Audio Version Of The Blog – 11.04.14

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The Children Of The Universe, Part 1

laitman_739Question: Let’s go out into open space, to the universe that actually gave us life. The universe is the system of creation that is made of matter and energy. It encompasses the world that we know including space and time.

The universe is dynamic and according to the Big Bang theory, it is developing from a starting point and is gradually expanding. Universal processes are billions of years old and are subject to the laws that modern science studies. On the whole, what can we extract from what we know about the universe?

Answer: First, by studying something we have to determine the essence of the researchers. The researcher is a person who is also part of nature, of the universe, of the global system.

We should understand the research tools that we have; it manifests our first mistake: we assume that we can study nature objectively.

But in the meantime, as we have already said, we are part of it, and are a quite defective and very subjective part. We value and praise what is good for us, and, on the other hand, underestimate and belittle what is bad for us. All this takes place in our subconscious.

Besides, we are very limited in our sensations, our feelings, and in our senses; we don’t know where they fail us and when they deceive us. We cannot perceive the mistakes that we make in our analytical attributes and our abilities to clarify and compare things. It isn’t in our power because we lack the criteria for examining things and simply have nothing with which to compare our mind and feelings.

If we are ready to at least acknowledge our limitations, it is a good thing. Since then we understand that there is nothing absolute in our perception and that we will never know and obtain the Absolute. Even if we can investigate something, it is only the levels below us: the still, vegetative, and animate. They aren’t as developed as we are and so we can study them to some extent.

On the other hand, we cannot study ourselves. It is because everything is attained only from a higher level. This is the only way we can attain the root, and accordingly we don’t know ourselves because our root, the power, the plan, is on a higher level than us. The reasons underlying our essence remain unattainable.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/2/14

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At The Turning Point

laitman_236_01Shamati #1 “There is None Else Beside Him”: Rather, for those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, and so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children… And only if that person has a true desire…

Is it possible for a person to have a true desire? I must feel inside, within my belly, within my heart, and examine with my mind how much at each and every moment in life I am alert to maintaining myself for my benefit. The main thing for me is not to harm anyone so that no one will harm me. I am only concerned about how to defend myself from all the evil that surrounds me, from all the dangers and bad influences from all sides.

If I feel that I am so focused on protecting myself, I will understand that this holds my entire attention, and even my desire to discover the Creator is derived from the same Kli, from the same intention to further improve my situation. However, I am not prepared to be released from my beastly nature of self-defense.

Here, I make a decision that I must get away from it, simply to tear myself from this concern for self-preservation, and all of this depends solely on this: How much does the importance of the Creator become greater than my own self-importance? When a desire, a decision, an imperative, like this ripens and awakens in me, I will begin to hate “my body,” meaning the ego that obligates me to be concerned about my own self-preservation all the time, and then a desire, a prayer, a scream, a request, awakens within me for the Creator to change what has been created for me, and I will begin to be concerned about the greatness of the Creator—about “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”—more than myself, and I will see myself only as a means for bestowing to others.

I must reach such an inner explosion that I will be ready to do anything. This is a critical point where I decide that I would rather kill myself than live a life like this if I won’t be able to be concerned about others more than about myself. I perceive my egoistic, beastly state as being so despicable that I simply must change it.

Those of us who have not yet passed through it are very close to this turning point, and we must pay special attention to it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

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How Does One Sell Happiness?

laitman_228Question: When I look at my family and my immediate environment, I ask myself, “Is depression the result of a lack of desire to buy new things or is it created from a lack of money?”

It could be that if there were more money, happiness would return, and it would be possible to continue to celebrate purchases. However, I noticed something else: boredom.

Answer: The world doesn’t have the content that a person is looking for now. In the past, it was enough for us to see an interesting movie, have fun, and have guests. We lived in a more natural way and thought that this would go on.

However, the situation has changed. On the one hand, manufacturers don’t take into account the change in people. So, in fashion shows, designers invent costumes that are far from reality. This is a unique art through which they want to convey their views about a person’s individuality. Their examples are appropriate only for people who weigh ninety pounds, and are six and a half feet tall.

On the other hand, desires are changing fundamentally and have moved on to a new quality. Instead of money, respect, control, education, and even knowledge, a person now wants to know what he is living for. He apparently stops mid-life and begins to ponder things.

This desire comes from within; it is not because we suddenly become smarter or become philosophical. Nature changes us according to its program and thought, and we are not the masters of this.

We must see this trend, but we don’t have any possibility of changing, stopping, or slowing it down somehow. We must agree that this process will not only continue but also will expand. We will feel it more deeply and it will be difficult for us to resist it.

If we understand this from the start and react consciously, then the communications media and advertising gradually will change in the direction of greater flexibility. Then, they will go along with nature. In the opposite situation, they are like two trains, each going in the opposite direction.

We see that the world is returning to a natural form and contracting to its natural consumption. This is expressed more clearly in the financial sector. Paper money is losing its value. Everything is returning toward natural equality.

In other words, very soon, the level of our consumption will match exactly the amount of gold that we have. Then, it will be very important to understand what the new form of production and consumption will be.

We were educated by advertisements that things supposedly would make us beautiful, respected, and successful. This means that they were selling us pleasure, and what pleasures can be sold now for the new desire? It is pleasure from connection and unity! Clothe them in entertainment or creativity and a person will feel them as the source of his pleasure.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

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The Force Of Overcoming, Part 2

Dr. Michael Laitman

Question: It turns out that all the overcoming is in the desire that will win in me?

Answer: If my parents punish me, forcing me to do homework, my desire to avoid the blows becomes stronger than the desire to rest, and I go and do all that is required.

We always act according to our desire. The only question is whether it is my desire that obliges me to act or someone else’s desire. If this desire arises directly in me, then I realize it with pleasure and it does not require me to overcome anything.

If I see that the desire in not mine, then it is called coercion. In the end, I also perform the required act on my own accord by making the calculation that otherwise I would be punished or have no money for food. But this is someone else’s desire, not my true desire, that forces me to act, and that is why I do this without joy.

The action itself does not contain any overcoming! I always do everything according to the desire: either emerging in me or that presses and forces me. But, overcoming by myself is in obtaining good desires that are useful for me. So, I purposefully absorb them from the environment.

For example, my parents wanted me to become a musician. And so my father took me to watch movies about musicians. He wanted me to be inspired by their life, glory, and world fame, and he also wanted me to want to be like them. But the only thing I remembered from this, is that eventually they all ended their lives and died because I was a child of 6 – 7 years old.

Using these examples, my parents wanted to instill the desire to study music in me, but I did not absorb it and suffered much from studying at a music school. This shows that overcoming applies to a person who understands that he needs it. He has no choice, and thus he overcomes his original desire and acquires a new one.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/27/14

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A Generation Whose Idea Awaits It

laitman_259_02Question: Russian-speaking Israelis have gone through a lot and have radically changed their entire lives. Around a million of them have gathered here. Is there something unique about them?

Answer: I truly think we must seriously begin to work with them. Essentially, they always have been the vanguard of humanity. Russian emigrants who scattered to various countries developed culture and science wherever they were. Everywhere, they served as an engine of the progress.

Question: This means that you suppose that they can become the foundation for a breakthrough all over the world?

Answer: I hope so, but it will not be the generation that immigrated. Among them, only a few are ready to make a breakthrough, hundreds, maybe even thousands, but not millions. However, even though it doesn’t seem that way in the meantime, I think that their children will become specifically those among our associates and colleagues who actually will lead the nation and the world forward.

As of today, many still have not “passed through the illness” of former ideals. They still think that aggressive superiority, technological knowledge, weapons, money, and so on, as critical.

This generation has not yet been completely disillusioned with the previous frameworks. They still are concerned about formation. They still need to see finally that there is no more development; they need to think about another, not ultimately pragmatic, but an ideological foundation, not based on the force of matter, but the spirit. And then you can talk to the people.

In the meantime, the spirit of small, primitive capitalism still lives in part of them, and the grip of a simple life and narrow-mindedness kills. I don’t blame anyone for anything. I feel this both in myself and in my relatives that took the same route. However, in spite of it all, there will be a need to rise above this.

This is because we are the people of an idea, and I hope that their children will be able to accept this idea expanding their horizons beyond their ordinary daily needs.
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today,” Part 8, 9/24/14

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From Advertisement To True Values

laitman_547_01Once it was enough for a craftsman to hang a sign above the place where he worked. People could obtain services they required according to a list of addresses in a city. However, today, they are forced upon us, raising their value from zero to the level required.

Today, society is arranged so that our necessities are met, and every thing else is artificially inflated consumption. This  approach is clearly not reasonable or correct, but it is presented to us through investments in advertising that total 50% or more of the price of the product.

For example, recently, I saw a television channel for dogs. It would be no wonder if pets sitting in front of the television were to begin making demands, like children, for the products that are advertised to them.

Speaking seriously, humanity has sunk into a depression under the influence of the general crisis. Therefore advertising will become more and more difficult. The frustrated person doesn’t want anything. He is offered all kinds of delicacies, but he cannot taste them because he doesn’t want anything.

This trend exacerbates the general economic crisis, and we see that the world is in a decline. Of course, the crisis has not appeared everywhere, mostly in developed nations. And where it there is a shortage of necessary goods, the situation is different.

So, entrepreneurs transfer their resources to the underdeveloped nations to ready a market for their goods. Advertising helps generate consumers, but not for long.

After a few years we will see that the world will be satiated and people will be disappointed with anything that isn’t a necessity. We already are seeing now that the value of anything that we don’t need has lessened.

If a person feels that he is missing something but doesn’t know exactly what, he will be satisfied with products necessary for existence and he won’t want to make the effort for anything else. So, advertising is experiencing a crisis.

However, we must understand that advertising is a communications tool. I would say that it is a weapon of communication, a tool for communication between people. Now it influences individuals, because as yet, its purpose isn’t understood.

But if ever attention is paid to its primary job  (the creation of connections between people), then its influence will be educational: the advertisement of true values.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

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