Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is mass media bad?“

Nothing in the world is bad or good. Everything depends on its use. This is why we can say that our means of information and communication were developed by the human ego in order for us to now understand that we need to develop them for humanity’s benefit.

The problem is not whether mass media is bad or good. Mass media’s good or bad influence depends on how it is used.

Who benefits from mass media? Does humanity benefit, according to the general law of nature, or does it benefit primarily the interests of its owners, to raise their ratings and increase their earnings?

This is the problem of mass media. In essence, it has the capability to help establish positive connections among human society, but instead it is used to divide people. Consequently, today, mass media is used in the worst way possible. This is why, on one hand, we cannot tolerate mass media, and on the other hand, we feel that life is impossible without it. Sometimes, mass media acts positively, for instance, when it criticizes certain behaviors and events well. As a rule, however, mass media leads to negative outcomes, because it is enacted by the ego of those at its reins.

If mass media would start functioning for the sake of humanity’s common benefit, where it would communicate the importance of building a new altruistic and positively connected world, then certainly, mass media would start playing a positive role in human society. We would then need mass media, and value it for bettering the world.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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A bright path is tied in the middle of the firmament. This is the serpent of the firmament, called by astronomers, “The Milky Line,” where all the thin stars are tied and stand in it in great numbers. They are gathered and stand in it like myriad, innumerable mountains, and they are appointed over the secret deeds of the people in the world (Zohar for All).

The stars symbolize the upper forces that determine our earthly path from above. Therefore, we believe that the stars determine our fate.

Question: Are you saying that from astrology, the science of astrologers, you can learn something about what happens at the level of matter?

Answer: Sure. Completely. Fortune-tellers, soothsayers can tell you this. But the fact is that they will only talk about events within our world, practically what should be, and not what you can change and fix yourself. And they can’t say anything about what is happening above our world.

Question: If I attract the forces of, say, The Book of Zohar, can I change the story of my life?

Answer: Of Course. Absolutely!

Remark: And I thought that the mise en scene does not change, the attitude changes.

Answer: Your feelings change, the mise en scene changes. Whether you are standing at gunpoint, this is one mise en scene, or you are sitting quietly on the lawn, drinking coffee, enjoying the singing of birds is another mise en scene. It all depends on your choice.

How you change yourself internally will change the external theater, the external environment. You have both an internal and an external state prepared for you of how to advance, either in a good way or in an evil way. It depends on what you choose: either to be pushed with a stick to happiness or to rush to it yourself.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #16

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Question from Facebook: Would Israel be the way it is today if there were no anti-Semites and no Holocaust?

Answer: If there were no anti-Semites and no Holocaust, no Jew would come to Israel. They would settle peacefully all over the world with great pleasure and forget that they are Jews because after the shattering and the fall into egoism, they don’t want to be part of a unique group at all.

Israel exists only thanks to anti-Semitism and the fact that there is hatred toward the Jews in the world, because even if they don’t know it, they carry the seed of the attribute of love of others and of bestowal. It is actually thanks to the hatred that the egoistic world feels toward the Jews that the state of Israel emerged.

It is anti-Semitism and the hate of Jews that sustains the state of Israel, and I would even say they are responsible for its prosperity, because the more the Jews are pressured, the more they begin to awaken and move.
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From KabTV’s “Answers to Questions from Facebook” 3/10/19

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Question: Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author, is an adherent of liberal and humanistic views, but as a researcher he came to the conclusion that the liberal system is failing.

What can you say about the crisis of the liberal idea itself?

Answer: Humanity is in misunderstanding of itself. What kind of liberalism can there be?! How can there be love for one’s neighbor, participation, equality, or brotherhood if we are egoists and cannot correct our nature ourselves? Then what is there to talk about?! Philosophy? It gives nothing!

You need to know how to correct your nature. After that, you can talk. And until we have corrected it, we still remain little selfish animals. No matter how we cover ourselves, it is a fig leaf, under which there is nothing.
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From KabTV’s “Challenges of the 21st Century. Introduction” 4/24/19

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Question: We usually use the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature for food. Previously, people made sacrifices from each of these levels. What does it mean to make a sacrifice in the spiritual?

Answer: This means that you must separate a small part from everything that you receive and symbolically burn it. Previously, some small part of the food was poured or burned, thereby showing that a person receives it not into his egoistic desire to receive, but into an altruistic desire to bestow, that he takes this food only in order to be healthy and do good deeds in his good health.

Everything that exists on the still, vegetative, and animate levels symbolizes the types of our egoistic desires, and depending on what we sacrifice, we seem to rise above different levels of egoism.

The highest is the animate level. If a person sacrifices it, it means that he can unite with other people above this level of egoism.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/9/21

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Question: What does it mean: “I saw the opposite world”?

Answer: The opposite world is a world of love that exists on the qualities that are the opposite of our world, i.e., on the qualities of bestowal, love, attraction, and work on one’s egoism.

Our world works only on egoism, on filling it. Therefore, the upper world is called the opposite of our world.

In Kabbalah, there is a transition from Lo Lishma (for myself) to Lishma (for others) when I make efforts from my egoistic qualities and, as if, acquire the opposite world.

By applying these efforts, I still get egoistic energy, I still try to reveal the Creator for myself, for my own sake. Then, at some point, He gives me the strength to do it purely altruistically, without any connection with myself. This is my reward.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/2/21

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Question: Freedom has been the most important thing in my life. I sacrificed a lot for my freedom, but last year I realized that I am enslaved to freedom. Where is the borderline between freedom and being enslaved to freedom?

Answer: You are not defining the concept of freedom correctly. Freedom is the choice of the right goal of life that is independent of us, and which was predetermined by nature. It is the attainment of the level of the Creator.

When a person uses every means in his disposal in order to attain this goal, he can consider himself a free person.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/12/19

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Question: Why is it impossible to contact the upper force directly?

Answer: Because each of us is an egoist. In order to create the property of bestowal, the opposite of egoism, in ourselves, we need to get together and try to influence each other in such a way as to create similarity to this property, similarity to the Creator. We, as it were, forcibly create the image of the Creator from our egoistic properties, above ourselves. To this extent, we begin to feel Him in ourselves.

Question: By developed the property of bestowal, will I be able to contact Him directly?

Answer: Only through a group. You do not possess such a property of your own, a private one. You remain an egoist.

If you are properly connected with several more people—at least with one more, although it is very difficult, it is better with a group of ten—treat them as the Creator, in bestowal, in love, in connection, and in support, study His properties together, and try to generate them together between yourselves, then you get not only a detector, but also a generator.

Question: Is the Creator a collective image?

Answer: No, this is how you do it.

Question: Does He also not see each of us separately?

Answer: We cannot talk about Him. We can say something only based on the model that we create between us.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/2/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 19”

Lesson on the Topic “Ibur (Impregnation) and Yenika (Nursing)”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

Selected Highlights

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