Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/6/22
Posted on July 6th, 2022
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Medium published my new article “If Science Could Provide Longevity, We Would Need to Ask Why”
A story published on the Hebrew edition of Israel Hayom states that a research conducted by RAMBAM hospital and Technion — Israel Institute of Technology claims to have found that injecting a protein called Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (VEGF-A) opens the door to rejuvenating the skin of elderly people, and perhaps even making internal organs younger. Assuming this were possible and life could be extended significantly, if not indefinitely, we would have to ask ourselves what for, since without a good purpose in life, we will not want to go on living.
I would not mind taking such a pill or getting a shot that would rejuvenate my body. I have dedicated the past four decades of my life to spreading the method of connection around the world, hoping to help people improve their lives. I have no grievances about what I have accomplished, but judging by the state of the world, much more work needs to be done, so I would welcome another couple of decades to continue my efforts.
This is true not only for me. Any person who has a chance to advance humanity’s well-being and happiness must want such a gift, as it enables him or her to do more good.
As a whole, however, I do not see that people want to extend their lives beyond a certain limit. What for? People who have reached their golden years are generally quite calm about their lives and the approaching end.
The only reason for the frantic search for a fountain of youth is to sell it for profit. Perhaps some people are truly interested in finding this wellspring of eternal life, but I have yet to see anything good coming out of it. Therefore, I cannot say that if such a product were to be made, it would be in great demand.
There is no doubt that science can make life easier, make us healthier, and live longer. But what for? Just over a hundred years ago, people lived approximately forty years on average. Now they live twice as long, but what has humanity gained? There are four times more people, the ground has been polluted, the air, too, and the same goes for water. What have we gained thanks to our forty extra years? What will we gain if we gain another forty years? What will people know at 120 that they do not know at 80? Fear of death in and of itself is not a justification for extending life indefinitely.
While there is no meaning to an endless life, the fear of death does have a purpose. It makes us search for the meaning of life.
When we search for the purpose of our existence, we find that it has nothing to do with prolonging the existence of our physical bodies. Moreover, as long as all we want is to extract hedonistic pleasures, thinking only of ourselves, life will never be eternal. At some point, we will grow tired of the endless self-indulgence and either search for a deeper meaning to life or simply grow tired of the chase. When the latter happens, our passion gradually wanes, our zest for life dims, and we gradually wither until we pass away, with or without an elixir that guarantees eternity.
Our life is like a cup that we fill up with satisfactions. When the cup fills up, nothing more can enter it and our lives end.
Alternatively, when we wish to help others fill their cups, we become conduits that stream vitality to others. Think of the satisfaction a mother feels when she sees her child enjoying the food she had prepared or a new gift she had bought. The mother’s delight is far more intense and rewarding than that of her child. In fact, her delight gives her fuel for giving more, and more, and more.
This endless giving, endless outpour of delight that one can give to another, has no boundaries. Just as the mother feels with her child, we can feel this with all of humanity. And because it is unbounded, it is eternal. Just as the mother’s energy comes from the joy she has given to her child, because giving generates endless vitality, it generates eternal life. This is the meaning of eternity.
Giving, in short, is the fountain of youth that scientists are seeking. It is the one thing that never dies, and never fills to the brim.
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Medium published my new article “What Breeds Ongoing Violence in the U.S.?”
America hardly recuperates from the shock of a mass shooting in a certain city when a new incident takes place somewhere else. Seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the shooting perpetrated by a 21-year-old man at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Gun violence in America has become no less than a social epidemic, and as with any other illness of such magnitude it is important to find the right treatment from the root cause of the problem.
Jacki Sundheim, a senior staffer at a local synagogue and Nicolas Toledo, a grandfather from Mexico, were among the fatal victims of the senseless parade attack by a gunman who according to the police acquired the guns legally. Undoubtedly, it is important to keep guns away from unstable, dangerous individuals, but the gun violence epidemic goes beyond laws and regulations since those willing to cause harm will always find ways to achieve their sinister goals.
In order to offer a true solution, we have to go beyond the symptoms of the problem. Human beings are social creatures and individuals cannot be separated from their culture when we are trying to understand a behavior that repeats itself. It is true that in America it is easy to purchase firearms, but what pulls the trigger is the growing egoism and division in American society.
In such a social climate of “every man for himself,” tension and frustration accumulate daily until people with violent tendencies explode in cruel ways. In their unbalanced minds a mass shooting is a way to “fix” the system and compensate for their fears and insecurities.
Lack of meaning and purpose in life are also key triggers. More and more people have no idea what they live for, and life with no meaning and purpose makes human life lose its importance and preciousness. Mass shooters feel that human life is cheap and worthless, and the more this lack of direction spreads throughout society today, the more mass shooters surface.
The remedy to this problem is education. America must treat the deep cultural and social conditioning that breeds these events by initiating a massive federal educational program to infuse people from an early age with new examples, norms, and values. They should be regularly trained to cooperate, build trust, as well as develop social sensitivity to each other through workshops, discussion groups, and collaborative projects.
Education does not refer only to formal systems for providing and acquiring knowledge. The aim of education should not be to simply create a workforce of trained individuals. Education must now focus on cultivating the human being. This means building a value system within a person and an adequate social environment around a person to balance the human ego and direct it toward positive realization.
Such a state will never come about by simply drafting new laws, but only through a change in the way human nature operates in society. Instead of relating to each other through egoistic lenses, we need to learn and develop new supportive, encouraging, understanding attitudes to every person. In order to reach that level of positive change, society needs to forge meaningful and healthy connections through a new socio-educational shift, which will become doable and realistic when America realizes that it has had enough suffering and it is time for an integral solution.
Now it is vitally important for us to examine nature’s Mitzvot, to know what it demands of us, lest it would mercilessly punish us. (Baal HaSulam “The Peace”)
Question: Could humanity develop in a different way and move from degree to degree without any particular problems and suffering in an easier form?
Answer: Humanity could develop in a different way, more correctly, if people understood what exactly is said in the Torah, what the science of Kabbalah wants to convey to them, and applied this knowledge to their development.
An alternative path exists, but only starting from a certain degree in the history of mankind.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22
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Comment: Rabash has an article about Tu B’shevat (the new year of trees) in which he tells how to care for trees, prepare the soil, fertilize, do something with the roots, remove dry branches. It is clear that we are talking about a tree inside a person, i.e., about his inner work.
My Response: Indeed, in order to get good fruits from trees, a lot of work must be done around them. Citing trees as an example, Rabash as if addresses a person who must grow himself to become a fruitful tree.
For example: to prepare the ground means to prepare the right environment around you. To fertilize the soil means to bring good, nice books and games to a person with the help of which he could develop correctly.
Removing dry branches means removing what will not bring any good fruit so that it does not interfere with progress.
Question: Could it have been described in another way?
Answer: No. Rabash gives such a beautiful and complete example, which is amazing.
Question: There is a book The Tree of Life, which was written by the greatest Kabbalist of the 16th century, the Ari. What is it about?
Answer: It is about the Creator’s governance of creations through all the worlds to our lowest world so that we can rise from this low state through all the worlds to the level of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/14/22
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Question: The spiritual world can be characterized as a comparison of incomparable, mutually negating manifestations. In our world, there is either hatred or love, which cannot exist at the same time. Whereas the spiritual world is built on the interaction of these opposites.
What is this phenomenon? It is written in the sources that it is for this reason the revelation of the Creator is such great pleasure.
Answer: The spiritual world is built on the fact that our egoistic desire forces us to start correcting it with the help of an altruistic intention.
Therefore, spiritual reception, in which egoistic desire and altruistic intention are combined, gives us such huge opportunities for cognition and expansion of consciousness, states we can define, evaluate, weigh, and experience completely new units of measurement called Aviut (thickness of desire), Masach (screen), Ohr Hozer (reflected light)—units, with which the science of Kabbalah operates.
These opposite states give spiritual volume. There is no volume at the material level, as only one side prevails.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/7/22
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The main thing that we lack is connection, at least in something. Baal HaSulam writes that the entire world is entering a state called the last generation where everyone should be connected with each other. Whether we want it or not, the upper governance will always spin us around the connection between all people in the world.
We will see how different countries, companies, parties, and social organizations will be drawn into one whirlpool, connecting, colliding, and influencing each other. Day by day, this entire knot will become more and more confusing and seething because the world is moving toward universal connection.
Therefore, it will be necessary to find out what state we are in and to what extent we are opposite, not ready to hear each other, and doing completely different things. Until in the end, from this opposition, we will see that in fact there is no difference between us. It does not matter what each of us does, we must all unite.
It is like a family where everyone has their own responsibilities and their own profession. However, there is a circle that unites us, a family in which we grow up and learn to better understand and feel each other in order to build an environment for our existence day after day.
It does not matter what the mother does, who the father works for, and where the children study. After all, in addition to everyone’s personal activities, there is a common connection between them, which is called family. It does not matter that each of the family members is busy with their own business in the outside world, inside the family, we are connected as one.
This is how we need to see the connection between all people. There are many thousands of different companies, parties, and groups in the world, but we all have to feel that we are in the same system, in the same family. Despite the fact that everyone has their own activities outside of this system, there is something that connects us into one family.
In this family, we do not determine what kind of personal business everyone should do. It is only important to us that we feel like a family, like relatives, connected and dependent on each other.
We will see how day by day the upper governance, nature, and the program of evolution bind us more and more tightly together. We are increasingly dependent on each other and have no way to escape from this family. We need to write more about this until humanity understands that nature leaves us no choice; it pushes us to get acquainted with this system, and acknowledge that we all are one family.
We will really begin to see a relative belonging to this family in every inhabitant of this world and according to this, we will establish new relations between us. This will eliminate many problems on the path of our spiritual development because this is what the Creator wants from us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/22, Writing of Rabash, Questions in the Work
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Can love for the Creator be greater than love for friends? It simply cannot be that I treat the Creator better than my friends. After all, the friends are my spiritual Kli, as it is said: “And from the love of friends one can reach love of the Creator.”
Therefore, we must understand that just as much as we are drawn to the Creator, we must first of all strive to unite with our friends in the same way, and even more strongly. But in practice, it usually happens the other way around. A person strives for the Creator and this is his goal, but in his friends, according to his egoistic nature, in the ten, in love for his neighbor, he does not see the importance.
We begin our journey with the desire to find the upper force that controls us. But we gradually begin to discover that we need a spiritual Kli, which is based on love for friends, unity, and a sense of the importance of all mankind. It turns out that the attitude toward our neighbor becomes more important to us than the attitude toward the Creator.
Although the Creator is more important, is the ultimate goal, the Creator is everything, at the same time, the importance of friends is revealed to us because if the Creator shines on us, it is through them. It turns out that friends are becoming more and more important to me, and I am building such an image of the group in my heart so that it becomes my Kli where I will reveal the Creator and my attitude toward Him.
Therefore, the question: “Can love for the Creator be greater than love for friends” requires a very simple answer: today, the group is most important to us. Although the ultimate goal, meaning, the Creator, always stands before us as a guiding star, we can reach this guiding star only in the chariot called the ten.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/22, Lesson on the Topic “Fear”
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Question: The German philosopher, Johann Gottfried von Herder wrote that the moral upbringing of people in a spirit of justice, humanism, and aversion to war is necessary to achieve eternal peace.
Overall, throughout the ages, it has been recognized that it is necessary to re-educate people in a way so it would be possible to establish peace. Why have they still not become re-educated?
Answer: Because it is impossible. Don’t history and experience speak of it? Egoism, contradictions between people, mutual hatred, rejection, and thirst for power all is incurable, and we are unable to do anything about it! We must accept it and look for another way for how we can work with this correctly and how we can transform despicable and abhorrent qualities into beneficial ones.
Here one needs to add the outer force that can correct egoism into altruism. Then we will receive the altruistic force that does not exist in our world. We only suspect that it might, but it does not. However, egoism does exist.
The only thing that exists in our world is the egoistic force and there is no opposite to it. We kind of wish it existed, but in truth, we don’t desire it. We simply think that yes, it would be good. However, we see that it cannot happen.
What can we do to find the kind and unifying force, which is opposite to egoism, in our world? There is nothing else we need besides this force.
Until that happens, do not force people, do not try to do something kind and good with them. Nothing will work! In the end, every time they will bump into their egoism, which develops more and more, and it will be destroying everything that they will try to do.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 3/4/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I overcome stagnation in all aspects of my life?“
By realizing the positive process taking place when we feel that our lives are in stagnation, and contemplating questions such as what we had before reaching a stagnant state, what we will get later, what we would want to have, and why we feel that we get stuck.
We are in a process of life that has a start and an end. We undergo various experiences and states during this process, and a state cannot change unless it reaches its end, from which it gives birth to a new state; and once again the process continues until that state reaches its end and gives birth to the next one.
Sometimes, we have relatively smooth transitions between states, where we understand and feel how they pass with the help of various actions that we perform. Suppose that we are engaged in certain activities, whether we are at work or in the middle of some tasks that we set for ourselves, we sometimes feel as if we are not ready to change these states, that we have no desire to change a good state for something lesser, or we see great difficulty in climbing out of a bad state into a good one, i.e. we are unwilling to exert ourselves. There are all kinds of places where we get stuck in life.
Therefore, the feeling of stagnation in life is very good. It helps us understand what we had, what we will get, what we would want to have, and why we feel that we are stuck.
Based on the video “How to View Stagnation in Life Positively” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Christian Newlands on Unsplash.
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