“Take Off The Rose-Colored Glasses!”

Comment: Dr. Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, presents a world view that is opposite from your views. When asked whether human nature is egoistic or whether it is kind, she replied that there are those who believe that people are naturally egoistic and that tough competition is the key to their success, but the principle of the survival of the fittest is incorrect and that it is possible to advance without underestimating or humiliating others. It makes no difference what a person engages in as long as he works for the well being of others. From her perspective man is basically good hearted and merciful and not egoistic.

Answer: Does this mean that people were given a mind in order to behave nicely to one another and to understand each other. Is this what determines the relations between states and nations? Do we see that this is what guides and motivates us today and throughout human history?

Our relations are based solely on the individual’s desire to rise higher than others, to be better off at the expense of others, and to use them. We should study and get to know how the animate level of nature operates. We are no different from animals. Only we are given also the mind that we use for the same egoistic development in all directions, wherever possible. Therefore, people are the greatest evil in nature. That is what we see.This is the reason that man is the worst creature in nature and this is actually what we see. If Dr. Emma Seppalla wears rose-colored glasses there is nothing we can do about it.

Nature is basically absolute egoism and this is also what the Torah says: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” Therefore, as long as man doesn’t use the Torah correctly, which means that he doesn’t draw the Light that Reforms in order to correct the ego, while he studies, he is a complete egoist. We are trapped in a vicious cycle that we cannot escape any other way except through the influence of the Upper Light that can pull us out. Otherwise, all our aspirations and our impulses, which may seem good, are totally egoistic.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/7/16

A Mass Suicide Attempt Of Native Americans In Canada

Question: The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted the heartbreaking news about more mass suicide attempts among the Native American population.

Answer: The Native Americans in Canada and South America feel isolated from the modern world and feel that they don’t belong to it. They find our world threatening, feel that they don’t understand it and cannot be part of it. Very few manage to overcome this barrier and adapt to the modern world to some extent.

Today, it is even hard for us to adapt to it, although we are the ones who actually have created it. It is not easy to live in today’s world.

Canada provides the First Nation’s population with everything that they need. They live in large and rich reservations where the cost of living is low. They pay no taxes and can do whatever they want. But they still feel emptiness and cannot fill their natural desire to merge with nature by living a modern life.

The invasion of this strange lifestyle has detached them from nature and destroyed the relationships between parents and children and with the land. They don’t feel the wide-open spaces, they don’t hunt. They no longer have the mutual relationships they had in order to communicate in times of war, peace, or truce. They cannot overcome this loss.

This is what happens when people lose their spiritual root. We can provide them with everything they want on the material level, but it is impossible to replace their yearning for their spiritual root. This stops the natural development, which should occur in this nation.

This is the reason that Baal HaSulam wrote that civilized nations bring huge misfortune to indigenous tribes since they destroy their relationship to the land. What can be done? I believe that it would be possible to start working among them to unite, if we have the strength and resources. Internal union would begin to lift them, to nourish them, and to reconnect them.
That’s what I talked to the Indians during my trip to South America.

I had a chance to speak about that to Indians in South America during my visit there. And they understood me, approved, and they agreed that this is what should be done. However, in order to do this, we must be near them and show them how to unite, not in the lodge or a fire, but in a more sublime and spiritual way. They understand and feel it, but this requires extensive work.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/13/16

The Responsibility Of A Kabbalist

Question: In the course of human history, there has hardly been a day without war in the world. Even in our day, many cruel wars are happening. Why do even advanced people like Kabbalists suffer from this?

Answer: The Kabbalists suffer even more than others because they feel responsibility toward everyone. They sense the huge mass of suffering that war carries with it. In addition, they also experience a huge mass of pleasure that humanity could get instead of the suffering were it to invest a bit of effort to correct itself.

A Kabbalist in relation to an ordinary person is like an adult in relation to an infant. An infant who is ill only suffers because of the illness whereas the adult close to him suffers much more and is ready to take all of the pain of the infant upon himself.

About this it is said, “he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18). Because of this, we must unite, quickly overcome this period of suffering and war, and enter into the feeling of the upper world.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/14/16

The Deputy Health Minister Vs. McDonald’s

Question: Israeli Deputy Minister of Health Jacob Litzman called the people of Israel to cut down on the consumption of fast food and even wanted to ban the McDonald’s fast food chain restaurant. He suggested teaching children to avoid unhealthy food. He emphasized that the goal of the health ministry has changed and that now it will focus on curbing the popularity of fast food.

Answer: The Americans already have realized that they should give up fast food since it is only beneficial for those who produce it.

But people still must grab something on the way and have no idea, for example, what a hot dog is made of, and they don’t really care as long as it fills them up. A person eats a hotdog, drinks a coke, and feels good. The fact that he later must spend his wages on doctors and medications doesn’t matter, he doesn’t see the connection here.

I am for removing all the junk food and sweets, of course. They are merely the product of our latest technologies. If you told a person 150 years ago that you have candies, he would not understand what you are saying. Candies, just like sugar, do not exist in nature. There are, on the other hand, fruits, honey, nuts, and so on.

Question: But the body craves it.

Answer: This is because it is easy for the body to receive an immediate supply of fats and carbohydrates. The body gets used to such foods very quickly and becomes too lazy to get it any other way. This is very harmful, so such foods should be forbidden in children’s institutions and on every street corner. It is better to consume foods like falafel because it is a vegetable product. If you don’t fry it in oil, it is certainly healthy.

Question: Should we ban such foods?

Answer: Of course I would love to keep all of the sweets and junk foods far away from our children. See how the French live. They live longer because everything that they consume is natural. They don’t consume hot dogs and cokes. I believe that we should not adopt the worst there is in humanity. I support the health minister’s proposal.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/14/16

New Life #547 – The Covenant Between God And The Jewish People In The Mirror Of The Holocaust

New Life #547 – The Covenant Between God and the Jewish People n the Mirror of the Holocaust
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

How is it possible to understand and accept what happened in the Holocaust, what kind of covenant exists between us and God, how can we go back and establish it, and thus bring all of our troubles to an end?

Summary

The history of our people is full of terrible events, pogroms, murders, and the like.The Holocaust divided people into two, some became more devout and some generally moved away from religion.

Religion doesn’t look for answers about what happened in the Holocaust because there really are no answers for it. The Holocaust, and in general all of our troubles, are derived from our not understanding how God behaves with us. God is the law of nature. His program is this: we were created with an evil inclination and our goal is to transform it into a good inclination. It is up to us to transcend the ego and love others. If we do this, we get help. If we don’t, we suffer.

The covenant is an obligation to be a light to the nations. This means that we must provide the world with an example of connection and love. We did this at a particular time in the past. Today we must take the entire world out of the crisis that it is experiencing. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the method that will save the world from general destruction and ruin, from the eruption of egoism.

The part of God in this eternal covenant is to help us reach connection for better or for worse. Before the Holocaust, Baal HaSulam called for all Jews in Eastern Europe to emigrate to Israel, to build a society here, to connect as a single person. After two thousand years we got the opportunity to return to Israel, and we disregarded this and the connection of hearts. The covenant is eternal; we must realize this program of creation and connect above egoism.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #547 – Jewish Culture: The Covenant Between God and The Jewish People in the Mirror of the Holocaust,” 4/7/15

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New Life #718 – The Exodus From Egypt Is True Freedom

New Life #718 – The Exodus From Egypt Is True Freedom
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

What can be learned from the relationships between Moses and Pharaoh in the story of the Exodus from Egypt about the relationship we must develop with the ego, what do the plagues in Egypt affirm, and how do we become free people?

A person who wants to transcend his ego begins to identify how much he is totally controlled by his ego; he sees how the reality of his self-interest encloses him within a “bubble” that doesn’t allow him to feel the complete reality.

“Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1) means the search for how to be freed from the dominance of my own ego. Moses wants to break through the limitations of the narrow perception of the ego and see the illumined world.

The reason for this served to convince the public that his power, that it is up to the good forces under the control of Pharaoh, and show them how weak pharaoh, sod and not really in control.

Moses needed to convince everyone that the power was in his hands to show the good forces under the control of Pharaoh how weak and despicable Pharaoh was and that Pharaoh really had no control in order to elevate the good forces. With every plague Egypt receives, Pharaoh frees additional characteristics that are found under the control of the ego, which awakens more difficult plagues.

The ten plagues correspond to our ten inner characteristics called Ten Sefirot. Each plague represents a blow to the egoistic perception of reality. For example, the plague of blood (Dam) is from the word “Domem” (Still); it symbolizes Malchut, which is the lowest desire to receive and represents stillness.

The goal is to transcend the ego, to stop thinking only about myself and to think about everyone together. That is how we reach the complete perception of reality, unlimited spiritual life, and adhesion with the Creator.

Pharaoh symbolizes the general desire to receive, which includes unique desires called the children of Israel. These desires can leave the control of Pharaoh and the ten plagues help them detach from him. The Creator is the power of bestowal and love that is found outside of the desire to receive. When we depart from the desire to receive, we feel free; this is the future of the human species, this is the correction of the world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #718 – The Exodus From Egypt Is True Freedom,” 4/19/16

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We Need To Create The Spiritual World

Question: We say that everything is opposite. Does that mean that the worse I am in the corporeal world, the better I am in the spiritual world?

Answer: One thing has nothing to do with the other. We have to create the spiritual world since it doesn’t exist. To the extent that we create the attribute of love and bestowal inside us, we begin to feel a new dimension that is created inside us called the upper world.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/21/16

How Do I Get To Heaven?

Question: What is the difference between the path of Torah and the path of suffering if they both lead to suffering?

Answer: Everything is determined by the presence of the goal. A terrorist who cuts a person’s belly, for example, does so in order to kill him, while a surgeon who also cuts a person’s belly does it in order to save him. A person who is ill agrees to be operated on of his own freewill, and even pays for the operation and is ready to suffer the pain as long as he can get well.

A person who is about to undergo an operation is ready for any kind of suffering because he knows that he is gaining his life, while a person who was killed by a terrorist has lost his life. Therefore, everything depends on the way you assess the suffering and whether it gives you life or takes your life.

Question: The terrorist, himself, also is facing suffering and death because he thinks that this is the way to reach heaven. So, what is the path of the Light here?

Answer: For the terrorist, this is also the path of the light. This is what he believes. There are many theories according to which people are prepared to suffer in order to receive future pleasure.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, you should try to get closer to other people, but not for a reward in the next world after death. The corporeal body has nothing to do with that. The state you live in and identify with the corporeal body is a totally wrong state.

You must reach a totally different state in which you exist in the world of upper forces. In that world, you feel the effect of the upper forces and don’t identify with your body anymore. It is as if you shed the corporeal body off yourself, like a snake sheds its skin. Then, only the soul is left, which is in adhesion with the upper forces.

This state is called the Garden of Eden, heaven, and this is the state we should reach here and now, not in the next world. You need not kill anyone in order to reach it.

Question: It turns out that religions made up by man enable religious people to avoid suffering by holding on to an idol, such as God or Allah.

Answer: Of course, man made religion in order to sweeten his life and enable him to exist as if for a certain goal.

Judaism, Christianity, and then Islam emerged after the Jews fell from the spiritual level to an egoistic level, a state called the destruction of the Temple. Religion is the corporeal, egoistic reflection of the spiritual path.

It gradually brings humanity to the recognition that we must ascend spiritually. This is the reason that religions reach a peak and then disappear from the world, and a person begins to look for the true meaning of life.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/3/16