When It Comes to the Global Crisis, We Cannot Afford to Procrastinate

When It Comes to the Global Crisis, We Cannot Afford to ProcrastinateA question I received: Why do you draw a connection between the financial crisis and a “global Kabbalistic revolution?” Isn’t this going a bit too far?

My Answer: There is a state of standalone objects, and there is a state when they unite into a system. That is when new and special laws are revealed – the laws of globalization, communication, interaction, and interdependence.

Standalone individuals in the animal kingdom are egoists, but as soon as they join together, a law is revealed that enables their system to survive. This law obligates them to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the system, for their society. Of course, in the animal kingdom this happens unconsciously; it is embedded in the animals by nature and they follow it blindly. The human level differs by man’s self-awareness. Man must carry out the same laws of nature consciously and willingly.

Hence, as long as we were not united, there was no need to take the system into account, nor to follow Nature’s law of “bestowal and love for one’s neighbor.” However, as soon as a tight interconnection emerged in Ancient Babylon – the first global civilization (global with regard to that time period, in a compact area), then a crisis was immediately revealed – our imbalance with the natural law of the human community, “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

In Babylon, we managed to solve this problem by annulling the very system or civilization. We separated from each other and scattered all over the world. However, today we are connected and there is no place to run. We can try, but by so doing we will only go back to the past. We can’t even imagine what comforts we will lose, because no country in the world today can be self-sufficient. This would be like going back to feudalism. Our development, its forms and pace are predetermined by nature and its integral law. Hence, if we go against it, we will perceive our opposition to it in the form of terrible suffering.

This is why Kabbalah says that the only option we have is to recognize the natural law of the human community, which is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Of course, this type of relationship can be adopted only when every individual will be corrected from “for the sake of oneself” to “for the sake of others.” This can be done with ease if:

1. The society and the mass media will support and encourage this, and look down on those who do not do this (however, not by means of punishment);
2. People will study Kabbalah (for the masses, superficial familiarity with Kabbalah will suffice) and thereby attract our future state, which already exists.

I think that “procrastination is like death” – in the literal sense of the word.

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By Changing Our Intentions, We Change the Whole of Reality

Changing the World Starts With Changing Our IntentionsA question I received: What can every person do to change the situation in the world?

My Answer: No physical, political, scientific, or social actions can change our world. So if the world can’t be changed, perhaps we can change man. What will this give us?

Physicists are discovering that the results of scientific experiments depend on man’s presence, even though they still don’t know the degree of this influence nor its nature. Kabbalah studies how man’s consciousness and intentions affect reality, and how we can control this influence in order to change reality!

There is an initial, constant and absolute reality – the World of infinity. Besides, there is a reality that we create with our intentions. In our world, we have never before changed our egoistic intentions. We did not know that by changing our intentions from “for our own sake” to “for the sake of others,” we actually change all of reality.

We did not know that we can affect reality to the degree we become similar to the Creator’s quality – “bestowal and love.” Kabbalah tells us how to do this.

At the end of our spiritual development we will be convinced that the only thing we have to change is ourselves (rather than the world). By doing so we won’t just change our world, but all of reality will change from corporeal to spiritual, from life in the body to life in the soul.

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War Is No Solution

War Is No SolutionInteresting relationships may start forming between countries:

News Report (from MIGnews): The prime minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, has declared war (for now, diplomatic and economic) on Iceland, because Iceland’s bankrupt banks are refusing to return billions of dollars to their British clients.

Since the country’s actual default, forty billion dollars of British savings remain frozen in Iceland’s banks. The government of Iceland refuses to give guarantees on the investments of foreign clients in Iceland’s banks. In response, Brown has arrested the assets of Icelandic companies in Britain.

The British Telegraph reports that his actions were accompanied by the following statement: “We are freezing the assets of Icelandic companies in the UK where we can. We will take further action against the Icelandic authorities wherever that is necessary to recover the money.”

My Comment: All countries will find themselves in the same situation. But there won’t be anyone to fight, since everything is intertwined and there is no one to blame. Still, it’s possible that they will fight nevertheless before reaching the understanding that they have to move on to a different kind of relationship – mutual care for one another for the sake of survival.

And later they will come to the realization that they must “love one’s neighbor as oneself,” because everything that’s theirs depends on others. And later they will also attain the level of love for one’s neighbor, because others aren’t “neighbors” with regard to just finance or security, but in fact, we are connected by nature. Through the mutual guarantee (similar to the guarantee of a bank), people will attain the highest reward – the revelation of the Creator! Even Mr. Brown will be able to understand this.

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Economists Don’t Care About the Cause of the Financial Crisis

Economists Don't Care About the Cause of the Financial CrisisWhen I speak to economists about the crisis, I find that they and I are interested in different things. They are not interested in the cause of the crisis, and are willing to accept my explanation of it. What interests them is the evolution of the crisis, and what needs to be done here and now – by a bank or a family.

For now, my propositions that what needs to be corrected are the relationships between everyone – both organizations and people around the world, sound naïve to them, because they do not yet see the cause of the crisis – the lack of kind connections between people. These connections must come from the understanding that we are all part of one organism, and we can cure this organism only by mutually caring for all of its parts. That is the only way to solve this global problem and all the crises that are gradually becoming revealed in humanity today. They are being revealed because our egoistic development has brought us to the point where we are all united within a single organism.

With regard to the global crisis, the process has begun, but this is just the beginning. There is a lot to say about it, and we will talk about it much more in the future – its causes, progress, purpose, and possibilities of softening it – “the path of Light” that Kabbalah offers instead of “the path of suffering.”

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How Do You Get the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage Across the River? (How Do You Solve the Global Crisis?)

How Do You Get the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage Across the River? (How Do You Solve the Global Crisis?)A riddle about a wolf, a goat and a cabbage: how do you get them across a river on a boat, without any of them eating each other?

The boat is very small and can only carry one object at a time: either the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If you take the wolf, then you will have to leave the goat on shore alone with the cabbage, and the goat will eat the cabbage. And so on.

Due to the primitive egoism of the animals, this simple situation turns into a non-trivial problem for a person with strategic thinking. It seems like such a simple riddle, but you need so much time and energy in order to resolve it!

This is a wonderful illustration of how the modern civilization is built. The simplest problem in our world becomes a difficult riddle due to the same principle. For example, you need to transport something from one place to another. It seems very simple – let’s take a truck and transport it. But what if it’s money, gold or diamonds? Then you need an additional twenty people for security, special buildings, an armored car, weapons and advanced technology. This shows that all the connections inside the meta-system called “human society” are extremely inefficient. 99% of our efforts are spent on the friction inside the mechanism! The system resists any altruistic action inside of it.

Caravans with food for dying people are robbed. Money intended for the poorest countries is stolen on the way there, and so on.

Nonetheless, until recently even the remaining 1% was enough for humanity to keep developing. However, now we see that our civilization is on the verge of extinction. The entire multi-millennial structure has exhausted its margin of reserves and is ready to fall apart like a house of cards.

We’ve got a funny situation here: scientists from the entire world are working to create a car engine, a light bulb, and other products that will be more economic. But what are they doing it for, really? It is all done for the same reason – to satisfy people’s growing egoism. We can’t force people to drive less, so let’s at least give them a more economic engine.

Now imagine that we could slightly change a person’s consciousness and expand his conception of the world’s structure and his place in the universe. Then every person who needs to drive somewhere will ask himself, “How can I do this more economically? Perhaps I can take other people in the car with me, or take a bus?” He won’t think about saving on his personal gasoline, but about saving the global oil reserves that are shared by all humanity.

And it will be this way everywhere! Humanity has a tenfold margin of reserves across all parameters: fuel, food, health, and so on. However, fuel is being used up for pointless trips, almost nothing is being grown in the fields because it’s unprofitable under the free market economy; people are ill and dying because they kill each other using every available means, from thoughts to atomic bombs…

The term “System Crisis,” which is so popular today, means that the crisis is not really about oil or food production or demography. It is a crisis of our perception of who we are and what world we are living in. So let’s start by becoming aware of these vital issues. Then the difficult trip with the wolf, the goat and the cabbage will turn into an easy and pleasant journey!

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Can We Control Our Thoughts?

Can We Control Our Thoughts?A question I received: Is there a way of stopping the thoughts that constantly keep coming to us? Can we learn to control our thoughts?

My Answer: Of course! We often think about things that we don’t want to think about. We often attempt to restrain our thoughts, change them, and replace them with other thoughts. When we can’t do this, we feel weak and stupid, as if we’ve lost control over ourselves.

In reality our thoughts do not come to us “out of nowhere.” At first a desire arises in us, even if we don’t feel it. After this, a thought emerges from the desire. The desire brings about the thought. Hence we only think about the things we want: How can we acquire, hold on to, and develop the things we desire; or how can we put more distance between us and the things we don’t desire.

A thought cannot change a desire. It can only change the size of a desire, increasing or decreasing it. Similarly, we also can’t replace one thought with another.

Hence, we can only control our thoughts by controlling our desires. So the question really is: How can I change my desires? The answer is: through the environment – the group, the books, and the teacher!

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The Present Crisis Is a Crisis of People’s Trust in the Egoistic System of Relationships

The Present Crisis Is A Crisis of People's Trust in the Egoistic System of RelationshipsA question I received: Why do you keep insisting that the current financial crisis can only be solved by changing the relationships between people?

My Answer: This question has already been answered in a previous blog entry.

Moreover, economists are also saying that the reason for the stock market crisis is people’s loss of trust in banks and companies. After all, the rise and fall of stock prices depends on the rise and fall of people’s expectations of companies and banks.

In addition, people suspect that even in a time of crisis, companies are putting away considerable “revenue” for themselves. The managers of the banks and companies that went bankrupt knew about the upcoming bankruptcy, and they made sure to give themselves and their employees salary raises in order to “stock up” ahead of time. Hence, the present crisis (and there will be other crises as well) is a crisis of people’s trust in banks, businesses, and in the future as a whole. It’s a crisis of trust in the egoistic system of relationships and its ability to continue regulating our life.

This is why Kabbalah views this crisis and humanity’s general state as the beginning of the world’s correction. We must realize that we absolutely depend on one another, and that it is impossible to get rid of this dependence. We are like members of one family who share common joys and woes. We must create an atmosphere of “familial” trust and care on the entire planet – only then will the systematic global crisis subside.

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