Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is human development?“

Human development is the development of positive connections upon our innate differences and divisions.

Prior to the existence of humans, connections formed on inanimate, vegetative and animate levels that paved the way for humans to develop and connect.

For instance, particles connected into atoms, and amalgamations that could sustain their connections continued living, while those that failed to do so broke down and became obsolete.

On inanimate, vegetative and animate levels, nature maintains balance.

However, at the human level, where we hold a certain amount of responsibility for our development, we see that we have made a lot of mistakes and brought about a lot of suffering to ourselves, and imbalance with nature.

Instead of focusing our development on connecting positively to one another upon our divisive drives, we let such drives define our so-called “development” until today.

As such, we have developed scientifically, culturally, technologically and economically, i.e. in numerous superficial fields, but we have failed to develop the most important aspect of our lives: our attitudes and relationships to each other.

In the process, we set ourselves up in opposition to nature and experience its side effects. Instead of becoming happier, healthier and more confident social beings, we experience rising depression, stress, anxiety and loneliness.

Nature shows us an example of how cells and organs function for the benefit of the entire organisms that they inhabit, and receive what they need in order to operate for the whole organism’s benefit. If a cell receives more than what it needs for the organism’s functioning, it becomes cancerous and brings disease.

Human society today is like a cluster of cancerous cells, each prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others.

A shift to a healthier, happier and more confident human society requires a shift in our priorities: that we will all prefer benefiting others over benefiting ourselves.

We can also expect more and more events that will show us the extent of our interdependence—with each other and with nature.

The coronavirus was the latest such event.

Therefore, as we head into the future, the more we positively connect to each other, the better we will become equipped to deal with the changes taking place in the world, as the extent of our connections will be the extent of our balance with nature.

Filed under: Q&A, Quora - No Comments →

Antagonism within the Jewish People

Comment: Throughout the course of human development, there has never been a nation that has been subjected to greater persecution than the people of Israel. Some people say this is irrational. From your materials, I see that this, on the contrary, is rational.

My Response: Super-rational! This is the law of nature.

Question: What is the root of this hatred? As far as I can see, it lies in creation itself.

Answer: Man was created an egoist, but he was given a method of correcting his egoism. It is found in the people of Israel, that is, in a small group of people organized in Ancient Babylon in the time of Abraham, as described in the Torah (Bible), by Flavius Josephus, and in many other Jewish and non-Jewish sources.

In the hands of the Jews is a method of uniting peoples, rising above egoism, reaching the highest comfortable level both in earthly existence and in the unearthly. This means that even during material life, a person can begin to feel the next level of existence and dissolve the boundaries between the earthly and the upper world.

Since this is all embedded in our methodology, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Jews tried to implement it, especially after leaving Egypt during the time of the First and Second Temples.

This happened in a constant struggle between them. After all, there were groups among the people who advocated the implementation of this method of connection and achieving a spiritual level, a sense of the upper world in this world, and groups who believed that it was impossible or not necessary because, as they thought, there are still other opportunities for a comfortable existence.

Thus, in the people of Israel, there has always been a great opposition of opinions up to the point of civil war. This continued until the complete exile during the period of the Second Temple. Therefore, there was no need for anti-Semitism from the peoples of the world who did not like Jews. Before the advent of the Christian and Muslim religions, they were practically non-existent.

Question: So the hatred was between the Jews themselves?

Answer: Yes, there were many different currents within the people.

Comment: For example, during the Roman Empire, the people were divided into Sadducees and Pharisees. Then the Maccabean war was underway not with the Greeks, but with the Jews who had adopted Hellenism.

My Response: Even during the period of the First Temple, large groups of people formed who were antagonistic to each other.

Comment: In addition, it was not the Egyptians who prevented the Jews from leaving Egypt but a layer of Jews called the “mixed multitude” (Erev Rav).

My Response: It must be said that although during the Crusades or in medieval Europe there were pogroms and persecutions of Jews by the surrounding peoples, the source of it came from hatred between groups in the Jewish people themselves.

All this is based on the spiritual principle. Among the Jewish people, there are those who believe that Jews should fulfill their spiritual function, meaning reveal the Creator in this world for themselves and for other peoples. And there are those who say: “No, we can exist as others. And our religion is given to us to fulfill on a normal, everyday level.” This is what is happening today.

Question: So, the dispute is about what is chosen by God? Do I have to fulfill some external commandments and for this I will have future peace and power over all peoples, or do we have to unite and spread the method of connection among all the people?

Answer: And with this, as it were, to serve them, to become a light for other peoples. In fact, this is a big job, to care for the correction of the whole world.

*For more information on this topic, I suggest you to read my books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
[264359]
From KabTV’s “System Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel,” 7/22/19

Related Material:
The Land Of Israel: Dispersion And Assimilation, Part 6
Anti-Semitic Jews Against The People of Israel
The Premonitions Of The Big Anti-Semites

Filed under: Ancient Babylon, Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

Aviut is a selfish desire that separates a person from the Creator. This desire must be overcome and not destroyed. One has to rise above it by using it correctly as a lever with which you can turn the Earth upside down.

Therefore, egoism in the usual state and when it separates us from the Creator it is called Aviut, the thickness of a desire. When we use it correctly, then Aviut turns into Zakut, to brighten, and, conversely, help us recognize, study, and approach the Creator.

Question: Aviut is coarseness, the size of our desires? Are they divided into four stages?

Answer: Yes. They are divided into the inanimate, vegetative, animate and the human levels.

Question: Is it advisable not to translate Kabbalistic terminology? For example, Aviut as coarseness, etc.

Answer: Of course. As in medicine, the terms in Latin are accepted, in music, in Italian, and in Kabbalah, Kabbalstic. You just need to remember the definition.
[264399]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/17/19

Related Material:
Defining The Terms Is Key To The Study Of Kabbalah
Hebrew – The Language Of The Wisdom Of Kabbalah
Timeless Language

Filed under: Language of Branches, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Consequence of Failure to Comply with the Law of Love Your Neighbor

Question: During the destruction of the Second Temple, unfounded hatred appeared between the students of Rabbi Akiva, and all 24,000 of them died because of this. Is this an allegory or not?

Answer: No, they really died. Rabbi Akiva taught them the law of love your neighbor, but they could not stay in it.

Such egoism flared up between them that they began to make selfish calculations relative to each other. Of course, their condition cannot be compared with the current state between believers. These were people of a completely different type—great people. But egoism at their level manifested itself so much that they led themselves to death.

Question: Can it be said that, as a result of this hatred, the Bar Kochba rebellion was crushed, and therefore the people could not restore independence?

Answer: Naturally. These were the greatest people of that era, the spiritual representatives of the people. If their spirit fell down to hatred, then the people had no opportunity to exist further.

Remark: The most interesting thing is that unfounded hatred arises precisely among those who should engage in unification and spread the spiritual ideology of the people. Hatred has always manifested itself between kings, priests, between the elite, between the sages, not among the common people.

My Comment: Yes, ordinary people did not really participate in this.
[263947]
From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel,” 7/8/19

Related Material:
Seeds Of Exile, Part 5
Seeds Of Exile, Part 4
Seeds Of Exile, Part 3

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World - No Comments →

The impairment of health of every person is an impairment of the balance in the general system that is called Adam because it is built in the image and the likeness of a person.

What does that mean? At the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature, there are systems that interact with each other. They are absolutely integral, mutually complement each other, utterly complete, and are intended for human beings to use them correctly and to improve them through faithfully using them for becoming similar to the Creator. Then, through all these systems, he will begin to feel a vast upper world that includes absolutely everything.

In our world, we see integrality at the level of inanimate, vegetative, and, partially animate nature. In human nature, we do not notice this because we ourselves are on this level.

For example, we see how we disrupt the balance of inanimate nature: we emit gases, heat the atmosphere, block rivers, and stop natural processes. In the end, it all backfires on us in the most unpleasant way.

However, nature is intentionally created to be harmonious, so that we fit into it as the highest layer of harmony. However, when human beings begin to interfere with nature with their dirty, clumsy hands, they only cripple it. We constantly break it to suit our egoism and believe that we are doing the right thing, that nature is not a huge whole living organism.

Moreover, its inanimate, vegetative and animate levels are connected with each other and jointly participate in a common integral interaction. And human beings are created in such a way that they would gradually fit into this nature as an integral part of it, studying and supplementing it with their sensible participation.

However, unfortunately, this is not happening because we are egoists, we are originally arranged against the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. Therefore, with our human egoism, which is higher than these levels, we do not fit into nature, but on the contrary, we begin to break it to suit us.

For many thousands of years, people were doing whatever they wanted with nature. And nature, as an impeccable judge, punishes us. Rather, it does not even punish, but simply compensates for the crude, unreasonable distortions that we bring into it.

Therefore, we can only talk about health by taking into account the entire inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human organism, that is, all of nature, and more or less understanding how it should be in the correct interaction between all its parts, how it can compensate and complement all its levels.

Then, while maintaining our health, we will be able to ascend to higher levels of attainment, adhesion with the vast integral nature.
[263013]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/15/20

Related Material:
If We Want To Be Healthy
Learn Integrative Development From Nature
Why Is Nature Punishing Us With Coronavirus?

Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Health - No Comments →

Question: When we pray for the health of others, do we lose something or on the contrary, receive strength and health to pray?

Answer: If I pray for the health of the other, if I’m in the same system with him, then how can I lose something?

When someone in the system where we are all directly connected with each other falls sick, he thereby signals everybody else that the entire system is sick. It is expressed in him as in a particularly sensitive element, which he represents.

But this problem is not his, it is our common problem. No person is responsible for himself, nobody gets sick for himself, and nobody is behaving badly. All of it is expressed only as a result of breaching the general integral human interaction.

What does it mean to pray or to ask? We connect with each other and try to turn to the upper force so that it balances all the negative qualities, phenomena, which are seemingly expressed through some particular person.

But because it is not his, but our common problem, we have a right to pray for him. It is exactly when we compensate for nature and receive a wonderful response. Let’s try and you will see how it works.

That is why we shouldn’t remain indifferent to what is happening around us: “We don’t care what’s happening in Italy. Everything is quiet here!” Such an attitude will only aggravate the condition. This is a horrible reaction!

Hence, we must think about how we can respond to what is happening, especially now, when the integral viciousness of our relationships is being revealed.

Question: Should we pray for the health of people or the correction of the system? And how should we do it correctly without telling the Creator what to do?

Answer: We should ask the Creator to show us how to connect correctly. We don’t need anything else. If we add to it that we wish to unite correctly so as to form a mutual connection that would reveal the Creator within us with the goal of bringing contentment to Him, then we will turn to Him correctly.
[263267]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/15/20

Related Material:
Now It Is Time To Act!
Coronavirus—Occasion To Unite Around One Problem
Universal Vaccination Against All Viruses

Filed under: Health, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Lesson Preparation

Writings of Rabash, “Concerning Above Reason”  (1986)

Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason” 

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/21/20

Kabbalists divide generations according to the appearance of aspirations for the purpose of creation. In that sense, a new generation began when Abraham the patriarch appeared in ancient Babylon. He made a spiritual revolution and called on his countryfolk to unite and love their neighbors as themselves. Although most of the Babylonians did not follow him, Abraham’s efforts nonetheless created a new nation that was based on that principle and was tasked with continuing his legacy and passing on to the world the principle of love of others.

The next generation begins with the exodus from Egypt. It is a generation of intense recognition of our egoistic nature and a heroic effort of Abraham’s descendants to rise above their egos and unite. In that generation, the principle of mutual responsibility was established in order to solidify the unity among the members of the nation.

In this way, generations continue through the milestones of humanity’s development, but the final development of humanity is only just beginning. COVID-19 is a vivid mark that from now on, every plight humanity will go through, it will go through it together. This means that it is time for all of humanity to rise to the level of love of others. It is a sign that we have become not only connected, but dependent on every single person in the world, even with our very lives. From now on, if we do not establish positive connections, we will feel the ill effects of our negative connections throughout the world, and the demonstration that the coronavirus is giving us is but the prelude, a sample of things to come.

This is called the “last generation,” when every person in the world eventually—not right away—rises to the level of love of others. It is a long process, and its happy end is certain. Nevertheless, the road toward it can be arduous and painful, depending on our willing participation. The more willingly we participate in ushering it in, the sooner it will come, and the better we will feel throughout the transition.

Indeed, the last generation is the first generation of love of others, from which there will be no regression.

[Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash]

Filed under: Facebook, Society of the Future - No Comments →

Try to imagine all of the still-vegetative-inanimate, existing in egoism, found on the 1st floor of the universe, in the nature of this world; while a person who attains the spiritual forces of bestowal and connection is found on the 2nd floor—where the Creator is revealed to him.
A man cannot correct his #egoism!

But when he empathizes with what he sees, wants no problems to befall the society—there will not be any. I need a society that I will envy, because by virtue of this envy I will be able to rise to its degree. If I can use envy in the right way, then with its help I will draw the upper light and it will elevate me to the degree of the friends. This is a real miracle!

If we look at the friends and see that they are greater than we are, then we will definitely grow as well. I need a society of many people, comprised of individuals who are great in my eyes. so I will see myself as the least of them all. Then I am guaranteed #spiritual progress.

All of our work till the end of correction is to attain an ever-greater degree of faith above reason. Altogether there are 125 degrees that we must ascend so that each time, our force of bestowal, called faith, will be greater than the force of reception, called reason. #kabbalah

On the degree of FAITH ABOVE REASON, the ruler is not me with my desires, feelings and mind, but only the Creator. This is a degree above me, where “There is none else besides the Creator, the good and does good,” the degree of faith.
“I believe”—I acquire the quality of bestowal, Bina, and accept the Creator’s authority.

Faith above reason is a spiritual degree that we must build above our degree of “reason.” Reason is rational logic, egoistic desire, the human mind, with which we operate by the principle, “a judge operates only by what his eyes see”—that is, what the 5 senses feel.

The feeling of constant failure leads a person to cease to think and ask for himself, and to start to ask—to really ask, the Creator, and not for himself, but for others, wishing to forget about himself and his failures. That is how he gradually reaches the quality of bestowal, try it!

The #coronavirus forbids us from being physically close to one another, demonstrating how our #egoism separates us from each other. It appears that the virus won’t leave us until we correct our inter-relationships from egoistic to #altruistic.  Time will tell.
From Twitter, 5/21/20

Related Material:
My Thoughts On Twitter 5/19/20
My Thoughts On Twitter 5/17/20
My Thoughts On Twitter 5/16/20

Filed under: Thoughts on Twitter - No Comments →

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

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →