The World Is A Person’s Inner State

Question: There are several theories about the perception of reality: what reality is, what its connection with people is, and whether it exists outside of a person.

Newton, for example, believed that the world exists without any connection with humanity. Whether humanity exists or not, the world has always existed and will exist without it.

The theory of relativity says that perception is relative and depends on the location of the observer and on the speed with which he is moving.

Quantum physics came to the conclusion that this world is an illusion and depends on the observer, that is, we create this world.

What does Kabbalah say about the reality we feel?

Answer: Kabbalah says that there is only a person who perceives just what he has within himself. That is, the entire world is within me. There is no world outside of me. I feel myself, and all the changes within me seem to me as changes in the world around me.

I as if project all my internal feelings, experiences, and opinions outward, and this is depicted to me in the form of pictures of the world. The world is my inner state.

Baal HaSulam writes in the “Preface to The Book of Zohar”: “We see a wide world before us, wondrously filled. But in fact, we see all that only in our own interior. In other words, there is a sort of a photographic machine in our hindbrain, which portrays everything that appears to us and nothing outside of us.”

That is, everything that appears to me as external, I actually see in my brain. There are various pictures of reality whirling inside it that allegedly exist around me, but they are nothing more than a projection of my changing desires, thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I feel them in the form of a picture of the world.

If I did not see this picture in a form of an immense world with many planets, people, flowers, animals, and so on, I would feel it inside of me in such a small micro dose that I could not develop at all. And this way, everything within me is enlarged by billions of times and unfolds around me. Therefore, the world is a projection of myself.
[246850]
From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 11/26/18

New Life #1112 – Avoiding Suffering And Pain

New Life #1112 – Avoiding Suffering and Pain
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

All of life is an avoidance of suffering, but without it we cannot feel pleasure. We have become more sensitive to the quality of suffering as human egoism has developed, yet the source of our pain remains concealed. Kabbalah teaches us that it comes from a lack of self-realization and that, in order to prevent it, we have to change the inner determinants within human nature. When we ask the question “Why am I living?” and discover the purpose of pain, then it no longer hurts and it becomes an investment for achieving a goal. Suffering can show a person where one is wrong and help one explore and discover one’s purpose by correcting his attitude.
[247171]
From KabTV’s “New Life #1112 – Avoiding Suffering and Pain,” 5/14/19

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

The Spiritual Inanimate Level

Question: We know that the inanimate level wants to preserve itself. How can one move from this state to the vegetative level? How do we combine the two desires?

Answer: The inanimate level refers to all of nature. A spiritually inanimate level in me is a feeling of no inner spiritual movement, no possibility to bestow, to fulfill someone, to be somewhat similar to the Creator. On the contrary, there is an understanding that I exist under the control of my egoistic desires, which are given to me by the Creator and the Creator controls them.

The spiritually inanimate level is the realization that all my desires come from the Creator, are dictated by Him, and I am under His full authority. I am an egoist because He created me like this, and then I say that I am under Pharaoh’s control. This, however, is also the Creator, only in reverse.

I feel that I am ruled by the egoism given to me by the Creator. All my desires, all movements, everything I do—how I sit, walk, act, and think—the Creator generates in me.

I can then say that I am at the spiritually inanimate level. This is a spiritual level because it is connected with the Creator, and an inanimate level because not one of my movements are mine, everything is only His.

It is a very interesting state. It applies to no other people in our world because they are generally non-spiritual.

“Spiritual” means connection with the Creator. Moreover, a clear connection: I feel how the Creator moves my arms, legs, thoughts, feelings; everything I feel around me is also Him. Through all the “puppets” in my whole life, He has such an effect on me. All this is a spiritually inanimate level.

It is not an easy step in the attainment of the universe and the Creator.
[246654]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/9/19

New Life #263 – Sexual Development In Humanity, Part 1

New Life #263 – Sexual Development in Humanity, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Humankind evolved gradually through the still, vegetative, living, and speaking levels. The sexual drive also developed through these four levels throughout history. In the 20th century, the speaking level requires an understanding of where we’re heading, just like a young man reaches the age of 20 and asks himself where he is going. At this level, the head should be above the body, especially in regard to sexuality. Our impulses to choose a spouse according to beauty, money, and status have begun to mutate and rot. When the head leads, contact with another person is only made if I can make him feel good. According to the new paradigm, an equal, inner, spiritual coupling occurs between mates and the sexual drive only wakes up as a result of this heart connection.
[124420]
From KabTV’s “New Life #263 – Sexual Development in Humanity,” Part 1, 11/28/13

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

What Is More Important: The Internal Or The External?

Every degree consists of internal and external components, and the external part of the upper degree is connected to the inner part of the lower one. Thus, there is a connection between all the degrees, that is, one can ascend or descend from any level. Therefore, by preferring the internal to the external, that is, the maximum bestowal and the minimum reception, in both spirituality as well as in corporeality, a person expresses his desire to elevate the upper degree so it can rule over the lower. Every person in this top-down chain: Israel (those who serve the Creator and those who do not, the nations of the world within Israel) and the nations of the world can ascend the degrees because of their preference of the internal (upper) over the external (lower).

The inner part is the closest to spirituality because it refers to the upper degree, and if a person prefers it to the lower part, one ensures one’s ascent. Therefore, every person has the opportunity to choose the upper and by so doing, ascend above the current degree received from birth, from one’s natural properties. And there, once again, one chooses the internal and thus keeps ascending from the foot of the ladder where all the created beings exist to its very top.

No one is limited in anything: one begins according to the root of one’s soul and keeps working with it. Every person has an inner and outer part and is given free choice and equal opportunities to climb to the very top, to perform the greatest bestowal to the Creator.¹

To the measure of our rising above problems and concentrating on the Creator instead of focusing on them, we advance. Specifically, we have to decide what is more important: the upper part within us or the lower, the desire to enjoy or the intention to bestow. The importance of spiritual advancement, solidarity with the Creator and the purpose of creation, and involvement in the process of correction have to be so important to us that we simply stop feeling corporeal problems, we attribute no importance to them.

It all depends on what we prefer at every moment: our inner or our outer part, where do we want to be, what is more important for us? Our correct attitude toward the falling rockets [in Israel] will determine whether they will stop or not because they were designed to push us toward correct actions. We face the upper force, there is nothing else beside it, the good that does good. Right now, this force is sending us rockets, awakening us to change ourselves.

If we attain the right reaction with regard to the rockets, we will no longer think about the rockets but about our correction, and that is why the rockets will stop. But our goal was not to stop the rockets, but to reach adhesion with the upper force.²

Deciding that the external part is more important than the inner, we give power to the outer part to rise across the entire world. It turns out that the upper part considers the lower to be more important and neglects the upper. This is how the outer part of the world gains importance; that is, all the sinners of the world gain strength and opportunity to inflict damage on everyone else. Instead of calming them down and establishing order in the world, it pushes toward loving the other as yourself.

But if we chose the inner part within us over the outer, then by doing so, we establish that the inner part of the world, which concerns spirituality, influences the lower degrees and they begin to understand that spirituality is more important than corporeality. Everything is determined in the thought.

One must scrutinize on one’s own level so that one can choose the spiritual over the material. There is no other way to influence the world except by changing oneself on the inside, utterly raising the inner over the outer.³From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/19 Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“

What Is Stronger: Time Or Patience?

Question: You wrote on Instagram: “If you change, the world will change. And do not demand changes from the world if you do not change yourself. Improve yourself and everything will change.

“The world depends only on a person’s change, not on the change of others. You will find that they should not change. The whole world is in complete correction.”

While these processes are taking place, what is stronger: time or patience?

Answer: Time is like something that does not depend on us. Patience is something that depends on us. But we can, with the help of our patience, change time, speed it up or slow it down. Therefore, I believe that the most important thing is our attitude toward the world, that we change as quickly as possible, and then we will see the world rapidly changing in a good direction.

Question: In the end, it turns out that time will be subject to us?

Answer: Time will be subject to us and changing the world will be subject to us, depending on our own changes.

Question: What does it have to do with patience?

Answer: Patience means that we do not have to endure anything, we do not have to wait for something to change. We must change ourselves.
[246564]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/3/19

New Life #262 – Sex Education: The Crisis Between Male And Female, Part 2

New Life #262 – Sex Education: The Crisis Between Male and Female, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The family unit is breaking down due to men and women’s inability to communicate with each other. Our confusion and unhappiness is not coincidental as we are approaching a new degree of human development called “Adam,” which is based on mutual connection. We correct ourselves and our relationships by putting the connection in the center rather than the “I.” The choice of a partner takes place according to the soul, according to an internal fit for a common spiritual purpose. Sex will then come as an addition to the spiritual bond and then there will be greater pleasures in it. Breaking the boundaries of time, place, and movement can only occur in a spiritual connection between people.
[124326]
From KabTV’s “New Life #262 – Sex Education: The Crisis Between Male and Female,” Part 2, 11/27/13

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

The Property Of Kabbalistic Books

Question: How can we scientifically explain, without mysticism or religious miracles, that reading the books written by Kabbalists helps correct our intention and change one’s inner state?

Answer: What does mysticism or religion have to do with it? Neither are part of Kabbalah.

Reading Kabbalistic books helps orient you internally toward a goal because they speak of how your soul should be aimed toward it. The same way we tune a musical instrument, we tune ourselves by reading Kabbalistic books.

This tuning fork comes through the books. Try reading them and you will feel it. In no way should you deafen it with any religious precepts, obligations, or various mystical bemusements.
[246507]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/20/19