Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/27/22

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“Facing a Collective Suicide” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “Facing a Collective Suicide

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a signing ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey July 22, 2022. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said last week that humanity is facing a collective suicide. As The Guardian reported, “Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: ‘Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.’ He added: ‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.’” Indeed, I would not be surprised if a cataclysmic fate were to find humanity. Our egos do not let us think about anyone else but ourselves. With this attitude of eating and drinking “for tomorrow we will die” (Isaiah 22:13), we are certain to bring death on ourselves.

But before we get there, there is plenty of upheaval on the way. Wildfires raged during the weekend across Europe, North America, and South America; record breaking heat swept the continent from Portugal to the UK; droughts in Africa, heatwaves in India and South Asia, and countless more simultaneous disasters that The Guardian did not mention are barely a prelude to what is coming. We are going to see the Earth turn inside out; people will look for shelters but there will be nowhere to run except into the Earth. Unless we pull together and rise above our egos, this is the certain fate of humanity.

Mr. Guterres also added that he believed that the solution lies in promoting renewable energies. He said, “As shareholders of multilateral development banks, developed countries must demand immediate delivery of the investments and assistance needed to expand renewable energy.” He demanded that banks “change their tired frameworks and policies to take more risk” and invest in renewable energies.

Here, we differ sharply. I have not seen one proof that renewable energy improves the climate. As I see it, the climate change agenda is intended to attract wealth from everyone else, and dole it out to its advocates. Other than transferring money to the champions of climate change, I do not see anything happening. What they are saying is basically, “Give us the money; we’ll know what to do with it.” It is a fixed game, a one lane road, and nothing good will come out of it.

We can switch to electric cars and oust gasoline, turn to solar panels for electricity and ban coal, but these will not reverse the climate change. The UN is a stage for words, but that is all that it is. It is a gathering place for secret agents from around the world, but it is not a place for positive actions that will help the world. So if anyone hangs his or her hopes on the UN or any of its proxies, they should not count on it; it will not do any good.

If we do not want to return to the stone-age, our only hope is to help each other rise above our egos. We cannot restrain ourselves by ourselves, but we can help each other do so.

The ego is the basis of human nature; nothing within us is more powerful. This is why people will prefer to die than to concede defeat. In the process, they will inflict on us a collective suicide.

However, if we manage to turn our anger not at each other, but at our own egos, which incite us against each other, then we stand a chance. We need to paint a clear picture of our future, without any filters, and realize what we are preparing for ourselves and for our children. Perhaps if we look at our future with sober eyes, we will have the determination to rise above, avoid the looming apocalypse, and turn toward a more sane, considerate, and therefore sustainable human society.
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“If There Is No Heart, There Is No Food” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “If There Is No Heart, There Is No Food

A few days ago, a heart wrenching story surfaced on Israeli media about a security guard at a supermarket who spotted a woman stealing from the shelves. He approached her and demanded that she open her handbag. When she did, he found inside a box of baby formula. When he asked her to return the box, the woman began sobbing and begged him for mercy. She explained that she had a baby at home, she had no milk of her own, and no money to pay for the formula.

The store owner did not press charges against the woman, but said that stealing food has become a commonplace phenomenon. He told a reporter, “Do you really think I want to take it away from them?! We are human beings and I, too, have children. On the other hand, if I make food thefts an acceptable conduct, I am putting myself in a difficult spot. It is very complicated.”

I think it is a disgrace that the State of Israel has come to such a point where people have to steal food to feed their children. We spend millions and billions on so many useless, totally redundant causes, but we do not help people who cannot buy food for their children? We, the Jewish people, who coined the terms mutual responsibility, charity, solidarity, and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” have come to the complete opposite of the tenets on which our nation was established. It is simply a disgrace.

There is only one reason for this: we have no heart. That is, we have hearts, but they are cold, careless, and cruel. We have more charities per capita than any other nation, more volunteers than in any other nation relative to population, but we still have so many needy people, and there are more and more of them.‎

Unless we correct our hearts, the number of destitute, sick, malnourished, and ‎untended for elderly will continue to grow. If we do not prepare our hearts to care, we will not have a society where people live with dignity.

We need to teach ourselves to care. All the money and high-tech innovations in the world will not make Israel a better place. But if we teach ourselves solidarity, mutual responsibility, and compassion, we will have everything we need and no one will feel deprived or wanting.‎

Our country needs many more people who understand this and build the State of Israel according to these principles. Especially we, the Jewish state, cannot afford to remain indifferent to the disadvantaged in our country. We have a duty not only to our people, but also to the world—to set an example of solidarity and mutual responsibility, an example of love of others. If we show the opposite, we will pay heavily: our society will suffer, and the world will not forgive us for our bad example.
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The Formula of Life: “Me, the Group, and the Creator”

934All of reality is ticking like a wound-up clock according to a determined program, and everything that is going to happen is bound to happen. We just need to establish the correct attitude to what is happening.

But through this more correct or incorrect attitude we, in fact, look at the world, and depending on it we see good or bad events in it. Our attitude is like a filter through which we evaluate and feel reality; you define your entire life this way.

We are inside a deterministic system, all the events in it are precisely predetermined. All we can correct is our attitude toward reality, which is revealed to us. This makes us feel how we ourselves are changing and how the world is changing.

Everything depends on the inner attitude of a person toward his life, whether I am able to fill my entire life with the upper force that moves everything and controls everything and together with my friends try to perceive the Creator in this way. We connect with the friends and feel that the Creator is within us. We live in this aspiration; this is our true internal life.

Outside there is only a mechanical life in which we still need to somehow exist and act. But the main work is to hold the Creator, who supports and connects us, between us, and together with Him move from state to state.

The very first action is to return myself to the state of “There is none else besides Him” all the time. In order to connect myself with the upper force, I need to connect with the ten in order to return from there again to “There is none else besides Him.”

This is how I ascertain every state according to this formula: “Me, the Group, and the Creator.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/22, “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

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Entering a New Field of Research

202.0In the News (Business Insider): Our DNA is 99.9% the same as the person next to us — and we’re surprisingly similar to a lot of other living things

“Our bodies have 3 billion genetic building blocks, or base pairs, that make us who we are.

“And of those 3 billion base pairs, only a tiny amount are unique to us, making us about 99.9% genetically similar to the next human.

“… large chunks of our genome perform similar functions across the animal kingdom.

“Take a look at how genetically similar we are to everything around us:

“A 2007 study found that about 90% of the genes in the Abyssinian domestic cat are similar to humans. …

“And while the egg-laying and feathered body are pretty different from a human’s, about 60% of chicken genes have a human gene counterpart.

“Even bananas surprisingly still share about 60% of the same DNA as humans!”

Question: How can it be that a man, in principle, includes all levels of nature?

Answer: As the most perfect egoistic creature, man includes all lower levels. Indeed, it seems that his genome is the most complicated. But it is not about what we explore in the genome. It gives us nothing. We still come to the conclusion that we cannot deduce anything from this. We cannot even treat a person.

We will still have to go into another field of research when we ourselves, like Alice in Wonderland, have to build a completely different system: integral, global, interconnected, and based on total bestowing and dependence on each other.

When we rebuild ourselves in this way, and we can do it, then we will enter into the system of nature and will be able to explore it directly, but not through our egoistic filter. We will pass through this mirror, through this egoistic filter, and will enter the area where we will see nature as it is. That is when we will have a breakthrough, and overcome the crisis in science.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Human Genome” 7/17/11

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The Upper World Cannot Be Understood with the Mind

962.3Prior to these four worlds, there was one Light of  Ein Sof, whose Name is One, in wondrous, hidden unity,

And even in the angels closest to Him

There is no force and no attainment in The Ein Sof,

As there is no mind of a created that could attain Him,

For He has no place, no boundary, no name.
(Ari, The Tree of Life)

Question: If the mind cannot attain the world of infinity, then why write about it?

Answer: An understanding that it is impossible to attain it is also an attainment. The fact is that there are degrees of attainment of the Creator, and among them there is a degree at which we simply cannot exist because we must be absolutely reborn in order to be at it.

In the future, when the whole creation becomes similar to the Creator, we will be able to reach this last degree. In the meantime, since we exist in separate states from each other, we can only attain the lower levels of the Creator.

Kabbalists write that the mind is a consequence of our desires. Therefore, without changing the desire, the mind, it is impossible to do anything. It is impossible to attain through the mind all the things we read about.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/5/22

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In the Connection between People

528.01Question: Why does the realization of spiritual genes occur specifically in the connection between people?

Answer: Because the Creator created us as one person called Adam. Then He broke this concept, this spiritual image, into thousands of parts.

Despite the fact that we feel distant from each other, opposite, even reverse to each other, we must gather ourselves, in spite of the forces of rejection, into one image of this man—Adam.

That is, you realize your records (Reshimot) that exist in potential precisely in relation to other people.

Question: Does it mean that I do not have to realize anything by myself?

Answer: No. You must participate in a certain society and realize yourself together with it.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

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Can One Learn to Recognize Evil?

504Question: It is no secret that all social formations were either replaced, have disappeared or collapsed. How will the new form of the future society preserve itself and develop further?

Answer: I think this will happen on the basis of a complete renunciation of past states with the help of the so-called recognition of evil, when people begin to understand that it is impossible to continue existing as before. They will be on the verge between either disappearing or changing themselves. And then they will experience transformation.

The recognition of evil is a force that preserves and protects itself. The whole of society will recognize evil, learn to understand it, and pass on this understanding to each other.

Question: Can the recognition of evil be learned and passed on?

Answer: Of course. We have just to teach, show, and explain what evil is and to what extent it exists in each object.

When a person begins to feel where evil comes from, then to this extent he begins to hate it. The recognition of evil preserves the society and does not allow it to move back.

Question: What is the energy that pushes a person forward toward his development? After all, what does not move forward goes backward.

Answer: The fact is that a person cannot stay in the same place, he must develop. Society develops, people develop, children are born, everything flows. Therefore, a person and society itself will strive to constantly develop.

But the main thing is the recognition of the evil in egoism and the fact that it is impossible to continue to exist like this. This feeling of impossibility will protect against regression and push forward.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

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A Kabbalist and His Attainments

526Question: Why did Baal HaSulam write and then burn his manuscripts?

Answer: Why give them to people if they will just confuse them? Today we have a lot of his manuscripts—some of them we have published, some of them we have not. What is the use of reading them if a person is not at this level? He does not even understand the words that are written there because they represent some sensations, definitions, and some levels in the world of Atzilut, for example, GAR de Atzilut.

What can he do with what he reads? He has some nonsense in his head.

Question: Explain the fact itself: why did he write this?

Answer: That is another thing. He wrote in order to help the world. When a Kabbalist expresses his revelations in written or oral form, at the same time he brings down the upper attainments into our world, he as if attracts the upper source into it, and he thus brings our world closer to the source of light. It helps us.

Baal HaSulam has done so much for our world! He has advanced it for hundreds of years, and for hundreds of difficult years at that.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Powerful Computer in the World” 10/8/09

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/27/22

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 10

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 3, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 12, Item 2

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Selected Highlights

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