Question: We find ourselves today in a reality where the universal interconnection, which we feel very strongly today, and our egoistic rejection naturally blend together.

The only way out of this conflict is to change the system of relationships between people and the system of values in society, or, to wait until nature corrects us with its blows, as the coronavirus in this case, or we ourselves must find some solution.

We are angry with nature and ask: “What happened? Why do we need such punishment?”

Do you think nature has a mind? Are we being punished for something or are these just evolutionary processes?

Answer: Man is a single entity with nature. We are in a completely closed system, and therefore, we cannot separate ourselves from nature or nature from ourselves. Therefore, if something happens, it happens in all nature, in the global integrated system.

Therefore, there should be no separate inquiries regarding man and regarding nature. We are part of it. The fact that, in spite of this, we still have the opportunity to somewhat control ourselves, evaluate, differ from nature, to study our dependence on it or its dependence on us, these are just our possibilities.

But they must be very clearly divided: first into what we can study and understand, and second, what we can change in it and in ourselves. Indeed, basically, our whole problem with nature is that we violate its harmony, our natural connection with it.

When humans were still at the animate level, and we all developed from this state, there were no problems. Man acted on the basis of his understanding, awareness, and sensation, like any elementary part of nature.

And then, when the mind developed in him, when he began to acquire selfish properties about six thousand years ago, he began to separate from nature, to move away from it, to oppose it. Relations different from natural ones began to develop between people: selfish, opposing nature. And at this point, the problem arose: the confrontation between nature and man, nature and human society.

Question: Where can one see in nature at least some hints of feelings or reason?

Answer: We can not see anything in nature because we pass everything through ourselves. And it turns out that in nature, in general, there is nothing, and everything goes only through us.

Question: Does nature have a purpose?

Answer: The purpose of nature is to bring all of us to integral equilibrium.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/16/20

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Question: In the era of the coronavirus, there are people who are not afraid of anything. I saw videos of Italian mayors going out into the city and scolding people to return home. And they just walked around. Even in Italy! But there are people who, naturally, are law-abiding, sit at home and listen to everyone.

What should a person really be afraid of: that he will infect himself or infect others?

Answer: I am very glad that such a question is being raised. I have to think about others. And despite the fact that I don’t believe doctors and I don’t believe that I will become infected and could be a carrier of this infection, I still have to do what the doctors say so that people see that I care about them. Not about yourself, but about them.

Question: You mean a person should wear a mask to show that he does not want to infect others? Does this apply to mutual guarantee?

Answer: Of course! Primarily. How can I do things that can threaten the life of another? Life! Today it is a matter of life!

The virus is a program for taking care of each other. You do not want to take care of each other in your ordinary, egoistic desire? You do not want to think that you are one single, integrated system, a terrestrial civilization? Then the virus will teach you.

It completes what we could not complete by ourselves consciously and willingly. It forces us to do this.

Question: Will it be able to do something with us or not?

Answer: Nature can do anything with us. And in the nearest future!

Question: Is it possible to invert a person? I was thinking only about myself all the time. I was living in this way, this is our life.

Answer: Suffering will do it all.

Comment: It is a big problem to advance all the time only through suffering.

My Response: Not only through suffering! After all, we do not want to do it willingly! We do not want to do it within reason! It is impossible to do anything with us. Therefore, we call upon ourselves such actions of nature, such blows.

Question: Does it mean that the virus is something very intelligent?

Answer: The whole of nature is intelligent. It is run according to a specific program. If you do not fulfill this program, then other programs are turned on, and then the next ones, and so on. There are many of these so-called viruses in nature.

We call it a “virus,” but it is a program that is included in the general egoistic program and it slowly begins to turn. It is not breaking it yet! It just turns us a little.

Now this virus is revealed in animals, then it will be in birds, then, somewhere in the air, we do not know where, in all sorts of midges, mosquitoes. You cannot imagine what could happen! We will find ourselves in a hostile world where everything is against us because we are opposite to it, because we hate this world though our behavior! Look at what we did to it!

Thus, it will be breaking us. And we will have to treat this world differently. First, we will have to isolate ourselves from any egoistic, malicious, excessive use. We will not need millions of stores and all the other things that we piled up in our world during a single century. And we will slowly, slowly deflate.

Question: When will the virus understand that it has done its work?

Answer: This happens automatically in nature. When we start to spend less, pollute less, let nature start to clean itself up, when the oceans start to digest our plastic that fills them. We will see this on the land, how it becomes more fertile, birds will sing in the air. Everything will be beautiful and good. Nature will sing from its harmony, which we do not violate! However, this takes time.

We are not doing this yet. This is why we need to restrict ourselves, we need to obey these laws that nature now expresses. I sit in an isolated room and do not go anywhere. What else am I supposed to do? This is a law of nature.

When we all get into relative balance with it, it may begin to affect us in even more sophisticated ways so that we will become even more suitable for it, until we reach a state where our physical actions begin to affect our moral principles, our interactions with each other.

We did not want to go from the inside out, that is, by our awareness, by our feelings. We did not want to change our relationships and our attitude to nature in this way, but now nature will force us to do this in the opposite way; it will push us from the outside in until we change.

Question: Is the fact that I begin to think about how not to infect another a clear step toward nature?

Answer: This is involuntary. This is not yet at the level of consciousness, at the level of consent, of voluntary acceptance, and at the level of desirable action. But this is a start. Thank God, nature has started working on us.

Question: At what point will it if not leave us alone, at least tell us, “Now you can relax a little”?

Answer: When we come to a dynamic balance with it.

Comment: This is a very distant goal.

My Response: We do not want it to leave us alone. God forbid!

The thing is the attitude of a person, about the fact that he does everything not in order to abuse, to satiate himself with all sorts of peculiarities, but in order not to disfigure nature through this, and so on.

The program is inserted into us and we are obliged to obey it and change. There is no getting away from it. Either we speed up our process willingly, which is called Achishena, or it will put pressure on us, and of course, it will take more time and bring more suffering. However, the program is already inserted. That’s it! Now it will start running.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 4/6/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do teenagers get depressed so frequently?“

Teenagers are at an age where they start looking for meaning in life. They feel that they’re beginning their lives and consider what directions it should take.

In today’s conditions, this line of thinking brings them to the realization that the directions on offer are meaningless and empty.

Many professions that society respected just a few decades ago have lost public interest. The romanticism of being a scientist or an artist today has become overshadowed by a “make money” mindset. When money making becomes more important than visionary and courageous aspirations to accomplish goals worth striving for, then life loses its meaning.

Today’s teenagers have no ideal worth striving for, i.e., to agree to suffer through all kinds of burdens, training and study in order to achieve something that both they and society consider as great.

Teenage years are those in which we typically want to apply efforts in order to reach worthy goals, and we develop our self-esteem and pride by identifying with a direction in life that supports our direction.

But today, the goals we once strove for have dimmed in importance.

When I was a teenager, I had multiple options laid out before me, and was split between various choices on what to become.

Today, however, teens still hold a need to develop toward a great and respectable goal, but it dissolves in a general atmosphere of disinterest.

On one hand, it is a time of great pressure, with desires running rampant within, and on the other hand, the teenage years have become a time when feelings of emptiness and distaste in the world develop.

Teenagers thus feel lost when no dream inspires them. The indifference and cynicism that arises from rising meaninglessness, emptiness and depression among teenagers can then lead to destructive tendencies. That is, they feel like they want to strike back at the world and at society that offers them nothing, but which simply obligates them to drag on.

Therefore, on one hand, we bear witness to increasing disastrous phenomena like mass shootings and youth suicides, and on the other hand, more and more drug use and immersion in video games and social media as an escape.

Today’s youth are a lost generation. The older generations offer them nothing, and they have nothing to offer themselves.

Why has such a dull situation come about? Also, is there any light at the end of such a darkening tunnel?

This situation has emerged due to humanity reaching a new stage of evolution, in which our competitive-individualistic pursuits are revealed as empty, in order to open a new dimension of existence: one where the emphasis shifts to positive connection among society, or social unity.

While we are in a transitional phase, we experience the greatest darkness, similar to how the greatest pains of childbirth take place right before the baby exits its mother.

However, if we held a wider perspective of human development and our current period in the cycle, we would then see that we are becoming pressured to undergo a major consciousness shift: from a competitive, individualistic and egoistic paradigm to one where we will increasingly have to learn how to live and breathe together as a single interdependent human society worldwide.

If we realize the new tight state of connection that we are being driven toward, and start adapting ourselves and our goals to it, teenagers and adults alike, then we will feel all those motivational and inspirational feelings we once had reopen, and on a whole new level.

The increasing depression among teenagers is in fact a sign of the younger generation becoming readier to undergo the fateful shift to positively connect.

Therefore, adults have a responsibility today to enable the direction to positive connection in society, to create a supportive social environment that the younger generations can fit themselves into.

Enabling positive connection means shifting our attention and appreciation onto positive connection in society. That is, by respecting acts of giving and contribution to society, consideration and care for others, over the respect for making money and gaining power, we will create an atmosphere where more and more people, including teenagers, will want to also contribute positively to society.

Teenagers will then have a newfound fuel by which to aim for adventurous new heights.

Realizing positive connection as a leading value, and then communicating, influencing and educating positive connection throughout society, is indeed a struggle, but one well worth the effort.

Why?

It is because, by connecting positively, we enter into balance with our next stage of evolution, and that balance will fill us with new sensations of happiness, motivation, encouragement, support and care, filling in the holes that our current paradigm faces.

Above photo by Tammy Gann on Unsplash.

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By the world of infinity, we mean a state where the creatures, when they perceive it, see in it absolute infinity. We always talk with respect to the creatures. In the world of infinity, it is not limited in anything and feels its limitless possibilities.

Comment: The concept of “light” is also often used in Kabbalah.

My Reply: Light is what enlightens us, serves us, cares for us. Everything positive that is done in any of our states, ending with the very last, is carried out by the light.

The light is the force of bestowal and love of the Creator.

Question: And everything bad it is not the light?

Answer: Everything bad is the reverse side of the light, its disappearance, its distancing.

Question: That is, distancing from the property of bestowal and love, from the Creator, is called darkness, and nearing it is called light?

Answer: Yes. The light is the force that brings us closer.

Question: There is also the term :Sefira: In Kabbalah. What is that?

Answer: The “Sefira” from the word “sapphire,” “glowing,” is a desire that is similar to the Creator, i.e., to the property of bestowal, and therefore, it can accumulate light in itself and begins to glow.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/17/19

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Question: Are character traits included in a person’s egoism or are they separate?

Answer: No, not really. Of course, they are correlated with one’s egoism, but the system of interaction between a person’s character traits and the magnitude of their egoism do not determine one another.

Question: From the point of view of Kabbalah, is the character of a person data that cannot be changed?

Answer: In general, yes.

Question: What use of egoism is considered acceptable?

Answer: Anyone aimed at the benefit of others and nature, i.e., beyond one’s selfish desires, is called faith above reason. The property of bestowal above the property of receiving is called good.

Good is an action for the benefit of others, not oneself.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era,” 4/23/20

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Unity Above Our World

Remark: Perhaps in the future, scientists will be able to discover the gene that exists precisely in the Jewish people that is responsible for connection primarily between themselves and then with other people. In principle, today they are already discovering that genes are responsible even for political views.

My Reply: For everything that is related to our world. And we are talking about unity that is above our world. It is quite possible that somewhere, in something, some consequences will be revealed on the material level. But in principle, I do not think so because spiritual properties are too detached from the earthly ones.

Question: Today, we are witnessing the greatest disconnection within the State of Israel as well as between the Jews of America and the Jews of Israel. What can this lead to?

Answer: To disaster. Or to the opposite. We are at a critical turning point that can lead either to one development of events or the other.

Either we will bring ourselves to a state where the whole world will take up arms against us and there will really be a threat of destruction, or the world and the Jews will be able to grasp the problem that exists both in the world and in the Jews and will understand how they must work together to raise themselves with the help of the purpose of creation, which is in the Kabbalists, not in ordinary Jews.

We must place the purpose of creation at the forefront of human development and thereby reach the next, highest level of development.
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From KabTV’s “Systematic Analysis of the Development of the People of Israel,” 7/29/19

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Question: If we cannot interfere with nature, then should we let it do whatever it wants? Should you resign yourself, give up?

Answer: First, there is nothing to oppose to nature. This is completely illogical, unreasonable.

Nature is the entire cosmos. These are such inner levels that I do not know at all. Who am I? Just a product of nature. A little bug against her. I cannot even imagine who I am dealing with. Why argue like a small child trying to fight windmills? What is this quixotism?

We should simply understand that we are in a huge, multi-level system, but we do not know where, in what, and how. Therefore, by the measure of our development, we should try to automatically integrate into it.

If we were an inanimate, vegetative, or animate part of nature, we would automatically abide in it as its integral element. But since we belong to the level of Man, besides the fact that we are in nature, we also have an element of egoism that pushes us out of it: I want to be special!

By that, a person is different from animals. It turns out that with his egoism, he is pushing himself out of nature and is suffering as a result.

But the egoism in us is constantly growing, forcing us to be opposite to each other and to the surrounding inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. In general, this is our evil, our problem, which is called: the evil beginning of man.

It was created so that we recognize evil and correct it into good. Then we can understand the whole depth of nature, how to become integrally connected with it and participate in all its actions.

Therefore, egoism was not given to us so that we oppose nature and put ourselves against it, but that it is with its help that we get in touch with nature, feel ourselves distant from it, draw into it, and interact correctly with it in mutual influence on each other. Then man will become truly on a level with all nature, which means with the Creator. Because nature is the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/19/19

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Question: Why, in the process of studying Kabbalah, at first, I feel complete enthusiasm, everything is clear and understandable, I want to sing. Then there comes a moment when you cease to understand the material, there is doubt, discontent in everything and the thoughts:” Do I need it?”

Answer: This is true. This is exactly what happens in Kabbalah. For some, this occurs very quickly, after a year or two, and for others after five to ten years.

The fact is that there comes a period when a person approaches the revelation of the Creator, attainment of his connection with the Creator. This connection is determined by the ability to rise above one’s egoism.

This is where a stupor occurs. He pushes it away from himself. When everything was fine and with the help of his egoistic desires, he strove to attain the Creator, it seemed to him that he was ready to break through the Machsom, to do everything to reveal the Creator.

When the time comes to sacrifice yourself, your egoism, to start working with it and transform it to reveal the Creator, then a very complex, very difficult stage begins because you have to put pressure on yourself, rise above yourself, turn your egoism into altruism, i.e., to produce all kinds of anti-egoistic actions. So, people when reaching such states usually leave.

Here is the main point after which a person begins to reveal the Creator. It must be overcome. This is a psychological barrier where egoism is overcome and revelation begins.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/26/20

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New Life 1235 – From Technological Innovation To Social Innovation
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi

The innovation that the coronavirus era is requiring of humanity is not technological but social; we need to build new, positive, interdependent relations between us. We live in a system of laws that includes the relations between people. Changes in these relations affect the whole system.

First, we need to feel that we are all connected to each other around the globe, that we belong to one integral system like one family.

Second, our bright future depends on our positive attitude toward each other, regardless of any differences in our nationalities or origins.

Third, we need to learn these laws and implement them in the connection between us. Innovation in the field of happiness will occur when a person feels happy because everyone around him is happy.

Innovation in the field of self-fulfillment will happen when each one feels responsible for the whole world from his unique vantage point. If there is mutual guarantee between us, we will discover enough natural resources to sustain everyone and provide for their well-being. No one will fear anything. If we relate to people and to nature correctly, we will solve all of our health problems from the root. Beyond our health, social innovation will also help us to rise above this life and attain the essence of our existence.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1235 – From Technological Innovation To Social Innovation,” 5/8/20

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Concerning Above Reason” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 42 “What Is the Acronym Elul in the Work?”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 8

Lesson on the Topic “The Obligation to Disseminate the Wisdom of Kabbalah to Many” 

Selected Highlights

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