Life—both our own lives and life on all biological levels—is in constant stress. It is because life is a clash of opposites and their combinations, and it unfolds on the boundary between plus and minus, positive and negative.
Stress is thus neither bad nor good. It is a necessary aspect of life. We should thus focus on how to best manage our lives with its necessary stress.
We were given brains and our social environment in order to adapt ourselves and manage stress properly. We can manage stress by understanding the necessity of the combination of plus and minus at all levels and in all circumstances, and seek how to reach balance between these poles. On our human level, we reach a balance between positive and negative forces by creating an attitude of love, giving and connection over hatred, reception and division.
As with the necessity of stress, there is also a necessity to feel negative sensations of hatred, rejection and division. Why? It is in order to rise above these sensations and cover them with their positives of love, giving and connection.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for covering the negative with the positive. Using this method, we become aware of the negative sensations that surface in us, and learn how to establish positive attitudes upon them so that they exist in addition to each other. In Kabbalah, this tendency is described as the correspondence of darkness to light.
The more we learn about the necessity for the coexistence of positive and negative forces, and that their correct combination creates life, then the calmer and more reasonable we become. We then progress along what Kabbalah calls “the middle line,” accordingly constructing ourselves and our world in balance.
We learn how to become aware of the source of every state, how nature creates everything in order for us to balance negative qualities and states with positive ones. When we reach this level of awareness, we then start relating to everything and everyone out of absolute kindness. We do not deny any negative sensation, but we accept everything as necessary.
Even the most negative sensations such as hatred are necessary in order for us to rise above them, to simultaneously exist above and inside them. To put it simply, we should keep in mind the formula that “minus equals plus.” In other words, wherever we see a “minus”—the surfacing of a divisive drive—we should see a “plus”—an opportunity to positively connect above the divisive drive.
If we exercise changing our attitude to the world in such a way, by replacing our divisive drives with unifying tendencies, egoism with altruism, and hatred with love, then everything will turn out fine. If we fail to do so, then our divisions and hatred will proliferate in the world, causing us much suffering.
Based on “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur on December 23, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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