Question: The results of the regularly conducted survey “What Worries the World?” have been published. Coronavirus is no longer the main problem that concerns the inhabitants of Earth, it is in third place. It was overtaken by poverty and unemployment.

Poverty and social inequality concern 33%, unemployment – 30%, and the coronavirus – 29%. Then there is corruption, crime, education, climate change, emigration and so on. At the very end,  the content of social programs (Ipsos, “Coronavirus no longer the world’s top worry as it is overtaken by economic concerns”).

What will we come to? What will humanity care about?

Answer: When there is no goal, it is impossible to talk about anything. Each, like a swan, a crayfish, and a pike, pulls in their own direction and that is it.

Comment: However, they say directly that a person wants to be happy.

My Response: That is a separate happiness for everyone.

Question: Will a person’s aspiration for his happiness not lead him to this?

Answer: In doing so, he stumbles upon the desire for the happiness of everyone else. Thus, they pull in different directions.

Question: Should the aspiration be one, common, toward one common goal?

Answer: Yes. Until we come to agreement, none of this will happen.

Question: What is the main problem that should concern people?

Answer: People should be concerned about the question of what they exist for, what the most important thing in their life is, and how to reach this state. After that, I can already talk about the things that prevent or help me to reach this goal.

Question: In your opinion, what should be the goal?

Answer: To be really happy.

Question: What do you mean by the word “happiness”?

Answer: When everyone is happy, everyone is satisfied, everyone is fulfilled, and everyone feels good.

Question: Did you just say not that I would be happy, but everyone would be happy?

Answer: How else can it be? If not everyone is happy, then in the end it threatens me too.

Comment: So, I have to care that all the people of the Earth will be happy.

My Response: Only in this case can I guarantee myself absolute happiness.

Question: In what case will the people of Earth be happy?

Answer: When all of them will think about exactly that, and worry about making everyone happy.

Happiness is to be in absolute harmony with inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/8/21

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What will be the next major step in the evolution of the human species?“

We have been building our society for thousands of years, and have often resorted to fighting, killing and lying to each other in order to get what we thought we wanted.

We have reached a state where we understand that it is better for us, even selfishly, not to kill others because then we have no one to work with. On the contrary, we want others to be dependent on us.

Afterward, we feel that their subordination to us does not give us what we ultimately want. We realize that others also need to develop, so we become concerned with developing different societies around the world.

Instead of fighting and killing each other, we realize that everyone should engage in trade and commerce, as it is written, “go and provide for each other.”

Afterward, international trade, commerce and science start becoming implemented in that system. Why? It is because our goal while we are alive in this world is to become as integrated and interdependent as possible. We currently do not understand this, even though nature is guiding us toward increasing interdependence the more we evolve.

The laws of nature—laws of interconnection and interdependence—guide our development. One way or another, we will reach a state where we will understand that the best way to realize our interdependence is to be like a single family. In a healthily-functioning family, its members benefit and enjoy what each one adds to it.

When we try to become as one family around the world, we will rise to the next level of our evolution. In our current state, we become more and more interdependent, and our ego also increasingly grows at the same time, so we feel our growing interdependence as something terrible. When we learn how to redirect our egoistic desires toward positive connection with others, where we each mutually support, encourage and consider others above self-benefit, then we will start realizing our growing interdependence in a completely new, positive and harmonious way.

Based on the video “Humanity’s Need to Adapt to the Law of Nature” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Why does nature hide information about the future from us?

Answer: One should build his own future and not draw it from various sources and wait. You have to make sure that even the present you are living in now, you build yourself.

There is nothing real in our current existence. Reality is not in the fact that this is the present tense, but in the fact that there is no truth in it at all. Rather, everything is determined only in relation to you.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/21/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “Faith Above Reason” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”  

Selected Highlights 

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Satan Speaks in Understatements”

Eighty years ago this week, the Wannsee Conference convened. It was named after the villa in Nazi Germany where the conference took place, and its purpose was to find a “final solution to the Jewish question” and make it Germany’s official policy. The result: a detailed work plan to exterminate all 11,000,000 Jews living in Europe and the Soviet Union. There was no drama at the conference, no expressions of hatred, just facts and details. Even words like “extermination” or “killing” were absent from the minutes of the conference. The final document simply stated, “Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European Jewish question.”

This is the face of institutional antisemitism, the most diabolical form of the most tenacious hatred. Like the rest of its siblings, this genre of hatred did not die at the end of World War II; it simply moved to a more spacious lodging. Now residing on Manhattan’s East Side, it has an entire complex at NY 10017, New York City, and the name of its new residence is the United Nations Headquarters. Everything else, however, has remained the same: The same hatred and the same determination to demolish the Jews.

There are, however, two differences between then and now: 1) The immediate target of the hatred has shifted from the Jews to the Jewish state, Israel. The Jews themselves will be dealt with later, once the Jewish state has been exterminated. 2) The Jewish question is no longer an internal German or European matter, as some countries argued during the war to excuse themselves from saving Jews. Today, the hatred spews openly from the entire world toward the entirety of the Jewish people.

In the worldwide campaign against Jews, every pretext is exploited and every trouble is pinned on the Jews. Not only Israel’s military campaigns to protect against rocket attacks from Gaza are exploited, but every misfortune that happens anywhere is blamed on the Jews. From the 9/11 terrorist attack through the 2008 financial crisis, to the Coronavirus, everything is pinned on the Jews.

We, the Jews, have but one remedy, one “vaccine” to protect us from adversity. Regrettably, for centuries, we have been the staunchest anti-vaxxers and have refused to swallow it: Our vaccine against hatred is internal cohesion.

Every spiritual leader since the inception of our nation has implored us to take it. Every prophet and every sage both promulgated it and warned us of the consequences of avoiding it. We have never listened, and we have always suffered the consequences.

The time is approaching when another round of Jewish anguish will unfold. As with everything these days, it will not be a local torment but a worldwide agony. As then, so now, the choice is in our hands to take the vaccine of Jewish cohesion above all divisions, or suffer the civilized, replete with euphemisms, deadly wrath of the world.

Snow lies in front of the House of the Wannsee Conference. On January 20, 1942, high NSDAP and SS officials met in the villa on Berlin’s Wannsee.

For more on the importance of Jewish unity, see my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
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Medium published my new article “Why Some Great Artists Are Nasty People”

They compose masterpieces that light up our lives, paint pictures that capture the spirit of their time, and chisel out vibrant icons from lifeless stone. Great artists enrich our lives and fill them with emotion and wonder. Yet, some great artists were (and are) nasty individuals. Composer Richard Wagner was a rabid antisemite. Of the seven main women in Pablo Picasso’s life, two went mad and two killed themselves. Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, paid for sex with boys, and novelist Norman Mailer once tried to kill one of his wives. In fact, there are enough examples of obnoxious artists to make us expect them to be nasty rather than the contrary.

Indeed, there is no reason why creative people should be more “righteous” than the rest of us. Art and morality have nothing to do with each other, and if we expect them to be, it is our mistake.

Creative people, who are exceptional by their very nature, are even more prone to moral flaws than the rest of us. Their highs are higher than ours, and their lows are lower than ours. They move between extremes but in the end, they are the same as all of us: self-centered individuals.

We all contain both the highest, most noble feelings and thoughts, and the lowest, most despicable ones. Only when we recognize what we have within us can we grow. If we have only one side of the scale, we will never know the other side and will not be able to choose between them. We will be robots and not human beings.

King Solomon said about this, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and did not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). In other words, only when we discover our true nature can we make a conscious choice to be good, and that is what makes us righteous people rather than robots.

Until we are corrected, everything we do is for ourselves. Artists are no exception, yet this does not diminish the greatness of their works. Because they go to extremes, when they are high, they create truly glorious works that we can all enjoy. Nevertheless, we should not expect them to be corrected in their personal lives because they, too, will have to go through the same process of realizing the wickedness of human nature and resolving to rise above it.

At some point, we will all have to reckon with our nature and acknowledge the harm we are inflicting on each other and on all of nature. We will realize that in order to survive, we must become more of the righteous and less of the wicked that we tend to be. But in the meantime, we can benefit from the works of great artists, and if they make us reflect on life and its meaning, it is all the better.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Where Fundamentalism Is Leading Us”

People are attracted to the powerful because in each of us, there is a child who seeks protection and a sense of belonging. Fundamentalists understand this very well and capitalize on it. By growing more violent, they appear more powerful, which increases their appeal. In this way, they succeed in attracting new recruits into their ranks.

In western countries, fundamentalist Islamists find fertile ground for amassing followers since people have no direction, spirit, or purpose in life. This makes it easy for them to win them over to their ideas. By offering them membership in a powerful club, and even to God, they give them a sense of meaning and purpose and make them feel that their lives have value. This is the case not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Russia, India, and even China.

Where does this lead us? First, it will lead to bloody conflicts. Eventually, it will expose the emptiness behind the promises of radical religious dogmas.

Once fundamentalism exposes its futility, people will find the true meaning of the term religion. In The Writings of the Last Generation, Baal HaSulam writes, “The religious form of all the nations should first obligate its members to bestowal upon each other … as in ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ …This will be the collective religion of all the nations.”

What, you may ask, will become of our traditional religions? Baal HaSulam continues and writes that besides following the tenet of loving others as ourselves, “each nation may follow its own religion and tradition, and one must not interfere in the other.” In other words, as long as we care for one another, each of us will live according to our own way and tradition, and our different ways of life will not disrupt the harmony and union we will have achieved having developed love for one another.

The evolutionary process just described is not just for a few of us; it is the future of humanity. We are all destined to achieve unity and mutual concern by following the law of loving others as ourselves. This is the meaning of the ancient prophecy, “And all the nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2).

Abraham the Patriarch, the Babylonian trailblazer who broke the news of our collective unity to humanity, was the first teacher. He taught how to unite on the basis of mercy and kindness. His progeny, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and so on, polished and adapted the method of connection to their times. Moses did the same with his book of laws, which we call Torah, and so did Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai with The Book of Zohar.

Now we, too, must find our way to apply the law of love of others to our time. Especially today, when hatred and self-absorption are corrupting and destroying human civilization, it is time to rise above our petty selves and find a common union that is higher than all of us and unites all of us. Only in that higher realm will we find a way to make our world livable, and our lives with one another pleasant, safe, and with a true sense of belonging.
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Question: What is the intention of an annulled desire?

Answer: The intention of any desire if we try to start to scrutinize it is aimed at feeling the Creator in it.

To do this, you need to change its form, content, maybe even its strength. But in the end, this is where we start.

How does a person begin the path of spiritual development? With the purpose, the goal, to reveal the Creator.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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Question: Do I understand correctly that we start working in faith above reason and then after processing our desire we see the friends within reason in our corrected properties? Then a newly revealed Aviut (layer of egoistic desire) again erases everything and we again need to go by faith above reason?

Answer: Aviut does not erase but simply raises you to a higher egoistic mountain, and you must again go by faith above reason, but already a new reason.

Question: If despite my egoism I keep convincing myself that my friends are superior to me, is that enough? Or do I need some more help?

Answer: Start with that and then you will see how to proceed. You will be guided from above. But this is the most correct attitude toward the world. You will begin to see the world correctly, not distorted by your egoism.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Adhering to the Friends” Lesson 3

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