If the question is being heard by people who are on different levels of development, then even though each one hears the same question, they might hear it in opposite ways. Each one who hears not the question, but the answer, also hears it in his own way—according to each person’s level of development. What is correct for one person might seem incorrect and even opposite to another one.
This is why people cannot understand each other until they reach an altruistic form of development. We have to suppose that the levels of development determine the fact that each person hears something different each time. It is because that which we heard and understood yesterday can turn out to be opposite to what we hear and understand today. This is why our approach to each person must be completely relative. Nothing can be taken as an axiom, as something absolute.
At that point, we must understand that on one hand, everything is predetermined in advance, and on the other hand, everything depends on the person—and we cannot grasp this law with our mind. We say that everything descends and comes from above—it is as if everything is known in advance, and at the same time, we assert that a person is able to change something and achieve results that depend only on the person. We are unable to combine both, i.e. that everything depends on oneself, and also that everything is determined in advance.
Precisely thanks to understanding that this relates to two levels of development, to two forms in which a person exists—we can smooth out the seeming contradiction and understand that everything correlates only with the person.
Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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