detrimental to the people of Israel. It turned out that egoistic forces accelerate their development, outstripping the development of the forces of bestowal, that is, Israel. ¹

The prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah) said that the nations of the world will carry the sons of Israel on their shoulders to the Temple, that is, toward the end of correction, to complete adhesion between the Creator and creations. To ascend the mountain of the Creator is hard work, which is beyond the abilities of the people of Israel—light desires, desires for bestowal. Therefore, the spread of the wisdom of Kabbalah among the nations of the world is so necessary—it is the engine that will push the entire correction upward to the Mashiach. ²
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/18, Writing of Baal HaSulam, “Messiah’s Shofar”

Forming Qualities Like The Creator’s

There is no Creator without creation. If there is no creation, then there is no concept of “Creator” at all—there is abstract upper Light in and of itself, called “Atzmuto” (His Essence). The Creator begins where there is already a certain desire in which, according to its properties, the upper Light can be revealed. Then the concept of the Creator and creation appears.

There is no creation without the Creator and there is no Creator without creation. That is, the upper force only has the form that a person prepares for it, as it is written, “You have made Me” and “My sons have defeated Me.” Our entire work is to prepare a special place for the revelation of the Creator, and it is realized in the ten. To the extent we can connect with each other, in the measure of our unity, we will attract the Light that reforms, which will improve our relations.

The Creator conveys Himself to the creations and helps them in everything so that they will discover Him more and more. The Creator reveals Himself in the ten to the extent we unite our forces and their level. This requires work to overcome, as well as the creation of special forms and qualities that correspond to the Creator.

The creation assumes the properties that the Creator possesses and tries to reproduce them, and the Creator shows the creation whether the creation’s assumptions were correct or not. This is how He teaches us the art of building the forms of creation similar to the Creator, that is, constructing a “human” (“Adam“).

There is no more exalted and interesting work than the disclosure of the Creator in the ten. It captures absolutely everyone, and it is impossible to remain indifferent. After all, we look forward to how we will build and discover the Creator, who will manifest Himself in the measure of our efforts and fill us. ¹

The upper Light creates within a desire to enjoy all forms from the beginning to the end, and then disappears to enable us to repeat these actions, and thus study the whole process that we must go through in order to become like the Creator. Similar to a sculptor who creates a sculpture from a piece of marble, we sculpt the Creator from our desire so that it acquires the form of bestowal, and darkness shines like Light.

The forms themselves are not needed, but from them we learn who the Creator is, to whom we are going to become similar. In principle, this was the purpose of creation, and everything else was only the means to bring the creation to the Creator’s level.

Any action in one’s personal life and in the life of the group is meant only to reveal within us the wholeness of the Creator; everything is directed toward the end of correction and moves us toward one goal. And to what extent we will participate in it already depends on us. ²

To the extent that the creation succeeds in awakening the Creator, we feel ourselves as existing, understanding, and sensing. This is the whole meaning of creation. The living body differs from the dead one in that it attains something by itself. That is, everything must be preceded by one’s desire.

The general desire to enjoy is created by the Creator, and its filling, its satisfaction, is also in the Creator’s hands. But to connect the desire with the filling is our task.

Who is a human being? It is one who understands, is aware, prays, and applies efforts to connect the desire with the fulfillment. Why do I want to tie them together? In order to become similar to the upper one, my Creator. For this purpose, I have been given these two forces. On one hand, the desire, and on the other hand, the power of Light. In this work, the creation manifests its desire to resemble the Creator and thus proclaims that “There is none else beside Him.” ³
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/18, Preparation for the Convention in New Jersey

Religion—The Imaginary “Spiritual Sphere”

Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation: However, according to man’s merit, who consists in intellectual preparation, he continued to develop through deeds and suffering, and assumed religion, politics and justice, and finally became civilized.

What does religion mean? It is when a person creates a spiritual world in his egoistic desire, not because of his birth into spirituality, but within himself, within his egoism.

Religion is the reflection of that “spiritual sphere,” which he imagines for himself: angels with wings, the Creator sitting on a cloud, heaven, hell, and so forth. All of this is created inside egoism, for its own benefit.

Indeed, this entire development was placed solely on the shoulders of the better part of society, and the masses followed them like a herd.

Without a doubt, all sciences, arts, education, and religions were established and introduced to the masses so that people would follow qualitative minority like a herd. But even this “head” of humanity is still an egoistic part, which developed  a system of control, achievement, and religious movements for its own benefit, so they could experience maximum comfort in every period of time.

When the masses opened their eyes to take their fate into their hands, they had to revoke all the corrections and laws of the assertive, being religion, justice, and politics. This is because these were only according to the spirit of the assertive, according to their development and for their own good.

Question: In other words, at some point there was a protest from the masses?

Answer: It depends on where and how. Of course there were some serious attempts at uprising, for example, in Christianity: Calvinism, Lutheranism, and other religious movements. In the Christian and Muslim religions there was a serious departure from the initial true aspects of their religions. Then they once again fell into an ever-growing egoism.

The same thing happened in Judaism, which was initially developing under the influence of the altruistic part, Kabbalah, completely detached from the material condition. But then everything died out.

During the time of the Second Temple, the Jews fell completely back into egoism, into mutual hatred, and since that time that is how we exist. We even forgot that at one time we lived by the law of love, and now we dwell in hatred, like in ordinary life. Naturally, we experience ourselves as normal people, even righteous, completely unaware that we are in the purest egoism.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 9/11/17

What Do Dreams Mean?

Question: What do dreams mean?

Answer: I heard from Rabash and see it myself from the system of governance that dreams in our world are no more than a consequence of things experienced during the day.

Sometimes, there are prophetic dreams and a person sees something in the future. I also have had such states. This happens because we disconnect from our egoism and rise to the next level where everything already exists: the past, the present and the future. We connect to a flow of information where time does not exist.

Therefore, there are people with increased sensitivity who can really predict the future. There is no need to be a Kabbalist for this.

Question: How can one see the future if everything depends on a person? Does it already exist?

Answer: It exists no matter what a person does. A person changes the future, but it is already prepared.

Question: If we are talking about the end of an action, do we mean the very last action of correction?

Answer: We mean the very last action from what must happen now, according to the plan.

Question: There even is a principle: “We were like unto them that dream.” What is this about?

Answer: When we return to the state of complete correction, we are acting as if in a dream. We cannot imagine how much the upper Light completely controls us.

“We were like unto them that dream” is a phrase from King David’s Psalms. Everything written in Psalms is absolute Kabbalah.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/19/17

New Life #975 – Humanity’s Next Developmental Level

New Life #975 – Humanity’s Next Developmental Level
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

On the next developmental level, spiritual people will live above the limitations of time, space, and motion. Humans will finally find happiness, fulfillment, and perfect satisfaction through the acquisition of a new desire for love and pure giving. This new world will not have limits as we do now. Currently, we are not happy despite endless technological advances and having everything that we could ever want. Nature has programmed our development from having an animalistic nature to embracing the intention to give, according to the original thought of creation.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #975 – Humanity’s Next Developmental Level,” 3/6/18

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

Happy Pills

In the News (New York Magazine): “Do modern realities merit an increased dependence on Xanax? Steven Hayes, a clinical psychologist at the University of Nevada, believes that benzos stop a gap that evolution has yet to fill. As humans try to control an exponentially growing number of inputs with which they are confronted, ‘our attention becomes less flexible, our minds become more chattering, and the next thing we know, we’re frantic.’

Humans are ill-equipped to process or accommodate all these new signals. ‘Our task now is to create modern minds for the modern world, and that modern mind has to be psychologically flexible.’ In the absence of that flexibility, Hayes says, people need a bridge—a pill—between what life doles out and what people can realistically handle.”

My Comment: The world is developing too quickly and people are simply unable to adapt, unable to cope with all of its challenges. Therefore, advances in modern pharmacology come to help.

When taking a course of typical antidepressants, one must wait two to three weeks before starting to feel any effect. With Xanax, it’s much simpler: get nervous, take a pill, calm down. The drug is similar to a cup of coffee and doesn’t even cost that much.

Xanax disconnects a person from the problem. If life has him by the throat, then of course, this is a blessing for him. This will work until he realizes that he needs to attain the truth. Only then will he reject these “sleep-inducing” methods. He will throw Xanax away and pick up a book on Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 2/8/18

Can The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Save A Person From Depression?

Question: Can the power of the Light that is inherent in the wisdom of Kabbalah save me from depression?

Answer: If your depression exists physiologically, as a result of a shortage of certain chemical substances, then you need the addition of these chemicals. Today, this is a widespread phenomenon.

But if the depression comes from an inner imbalance, then I am sure that it will be filled by the wisdom of Kabbalah. A person moves to a new system of balance. He begins to balance the positive and negative systems.

He requires a proper environment that supports him and a teacher who explains how it is possible to attain the proper mixture of positive and negative characteristics. It is up to him to listen to the teacher and try to implement his recommendations.

The method of Kabbalah elevates a person above all the problems. But the wisdom of Kabbalah emphasizes that the problems will exist anyway, and new problems will begin to appear so that the person will balance them through the right line.

Question: Does it follow that this problem is basically psychological?

Answer: All problems are psychological. If a person constantly receives for himself, then, in principle, he is limited and cannot enjoy.

Question: The wisdom of Kabbalah offers a new formula for pleasure, which is bestowal. If I constantly think about others and bestow, will I be happy then?

Answer: The state of pleasure from bestowal still has to be achieved. But if you have such an opportunity, then your happiness will truly be limitless, you can bestow as much as you want and at the same time enjoy it. In this case, the perception of happiness itself is correct; it is like a mother who wants to give everything to her child.

If a person is in the right group, then through mutual bestowal to each other they not only begin to feel happiness and spiritual ascent, but they also discover that the Creator is among them.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/17/17