How To Stop The Violence Among Our Youth

all-the-people-in-the-world-are-sick-with-the-same-sicknessA question I received: You are saying that the egoism of the young generation cannot be stopped: an 11-year old child can stab another child. Where is this going? What will happen in ten to fifteen years, when these 10-year-old children will be 20 years old?

My Answer: First of all, children don’t feel obligated to follow our laws because they cannot be punished. They cannot be brought to court because of their age. So what will happen? As a child grows older, the protective force grows in him, as well as fear, the need to live in the world as a grown-up. So, one thing that would help is if we treated them like grown-ups.

But in truth, our laws are not suitable for children. There should be legal regulations for every age group, and they should be separate for boys and for girls. We should know what to demand of them and how to punish them. They should see what the right form of behavior is according to the system of reward and punishment.

A child should know this – this is a true system of upbringing. It is a system that can work against the cruel animalistic nature of human beings and is able to form or create a real person. For each action, there should be a corresponding reaction. This is how a mother raises an infant: she gives him incentive for one thing and punishment for another.

This is how we have to mold the “clay.” And children will understand this, since they are “clay” that contains the desire to receive pleasure. We can influence this desire by telling it: if you take on this form, you will receive something sweet, and if you take on a different form, you will feel bitterness. This is how we can create a human being.

However, if we permit him to do anything he wants to and suggest negative forms of behavior, such as the ones children learn from cruel, disgusting games where people kill each other, and if this is what they see on the TV and the Internet and there is no punishment for this from the society, then what will be the result of this kind of upbringing? An adorable infant will grow to become a miserable child.

So, we must first educate the parents about the process of creating a system of upbringing for their children. Otherwise, the next generation will surely be even worse than the previous one.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,” on 02.17.2009)

There’s A Force That Doesn’t Allow Us To Stop Asking And Changing

now-you-can-share-perceptions-over-the-internetWe are nothing but a desire to receive that is being controlled by pleasure. This desire (we) goes from one state to another under the influence of two forces: attraction and repulsion. Thus, there are only two components in the entire creation: a desire for pleasure, and a pleasure that sets it in motion. They exist on all levels and stages – in solids, crystals, liquids, biological and chemical elements, and in all inanimate and animate matter. The foundation of everything is a desire to receive pleasure, and the fulfillment that is opposite to it.

A question arises: If all that exists is only the desire to receive and its fulfillment, then it would seem that the system is static. So why is there motion in it from the very beginning? After all, the Creator initially created the desire to receive with the help of the force of bestowal. Hence, this system should reach equilibrium and stop changing upon reaching a balance between the two forces. So why is there no such stop, but only permanent motion?

The answer is that it is because there is one more force at work in this system. The force operating in the creation includes two components: the Creator wants to give pleasure to the desire He created, and in addition, He also wants to bring this desire to equivalence to Himself. Hence. the desire has a feeling of pleasure, and inside of this feeling, it reveals another feeling – the sensation of the Giver.

This is the reason for our questions, “What for? Why?” And these questions just won’t allow us to sit back and enjoy life. Otherwise, we would reach a balance and be like animals. Everything would be fine and good, and all of Nature would stop upon reaching the point of balance.

However, the goal of creation is to bring the entire creation, including the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, to equivalence with the Creator. For this reason, motion is incorporated in everything. But who or what sets everything in motion? It is not the desire to enjoy and receive pleasure, but the feeling of the Giver, which is revealed inside the pleasure.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom,” on 03.06.2009)

Unlike Science Or Religion, Kabbalah Delivers You An Entirely New Perception

go-aroundIn the News (from National Geographic): Today many scientists say there is no conflict between their faith and their work, and few scientists seem to think much about religion in their research. In a 1997 survey in the science journal Nature, 40 percent of U.S. scientists said they believe in God. “In the last few years astronomy has come together so that we’re now able to tell a coherent story” of how the universe began, said Joel Primack, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “This story does not contradict God, but instead enlarges [the idea of] God.”

In the News (from The Stanford Review ): Students and staff packed Memorial Auditorium [at Stanford University] to hear Dr. Francis Collins, the renowned head of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God discuss his views on science, faith, and the ease with which the two can be reconciled. According to Collins, “naturalism has its limits.” Collins cited pointers to God in nature such as the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics,” and the precise tuning of physical constants during the Big Bang. Examples of such improbability suggest that there is a creator God. There is an obvious way to reconcile [faith and science], Collins shows, through a rejection of extremes, and the embracing of “harmony in the middle.”

My Comment: The study of Kabbalah enables people to change their intention from “for one’s own sake,” where one perceives our world, to the intention of “for the sake of one’s neighbor,” where one perceives the Upper World. By uniting with one’s “neighbors” through the intention “for the sake of one’s neighbor,” one discovers that others are a part of him and that everything in existence consists of two parts – myself and the Upper Force. See the section on “Perception.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Will Evolve to Acquire Power Over All of Nature
Laitman.com Post: All of Evolution Is Aimed at Making Us Attain the Upper Level of Consciousness
Talk: “Perception of Reality”
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

The Game Of Life Has New Rules

remindsToday bankers and industrialists alike are saying that we lack the proper connection between us. We have natural resources and industries, we’ve printed enough money, we have the desire – we have everything! We lack only one thing: the ability to establish a working connection between all of these things.

Everything has suddenly stopped working, even though there is plenty of everything in the world: airplanes, cars, factories, banks, food, you name it. So why doesn’t the system work? It doesn’t work because we don’t know how to connect all the components! But weren’t we able to do this before?

Yes, we were, but now it’s as though someone on the “outside” has pressed a button, and the former connection stopped working. Now, a new connection is needed. It is like a game of Monopoly, where the rules of the game have changed, and we must learn the new rules. It is a new program, which is being revealed today in the form of a universal connection.

All of humanity will soon feel numb, frozen, and the standstill will keep increasing until the last bit of air escapes from the tires and the whole machine stops completely. This will go on until we find the right connection.

The right connection means that we should behave like a global society, a “small village” where everyone cares for everyone else. And this is only possible through love for your neighbor. So, until we follow the program of “love your neighbor as yourself,” we cannot put the system into working order. We can go to war with each other or do anything else – nothing will help. The problem is that the connection between us is broken, and there is nothing left for us to do but unite by rising above our egoism. This is the only thing that will help.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Fear and Suspicion Will Vanish If Everyone In the World Will Unite
Laitman.com Post: No One at the World Economic Forum Wants to Admit That They Have No Solution to the Financial Crisis
Interview: “Why All Values Have Depreciated”
Brochure: “Lecture in Arosa”
Baal HaSulam Article: “Peace in the World”