Historical Periods and the Development of Desires.

Question: From a historical point of view, we can break down the evolution of human desires according to historical periods. Supposedly from 35,000 BC to 4,000 BC, the inanimate level of human desires developed. These are basic desires like food, sex, family.

Then, 4,000 years ago, starting with the growing egoism in Babylon and approximately until the 5th century, the development of the vegetative level of desires, mainly desires for wealth took place.

From the 5th to the 15th century, merely a thousand years, the desire of the animate level developed—for power, and from the 15th to the 20th century, there was a development of the human level of desires—for knowledge.

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the development of both individualism in people and of spiritual desires. That is, people already want to attain their root.

How are all these desires divided into inanimate, vegetative, and animate within one person?

Answer: It depends on the nature of a person, on what level of egoism prevails in him or her. After all, all these desires are of various egoistic levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human. Depending on the power of egoism in each of these components, a person is more inclined to either animate satiation or vegetative, inanimate, or human fillings.

Question: We see throughout history how our desires are constantly growing. They grow both in a person and in all of humanity. What is the reason?

Answer: This is due to the fact that we must achieve the maximum quantity and quality of desires in their widest variety. We must evaluate, weigh, find out their purposefulness in us, how it works, why, what for.

In order to be not just executors of these desires but to be able to control them, to take possession of these desires, to rule over ourselves, to reach a level higher than ourselves, so that by controlling our desires we would achieve maximum freedom from them and the ability to control them according to some kind of higher, reasonable decision.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 12/3/18

Related Material:
Evolution Of Desires, Part 1
World History In The Light Of Kabbalah, Part 2
World History In The Light Of Kabbalah, Part 1

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 

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#Hungary has the highest level of #Antisemitism in #Europe. 7.5% of carriers of the #Jewish genes live there—the largest share of Jewish genes in the world after Israel, twice the number in the US. It is as if having one Jewish grandparent.
That is why Hungarians are the biggest anti-Semites!

We advance step by step: I rose and fell—”And there was evening and there was morning—one day.” Each and every time, we build a new state by losing everything we received before. If we’d remember and preserve the previous state, we wouldn’t be able to acquire a new one. I have to fall—”Shimon from the market”

The lower one receives everything from the upper one: this world and the upper world, and the means to ascend.
What remains is to discern how to relate properly to the external and internal states, meaning to the group, the world and myself, and then incorporate myself into the group and annul myself.

Self-annulment can be passive or active, at various degrees, in changing conditions. But the experience we must accumulate from all the states we go through is the ability to annul ourselves of our own choice. I must know why I annul myself and before whom, and how, in return I acquire the group, the world.

For now we cannot do anything besides self-annulment, nullifying ourselves more and more. All correction comes down to this: until its very end, until the “coming of the Messiah,” the light “Rav Poalim Umekabtsiel.”
All our actions are to annul ourselves because we are working on egoism’s correction.

By nullifying myself, I adhere to the Creator’s self-annulment and attain Him through His self-annulment. By annulling myself for the sake of connecting to Him, I start to understand how He annuls Himself—and thus I study the upper one. It is also important to annul yourself to the right people, but never to the egoistic world.

Allowing the Creator to be delighted by revealing Himself in the creatures is work that, till the end of correction, proceeds entirely “on the ascent,” from “AHAP De Aliyah,” by adhering to the upper one, annulling to Him through annulling to the group, as written, “From love for the creatures to love for the Creator.”

Passive self-annulment is bestowal for the sake of bestowal, while an active one is already reception for the sake of bestowal. I am in the upper one, I feel Him and understand just how I can delight Him by receiving, by helping Him be revealed in me.
From Twitter, 8/14/19

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why can’t Palestine recognise Israel?“

The people of Israel alone determine the attitude that the nations of the world have toward them. The nations of the world have no free choice in how they perceive Israel. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Israel are people with free choice, because it was the people of Israel who were granted the ability to rise above the egoistic human nature—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—that runs on autopilot within each and every person. If the people of Israel make the choice to rise above the divisive egoistic drives and unite, then an abundance of goodness will flow out to the world through them. Likewise, if the people of Israel fail in making that choice, letting egoism continue to grow unabated, then no agreements will help them: it will be bad for them and for the world.

Free choice is the choice to connect among each other and by doing so, reveal the upper force—the force of connection and love—here in this world. If we fail to make that choice, then the negative side of the force of connection and love—division and hatred due to egoistic desires growing without any effective regulation—will ripple out to all humanity in depth and width. This is the root of any positive or negative attitude toward Israel from the nations of the world.

Today, since the people of Israel are not making any effort to realize their unifying role in the world, then anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment—including denial of the State of Israel—grows in order to pressure the people of Israel to fulfill their duty in the world.

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Four Levels Of Desires

Question: The entire history of humanity is a process of development of human desires. Baal HaSulam writes in his articles that both in nature and within a person there are four levels of desires: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. Therefore, we see these four levels outside of us.

What are these desires and how many of them are there, in quality and in quantity?

Answer: In principle, the desire to fill oneself is common to all levels of nature. What to be filled with depends on the deficiency the desire feels and on what will give it the feeling of fulfillment and pleasure.

If this desire is at the inanimate level, then it wants to realize itself as it is. At the same time, it is not able to add or subtract anything from its desire but only acts in the same way it exists. This desire is called inanimate. It cannot develop, but wants to fulfill whatever it feels it is lacking, that is, to get closer to something, to distance itself from something. It works in this form.

Then the desire develops from the inanimate level to the vegetative one.

In the vegetative level, there are already changes in the desire itself. It grows, changes its form, creates all kinds of auxiliary desires and tools for its own realization. Therefore, it develops lengthwise, in breadth, grows, moves toward the sun, air, and water. It acquires the ability to control its initial desire in order to realize itself. This desire is called vegetative.

However, it cannot move from its place; like a plant, it grows in the same place it was planted. It can spread from there, but its initial root remains where it was planted by the upper force, something or someone external. It continues to develop from this state.

Yet, this type of desire can reproduce, influence the environment, and be influenced by the environment. It is like plants that interact with the four states of nature: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. The inanimate desire, however, does not have this ability.

The vegetative desire differs from the inanimate by the fact that it spreads, but so far, it remains at the same place it exists.

The next desire is the animate. It already can move from place to place, meaning that it has freedom of movement. Naturally, its reproduction is much more complicated and consists not of the same states as the states of a plant but requires connection with others.

In the animate desire there are male and female individuals that move, build a family between them, actively search for sustenance, and so on. There is already a fight for a place, for a species, and for a female here. That is, this desire has a whole set of tools for realizing itself in an optimal way.

The next level of desire is the human who contains all the previous desires. In addition, he has freewill in their implementation, and he can move, combine, move away, approach, and change his goal for what and how he can develop.

The human is not limited in his desires and their fulfillment, everything depends only on him. Therefore, his desires: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human, give him complete freedom. He is the leader, he is the king of nature.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 12/3/18

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The Evolution Of Desires
Still, Vegetative, Animate And Speaking
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New Life #1 – Toward a New World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

Humanity is being born into a new dimension in which society will be integrated and all levels of existence will get along. We are in transition, just like a fetus before birth. This crisis is unpleasant and we feel mutual pressure, just as with labor pains. Human desires have grown and brought us to this dead end where we cannot get along in the family or at work. Everything has become a misunderstanding and is in a state of disorder while, at the same time, we are discovering the inevitable interconnectedness and interdependence of all life on earth. The only solution is what is called “Shalom Bavit” or domestic peace that occurs when everyone, including all peoples and nations, search for mutual wholeness.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1 – Toward a New World,” 12/27/11

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 11

Lesson on the Topic “To Learn From the Descent During the Time of Ascent” 

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Thrive Global published my new article: “How A Trip To The Moon Makes Everything Clear”

To see ourselves realistically means to see ourselves as parts of a globally interdependent system. It means to see an ideal and holistic picture of mutually influential relationships.

I like listening to astronauts describe their feelings after looking at the Earth from space. What’s interesting is that astronauts are generally quite mechanical, not openly displaying their emotions. But when they travel into space and see the planet as one small nest full of little chicks, then these generally unemotional people express very deep and touching feelings, as they paint a vivid picture of the integral system we share.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” — Neil Armstrong

“The biggest joy was on the way home. in my cockpit window every two minutes — the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and a whole 360-degree panorama of the heavens. And that was a powerful, overwhelming experience. And suddenly I realized that the molecules of my body, and the molecules of the spacecraft, the molecules in the body of my partners, were prototyped and manufactured in some ancient generation of stars. And that was an overwhelming sense of oneness, of connectedness. It wasn’t them and us, it was — that’s me, that’s all of it, it’s one thing. And it was accompanied by an ecstasy, a sense of ‘oh my god, wow, yes,’ an insight, an epiphany.”– Edgar Mitchell — In the Shadow of the Moon

Therefore, to see myself realistically means to try and see the planet as one nest that everyone shares as chicks. I then need to be concerned that the nest won’t become unstable or break.

It’s a completely different sensation to the one where we feel “grounded” here on Earth. It’s a different dimension, because you feel it as a place detached, dependent on air. Your nest doesn’t rest on any tree. It’s simply in space. Beyond that globe and its atmospheric layer… nothing.

Humanity needs to grow up and see its true integral form. How much longer can we keep letting ourselves behave like wild children, flexing our pride and power muscles at each other? It’s the worst and most irresponsible form of childishness.

“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let’s say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced.” — Michael Collins, Apollo 11

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