Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we read someone’s mind?“

It is possible if we work on ourselves in such a way where we become different people. In other words, if we pass ourselves over to the states of others, as if copying their states onto ourselves, then we can read their thoughts and desires.

However, it is no simple task. Doing so requires prioritizing the thoughts and desires of others ahead of our own, devoting and even annulling ourselves to them. We then make our mind as their mind, and can feel their desires and thoughts.

Such is the outcome of a process of increasing the greatness of others, up to a point where we feel them as being of utmost importance. When we start relating with primacy to the thoughts and desires of others, we then start feeling a whole new and enormous world open up: Instead of perceiving within our own narrow individual perspectives, we add a perception through the thoughts and desires of others. It can be likened to how cells feel their host organism as much greater than their own individual status, which causes them to act maximally for their host organism’s benefit, and receive from the host organism only what they need in order to act for the host’s benefit.

When we discover that kind of connection to each other—where we each think of the other as greater and more important than we are to ourselves, and create an atmosphere of support and encouragement in providing each other with everything necessary in order to nurture that connection—then we will experience a newfound harmony stemming from our unified inclinations to come out toward one another.

The laws of nature, which are laws of love, altruism and connection, set the scenario that reading someone’s mind is possible on condition that we approach them with a genuine intention for their benefit. If any shred of egoistic and exploitative intention is laced within, then we will remain mentally and emotionally detached.

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Question: Anything that we feel as a lack causes fear in us. It can be a lack of money, security,  knowledge, health, or confidence in the future. We are always overwhelmed by a feeling of inner panic because we are missing something.

Is it possible to say that a person develops due to fears?

Answer: Yes. It is a very powerful developmental agent. The basis of fears is the need to preserve one’s existence. But they can be controlled.

Question: Is it possible to get rid of fear at all?

Answer: No. Only if we turn off the mind. Fear is an instinct for self-preservation.

Question: A person cannot satisfy his own needs. But society can. Can you get rid of fear only through communication with society?

Answer: Yes. Society can give a person such a quality of confidence and support that fear will disappear to a certain extent. It is very difficult for a person to do this except only with the use of a special technique, and only in a limited form.

Question: Is there also such a thing as fear for others?

Answer: Fear for others is a feeling of belonging with others.

Question: When a person is afraid for his family, it is understandable. Is it possible to develop a sense of fear for complete strangers?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: It turns out that a person does not need to get rid of fear. Is it enough to direct the vector toward others?

Answer: We should not get rid of anything but only treat correctly all the properties of our body.

We need to come to the highest, general sensation of the space in which we are so that all our properties cause in us the ability to measure everything, feel everything, cognize everything, and ultimately achieve one common integral sensation of nature.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/7/20

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Remark: Most people want to leave some kind of mark of their lives, like with works of art, sports achievements, good deeds, and ending with an idea.

My Comment: They don’t feel like they live forever, and therefore they take care of it. If they felt that our world is practically a part of the eternal world, they would not think of how to leave something behind.

When a person feels that he lives forever, he has no worries about his future. Then he thinks about what exactly he can do for people.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/27/20

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New Life 465 – The Jewish Potential, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Abraham gathered the most developed people who lived in his time and taught them to connect in order to reveal the upper force. They have the ability to see the world in depth, from the perspective of two opposite forces, the force of receiving and the force of giving. An ordinary person sees the world only according to the force of receiving, which is based on the survival of the fittest and the power of the human ego. It is like seeing the world through one eye rather than two.

These people, the Jews, lost the ability to reveal the force of bestowal since the days of the destruction of the temple. The goal of their evolution is to re-awaken these abilities, rebuild the attribute of giving inside of them, and identify the force of love and bestowal in reality.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 465 – The Jewish Potential, Part 1,” 12/4/14

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Question: Why can’t we measure our feelings?

Answer: We do not have this ability. We can partially measure the reaction of our nerve endings and impulses with certain devices but not the feelings themselves because they are measured by desires.

It is also impossible to measure desires. The Creator, or the most internal force of the world, is a desire. Therefore, we just have to accept that we can work with them in a very external form, but we cannot understand, measure, or manage them.

This is the prerogative of the upper force that created a desire on the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels and then formed matter around this desire.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/7/20

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Question: Is it possible to teach a person to respect someone?

Answer: We learn only from examples. Thus, when we show someone a good example, they grow up to be good people. Respect is a positive feeling. But sometimes it can limit a person and cause one to regress. Therefore, one needs to develop self-control.

Expecting purely egoistic respect from others can cause one to close in on oneself. After all, if everyone starts honoring him, he stops growing and only demands more respect no matter the situation, as long as it is given to him. But if respect is directed outward, it facilitates our advancement.

Remark: You have repeatedly mentioned that signs of respect from society are very detrimental to someone who wants to achieve self-actualization or spiritual development.

My Comment: It is simply disastrous! Sometimes, of course, it is good to hear positive feedback about yourself but, in general, it is enough for the environment to only point out the correct direction for your advancement.

Positive feedback and compliments make one feel content, limits their development, and smooths out all sorts of feelings of self-inadequacy.

It is not about putting pressure on a person so that he cannot lift his head. But there must be a very serious line of self-control that keeps revealing additional deficiencies in a person that need to be filled with knowledge and attainment.

Much is written about this in our sources. For example, they say that if a teacher receives a lot of attention and respect from his students, he may stop developing spiritually. This should be avoided.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 8/7/20

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Question: What should be the interaction between teacher and student? Does their relationship depend on the requests of the student only or on the teacher also?

Answer: More on the student. The teacher is ready to accept all of his requests.

Question: The sages say that a person should study what his heart lies on. You, too, often ask students: “What would you like to study today”? But this isn’t this wrong. Shouldn’t the teacher make the lesson plan himself?

Answer: Yes, but I want them to understand what they want and not passively accept what I give them.

Question: So, is what the student wants more important to you?

Answer: Sometimes I ask them about it to give them a chance to test themselves.

Question: Do you know in most cases what kind of material should be given and in what dose?

Answer: It is not my choice, it is the time. It dictates to me what materials to give them.

Question: Don’t you also think that the teacher should explain the material so skillfully that the student will have even more questions by the end of the lesson?

Answer: Yes, questions that would not confuse him, but would lead him further. This is necessary for the study. The student must accept my answer and, starting from it, continue to ask further. Then he will feel twofold in the answer and will be able to navigate correctly.

Question: How should students relate to other students’ questions?

Answer: Learn from them. It is the answers to the questions that carry the most information. This is necessary for students because they want to connect together with their souls—inner qualities, feelings, and intentions.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/24/20

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic of “Work with Faith Above Reason”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Table of Questions for Topics, Vol. 1, Part 1, Item 69”

Lesson on the Topic of “Noah”

Selected Highlights

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Everything begins with each person thinking not about himself, but about his neighbor, about everyone, and thus ascending to a higher degree. To exit oneself means to enter the Creator, for He exists above our egoistic thoughts and desires.
Faith above reason is the path of attainment of the next spiritual degree, higher and higher still.

We’re going to feel our true human powers, all that is hidden from us in the universe: black holes and dark matter, all the forces that acted before the world’s creation, and that have created it. We’re going to start delving into creation, and sensing where we are. This is no fantasy, but real science: Kabbalah.

“Everything shall be resolved in the thought.” Thus we will bring to balance all the forces of nature, which is presently deliberately muddling our life, like mixing a deck of cards. Everything depends solely on our desire on the human level, which is the highest level of this world.

If every person were to care for others instead of himself, we are going to transition from the path of suffering to the path of Torah, the path of light, ridding ourselves of the coronavirus and all other problems. If we start thinking about unity, everything in the world will automatically work out. We need only to correct our thoughts.

The Creator is the quality of love and bestowal. By fulfilling His desire, I arrange a communication system between myself and the Creator through the group, the ten, all humankind. I don’t think or ask for myself, but only for others: for them not to forget about or disconnect from the goal. I redirect my mind and my heart to them.

Faith means rising above one’s opinion to the Creator’s opinion. Our opinion is knowledge. Each degree begins with darkness, with what my nature demands, but I aspire toward the Creator’s opinion, and I must rise each time. I don’t think or do what I want, but I do as the Creator wishes.

The Creator prepares the creatures: He builds us up and breaks us down, and then again and again. He has built and shattered all the degrees, all the worlds, up to the world of infinity. He has prepared all the states, one opposite the other, so that man could live among them and rise above both, above good and evil.

Man must combine within himself two opposites: darkness and light, evil and goodness. The evil must appear before so that man would come to desire to disconnect from it, to rise above his nature. The desire to enjoy develops due to the light, by repeatedly connecting and disconnecting from it.

The Creator decided to create man with a great desire to enjoy, who would be opposite to Him, doesn’t agree with Him, resists Him and can even feel anger and hatred toward Him. All this must exist in our foundation, so that we could feel and understand the Creator, and unite with Him.
From Twitter, 11//20

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