Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/8/22

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“Bad Times – Opportunities for Correction” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bad Times – Opportunities for Correction

Today is the 9th of Av according to the Hebrew calendar. On this day, the First and Second Temples were ruined and the people of Israel were exiled from their land. It happened centuries apart, but on the exact same day of the year. On the physical level, there are days that are prone to trouble. The three weeks before the 9th of Av are such days, and especially the 9th of Av itself. However, on the spiritual level, there are no bad days. Every day is an opportunity for correction, and bad days are actually the best opportunities.

Both temples were ruined because of Israel’s hatred for each other. In the First Temple, it manifested itself in bloodshed and slander. In the Second Temple, the hatred became so intense that it needed no reason or reasoning whatsoever. This is why it was called “unfounded hatred.” That hatred, the worst of all hatreds, destroys everything, just as it did to the children of Israel at that time. Because they were consumed by such hatred, they lost the city of Jerusalem, the land of Israel, and were scattered throughout the world for two millennia.

Healing this hatred is the spiritual work we have to do. Every day is an opportunity to heal the hatred in our hearts and turn it into love of others. But days when we remember the horrific consequences of our hatred for each other should give us an extra drive to cure ourselves from that plague. This is why kabbalists do not regard such days as bad days, but as opportunities for
If we treat such days as invitations to correct our hatred and increase the love between us, we will do ourselves and the world a great service, since hatred is the cause of all our troubles. If we heal it between us, it will be healed all around us.
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“A New Beginning for Latin America Is Possible” (Medium)

Medium published my new article “A New Beginning for Latin America Is Possible

I feel great sympathy for Latin America and my students there; the socioeconomic turmoil they are experiencing saddens me and I share their concerns and pain. While the whole world is experiencing more difficult situations, Latin American countries do not anticipate a good future either, especially with the high cost of living, exacerbated by the increase in fuel prices.

The recent protests in Argentina, Ecuador and Panama, as well as in other Latin American countries, triggered by the economic crisis, are most likely just the harbinger of social unrest in the coming months. It is likely that the governments of the region will not be able to meet people’s demands for a reduction in the cost of living to appease their fears and discontent.

To overcome the crisis, I suggest that Latin Americans try to lower their demands on material life and not introduce every Western pattern offered to them into their way of life. It is good for them to lead a less developed lifestyle, and to be satisfied with what they have.

Western countries should also let them go and not try to impose their culture and consumerism on them, which the West considers a sign of progress and development. Foremost Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag rightly wrote that “we learn what a terrible wrong inflict those nations that force their reign on minorities, depriving them of freedom without allowing them to live their lives by the tendencies they have inherited from their ancestors. They are regarded as no less than murderers.” (The Freedom)

Peace and goodness for these nations will not come through materialistic development. On the contrary, the developed nations are bringing destruction to the authentic nations around the world as once happened to the indigenous peoples in the United States. Latin Americans are no longer able to be satisfied with what they have due to the Western influence and they will not be able to stabilize and remain on the same level of existence as the Western countries.

The greatest danger Latin America faces is the uncontrolled proliferation and commercialization of illegal drugs; this is very unfortunate. These are beautiful countries with good people, but they are being destroyed by the desire to artificially raise their standard of living.

The more a nation develops, the more selfishness it develops, and with this comes distance, coldness and social alienation between people. The natural connection that once existed between people and the rest of the species and all of nature, which is the feeling that everyone is connected in one system, is lost. It must be rekindled through education and implementation instruction to truly experience lasting change for the better.

I really like the character of the Latin Americans. They have a straightforward approach to others and to the world. They are not disingenuous people who talk nicely to you while holding a knife or a machete behind their back, they do not have malicious thoughts. But today, they develop without their beneficent intention, only according to what the pocket dictates, not according to the soul. They need to make an effort and put connection between them to the forefront and exercise the mutual care and responsibility that has been lost in a conscious way.
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“On Righteousness and Being Righteous” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On Righteousness and Being Righteous

Sadio Mane, who was one of Liverpool Football [soccer] Club’s top players and top earners, with a salary of £150,000 per week, was once spotted carrying an iPhone with a broken screen before a game. When asked about it, he said, “Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, or two planes? What will these objects do for me and for the world? I was hungry, and I had to work in the field; I survived hard times, played football barefooted, I did not have an education and many other things, but today with what I earn thanks to football, I can help my people … I built schools, a stadium, we provide clothes, shoes, food for people who are in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people in a very poor region of Senegal which contributes to their family economy. I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips and even planes. I prefer that my people receive a little of what life has given me.”

This is very impressive, no doubt. It is rare to find people with such a sincere desire to help.

A few days ago, someone asked me if Mane is a righteous man. Here is where I need to explain something about the meaning of the title “righteous” and the term “righteousness.”

In Hebrew, the word tzadik (righteous) comes from the word matzdik (thinking that someone or something is right). In other words, it is something that comes to a person who debates between two options and decides which of them is right.

Most people are not natural born givers like Mr. Mane. For him, the logic is simple: He grew up poor, he knows how it feels not to have what you need, he cares about his people, so he wants to prevent as many of his people as possible from feeling that scarcity. Mane is not debating between two options; he knows what he wants to do and follows his desire. This is great, but it is not “righteousness.”

“Righteousness” means that you face two options, one of which is very tempting but not good, and the other one is good but wholly undesirable. Specifically, it is a choice between doing what is good only for me or what is good for others. My decision, therefore, is not between two things that feel good, but between what feels good and what feels right.

Since Mane feels good when he gives, he is not regarded as a “righteous” in that sense. A generous person toward his people, certainly, but not “righteous” in the sense that he debated between two options and chose the right one over the pleasurable one. As he himself said, “I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes,” etc., meaning he does not want them, or wants them less than to help his people.

There is an idiom in the wisdom of Kabbalah, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and did not sin.” Another idiom says, “A thousand times will a righteous fall and rise.” In other words, righteous people are individuals with very strong selfish desires, who have fallen into their selfishness, then chose to rise above it having realized that they need to do what is right, and not what pleases their egos.

On a side note, but even more important, being righteous or not righteous is not the issue in our society. We do not need to look for righteous people or for generous benefactors; we need to make all of society just and balanced, and then we will have no destitute people who are forced to rely on others’ generosity.

To achieve this, we must set up educational systems that will teach us values, not information. Humanity could live very well, without any deprivation or paucity, if only people felt connected and cared for one another. Our problem, therefore, is not that not enough people are as generous as Mr. Mane, but that all of us, almost without exception, are absorbed in ourselves. We need a global education system that will teach us how we are all connected and ‎dependent on each other. Since we are mutually dependent, it is mandatory that we ‎learn to care about each other. Only such a global educational system will enable us to ‎think of each other and build a better world together.

I wish all of us to be wealthy not with money, but with love for one another. This is all the affluence that we will ever need.

Men Have a Lot to Learn From Women

507.03Comment: We received a letter from women who gathered in Latvia to support our congress. They write that they also have a strong congress in Latvia, Moscow, and virtually as well, absolutely identical to the male one.

In parallel with our meetings, they have regular gatherings of friends, which are held by women’s groups from different countries. They use them to clarify the prayer and the role of women. They realize that women cannot live and unite for their own sake, but they live and unite for the sake of men, the future generation, and the world.

My Response: I absolutely agree with them. Indeed, we men need to learn this from women. They initially have a more “outside of themselves” nature. And we will try to be similar and correct ourselves.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/24/22

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Complete Update

627.2Question: Is there a connection between spiritual genes and the corporeal states of my physiological body?

Answer: Naturally, there is. Both of these factors are active within the same person.

There are things that we receive through the corporeal world and there are things that we receive through the spiritual world. Some are perceived by us through study and others are perceived through the surrounding society, relatives, and so on.

Question: So is it possible to change the corporeal states as well?

Answer: Everything can be changed. A person can change himself completely.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

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Becoming Adam

742.03Comment: We have an instinctive program for the development of the physiological body. And we see how it develops.

My Response: This happens at the inanimate, vegetative and animate levels of nature. At the human level, however, we must educate a person and raise him, otherwise a Man will not grow out of him.

In other words, there is one program that is not related to my awareness of it—this is “animal.” And there is a program called “man within a human” in order to grow a Man out of this animal.

Question: What do you mean by “Man”?

Answer: The animal in which love for others is consciously developing is called “Man.” After all, by cultivating love for others, one becomes like the Creator. “Similar to the Creator” and is called “Adam“—from the word “Domeh.” Therefore, such a man is called “Adam.”

Love for my neighbor is a manifestation of my correct connection with him and the restoration of one common system, which is referred to in Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

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A Goal That Is Not Easy to Achieve

214Comment: There is a kind of emptiness in the way the world talks about connection, and in your words about connection there is a feeling of being filled with light. And even when your students talk about it, it feels like there is light there.

My Response: But people from the outside will not feel it right away.

There is a story written two and a half thousand years ago about how King Solomon suddenly found himself on the street in the guise of a beggar and could not prove to anyone that he was a king. No one believed him: “Who is this ragamuffin? He trudges along the roads and claims that he is the king.”

And instead of him, the devil Ashmedai sat on the throne, conducted all the business, and no one could understand that there was a substitution because everyone was at the simple level of this devil. This continued until King Solomon came to the Sanhedrin.

Sanhedrin was a meeting of wise men like a type of parliament. Before the ruining of the Second Temple we were commanded by wise men, and everyone had the right to address them with any question.

Solomon came to this meeting and asked them only one question. All 70 sages stared at him and could not answer. Then they asked: “Who are you?” He said: “I can answer all your questions, and from this, you will understand that it is I who am the wise Solomon and not this man who sits on the throne instead of me.”

The sages checked and made sure that it was so. Solomon returned to his place as a king, as the wisest and spiritually highest person, and Ashmedai was kicked out in disgrace.

Why am I saying this? Until the great sage Solomon came to the Sanhedrin, no one could understand that he was talking about something correct.

That is how we are. We say a lot of things, expose ourselves to the outside, but in most cases we seem, putting it mildly, unrealistic, immaterial: “It is all beautiful, good. The guys are great; they believe that the world can be made better so that people love each other…” and so on.

The world absolutely cannot believe that connection is its necessity, its goal, to which it goes to like a train. It must crash into something because the goal is in front of it and it cannot turn anywhere; it is getting closer to it every minute.

And if you put a system of balancing the similarity between yourself and this goal, then the train will slow down and gently enter it, like a pink cloud: happy, soft, kind, filling, illuminating, and giving a sense of eternity, perfection!

And if not, then this goal will collide with the train like a huge granite rock, will crush everything into a pancake, and then you will slowly begin to recover. But this recovery will be terrible and difficult and will take tens or hundreds of years during which you will, literally lick your wounds and heal yourself.

It will be something incredible—the world after the catastrophe where it will gradually learn and realize on its miasmas what the opposite of them is.

But I am an optimist. We need to disseminate more, and then everything will work out.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World After Сatastrophe” 2/14/13

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Feel the Connection to Each Other

937Comment: When I hear the melody that the friends sing together, I catch some kind of vibration. And if I enter with my minimal vibration, then a feeling of some kind of volume, a kind of stereo, is formed.

My Response: Thanks to your voice, you begin to hear everyone else and perceive the whole range of sounds through it. And if you listen from the outside, then you perceive others not through your voice, not through your participation, but one-sidedly, not as from within.

By participating in a common action, you connect with everyone, and through this connection you feel the inner strength, the inner meaning of “vocal singing,” a chorus, or some kind of common action.

This is the difference between attempts to overcome individualism in our world, that is, to supposedly connect with each other, but at the same time everyone is watching from the outside, from what Kabbalah offers, helping a person to go inside, free from himself, and feel exactly the commonality, a “not himself.” Here a person has to go into annulment of himself, into the restriction of “I” (Tzimtzum Aleph).

Comment: But he feels it all through himself. This is very clearly felt when everyone is singing.

My Response: The fact is that such ranges suddenly open up in you, such sensations, such possibilities of subtle perception and all kinds of internal switching, as if you suddenly enter through a small door into a huge hall, and such divine music sounds in it, such perfection, that you begin to try to gradually find yourself in it through start-stop actions. This is the first acquaintance. Naturally, this pulls a person and pushes him, like a child.

Comment: At the same time, each voice individually can be absolutely terrible and imperfect.

My Response: Of course! It really is so.

Question: If you record this singing does any energy remain in it or is it felt only at the moment of singing?

Answer: It remains, nothing is lost. But you can never return to the old; you are always directed only toward new attainment. Here, it’s not like Baron Munchausen’s “the sounds froze and then thawed.” You have to try to do things in a new way and even think less about the old.

Question: But if someone else hears this singing, will he receive some kind of energy from it, from within?

Answer: How will he hear? From the fact that we sing, let’s say, together? Physically sing? After all, we can sit and not sing, but simply enter a state where we feel each other’s commonality.

A person should be ready to hear. Nothing will work without preparation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Mystery of Choral Singing” 1/31/13

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Nature Is a Single Organism

752.2Question: Academician Garyaev found two types of unusual kinds of memory of DNA molecules. He put forth that the thought of nature or the general thought of development contained in DNA is indestructible. He discovered and wrote about the DNA phantom effect that confirms that a person does not die completely. He contends that nothing alive disappears without a trace, something remains in the form of information, and perhaps it is actually immortal. What is this “general thought”?

Answer: It is the immense general system of nature that actually exists but of which we perceive only a small part through our egoistic filter. Therefore, it seems to us that everything is born, lives, and dies. This is how we, being small, limited researchers, perceive everything through the prism of our egoism.

In fact, nature is one single organism, a vast, integral, analog system within which everything acts instantly and instantly connects with each other.

There is no time, no distances, and no movements because every particle includes in itself everything like in a hologram, and therefore everything exists in an ideal form, motionless, because any movement means a transition from imperfection to perfection. But in fact, this does not exist in nature.

Time, movement, and space are the coordinates of our flawed perceptions.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Human Genome” 7/17/11

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