Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/28/22

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“Growing Up with Roe v. Wade” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Growing Up with Roe v. Wade

Being the child of two doctors, the dedicated kind, who bring their work home, and with my mother being a gynecologist, I often witnessed first hand the complexities that come with a decision to terminate a pregnancy. My mother, who was often asked to testify as an expert witness in court, regularly discussed those cases with my father, and I was privy to the deliberations for and against abortion. In a sense, I grew up with Roe v. Wade, as these cases were a part of my formative years. Because of it, I understand why the topic is so sensitive and so difficult to resolve.

Through my background, I came to believe that at the end of the day, a woman should make her own choice about whether or not to have an abortion. However, I also believe that because people do not have sufficient knowledge about the consequences of such a decision, what it means for the mother, for the fetus, and for the people around the pregnant woman, how it might affect, or not affect her health, under what circumstances the woman conceived, and countless other considerations, it is very difficult to come to a wise and educated decision.

Needless to say, in extreme cases, such as in situations of sexual abuse or rape, as is happening today in Ukraine, there is no question that abortions should be permitted. Therefore, there should certainly not be an absolute ban on abortion.

But there is more to this issue than dealing with emergencies. Roe v. Wade was intended to give women the right to decide about their own bodies. This is a completely sensible decision. However, in order to come to a decision that truly helps her, a woman needs to have all the information before she decides what to do.

Currently, there is no system that provides that information. People are ignorant about the consequences of their actions and decisions. In other words, before we decide about the right to make an abortion, we must educate people about everything surrounding the whole process.

It is not only abortion that is discussed here. People have no knowledge about sex education, birth controls, parenthood, childbearing and child-rearing. A decision concerning the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion should be part of that entire complex, that complete education system, and not a separate issue.

Clinically, having an abortion is a simple procedure. However, it is a very emotional process. The emotional and mental consequences of it appear only after the fact, when the woman, and sometimes her family, has to live with her decision. This is why it is so important to allow women to make educated decisions, and this requires setting up an educational process that will see to it.

Additionally, the state should not leave women to deal with the consequences of their decisions on their own. The government should set up a mechanism for assisting women in going through with their decisions, whether it is to have the child or to abort the pregnancy, and to recover from it afterwards.

I can understand the uproar that the ruling of the Supreme Court has caused. Moreover, I am certain that people will go through with abortions despite the court’s ruling. The problem is that in states that ban abortions, women will do it illegally, which might expose them to inadequate sanitary conditions, treatment by unauthorized personnel, and prohibitive costs.

Therefore, the only solution that I can see is a systemic solution that takes into account the needs and views of all the people involved, provides comprehensive information and covers all the angles of the issue, and offers systems that assist in making the right decision and dealing with it afterwards. Once such a system is in place, I believe it will be natural to leave the choice in the hands of the women who must make the choices concerning their own lives and the lives of their unborn children.
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The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

629.3Question: What is the difference between the concepts of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life? You said that good and evil are the work along two lines.

Answer: The fact is that the Tree of Life symbolizes our attainment of the Creator. His attitude toward us in accordance with our attitude toward Him is called the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a system of our interaction with the force of the Creator when we learn how we can connect with each other and with the Creator in order to use the qualities given to us as correctly as possible.

That is, the very process of attaining the upper force goes along two lines of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A person begins to ascertain the correct actions regarding the Creator and he calls this good, and calls the wrong ones evil. When he comes to the final correction, this state is called the Tree of Life.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/14/22

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Rejecting Basic Instinct

627.2Question: A new sexual minority, called asexuals, is actively growing in the world. These people voluntarily reject intimate relationships, arguing that they bring a lot of suffering, and in general it is better without them. How can it be that this basic instinct is rejected by us today?

Answer: I have not researched these issues. They are least interesting to me.

However, we must take into account that there are two aspects here. There is a physiological aspect, when the sexual instinct, being a physical instinct, is necessary for a person.

And there is a moral aspect, which is the feeling of closeness. Moreover, a woman feels it more than a man. For her, sex is an expression of connection with a man. For a man, this is more of a physiological need.

We need to separate these things. For a man it is more physiology, less connection. For a woman it is more connection, less physiology.

When this connection causes great suffering, meaning that we are in such a state that our egoism does not tolerate someone else, we push away and reject him or her, we do not want to have a family, and then these physiological functions can be a burden to a person because they impose some obligations on him.

So, we either agree to short meetings to couple and scatter away. Or we cancel sex altogether because it becomes simply unbearable to be indebted to another, to be connected with him. This is our egoism.

Therefore, if we do not correct the ego, then even at the physiological, meaning at the most animalistic level, we also will not be able to experience normal fulfillment and enjoyment.

Question: Why is it that after the hype around some phenomenon, some desire, there always comes a decline?

Answer: In all our desires, after fulfilling them, there immediately is a decline in order for us to prepare ourselves for a new fulfillment. Therefore, Kabbalah is called the science of reception, fulfillment. It teaches how to move toward more and more incessant fulfillments.

They are billions of times stronger than any sexual pleasure, which is the greatest of all human pleasures in our world.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Pole Inversion” 5/15/11

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Where Is Happiness?

572.02Question: Lyudmila asks: “Is happiness in us or outside of us? How can I explain to myself and other people what happiness is?”

Answer: First, everything that is felt is in us. We feel, I feel, and no one else. If someone feels something and tells me, but I cannot adequately, at least in some way, feel it, then I do not understand what he is talking about.

Question: If it is not in me, then is there such a thing at all?

Answer: Then there is no such thing.

Question: So, your answer is that happiness is in us, right?

Answer: Of course, in us.

Happiness is when something that you really, really wanted, suffered for, strived for, created huge aspirations in yourself for, and then suddenly it starts to be filled, and you move away, as if, from pain. This feeling can be called happiness.

But there are levels and gradations of what a person suffers from and accordingly what can make him happy. It turns out that one’s greatest happiness is when he feels himself approaching the Creator and adhering to the Creator like a child to its mother. Then he feels happiness. Moreover, this is a very strong desire that constantly gnawed at him.

The person wanted it to happen so much and he was already desperate. Suddenly the Creator appears and says, “Where are you? I am looking for you!” The person wants to say: “It is I who is looking for You! Where have You been? Not me?!” Just like that, they rush to each other, without words and without holding back. This is happiness.

Moreover, this is not a merger, as in our world, when bodies adjoin, but each body remains with its own form and sensation.

But here it is like sensations that mutually penetrate each other, but there are no bodies. There is such a state. I do not know how to say it…

Question: Does my “I” disappear? After all, I wanted this.

Answer: I want it to disappear! I do not need it at all! But if my I disappears, then the sensation of the  other will also disappear. Therefore, it is arranged so that the I does not disappear.

Kabbalah explains that the Aviut (the thickness of egoism) does not disappear. Due to the fact that the Aviut becomes greater and greater, we have the opportunity to align it with the quality of bestowal. It turns out that when egoism and hatred are greater, then love is greater, the greater the hatred, the greater the love.

We do not understand how this can be. In our flat world, it is either this or that. But in spirituality, it’s this way.

Question: To what extent will all this grow: hatred and love over it, more hatred and love over it?

Answer: To the state of infinity. To the feeling that there is no limit to this.

Question: Can this be called infinite happiness?

Answer: Yes, but you need to feel it. It is a very long road to achieve this this feeling.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/28/22

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Does Objective Reality Exist?

423.01Question: If some visible physical density of the world is as though a secondary reality and what is there is actually only a holographic collection of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and selects only some frequencies from this collection and mathematically converts them into some kind of sensory perceptions, then what remains for the share of objective reality?

Answer: It does not exist. It is given to us only in sensations, because all our sensations are inside of us. It turns out that our inner feeling arises first, and then the supposedly existing objective reality. It is not objective, but absolutely subjective.

In actuality, we are some kind of receivers that float in a kaleidoscopic sea of frequencies and are tuned to a single channel. And we have to expand it to the sea in which we are located. And it is in man’s capability.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Hologram” 7/28/11

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Reaching the Breaking Point

400Comment: According to some statistics i saw, around 30,000 Americans, 25,000 Japanese and 70,000 Russians commit suicide every year and some sociologists say these numbers are understated by nearly half.

My Response: This is a consequence of the breakage of our human society.

The essence of man is the desire to enjoy. We want all the best for ourselves, to be warm, comfortable, safe, happy, but instead we constantly face negative feelings.

A person is brought to such a state where he is forced to ask: “What is the meaning of my life? Why do I need it? In fact, there is nothing to look forward to. I am awaiting cataclysms every day and reassuring myself that not only I but everyone will be affected doesn’t in fact make it better.”

A person can be morally and logically brought to a state where he wants to take his own life here and now. Why suffer?

If the whole of life consists of somehow maintaining my existence that constantly brings me pain and suffering, then only the instinct of self-preservation keeps me from not putting an end to it. But this instinct is not that strong. It can be easily neutralized and we see this happening. Largely, it depends on society.

For example, the Japanese have long held death in high esteem. They built it almost into a cult. Americans have another problem—drugs.

Comment: Today, the US is one of the global leaders in the growth rate of depression.

My Response: Naturally, because they are the most developed. This is the future of all mankind. But there is a way out of this and it is a very simple one.

Kabbalah says that people will nearly reach a state of looking forward to death. In this very state will the breaking point occur.
They will begin to realize that they have brought themselves out of balance with nature with their inner qualities and with how they relate to each other, that they must do something about it: “Instead of nature, we are to blame for this. We can’t expect any changes from it. We have acted in a way that caused it to become hostile toward us. This must be radically changed.”

Then they will reveal the methodology of changing themselves, achieving balance, happiness, and harmony; moreover, not only harmony at our level, but at the same time and through the merging of two worlds, the spiritual and ours, people will begin to feel immortal.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Pole Inversion” 5/15/11

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Japan – Charter of Life

434Question: Japan is one of the most developed countries in terms of the pace of technology and computerization. They developed so quickly in relation to other peoples that there were even theories about an extraterrestrial origin of this civilization. Why did this happen?

Answer: I think it is precisely because they were not hindered by the previous stages of development. They jumped from the ancient natural way of life to a new way of life. They did not need to process this information and all sorts of changes. They just went from one state to another.

Their worldview, perception of the world, inner steadfastness, and inner attitude that a person can suffer, sacrifice himself, must rise above himself, and that those who do not think about themselves are respected, all these external motives and their religion helps them. To this can be added their distance from the whole world, the feeling of living on an island.

I was in Japan and felt it very strongly although I visited it in the 21st century after they had achieved all the technological innovations. But it still felt like you were in another world.

Of course, this is not an extraterrestrial civilization. It’s just the character of people who developed together with the belief that a person should rise up, go deep into himself, and unite with nature.

Nature itself forces them to be closer to it because of constant earthquakes, tsunamis, and all kinds of problems; all this has made them.

Moreover, their serious rules of life are still very strong in society. The usual human egoism is hidden inside naturally anyway. But it was in a preliminary state of its development, not fiercely egoistic like it was after the Greek, Roman, and Western civilizations in our world.

The combination of underdeveloped egoism with its suppression, along with a huge methodology of external conventions, led them to a state where they received such a system of relationships, such instructions, and such rigid principles from childhood that they did not even have any opportunities to change their paradigm.

We see that the isolation of this people, their religion, and the corresponding family and social charters have led them to become like this. But it collapses very quickly.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Branch of Sakura” 5/15/11

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 6/28/22

Preparation to the Lesson

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Shamati #135 “Concerning Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon A Person” Shamati #221 “Multiple Authorities”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” Chapter 7, Item 1

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Selected Highlights

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