Cutting Off The Past In Order To Enter The Future

Question: What is the meaning of mutual spiritual work between spouses?

Dr. Laitman's Answer: A spiritual connection is when a woman is like "half of a man's body." A man without a wife is an incomplete part of the desire. This part of the "animate" existence (as it seems to us) and the entire mutual life in a family, which seems unconnected to spirituality, are in fact very important.

It's not time for it yet, but we will reach the state where men and women will feel a need to find out what is the meaning of their lives, what are we living for? This problem can only be solved on the condition that we are similar to nature, the Creator, and thus are obligated to unite into a couple, a family. That will be our mutual spiritual work. We will feel that we are unable to maintain a family without a spiritual connection, and we are unable to attain spirituality without creating a family!

That is why families are now in crisis or a "breaking." It's like the Tzimtzum (restriction). All of our previous lives, ways of thinking, approach to the family, and our entire paradigm of the past are over! They have reached "the breaking": Our old philosophy and attitude to life, family, and society no longer work. All of this has reached the end and that is why we are experiencing a crisis today. We are cutting off our entire previous attitude to life and are entering new interrelations.

From here on a person will once again need a family, children, work, and society, but precisely in order to attain bestowal and revelation of the Creator instead of using them egoistically and trying to obtain a small, comfortable home in order to lead a good material life. That is why we are going through a drastic transition and will have to cut ourselves off from our entire previous life and attitude.

 -from the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10

Nothing Is Accidental

Question: Kabbalah says that the reason for all the problems in the world is man's egoistic desire. But what's the connection between me being an egoist who's opposite to the Creator and the extreme heat in Moscow or the ecological crisis?

Dr. Laitman's Answer: We are all inside a closed system or sphere called "the Creator" where all the parts are connected through mutual bestowal. That is the law of existence of the entire system as well as each of its parts. We can see this on the example of the human body, the ecosystem, and so on. I exist inside this system like an embryo inside a mother's womb and I feel good to the degree I am connected and equivalent to the system and bestowing like it. And vice-versa: To the degree I am disparate from it and have different qualities, I feel bad.

Proximity and separation are not defined by distance, but by equivalence of form. If I have a small egoistic desire, then even if I am different from the system, I feel small problems. But if my desire increases, then so does my sensation of discomfort.  

Since man's egoistic desire constantly develops, his opposition to Nature's system, the Creator, also increases, and thus it is inevitable that man will feel worse. This will continue until he begins to understand what the reason for his suffering and problems is.

I will receive blows of fate from all sides until I understand that it is systematic and not accidental. The problems with the ecology are not accidental! I can no longer keep ignoring them. Similar problems will take place all over the world and in all forms. They will shake people up and make them stop and think, "Apparently, there must be a reason for this?"

As the desire grows, it feels suffering and creates a mind by its side in order to avoid the suffering. A person becomes smarter and shrewder. He learns to connect the causes and consequences and inevitably begins asking, "Why is this happening? Where are all of our problems coming from?!" Usually people ask, "What did I do to deserve all of this?" And that is already a subconscious question about the Source of what is happening (Nature, the Creator).

People will reveal that what's operating here is the general law of the universe. Call it "Nature" instead of the Creator; either way it requires us to constantly and consciously maintain balance with Nature, which means we have to have the same quality of bestowal as the whole universe since all parts of the universe exist in universal connection and integral unity.

That is why there is no choice about the matter: Humanity is a cancerous tumor inside all of nature, and it is obligated to cure itself. Eventually, under pressure from all the problems, we will reach this realization. It's already very close.

 -from the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10