What is spirituality? Spirituality is an opposite altruistic quality to our egoistic human nature.
The human ego—the desire to enjoy—is behind every thought and desire we have, and behind every action that we do.
Therefore, we perceive what we want to see according to the ego, i.e., whether we can enjoy something, or whether something comes to threaten our enjoyment.
This is why if we want to discover spirituality, i.e., to find out what surrounds us that is imperceptible to our egoistic perception, we thus need to recreate ourselves, and in the process of recreating ourselves, our environment holds primary importance.
In other words, since altruism is imperceptible and opposite to egoism, we thus need help from our surroundings to inspire, prod and motivate us to want to reach an opposite quality to our egoism.
When we make the shift from egoism to altruism, corporeality to spirituality, we will sense a new world that has always surrounded us, but which we could not perceive.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah, that new world is called “the spiritual world” or “the upper world.”
Our current worldviews are perceptions that have formulated upon our egos in order to comfort and shield ourselves in various ways.
“Truth” then becomes what coincides with our ego-based opinions.
We seek support for our opinions and repel what counters them. As such, we ultimately do not want to change ourselves.
How, then, do we reach a desire to change ourselves and discover spirituality?
If we fail to do so of our own accord, through positive means, i.e., by surrounding ourselves with an environment that supports the shift from egoism to altruism, then suffering will enter our lives more and more in order to show us that the purely egoistic direction we head in is problematic and that something needs to change.
However, suffering itself won’t lead us to change, but to a desire to change, where we will seek out different environments and influences than our current ones, in order to develop ourselves spiritually.
The real news is that the media publicizes and broadcasts the news in accordance with its owners’ funding sources’ agendas, i.e., it is all ultimately fake news.
When subscribers were the primary source of news media funding, then the media was indebted to them, i.e., to the people buying, reading and watching the news on offer.
However, when media proprietors became the primary source of news media funding, with the media relying on advertisers for its sustenance, then the media serves owner and advertiser interests, blurring any authenticity that once existed in news coverage.
Today, there is widespread awareness of fake news reporting. More and more people are questioning the genuineness and the interests behind the media they consume, yet out of a lack of options, continue consuming the news from the same sources.
Yet, instead of finger-pointing at media corruption for fake news, we would be wiser if we took a moment to examine ourselves, each and every one of us that makes up society.
The media is no more corrupt than its enveloping society, which we all make up. It is, rather, a product of society’s values, influences and behaviors.
Fake news awareness is thus insufficient to reach a stage where we will have real news.
Reaching real news depends on undergoing serious introspection and realizing first that the media is no better or worse than the society it resides within—a society driven by individuals each prioritizing personal well-being over the well-being of society.
Fake news and corrupt media then become viewed as reflections of who we really are—self-centered beings who each try to benefit ourselves in life as best as we can—and such self-analysis should lead us to a pressing question:
Is this the society we really want to live in?
If it is, then fake news and media corruption should not concern us.
However, if we aspire to a society that blossoms with happiness, kindness, support, encouragement and a generally positive atmosphere, then we would need to reset our social values—to prioritize benefiting others in society over benefiting ourselves.
Such a change is easier said than done, but it is indeed doable.
It requires regularly learning about our interdependence, how we are all interconnected and dependent on each other.
We would do well to understand our interdependence from many different angles, until it starts becoming a tangible sensation, where we feel that any move we make has an impact on others’ lives.
The coronavirus exemplified our interdependence in terms of our health, how one person’s health depends on the other person following health department orders, such as the maintenance of personal hygiene, keeping a certain distance from others and wearing masks in public.
According to our interdependence, one person’s indifference, lack of concern, divisive attitudes and antipathy spreads negatively to others, sparking a harmful chain reaction that negatively affects society.
However, if we each feel our interdependence, as if we are all parts of a greater whole, then our care for our common possession would let us refrain from harming it, and instead, we would each seek how to make it prosper and grow as much as possible.
Understanding that fake news and media corruption stem from the way we each prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others in society, we can then see that nothing effective comes from blaming the news and those directly behind it for being fake.
On the contrary, if we want to change the media, we need to change ourselves and make ourselves first want to benefit society over our personal benefit.
If we continue letting ourselves be held back from improving our relations, then we can expect more fake news and media corruption emerging together with myriad other problems filling our society.
Moreover, we would see no solution in sight.
Real news would thus come as a result of self-examination and improvement of human relations.
Negative exploitative attitudes are like viruses that we infect each other with on a daily basis.
Positive change thus requires a common effort to build a positively-connected society by developing mutually considerate and responsible relations.
If we make that slight calibration in our thinking, then we will experience a completely new and upgraded world.
We are quickly transitioning into an era where many of the jobs we once held will become obsolete due to our needs changing, and also due to technology increasingly replacing human resources.
In such a situation, basic income becomes a necessity.
I support basic income provided that it is given in exchange for learning and certain kinds of contribution to society.
Basic income alone, without any requirements on behalf of the receivers, would stagnate society. It would create a society of disinterested and indifferent people who would lack motivation to strive forward in life. The sluggishness and dullness that would envelop society would end up erupting in our faces.
Therefore, in Spain’s case, I would recommend that the government provide courses that receivers of basic income need to complete.
The courses can be used to funnel people into certain jobs or areas of social contribution that would improve Spanish society, and they can also be used to teach people about the history and culture of the country and its people, in order to strengthen its citizens’ identification with the country, and in addition, the courses can be used to teach people about the new globally interdependent conditions we find ourselves in today: how we live in a new era where mutual responsibility and consideration are becoming increasingly essential in order for us all to live safe, calm, happy and healthy lives.
While the courses would ideally seek to develop people into certain areas where they could contribute—from finding new careers better suited to our times, to becoming instructors and aides within this new educational system—the educational process would be beneficial in and of itself.
The leading idea of the educational process is that people will improve their social connections, feel more connected to their country, and build the beginnings of a social network fueled by mutual consideration and responsibility.
The more such a network thrives and grows, the stronger a foundation people will have by which to navigate through any future crises, and also, to inhibit future social dissent and conflict.
Question: You always say that we do not need and cannot neutralize our egoism, level it. It is enough just to balance it with some positive force of nature. What is this positive force? Where does it come from?
Answer: This is the spiritual force.
In our world, we are at the level of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. Man is like an animal here. If he has any kind of anti-social actions, they can be balanced only if we bring him to the next level, the level of spiritual interaction, “love your neighbor.”
And then we will see the correct integral picture of all of nature and ourselves within it. Humanity will understand that it can exist without any problems, even without death.
Question:How can we evoke the force that neutralizes our egoism and balances it?
Answer:In nature, in addition to egoism, there is also a kind, altruistic force that can give, bestow, and think not about itself, but only about others. We lack this force opposite to our egoistic force, which in no way takes into account the desires of others, and even vice versa: The more it opposes the desires of others, the more it enjoys and is filled. We must balance these two forces.
Question: Do you mean balancing this good force is caused by some good deeds and the fact that we talk about it?
Answer:Yes. It must be developed when you are in the right environment, in the right group. It is caused by both thoughts and actions because actions are followed by thoughts. [265919] From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 4/23/20
Question: Does the Creator hear us when we ask for something or when we thank Him? Does the manner in which the Creator responds to us mean anything?
Answer:If a person wants the Creator to hear him, he must understand the system of connection with the Creator. If a person exits himself and integrates in others, he integrates in the Creator to the same extent.
Then he can ask Him, thank Him, and do anything he wants to, since he is in contact with Him. But if I don’t exit myself in my attitude to the friends, and I don’t get close to them mentally, I have no contact with the Creator. [242501] From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/18/18
Comment:In Kabbalah, there is a formula for life: If you live today because you lived yesterday, then you are dead.
My Response: Not “because,” but just as I lived yesterday. If you are not changing, then you are dead. Every day a person must be new, be born, as it were, anew.
Comment:Kabbalah says that a person is created new every time.
My Response: Yes, every moment a person is new. If only he feels it.
Question: And what does it mean “every moment a person is new”?
Answer:Reshimot, its internal natural data, are updated. But does a person adapt them to his life? Does he manifest them in himself? Does he feel his inner renewal?
Question: How can he feel it?
Answer: Being more sensitive to what is happening within him. I have to feel, hear, that the Creator is changing in me every second, what He wants from me.
Question: What is changing in a person?
Answer: The attitude to the world and to the Creator.
Question: Is it getting better, worse?
Answer: Closer.
Question: And how should a person recognize it and act?
Answer: By the feeling of intimacy. The world and the Creator require the properties of bestowal and love from a person, participation. That is how a person should control himself, meaning, whether he is more and more in this property.
Question:How can an ordinary person recognize those new desires that lead him closer to the world, closer to the Creator?
Answer: Bestowal and love. He needs to learn that. [265945] From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 2/4/20
Question: The Kabbalistic term Lishma is translated as “for the sake of the Creator.” What does it mean?
Answer: It is understood that the whole of creation, which is an egoistic desire for one’s own sake, must be corrected, changed, as if turning it inside out in order to do everything not for one’s own sake but for the sake of the Creator or for the sake of others, which is basically the same thing.
It is said: “From love of self to love of friends, and then to love of the Creator.” Meaning, it is one and the same. Only love of the Creator implies universal love, beyond all differences among people. Before that, we just practice on the love of friends.
Question: So both giving and receiving should be done not for my sake but for the sake of the Creator? Why?
Answer: Because this way your desires become infinite and you begin to feel what the Creator feels in them: eternity and perfection. It seems like you’re giving, but in reality you are receiving.
Question: Just like in a single organism where each organ takes what it needs and gives everything else to the rest of the organs, which allows the organism to sustain life for the benefit of all. Does Kabbalah say that we all have to arrive at this state?
Answer:We must come to the most perfect, best possible state of great fulfillment and knowledge. Therefore, “Kabbalah” is translated from Hebrew as the science of “receiving.”
This reception can be eternal and endless, but only if it works together with others.
Question: So this kind of interaction should be between all people?
Answer: Yes. It allows you to receive eternal and perfect fulfillment.
Question: What has to happen for it to occur?
Answer:Recognition of evil in our current state. [265190] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/17/19
Question: At the beginning of the 15th century, Jews of Spain adopted Christianity in mass and took important posts in the social and economic activities of the country.
From 1871 a process that gave Jews rights on an equal basis with others began in Germany. And a little later, in the 20s of the 20th century, the Jews of America also began to gain power.
The same processes, only in a slightly different way, took place in Russia. The bulk of those who made the revolution were people of Jewish origin.
Naturally, anti-Semitism immediately appeared in these countries. Baal HaSulam wrote that the system to follow the collapse of capitalism would be fascism, which occurs when people feel disconnected and strive to unite at any cost, but since they are not able to unite in the pursuit of the meaning of life and good, they are forced to unite against someone, exalting opposing yourself to another group of people. Why does that happen?
Answer: If we do not correct the social and economic foundations of the system, then it leads to even greater hatred toward those who find and support it. Thus, it turns out that the world is moved by hatred, or at best, competition. In principle, this is not competition, since competition is some small stage, which then grows into hatred. It already clearly defines who we can hate: the driving force of the world. But the driving force of the world, whatever one may say, has always been the Jews. And therefore, a negative attitude toward them is one of the great forces of human development. Where anti-Semitism develops, there is always a forward movement: either positive or negative.
This movement can be positive only at a certain, concrete phase, when society should recreate itself, literally be reborn from the ashes, from the previous broken state. Naturally, then Jews are included in this development as the most dynamic part of society.
While they build this society and its following outlines become more or less visible, it then seems that they have done their job by pulling this huge mass out of the garbage, from the breakdown, making a society, a state, and affecting all areas without exception: science, culture, technology, education, etc. Therefore, a small group of Jews is engaged in the uplifting of society due to their inner receptivity to it.
But as soon as society begins to flourish, anti-Semitic forces rise and destroy everything that the Jews have done. Why? Because what the Jews created, they did without a spiritual purpose. And so we need to destroy everything again and build anew.
Question: An example is Facebook, a social network designed to connect all people. But can you call it a connection?
Answer: I completely agree. What is created by the Jews without the direction of correcting humanity brings only evil to the world.
Question: What does self-realization mean for most people? What potential do they have for moral, cultural, and spiritual development? What can really be done?
Answer: First, we must understand that if we do not work with a man, he again turns into an animal because labor has made man out of a monkey. This is actually so.
But in our time, we are going, as it were , on the way back. Therefore, we need to create conditions for a person so that one can develop not in manufacturing new material objects to sell, buy, and do something with, but in the production of a spiritual complement to one’s limited, material life.
For this, it is necessary to organize all of humanity into groups in which we will teach them and they will develop not only in culture, music, and literature, but in attaining ourselves and building a society, i.e., human psychology and human society: how we can improve ourselves, what is the best condition for us, and so on.
Besides this, if people are interested in some exact sciences, then let them study this as well. Therefore, training should be our main occupation. [265476] From KabTV’s “Unemployment Post-Coronavirus,” 5/30/20
Question: What should society be like? Should it be communist?
Answer:Yes, but not the kind of communism that was once in the former Soviet Union or that we read about from Karl Marx. It is a society of equal free people.
Nature demands us to be similar to the Creator. We cannot achieve similarity with the Creator by any other type of connection besides the one we call communism. But we are not talking about the kind of communism that was propagated in the Soviet Union, but of a totally different society of free, correctly interconnected people.
The most important thing is education. A lot was said about it in the Soviet Russia back in the day, but nobody did anything about it, it was all done for show. So, we, the global community, must organize education in a way that is congruent with nature. Not because it is good or bad, but because this is the only way we can protect ourselves from natural disasters and blows caused by our unreasonable behavior.
It is not that we pollute the environment. We see how quickly nature has begun to recover, even in the few weeks that we have shied a little from our reckless production and overproduction.
The most important thing is that nature will still force us to treat each other correctly, i.e., to feel like one common human community, not animal, but human. We cannot escape it.
I am sure that this virus will not just go away, although now they are saying that it is about to disappear. I do not believe so. I am telling you directly It seems to me that it will be months before we can start a normal life and return to normal in all the ways. Therefore, we have to think about how to achieve the right interaction. This is our only problem.
All of nature is an integral, enclosed system. As long as we, the people, do not correlate to it with our qualities or connections, nature will keep bringing us blow after blow, squeezing everything possible out of us. After all, the more advanced we are, the more it mocks us and forces us to react correctly to it and create kind, mutual human relations between us. [265694] From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/20
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the love of truth the ultimate spirituality?“
