Question: Suppose that parents organize a club for their children where they arrange discussions. But in this group two of the youths are troubled children who are deeply depressed that could infect the others. What should be done about that?

Answer: If the communication between the youths takes place naturally, then it’s necessary for them to relax through soulful songs around a campfire so that they will not be closed within themselves and will begin the conversation from a distance. What can be good for a person in life and what can be bad? Our nature seeks only good. But if we are locked in, eating ourselves up, are we having fun? So why don’t we escape from this?

What is this force that exists in me that puts me into a state of despair, darkness, and emptiness all the time? Could it be that this is the thing that I must struggle with somehow? And if I do struggle, I will discover such forces within me that act in opposition and that will raise me to particular heights in art, literature, science, sports and so forth. So it’s necessary to accept, with a blessing, everything that there is in a person, even the most depressed state that basically pushes a person towards the good, but only when this doesn’t lock the person inside himself like a cocoon.

On the contrary, a state of dissatisfaction pushes us forward, so it’s necessary to make it creative. And this is possible only with the help of the environment, where one person pushes forward and the other pulls backward, and between them a mutual movement appears. They check each other, inspecting the general movement between them etc. In other words, it’s necessary to support depressed children so that their condition can be creative.

Lots of famous writers, composers, and scientists experienced depression, and in order to get out of it, they engaged in creating. This was a cure for them, a salvation. They gave humanity creative gifts of classical masterpieces precisely thanks to their success at rising above their depression and using it in the right way.

How can we creatively use despair, difficulties, disappointments, and depression that are so widespread in the world today that result in neglect and disregard for everything? After all, from these states the next human, social, political, and national condition will be born.

Therefore, it’s forbidden to cast these states to the side and to consider them as something that is not good. On the contrary, it’s necessary to yearn to transform their strong, negative energy into something positive.
[132374]
From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13

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Question: Suppose that I brought my child to a group in which seven out of ten children are depressed. Don’t I need to worry that their state will pass on to others?

Answer: No! It’s necessary to try to separate them from themselves immediately. “Friends, come, let’s talk about what is happening with us, from the side. This is me, a human being. And this is my body. Within the body, there are all kinds of forces, moods, and views.

“And what if I would get out of my body and take a look at it from the side, as though I have assembled myself differently? Let’s imagine ourselves in another form, as we rise above ourselves. Is it possible to achieve this?

“Was I created in such a form that I cannot be disengaged from myself? Or does there exist some kind of gap between the inner self and the external self where I can gradually begin to learn about myself from the side?” Regular psychological training like this makes it possible for a person to see that this is not himself but a particular external intention of the environment that surrounds him.

Could it be that the child simply read a lot of novels or saw television programs that awakened a sense of hopelessness? Even 100 to 150 years ago something called noble detachment was in fashion: “a hero of our times,” and so forth. In world literature, particularly in Russian literature, many books were dedicated to a search derived from inner darkness.

And it could be that he simply brags and boasts about this state, showing: “Look how I am! What attracts you doesn’t interest me!” So it’s necessary to check the origins from where depression in children is derived.
[132377]
From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13

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Preparation for the Lesson

Shamati #159 “And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days”

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Parashat,” “BeShalach“

Writings of Rabash “Dargot HaSulam” Article 921

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Opinion (Marc Faber, Swiss investor): “Marc Faber says the stock market is setting up for a decline more painful than the sudden crash of 1987.

“‘I think it’s very likely that we’re seeing, in the next 12 months, an ’87-type of crash,’ Faber said … ‘And I suspect it will be even worse.’

“Faber, the editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, has recently called for growth stocks to decline. And he says the pain in the Internet and biotech sectors is just getting started.

“‘I think there are some groups of stocks that are highly vulnerable because they’re in cuckoo land in terms of valuations,’ Faber said. ‘They have no earnings. They’re valued at price-to-sales. And this is not a good metric in the long run.’

“But it’s not just momentum stocks that Faber is wary of. He says that investors are coming to a stark realization.

“‘I believe that the market is slowly waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve is a clueless organization,’ Faber said. ‘They have no idea what they’re doing. And so the confidence level of investors is diminishing, in my view.’

“As investors adjust to this fact, and valuations shrink, he predicts a massive decline in the market.”

My Comment: Ahead of us there are more surprising, abrupt, and painful crashes of illusions, funds, and states—in general, of the world order. It will go on until together, we begin to solve the global problem of humanity: its transition to a new stage of its development, meaning until we wish to become integrally interconnected, not involuntarily, through markets, but on our own accord.
[132804]

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Question: What is a bad environment?

Answer: A bad environment brings me to not wanting to be connected with everyone with good ties. A bad environment is an environment that molds a hostile relationship towards society.

A good environment directs me such that I want to fundamentally change the worst society into a society of brothers.
[132372]
From Kab TV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13

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Question: What should I do if it is difficult for me to talk to people, and I don’t know how to convey the method of connection to a person with whom I am talking?

Answer: There cannot be any difficulties because we explain to people how it is possible to get out of the crisis. If such problems didn’t exist in the world, we wouldn’t have the possibility of approaching them. However, from day to day, the world is sinking into greater and greater problems and chaos with formidable speed. Nobody knows what will happen today or tomorrow.

In a situation like this we simply must go out to the world and tell them why this is happening. This is indeed being done deliberately by nature that presses upon us. We are constantly developing under its pressure, and even now, it presses upon us so that we will continue with our development.

This time however, our development shouldn’t happen through all kinds of wars. Against whom can we fight today if all of us are in the same trouble? Nothing will help if we begin to fight each other, for we have nothing to conquer. You want to live in some nation?Go ahead, do it!

Problems that humanity experiences today cannot be solved in an earthly way. We don’t have the tools with which it is possible to correct the situation. This is because we have already used all the means that exist in this world, but we still feel bad. Humanity got confused: if we start a revolution against someone, then we are harming ourselves.

Revolutions don’t help, but only destroy nations as we see from the example of the latest events in the Ukraine or the consequences of the Arab Spring, a wave of turmoil that has passed through the Arab world. We don’t have the tools to benefit our situation. Nature obligates us to move from external actions to internal actions and to change ourselves.

This is precisely what we need to explain and publicize to everyone. Leaving the crisis is possible only through an internal revolution within the person, not through external upheavals. This is our message with which we go out to people. We have a method for changing a person through which he not only attains a serene life in this world, but discovers a completely new, eternal, complete dimension in addition to the one in which he now lives.

This addition will be so meaningful that he, so to speak, will disconnect from this material life and will live entirely in the spiritual world without feeling the life and death of his physical body. He will rise above it in a feeling of eternal existence.

We have to reach a state like this, and obviously, on the way we will solve all the problems, remove all doubts, and answer all questions. This is the only method that makes it possible to leave the crisis that will only expand more and more. I hope everyone will understand as quickly as possible that this is the only way.
[132549]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/14, Talk About Dissemination: Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: If we want to take an example from Abraham, what must we talk about with people?

Answer: Suppose that we organize an institute called “Abraham,” after the name of the approach and the idea, and we begin to disseminate this philosophy, this perception, and goal of life on its behalf. So we must gather a sufficient amount of people to come out of the current modern Babylon just as they came out from ancient Babylon. This means that it’s necessary to reach a particular strength among that part which is detached from the ego and then rise upward.

We require a power that will take us upward. If I have a small balloon filled with helium, it can’t lift me. But if I take a large balloon with a diameter of twenty meters, then it will.

Question: When meeting with people, how do we do this so that this helium balloon will lift their point in the heart?

Answer: It’s simply necessary to publicize this idea among everyone, as Abraham did in his time. Through this, we attract people and they will begin to wake up and to learn from us. There is no obligation for everyone to agree with us. They come, try it—some of them leave and some of them stay.

Question: Is this active or passive dissemination?

Answer: It seems that Abraham disseminated his idea actively since Nimrod, the king of Babylon at that time, expelled him from the city since he couldn’t agree with Abraham.
[132553]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/14, Talk About Dissemination: Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: If we yearn for the Creator and want to discover Him, why is it so important to go out and work on the unity of the whole nation?

Answer: It is our duty since whoever belongs to the corporeal nation of Israel has sparks from the spiritual levels that he attained in the past. We have been through the exile in Egypt, we have built two Temples, the first and the second, and we were in contact with the Creator.

So these sparks exist and we need them in order to attain the power needed to breakthrough upwards. Abraham couldn’t come out of Babel by himself. He needed to take people with him in order to fulfill the goal of creation. The goal is fulfilled among people, and therefore we need a great power. 

What is the quantity of sparks that we need? What general power do we need in order to exit the ego and to start feeling the influence of the upper force? I cannot say. We are going to perform a totally new action that has never been performed before.

It says that there should be 600,000 souls, but we don’t know what it means. It can be a thousand, a hundred thousand, 600,000, or 6 million people. It is impossible to know now what the number of the people should be since 600,000 is a power that exists on the level of Arich Anpin, in greatness that we need to awaken.
[132558]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/14 Talk About Dissemination: Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Question: How does the descent called the Shaar haTuma (Gates of Impurity) come to be expressed?

Answer: Everything depends upon what we think is a descent. In the beginning, at the first gate of impurity, I simply see that I have no power, I don’t want to do anything, and I have lost the taste for life.

Whereas at the 10th or 15th gate, I lose the desire to learn, to be connected with the friends, to carry out acts of bestowal, and to be involved in dissemination; I lose faith in what is written in the books of the Kabbalists. I simply want to lie down and get away from everything or get drunk and pass the time idly.

Yet together with this, I begin to understand that these are not my states; rather they come from some external source. They pass me through them intentionally so that I will consolidate my relationship to the Source, to the Creator and to what He does.

So I say to Him, “Do what you want! You can create darkness around me—even this is good! When it’s dark I don’t want anything, and this is better than chasing after pleasures. But together with this, give me the possibility of being aware of you, the one who creates this darkness for me.”

It means that the Creator makes the heart of Pharaoh heavy. Here I begin to differentiate between my desire, the condition that is felt with it, and the Creator who arranges all this for me. This is already an internal separation, a crossroad.

That is how we continue to work and the darkness doesn’t dissipate. On the contrary, we pass through the 49 gates of impurity and arrive in the darkness of Egypt. Yet thanks to the exodus from Egypt, the darkness stops being darkness. We change our relationship to darkness.

Indeed, we are found in the same condition all the time, changes only our perception of it. It’s as if I put on other glasses and see the state differently, advancing further, whereas the state itself hasn’t changed. We are immersed in the Light of Infinity. 

However, one starting point is given to us in order to feel the world that we see now within the Light of Infinity. And the changes depend upon what I think is good and bad. Indeed our substance is the desire to receive and it’s up to us to decide what is good or bad in relation to it.

If we change the perception of reality, our relationship to it, then the whole world is different. What was hated becomes loved. Imagine that a big man clothed in a white robe approaches a little child, takes out a menacing syringe, and gives him a painful injection. How must the child relate to his actions?

But when we grow up, we understand that the monster in white is not a cruel demon, but a doctor who must give me an injection and it’s for my own good. This is unpleasant, but must be tolerated.

Reality is unchanged, it is complete; we must change. In our day this is what the world has to understand. The changes that result from the inner development of the ego are over. We have developed our ego to the end. It has reached its maximum point and doesn’t have anywhere else to develop in the physical world.

We have reached the limit beyond which we have to begin to change our relationship. So we are found at a very unique point: The ego has nowhere to develop, on the opposite, it begins to deteriorate and bring us down. Indeed, it wants nothing more from life. So if we want to advance, this is possible only with the desire to bestow.
[132385]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/09/14, Shamati #54

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