Death And I

Question: Our mind refuses to accept the inevitability of death. When one receives information that associates him with death, something tells him that this data is unreliable. We can sometimes predict the death of others, but will almost always be wrong about predicting our own.

Experts tell us that subconsciously we ignore facts and perceive ourselves as someone who will have a lengthy existence, if not eternity. Why do we feel this way?

Answer: It is because no living being can or should understand that he is mortal at all. Everything in this world should propel us forward. We must create, execute things, and leave something after us.

Question: To acknowledge one’s mortality, to have the fear of death, does it have an effect on us?

Answer: The fear of death is the fear of nonexistence. How can I imagine a world where I no longer exist? This is a terrible rejection of egoism.

What is a world? It is I who exist, I know the world, understand it, and feel it. I am in it, in the center of it. But here, I suddenly disappear.

What remains in the world? I can only perceive it through my senses. If there is no “I,” then this is the end of it all. Our ego cannot conceive of the notion that the world can exist without it.

The only solution is to explain to people that the world is eternal, endless, and perfect. It is completely different from the way that we perceive it. In order to see it differently, we have to rise up to the level of the quality of love and bestowal.

Question: Does it mean that we will break free and rise above our egoism?

Answer: Yes. We will see it in the quality opposite egoism.

The fact that we are created in a particular quality should not limit us. We have to see the world differently, multilaterally. We will then be able to see the world and ourselves in some sort of connection.

Question: Are you saying that if I rise above my egoism, I will reach the quality of love and bestowal and see the world as eternal? Thus, I become eternal too?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, it follows that death does not exist?

Answer: Death does not exist in the quality of bestowal.

Question: Will people come to perceive themselves as eternal?

Answer: Yes, the science of Kabbalah explains this to us. We can only do it if we have the desire for it.
[258803]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/24/19

Study In Kabbalah

Question: A ten is a mini-model of society. Instead of working with all of humanity, which, in principle, is not yet possible, did the Kabbalists take, like a hologram, the most minimal cell in which it is possible to implement the method?

Answer: That is absolutely right.

Comment: Kabbalists say that two people are also minimal for a society.

My Response: In principle, for lack of anything else, there can be two. After all, then a person begins to feel the difference between himself and the other: Who is “I” and who is “he?” But in fact, you can only achieve the altruistic quality of bestowal quickly and correctly if you are in the ten.

Question: There are many things written about the ten in the Kabbalistic sources. Kabbalists have always been studying in such a way. Was there no learning for two people?

Answer: This was at the beginning of the foundation and development of Kabbalah. However, in those days there were special souls and special conditions.

Question: Is it possible today for a Kabbalist teacher to teach just one person? Do we teach privately?

Answer: There can be private teachers. When my friend and I came to Rabash he gave us his disciple as a teacher, a man of advanced years, and the two of us studied with him for six months.

Question: There were no people who wanted to study Kabbalah back then? Is this possible today?

Answer: No. I do not think that this is even useful. The group is best of all. In Kabbalah, everything is so tied to the connection between friends that other ways of studying are not effective.

Question: What about the initial stage, at least to understand what this is about?

Answer: It is possible. There may be private lessons at that stage. However, that is not movement toward the goal but filling with knowledge.
[259527]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/20/19

If I Do Not Want To Advance…

Question: Is one lifetime enough to climb the degrees of the spiritual worlds?

Answer: Do not worry, this is not your task. You must rise either by a good or not-so-good path. The choice of the path depends on you.

If you exert, you will rise quickly and win every moment of your life for the sake of the ascent. And if you are lazy, of course, you will be urged forward, or even left alone, and then you will have to catch up with the others.

In general, there are different possibilities. In order not to confuse you, I will say only one thing: systematic classes, participation in a group, in our common events—this is the necessary minimum for a normal, smooth, safe ascent. If you want to move faster, there are additional classes, courses, and so on. If you want to move even faster, there are other options.

Question: What if I want to stop, and I say, “The first degree is enough for me, I feel good here. You can go forward and I will stand here.”

Answer: Each person will have to reach their spiritual root. It does not depend on him or her. No one asks you about it. You are given only a very narrow range in which you can decide how to rise: by your own efforts or by being pushed from behind.

There is a very interesting mechanism. It works on a simple principle, similar to dealing with slaves: If you work well, you do not get blows, but if you hesitate, they immediately begin to hit you.

Question: Does it mean that it is impossible to stop somewhere in the middle of the path?

Answer: You can stop, but you will receive blows. So, you cannot just wave it away. We are dealing with the law of nature. Therefore, no requests will help. If you are given certain conditions, you must meet them.
[259517]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20

“Why Are People So Lazy?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are people so lazy?“

People who are lazy generally lack purpose in their lives.

Our nature is a desire to enjoy. This desire manifests in two directions: either we have a goal and strive in order to achieve it, enjoying the fruit it bears, or we run away from pain, and avoiding suffering is what we consider as enjoyable.

In order to gain the impetus to progress in life, where we do more than merely run away from pain, we need to establish what our purpose in life is, and it needs to be worth the effort to achieve.

There is generally no success in any field without effort.

Effort is a prerequisite for success because contributing to something makes us value the results. If we were given something without first having invested effort, we would not know how to enjoy it. However, in order to have the constant fuel to strive, the goal needs to be important.

I have been studying and teaching the wisdom of Kabbalah for over 40 years. The immense importance of the purpose of the study provides me with the motivation to work day and night. It is because investing in this work means investing in the human soul. Therefore, the efforts that I apply, even though they might be tough and unpleasant at times, bring me tremendous joy.

The same goes for all people. If we find a goal that suits our inner request, it will give us the fuel we need to work determinantly in order to achieve it, and experience no tiredness on the way.

The main challenge is in setting the goal.

Our desires and yearnings are affected by various social influences. Unfortunately, the enormous amount of redundant information filling our culture extinguishes our true internal aspiration, replacing it with cheap and artificial pleasures.

Nevertheless, everybody has a chance to exit this vicious circle. How? Ironically, it is with the help of laziness.

Laziness gives us an opportunity to slow down from the rat race and ask ourselves whether our regular engagements really lead to something worthwhile, whether our ultimate goal is correct, and whether we have enough importance and motivation to continue. If not, then we can examine the ways to change our goals and actions.

New Life #1196 – Understanding Prohibitions In The Torah

New Life #1196 – Understanding Prohibitions in the Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The Torah does not pertain to this world and it is therefore impossible to understand it correctly without discovering the upper world. All of the prohibitions in the Torah are interpretations of the egoistic use of the spiritual world in the language of this world. In reality, the Torah is not restrictive or punishment-oriented. Its purpose is to transform a person to become loving like the upper force. The completion of this correction is called Shabbat, which is the final stage in human development.
[258728]
From KabTV’s “New Life #1196 – Understanding Prohibitions in the Torah,” 12/31/19

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

Add Two Kinds Of Control

Question: Our goal is to achieve the property of bestowal, coping with interference. Let’s say a car was stolen from me. How can this obstacle be directed against my egoism while helping me tune in to the Creator, to His quality of bestowal?

Answer: You will not be able to understand this while at the current material level. Therefore, you must go to the police, do everything that is supposed to be done in this world. On the other hand, at the same time, you must understand that the Creator did this in order to somehow shake you up.

Question: I cannot connect it with His property thus far, but can I connect with Him?

Answer: You don’t see the connection between the two levels: what the Creator does and what happens to you.

Comment: So I still imagine in my mind that this is from the Creator just because it is written in a book.

My Response: This does not make it any easier on you.

Comment: Yes, it’s not easier. At least I know that it’s from Him.

My Response: If you always think that it is from the Creator, and at the same time do everything that is necessary in our world to fix this problem, then you make a combination within yourself between the highest and the corporeal management. Thus, the two types of management will gradually develop within you into one.
[260047]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/25/19

“Why Do Some Teenagers And Young Adults Become Mass Shooters?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some teenagers and young adults become mass shooters?“

It is a consequence of the internal pressure they feel.

We can say that today’s youth just seek attention and try to deal with the lack of their parents’ and society’s participation in their lives, which is also true, but the root cause lies much deeper.

What makes young adults commit massacres?

They simply don’t know what they live for.

If I have no goal, and my social environments, from the home through to society at large, give me insufficient importance of any specific direction that could really develop me and not just relate to me as a “user,” “consumer” or “customer” in its systems, then I start seeking my own ways to express what is inside of me.

Each and every child, and especially teenager, wants to be loved and taken care of.

Youth have to feel that the surrounding world values them and is ready to support them. Unfortunately, today, there is just an illusion of such a system of support. Moreover, even if it really existed, it wouldn’t be enough.

What is missing in society for today’s youth?

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, our desires have developed to a point today where all the pleasures and beauty available in the world fail to satisfy our inner requests.

Nothing provides us with a failsafe response to the question, “Why am I here?” or “How can I turn my useless existence into something great and valuable?”

There are various theories and approaches that provide different answers to such questions, but they all fall within the realm of achieving something corporeal in this world, or some kind of fantasy pleasure in the afterlife, and an increasing amount of people are waking up to the fruitlessness in such approaches.

This is simply because a new desire is awakening in humanity, which demands a new kind of fulfillment to everything we have ever felt or imagined until today.

Human nature is a continuously growing desire to enjoy. It develops through desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, control, knowledge, and the peak evolution of this desire is when it starts craving spirituality.

At that point, our desires to enjoy pleasures in our world reach a dead end. We become increasingly dissatisfied with life, either trying to dumb down the desire with drugs, medicines, video games, watching hours of Internet video, and many other such engagements; others gauge that dissatisfaction into extremist forms of hatred at society, which can lead to harming others.

What we lack is a method that can lead us to understand how and why this nature is working on us as it does, and how through increased awareness of nature, discover the concealed force of nature that can fulfill this most developed desire: the force of love and bestowal.

The younger generation, especially teenagers, feel this necessity the most. They subconsciously disagree with the world they are coming to terms with, a world where they are afraid to express their feelings, and where all kinds of manipulations stand behind a façade of care and concern.

They want something real and genuine, but have no comprehension of what is real and genuine, since there is no example of anything like that in the surrounding society.

Such helplessness pushes some to commit rash acts, even though they are neither stupid nor criminals—it is just how the inner pressure affects them.

Moreover, we as a society are responsible for it.

Therefore, if we want our future generation to live happily and fulfilled, without engaging in antisocial and destructive thoughts, ideas and actions, we then have to take care of our society.

We need to teach both adults and youth how to exit the false paradigm of this world, how to understand reality, how to correctly relate to the myriad influences of the information age, and discern, from within all the noise, the ultimate meaning of life: the entrance to the upper world, a higher level of existence where our currently tense and divisive relations become replaced with positive, supportive and encouraging ones due to the revelation of the higher force of love and bestowal in our connections.

Unconscious Advancement

Question: Feeling a descent as an ascent is a great thing. It turns out that there are no falls, is that right?

Answer: There are no descents. The Creator wants humanity to move forward with the realization of what is happening to it. Ascension is a rise to eternity, to perfection, and every moment a person gets a chance to get even closer to the spiritual, to perfection.

But does one feel it? This is all our job—to feel that we are really moving this way. This is a problem.

Question: Are the steps of spiritual exaltation lowered into our world or do they begin after the transition through the Machsom?

Answer: No. Even now we are climbing this ladder, only inside the part of it called “our world.” This is a preliminary, a long and problematic elevation.

Question: Why is the preparatory period so long?

Answer: It is because we are on a spiritually inanimate level. We ourselves can do nothing, we still have no properties of bestowal and unification. Therefore, our climb is very long. It happens in us unconsciously.

Of course, this is an undesirable condition and it must be passed as quickly as possible. But when you tell people that you need to quickly move forward, get closer to each other, climb up, you get a reaction from them: “We still have other problems and concerns. We still have to do something.” And this is where it all ends.
[259598]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/12/20