Fall, But Do Not Lose Your Aspiration Forward

 

The main thing is to be aiming forward all the time. Then I fall and rise and again fall and rise, as it is said: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.”

This is actually true. It is not possible to advance without errors, without falls, without problems. It is through them that a person learns. It is impossible to achieve anything otherwise, as it is said: “One cannot carry out a Mitzvah (commandment) unless one breaks it first.”

A commandment is an action of bestowal. It is impossible to achieve bestowal without first revealing how opposite you are to it. Gradually, we will begin to integrate into this system. We do not just learn the material; we absorb it, and it builds us up. The internal systems: the brain and the heart, feelings and mind, take the form of those thoughts that we absorb from the articles and they build our soul.

It turns out that the broken will to receive begins to connect its atoms and molecules into all sorts of new forms. All its parts are getting connected together, building a system that operates not according to the laws of egoism, but according to the laws of bestowal. This means that we are beginning to enter a new, opposite world, a spiritual space.
[271706]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/20, “Sukkot“\

New Life 500 – The Bible As The Foundation Of Life

 

New Life 500 – The Bible As The Foundation Of Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

We can discover and actually experience the latent secret that is within the Bible through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Bible and all the sacred writings were written in the “language of the branches.” In order to understand these writings, it is necessary to ascend to the “roots.” Kabbalists are people for whom the text of the Bible streams within them since they have a unified embrace with it. A Kabbalist corrects his nature from a desire to receive to a desire to bestow and thereby discovers what is truly written in the Bible. The book is indeed ours but we are in exile from it. When bestowal and love are built between us, we will discover its truth.
[152173]
From KabTV’s “New Life 500 – The Bible As The Foundation Of Life,” 1/15/15

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

“Suicide: Why Do People Kill Themselves?” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Suicide: Why do people kill themselves?“

People who commit suicide do not want to endure ongoing feelings of frustration and emptiness.

Like any person, they wanted to become fulfilled—and today there are myriad pleasures available to us at the tap of a button—but suicidal people find fulfillment to be completely elusive.

The inner distress they feel within exceeds any sensations that they can receive from anyone else.

What do these people ultimately need?

They need the answer to the meaning of life.

Do our lives have meaning, a goal and a purpose that make our lives worth living? What is our impetus to continue living on in life?

Such questions awaken in certain people, and they drive some people to seek their answers, and some to a pit of desperation, where they would like to invert such questions and sensations, but they cannot, and then they reach the end.

To get answers to the questions about life’s meaning, I recommend checking out the links in my Quora bio, where there is a plethora of courses and other materials available to help people find the answers to life’s deepest questions.

Photo by Lachlan Dempsey on Unsplash.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora, Suffering | Add Comment / Ask Question →

“The Power Of Thought — More Powerful Than We Thought” (Medium)

 Medium published my new article “The Power of Thought — More Powerful than We Thought”

Did you think that your thoughts build or ruin the world around you? They do; they are our desire’s “brain” that designs the world we live in.

We’ve known for decades that humanity is destroying the planet, that our way of life is unsustainable, and that we are living on borrowed time at the expense of our children. We’ve known it, we’ve tried to stop ourselves, but we couldn’t. Only Covid stopped our reckless conduct. If it goes away, we will destroy whatever’s left of our planet and leave nothing for prosperity. We can’t help it since our actions are offshoots of our thoughts, and as long as our thoughts are negative, so will be our actions.

We are looking for a cure to Covid-19 but we’re forgetting that it comes from the same source that creates all our “sicknesses,” from viruses to hurricanes. Just as we don’t need to work on fixing our behavior toward the environment, but on fixing our thoughts, which make us mistreat the environment, we don’t need to focus on curing the virus but on curing its cause — our iniquitous thoughts.

Kabbalists don’t deal so much with restricting CO2 emissions, recycling waste, or saving endangered species, not because they don’t care about our world. On the contrary, they care about all of life and all of nature a great deal! This is why they focus on the core problem, the malfunction that generates all that is negative in our world: our thoughts. If we change our thoughts, we will change the world around us. If we change our thoughts from negative to positive, not a single problem will remain unsolved.

We could argue that we can’t control our thoughts, that they pop up in our brain without asking “permission.” It’s true that thoughts don’t “ask permission” before they emerge, but we can tweak the “factory” that creates them: the social environment we live in.

If we are born into an environment that says you’re only as good as your last conquest, then we will have no choice but to become ruthlessly competitive until we exhaust ourselves to death. In the process, we will destroy everything around us: people, animals, plants, and minerals. Currently, this is more or less the way we all behave, which is why the world is such a mess.

We can change our world. If we start nurturing a different culture — embracing diversity, encouraging originality, supporting cooperation, and rewarding displays of solidarity — our world will instantly change from bad to good. We won’t need to worry about what we should or shouldn’t do; we will need to worry only about what to think or not to think.

We can change our world. If we start nurturing a different culture — embracing diversity, encouraging originality, supporting cooperation, and rewarding displays of solidarity — our world will instantly change from bad to good. We won’t need to worry about what we should or shouldn’t do; we will need to worry only about what to think or not to think.

We cannot change our thoughts by ourselves. But together, there is nothing we can’t achieve. We can even transform our very nature from the negative attitude we are born with to a positive attitude that we will all have created together.

We are looking for a cure to Covid-19 but we’re forgetting that it comes from the same source that creates all our “sicknesses,” from viruses to hurricanes. Just as we don’t need to work on fixing our behavior toward the environment, but on fixing our thoughts, which make us mistreat the environment, we don’t need to focus on curing the virus but on curing its cause — our iniquitous thoughts. It would be great if we could find a vaccine for Covid-19, but unless we solve its root cause, more, and worse menaces will come in its wake, so we might as well work on a systemic solution right now and truly transform our lives to what they can be instead of staying stuck neck-deep in the quagmire that our lives have become.

“The Social Media Giants Campaign Against Anti-Semitism Is Mere Pretense” (Times Of Israel)

 

The Times of Israel published my new article “The Social Media Giants Campaign against Anti-Semitism Is Mere Pretense”

A Times of Israel story recently reported festively, “YouTube removes Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam channel.” According to the story, YouTube announced that it has “strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and [will] terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies.” Two lines later, however, you read that “Some individual accounts of Nation of Islam members are still up, with tens of thousands of followers.” It would be interesting to know YouTube’s definition of “strict policies.”

Another festive headline, this time on CNN Business, announced that “Facebook will ban Holocaust denial posts under hate speech policy.” According to the report, Facebook decided on the ban because of “the well-documented rise in anti-Semitism and the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust.” I wonder what set off this policy U-turn because as recently as two months ago, The Guardian reported that the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) had found that “Facebook’s algorithm ‘actively promotes’ Holocaust denial content.”

Clearly, this “concern about antisemitism” tune isn’t credible. Three weeks before the election, the only reason that would make social media platforms proclaim to take steps to curb antisemitism is their desire to play it safe. In my estimate, they feel that President Trump has a real chance of being reelected and are adjusting their policies to that scenario. In short, their campaign against antisemitism is nothing but lip-service.

For Jews, however, social media policies make no difference. They don’t abate antisemitism whatsoever. Antisemitism stems from the core of human nature, from a deep-seated feeling of non-Jews that Jews are unlike any other nation. Their accusations that Jews control the media, the banks, the government, and manipulate them to their advantage and against other faiths speaks volumes about the power that non-Jews attribute to Jews. Their accusation that Jews cause all the wars and all the troubles in the world is in fact an admission that they believe that the Jews have the power to end the wars and troubles in the world.

And while the Jews don’t know it, they do have the key to ending all the troubles. Jews don’t need social media bans to curb Jew-hatred. All they need is to stop hating one another and the world will stop hating them.

Jews are always at the center of attention. The world envies Israel for its military power and technological advancement, and it envies Diaspora Jews for being wealthier than other communities. Money, arms, and high-tech don’t earn the Jews any points in the eyes of the world. On the contrary, they only increase Jew-hatred since this is not what the world expects.

The world looks at the Jews so carefully because it needs a way to connect, to end conflicts, to rise above hatred, to save itself from self-destruction. And only the Jews, who coined the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” can show the way—by personal example.

There are three Jews among this year’s Nobel Prize laureates. No one will be grateful to Jews for this. But if Jews made peace among themselves, between Democrats and Republican Jews, between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, between Orthodox and secular Jews, now that would be something that the world would appreciate.

Jewish leaders throughout the ages have avowed that Jewish unity is our only way to escape persecution. So far, their words have found no listeners, and hate increases both among Jews and toward Jews. If we, the Jewish people, want to avoid another Holocaust, we should start paying attention to our sages throughout the ages, and to the world’s call for peace, first among ourselves, and then throughout the world.

*For a more elaborate explanation on the root and solution to antisemitism, refer to my book, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism

“How Will The Coronavirus Be Defeated If We Can’t Get Rid Of The Seasonal Flu?” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will the coronavirus be defeated if we can’t get rid of the seasonal flu?“

We will see an end to the coronavirus when we overcome our negative thoughts, divisiveness and hatred of each other.

Today’s world is fundamentally different to the past because our present era increasingly reveals how dependent we are on each other, all around the world. And the more we depend on each other, the more we rely on each member of human society upholding values of consideration and responsibility toward their fellow human beings.

We need mutual consideration and responsibility today more than ever to spare ourselves from a lot of unnecessary suffering, and more so, to create a safer and happier future for all people.

In terms of the coronavirus, we are still in stages where we think that it will soon end and everything will return to “normal” again.

But it won’t.

The new era of interdependence that we have entered demands that we bridge our rivalries in order to experience our tightening connection harmoniously. Likewise, the coronavirus will subside to the extent that we rise above our negative attitudes to each other and positively connect.

We simply fail to see how much the health or illness of our bodies and surrounding society depends on the positivity or negativity of our thoughts in relation to other people. Until we start actively surrounding ourselves with socio-cultural influences that inspire us to compromise, cooperate, care for one another, and positively connect, then we will continue seeing a rise in negative phenomena—from more and more people falling ill with the virus, to more and more people losing their jobs, their businesses, and their sanity the more they have to maintain social distance.

Today’s tightening interdependent conditions embody a new stage in human evolution, and so we will have to get used to the fact that we will not return to our pre-coronavirus lives. As evolutionary biologists have shown, nature constantly evolves through crisis to greater cooperation and unity, and today is precisely a time of global crisis preparing us to make a global-scale unifying shift.

If we fail to actualize our shift to greater unification above our differences willingly, then we will experience tightening interdependence in an undesirable fashion. It would be akin to sharing a small room with our biggest adversaries. However, if we make moves to positively connect above our divisive inclinations—prioritizing values of mutual consideration and responsibility throughout human society—then we will experience a whole new harmonious world open up to us, ensuring good health, safety and happiness for all.

Image: Ani_Ka, Getty Images.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

True Love And Perfect Family

 

Question: What is true love?

Answer: True love is absolute trust, impeccable support, self-sacrifice, and confidence that you are treated the same way.

Question: Throughout the development of mankind, the concept of family has changed greatly. What is an ideal family today?

Answer: An ideal family is the same as ideal love. It is built on top of all the problems, with them, and in spite of them. Therefore, if people knew how to create bridges over problems and keep them safe, then true love is created. Love is a consequence of a very hard work over one’s own and other people’s shortcomings.

Question: What does it mean to live above problems?

Answer: Knowing all the problems, we try, without closing our eyes to them, to respect the other, value him or her, and be connected with each other without forgetting about our problems.
[271791]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

What Does A Successful Marriage Depend On?

 

Question: Now all of humanity believes that marriages entered into at mature age are stronger and more stable. Is this really the case? When does a person need to get married?

Answer: Of course, over time we become wiser. Life educates us by quite harsh methods. However, you do not have to experience them. It all depends on the education received, what kind of example the child had in the family. We see that children literally are repeating what they see with their parents.

In general, I would start educating a person for family life from kindergarten and continue at school, at university, and at work. Home circles, television, everything should be dedicated to the creation of the correct family as the unit of society.
[272082]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

What Drives A Kabbalist Forward?

 

Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah determine the degree of sufferings and pleasures that were set for a person who is on the spiritual path?

Answer: The degree of suffering depends on a person’s recognition of the greatness of the goal. If I want to attain a certain goal and am at a certain distance from it, to the extent that the goal is great in my eyes, the discrepancy between me and the goal is felt as suffering.

But it is actually the magnitude of the suffering that drives me forward. I already see the goal and I understand that I have a method of how to attain it. So, I am happy with what is happening, and for me, it is no longer a path of suffering but a path of light. I feel these suffering illuminate the path for me.
[240338]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 11/18/18

Conflicts Within A Person

 

Question: Is there a difference between the methods of solving external interpersonal conflicts and internal conflicts in a person? Or are they suitable for both cases?

Answer: In principle, yes. But inside a person, conflicts are resolved a little differently because one must see both sides of the argument.

Comment: Let’s say, I want to go outside and consider whether to wear a mask or not. There is an internal conflict. On one hand, I am a bit cautious about infecting others. On the other hand, it is uncomfortable to breathe and there seems to be no one around. So, a person constantly makes some calculations, conflicts arise in one every second.

Answer: With a mask, it is quite simple. The fact is that there are specialists who understand how the virus spreads. And if they say that you should wear a mask, then you accept it and put one on even if no one is around.

This gives me the opportunity to be honest with myself and with nature.
[271898]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/16/20

Compass For Making Decisions

 

Question: In order to make a correct decision, do you need to detach yourself from feelings and emotions? Is it better to try to find a logical solution to the problem?

Answer: You need both. Man is a complex system that includes the heart and the mind. We cannot be guided only by the mind neglecting the heart, and vice versa. We simply need to balance these two systems in the middle line, and then we will make the right decisions.

Question: A person should try to connect all decisions with the laws of nature. Can you give an example of how to make such a decision?

Answer: There are only two laws in nature, either reception or bestowal.

The law of bestowal is faith above reason, the quality of universal connection and love. Come to this level, connect yourself to this law, and then you can correctly solve the problem.

In other words, before making a decision, you must understand how the law of reception and how the law of bestowal works. And the harmony between them should become your compass when making a decision.
[271047]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

“Are The Great Days Of America Coming To An End?” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are the great days of America coming to an end?“

The good times in the United States have indeed come to an end, and they are not returning. There is a process unfolding in nature, and accordingly the future of the United States will be worse than the future of other nations.

The prevailing disunity within the nation, the individualistic detachment among people, even among more and more American families, and the increasing divisiveness and polarization throughout American society are all outcomes of competitive-materialistic individualism clashing with a new interdependent paradigm that nature is increasingly pressing us with, where we will need to exercise mutual consideration and responsibility in order to secure ourselves a positive future.

The past “what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours” paradigm, which America championed, no longer suits the new conditions that nature has placed humanity into, which demands us to function in a much more unified way.

Human nature is fundamentally egoistic. That is, it is a desire to enjoy at the expense of others, and our egoistic nature constantly grows throughout our evolution to a point where we can no longer find any meaningful or lasting enjoyment by trying to fulfill our egos directly. We have been crossing that tipping point significantly over the last 20 to 30 years, and thus we also bear witness to America reaching a satiation point and increasingly struggling to maintain the status it once had.

A positive future for any nation and for the world at large depends on a significant paradigm shift: that we change our connections from trying to egoistically gain and profit off of anyone that we can, to trying to benefit and care for others. These are not merely nice words for us to agree with in one moment, and then forget about in the next. Rather, these are laws of nature, and they reveal themselves to us more and more in our current era.

If we apply ourselves to reach balance with the laws of nature by looking out for each other instead of looking out for self-benefit, then we will experience a much more harmonious existence as we head into the future. Nature will respond to our connection-enriched relations positively, and we will discover a new kind of enjoyment and fulfillment seemingly filling the space between us.

Therefore, while on one hand, the past egoistic paradigm that America championed is coming to an end, as we head into the future, America has the pioneering spirit as well as the world’s stage to impact a major shift in human relations: By implementing positive connections in American society above divisions and polarization, America can become a major positive influence in the world, and such a shift in American society would have harmonious rippling effects all throughout American society as well as the world over.

Photo by Victória Kubiaki on Unsplash.

Filed under: Crisis, Q&A, Quora | Add Comment / Ask Question →

“From Starvation To A Revolution” (Medium)

 Medium published my new article “From Starvation to a Revolution”

Even before the outburst of Covid-19, millions of people were already on the brink of starvation. Food stamps are no solution, and neither is subsidized housing. The coronavirus has made things far worse, and from day to day, the situation is growing more and more precarious. Society is on the edge, and no administration will be able to restore order to the streets if all hell breaks loose.

We can have peace, abundance, health, and security. But we must remember that if not all of us have it, none of us will have it. This is the law of every ecosystem, and it applies just as rigidly to each of us.

There is also no point looking for a scapegoat; if we really want to blame anyone, we should look in the mirror. We, and our parents, have ruined the world for ourselves and for our children. Look at us: Half the world is overweight, the other half is starving. It is an accurate reflection of our egoism, alienation, and reckless sense of entitlement.

This egoism, this baseless sense of entitlement, is the root of all our troubles. Worse yet, egoism hides from us the fact that it is our biggest, and in fact our only problem. It tricks us into thinking that other people are the cause of our misfortunes, and selfishly, we fall for the convenient lie. But if we recklessly try to gain more and accumulate more, and judge what we have not by how much we need, but by how much we have more than others, then we will deplete and ruin our planet completely. We are already very close to it, and the outburst of the virus is just a symptom of a collapsing world that’s slipped off balance and can no longer sustain its inhabitants: humankind.

According to Sally Davis, former chief medical officer for England, “there will be a next [pandemic]. Covid-19 is neither the first nor the last health emergency we will face. My fellow scientists estimate that we will face a pandemic or health emergency at least once every five years from here on. There is a chance that this is the optimistic scenario. The reality could be far worse.” This is why we have to change course now before it’s too late.

Since egoism is the root of our problems, we must tackle it and rein it in if we are to leave anything for the next generation. We have to understand that we are dependent on each other. If one person is sick, everyone is sick. If one person behaves irresponsibly, everyone suffers. The only “right” we really have is to behave responsibly, to be considerate toward each other so we can continue to live on a bearable level, first, and from there begin to improve it.

But since we’re egoists, and egoists are considerate only toward people they care about, we have no choice but to learn how to care for each other. At the very least, we have to start looking for ways to change how we feel about each other — from the current negative to a more neutral feeling, and eventually to a positive feeling toward each other. Again, this is not a utopian fantasy; it is an existential stipulation!

We have to revolutionize our entire perception of humanity. We cannot afford to keep thinking of ourselves as a collection of separate individuals; we have to start perceiving ourselves as a single entity that’s caring for all its organs. If we don’t, the individuals we see around us will soon start occupying themselves with killing all the other individuals around them.

We shouldn’t think that we are too weak or small to make a difference. Each of us can make a difference in our closest circles, and the accumulated impact will be strong enough to pull the wagon out of the mud and start moving in the right direction.

We are at a tipping point. If we start using firearms against each other, we will collapse into a civil war. But if we get a grip on our raging egos and understand that we are dependent on each other (as much as we dislike the thought), then perhaps, if we cherish life, we will want to learn how to care for one another. From that point on, the road will open for us to reverse the trend and start lifting humanity, and our personal lives, to the levels they can achieve.

We can have peace, abundance, health, and security. But we must remember that if not all of us have it, none of us will have it. This is the law of every ecosystem, and it applies just as rigidly to each of us.

“Jewish Nobel Prize Winners—Does It Matter?” (Times Of Israel)

 

The Times of Israel published my new article “Jewish Nobel Prize Winners—Does It Matter?”

A matter of pride to some and a source of envy to others, the fact is that Jews have traditionally stood out as Nobel Prize recipients, and this year is no exception as Jews have dominated basically all the areas covered by the prestigious awards. As much as our distinctions may inflate our egos, we also see how these achievements have done nothing to erase the hatred against Jews. The world expects something different from us—for Jews to actually deliver connection and peace to the world, which we currently are not succeeding at. This is the reason the animosity won’t go away.

2020 has been remarkably successful for American Jewish laureates. Harvey Alter shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Paul Milgrom shared the award in Economic Sciences, and Louise Glück won the Literature award. Some publications have written that the three recipients of the Physics award are also of Jewish heritage. People highlight the fact that out of the 900 Nobel Prize recipients since 1901 when it was first awarded, more than 200 have been Jewish, a disproportionate number for a group that represents only 0.2% of the global population.

The capabilities of Jews in countless areas are no secret and if we were to award the highest prizes and recognitions based on accomplishments in all fields, Jews would receive even more awards than we already do. However, I do not think getting medals or trophies should be a reason for Jewish pride. I do not spend time counting the number of awards because it is not what we need to stand out for. We need to be prominent for fulfilling the role that the world truly expects from us.

Jews have a mission that is deeply rooted in the basis of creation, to be a “light unto the nations.” What exactly does this mean? It means to serve humanity as an example of corrected relationships of connection and love for others, of positive mutual connection.

We Jews, by virtue of our unique development as a people, once had the ability to examine everything from two opposite forces, reception and bestowal, which gave us a deeper and broader view of reality. Since the ruin of the Temple, we lost our spiritual consciousness, but due to our previous attainment of the unique singular force of nature, this matchless spark illuminated in us and left an eternal seal.

This spark gave us a significant advantage over others. This is what has enabled us to succeed and stand out, because this spark is part of the general creative force that develops the entirety of nature. It is what motivated us to invent and innovate, and thus to advance humanity as a whole. As it was written by the greatest Kabbalist of our generation, Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam),

“It is the wisdom of faith, justice and peace which most nations learn from us, and this wisdom is ascribed to us alone.” (The Writings of the Last Generation)

Today, the world is in urgent need of unity to overcome its perils and the suffocating crisis that exists at all levels of experience, but humanity has no idea how to connect. However, we Jews were once connected and lived in brotherly love. The society that the Jewish nation innovated was based on the great rule of the Torah, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Therefore, we people of Israel must now revive that love between us and offer it to the world. This is what the world requires, and when we do not provide this example—instead remaining immersed in growing alienation, mistrust, and self-centeredness—the pressures against us manifest as vicious antisemitism.

Therefore, we Jews must begin connecting between us, since we possess the latent “memory” of unity, and we also must welcome anyone from any nation who shares this view. If we accomplish this, we will be able to fulfill the ancient prophecy that says that the nations of the earth will be blessed through us. When we achieve this, we will deserve the ultimate prize of all, peace and goodness in the world.

Kindness And Genetics

 

Question: I read that goodwill  toward people depends 45% on genetics. It turns out that there are people for whom it is naturally easier to build relationships and connections. And there are those who are doomed to fail. Why has nature designed it that way?

Answer: This is done specifically to create the illusion of freewill in us, freedom of choice (as if I decide everything), freedom of perception and actions, to show us a world in which there seems to be complete freedom.

Question: What is the scale of values upon which you define good or bad connections between people?

Answer: This is very difficult to determine because it depends on the person’s intentions. And we do not see one’s intentions; they are concealed from us.

This is why Kabbalah is called the hidden wisdom; it deals with intentions and not forces like physics, not properties like psychology, but intentions that are higher than forces and properties.
[272088]
From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 7/30/20

Main Thing—Contact

 

Question: The Mishnah, which dates back to the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, describes various types of relationships: “mine is mine and yours is yours,” “mine is yours and yours is mine,” etc.

“Mine is yours, yours is yours” is a righteous man and “mine is mine and yours is mine” is a sinner. But the worst is when “mine is mine, and yours is yours.” Why?

Answer: Because it pushes people away from each other and does not connect them together even with negative qualities. And since they have no way to understand the relationship between them, all that is left is to reject them. At the same time, they make the world freeze and do allow it to come to any common state.

Question: It turns out that even the state of “mine is mine and yours is mine” is more advanced?

Answer: As a result, it leads to a rapprochement.

Remark: This is difficult to understand.

My Comment: No, we can see it in families. While the couple are figuring things out and even fighting, there is contact and communication between them. And in families where they decide that’s it, no mutual contacts, nothing can be done. They move away from each other, and therefore a divorce is necessary.

Remark: This means that nature’s trend is that we are developing toward greater rapprochement and connection; therefore any kind of contact is welcome.  Indifference and rejection are naturally against nature.

My Comment: Yes. The main thing is contact and then its correct implementation.
[272122]
From KabTV’s “Communication skills” 7/30/20

On The Threshold Of A World Revolution

 

A person is essentially just a desire to receive that is very sensitive to pleasure or pain. Therefore, the Creator in an instant could oblige all of humanity to become absolute righteous.

However, He wanted us to come to this through understanding and awareness so that we ourselves would ask Him to bring us to bestowal and connection, we ourselves would want mutual guarantee, and we ourselves would seek to become similar to the Creator.

That is why it took so much time and many different conditions. It was necessary to divide the whole of humanity into seventy parts, seventy nations of the world, into different times and all sorts of states. Everything is in order to build a feeling over each desire that is above it, that is for the sake of bestowal, as well as a mind that can calculate when and to what extent the desire to receive and the desire to bestow can be used.

In this way, a person can regulate how much it is possible to receive from the Creator so that it is enough only to correct the desire to a bestowing one, and not a drop more.

It turns out that we need to program the desire to receive so that it absorbs all this wisdom, knowledge, and abilities that allow it to work against its nature and teach it to appreciate the nature of the Creator as the upper quality, to put it on itself, to be impressed, and act like Him.

Only through a very complex process can the creation be brought to equivalence with the Creator. After all, initially it is infinitely far from this, completely opposite to it. The Creator created the desire to receive to be opposite to the desire to bestow, then broke it and interspersed tiny sparks of bestowal inside this desire.

These sparks are also under the control of egoism. Therefore, a person uses all his egoistic desire and all the sparks of bestowal, and through that he connects with others, builds different societies, businesses, and wishes to profit from each other. All that is thanks to those sparks that fell inside the desire to receive; otherwise, the desires would have remained isolated and unable to connect with each other.

When we begin connecting and earning from each other, we understand how profitable it is, and we add more and more connections. Then suddenly everything breaks down because it is impossible to continue like this, and a catastrophic fall ensues. This crisis has been growing throughout the twentieth century, and today it has reached such a point that has turned from an economic decline into a universal one.

Today we are beginning to understand that the connection can be bad despite the fact that it comes from sparks of light. Now our job is to turn this connection into a good one. This is a special process because it requires us to connect only for the benefit of our neighbor. To do this, we need to raise the sparks of the upper light above our desire to receive.

After the shattering of the common soul until today, these sparks helped us build the desire to receive in an even more egoistic way. Now, however, we must take this desire to receive and put it at the service of the sparks in order to attract the light and grow the desire to bestow instead of desire to receive. The bestowing intention must rise above the receiving one, which means working by faith above reason. The force of bestowal, Bina, will be valued by us above the force of reception.

This is the great revolution we need to perform so that the intention to bestow will be greater than the force of egoism, and the sparks that fell into desire during shattering will begin to determine our development instead of egoism controlling development where sparks are used to connect with others in order to profit from them.
[271805]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/25/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Mutual Guarantee”

Guide For Round Tables, Part 17

 

Round Table: Exchanging Impressions

Remark: The final stage of the round tables is an exchange of impressions. The main task is to analyze, summarize the activities of the circle, and discuss the extent of the connection. The understanding of the process we went through takes place.

My Comment: This is very important. A person should feel all this in the heart and consider it in the mind. Then combine together all one’s mental and sensory impressions and try to express them somehow.

Question: What should be the result?

Answer: Try to express one’s impressions. Perhaps in a few lines or in a few sentences.
[271145]
From Kab TV’s “Management Skills” 7/9/20

Neutral Strip Between Good And Evil

 

Nature obeys rigid laws, and if we follow them, we can live well, and if not, we get blows.

But the Creator gives us some time to choose freely in order to start acting and avoid being hit. He does not begin to beat us immediately, so as not to confront us with the inevitable, but wants us to understand and act consciously, from the desire to become like Him.

Physical laws act immediately, like the law of gravity.  If I jump off the slope, I immediately fall, without any time to think.

But in the spiritual world there is a system of Klipot that changes the laws of nature, creating the difference between good and evil, the distance between them. And therefore we can use this distance so as not to expose ourselves immediately to the blows, but to be able to connect with each other and avoid blows by warning it with medicine.

The medicine is Bina’s power that we can use. While in material nature there is no such force, everything is simple: either minus or plus. In the spiritual, there is a minus, plus, and their overlapping in the middle where we are included in both forces and can build a buffer zone containing both opposites.

This system, which includes two forces, is called “man,” Adam, because it contains the desire to receive pleasure and the intention to bestow, due to which we become like the Creator.

In the inanimate, plant, and animal world, which are studied by natural sciences, there is no such intermediate system. Therefore, science cannot comprehend the psychology of even an ordinary, earthly person and even more so a spiritual one. To understand a spiritual person, the science of Kabbalah is necessary, which explains to us how a person is arranged.

Everything that science knows about a human belongs to his animal level and is obtained experimentally. This allows us to create medicines for the biological body. But the human himself, his inner essence, is inaccessible for measurements by any instruments and is not subject to any verification.

Only the science of Kabbalah is capable of studying a person through instruments of the highest level, from above and not from below as we usually study inanimate matter, plants, and animals.

Therefore, in the current crisis, nothing can help humanity except for the science of Kabbalah and its methods. Until then, we will have to suffer. Therefore, we are trying to spread the knowledge about the method of correction in all possible ways.
[271794]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/25/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

A Third Party Will Not Help

 

Question: In order to resolve a conflict, it is necessary to carry out the following operational steps: analysis and assessment of the situation, collection of information, selection of a conflict resolution strategy, formation of a plan for an exit from the conflict, and its implementation. Then we give an assessment of to what extent we have reached a common point in resolving the conflict.

Do you agree with these steps?

Answer: In general, yes. But we need to see the goal in advance, the final state we must achieve, the connection above the conflict situation so that it no longer divides but unites us.

Question: Let us say, a group of people who are taking an integral education course is at the initial stage. Will they be able to come to a decision on their own without a moderator?

Answer: Only if they have a clear understanding of how to resolve this issue.

Question: Does it mean that they themselves can come to the resolution of conflicts without the intervention of a third party?

Answer: If they have a correct step-by-step methodology with explanations and clarifications, then they can do without a moderator. In principle, in the future, by applying this technique, people will be able to resolve conflicts in the family, at work, no matter where.

Question: Suppose in our community there is a conflict situation between several people. The whole group is engaged. It splits into two sides that begin to clash. How can this conflict be resolved?

Answer: They must get together and imagine the correct end state of the already resolved conflict. Then from this final state they must look for methods of reaching it.

Remark: This is very interesting because, in principle, two people cannot find a solution until a third party intervenes, which, if there is luck, can resolve the conflict.

My Comment: These are all egoistic, non-integral, completely wrong decisions. After all, they will not be able to rise and grow above conflicts.

Question: Will the precise help of an experienced instructor help?

Answer: Only guiding questions that enable them to be implemented correctly.
[271621]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/16/20

Tips For Managers

 

Question: What should a manager think about?

Answer: A manager must think about how to properly organize a team to complete a task, to obey him, carry out his assignments. A manager should not suppress others.

If subordinates understand that it is possible to complete a specific task in some other way, let them come to him and advise.

Question: What advice would you give to a manager who is in a bad mood and realizes that he can pass it on to his subordinates?

Answer: He should be more human with them, showing that he is human like them, and changes of mood are not alien to him.

Question: Are there any techniques so that a manager can rise above his feelings and mood?

Answer: It is very difficult. I don’t think this can be applied in all cases. It is necessary to educate the team so that they understand that you are a human.
[271751]
From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20