New Life #635 – The Good, The Bad And The Person

New Life #635 – The Good, The Bad, And The Person
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Even though studies show that good deeds cause a good feeling, people are not attracted to this. In the street we don’t encounter people who will come and be good to us; on the contrary, we are constantly on guard.

Good deeds don’t spread virally, they don’t infect other people; there is an internal brake in us. The evil inclination is human nature, and it is worthwhile to realize this. It doesn’t let us relate to others with goodness.

We are developing in a worse and worse direction; relationships are deteriorating; even the family unit is breaking down. There was a time when a person was connected to a village, a homeland, a people. Today this contact is being lost all over the world.

Doing good for others requires many forces that a person doesn’t have; he must always benefit somehow. In Russia they tried to obligate people to be good by force; we have seen the grave results of this. In the Scandinavian nations, there is social security, but this is only because everyone knows that nobody will care about them.

It is up to us to reach an awareness of this, that from year to year we are becoming distant from each other. A person loses connection with his relatives. In charitable organizations, people are working who have a natural inclination for it. They comprise about 10 percent of the population.

The nature of a person doesn’t allow him to benefit others, so we are deteriorating into a situation where we are devouring each other. There is a force in nature that can stop the deterioration. If we locate it, we can counterbalance the evil in us. If we don’t locate this good force, the evil in us will increase and distance us from each other completely. The positive force is latent in the interior of nature and will counterbalance the evil in us. It is necessary to learn how to locate it.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #635 – The Good, The Bad And The Person,” 10/21/16

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New Life 686 – The Freedom Of Self-Criticism

New Life 686 – The Freedom Of Self-Criticism
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Until today criticism has helped us develop, but nowadays there is no proper criticism. Everyone just “dumps out” bad things about others. Self-criticism, the ability to judge, requires looking at things from the side without prejudice.

Today nobody can get along with anyone; there is nobody who is able to provide useful criticism. Humanity doesn’t understand what is happening; it is advancing towards self-destruction and even the family unit is collapsing.

The self-critical system of a person who is a Kabbalist is constructed according to the higher value, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). With the help of the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, a person attracts the Light that Reforms, the positive force, against the evil inclination, and this is through self-criticism if he attracts enough of this positive force upon himself to provide him with the right perspective.

The only concern of a person must be how to attract the positive power that is concealed in nature unto himself to counterbalance the evil that is in him. Until then, a person’s self-criticism will not be beneficial in any way.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 686 – The Freedom Of Self-Criticism,” 2/4/16

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World Kabbalah Convention “Day One” – 02.23.16

World Kabbalah Convention, “Only One World Exists — the Spiritual World,” Lesson 1

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World Kabbalah Convention, “Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Lesson 2

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World Kabbalah Convention, “There’s None Else Besides Him,” Lesson 3

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.22.16

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

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A Head Transplant

Laitman_127Question: Sergio Canavero, an Italian surgeon, plans to perform a complicated human head transplant, following experiments that have been carried out on apes in the US. According to the Italian doctor, the first operation on a human being will be performed within two years’ time. Do you believe that this is possible?

Answer: Why not? A head transplant is merely a technical issue, that’s all. If they don’t solve this issue now, it will happen in another 10 to 20 years.

I remember the first human heart transplant that was performed in South Africa in 1967. Everyone held their breath and waited to see whether the person in whose body that heart was planted would begin to think differently. We have very primitive ideas regarding the human body, and we think that there is some spirit living in it and that it is transferred to another along with a heart or liver.

Question: Still, the idea of a head transplant is a bit scary.

Answer: Yes, the head is the major part of the body. The thoughts that come from the head control the body.

Question: How do the thoughts come to the head?

Answer: This is a different matter altogether. There must be a different kind of transplant here. We need to connect to the upper modem in order to do so and learn to receive signals from the upper mind. This is a flight in a totally different class.

There is actually nothing in the head except for grey matter. The head is like a computer that is fed by the outside world, and there is nothing else inside of it. If you study the head, you will find nothing there since our knowledge is not inside our head, but is external to us, just as all of reality is external to us. We are merely vessels that perceive what is in space and nothing more.

We need to get into this space to the level where all of the information is: energy, knowledge, and most importantly properties. The attributes are the most important part because the information, energy, and knowledge are technical entities, while the attributes belong to the upper level of nature called the Creator. The uppermost attribute is the attribute of love. However, in order to penetrate the attributes, a person needs to undergo the special training that is studied by Kabbalists, the essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The work of attaining the Creator’s attributes is replacing the head, which a person performs during his lifetime in this world without any transplants. It isn’t a transplant but a gradual ascent to the level of the upper information, the upper properties. I invite anyone who is interested in that to come and study.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 2/5/16

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Let’s Ascend Without Descents

laitman_608_01“What the Concept of Suffering Is in the Work,” Rabash: What can a person do so that he doesn’t need to come to a descent, called “suffering,” when he feels that he is far from the Creator….How could there be a reality in which he doesn’t need to fall to a state of humility? The advice about this is when a person takes stock of himself and through his thought and desire he sees how he is still far from adhesion with the Creator. It means that even during a time of ascent he takes stock of himself and begins to feel his shortcomings. So then he apparently doesn’t need to fall from his state because he was given thoughts of humility until he feels as if he is in a deficient state. So even during an ascent, he already begins to seek advice about how to ascend a level.

We begin our way from below to above from a tiny shortcoming, from lacking the point in the heart. The lack in this point doesn’t give a person any direction and he has no power, for this is just a point. I continue toward something, but I don’t exactly understand toward what. But when I am brought to a group, my desire begins to take shape. I already know what to wish for and toward where. A few years pass until I finally understand that this aspiration must be directed toward connection and not just toward a higher power.

I am already aware that the higher power is not somewhere in the heavens, but that it is revealed within me: it is the power of bestowal and love that fills all of the higher reality. If I acquire the characteristic of bestowal and love, with this I feel the upper force, the higher dimension and the upper world.

Quite a while passes until this approach stabilizes in a person. And this time doesn’t just pass without a trace. Great changes happen every moment, and lots of time is required for it. Just like in our world, the period for stabilizing the still level of nature, the creation of the universe, was the longest and took billions of years. The vegetative world stabilized even more rapidly, the animate world stabilized even faster, and the human stabilized very quickly relative to the previous levels.

So we also went through thousands of years of regular physical existence, passing through a multitude of incarnations. And when we are finally granted an Itaruta de La’ila (awakening from Above) resulting in the awakening of the point in the heart in us, so this account has already been going on for years. In spite of everything, it took years.

From that moment, I am already placed facing the goal and know how to advance toward it. I come to a group, find a teacher and books. I realize that this is the purpose of human life in this world to which I have finally been brought after many incarnations in order to implement the goal and get some kind of result in my life without having to waste it in vain. I have already been given freedom of choice here, to go in the way of Torah or the path of suffering.

The path of suffering is when an unconscious desire is awakened in me and I start to figure out why I feel bad. Time passes until I find the cause of evil and clarify how to correct it and to transform it into goodness. The way of Beito (in its time) is very long and includes many stages within it. So then, in the way of Achishena (I will hasten), in the way of Light, time becomes accelerated. I must search for the shortcomings myself, the means for advancing.

I can get the stimuli for advancement from the environment. The main thing is that this push toward advancement initially stabilizes me in the right direction and I know for what I am looking. It is always necessary to search for a lack of the characteristic of bestowal and love, for connection, for oneness, for Arvut (mutual guarantee), for adhesion with the upper force, meaning love for others.

If I search for shortcomings like these, then I am no longer in some kind of point with a single desire that has no direction. Instead, I already know the goal that I must reach.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14

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An Old State, But On A Larger Scale
Is It Possible To Manage Without Descent In The Work
Living Above Time

New Life 631 – Israel Is The Strongest Country In The World

New Life 631 – Israel Is The Strongest Country In The World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

How do you define a strong country? What determines its stability, and under what conditions can Israel become the strongest country in the world?

Time, just like an internal engine, develops the human race. In the 21st century, we have become dependent on one another. It is impossible to know what will happen the next moment. Whoever is strong today may be weak tomorrow. Uncertainty rules every aspect of life.

Russia has grown weaker. Europe thought about unity and today everything is falling apart there. The world is constantly changing. Any connection between countries doesn’t hold for long. And this is also true on the individual level where families break up, etc.

A person doesn’t care about anything. He is full of doubts and absorbed in his cell phone. If a person were given a couple of thousands of dollars in order to manage abroad, many would leave this place.

In this chaos it is very difficult to say which country is strong, not to speak of stability. Israel today is very weak since there are many factors that can instantly undermine our stability. But we can make this country the strongest in the world if we learn to use our special force. Our world is operated by a network of forces and only we Jews have the power to affect this network.

It depends on whether we connect and become as one man in one heart. This is how strength can be measured. No other country but Israel can be strong. All the countries in the world depend on us. If we connect, we will ensure our safety, since we will thus oblige everyone to connect to us willingly. Only Israel has freewill. The rest of the world depends on the quality of the connection between us Israelis.

Being connected means being responsible for one another, like brothers in a good family. The good relations between us will lead to the equivalence of form with the system of leadership and providence in nature. Nature is made of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and man, all connected into one system, like parts of one body. Today we discover that the world is globally connected, that everyone affects everyone else, and that everyone depends on everyone else. Building the good mutual connection between us makes us compatible with the network of the leadership of reality, and then we gain the protective force.

The nations of the world feel that the key to the future of the world is in our hands and so they blame us for everything. In the past, a nation that had nuclear weapons was considered to be strong, but today it is less meaningful since many countries have nuclear weapons. Israel will become the strongest country in the world when we become compatible with the upper force that sustains all of nature.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explores the system of Providence and the exact laws it operates by. From where does someone get the thought of getting up and attacking? It comes from the upper system. Only we have the possibility to control the thoughts and desires that will awaken in all of humanity through this network.

What will a strong Israel be like? It will be a country that knows only one thing: that we must be connected in a good way. Then no terrorists will rise against us and all the countries in the world will like and support us in every way.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 631 – Israel Is The Strongest Country In The World,” 10/8/15

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New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family

New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Our growing ego even causes us to criticize our children and demand that our children realize what we didn’t attain. But criticism should be minimal, maintaining boundaries that we define for our familial standards, and the child must learn how to activate his critical sense by himself correctly, keeping within the framework of the family. If he doesn’t criticize himself when he goes against the accepted rules of the family, then we parents criticize him gently to provide him with the tools to be self-critical.

A child needs to know that he has a family for his whole life, and that if he goes against the generally accepted rules in the family, he will lose the right relationship with it. The most important general rule is to be connected to the family; this is the highest value, and if he behaves in a way that is not acceptable in the family, he will lose the connection and security, and this will bring him back on the right track.

The family is the basic unit in nature and we must not destroy it. Parents give birth to new life, and if they divorce, they destroy the good familial relationship for the children.

We require preparation to know how to criticize each other with love and to receive it with good spirit. For example, how do we behave with a child who isn’t studying for a test? We express our familial expectation that he will succeed; we help him study, and it is also possible to promise him a reward.

To do this we must gradually build familial standards: everyone must say how he will contribute to the family, and the family will express its appreciation and thanks for all of his daily contributions at fixed times, even if this is artificial and contrived. It is important to open a new page every day without mentioning the events of the previous day. We could give each other a kiss when we meet, and so forth. That is how we set principles, agreements, and habits and provide examples, since personal example is the best influence, more than words.

If I have a criticism, I must restrain myself and only approach it gently and ask: “Did you do that on purpose?” With this I am not expressing my attitude about what he did. Instead I am clarifying with the child his attitude about what he did and his intention. I help him clarify what he did and what he meant by it, with love. In this way I am teaching him how to criticize himself.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 685 – Dealing With Criticism In The Family,” 2/2/16

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World Kabbalah Convention – 02.22.16

World Kabbalah Convention, Preparatory Lesson, “A Prayer Before a Prayer”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.22.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Shamati #211 “As Though Standing Before a King”

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