Comment: When Baal HaSulam was abroad, he wrote to his students in Israel: ” And if you wish to know, I will inform you that I do not find myself far from you at all, and one who feels remoteness, it is because of himself.”

This is similar to our virtual lessons because most of the students from the world group study through the Internet. In fact, we are never in physical contact during the lessons except for conventions.

Each one of us thinks that a live lesson is one thing and a virtual lesson is another thing. We see that Baal HaSulam emphasizes in his letters that regarding this state, it is always because of us.

My Response: I do not think that physical distance has the same impact as our internal, mental distance. Of course, it has some impact because a student is under the influence of the corporeal world that separates him from the teacher or the friends. But I would call it a secondary precondition for unity, that is, a certain hindrance to our attempt to unite.

On the other hand, if a person feels physically distant, his efforts can actually enable him to be closer spiritually and to overcome seeming physical distances.

He begins to feel internally that he is actually in the same desire as the teacher and or the friends. A place is a desire. In the spiritual world, there is no other meaning of the concept of place.

For those people who live here [Petach Tikva] and attend lessons every day, it seems as if they are in the Creator’s embrace, but in fact, it is not so.

The physical distance felt by a student pushes him to spiritual closeness. So, everything depends on him, and in this respect, he should not envy those who are here. The Creator puts each of us in optimal conditions in which we can reach adhesion with Him at any given moment in the shortest and the best way.

We need to believe that it is indeed so, and then we will see that it actually works this way. This is how everything was created.

There are no interruptions in the movement toward spirituality. Interruptions are personal internal problems revealed to us from the shattering of the general vessel of the soul. This is what we need to correct by uniting.

I need to connect to others because there is a certain part of the general soul in me, you, him, her, etc. It can be a man or a woman living in South America, for example, or in Russia, or in Israel, with certain attributes in a certain environment, which are expressed in their internal data, that is, by the shattered part of the general soul that needs to be corrected each day. This is the only thing that determines all of a person’s attributes whether internal, external, everything there is.

I received greetings from the Amazon today, for example. There is a whole group there that wants to unite and is aimed at and wants to understand our method. This is an indication of their internal essence, of the part of the one general vessel of the soul that they represent. That is the way it works.

It is not a problem, a person can remain wherever he lives or may suddenly be forced by different circumstances to move to another place. But even if he does not make any efforts in this sense but only in uniting internally, it will already guide him along the optimal path in life of the correction of his soul.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/12/19

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My new article on Linkedin “The Old World Is Dying and a New One Is Born”

Every summer (for some reason it is more turbulent than the winter) we feel that things are getting worse—that the fires are worse, floods are worse, and man-made crises are also getting worse. Every summer, we are correct. The difference between this worst summer and the previous worst summer is that this year, we are recognizing the trend. We acknowledge that next year will be even worse than this year. Since we can already see that our world is spiraling downward, we can begin to talk about what will arise after our world is gone.

Don’t be fooled by entrepreneurs and people’s facades of high speed action. The frenzy is a defense mechanism that helps them get up in the morning.

In truth, they are completely insecure. They don’t understand why they do what they do, if anyone really needs what they are doing, or if it will create anything of meaning. Just as everything that we have built in this world is coming apart, so are people’s new ideas and dreams. Gradually, everyone will feel completely stumped.

We will know what to do and how to fix the world we live in only when we begin to incorporate the common interest in our plans and actions. When we realize that we are totally interdependent, and that we cannot thrive in one place on the planet while another part is suffering as a result, then we will begin to do things correctly.

Take electric cars, for example. Three years back, a story in Wired magazine read as follows: “Here’s a thoroughly modern riddle: what links the battery in your smartphone with a dead yak floating down a Tibetan river? The answer is lithium – the reactive alkali metal that powers our phones, tablets, laptops and electric cars.”

In other words, as long as we are not thinking of the collective, we have not changed our mindsets and things will continue to deteriorate. Electric cars are not green or clean if they give us clean air in one place while poisoning the water and the ground elsewhere in the world. In a world where everything is connected, no correction is valid unless it helps everyone.

When we begin to adopt a more inclusive mindset, we will realize that there is abundance of energy. There will be plenty of gas, oil, and electricity, but no one will need them. People will be using subtler forms of energy, and there will be abundance.

The problem today is not that there is a shortage in anything. There is abundance of everything. The only thing that is missing is thoughtfulness and consideration.

Therefore, what humanity needs today is not clean energy, but clean hearts. As long as we maintain our abusive and patronizing attitudes, as long as alienation plagues every corner of human communication, nothing will improve. Only if we teach ourselves to behave, well, more humanely toward each other, we will solve our problems and climb out of the pit we have dug for ourselves and for our entire planet.
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My new article on Linkedin “As Desires Change So Do Our Brains”

The human body is not fundamentally different from that of other mammals, and certainly not from that of other apes. Yet hominids, the type of apes that evolved into the homo sapiens, have kept evolving to the point where we have leaped out of the food chain and gained not only absolute dominance over all living beings, but over the whole planet. What was different about hominids that gave them prominence? Nature instilled in them evolving desires. These desires are the cause of man’s perpetual development.

Since desires in other animal species barely change over the eons, other species evolve very slowly. Basically, as soon as an animal’s stomach is full, it seeks rest. During mating season, it seeks a mate, and after mating, it returns to the two basic desires of food and rest. Females (and sometimes males, as well) have an additional desire to tend to the two basic desires of their young, as well as their own.

A saying in the Talmud sums up the idea: “A day-old calf is called an ox” (Baba Kama 65b). Since a day old calf wants exactly what a grown bull wants, to feed and to rest, there is no fundamental difference between them.

But with a human baby and a grown up adult, they are worlds apart, completely incomparable. In order to accommodate the changing desires of a growing human being, the brain must constantly adapt to new demands. This is why we say that the need (desire) is the mother of invention.

But humanity is at a crossroads. Our evolving desires have grown to a point where we want to devour the entire world. As a result, we have developed the technologies and instruments to achieve it. But as we implement them, we are destroying our home. We must take control over the evolution of our own desires before they consume us.

We already know that planet Earth is a single system. The next phase in the evolution of our desires is therefore to learn to benefit from it rather than wanting to subdue it and destroy it.

We will know how to benefit from it only when we can sympathize with it to the point where we become part of it. When we become part of something instead of controlling it, we do not relinquish power because that something is now a part of us. We begin to feel it within us just as we feel ourselves. We do not restrict our control; we expand our perception to include the entire world.

When we reach that state, we will know how to run the world and ourselves perfectly. We will be in full control and everyone will benefit from our knowledge.

We cannot stop the evolution of desires, but if we know its direction, we can accelerate its pace and get to our destination quickly and pleasantly.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Have humans been domesticated?”

We are in a developmental process that is driven by a constantly-growing human ego, which will never let us remain pacified and calm. It will lead us to such disasters and suffering that after the ego’s development, we will have to stop and think about what we are living for.

By questioning the meaning of our lives, we will discover that we will need to change the ego that grows in us, directing it toward balance, unification, embrace and similarity of qualities with nature. By doing so, we will achieve a sensation of eternity and perfection.

In contrast to animals, which can be domesticated, we humans are unable to simply sit and consume. Our ego is bound to bring us to a state of immense inner emptiness, a state from which we will need to change our ego and our approach to life in order to achieve balance with nature.

This is where we humans differ from animals. The desire of animals is unchanging. They can receive food and then rest. For us, however, it is insufficient to simply get food in order to rest, and to become pacified and satisfied. On the contrary, we will have to fill the emptiness that we will feel more and more succinctly. This emptiness will bring us to the need to change our attitude and approach to life.

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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When the people entered the land of Israel, they began to conquer city after city, king after king. But there are still many places to be captured.

To capture means to want to conquer these lands, these peoples, i.e., the egoistic desires in us, to connect them with each other, to direct them to the only goal—the intention for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of global unity, for mutual connection and love. This consists of moving forward and winning.

Question: Why is this possible in the land of Israel?

Answer: Because the land symbolizes egoism, and correction occurs in the egoism itself. Until this land is corrected and begins to flow with milk and honey, it is called the land of Canaan.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/2/21

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Question: During the lessons you always say, “Let’s tune in to the intention, let’s unite our desires and move forward together in one intention.” What is that about?

Answer: In connection with each other, friends can create such a quality that will reveal the Creator, and with the help of this quality, they will fight against egoism. That is what I’m talking about.

Question: Are we able to evoke this intention in ourselves?

Answer: We should try. In an ordinary corporeal person, there is no right intention nor can there be. Therefore, our task is to ask the Creator to give it to us, even without knowing what we are asking for.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/2/21

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Question: There is a physiological phenomenon in human nature of laziness, which underlies our egoism, to gain comfort through less effort.

People who follow this path accumulate wealth or some kind of knowledge that they do not use in real life. A person striving for comfort, as a result ceases to be physically active and begins to be lazy. The good, which one strives to, to do nothing and to have everything, becomes a harm for oneself. Nature immediately punishes one through the body.

What is your attitude toward physical activity at any age? Do you support this?

Answer: I was a jogger when I was a teenager. Now I support physical activity in all its forms, something that is convenient and close to each of us. At least long walks. They are a must.

The matter is that laziness is good when it warns us against some excesses in our work so we do not spoil something in the world. After all, many of our actions, mainly in nature, harm it. Therefore, laziness is a defensive reaction of our nature, which helps us not to harm the world too much.

Regarding ourselves, we do not need to get too carried away with sports and all sorts of Olympic affairs, but we should do everything only for the sake of health, refreshment, and long life.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 7/29/21

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Question: We detach from the ten from time to time, then re-enter it, and the frequency with which we do it is an indication of the quality of our work. According to which criterion can we measure it?

Answer: With regard to the ten and to the Creator who is in it!

I am constantly connected to them for this is my soul and it is with this that I advance in life. Physically I work, I care for my family, I participate in all kinds of corporeal events, but internally, I constantly feel that I am holding on to the ten and to the Creator who is in it. This is my only criterion.

Question: What if I have a certain ten today and another tomorrow?

Answer: It makes no difference. All the tens will eventually unite into one. On the whole, everything that was created will unite into one single ten, including nature, the still, the vegetative, and animate levels.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/12/19

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Question: Does a person act according to his own will or to the will of the Creator?

Answer: A person always acts according to the will of the Creator! He has no freewill of his own. The only matter is to get rid of the illusion that we supposedly have free actions and that we act on our own. No, we all perform the actions of the Creator. Absolutely!

If we agree with this, we are in the right mutual connection and this leads us to the revelation of the Creator. To the extent that you want to do what He tells you, you do it. It is advisable not to prevent your actions and desires from meeting His desires. If you go against it, then you feel bad. All our sufferings and problems are only because we are doing His will unwillingly and unconsciously.

Baal HaSulam says a lot about this. Starting with the first article in Shamati, he immediately writes that there is no one else besides Him, that is, there is no other power besides the power of the Creator. The fact that it seems to a person that he has his own power, his own strength, is only from the fact that he is in concealment.

We must remove this concealment from ourselves. It is removed to the extent that I want to do what the Creator sends me. If I agree to implement all His control signals, then I reveal what I was in before but did not want to understand.

Thus, in our actions, we can never contradict the Creator in anything, but in thoughts and in intentions, we can. Therefore, all we have to do is correct the intention.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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