A talk between Rav Michael Laitman, PhD and chief coach of the Russian rhythmic gymnastics team, Irina Vinner
I. Vinner: Hello, dear Michael! I was very excited when I was invited to a meeting with you, because, from one hand, Kabbalah is a mysterious science, and from the other hand, it’s so fashionable that even Madonna is carried away by it. This strange combination seemed to be interesting to me.
The first thing I’d like to discuss with you is children. I’m working with children, both young and those who have grown up, who take sports, but are still children even at the age of 20. I’ve noticed that the new generation of children knows much more than the children who are now 20. I suggested that this might be a new generation, that these children had come to change something in this world. Very often I ask them to give me some advice.
M. Laitman: Actually our life is a reincarnation, return of the same souls to our world. Bodies die, but souls incarnate into new bodies – this way we experience many lives from generation to generation. When a person dies and is born again, his experience turns into new attributes. Thus, it’s natural that we become more and more pragmatic and business-like, develop economy, culture, and science. For this reason children are so clever today. It was always like this.
Besides, our generation is really special. Today the children (you’ve noticed this correctly) aren’t just cleverer and more sophisticated than their parents, they possess inner wisdom about life. They don’t want to experience what we have experienced. They know all this in advance and have already rejected it. For this reason our generation is the generation of crisis. It’s just the beginning. Very significant changes are waiting for us in the future.
An absolutely different civilization is growing up. These people are absolutely different in their attitude towards the world, life, towards themselves and towards others.
I. Vinner: And those children, who are really wiser than we are, speak even about such things that… For example, I ask my grandson, “This person who is a close friend of us feelsbadly, does God want it?” He answers, “Irochka, can this be in a different way?” You see?
I always tell children that anyway everything will happen as God will decide, but they have to carry out the talent, which He has given to them. This is our mission in this world. Perhaps, I’m mistaken?
M. Laitman: Is everything predetermined or not? Actually, everything is predetermined. This means that during all the incarnations a person goes from the point where his soul was born to the point it has to reach at the end of the path. This is unchangeable. And the stages which a person’s soul has to pass are unchangeable as well. The reason for this is that this path is the one by which the soul has descended from the World of Infinity to our world and by which a person has to rise from below upwards.
The point is that when a person comes along this path, from below upwards, by himself, due to his own power, searches, doubts, then, by doing this, he attains the design of the Creator. But it isn’t simply realization of one’s own corporeal capacities (for example, you’re a world-famous coach); a person has to achieve his highest state by himself.
A person’s highest state is absolute equivalence with the Creator, when he’s at the same level of realization of the eternal existence; when he’s above time and space, not only out of our world, but even out of the spiritual worlds. This is the state which every person has to achieve by himself, in his individual search.
I. Vinner: There is a notion of “code of the Bible”. But people are able to reveal only what has happened and what is taking place somewhere, but not what will happen. What’s your opinion on this subject: must everything written in Torah take place? Is it so forever or for a certain period in the existence of humanity? Will anything different take place then?
M. Laitman: What is written about the future isn’t absolute. The future can be carried out by the path of good or by the path of sufferings. Here, every step which everyone has to attain, is meant.
This is described in Kabbalah absolutely precisely. One can see this in front of himself as poles at the side of a road, which are placed every one hundred meters. But the point is how a person will come from one pole to another, with the help of which moving forces: he will be either pushed or he’ll aspire forward due to greatness of the goal because he feels that he needs it. It’s a great difference.
Today a person has finished his egoistic development and sees that this path is a dead-end. Crisis exists in all the spheres: drugs, disruption of a family as the main human social unit, depression, terror, crisis in science, in education, the general ecologic crisis.
This crisis was described 2,000 years ago in The Book of Zohar. After it, this generation will start an absolutely different life. Civilization will be built on an absolutely different principle. It’s interesting that even scientists guess about this and write on this subject. But only Kabbalah describes how to overcome this crisis and transition to the new civilization. For this reason, a great subconscious desire for it emerges.
I. Vinner: Can a person who really studies Kabbalah change any events in his fortune, which are already predetermined for him?
M. Laitman: Yes, he can, but only at the level of forces which manage our world. Nature purposefully urges humanity to move faster towards enlightenment: in this enclosed world, where a person exists during his miserable 60-70 years, he can do nothing. As you have noticed, everything is predetermined in this world.
If one wishes to come out of the frames of everything being predetermined, to escape from these terrible conditions into which he forced himself to come, not knowing how nature will act upon him, then he should rise to the level of its forces which determine our entire world and he’ll be able to balance this, to carry out and to solve everything.
Kabbalah is precisely the science in which humanity will someday understand. Humanity will understand that it’s possible to manage our fortune and to sense our world as eternal and perfect, when we’ll stop identifying ourselves with a body, and start identifying ourselves as a human being outside of us. This can happen today, in this life.
I. Vinner: Both me and the children with whom I work never asked the question, “Why did we come to this Earth?” We have the only principle: the talent is given, it has to be worked out, and the solution will come from Above.
M. Laitman: Actually, it’s so. But the point is that the people who come to you have a star in their lives, which is shining ahead and pulls them forward. They have a dream and willpower. And you’re a perfect coach and tutor. You’re balanced and strict. The number of such people is very little, and, in essence, they don’t need Kabbalah. They know how to realize themselves.
I’m talking about those people who wander in the streets and don’t understand where they exist, who carry out purely social functions against their will. They are in crisis or in a hopeless state. They rush to psychologists, psychiatrist, or to drugs. For such people Kabbalah is revealing itself today.
Goal-oriented people who still have something towards which they aspire don’t fell any need in Kabbalah. While those who ask, “What’s the meaning of my life? What should I do with it? Why was I born?” come to Kabbalah.
I. Vinner: Unfortunately people’s eyes are closed. They’re sleeping and don’t see whatishappening around them. If they look more attentively, then Kabbalah would be an opened book for them.
But, perhaps, today’s crisis is aimed at making a person understand, even under pressure, what he should do. If people’s eyes are closed, then force can be used here.
M. Laitman: You see what the point is! Today humanity is in such a state of opposition with nature, that if we don't disseminate our knowledge in time, then we'll be beaten very often and this will be very painful. Instead of aspiring forward with the help of understanding and revelation, we’ll come into terrible states.
In reality, people in the future can experience both a third world war and Nazi regimes in the main world countries: the North America, Europe, and Russia. This may come along with ecological disasters.
Everything depends on how timely people will manage to understand that the key solution is in the heart of a human being. A person acts upon the entire system by his desires and correct actions.
If we manage to bring this knowledge to people in time, then we’ll prevent these enormous sufferings. I participate in meetings of the organization called The World Wisdom Council. I communicate with many interesting people in America. They are very pessimistic about the future of humanity, but we’ll be optimists.