Climbing The Degrees Of Spiritual Worlds

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Are the mother’s love for her children and the love between husband and wife egoistic?

Answer: This love is not considered egoistic. All our desires are divided into the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels (1,2,3,4). The desires of the animate level that arise in a person are similar to the desires of animals, only they are more developed. These include the mother’s desires in relation to her child or the desires that appear between spouses.

The mother’s instinctive attitude to her children is not egoistic. Nature forces a human being (a mother) to behave in this way to satisfy the desire of another person (child). On the other hand, the ego is the desire to enjoy at the expense of a fellow human being, that is, it’s when I want to feel good at someone else’s expense. Even the fact that someone is in a bad situation can give me pleasure.

This kind of pleasures could be divided into many levels. For example, I can get pleasure from turning the other into my slave. Also, pleasure exists in the possibility of harming him, humiliating him, and causing him suffering. Pleasures from the exploitation of others, rather than from a natural desire to enjoy, is considered egoistic.

My desire to get pleasure from tasty food, from communicating with my children, or from something in life that does not harm anybody is not considered egoism. Egoistic actions are aimed at using others for personal gain.

We reveal our true (spiritual) ego at the “human” level when we come to the group. Then, we start feeling a special hostility to each other and put a wall between ourselves.

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To the extent that we want to become closer to each other, to study together, to have common meals, and unite in order to reach the property of bestowal, to that extent we feel an even greater hatred towards one another, aversion, and reluctance to connect. Our ego manifests at this particular moment. It is not present in common people; only those who want to connect to reach spirituality have it. These people find out that they cannot do anything with it. Why? It is so that they later develop a need for the upper force.

Where does this force come from? It is present initially in a perfect system and disappears (becomes concealed) after (as a result of) its breaking. This force exists but hides inside. If I try to unite with my friends and will not be able to, my level of egoism will be revealed to me more and more (to a certain extent). It will be my first spiritual degree, the first 1/125th of the total ascent.

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I am working on this for months, until I reach the state which I will not be able to overcome myself. Then, I will develop the need for the Light which used to fill us and now is hidden inside, and I will want it to come, to become revealed, and to connect us together.

This requirement frees the first spiritual degree for me: I, my friend, and the upper Light between us. Afterward, my goal will be to reach the next degree, where the ego will grow even more and hatred that I didn’t know existed will break out.

I will be irritated and repelled by small things in my friend. Together, we will have to work hard and will ascend to the second of 125 degrees, and in this way until the end of correction.
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From Lesson 1, Convention in Spain, 6/3/2011

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2 Comments

  1. This is clear thanks for clarifying.

  2. I agree, this is a very clear explanation! 🙂

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