In the News (from The Financial Times): “Germany warns on global inflation after crisis” The world could face high inflation and a “crisis after the crisis” when the global economy recovers, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, has warned. “I am concerned that the counter measures we are seeing around the world, financed by enormous amounts of debts, could be paving the road to the next crisis,” Mr Steinbrück told Bild, a tabloid daily.

My Comment: The crises will continue until we discover their real cause, which is not paper money, but our relationships. We have to correct ourselves. The question is: Will we do this before a world war or after?

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Don’t Have to Prolong This Crisis
Laitman.com Post: Unity Is the Method of Coming Out of the Crisis
Laitman.com Post: Our Future Depends On What We Do With the Present

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →

I had an interview in New York with Caroline Adams Miller, a Certified Professional Coach, author, media personality, keynote speaker & teacher.

Ms. Miller is an internationally-known coach, author and speaker on the topic of goal accomplishment, its connection with happiness and how it can be applied to one’s life for maximum transformation and growth.

For over two decades, she has focused her work in the areas of change and goal accomplishment, has appeared on dozens of global television and radio programs, and was featured in American and international magazines and newspapers.

She works with groups and individuals all over the world, and her “Positive Tip of the Day” has been broadcast on XM Radio’s Channel 155 since 2007.

Filed under: Notices - No Comments →

A question I received: You claim that our souls determine the state of the world, which presumes that we have great wisdom and experience. On the other hand, you say that we are like animals and that there’s nothing left of us after our bodies die. What does that say about our wise soul which determines its future incarnations?

My Answer: The soul is the property of bestowal. If you have acquired this quality through the study of Kabbalah in this life, then you have a soul, and you feel your eternal existence through it. But if you haven’t acquired it, you will have to return to this world to do it.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Why Did God Create Death?
Laitman.com Post: Freedom from the Angel of Death
A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: 11. Body and Soul.”Recycle until You’re Ripe and Ready”
Article: “Soul as a System in the Model of the Universe”

Filed under: Spirituality - 1 Comment →

At the end of his new book, economist Paul Krugman writes:

“One can safely claim that the role of today’s ‘capitalism,’ regardless of what one might call it, as the optimal method of combining individual freedoms, democracy, security, social and economic human rights, economic efficiency and social justice – must be reanalyzed as to the extent in which this system lies at the very foundation of our problems.”

Paul Robin Krugman – American economist and political writer. Holds a PhD from MIT, currently a professor at Princeton University. Awarded a John Bates Clark medal. He is a famous columnist for The New York Times and a laureate of the Adam Smith (1995), Recktenwald (2000) and Prince of Asturias (2004) awards. Honorary member of the Muenchen Economic Research Center (1997) and Group of Thirty. Awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008 for his analysis of the trade theory and problems of economic geography.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Time of Capitalism Is Over
Laitman.com Post: How Will the Society of the Future Begin?
Laitman.com Post: Nature Will Soon Force Us to Happiness
Laitman.com Post: The World Is Round

Filed under: Economy - No Comments →

Recently, while in New York, I had a meeting with DJ Moby – a popular DJ, singer, musician and composer.

Richard Melville Hall, (born on September 11, 1965), a.k.a. Moby – was born in Harlem, New York, and raised by his mother in Darien, Connecticut.

According to Hall, his middle name and the nickname “Moby” were given to him by his parents because of an ancestral relationship to Moby Dick author Herman Melville: “The basis for Richard Melville Hall – and for Moby – is that supposedly Herman Melville was my great-great-great-granduncle.”

He plays keyboards, guitar, bass guitar and percussion, working in many styles – from electronics to pop, rock and punk. He is a solo artist, recording most of his albums himself, with his band accompanying him only for live concerts.

Having taken 8 singles into the UK Top 40 in 1990’s, he recorded “Play” – an album that sold more than 10 million copies worldwide in 1999 and won him the 341st slot in the list of greatest albums of all time compiled by Rolling Stone magazine. His later albums, “18” (2002), “Hotel” (2005) and “Last Night” (2008) sold more than 6 million copies and won gold and platinum status in over 30 countries.

Filed under: Notices - No Comments →

In the News (from Science News): “Ants Do Real Estate the Simple Way” After a series of lab tests, Elva Robinson of the University of Bristol in England and her colleagues propose that individual ants aren’t directly comparing one possible site with another, as had been proposed before. When ants visit a nest, Robinson suggests, “they simply have to decide whether it’s good enough.” If it is, they return to recruit another scout to come take a look. If the nest site isn’t good, the individual scout keeps looking. When enough scouts encounter each other at a site, that’s the decision point. The scouts have achieved a quorum and it’s time to start moving in.

My Comment: Unfortunately, with people everything is so much more difficult and deceitful.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: We Can’t Unite, But We Must
Laitman.com Post: Humanity Is Like Fish Caught In Nature’s Net
Interview with the Future: “The Recognition of Evil”
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: “Eradicating Egoism”

Filed under: Science - No Comments →

I recently had a meeting with Mark Jacobson, a writer and journalist who lives in Brooklyn.

Mark is best known for his investigation of the not-so-pretty side of city life in America as well as life outside the cities, and for his unique and ingenious view of popular culture. Mark writes for New York Magazine and is a frequent contributor to Village Voice, National Geographic, Natural History Magazine, Men’s Journal and other large-scale publications.

Mark has written a few articles on crime gangs. In the year 2000, he wrote a short biography on Frank Lucas, “the biggest heroin kingpin in history,” which later went on to become the basis for Ridley Scott’s American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crow.

Filed under: Notices - No Comments →

In the News (from Northwestern University): “Financial Risk Taking: Blame It On the Genes!” A new Northwestern University study links specific variants of two genes that regulate dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission to risk-taking in financial investment decisions.

In the News (from Nature Precedings): Ethnic populations representing areas throughout California were compared regarding cognitive ability, socioeconomic position, and mortality. Cognition and socioeconomic position were inversely correlated with mortality.

My Comment: One finds freedom only by attaining a new level – the level of bestowal and love. There is no freedom on the egoistic level, where everything is defined by our natural egoism. Freedom begins with attaining the quality opposite to egoism, and then finding an intelligent balance – the middle line – between this quality and the egoistic quality.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: For the First Time In History, We Have the Conditions to Realize Our Freedom of Will
Laitman.com Post: The Only Point of Freedom Is Your Reaction to the Creator
Kabbalah Today Article: The Freedom Blues

Filed under: Free Will - No Comments →

In the News (from CNN ): “Kerry: newspapers an ‘endangered species’” Sen. John Kerry said that newspapers are “becoming an endangered species” as more people turn to the “power, efficiency and technological elegance” of Internet news.

In the News (from Yahoo News): “No bailout for newspaper industry“ White House spokesman Robert Gibbs: US newspapers have been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online. The Senate subcommittee on communications, technology, and the Internet announced plans meanwhile to hold a hearing on “The Future of Journalism.”

My Comment: There’s no doubt that all information will soon be “online,” because the egoism that is now developing is “virtual.” Therefore, it’s pointless to resist these changes.

However, the content of the new type of information will have to answer the new types of desires that people have, because people’s egoism is becoming global and integral. And this can only be accomplished by understanding the system of our new relationships. Those who understand this will eventually come out on top.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Newspaper Publishing Is No Longer Profitable
Laitman.com Post: Why More People Trust Online News
Laitman.com Post: From Our World, to the Virtual World, to the Upper World

Filed under: News - No Comments →

In the News (from The US Department of Labor): “Employment Situation Summary” Non farm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector industries.

My Comment: Yet we are told that the crisis is over, that we have already passed the bottom and are recovering…

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: America Will Be Blamed for Everyone’s Suffering
Laitman.com Post: Stanley Fischer Is Gloomy About the Future of the Global Economy
Laitman.com Post: What’s Good About the Crisis?

Filed under: Crisis - No Comments →