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Bold: Questions/Comments
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Regular: Commentaries of Michael Laitman, PhD
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized Italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Question: I wanted to know about the Wednesdays as a day of the week. It’s written in some book that on Wednesdays, it’s not worthwhile to start new things because these are bad days. I wanted to know if there’s something to it according to Kabbalah, or is it just nonsense?
Michael Laitman: They say there are good days, and there are days that are hard to start things. Periods of time around Tisha B’Av, they say, are bad periods of time, and Purim and Passover are good periods that symbolize redemption, completion and perfection.
Of course, these signs are very important for our culture and for the history of the people of Israel, but certainly, these are only signs and not more, because this depends on a person and how he uses his time, as it says, “Israel is above signs and fortunes,” above time. Therefore, if a person is going to correct himself and arrange his world according to his corrections, then it fits any time and there is no special time for it. Every day can be good and successful.
Question: In the last twenty years, the government in Israel has been very unstable. There is almost no government that finishes its political timeframe that it has to rule.
M. Laitman: The instability itself is all that is stable.
Moderator: There are high levels of corruption. Why does it happen and what can we expect?
M. Laitman: It says that, “the face of the generation is like the face of the dog.” The government can’t be better than the people because they match one another, and also, everything depends on the poor quality of education that is given to people. Unfortunately, they don’t understand what the purpose of creation is, what the Upper Force wants from us and how we should behave in order to feel good. Not only does the common citizen not understand this, but also those who lead the world. So what can we do?
The government is, as the people are. Just like in the common people you can find theft and homicide and robberies, and lack of trust and lies. In government you find the same behaviors; the government simply reflects the people and no more than that. Why does a leader need to be more than that? It is customary among the people to think or to demand that a leader should be clean from any ego and should think only about the people’s needs.
Moderator: This is why they are leaders and why they were chosen.
M. Laitman: Yes, but then we have to choose leaders not from among the people, but instead, maybe from other places. But if we just choose them from among the people, they have to walk over the dead bodies, so to speak, to really come to power. Look at how many struggles, how many bribes, and how many lies and promises one has to go through and to give, in order to be the prime minister. He has to be a greater thief than the others and a greater liar than others, and we understand this.
It happens in each and every government, not only in ours. A prime minister is the hardest and the most egoistic person. So what do you expect the outcome to be from someone like that? Do you think that after he comes to his state, that he will be different? And what about twenty years ago? Wasn’t it the same with Ben Gurion and all the others? We just think that what happened in the past was different.
Moderator: Yes, but nevertheless, it is very disappointing to see it.
M. Laitman: No, it is not disappointing because this is nature, it is the nature of the world. If the whole world evolves egoistically, then we learn from the wisdom of Kabbalah that the ego develops from the desire for money, the desire for honor, and then for control. Control is the greatest thing, and afterwards there is spirituality; so, control is the greatest ego there is. One who wants to control really doesn’t care about money; he cares about money later, after he has control, then he takes it back.
Control is the greatest ego there is, so he needs to be cruel, he needs to go through all those levels in order to be the ruler over everybody.
Moderator: So it doesn’t surprise you?
M. Laitman: Of course not, each and every one goes this way. It happens in Russia, in America and everywhere else: the ruler of the country is the most egoistic person of the country.
Moderator: So where is the country headed?
M. Laitman: According to its drives, the country is headed to destruction and this is the situation in every country; sooner or later, it will happen everywhere. Today, every period has been greatly shortened in its development. We may think that a person does good, but afterwards, we see that he only did bad because one can’t succeed in an egoistic way. Ego can only bring destruction. So this is what becomes apparent to us. It is, actually, very good that we are going forward quickly and seeing that everything is up for sale, and everything is corrupted and wrong, but you cannot blame your leaders. Everybody yells and points at them, but we are all the same.
Moderator: What do you mean we are all the same? Not everyone is committing felonies and not everyone is corrupted.
M. Laitman: Yet, everyone is corrupted at least in some way, even though not everyone has a great ego. But if they do have a great ego, then they will do these things. This means that until you correct a person, until you bring him a second nature, be sure that you will get only bad things from him.
Moderator: You are saying we can be sure of it; we don’t need to be surprised.
M. Laitman: Of course. The only difference is whether it’s for high or low stakes.
Moderator: So, where are we headed?
M. Laitman: To the recognition of evil. All of our life is within ego, hatred, mutual exploitation, and we cannot go on this way. We must overcome that ego, like in the story about the Tower of Babylon, we have to overcome that tower. Like in the story of Mount Sinai, we have to transcend that mountain of hatred and then we will find a new, spiritual, perfect life. We will achieve the love of others as the Torah demands from us, and it doesn’t demand this by chance; it is the law of nature. But we won’t achieve this before the recognition of evil within us.
With the revelations that we regarding our prime minister, and with what happened with the president, these things are quite relevant. I am not expecting them to be more than what they are, from any leaders—corporeal, spiritual, whatever—we are in a state where “the face of the generation is as the face of the dog” and we are in a terrible crisis. Let’s recognize it quickly.
Question: They say that all of the thoughts, the desires, and the actions of man come from the Creator. Why do we have thoughts that are so filthy and so corrupted? Why is this so when the Creator is good and benevolent and He has nothing bad in Him?
M. Laitman: Great question, excellent! Everything that awakens within us comes from the Creator. However, when it awakens within us, it awakens within our ego and therefore, it reveals as the opposite form of what was sent by Him. The Upper Light comes and shines on us, but then within us there is something called Reshimot (reminiscences). This means that the egoistic desires are broken and therefore, the egoistic desires receive everything that comes from the Upper Godly Light and they actualize the Light differently, in an opposite manner. That’s why, unfortunately, we always have bad thoughts and bad desires. This is how it is until we correct ourselves.
Question: I have two children and when they fight, I tell one of them to give back whatever they are fighting over to the other one, and to be good to him. But why, actually, should he do what I tell him to do? The religious people say the same thing, “let the other have it, you should give it to him.” According to Kabbalah, should we educate people to surrender or to enlarge the ego by taking what they can?
M. Laitman: We have a method of explaining this to children according to Kabbalah. We have about two hundred children here, and there are also our groups throughout the world. They learn according to our method for children, and of course, by what is suitable for them.
We explain to children that giving in is not surrendering. You don’t have to give in to the others; it’s truly against man’s nature. Why do I have to resign myself for the others? Why do I have to surrender if I can take and if I have the power to take from them? Why do I have to renounce myself? We see that it’s nature and that children use their nature this way; a child behaves according to nature.
So, what can we do? We can teach him why we have this nature and why we have to change it. And if we put the child into a different framework, a different environment, there he sees another example from grown ups and other children. We explain why people behave this way and what their benefit is. We explain this game to him and we explain why this Upper Force plays this special game with us, when we invert our nature from for myself towards for the others.
All that I see in life, I have to see instead of it being for me—this is how I see it naturally and I use it for my own sake—I have to see how to use everything in order for me and the others to be as one, because finally, we are one soul. It’s concealed from us, but we belong to one body and our whole lives today reveal this to us gradually—globalization and mutual connection from absence of any other choice.
It’s not surrender.If I refer to the other in a way that regards him as a part of me, then I do not give in to him. Actually, by giving to him, I connect him to me and by this, I discover that he belongs to me, that he and I are one and the same. If we start explaining this to people, they start to see it, because it’s truly so. This is truly what we have in nature, and as a result of this observation, they can invert their perception of reality.
They begin to see reality as one man with one heart and that we are all friends, that “love another as thyself” is not simply a nice slogan of love and giving, but it’s a real thing that exists in nature. Unfortunately we do not see it, so we do the opposite and by this, we bring harm upon ourselves. The truth is that each and every one is part of my soul, is part of me. So, I do not surrender, but vice versa, by giving to him I give to my part. And by this giving, I discover that it is mine. This is how it’s discovered in Kabbalah and this means a revelation of Divinity, of spirituality, of the Upper state, the Upper world.
You gain by this all the souls, they become yours and you start feeling in them the power, the vitality of life, and that this is eternal life. Within yourself you feel only this despicable short life, full of troubles and nothing more. However, if you connect to others in this way, in your connection with others, in them, you discover your eternal life.
Question: How does Rav Laitman refer to Pulsah Denoura (a strike of light) in Arik Sharon’s condition?
M. Laitman: I refer to Pulsah Denoura as a big foolishness and a mockery of the people. And I don’t know if those that do it understand it or not. I don’t think that Pulsah Denoura is something extremely powerful. We are talking about the height of the world of Atzilut and it does not take place in our world, and in regards to such things as Arik Sharon’s condition. It’s not that you can simply curse someone by it, of course not. This is all according to the calculations of a few people that all of a sudden simply took upon themselves the permission to judge. So it seems to me, that I only heard that there was such an incident. I don’t know by what and with whom.
According to Kabbalah, in our world this thing does not exist, and all that is said in Kabbalah and all that the Torah speaks about is only with regard to the spiritual world. We can carry out Pulsah Denoura only with the help of the spiritual power in the souls, in our desires, and not in our bodies and in objects of this world.
Moderator: Wait a second, Pulsah Denoura is something that takes place in the spiritual process? It’s not a process like we know from the newspaper that twenty people got together on a certain night and decided to curse a person that they think is harmful. And by this, they want the Creator to put him to death. They wish him, from the bottom of their hearts, that the Creator puts him to death. Such a thing does not exist, you say?
M. Laitman: No, of course not; it’s only in a spiritual degree where there is a special power called Pulsah Denoura (the strike of light). And this power is in GAR of Atzilut.
GAR of Atzilut is a very high system, detached from us today and I do not see any person that can reach such a state, whatsoever. It can be among the Kabbalists but it is an extremely high level and not about things that exist in this world, whether someone is favorable in someone’s eyes or not.
Moderator: So, what is it then in spirituality?
M. Laitman: In spirituality, it’s a force of judgment that comes to a soul, a special soul, in a special condition and it also exists theoretically, this force of judgment. There are such conditions that seemingly exist, but they are like a boundary of judgment.
Moderator: This sounds difficult to understand. I’m sure not everyone understands.
M. Laitman: Because it truly doesn’t have to do with the understanding of a simple person. It is absolutely different from what we heard; they just found something from the scriptures.
Today, many things are being done in the name of Kabbalah.
Moderator: How would you define spirituality?
M. Laitman: Spirituality means love and bestowal. Spirituality means the quality of the Creator. There is nothing more than “good that does good,” the general power of nature, which is bestowal and love. Because the Creator is nature— Elokim (God) in Gematria (Hebrew letters with numerical values) is eighty-six; we have nothing more than that. If we will come out of our ego into the quality of bestowal and true love, then we reach spirituality and then we become like spirituality: eternal, whole, full and limitless, without any evil. Because all the evil and all that we have today, it is all opposite to spirituality, because of our ego in which we are immersed.
Moderator: So, spirituality is bestowal and love.
M. Laitman: Yes; it is coming out of one’s self.
Question:There is this tendency to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Israel. But we also have our Jewish Day of Love on the Fifteenth of Av. Does it have the same meaning as the Christian holiday? What does it mean in spirituality?
M. Laitman: This is really laughable, because it means that we’re talking about the Ninth of Av, it is a day of destruction.
Moderator: Not the Ninth of Av—the Fifteenth of Av.
M. Laitman: I’m speaking about the Ninth of Av. It is a day of destruction, the destruction of love, the destruction of giving, and the destruction of good and nice relations toward each other. Because once we were on a spiritual degree, and we were in one connection between us and with the Creator, and that feeling of being in this spiritual, eternal world, above this corporeality, is actually the spiritual condition we had, a state of Sanctity. We’ve fallen from this state, we couldn’t hold on to it; the ego suddenly broke out and we fell from brotherly love into unfounded hatred.
This fall and this destruction is the Ninth of Av. When we correct this destruction and return back to brotherly love, to mutual giving, to the connection between us—“all of Israel are brothers as one man in one heart,” to the mutual Arvut (mutual responsibility,) then in us, the Upper Power will be revealed, the eternal and peaceful life. When it happens, it will be called redemption and then it is called a Day of Love, the Day it means Light, of mutual love with Upper Light within us. And when it will break out within all of our souls—this is called the Day of Jewish Love.
Valentine’s Day, as it’s called, is the day of beastly love, as I understand it. What could there be in it? Perhaps a guy falls in love with a girl? What connection is there between those things?
Moderator: It’s common to define it as love.
M. Laitman: Alright, it’s common to define it this way; so, I love fish and someone else loves something else. So, it’s the utilization of something that brings me pleasure—this is called love; I love something from which I receive pleasure. If I don’t receive pleasure from it, I don’t love it, that’s it and that is called love in our world. It’s not love, but the using of others, the exploitation of others. It’s called love. “I love you.” What does he want to say? I receive pleasure by you, very nice. It’s not the same day of love I’m talking about.
Love is when I unite with the others into one body. Body, meaning internally, into one soul and in this general soul, when we connect together we discover the Upper Power and it brings us a sensation of eternal life. This is love, when I connect with the others like with myself, and not that by this I profit something, but the connection itself brings eternal life.
Question: What does Kabbalah say regarding the customs of mourning? Like the seven days of mourning or thirty days after death and all customs related to this.
M. Laitman: It’s hard to explain in short, but all of these customs that we have here, they are a result of spirituality. In spirituality, the life of a spiritual state is called life, and afterwards this state comes to an end, there is departure of Light from within the soul in order for it to pass into the next state. It’s called a death of the current state and afterwards, there is an incarnation once again.
The soul receives an upgrading and achieves the next fulfillment of the Upper Light within it, and this is called a new life. The difference between one state and the next is that a soul exists without Light, and these are the days of mourning. And there are special laws regarding this: how long, i.e. how many conditions does the soul have to go through from the state of the parting of the Light until it is fulfilled by the Light the next time. These are seven days and thirty days and eleven months, etc. All of this corresponds to customs in this world; this is where it’s taken from.
Question: Are you sure that a child, twenty-two years of age that studies Kabbalah from you and reads the articles of Baal HaSulam can study with you? Aren’t you afraid that he might misinterpret your words? This wisdom is tremendous and there is nothing similar to it in the whole world. Should it be so widely open for anyone without understanding yet of what he reads? I ask this, because I stumbled upon those groups that study Kabbalah and that interpret Kabbalah completely differently. And there are certain ways of thought that are imprinted in them that they can’t get rid of later on. First of all, a person has to learn who Abraham and Moses are and the stories of the Tanach. Isn’t this so?
M. Laitman: First of all, how does he know that he understood it correctly and he is not like that twenty-two year old child? Maybe he is even sixty-six; I don’t know what he is. But how does he know what Kabbalah is? According to his question, I’m not so sure he understands what Kabbalah is. And the next thing he says is to study who Abraham is and who Moses is, and the whole of the Torah and the Tanach. It’s possible to study these things, but only if you know Kabbalah and if you don’t know Kabbalah, then everything is sealed from you, because Kabbalah is called the wisdom of truth. If you truly want to know what is written in the Torah, then you need the wisdom of Kabbalah, otherwise for you, these will only be stories.
You’ll think that Abraham is just the spiritual Father of the nation and not more. But what do you understand as a result of this? Or speaking of Moses, what can you say about him and everything that is written in the Torah? That we have to carry out certain corporeal actions and that’s all? The Torah tells us about spiritual matters, how to achieve the degree of the Creator, which is “Return, O Israel, unto the Lord, your God,” “Know the Lord, thy God and serve Him;” we have to know Him. Where does it say this, if not in Kabbalah?
And besides, it doesn’t depend on age. What does it mean to be twenty-two years old or even forty or sixty? But you are right, unfortunately, about the fact that there are many of those who study according to a false method, meaning, not according to the true authentic sources. But we have merited the Torah of Baal HaSulam, who interpreted for us the Book of Zohar (the Book of Zohar with the Sulam commentaries) and who commented all the scriptures of the Ari in the TES ( Talmud Eser Sefirot,) and he has left us articles. We also have the scriptures of the Rabash that explain to us in all of these articles precisely how we have to go step by step in order not to go astray.
And I’m telling this to you from the experience of many people that were his students, and also me among them, that there is no problem at all if you study the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly. You won’t be wrong in anything, unless you add to Kabbalah the Tarot cards, and different meditations and fasts, letter games and “holy waters,” and red strings, etc. If one studies from only the holy texts, which we have to dwell in, then there will be no problems. Please, everyone is invited into our site http://www.kab.tv/eng. I have not yet seen problems with someone who studied Kabbalah with us and that he made some mistake and afterwards, we had to take his mistakes out by some special power. No, if he studies the true sources, they are arranged in a way so that he will not go wrong.
Question: In one of the lectures on spiritual development you talked about using a game. First of all, what is this principal? And next, how can I, as a person who only recently started to take an interest in Kabbalah and watch you on TV, implement this principal of a game in order to develop spiritually more quickly?
M. Laitman: If he watches us a bit here and there, it’s for sure that he will not develop quickly; he has to study Kabbalah on a regular basis.
We have an introduction course on our site for students from afar and it doesn’t matter what language they speak. He has to get in there and step by step he has to go through the ten lessons for the beginners. And afterwards, he will have questions and answers and he will know whether he has he perceived this course or not. And then he goes to the next course, and he advances this way. Along with this, he can watch different shows with us, but this will be the method of study for him. The principle of a game is the principle of development of all nature—still, vegetative, animate, speaking—everything develops only by the principle of a game.
What does it mean? When I’m on a lower degree and I want to come to the higher degree, how do I climb? I have to learn from the Upper One what He does and to resemble Him like a monkey. I look at the grown up like a small child looks at his dad and I do the same as the father does.
We see that nature obliges a child to do this and when we do this in spirituality, by this we merit climbing to a spiritual degree.
Moderator: What does it mean to do so in spirituality?
M. Laitman: I have to invite this example from the Upper One, to see what He does, how He does it and as a result I climb to Him, like in our world. He is not concealed; the moment you truly want to compare with Him, He opens up for you and this is the whole method.
Moderator: Yes, but it sounds like something that you can start realizing only after years of study. Is this the revelation of the Creator that you are talking about?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course, it’s about the revelation of the Creator. But within man, within the creature, a person starts feeling bad or good. He starts feeling how the Creator plays with him, truly plays, so it’s called a game: one comes closer and then drives away further. And all these games are similar to when the mother puts the child on the ground, and distances herself in order for him to take a step forward. The child cries and doesn’t want to go forward. But again and again, a person is placed on the ground, until he starts identifying that he’s being played with and he starts advancing. All that happens in our world is a copy from spirituality and we learn this in a simple way.
Moderator: So, how does a person use this principal?
M. Laitman: He should come to learn. He’ll be given the stages of study in a methodical fashion and he’ll see how he has to behave in order to advance in spirituality.
Question: During physical exercise—swimming, running—what kind of thoughts, inner work, and questions should I work on at the time of physical action?
M. Laitman: Anything you want. Each day I take a five kilometer walk and after this I dip into the sea to swim, because at all other hours I sit. So, at least for me, this is the only time of exercise I get during the day. Therefore, it doesn’t matter to me if I’m in the water or walking. It doesn’t interfere with my thinking about spirituality.
Moderator: Do you think about something special at this time? Or is it a time like any other time for you?
M. Laitman: I think about what I learned in the morning or maybe what I’m supposed to teach in the evening; something that I scrutinize myself—different kinds of things, and I’m alone and no one disturbs me. I like these times very much for scrutinizing when I’m not disturbed. Also, when we used to take a walk with Rabash each day for three hours, in the park or by the sea, we either talked, or we did not talk.
I could see according to his mood when he wanted to think on his own. So, I used to somehow move away from him and I didn’t get into his field of view. And this way, I truly learned from him that even sport doesn’t interfere with us. If it’s a strong physical exercise that demands great effort, I understand this scrutinizing may be difficult, but if one does something routine—swimming or running, with the same monotonous actions—it’s a very good time to think about spirituality.
Question: Does the soul of a murderer incarnate into the still?
M. Laitman: Why do you ask such a thing? Into the still is very nice. The soul of the still is the life of the still, I think it’s the best—peace, quietness.
Speaking seriously, a man’s soul, meaning on the degree of man and the depth of the man and the ego that is in the soul of man, incarnates only in man, in that sort of a person that is suitable for it. The soul builds for itself the body that matches the soul according to both quality and form; that same soul has to work within. Therefore, the stones incarnate in stones, plants in plants, animals in animals, and the speaking in the speaking.
Moderator: But what about murderers? Is there something special for a murderer? The person is a murderer, for instance.
M. Laitman: He’ll have to come to this world and discover one of these days by Kabbalah, that whoever he has murdered, he has murdered the closest possible thing to him. And by this, he’ll make self scrutiny. And by this, he’ll correct his relationship to that same part that he has murdered.
Unpleasant, right? There are different tragedies and dramas that depict when he kills someone, he suddenly discovers that it was his mother. Let’s say that it is something similar to this, and yet much more than this.
Question: Why do women have an inclination to gossip a lot?
M. Laitman: I think that the entirety of a woman’s nature results from her having to care for children. Therefore, there is this inclination to talk more, and perhaps the inclination to gossip. I don’t know to what extent this exists, because it also depends on what a woman is busy with. I see gossip among men too, it doesn’t seem any less. I wouldn’t say it’s really so that women have more of an inclination to gossip. It depends upon the individual. If his nature is corrupted, then it’s corrupted; if it’s corrected, then he’s corrected. Why should we look for differences in our natures whether those gossip more, or these gossip less; those speak more and these speak less? There are such inclinations in men and such inclinations in women; it really doesn’t matter.
We have to altogether be corrected, and then we will understand where our nature comes from and what the good sides in each and every one are, and with the bad sides—we will turn all of them into good. Therefore, anything that exists in its corrupted form—gossip or anything that you can say both about men and women, if they correct them, it all turns into good. So you don’t have to care that some philosophize more, and others philosophize less, but we do have to care that everything is to be corrected.
Moderator: You explained previously that corporeally women may have to take care of children more, and so there is an inclination to talk more. Not to gossip, but to talk more. Does this also have a spiritual root? Does this thing called female soul compared with a male soul speak more in its spiritual sense?
M. Laitman: Yes, there are two Partzufim (faces)— Abba ve Ima (father and mother) towards the sons in spirituality where actually, the mother is in touch with the sons. She receives Lights from Abba and gives them to sons by small portions, step by step, for the growth of the soul. From Abba, she receives one big, great Light, and then divides it into parts and passes it gradually on to children. And this gradual passing on to the children, is called Mesaperet (reveals), because the word Sefer (book) is from the word “revelation.” Like Megillat Esther, Esther’s Scroll, the scroll of revelation.
So the stories that a woman tells and that she likes to tell, truly come according to the spiritual root where she is truly a storyteller. It means that she brings small portions of Light to the souls that are below her.
Question: What is the point in the heart? When does it awaken in a person or in humanity? How is it possible to identify it? Does everyone have it? How do you develop the point in the heart? What happens when you develop it?
M. Laitman: The point in the heart is discovered in us as a point from a different world—the spiritual world. After we develop in our ego on the plane of this world, from incarnation to incarnation, we reach some incarnation in which we don’t want this world any longer. I feel that this world is bad for me, and I need to know why it’s worthwhile for me to live, otherwise, it’s not worthwhile for me to live.
I remember when I was seven or eight I had questions like these about life. Not that I was depressed; I played sports and did different things, but this question, “What am I living for?”, it really burned in me. In this life, one says, “Okay, I will be a grown up. Then what? There is no point to it. I don’t have the power to live.” These kinds of thoughts are conscious, and it comes from this point. I had all good things. I was from a very wealthy family, an intelligent family, and I was given everything. But I still had a question about the essence of life.
When in a person, it doesn’t matter at what age, awakens seriously to this question “What am I living for?” this means the point in the heart has awakened in him. And it is a point from the different world, because it seemingly asks: “What do you have in this world? You have to rise to a higher plane.”
Furthermore, a person will search for many, many years, and in his sub-consciousness he constantly keeps this question, “nonetheless, what am I living for?” He can succeed, he can get married, bring children into the world, be a husband and a father and be successful in different things, but this question stings inside and it is still not realized. Then suddenly, he finds a place where he discovers that “Yes! Here we are talking about this question.” This is how he comes to Kabbalah and by it, he starts to develop the answers to this question and onwards.Meaning he starts by learning to attract upon himself Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light).
Ohr Makif is the Light that fulfills his soul on a higher degree. But meanwhile, while he is below, with only a point in the heart instead of a soul, only with that small desire, then that same great Light that is supposed to fill his soul, shines from afar. And it shines upon a person only to the extent in which he studies the true wisdom of Kabbalah, the true method of how to attract this Light that Reforms. And this Light opens for him more and more and inflates, and this point expands, and then within it, on the inside, a space forms. And within this space, a person starts feeling his existence on the spiritual degree, spiritual life. New desires, new horizons develop in him that are not of this world. He starts feeling the Upper reality and this is how he advances.
Moderator: Dear viewer, there is a lot of work before you now. Is it all worthwhile?
M. Laitman: There is no choice, because the person who truly has this question, can’t escape it. He can’t, because his whole life is not worthwhile without answering what the meaning of his life is. If someone truly has this question, he is invited to study Kabbalah. And others? They are also invited, because they can speed up their development and very quickly achieve the awakening for this question in them, but especially those who have this question come to Kabbalah.
Question: Is it correct to say that neutralizing myself is nullifying myself from my “I,” that I do not exist and I turn the will to receive into a pipe of bestowal?
M. Laitman: Neutral, I don’t know. Did we ever talk about this?
Moderator: We never talked about it, but let’s talk about the definition itself, without using the term neutral.
M. Laitman: I gave the example last time. I said that if a person wishes to fill his soul, his desires, then as much as he fills, immediately the pleasure that enters neutralizes the desire and then he doesn’t feel it. However, if he uses his Kli (vessel) in order to share and to give to the other Kelim (vessels), then as much as it passes through him, it passes through to the others. And therefore he never feels that it’s lacking or disappears, because there is a constant flow through him, so he turns into a pipe. Through this pipe, he feels pleasure and an everlasting infinite flow, so it’s not something adverse, it’s vice versa.
It’s the perfect fulfillment for man, and this is how it works. A mother receives much joy from giving to twenty children, if she has what they need to give them. And truly, in spirituality there is enough; the Upper Light is in full and complete abundance and it only depends on man to connect to it. Therefore, through the soul passes all the eternal Lights, and by this, a person feels an eternal life. This is a secret of an eternal spiritual life. Whoever has not yet acquired it, then he doesn’t have it, and whoever has acquired it, then either in this world or even when he passes away, he feels it, and there is no difference between the worlds.
Question: I have a problem with the term “from Above.” It’s hard for me to accept it and I don’t know how to refer to it, and I don’t know about this “Above.” Each moment that something happens from Above, from None Else Besides Him, I have no such sensation. What am I supposed to do?
M. Laitman: From Above means higher than me in the quality of bestowal and in the quality of love. Higher than me in spirituality, in goodness, where I am compared with this goodness, I am low and sinister. Above comes from the word “ Naale” (exalted). It doesn’t mean that he is two meters higher than me or he is two meters above me. Rather, anything that is better than your qualities is called more exalted.
Moderator: And from this Higher good something now comes to me?
M. Laitman: Yes, if you want to resemble Him, then to the extent to which you want to resemble, you invite a connection and then He bestows upon you. This is what we learn. We learn the connection between the lower and the Upper One, and this is how we advance.
Question: Why do you say “Amen” and what is the true definition?
M. Laitman: ‘Amen’ is truth. That if someone says some blessing or something good, then I can say, “Truth,” i.e. that I agree with him and this means ‘amen.’ And in spirituality ‘truth’ is the name of the Creator: Aleph, Mem, Tav.