Question: Is it possible to succeed without competition?

Answer: Positive competition and positive envy are always useful: “See how they succeed and I don’t!” Athletes feel this kind of competition in our world and it spurs them to greater achievements.

When we acquire the upper forces envy motivates us to become better, greater, and to mutually cooperate with others in order to expand our soul by connecting with others, to succeed in expanding yourself as much as possible, to be under the influence of the Upper Light and to resemble it. This is very useful competition. It says: “The envy of sages increases wisdom.”

Question: Which desire is more natural to a modern athlete, that his rival would break a leg or that he himself would achieve better results?

Answer: Of course he wants his rivals to break a leg and that he wouldn’t have to race anyone. After all, the ego will not move if it doesn’t have a motive that it finds worthwhile to act for. It has to focus on a certain goal and then chase it.

But today because man is very egoistic and has already tried to achieve many goals; it is very hard to move him from his place. It is possible only under the influence of the environment that can convince him not to sit in his armchair! Otherwise, he will not make any unnecessary movement: couch, TV, TV series, and that’s all.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15

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Question: So far, I cannot say that I have been studying Kabbalah. I listen to your radio program, watch TV and movies. I just can’t get an answer to one question. In your book, Kabbalah for Beginners, you wrote that the process of studying Kabbalah is about reading the sources, contemplation, and group participation…

What exactly will raise us to the Creator? How will the worlds be divulged to a human being? Will it happen through reading, thinking, and interacting? Are there practices that teach contemplation, prayers, dreams interpretation? Is it possible to instigate or change certain desires in us?

Answer: The attainment of the upper world occurs in developing our property of bestowal. Inside this property, we will be able to sense the superior nature “of giving and loving.” In order to develop such a property, we need to join a group (preferably 10 people) and work on building these kinds of relationships among us. The entire Kabbalah and the Torah in general speak only about this process!
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Twelve tribes positioned in a specific order around the Tabernacle of Revelation, each under its banner, represent the properties of a single Kli (vessel) near which all the members of the camp led by Moses gathered.

Question: Was this form first acquired by Abraham’s group once they left Babylon?

Answer: Abraham is the starting point from which the method of correction of egoism associated with the human degree in ancient Babylon was launched.

Adam was the first one who ever revealed egoism; Noah was next. Their non-egoistic cognition emerged as the first and second levels. The third and fourth levels belong to a selfish part of the soul, to the thickness of egoism.

The Creator corrected Adam by granting him a garment (clothing); as to Noah, he hid all earthly egoistic properties in the “cocoon” of the Ark, whereas in Babylon a Tower was built that reached the skies. It symbolized a genuine human selfishness, a lack of mutual understanding between people.

They really had something to rise above and to correct. At this point, Abraham revealed the methodology of correction of egoism and began implementing it.

Question: Can we say that Abraham called everybody to unite so that they would regain a sense of a common family?

Answer: No. There was no place to return to because Abraham’s followers were extremely diverse. They came from different Babylonian tribes that were completely estranged throughout the lifespan of several generations and reached the degree of a complete internal detachment.

They totally rejected the idea of unity! The only thing they managed to achieve was erecting the seven-layered Tower of Babel. This meant that their egoism was ready to move forward at all seven levels, to reach the Heavens and find out where the Creator was hidden.

The Tower reflected the Babylonians’ most serious internal aspiration in their search of the purpose in life. After all, at some point they lived, one might say, in a communist society, as one people, as fellow-mates.

Previously, there was no tension among them. Before their egoism exploded, everything was just fine, quiet, and calm. All of a sudden they began to seek superiority over teach other; then everything collapsed because they strived to attain the Creator selfishly.

Babylonians tried to embody all their knowledge of the higher power in the construction of the Tower. It was their understanding of how to reach the Creator. The Tower was a sacrificial place where all sorts of magicians and fortune-tellers could be found. Various kinds of manipulations that are still very popular and widespread even today were conducted there: spells, divination cards, amulets, red strings; everything was in vogue.

However, they lacked the most important thing—the desire to reveal the Creator. This is was their undoing.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14

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Question: In its time, the Soviet Union was an attempt to build a communist society, a society of equal opportunity. Why didn’t humanity learn anything from this? Why did it turn into such a tragedy?

Answer: I would not say that what they wanted to build in the Soviet Union was communism. It was a dictatorship. The Russian empire was a feudal society in which the population was predominantly ignorant; the peasants were confined to their land.

However, in his writings, Marx indicated that prior to building communism, we must pass through particular social developments. After all, a communist society, first and foremost, is a society in which everyone has a consciousness in which everyone is connected as one family above their ego, and each one feels himself to be a part of the others. This requires a person to have a full understanding of his nature and the goal toward which we must reach.

The modern person is the antithesis of the future society. He is completely against connection with others. He wants to think and be concerned only about himself. He has himself and his family, and all the rest doesn’t matter to him at all, and suddenly they say to him, “You must understand and perceive that you are a single, whole unit with everyone!” That is, he needs to understand that according to the law of nature we must reach a state where we are one family and even more, because this family is still only a physical connection between people, whereas here it is talking about our inner connection, not on a physical level, but on a level of internal consolidation in which each one feels “we,” but not “I.”

We are like a single, complete whole. In other words, this requires an inner transformation of the person and his worldview, which is impossible to implement in a short period of time, neither by force nor through persuasion. It requires a long process of education. We know that the right education for a child requires a minimum of 25 years from birth until going out to meet life. What kind of education is it possible to talk about in Russia, when communism was apparently inserted by violent methods, through revolution, through a civil struggle between different strata of the population? In the end, everything turned into terror, terrible power, and counter-revolution. There was no socialism or communism there.

Question: However, for the first revolutionaries, there were pure thoughts and high ideals.

Answer: Without a doubt, people were ready to sacrifice themselves. While I was still a student in Leningrad, I rented a room from an old woman, a revolutionary. She told me how she stood and shivered in the bitter cold, distributing cookies to soldiers who were going to the front, and, even though she herself was hungry, she didn’t have even a thought about taking a cookie for herself. People didn’t think about themselves, their ideal was the revolution that later began to devour its lovers, and this is a natural process. Ideals move our egoistic world forward, but after that an absolutely different pragmatic wave comes that begins to crush these ideals beneath it and works according to the usual egoistic laws.

To be continued.
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From KabTV’s “About Our Life” 5/11/15

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Item 12

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Introduction “Two Points,” Item 121

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Talmud Eser Sefirot,  Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 12 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Nation,” “The Individual and the Nation”

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In the News (mignews): “The personnel at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs fear that the country will not be able to resist the campaign of delegitimization and boycott. A senior representative of the Ministry said: ‘We do not have the tools to confront political intifada.'”

My Comment: Everything is happening according to plan, and they will strike and hate Israel until we understand what humanity demands from us. And the moment that we understand and hear the voices of the Kabbalists, we will begin to carry out the instructions for connection and uniting, and then the threats and pressure, the delegitimization, and the boycott will stop immediately!
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(Continued from the “Revolution Of The 21st Century: Rich Man, Poor Man”)

The solution is only in teaching the people. People need to be taught the principles and form of unity between them.

When the general integral method begins functioning, the very nature of this education will affect people, including those who do not want it, as well as the rich who are not covered by it.

Indeed, we all live, willy-nilly, in a highly interconnected society, and, if part of it is already using integral education, the new values affect the others—those who are well provided for and are indifferent to what is happening.

Often, these people spend most of their time abroad and are in Israel only to manage their businesses. However, nevertheless, an integral message will penetrate into them.

Thus, you really can cover everyone. Teaching unity, by its nature, gets to the people because they all are connected by inextricable mutual ties, rich and poor, fortunate and unfortunate.

It is enough if some part of the system absorbs a healthy approach to life, and this trend will be transferred to others, so much so that even the “moneybags” will speak in terms of overall integration and social rehabilitation.

Thus, a revolution is realized, more radical, but bloodless, quiet and reliable, compared to forceful methods. It will succeed where all the previous radical attempts ended without any positive result.

On the one hand, addressing the people, we must use their hatred of the rich, but, on the other hand, use it not as a catalyst for violence and destruction, but as a springboard to a good and happy life the integral method will provide them, “Look how much progress we can achieve if we properly connect to each other.”

Then, people will be calmed down. They will see that they will be able to protect themselves from conflicts in life by building all kinds of mutual aid and support together. Hopelessness, the deceptive indifference of the doomed, that actually is threatening to explode, will disappear.

Everything should be achieved not by force, but by numbers. Work with the masses will be required, to which corresponding contributions, special funds, and so forth will be allocated. We are talking about a large-scale, but fairly budgeted project that will lead people to true unity.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/14/15

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Question: Where should I study after the age of forty?

Answer: I believe that a person should study his entire life. He mustn’t be free of the framework of the teachings of the wisdom of connection. He should have one notebook all his life where the grades for every subject he has studied would be recorded and the records of the instructor that taught him about the fixed system in which he accounts for what a person has learned.

It would be even better if these records were input into a general computer where I could type someone’s family name and see what that person has learned, what he knows, and most importantly, whether he has had a chance to correct himself and to what extent he is connected to others. According to these data, it would be possible to judge which actions he can perform for the sake of the society, what else he needs, and so forth. The society would use these records in order to assess every individual and to assign him to the desirable activity for the benefit of the society.

Question: Does this mean that it isn’t a fantasy and that you really believe that there must be some positive surveillance of everyone?

Answer: It is better than if the FBI or the KGB kept a file on him. If the KGB looked for whether you are an enemy of the state, here they would look for whether you are a friend of the state.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15

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Question: People didn’t use drugs for pleasure in ancient times but in order to develop spiritually. I have seen through using drugs some schemas and cogwheels; the world turns into a matrix and I see sounds and smells and a Machsom (barrier) and then the road that leads all the way to the world of Infinity. That was when I was a teenager, but now it doesn’t happen! I found an explanation for this in your method. I have been listening to you and reading the materials you publish, but I cannot even transcend the Machsom now! What is the catch?

Answer: Drugs dull egoism and it is actually the revelation of the ego that is crucial in order to transcend the Machsom, which is the border between the desire the receive (egoism, our nature) and the desire to bestow (the upper nature that appears in us only under the influence of the wisdom of Kabbalah, of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). I cannot make the decision for you whether to stop using drugs, but they will certainly stand in your way of attaining the nature of the upper world. Everything you feel under the influence of drugs is unreal!
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