Good Environment – 10.26.11

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

Prepare For The World Of Equal Distribution Of Income

Opinion: (Boaz Schwartz, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank in Israel, from globes.co.il): “’We should not underestimate strong social feelings, which we see in Israel and around the world, and which will have a big impact in the coming years. We must prepare for the world of a new social concept, equal distribution of income, and equal prices. There will be continuing pressure on companies in terms of determining prices, which will affect profitability. Countries that are not wise enough to make the appropriate changes will be in poor condition; their economy will suffer.’”

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The Financial Crisis Has Drained The World’s Strength

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2011, Sixth Edition): “The financial crisis has drained the world’s capacity for dealing with shocks. The frequency and severity of risks to global stability have amplified, while the ability of global governance systems to deal with them has not. These are the conclusions of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2011, launched [on 12 January 2011]…

“Global Risks 2011 concludes that three key clusters of risk are creating significant liabilities for the coming decade:

Macroeconomic risks: the global financial crisis was built on longer term structural weaknesses in the global economy. Macroeconomic imbalances, fiscal crises in the developed economies, massive unfunded social liabilities and weak financial markets form a complex nexus of economic risk.

The illegal economy: greater numbers of failed and fragile states, increasing levels of illicit trade, organized crime and corruption form a nexus of criminal risk. A networked world, governance failures and economic disparity create opportunities for illegality to flourish.

Resource limits to growth: the world faces hard limits at the most basic level in terms of water, food and energy. Rising populations and consumption and climate change drive this challenge, while interconnections between these issues make response difficult.

“‘Twentieth century systems are failing to manage 21st century risks; we need new networked systems to identify and address global risks before they become global crises,’ said Robert Greenhill, Managing Director and Chief Business Officer at the World Economic Forum.

“The interconnectedness and complexity of issues mean that unintended consequences abound, and traditional risk response mechanisms often simply shift risk to other stakeholders or parts of society.”

My Comment: Studies show that we exist in the new system of social relations. We are not able to understand this system, let alone manage it. But in this case, our future is unpredictable, and we do not know what to do every moment. That is why it’s better for us not to act at all until we learn this system.

However, during the time that elapsed since the beginning of the crisis (the Club of Rome became aware of it in the 1960s), we haven’t understood the nature of the changes in our world and society. We feel more and more like the blind in an unknown space. We lack the senses to understand the new network of relationships between different parts of the world and society.

We define this new system of relationships as global and interconnected, but we ourselves were not created in such a system and do not fit it internally. The reason is that we cannot understand the new world, let alone manage it. By inertia, we want to apply the laws of the old world to the new world.

The laws of the new world are the laws of mutual guarantee. They are known to us from Kabbalah. That is why it is revealed in our times. Until the world gets familiar with these laws, the crisis will go on….
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IMF Lacks The Resources To Tackle The Crisis

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from BBC News): “The IMF says it will take decisive action to tackle the eurozone debt crisis and support the global economy.

“However, the communique, issued during a meeting between G20 finance ministers, the IMF and the World Bank, did not give specifics on whether extra funds would be available to the global fund.

“‘Advanced economies will ensure that banks have strong capital positions and access to adequate funding,’ said the communique.”

My Comment: If financiers and economists understood that nature prepared the only option—the economy of reasonable consumption, they would only have to bring their economic and financial systems in compliance with this requirement of our evolution. However, since they do not know and do not wish to know that yet, their attempts to act using old methods will cost us a lot of unnecessary suffering.
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Plastic Can Be Destroyed

In the News (From CNN Articles): “The Yale students had discovered that Pestalotiopsis microspora fungus can break down plastic. It’s a species of fungi that can be found in many regions of the world and can decompose polyurethane, a common plastic that is used to make things like insulation, synthetic fibers, plastic for electronics and sealants.

“Scott Strobel, the Yale biochemistry professor who instructed Anand and Russell during these experiments, says because of this discovery, the future looks promising for all types of plastic pollution. He says fungi’s potential to break down man-made materials could be endless, along with its possibilities in medicine and other fields of science.”
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The Builders Of New Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that the masses have to sit and study, but do you take into account that the masses are not able to learn anything at all?

Answer: In Europe, as well as in the USA, the middle class will be eliminated in the near future. They are intelligent and educated people, still young, so they will become the most active builders of a new society of mutual guarantee.

They are able to grasp the true meaning of what is happening with the development of human society, its movement towards unity (globality and integrality), and the solution to all problems: our compliance with this law of social development.
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From Grades To Values

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Recently I took part in a conference which among other things discussed the alternative to the current system of graded matriculation exams. The previous methods are outdated, but still, don’t students have to be evaluated somehow?

Answer: Let’s get right down to the essence of the problem. The only thing we want from a person is for him to be able to correct his soul. This is why people are born and why they live, and if they don’t achieve this, they continue in the next life cycle. Therefore, a child’s recommendations or record should be written only from this standpoint.

What’s really important is not what grades a child receives in physics, chemistry, history, biology, and other subjects. Maybe he’s not very quick on the uptake in these subjects, or maybe he has the qualities needed to be a circus performer. Some people are drawn to music but aren’t very good at math.

Yet we put children into a classroom and stuff them all with the same material instead of developing their uniqueness and individuality. We place everyone under one standard, pack them into one stencil, and the press of the education system churns them out without any analysis.

This system was necessary 100-200 years ago to reforge simple farmers into factory workers. But today we are entering a new era. Production and agriculture will require just a few percent of all humanity. We will divide this burden between us, but mainly we will focus on the inner work. The time has finally come to develop man as an individual, to enrich his inner world. The level of attainment in various “external” subjects cannot be a criterion here. We are all different and this approach is simply incorrect.

As for the grading system, it has discredited itself completely. It forces a person to make bitter pittances, “Here’s what you need. Take it, choke on it, and leave me be!” After all, it’s not me developing, but others forcing me to demonstrate my knowledge orally and in writing.

A person’s formation cannot be approached by the common standards. It requires an individual approach. Therefore, the main subject should be the development of the individual: an understanding of life and interpersonal relationships. Who am I? What kind of world am I living in?

A person has to find out about this through conversations and discussions. His eyes have to be opened, showing him the pieces of the general puzzle and explaining their essence. It’s time to stop sitting children down with textbooks that give them knowledge but not understanding. This completely stupefies and disorients them. In the future people won’t be able to tear themselves away from the TV and will continue to live as if under hypnosis. Maybe this would be good for the authorities, but at the end of the day, there is nothing good about this.

Thus, grades have to be revoked. Every instructor and educator will provide his own response about a student. Classes will turn into groups and will take a joint path of study, unification, mutual activities, and most important, upbringing. A person should not be worried about grades, but on the contrary, if you have prepared him, then he checks himself by the right values, understands what he wants in life, what he belongs to, what he is capable of, what he can enjoy and how he can make others enjoy.

Then he will choose a profession that he is drawn to and in which he will be successful. After all, you teach and raise him ahead of time. You take him on trips to different places and show him life in its diversity and unity. During the school years he can already try his hand at different things and find his calling.

In the past people started learning a profession from childhood and learning from the adults’ experience. There has to be personal contact with professional instructors, rather than the formal relationships that exist today.

When people learn to find a profession that suits their personality, the number of people entering universities will decrease, and the universities will change as well. Today many people choose an academic profession by mistake or out of necessity, and then they suffer their whole lives. The education system has to give people more freedom. We are being destroyed by dry grades and study programs that are not adapted to modernity. From childhood they pressure people and limit their development.

Yet a person has to develop towards society and the environment, transitioning from self-evaluation and self-analysis to an analysis of the world. By harmoniously entering the world and society, he will feel that he is an absolutely integral part of it. This is the correct result of upbringing. A person will simply feel, “I am responsible for the world and the world is mine!” He will feel good in the world and the world will also recognize and value his contribution.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Creation Starts Here And Now

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”: “…a great rule in the Torah” … the verse of “Love thy friend as thyself.” It is difficult to understand how such a statement can contain the sum-total of all the Torah? At most it can be the rule (the collective) of the part of the Torah and texts that relate to the relationships between man and man. But how can you include the greater part of the Torah, which concerns work between man and God in the verse, “Love thy friend as thyself”?

We do not know how to use this principle. Everyone is sure that they love their neighbors. As for specialists in the humanities—philosophers, political scientists, social scientists, and psychologists—they also reason about love for the neighbor as if it were easy to implement.

In general, the notion of “love” only confuses people. They cannot separate it from the natural, instinctive, hormonal attraction that is inherent to the animate and even vegetative kingdoms. In man, who has an evil inclination, this attraction acquires even greater scope, yet it still bears no relation to real love.

“Loving the neighbor” means fulfilling his desire while not receiving any direct or indirect benefit from that. It is aimed entirely at the well-being of the neighbor, while I am like an external part of the universe, a “tube” coming out of a power station that generates all the pleasures. This tube is not part of the action in any way. It does not need anything for itself. It is just a conductor.

But how can I become such a selfless conductor if I am entirely imbued by feelings, if I want to enjoy myself? After all, unlike a tube, I have my own life.

Moreover, I am told that this rule is “the general principle of the Torah.” That is, there is nothing but this principle in the Torah. Yet the Torah describes the most diverse areas of life. Could it really be that they are all connected to the neighbor?

If so, then how can I bring all of the facets of my reality, including my relationship with the Creator, into my relationships with other people? Won’t I be narrowing things down too much? How can the entire world with all of its diversity be squeezed into several psychological models?

Question: So how is it possible to love the neighbor in the modern, global world?

Answer: In reality, there is no means in our world that could allow us to correct our egoism. Only the Light that reforms is capable of that.

After all, only the Light and the vessel exist in reality. The force of bestowal (“existence from existence”) created a point of reception (“existence from absence”), and there is nothing else besides them.

Next, the force of bestowal influences the force of reception, leading it to altruistic actions until these two forces become equal to one another: the force of bestowal gives, while the force of reception receives in order to give. In the end, they end up in unity and adhesion.

But that is not enough because the state of Malchut of infinity was created by the upper one. It was simply “lowered down” to creation. The desire that was created by the Light received the “full package” from it, including the altruistic intention, and it lives to its content in union like a “dummy.” Having emerged from absence, it cannot make any independent action and it looks into the mouth of the giver: “Do you want altruism? Go ahead. Do you want egoism? Go ahead. You can have anything you wish.” That is how the matter of creation is built.

But in that case, it cannot be called a full-fledged creation. After all, the Light performed all the actions to it. So who is unified with the Creator in the end? For now—no one. An independent being did not emerge yet. So how can it be formed?

For that the receiving desire has to be brought to total opposition to the Creator in every regard, and then it has to be given the opportunities and the means to attain itself separate from bestowal and to acquire the forces for correction. A very great preparation is necessary to make creation, and it begins precisely here, from our world. This is why the spiritual worlds descended and why the material development unfolded until the earthly evolution brought us to modernity. And now, we are starting to gradually gain awareness of ourselves and our state.

This is the source of self-awareness, whose criterion is the Light, the Creator, the human society that is already demonstrating its global, integral facets. This causes you to experience discomfort: “Something here isn’t right. Something doesn’t make sense.” That is how the realization of evil emerges, opening up the path to correction before us.

We won’t understand what is happening and what we are facing right away. Humanity is only stepping onto this path. However, this also does not involve anything more than a combination of two forces: reception and bestowal. Within their mixture we must always look for the operating mechanisms. Like inter-atomic actions, they will show us what kind of unity is possible at this stage and which qualities are inherent to it.

You are learning to connect two forces and you must always reach the right formula of their balance. If you attain balance, it means you are on the right path and you are forming yourself in the right line. In reality, all of the scientific formulas describe equivalence of form. That is what we study and attain in nature: similarity and balance of all of its parts.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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How To Draw The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person balance the upper governance in reward and punishment?

Answer: A person can’t do anything by himself. One can only give the Light the best opportunities to be influenced by it. The upper Light is in concealment. In order to invoke its influence upon ourselves, we have to conform to it in the best way possible, meaning to unite between ourselves as much as possible.

The more strongly we get connected with heart, soul, mind, desire, thoughts, and inner intentions into one whole, by that we awaken the upper Light, obliging it to be revealed inside of us and take care of us. Apart from that, we can’t do anything. This is our only action that prepares us for correction, and the actual correction is done by the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Man Is Always In The Middle

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I not forget at the end of each day that everything comes from the Creator?

Answer: At first, such an understanding needs to be acquired by force: with your own efforts and with the help from the group, by reading appropriate quotes and constantly reminding yourself about it.

And then the real changes come, which produce the Light that Reforms. Then the person enters into a permanent state and realizes that everything is guided from Above: The Creator is the first and He is the last, while man is in the middle and only ties the beginning to the end.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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