Audio Version Of The Blog – 1/7/21

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My Thoughts On Twitter 1/7/21

Dr Michael Laitman Twitter

2021 is the year the world transitions from a market and informational economy to social and personal proximity—until people start coming closer to one another above all boundaries. These are not fantasies, but a real step forward in nature’s realization of man’s development toward full unification into the system of ADAM.
From Twitter, 1/7/21

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“The United State(s) Of Humanity” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The United State(s) of Humanity

America is in a state of deep scrutiny. So is humanity. Today’s America presents the future state of humanity: If the world advances the way America is advancing, we will end up being divided between two blocs that hate each other in every sense—ideologically, approach to life, culture, education, and every other way. It will be impossible to connect the adversaries, just as it is impossible to connect the Democrats with the Republicans in today’s divided United States.

We should thank the American people for setting an example that demonstrates what our future will be like unless we achieve unity among us. In other words, if we don’t achieve a united state in humanity, humanity will become like today’s United States: an assortment of nations, colors, races, and faiths that hate each other to death, and do everything they can to cater to their hatred.

As things are, there will be no calm. It seems as though things have gone out of control, but they haven’t. It is simply what happens when the ego wants to govern and will not hear of anything less than that. It does not want connection; it wants domination.

It may be horrifying to watch, but we are merely witnessing the natural process. When everything revolves around who has more and who has less, and when the ego keeps intensifying, we come to a state where the ego wants everything, and to leave absolutely nothing to the other side. This is what you get when you don’t educate people.

It doesn’t matter how much you invest in aid packages and relief programs, when the ego comes to a state of all or nothing, nothing helps. Therefore, we should thank America for the example it is giving us, at its own expense. We should thank the American people for setting an example that demonstrates what our future will be like unless we achieve unity among us. In other words, if we don’t achieve a united state in humanity, humanity will become like today’s United States: an assortment of nations, colors, races, and faiths that hate each other to death, and do everything they can to cater to their hatred.

“Why Israel’s World Lead In Vaccination Is Meaningless” (Times Of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why Israel’s World Lead in Vaccination Is Meaningless

Israel has leapt ahead of other countries in the global efforts to inoculate its population against COVID-19 with the fastest vaccination rate in the entire planet. What Israel has yet to discover is that such an effort will be ultimately useless until the nation realizes its role and capacity to cure humanity from all its illnesses, as it holds the only lasting antidote to health, (as well as the key to peace and success): our unity.

Around 12% of Israel’s population has already been vaccinated with doses of the Pfizer vaccine as a result of a well-oiled 24/7 campaign and an efficient healthcare system. Vaccine distribution efforts in Israel are by far faster and more successful compared to those of other developed countries such as the US and European nations. But as much as we would like to believe that this is the panacea to get rid of the coronavirus, we will soon discover that the miracle cure to the pandemic does not lie within the biological sphere but instead at the human level, in the right connection between people. A method for reaching that goal is the real example Israel should give to the world.

Why is this successful immunization program not enough? It is not sufficient because it gives us the false impression that only through such measures are we protected from diseases, while nature is trying to teach us that we cannot sit on our laurels until we address and fix the root cause of the problem: our lack of alignment with nature’s balance, wholeness, and perfection. Our human intolerance, hostility and egoism cause imbalance within multiple levels of nature—inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human—which negatively boomerangs back upon us in the form of diseases. Our hatred of one another thus harms the system we all share and is reflected back on us in the form of all kinds of problems and crises.

So what is the true role of Israel I have mentioned? It is to pioneer the implementation of the method for attaining unity above division between people to the point of reaching the tenet “love your neighbor as yourself.” Israel’s role is to lead the way in moving humanity toward the attainment of unity and recovering balance with nature that has been lost as a result of our fractious, egoistic and self-centered human relations.

A method for realizing this goal is set out in the wisdom of Kabbalah and this knowledge has been inherited by the people of Israel through the generations so that they will become a conduit for the worldwide expansion of unity. As Rav Yehuda Ashlag, author of the Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar wrote, “It is upon the Israeli nation to qualify itself and all the people of the world to develop until they take upon themselves that sublime work of the love of others, which is the ladder to the purpose of Creation.”

As the press of nature increasingly tightens humanity’s interconnection and greater rivalry and conflict surface between people, the conditions become ripe for humanity to learn how to organize our increasing connection positively, how to unite above the growing divisions.

Jews need only come to the realization that by starting to relearn and implement our historic and unique method for achieving unity and by disseminating this know-how to all, they will bring harmony to themselves and to the world at every level of nature. Such unity will radiate a positive unifying example throughout the entire planet and then the people of Israel will truly become “a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). Therefore, Israel can and should provide the role model for humanity to follow in order to reach the goal of achieving immunity from all its suffering and pains through healthy human connection.
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“Amen And A-Woman? Gender Equality Campaign Does Not Change Nature” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Amen and A-Woman? Gender Equality Campaign Does Not Change Nature

On Monday, January 4, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), concluded the opening prayer at the end of the first day of the new Congress with the words “Amen and ‘A-woman.” Even Cleaver seemed uncomfortable when asked about his alteration of the traditional conclusion of the prayer as he said to Snopes.com: “I concluded with a light-hearted pun in recognition of the record number of women who will be representing the American people in Congress.”

As I see it, the whole notion of gender equality has gone too far for something that we can’t really change. Men and women aren’t the same, just as male and female aren’t the same in nature. Our bodies, including our psyches, belong to the animal kingdom, and just as lions and lionesses behave differently, so do people.

We can decide that we want to define our gender identity one way or another way, or no way at all, but it will not make us happier. It will only keep us constantly on the edge, having to defend our choice. But nature is nature, is nature; it does not change according to our whims. If we go against nature, we suffer.

Just as it is much harder to swim upstream than downstream, it is much harder to defend false views about life than to hold truthful ones. And the fact that someone told us that one view and not the other is the view to follow doesn’t make it any truer.

There is a good reason why there are two distinct genders in nature, and both are indispensable for the success of human society, and life as a whole. Genders are not superior or inferior to each other; they are complementary! Only when we look at life from this perspective we can truly appreciate our value as human beings, the value of our partners, and the value of our relationships. When we have good relationships, we are happy people, and in the end, happiness is all we need.

“From The Steam Engine To The Engine Of Relations” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “From the Steam Engine to the Engine of Relations

2020 was a culmination of a centuries-long process that started with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Technology began to move apace when steam engines became efficient enough to be used in England’s factories in the late 18th century. Since then, technology has only been accelerating its development. Gradually, we moved from the steam engine and bulky machines to devices that grew smaller yet more powerful. We learned how to use gasoline, electricity, developed electronics, computers, and eventually even waves and magnetic force fields. Things that seemed like fantasy or science fiction to educated adults in the 19th century are a given to children in the 21st century, and the pace is still accelerating.

We have gone from large to small, to smaller, to invisible, but we have yet to find the force that makes it all work, the engine of reality. Humanity is at a crossroads. In order to find the engine of reality we must invert our perspective. There is one more force field to discover, but our current perspective cannot reveal it for a very simple reason: We are looking in the opposite direction. Until now, we have been observing the world outside of us and registering our discoveries. From now on we must start looking inward and register our discoveries about the force that makes us move: the force field of relations.

If you have ever wondered why every innovation that humanity has ever made has always been put to bad use, here lies the answer. If you’ve ever noticed the strange phenomenon that the most powerful engines of development have been negative, and usually related to the arms industry, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, here lies the answer. The force field of relations is injecting negative energy into the system, making our entire society sick with venom that forces us to invent things that hurt others. And as technology accelerates its progress, we inject more and more malice into society, and at a growing pace. Currently, such tensions have piled up that we are almost at the breaking point.

The way we relate to one another determines not only how our society operates, but how all of reality operates. This is why I keep saying that no vaccine will help defeat Covid-19 unless we first heal what’s really sick about us: our relations toward each other. We are creating viruses through our ill-will toward others. Not directly, of course, but through a chain reaction that ultimately creates viruses, and moves on to create every adverse effect in our world, from wars to earthquakes.

There is no point looking for technological innovations to improve our lives; they will only be used to our detriment as long as we are detrimental to each other. If we ever want to have a peaceful, happy life, we must focus on changing our relations, and as a result, everything we do will change for the better.

[Intensive Care Unit Nurse Merlin Pambuan, 66, is hugged by hospital staff as she walks out of the hospital where she spent 8 months with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Dignity Health – St. Mary Medical Center, in Long Beach, California, U.S., December 21, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson]

Castles In The Air

935Question: You said recently that everything is developing so quickly that one wants to slow down the pace of this development. How can this be expressed in a group?

Answer: I sometimes hear from you that the movement forward has become so fast that it is like uncontrollable galloping horses. But this is actually how it has to be because these “horses” are managed by the Creator, and every new state is totally unexpected, while we must attain connections in faith above reason in every new state only through our common movement, so that below us a clear surface will be created, on which we can stand, even if we suddenly find ourselves in the air.

The attribute of Bina is the attribute of the air. There is such a concept as a castle, flying in the air. When we perceive and absorb the attribute of bestowal inside us, we feel that we are suspended in the air, and this is what we are being taught to get used to. We no longer have any egoistic base, and we cannot count on anything. There is no present, past, or future and there is no attachment to anything or to anyone. We are simply suspended not knowing where, how, and what is happening to us.

You accept this state and even more, but on one condition: that you do not know how it will happen and you also do not want to know. You only want to know that as a result of this condition, the whole correct state in the form of pleasure will go to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/6/19

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The Picture Opened By The Book Of Zohar

249.01Question: Is our task to reveal the world that The Book of Zohar gives us?

Answer: We must reveal the higher world of forces, properties, and their relationship with each other. The Book of Zohar gives us such an opportunity.

Everything that we perceive as existing outside is drawn inside us. All kinds of electrochemical parameters, forces, interactions, and reactions paint a picture of the material world in our brain, and we see such a hodgepodge of force. In fact, all this is not the real picture. This is how our brain depicts what it feels inside us.

When we begin to feel the upper world through The Book of Zohar, it shows us exactly those forces that stand before the earthly image and even higher, not all kinds of electrochemical reactions in the brain, but higher ones that control and determine them. This is called the upper world, the highest degree.

What does it give us? The ability to rise above the illusion of our world, above the illusion of the existence of our bodies, above the whole picture, which is drawn as if on the screen. In fact, it does not exist. Like in a cinema, if it were not for the projector, into which the reel is inserted and the film is spinning, there would be no picture.

This is how we live. Some picture is being scrolled for us, and we play in it as if it is real. We interact with it and with each other, so we see each other and we feel all this really exists. And suddenly, through The Book of Zohar, you begin to see that this is all a holographic picture. It doesn’t exist.

There are only forces that painted these pictures for you. You go back to their root, you begin to understand what it was all for, why, for what reason. And as if from this external picture, you begin to rise to its sources: where is it from and why. You ascend to higher realms.

In this case, you do not lose anything. On the contrary, you begin to feel everything that happens more vividly.

This is similar to how people come to me and show me an advertisement they want to make, for example, about Kabbalah. I look: “This is not right, something isn’t working.” And they tell me that there is a picture with eighteen million colors in the computer. But I only catch seven colors of the rainbow and some other shades. Where did eighteen million come from?

In fact, when we rise to the sources that these pictures give in our world, we begin to enrich ourselves billions of times more in all sensations. Vision, hearing, smell, taste, and tactile sensations develop, and each of them becomes a whole world! Therefore, it becomes so rich, and most importantly, eternal, perfect, and determines everything.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” # 1

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Life Has Not Gone Anywhere

962.8Question: The vaccine has come in various forms and there are studies showing that it works.

There are skeptics who are afraid, but there are those who want to get vaccinated so that all this will end. That is, people now have an opportunity and the thought: “Well, when this year ends, everything will return to normal.”

I find myself thinking that we are going to start meeting physically. Everything will return to normal, and people will again begin to fly to their friends and relatives, to travel, to live. Life will continue. Already this blockage will end.

This thought is in people’s minds that everything will return to normal, and life will begin again. What do you think?

Answer: Life has not gone anywhere. So, if it comes back, I do not know what we mean by life. This is first. Second, you cannot bring back what was. So this whole pandemic, this whole virus, will accompany us. I think we should realize what it has given us.

Comment: I generally follow the press; few people have drawn conclusions about why the virus came and what it came for.

My Response: No. They want to go back to what was, how it was.

Comment: Yes, this is the natural state of a person who is already tired of all this.

My Response: As if it were good.

Question: So what do we need to realize now in order to live a new life, but good?

Answer: We must look to the future as a new day that must be a consequence of the past day. We do not consider this past day! We do not want to get any information from it.

Question: Do you need to pull information from the past?

Answer: Sure. Only we do not want to. We want to jump back. That is all. As we we flew, we fly, as we walked, we walk. There were all sorts of shows on television, there were theaters, movies. We went to restaurants, everywhere. The streets were full of people, they went to any cafe, to any place.

Question: What information should be extracted from the past?

Answer: That if we want to return to rapprochement, then rapprochement must be internal in order to neutralize this virus. This is difficult to explain to people. But the problem is in us. The virus is in us. If I want to neutralize it, I need to fill my attitude toward others with feelings of connection, rapprochement, love. Then I will neutralize the negative effects of the virus.

Question: Are you saying that this connection, this love was not in our past life?

Answer: Of course not.

Question: Whatever a person imagines was there, What should he do with it?

Answer: He just felt free. The virus came to us and showed that you have no right to approach another, say closer than two meters.

You cannot get any closer to the other one! People should understand that the virus actually came from the spiritual level, that is, from the level of feelings, from the level of correction of the human being, and then it descends to the biological, animal level.

Question: So, is it asking us to reach this level?

Answer: Inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature! Human nature is higher than animals. That is, it is an emotional relationship between human beings. If we fix that, then there is nothing to fix at all the lower levels, everything will be right and good.

Question: So, should we correct our internal relations with each other?

Answer: Only that. It is necessary to reveal to a person what this means. He says: “I did not like others?! I was hugging them! I sat with them, drank!”

Comment: Of course. They were my friends, my family.

My Response: How can I explain to him that it was all an egoistic, rigid, purely psychological hateful relations?

Comment: This is very difficult to explain. The person kept the warmth toward his close people…

My Response: He did not think about it. Now we have to go to another level.

Question: So, must a person understand that he has lived using others all the time? Actually, his love was to use them, one way or another.

Answer: Yes.

Comment: It is not easy!

My Response: Then we will begin to explain to mothers what it means to love their children.

Comment: But the mother is 1000% sure that she loves her child!

My Response: She loves him, of course. But this is the animal level of love. Leave this state and only give the child a more inner content—eternal, perfect! With your awareness of where it comes from!

From your inner animal body, from your urge as an animal to an animal you want to hug him, you want to lick him, like a cow licking her newborn calf, and so on.

Here another thing is also necessary—why do I do this, for what, why does nature arouse such feelings in me? I cannot just blindly follow my instinctive impulses of nature, which urges me like this, forces me. I must understand why I must do this, agree with it, and confirm with my consent that I am doing it consciously. For what?

In order to fully know and justify the Creator’s program in these actions. So that in this love between us, between all people, we will unite in a system called Adam, and in the end, we would find the same connection of love toward the Creator.

Adam is a single soul. Then we will feel how He “licks” us, as a cow does to her calf, and we perceive it as a calf perceiving a cow, a mother.

This is what everything was created for. When this highest love is manifested on all levels down to the lowest level, then this is the revelation of the Creator to the creatures.

We are not going anywhere. This must all be revealed.

Question: Do we reveal that we are one in the hands of the Creator?

Answer: Yes. We must be even higher, even to the point that we must reach an equal state with Him, realize His attitude toward us, rise to the level of understanding and feeling the source of His attitude toward us, that is, to grow ourselves to such a level.

Question: Do we even have to get to the purpose?

Answer: Of course, otherwise what will we do? Like a baby in its mother’s arms? He feels good, and his mother feels good. We need to grow. In our spiritual relationship with the Creator there is also an inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human level.

Question: What is the purpose of creation, the last point?

Answer: To rise to this state, to the highest, when we feel from where His love arises in the Creator and descends on us.

We will get there. It is precisely programmed. We are just trying to do it quickly and for everyone.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/14/20

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“How Can You End Suffering In Life?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: How can you end suffering in life?Dr. Michael Laitman

We first need to understand the source of suffering in life, and then we can implement a method to end it.

In order to understand the source of suffering, the wisdom of Kabbalah explains a key interaction between two fundamental forces in nature: one is a force called “light,” the force of love, bestowal and connection, also known as “the upper force” and “the Creator” (“Boreh” in Hebrew), which means “come and see” (“Bo” and “Reh”), because we need to attain this force as a clear perception and sensation in order to believe it. This initial force created the second force: the creation, which is also called “the created being” or “the desire to enjoy”—a lack of fulfillment, opposite to the initial upper force.

The upper force develops the desire to enjoy, making us feel as if we need and want several different kinds of fulfillment. We are essentially made of a set of desires—food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge—and we each feel an instinctive urge to fulfill ourselves via these desires in differing extents.

If we fail to fulfill these desires, we suffer, and this suffering extends from sensations of emptiness to those of outright pain, the latter of which can even become intolerable.

Desires for food, sex and family are natural bodily instincts shared by all animals. By contrast, desires for money, honor, control and knowledge are social desires based on comparing what we have in relation to others, and such desires are unique to humans.

The source of suffering is thus the inability to fulfill these desires. In Kabbalistic terms, when the light (pleasure/fulfillment) does not fill the desire, then it suffers, and the suffering can be intense or slight, long-term or momentary, collective or individual.

Understanding that our desires’ lack of fulfillment is the source of our suffering, we thus find ourselves in a constant race for fulfillment. The problem is that our desire to enjoy only knows how to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, and thus we pit ourselves up against each other in a tug-of-war, each pulling to their own corner. That is why any kind of fulfillment we sense in this current setup is only transient, after which we once again feel empty and desire a different fulfillment again and again.

The solution to this predicament is to invert the direction by which we enjoy. If instead of wishing to receive fulfillment for ourselves alone at the expense of others, we would develop a new desire—one where we wish for the benefit of others—then we would enter a new level of life where we would feel constant fulfillment.

Image: Left: Direct reception of pleasure into the desire leads to its extinguishment. Right: The intention to benefit others redirects the pleasure, allowing for continuous fulfillment.

Our desire to enjoy for personal benefit alone immensely limits and narrows our sensation of fulfillment to very tiny and transient moments, and most of the time we feel emptiness and suffering in order to push us to seek fulfillment. On the contrary, the desire to benefit others holds unlimited potential for fulfillment, because by aiming to benefit others, we enter into balance with the initial force of love, bestowal and connection that is on the opposite side of reality, wishing to bestow just like it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that teaches us how to undergo such a transition. “Kabbalah” means “reception” in Hebrew, because it teaches us how to receive fulfillment in a way that is ultimately adapted to nature, a fulfillment that does not fade away but which constantly increases.

On one hand, Kabbalah has become quite popular, but on the other hand, it is a hidden wisdom, because its results are felt in each person’s sensations and desires. Nevertheless, it is open for everyone, and it lets us understand how to work with our desires in order to receive fulfillment in an unlimited manner. By doing so, we become truly happy as we rid ourselves of suffering at its very source.

Based on “New Life episode 736: The Origin of Our Suffering” [28:27] on June 23, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalists Dr. Michael Laitman.