Question: What is democracy in your view?

Answer: Democracy is the latest fairytale of humanity, when it is slowly discovering that with our nature, human nature, we will remain in a state of absolute barbarism if we coddle and pamper our nature as we are doing now and ask it what to do.

Currently, all kinds of adornments of this barbarism are going through the process of the realization of their pettiness. They are gradually falling off humanity, and what remains is the evil, grumbling, salivating “muzzle” of the modern generation that no longer has any thirst for anything.

The last generation has hit the wall, so to speak. It does not want to leave home from mom and dad, does not want to make decisions on its own, does not want to do anything, everyone wants to be freelance artists.

They are not interested in great accomplishments. Even in the area of egoism they do not want to invest in anything. They calmly allow their moms and dads to work and do not make any decisions without consulting with dozens of friends on Twitter or Facebook.

This generation is completely opposite to the previous one. In the 1960s, during my college years, the generation was boiling, ambitious, marching out. What ambitions and aspirations are there now? There are none! “Leave us alone! Figure out everything for us. We do not need anything from you and wish you would not want anything from us. Just provide for us in some basic way, and that is all.” That is the generation we have now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Democracy?” 10/12/13

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Comment: Shame and guilt are feelings directly related to social norms. As norms are changing, shame and guilt are changing. What used to be shameful is not considered so today. Shame, nevertheless, is the result of incongruity to the ideal. Self-condemnation is a destructive forms of shame is constant self-condemnation.

My Response: That is correct. Why does a person feel ashamed? As a result of self-condemnation.

Question: What does he condemn himself for?

Answer: Everything. That is why there is a sense of shame: “Why am I like this? What is wrong with me?” And so on and so forth.

Question: Is this feeling good or bad, and should it be exterminated?

Answer: It should be very well targeted. Then there will be no sense of shame, and there will be serious work on yourself.

Question: Should there or should there not be a sense of shame?

Answer: The feeling of shame for the fact that you did not have time to correct yourself into something more proper, kind, and so on.

Question: So, I actually have to see something good in front of me in order to experience shame? I do not see anything too good around me. There must be an ideal opposite me. There are no ideals today. I am talking about an ordinary person.

Answer: No, it is not about you seeing the ideal in someone in front of you. The fact is that you would see yourself a little better, a little better than yourself at the moment.

Question: Where does the point of shame begin—from which moment? I have to see something good and feel that I am not like that?

Answer: The point of shame begins from the moment you study yourself and realize that you have to be a little better and comparing this image—to be better than yourself—shame arises from the difference between them.

Question: Where can I get this image?

Answer: We can get it only if we study the science of Kabbalah. It will tell us what it means to be righteous and, based on this, we will see how much we have not grown to this level, and we will be ashamed.

Question: What is a righteous person from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: A righteous person is one that justifies the Creator’s action on him. In everything. And then, by realizing that I am not like that, I feel ashamed.

Question: Then there are two shames. Is the shame experienced by an ordinary person in our life real shame?

Answer: That is a different matter. It is a shame that I was caught stealing, and so on.

Question: Would you call it shame, the fact that I was caught?

Answer: Of course. There are a lot of people who blush like that. And if they were not caught, they would feel proud.

Question: But that is not the same shame you talk about all the time?

Answer: No. I am only talking about the shame that arises in a person who feels himself a degree less than he should have been. Meaning, a degree less than the righteous. And he must come closer to this state of the righteous all the time.

Question: Shame in our world, the usual shame when a person blushes that he was caught stealing, does this shame lead to that other shame or is it a step toward it? Or is it purposely given to us in this world after all?

Answer: It is interconnected but very complicated.

We should try to do what is revealed to us.

Question: And when a parent says to a child: “You should be ashamed of what you did,” where does he come from?

Answer: He must proceed from the fact that the child will correctly discern between what is desired and what is actually there.

And when a child understands this difference, he is ashamed that he is not in the best state where he could be, and then this feeling arises in him which can be called shame.
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From KabTV’s “New with Michael Laitman” 8/18/22

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who are the Jews today?“

Around 3,800 years ago, Abraham the Patriarch reached a perception of the oneness of nature, a perfect unity of everyone and everything as a single whole. He taught the ways of attaining the perception of nature’s oneness to anybody who was willing to learn back in ancient Babylon, and the Babylonians who advanced as a group implementing his methodology became initially known as “the people of Israel,” and later as “the Jews.” Every Jew today has a part of that perception, but it is yet to reveal itself, i.e. it exists only in potential.

Revealing the full extent of the perception that Abraham once attained would bring humanity to a state that Kabbalah calls “the end of correction,” i.e. the end of our development from perceiving in an incomplete, transient and divided manner, to perceiving a world where everyone and everything connects as one. We would then discover reality in its entirety: all worlds, created beings and various forms as one system filled with a single light, i.e. with a single force of connection. In such a state, we would perceive the true, whole and perfect reality.

Moreover, reaching such a perception is not a matter of whether a person is a Jew. Being Jewish is not about being born to a Jewish mother, as is commonly accepted in today’s world. A Jew is someone who yearns for connection (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]). Anybody who aspires to positively connect with others is on the way to becoming Jewish. The first stage toward reaching a state of unification is the condition that Hillel stated—”Don’t do to others what you hate”—and afterward we aim to reach the condition of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

People who are born as Jews have certain remnants with exalted and powerful potential that come from a completely different perception of reality than the one we experience today. Also, humanity’s future development will lead to everybody having to reach the same perception as Abraham, where we perceive everything and everyone as one, and toward that perception, it does not matter whether someone was born a Jew or not.

Who is a Jew? A Jew is one who wishes to unite everyone, and who feels the whole of reality in addition to feeling oneself. We are Jews if we feel that everything and everyone belongs to us equally as to everyone else, and we yearn to attain the perception of our lives’ source, the discovery of everything and everyone as one.

Based on the video “Who Is a Jew Today?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Faith above reason requires a special mind. The fact is that the man of this world: you and I, each of us, is built out of egoism, the desire to enjoy, inside of which he feels the whole of reality.

We feel only what can bring us pleasure or, conversely cause suffering, that is, plus or minus relative to our egoistic desire to live pleasantly.

However here a special approach is required by us: I do not want to feel what is pleasant or unpleasant to me, but I try to break away from this dependence, rise above it, and evaluate reality regarding what is good or bad for others. After all, in this way I will begin to see what is outside of me. Otherwise I don’t see anything, the whole world for me is only what determines my own egoistic benefit.

By this I limit myself very much and do not go beyond the animal that thinks only about its stomach, or am like a small naive child who understands only his own pleasure and does not take others into account.

Then the child grows up, and he seems to begin to take care of others, to see and understand the world better. But in fact, we still do not see the world, but simply expand the field of our interests more and more and we can assess what will benefit us and what will harm us.

The sensor with which we perceive reality is created from a single desire to enjoy, and this must be realized. We live inside our egoistic desire, and this is called the creation of this world. In fact, there is no this world, the future world, the upper worlds; there is one reality that depends only on our perception, on our attitude to what is happening.

There are some phenomena in the world that we do not feel at all, because our perception is determined only by what is good or bad for us. We just don’t notice anything else.

If the signal is not picked up by my egoistic sensor, the desire to enjoy, neither as positive nor as negative, I do not feel it at all. Maybe something big is happening around me, but I don’t see anything.

Kabbalists who have attained the upper world say that it is right here. We don’t need to fly somewhere to the other end of the universe, to another galaxy, all the worlds are already here, next to us.

Only we don’t feel them, as we perceive reality only by one narrow parameter: “I feel good” or “I feel bad.” It turns out that the whole reality is limited only by my primitive egoistic interest.

But how can I see more, feel more, understand more, and start coming out of my cocoon? This is possible if I rise above the feeling of “I feel good” or “I feel bad” and acquire the quality of bestowal, the one that is called faith. Then I will feel everything not relative to my own benefit, but in relation to others.

If I begin to evaluate reality in this way, then I rise above myself and gain a new sense organ: faith above reason. Thus I get out into a new, external perception of reality, independent of my egoism. I will be able to feel what others feel outside of me, and thus my view becomes relatively objective, depending on how far I can separate myself from my own interest.

I begin to see the objective reality that I was able to reveal: 125 spiritual degrees, five upper worlds, and gradually develop my view until I see everything that is outside of me. And what is outside of me is called the Creator (Bo-re), that is, “come and see.” Now, I don’t see anything in my desire to enjoy, but I have the opportunity to attain the Creator, the reality that is outside of me.

Then I will understand where I really live, what nature is, and what is happening to me. Therefore, this technique is called Kabbalah (reception), because it teaches how to get a sense of all this boundless reality. And a person who has developed such feelings is called a Kabbalist because he perceives reality objectively, not distorted in his egoistic perception, but as it really is.

Even the very first exit from your egoism allows you to feel that a higher, spiritual reality exists! Thus I begin to understand where I am, what for and why, what process I should go through, what state to reach. And before that, we are completely blind, insensitive, and have no way to look above our egoism. Only faith above reason allows us to break out of it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/20, “Concerning Above Reason”

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Question: How should we treat incidents from a human and Kabbalistic point of view? For example, something is happening, or someone is getting beaten. How should we react to this? Is intervening worthwhile?

Answer: Today we have been put in such a framework that people are afraid to interfere in anything. There are even studies on these topics. People pass by, they are afraid to get involved in conflicts: either you will get a knife in your side, or “it is not my business at all” so that they do not drag you through the courts.

We have created for ourselves such conditions of human community where it is impossible to just stand up for someone, even for simple, normal support or compassion. It is impossible to calm people down, it is impossible to break up a fight, because then they will do anything they want to you.

Humanity is very confused! It tries to compensate with laws for what is not filled with education. Men are not men, women are not women.

Look at how much humanity has changed internally and externally in 20 years, what they are becoming in their desires and aspirations, in everyone’s attempt to solve their questions and problems. It is just incredible! There are the scariest mutations! And where we will end up? We have just started this journey!

Comment: But there are old laws where one has to help the other.

My Response: Today they limit you. These are not the former laws of honor, which were clear to everyone, or the laws of chivalry, or the laws of samurai, or the laws of courtiers, which speak about the honor of a woman, justice, etc. If we are talking about a simple civil society, then we have destroyed it all.

No one respects another. There are no smart or stupid, old or young, men or women. There is some kind of unisex where there is no difference, you are afraid to interfere, you do not have any guidelines. You can be dragged through a legal fight just for some little thing! They will make a case out of it and, in general, do anything. There is no public response to this, because everything is corrupt.

Even during the Inquisition, there was relative order. The most ardent executioners and fanatics still behaved according to some canon.

Today it is very difficult for a person to promote some idea or advocate for something. This is natural. The last cry of dying humanity.

Question: Is it right to strive for honor and justice? Did we live correctly before?

Answer: It is impossible to say what is right and what is not because this is the natural development of humanity. There is no escape. If we do not correct egoism, we descend into really ugly forms.

In accordance with this, we continue to drift in the direction where it is generally unclear what awaits us. The same egoism keeps carrying us. We forget all the old forms when it was more or less balanced at the animate level, and now it is already taking mutational forms.

Children leave home, they do not want to work and do not want to study. And you cannot blame them for that! This is also our egoism, which goes through such stages of its mutational development. But this is also development, so to speak, a period of decay.

Solution is only in education.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Fight for Justice” 11/23/13

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Comment: The collective consciousness aimed at a common goal holds a certain power. It is not an individual but a group advantage when people unite fanatically, egoistically, to win something. If your students stick together, they have a whole different calculation that removes all barriers. It is palpable. Such a great power is revealed in this that people cannot explain it.

My Response: This is the inner force of unity of the group that is more or less correctly formed and pursuing a single goal: to reveal the Creator in this unity and to delight Him.

But at the same time, there is no fanaticism. Fanaticism implies completely different qualities of unification, opposite of what we are talking about. There can be no fanaticism in Kabbalah because everything here works on all possible opposite forces.

Comment: Opponents of Kabbalah try to pin cult stereotypes on you.

My Response: No, we are nothing like a cult, although our opponents try to impose that label on us.

The fact is, firstly we follow an ancient methodology. It is anti-egoistic, which means, it gradually develops you, and it forces you to rise higher and higher above yourself to no limit. In no way do you worship anyone like a guru.

This simply cannot be because we are all completely equal and equitable before the Creator. And most importantly, each of us has a left line which is not found anywhere, not in religions, nor in sects, etc.

The left line is the line of checking, scrutiny, and analysis, when you have to work on the opposite of yourself, turn yourself inside out, and explore what forces you are working with. You have to constantly answer the questions: “Is this true or is it all a lie? There is no Creator, there is no group, and in general, no one and nothing, so who am I from within?”

You constantly have to scrutinize yourself, reveal things, and mold yourself, from an egoist, into an altruist while all this goes against your whole strength or desires. Such formation out of opposite qualities is not found anywhere. This is the most important thing.

Therefore, all people in the world no matter their circles, religions, sects, trends, or movements, are just one-sided puppets.

One specific force of nature works on them and that’s it. Only a Kabbalist works with two opposing forces within himself and is constantly in an internal struggle and scrutiny, awakening and building himself out of two opposing forces.

Therefore, there is no fanaticism; there is no worship of anyone or anything. There is an absolutely equal and new unification every moment, in the name of one upper category—the Creator, who also turns away from any worship because it is a quality. If you achieve it, it manifests in you. That is, you build the Creator in yourself and then you discover this quality, albeit He Himself is not there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Sectarian Fanaticism” 10/19/13

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Question: Very often your students demand an explanation of the results of spiritual and also in material actions, because they believe that it is impossible to make efforts and not get results. When you were in this situation, what saved you?

Answer: I have always been saved only by the realization that there is nothing else in the world. I have suffered so much in the search for truth, until I found Kabbalah, and from the moment I began to study it, no illusions were left for me about anything created, invented by people, and therefore, I do not take all this seriously.

Of course, I can be engaged in research, but I immediately see the corruption of any other system of worldviews, any other attitude to the world. I am only in one huge movement of internal correction.

This is an enormous gift – a priceless gift that the Creator gave to the inhabitants of this world in order for them to rise to the highest point of unification with Him. How is it possible to leave it?!

I personally missed it so much. It can be said that from the moment of birth until I realized what I had actually found, I was in constant depression, in a feeling of worthlessness.

Even when I was a child, I always looked at myself and the world as if from the outside. I did not perceive it directly, but as if from the side. I looked at myself and the world from the outside: “Well, and what is here? What is the purpose, what for, how, why?”

I think that many people feel this way, but it was accompanied by very unpleasant sensations for me, this worthlessness was pressing me. On the one hand, it was necessary to study and acquire a profession, and on the other hand…

That is why, when I found Kabbalah, of course, right away I dropped everything. I had a great business, all the conditions, and I gave up everything, I couldn’t look at it. Not that it used to interest me, no. I just didn’t have anything else. And now the opportunity to attain the truth appeared—the global, absolute truth. I couldn’t be engaged in anything else, and I became fully immersed in it. So harder or easier, but regarding the goal, I have no questions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Where Are the Results?!” 11/9/13

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