February 6, 2025
January 14, 2015 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Imagination, Quotes
Dr. Michael Laitman:
Kabbalists have a rule not to talk about anything except what they have actually attained, where attainment means the highest degree of understanding. In other words, until we achieve an absolutely clear realization, until the knowledge passes from the first nine Sefirot into Malchut, it is not called attainment.
Then what is the role of imagination and fantasy? Why are we given these qualities? Without imagination, advancement is impossible, and we see this from regular science. You can use your imagination, but the most important thing is not to take it for something that is really happening. However, without the imagination you would be an animal, not a human being.
Man’s entire merit over animals comes from our ability to feel the first nine Sefirot, to fantasize, and to make conjectures beyond one’s actual perception and attainment. An animal lives only inside Malchut, matter, and it feels only the forms that are clothed into it. We, however, are able to imagine an abstract form and essence, and this allows us to develop further and be called human beings.
Our greatest problems in life come from the fact that we attribute what we desire to actuality and build plans based on fantasies, thereby separating from matter. Kabbalah advises us to fantasize in abstract form about the Upper Level and the future, but then work on ourselves in order to “pull up” our desires and matter to the level of that fantasy. Then the abstract form will clothe into matter; we will change instead of simply mistaking our fantasies for actuality.
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January 13, 2015 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Love, Quotes
Dr. Michael Laitman:
The Creator is fully the giver. He is the characteristic of bestowal and love. There is nothing more than this. There is only complete bestowal, complete love, absolute, pure, perfect, and infinite, and it is revealed in us to the same degree that we are ready to absorb it, to bring ourselves in line with it.
In general, I can understand and feel every characteristic only if it is found within me.
When I look at some cockroach, I don’t feel that it lacks something, that it loves its children and right now, is running to them with crumbs of food. I don’t share any characteristics with it to be able to feel it.
However, if I would begin to go deeper to penetrate and explore, ultimately, I would feel the needs of the beastly level. People are able to be sensitive to animals they are close to, including pet owners or scientists who devote themselves to research.
For example, in my childhood, I had a friend who always had small animals living in his pockets: here a mouse, there a bird. He even would come to school with them, and, much later, he went on to study zoology. So, he understood them. He would find a white mouse and pet it, and the mouse wouldn’t run away.
He would say, “You know, he is not afraid to approach you,” as if he was whispering to it.
However, we need to develop other feelings within us to be able to feel the Creator. If my friend recreated the feelings of the mouse within himself, so we need to give shape within us to a feeling of the Creator, bestowal and love.
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January 12, 2015 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Ego, Quotes
Ego = the desire to receive pleasure for one’s own personal benefit (at others’ expense)
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December 31, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Altruism, Crisis, Quotes
An important quote in the wisdom of Kabbalah states:
Two people were in a boat, and one of them took a drill and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companion said to him: Why are you doing this? He replied: What concern is it of yours? Am I not drilling under myself? The other replied: But you will flood the boat for us both, and we will both sink. (Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Midrash Raba, Leviticus 4:6)
In the global boat we all share, whoever thinks he can drill a hole under his or her own seat and ignore the well being of others is gravely mistaken. If one person drowns, everyone drowns right along with him.
Why is it so important for us to understand this? It is because we live in a new reality, a reality where we all depend on one another, for better or for worse. From now on, we have no choice but to work together, as one big family. Only then will we be able to navigate our global ship through this winter of our hardship toward the haven of bounty and prosperity.
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December 28, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Quotes
Nature develops us by giving us a feeling of lack of fulfillment in the present state & the possibility of fulfillment in the next state.
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