Comment: Natasha is asking: “You are talking about correction of the world, but it is such a long process, it will all happen sometime in the future. What can we do to realize right now that we urgently need to change our attitude to each other? I see that neither wars nor suffering help. What will help then?”

My Response: It can be a long process when, firstly, it does not depend on us and when it takes place through some external actions. When you need to build something, to do something, or even destroy something.

However, if this is the process of realization, you can say two words to a person, and it will shake him up and that’s it. He realized everything.

Question: What happens within him then? What turns over?

Answer: Cause and consequence. He begins to understand the relationship between cause and consequence. And this changes absolutely everything in him.

He begins to understand the reason why we exist in such a terrible way. The reason is not in you or in me, but in the egoism between us. It means that this egoism is between us, it is not yours and it is not mine, and it is not that you are good and I am bad, or I am good and you are bad, no one is bad! Between us! The Creator specially created egoism between us in advance so that we would understand.

He even says: “I created egoism between you so that you would destroy it. It is in this way that I want you to understand that there can be something opposite of connection, love, and interaction. In this way, you would come to this connection, love, and interaction by removing the opposite.”

Everything that we attain in our world is attained from the opposite state. As they say: “The advantage of the light is from the darkness.”

Therefore, it can happen very fast.

Question: Is this understanding, in fact, the process of correction?

Answer: Yes, when you say, “Ouch!” and besides the pain you understand, in this “ouch,” the cause of this pain. You refuse it in advance, instantly, right there. You do not want it in any way. By this you reach correction. You do not need to do anything else.

Question: Why are we not saying “ouch” now? After all, it seems like the right time.

Answer: We do not understand that this thing that exists between us and prevents everything good is only our egoism.

Question: Why do we always have hope that egoism will lead us out, that it will get better?

Answer: We want to rise above each other. This is the problem.

So how can we humiliate ourselves relative to others? It does not matter what others will think, how they will look at us, what conclusions they will draw from our behavior. We just need to bow our heads down and start acting.

Comment: And we will hear: “Rag! Not a man! Who is he?”

My Response: No, I do not think so. If a person really acts in this way, people will understand that he is doing it consciously.

Question: Does this also apply to the leaders who lead the nations?

Answer: Everyone. To set such a good example. This is when the correction process will begin.

Question: Why can’t the Creator do like in your fairy tale? Like this: “Whoosh!”

Answer: The Creator did everything opposite of this. He must do everything opposite of this. Because only in this way will we attain the greatness, perfection, and the quality of love.

Question: Out of complete lack of love?

Answer: Of course, only like that.

We have to come to the understanding that we are coming to an end. We have no other choice but to make an effort over ourselves to transfer ourselves to the next state.

We just need to say, “Whoosh!” And everything else will happen from above.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/28/22

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Question: You said that the Jews have a method of correcting egoism and that the whole matter of nature and all other nations is solid egoism. So, the reason for hatred of Jews is that this matter is the opposite of the spiritual degree?

Answer: We are all the opposite of the spiritual degree.

But within the whole of humanity there is a method of how to correct this oppositeness, how to implement it so that it helps us to rise to the next, spiritual degree. Our egoism will serve us as a rising energy.

We can properly direct it to love instead of hatred. When we discover why and for what it all exists, then all our negative properties, qualities, all kinds of movements, and desires will serve as a springboard to rise to the next degree, to the next dimension.

We can now reveal this for ourselves and thus enter a state in addition to our world, when behind it we will feel another degree, another world around us, the upper one, and we will exist in both.

And then we will understand where we come from, where we are born, where we go after death. Let’s understand that only bodies live and die, and we, our inner, spiritual part of the body continues to live.

If we reveal the full scope of the universe, then our body ceases to be felt as the only possibility of existence. We begin to feel like we exist in everything. The body dies or lives, it no longer matters to us. This is what Kabbalah leads to. That’s what it allows us.

Kabbalah is being revealed now, as humanity begins to realize that it is integrally, globally interconnected. Therefore, we have the opportunity to reach the next degree through globalization, through the connection of everyone with everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Around the World” 2/20/11

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Comment: Irina is asking: “During this war and these events that are happening, I suddenly have a feeling that I cannot plan anything, that I do not decide anything, that everything is decided for me. They took away the meaning of living the way I want! I have to live as someone else wants! I feel like an animal being led wherever they want: into slavery—so, into slavery; to slaughter—so, to slaughter. And this is called life! How can I break free out of this circle? This is not life!”

My Response: It has always been that way. You just did not realize that you were being controlled. Now you have grown up internally and feel that you are being controlled. This is a completely different state.

What is this for? In order for you to maybe be able to change yourself. To find out why you are being controlled, who is controlling you, what for, why, and how to change yourself so that you can enter this governance yourself. This is already recognizing that you are in a state of spiritual growth.

All these people and governments are in fact puppets. Who is behind them? The upper force that controls all of us through all sorts of figureheads.

It means that we must understand from where, what for, and why, and try to see this upper force that leads us to a certain state and controls us. To come in contact with it in such a way that we would receive all kinds of control signals directly from it.

Question: So that I receive directly from this force? Roughly speaking, why do I need intermediaries? By this I remove these intermediaries and work directly with it, right?

Answer: Of course. This is the level of Moshe (Moses)—the one who talks directly to the Creator. Everyone can come to this. If we get out of slavery, we reach the level of Moses.

This is why we are driven into such states, so that we come out of them and directly connect ourselves to the upper force that wants to lead us somewhere. We are given all the problems just to turn our attention to the upper force. Therefore, it is said about the Creator that He is very jealous.

Question: Is He jealous because we do not pay attention to Him but to everything that happens around us? And we should pay attention to Him?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, are you saying that this direct dialogue is not just possible but necessary? Is that where we are being led?

Answer: He will force us to do this. But it is better to do this sooner.

Question: Will every inhabitant of the Earth be directly speaking with the upper force? What will happen then if this fantasy takes place?

Answer: We will discover the upper force within which we exist, which controls us and leads us to the next degree of development.

We will discover that He surrounds us, includes us, and controls us in everything and by everything and wants us to enter into such a connection with Him that we understand His every action, His every signal to us.

Question: Why does He need it?

Answer: So that we rise to His level. Through this we reach our highest state of development—to be like Him, to see everything, to understand everything, to execute everything, to do everything, to be at the highest level of nature. To see everything from one end to the other. That is, we become eternal and perfect.

Comment: As they used to say at school: “Man is the crown of nature.” The man who mutilated everything around him.

My Response: This is the recognition of our current state. It is terrible, of course! Worse than animals! It is out of this recognition that we come to connection.

Question: What about what you say all the time: love, connection, and good relations?

Answer: We must cultivate this within ourselves by force. From this forced cultivation we will come to this feeling. We will come to this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/25/22

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Question: There are some things that come to a person easily, while other things are much more difficult. Let us say unity. Is it worth considering it this way: it is hard for me to unite with another person, and this is my contribution?

Answer: No. One should really try to reach any kind of contact in any place, under any conditions. The main thing is good relations. Different levels of them, but kind, and positive, when I wish another individual what I wish for myself.

At the same time, a good connection arises between people when they feel each other and permeate each other emotionally.

Each one of them understands the desires of the other, the qualities of the other, and how he can complement and fulfill them. We must feel this! To do this, you need to be in a group that is working on unity, and then you will feel.

We need to find such a group; we have a lot of them all over the world. With systematic participation in the work of the group, you will see how you accumulate internal sensations and knowledge, which begin to form into a new sense; it is called feeling your neighbor. You will begin to understand that until this time you did not feel your neighbor.

You did not feel people at all! You felt in yourself their model, which you created for yourself egoistically to get as much as possible from them and give them as little as possible, according to a simple egoistic law. This includes your children, this includes everyone. Now, when you do it in a new way, it is completely different.

Therefore, we must open courses and constantly, everywhere, teach people the elementary laws of commutation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to solve any problem?” 5/1/14

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, Article 48 “Right, Wholeness, and Truth”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 2,” “Inner Observation,” Chapter 9, Item 99

Selected Highlights

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Comment: The holiday of Shavuot is the celebration of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It is also called the Harvest Festival. It turns out that all laws, all morality, all spiritual practices, and all religions start from this point—from Mount Sinai.

My Response: There is an offer from above, a revelation to the world from above of the methodology of its existence and its gradual correction to a level where it enters eternity and perfection.

Question: What was the world told from above?

Answer: The world was told that our world exists at a low, corporeal degree, and we exist in it as the egoistic, most harmful, most insignificant, and worthless ones compared to all other creatures of nature.

However, we have the opportunity to rise to the highest level of all nature, that is, to its upper root, which is in infinity relative to us in height.

And we can do it. Otherwise, our life here on this planet will be continuously interrupted by life and death, life and death for each and every one of us. Between life and death there will also be wars, suffering, hunger, and many, many other problems. Thus, our entire existence will be one continuous suffering.

Question: What was said? How do we move toward this good state that you spoke about?

Answer: It is very simple. The main law of the Torah is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is it! And then, go and do it.

Question: Was it said at this precise moment? Why did we not hear it?

Answer: We did not hear anything. We heard what was said, and immediately kind of asked: “Do you have another Torah?” The answer was: “No, there is no other one. This is the best thing for you even though you do not understand it. Therefore, take it and do it.”

Comment: So it turns out that we have been avoiding this simple law for millennia.

My Response: Yes. Anything but that!

Question: Is this what symbolizes the holiday of Shavuot: live by this law and everything will be fine?

Answer: Yes. But Shavuot is already a holiday for advanced people. These are people who were inside their egoism, felt its harmfulness, malignancy, and inevitability. They realized that the only way to get rid of it was to just run away from it—just run away! When they were running away, they were ready for anything, even death just not to stay inside egoism!

This is why they jumped into the sea and crossed over it onto dry land. They reached a state where they were ready to receive the laws of the upper world instead of our egoistic natural laws. Basically, “We shall do and we shall hear.”

This was when they received the Torah. What does it mean to receive the Torah? It means I take upon myself the laws of the upper world. I want to live not in our corporeal world the way we exist today and even worse and worse, this is what the Torah promises us, but to rise higher to the qualities, to the laws of the upper world. Those laws are simple: love for your neighbor, love for everyone, accepting everyone as part of your body, your soul, your “I.”

Question: They are as relevant now as never before?

My Response: Yes, more and more. Since we are egoists, we perceive everything according to what we feel in our egoistic qualities. Therefore, what can we do? We feel that we are living in a wrong way, but we turn a blind eye to the way to live correctly, and we cannot accept this upper law of love for our neighbor.

Why do you not do it? Are you going to pay something for this? No. Will you suffer from this? No. You do not immediately encounter some kind of opposite rejections, antagonistic relationships—nothing like that! Just go ahead and do it. “I cannot!”

Now if, on the contrary, there was such a game that there is an enemy against you, and you are against him. Here, however, even this enemy is not visible; it is inside you, your egoism, and you cannot do anything. Therefore, it buys us in this way.

Question: What about this serpent within me? How can I conquer it anyway? The time has finally come!

Answer: It is an entire methodology. It says here how to do it.

Basically, it is not me doing it but the upper force. It does everything—but according to my request.

I can only make a request if it is supported by other people around me. I will think about their correction and not about my correction, and this is how we will help each other together. Just connect with a few more friends in the fact that you want to reach such a mutual connection.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/30/22

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Medium published my new article “Getting High on the Power of Life”

A survey by the Israel Center on Addiction has found that “One out of every seven Israelis suffers from some form of addiction.” Over the past five years since the last survey, some half a million people have joined the ranks of the addicted. In a country of only nine million people, half a million in five years is a lot. Worse yet, “over 90 percent of [the addicts] do not ask for treatment.”

Not only adults become addicted. Children, too, become addicted. Addiction means we have become accustomed to an activity that causes our body to secrete substances that make us feel good. Because we want more and more of that good feeling, we compulsively repeat the activity.

People can become addicted to anything. They can become addicted to physical activities, to chemicals, and some can even get high on certain types of music.

Besides feeling good, there is another reason that people become addicted: disconnection from life’s problems. The feeling of freedom from obligations and troubles can be intoxicating.

As a rule, young people become addicted more easily than older people because teenagers and young adults are in constant pursuit of pleasures. For them, feeling good is all that matters.

As we mature, other calculations besides immediate pleasure come into play. This makes older people more “resistant” to addiction, though they, too, are not impervious to it.

There are two reasons for the increase in addictions. First, it is easier to find things to become addicted to. Second, and more important, despair has spread throughout the world. People are losing the sense of purpose in life, so they try to escape. The feeling of being high, or the adrenaline in other forms of addiction, gives people calm, or alternatively, a sense of vitality.

The prevailing treatment is to compensate for one addiction with another, less harmful one. The easier addictions to treat are those that require a smaller compensation. However, essentially, it does not cure the addiction but simply swaps it for another.

The reason that over 90 percent of the addicts do not seek treatment is that they know that medicine cannot deal with it. If all that medicine can offer is forced abstention from the addiction or the swapping of one drug for another, then these are not cures and they have no appeal for addicts.

Only one remedy can truly cure people of the deadly addictions that plague humanity: the power of life. The power of life is revealed through positive connections between people. When people establish mutually positive connections, it emulates the positive reciprocity that pervades all of reality. This is the force that keeps all things growing.

When people develop such connections, and their reciprocal nature requires that they develop it in a society of like-minded people — they are filled with a sense of purpose and satisfaction. They feel connected to reality, to each other, and to themselves. It is a completely different kind of satisfaction than any substance can give, and it is far more profound and satisfying. Once people begin to experience the power of life, they never again need anything else because they will never want to disconnect from the vital force they have discovered.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Can Make Us Caring”

The events of the past few months, and in fact, the past few years, teach us a very important lesson: If we want to survive, we must learn from nature how to do it, since if we follow our own ideas, we will continue the march of folly until we destroy human civilization and our planet. When we look at nature, there is one law that weaves all its parts together into a perfect tapestry: balance and collaboration. That law is exactly what we humans do not abide by in our own society. Instead of balance, we strive for prominence at the expense of others, and swap collaboration with exploitation. If we keep this up, we are on our way to extinction.

I am not saying that we must love one another or even care for one another all at once. However, we must know nature’s laws and what happens when we break them. Since we are currently acting contrary to the law of balance and collaboration, we must also know the consequences, the penalty, if you will, for breaking it.

We are already feeling some of the consequences of our ignorance and vanity. Food shortages are worsening around the world, and hunger has become a real peril in places that have not known it for centuries. Gas shortages are also hampering production and causing energy insecurity in western, leading OECD countries, and the overall atmosphere is that hard days are coming.

Indeed, it is only the beginning. According to pundits, we are looking into years of deprivation and scarcity.

But there is no real reason for it. No natural disaster has hindered humanity’s ability to produce abundant food or ample gas and oil. It is we humans who are inflicting these deficiencies for the sole purpose of crushing one another. Nothing guides our moves but hate, and hate destroys everything, including, ultimately, the hater.

Because everything we do stems from the motivation to defeat and vanquish others, nothing we do succeeds. When one effort fails, we move on to another, but it, too, is bound to fail for the exact same reason: our foul intentions toward others.

How, then, can we change our nature? What can make us care for others? To do that, we first need to acknowledge the truth about our own nature, and then we can begin to nurture a new one within us. What all other beings do instinctively—follow the law of balance and collaboration—we can accomplish only if we choose it consciously. The way to do this is by realizing that we are made inherently opposite from this law, and then carefully examine each and every aspect of our lives, and adjust it to work according to that law.

It may seem unfair that only humans have to learn this law the hard way, but there is a great reward at the end of the process. Since humans are the only ones who have to go through the learning process, we are also the only ones who will reap the reward.

When we learn about human nature and the nature of the rest of reality, we begin to compare them. As a result, we gradually learn to value the law of balance and collaboration. We understand much deeper than any being since we have something to compare it to, a negative image of the law, and its palpable consequences. When we begin to act according to the law of balance and collaboration, it is because we made a conscious choice to do so after learning about our own nature and choosing to shun it and adopt a new, more inclusive and cooperative nature.

For us, then, learning to care about others is not an instinctive process, but a profound process of deepening consciousness, and choosing care and connection over alienation and exploitation every step of the way. This is the real advantage of man over beast—the gift of consciousness. However, we earn it only after having chosen balance over superiority, and collaboration over exploitation.

The painful process that humanity is undergoing will ultimately lead us to make that choice. However, awareness can shorten the process and make it much easier and quicker. The sooner we understand that all our troubles stem from our malice and cruelty toward each other, the sooner we will open our eyes and realize that there is another option. Then, the sooner we choose the option of balance and collaboration, the sooner our troubles will end and peace will begin.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can American and Israeli Jews stay together?“

A recent survey of US and Israeli Jewish millennials conducted by the American Jewish Committee shows that roughly a quarter of the respondents in the US have been forced to hide their Jewishness due to the anti-Israel climate, which also made roughly a quarter of the respondents rethink their connection to Israel.

In times where the anti-Israel climate intensifies, American and Israeli Jews can stay together as a result of us Jews strengthening ourselves. Also, we need to accurately define what being Jewish means, and what it means to be an Israeli in the State of Israel and in today’s world.

A Jew is one who aspires for unity with everyone (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]). People who have no aspiration for unity cannot be considered Jews.

If we accept and start living according to the true spiritual meaning of being Jewish, then one’s place of residence would not matter, whether it be Israel, America or the moon. We would all live according to the same values. If you aspire to positively connect with others, then you are a Jew because you want unity with everyone.

Based on the video “Can American and Israeli Jews Stay Together?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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