Audio Version Of The Blog – 10/23/22
Posted on October 23rd, 2022
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Education as an Antidote for Hunger”
This week, the UN, and several related organizations, marked two significant dates: the World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. International organizations for the poor and hungry have existed at least since the end of World War II, but neither poverty nor hunger have been eradicated. If anything, they have increased. What, then, are we doing wrong, and can we change the dismal reality?
The problem is not lack of food; there is plenty of it. In fact, much of the food that is produced gets thrown away and pollutes the water and the ground rather than feeding hungry mouths. So people are hungry not for lack of food, but because there is no interest in helping people get it.
The prevailing attitude is one of narcissism. We care only for ourselves and suspect everyone else’s intentions toward us. If we have any surplus funds, we use them to build walls and fences, not to help others. This is how we behave around the world as individuals and as nations.
To quiet our conscience, we create organizations to tend to the poor and hungry. We fund them generously and appoint functionaries and bureaucrats to deal with the problem.
But if our hearts were with the poor, we would not leave them in the hands of bureaucrats, just as we would not leave our children in the hands of social workers to see to their upbringing. We would see that the people we care about get what they need.
Because we do not care, we appoint uncaring people who present plans for dealing with the spreading poverty and hunger, and announce special days to bring the problem to public awareness. They do not do a thing about the actual problems, but simply justify their bloated salaries through professionally designed presentations and verbose speeches that glorify their (nonexistent) achievements.
If they truly wanted to solve the problem, which funds their lavish lifestyle, there would be many ways to do so. However, the surest way to lift people from poverty is education.
First, there are technologies that can increase the yield of fields by multiple times through sophisticated irrigation systems, controlled environments, and other means. Farmers need to be taught how to use these technologies, and should be given the means to acquire them. This step alone would lift countless people out of hunger and poverty.
Next, I think that organizations for eradication of poverty and hunger should use their budgets to buy lands where they will both grow crops for food that will be dedicated for the poor, and use some of the land to teach local farmers more efficient agriculture.
Additionally, these centers for agriculture and education should be used in order to provide general education. It is well known that educated people have more opportunities in life, are generally better off, and can provide for themselves and their families better than uneducated people. Therefore, as a means to eradicate poverty and hunger, these centers should also provide general knowledge and education.
Also, education should not be only about avoiding poverty. Poverty is not a personal matter, but a social one. Therefore, people who study at these education centers should also learn about solidarity, mutual responsibility, interdependence in today’s world, and other topics that will help them establish themselves as positive elements in a connected world.
In this way, we can create an agrarian transformation that will become a social and cultural transformation that can free people not only from the grip of poverty and hunger, but integrate them in the global society of the 21st century as confident and positive individuals. In turn, these people will help others rise from poverty, and the process will gain momentum.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can one rise above themselves?“
We can rise above our egoistic selves in a group setting where we conduct various exercises that guide us on how to connect with each other until we receive a feeling that we live in a single system of nature.
By learning how to connect, we start learning what nature wants from us, and the extent to which we can realize this desire of nature. The more we learn the ways of positive connection above our egoistic selves, the closer we come to a state of living in a hate free and united world. We then start feeling the attainment of a higher world.
The feeling of rising above our egos in a group setting is different to the feeling of working on ourselves in a purely individual manner, for instance, in practices such as meditation.
In a group setting, we remove illusory concepts of rising above ourselves, and learn together with others how to invert the negative egoistic force into a positive one. In individual practices, we are closed within ourselves, and solely by the power of our imagination and inner effort, we seemingly try to not be under the ego’s control. We likewise receive no forces from above. Indeed, such practices somewhat let us detach from the ego, but we do not work with the ego in a way where we build a new system. Likewise, those engaging in individual practices such as meditation are not connected among each other. It is as if each one sits in their own personal corner. They might seemingly enter a different world, but it is detachment from the earthly corporeal ego that gives such a sensation. However, it gives us no ability to truly rise above our egoistic selves—to enter and act in the upper world with understanding and awareness.
When we aim to rise above our egoistic selves in a group setting, we reveal the extent in which we need to invert our egos. We come to see how our egoistic nature operates in opposition to others, and the more we try to positively connect, the more we discover the negative force working against our connection. Eventually, from such an interplay, we come to genuine demands and responses to rise above our egoistic selves and discover higher worlds of perception above the ego.
Based on the video “How to Rise Above Yourself” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Let’s say a person has some material problems and he asks the Creator to sort them out somehow. Is this normal?
Answer: Do you see that it helps?
Comment: It probably helps someone, but not someone else.
My Response: In principle, no.
Question: In Kabbalistic literature it is written more strongly that you harm yourself with this. In what way exactly?
Answer: By asking for yourself, you are asking to fill up or at least calm your egoism.
Comment: Then this information should be known to everyone because people usually ask for themselves.
My Response: Let them come and study Kabbalah. In many sources it is clearly written that if a person asks for himself, then he harms his soul.
Therefore people should come and learn how to properly address the upper force and thereby direct themselves to the right goal, to good.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22
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Question: The topic of reincarnation interests many people, but why is there so little written about it?
Answer: It is in order not to pass incorrect information and it is not to try to hide the correct one, but to give a person only what is needed. Therefore, Kabbalists prefer to remain silent.
Question: But does the concept of life cycles still exist?
Answer: Yes, it exists. In principle, nature is full of cycles: gasses, water, minerals, air, planets; everything is subject to some kind of cycle.
Question: So, life does not end after death? If there are cycles, then nothing ends?
Answer: Is this the most important thing that interests a person? He is not happy with his life, sometimes curses it, and still fears that it ends and there will be no continuation.
Let’s say a person was born, grew up, was taught, punished, and encouraged. In the end, he grew up, created a family, and gave birth to his children. And what is next? He reached the state of death and died like everything in nature. So is there anything to worry about? As it is said: “Against your will you are born; against your will you live; and against your will you die.”
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 10/9/22
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Comment: People feel a lot of states as a result of hearing your words during a lesson and think: “I have discovered something incredible here for myself!”
My Response: This is how I reveal the world to them! I sit in front of them and, one can say, open up more and more connections and interactions between all its parts. Of course what we do during the lesson is the discovery of the world.
Comment: It seems that it is impossible not to absorb this information, although it is hard for external people.
My Response: A person will not be able to absorb it. No matter how much he writes down, no matter what he does, it is impossible to absorb. You can only listen to this information many times in order to change. Try to change!
And the changes themselves occur only during practical study in the group, only when trying to connect on an equal level.
Question: As a result, will those people who are not listening to us now come to this through feelings or through practice?
Answer: You are in the same system with them. To the extent that you absorb, you pass the light of correction through yourself to the whole system. And if you are also actively disseminating, then even more so.
Yet if you have these opportunities, but you don’t use them to communicate with others, you shut yourself up and there will also be nothing left in you. Everything is arranged in this simple way; as long as the system passes through itself and is connected to everyone, it works. If there is some kind of breakage in it, then this part stops working.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hidden Information” 8/6/13
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Everyone knows that The Book of Zohar is special. This is the only Book that can lead man into the spiritual world. It has become famous because of its unique purpose, and humanity treats it in a special way.
A man is born into this world without knowing anything about it. Nature has prepared a very strange entrance into the world for him, nothing is explained to him in advance, and sensations, memory, or mind are not transmitted to him from his father or mother or from previous generations.
He is born as a piece of flesh and begins to receive impressions from this world: heat, cold, light, darkness, sounds, noise, and silence.
At first, he does not feel anything at all. Gradually, he begins to react to sounds, light, and then to the attitude of his mother, to some actions upon him, and he laughs or cries. He begins to explore the world, seeks to find out what surrounds him and gets acquainted with his body. This is how he grows.
It is amazing that a couple of days after its birth an animal cub knows everything and can survive in this world on its own, and a human baby is not capable of anything without the care of adults. Besides, if it is left in the forest, it becomes the same as the animals around it.
The whole development of a child in our world takes place on the basis of the impressions he receives and examples and behavior patterns that exist in the world and that adults show and explain to him.
There is music for children, toys, playgrounds with sandboxes and slides, various construction sets and games, all so that children learn to break, assemble, and disassemble, and distinguish colors and sounds. All this exists for the development of man in order to prepare him for life in our world.
Parents and an environment are ready to provide the child with everything so that he grows up befitting his generation and the world in which he lives. Instinctively, we are created in such a way that we want to give the child everything there is in us. Otherwise, he will not be ready for life.
Such upbringing is natural, it comes from our nature, and we cannot destroy it. We cannot stuff a person with information by connecting him directly to a computer and filling him with encyclopedic knowledge.
We cannot fill him with education and knowledge immediately after birth and develop sensations, reactions, and sensitivity in him; only gradually, step-by-step, to the extent that he accumulates impressions, does he himself take the form of an individual.
It takes the first 20 years of a person’s life and even more. And as adults, we also continue to learn and develop, and when we come of age, we regret that we did not know something earlier.
A similar process of development takes place with us at our birth and formation in the upper world. The only difference is that I exist in this world, and it really interferes with me!
But I also need a spiritual father and mother, an environment, toys, education, upbringing, and explanation. And if I do not get examples, I will not be ready for the spiritual world, it will not open up to me, and I will not recognize it.
Just as a person cannot exist in our world without information about it, so his soul cannot exist in the upper world without information about it. Moreover, the knowledge of the upper world is a feeling of life in it (Baal HaSulam, “Body and Soul”).
Imagine that if a newborn baby were left lying in a crib and not provided with anything other than what is necessary for his existence. He would remain a piece of flesh.
We will not be able to develop if we do not receive new, varied impressions. We may not understand them, just as a baby does not understand them, but we are first filled with all sorts of external influences and impressions, and in this way we grow.
The same is true in spirituality. We must fill ourselves with various external influences that come from the spiritual world. But they do not exist in our world!
It is exactly this “external” influence that The Book of Zohar has on us. And that is why this Book is special. If a person reads or listens to this Book, regardless of his understanding, the Book fills him with various impressions of the unknown upper world. No other Book has such an impact on a person.
Gradually, as we study The Book of Zohar, we will receive impressions from it, accumulate them, and they will penetrate us, and will take care of our advancement.
Of course, we will accompany reading The Book of Zohar with small explanations in order to give a person some connection with its narrative.
But in fact, a person can read it even without any explanations with only the desire to understand, like a child with widely open eyes wants to attain the world and to know everything because nature does not allow him to remain at rest for a minute.
If we open our senses, heart, and mind just to absorb everything from this book, like a baby absorbing the world with enthusiastic eyes, we will move forward.
And it does not matter whether a person has a brilliant mind or it is difficult for him to learn, whether he is lazy or agile, rational or sensitive, everyone will receive the development most favorable for him.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/09, The Book of Zohar “Noah”
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Comment: There is a famine in Brazil. People lost their jobs during the pandemic and found themselves without means of subsistence. They call it the “hunger pandemic.” More than 100 million Brazilians will no longer have meat, dairy products, and vegetables on the table, that is, in very limited quantities.
Brazil is one of the largest exporters of products in the world, especially meat. How can a country remain the biggest exporter while over 100 million of your own people, almost 50% of the population, have nothing to put on the table?
My Response: It is very simple: this is how we created the world. It is not nature that does this. Nature provides us with everything we need. Yet, we turn it over as we like, divide it, mold it in such a way that on the one hand we throw food away and on the other hand, people starve.
Question: But this is not a good world. Let’s say I am the leader of the country, I am developing exports, and at the same time, my people are starving. How is this even possible? Why do you say that our world is like that?
Answer: It is egoistic. You have to correct egoism for this. If you do not correct it, we will always have situations like this. There will be small black and white periods. But mostly they will be dark, black.
Comment: I am well-fed and I feel that I need to develop the economy and revenue and I am not interested in what is next to me.
My Response: It is a big problem to put the country in order. To do this, it is necessary to educate people, raise literacy, and create special conditions for proper interaction between people. No one will do this.
Comment: This is my wrong view. Let’s say the country’s leaders should see that their people are starving and stop half of the exports.
My Response: And what will happen? If they stop exporting, there will be no money. If there is no money, they will not be able to produce weapons or something else. Everything is attached one to another. Then they will eat you.
The egoistic world cannot be in another form.
Question: Do you think that even further the egoistic world will show itself more as a monster?
Answer: In any case, it will find a solution, a way for egoism to celebrate. There will be a ball of egoism all over the Earth.
Question: What would you do as a leader of the country if you had such an opportunity? People are starving in your country and you export a great amount of everything. How would you regulate this?
Answer: In principle, this problem has no solution. It can only come down to one thing: educating the population so that it is prepared for a paradigm shift, that is, to change the value in life from egoistic to altruistic; moreover, change to a very serious altruistic system where schools, institutions, and relations between people, everything would be subordinated to altruistic social relations.
Question: Do you think that because of this there will be no famine in the country and so on?
Answer: Then there will be nothing like that. But this is a gradual, long-term transition system. Basically, this is, of course: awareness, development of consciousness, and development of states between people and social relations.
Question: Do you think that this leads to mutual guarantee and to the fact that no one can starve next to me, that there is no such thing at all?
Answer: This is a fantasy. I understand that this is a fantasy. But, on the other hand, we need any way to come closer to this. I understand that this sounds unreal today, but nature will force us nevertheless.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/27/21
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The holiday of Sukkot symbolizes joy. This is a wonderful, pleasant, easy, and simple holiday that people love very much. Although it requires advanced preparation, it is nevertheless imbued with a joyful atmosphere. Why?
First of all, after self-examination, after receiving the Torah on Shavuot, on the 9th of the month of Av, we saw ourselves as shattered (this is also symbolized by shattering of the tablets). Then we came to the recognition of evil, and on the Jewish New Year (Rosh HaShanah) we decided that we must correct ourselves.
Then came the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In the language of Kabbalah, this is described as the embrace of the right and left lines, the manifestation of the qualities of judgment (Dinim) and mercy (Hassadim), sweetening.
Then finally, the holiday of Sukkot comes, special corrections, when I can already take my desires and raise them to bestowal. The symbol of this process is the Sukkah (a hut). Everything is extremely simple: I use the simplest, “cast-off” desires represented by the branches and leaves of the hut.
There is nothing in them, but it is from them that I build myself a temporary home, a canopy that gives at least some shade over my head. It is made of things that have no value and can be found everywhere.
Once I have built this state, this temporary shelter, I can rejoice inside of it. Thus, it symbolizes the spiritual vessel (Kli) into which I receive the light. The canopy is a symbol of the screen (Masach). I do not want to receive the light directly, the shadow should significantly prevail over it so that it barely makes its way through the roof.
I am happy that I have formed a screen above me that allows me to hide the upper abundance and to remain in the shadows. I myself (although, of course, with the help of the reforming light) can hide from pleasures in a spiritual vessel.
Then the process continues. I correct myself again and again in my growing vessels (desires), I am with them in a “hut,” i.e., I can open and use them with the help of the cover.
Then I come to the holiday of Simchat Torah (The joy of the Torah). Torah is the reforming light that I received on Shavuot. I used this force to correct the vessels and now I am exiting the hut. In other words, I have an unlimited screen and I no longer have to take care of the cover.
The exit from the hut symbolizes the fact that from now on I am free to wander all over reality, all over the world. It is no longer necessary to build a screen over my head because now it is within me. I am in a self-corrected vessel.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/18/13, “Sukkot”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the spiritual process?“
The spiritual process of development means disagreeing with listening to our egoistic desires for self-benefit at the expense of others and nature, and developing a new spark that will be connected solely with the upper force of love, bestowal and connection, called “the Creator” or “nature.”
According to our efforts to develop this spiritual spark in us, our spiritual desire, we will be called “human beings” in the fullest sense of the term. That is, “human” in Hebrew (“Adam”) means being similar (“Domeh”) to the most high, the Creator (“Domeh le Elyon”).
The Creator is the force of bestowal, of giving. It is the opposite of what we are, desires to receive. The Creator exists in a small spark we have within us for giving. It is very hard to find the Creator. The biggest egoists can find the Creator faster and more accurately than smaller egoists. People who have smaller egos, who have an inclination to help and participate with others feel as if they already experience the spiritual quality of giving to a certain extent, but they do not.
While we develop spiritually, wishing to identify more and more with the spiritual spark within us—the force of love, bestowal and positive connection to others—we go through states of despair when we find ourselves continually falling into our egoism, pride and self-concern. Getting through such states and using them optimally depends on the environment that we surround ourselves with. Individually, we cannot get through such states.
We are given a certain feeling, and if we have something contrasting that feeling around us, similar to weights that alternate from side to side, then in such a way we can use the counterforce.
If we surround ourselves with people who support us in our spiritual development, then we help each other, discuss and understand each other. We also might not necessarily be focusing on the person who is currently in descent, but toward everyone.
Based on the video “What Is the Spiritual Process of Development?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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