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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Makes People Right-Wing and Left-Wing?”

How Do People Who Have No Political Connections Become Left or Right-Wing?

Nature consists of two forces: giving and receiving, plus and minus, positive and negative.

We each also play host to these forces. They exist on all levels of our lives: material, psychological and spiritual.

As for political right-wing and left-wing inclinations, I would first stay clear of defining them as such because nowadays these terms have become very convoluted, making people confuse one for the other.

In its origin, however, a left-wing inclination leans toward completion, connection and compromise, while a right-wing approach is its opposite: leaning to defining borders, limitations and boundaries. In other words, by nature a left-wing approach is “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours,” and a right-wing approach is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”

However, in our distorted lives today, which are far from nature, we see nothing that expresses true left-wing or right-wing inclinations. This is because we live in times where an overblown human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—stands at the foundation of everything we think and do, making us far removed from any kind of natural approach to these inclinations.

There are no genuine examples of real left-wing and right-wing inclinations in today’s world because they are blended with the desire to exploit anything and anyone possible in order to fulfill egoistic pursuits. For instance, a person might naturally have a left-wing or a right-wing inclination, but due to the ego’s powerful urge for fulfillment today, then that person could very easily find themselves on the other side in practice.

I thus think that dividing people and nations into left-wing and right-wing brings us no lasting benefit. Instead, we should focus on upgrading our education around the world so that we learn how nature works, how we develop, where we are headed, and what we would like to see in a better future state. If we start elevating our awareness to understand how we can reach balance with the new globally-interdependent conditions we find ourselves in, then we would start seeing an expression of our more natural inclinations. We would then see how people and nations are left-wing or right-wing inclined by nature, and accordingly we would be able to guide everyone to a more harmonious and peaceful future according to every person’s and nation’s natural inclinations.

Part and parcel of this new educational process requires running a serious ongoing examination into how we could reach equilibrium among the differing inclinations in humanity and guide a positive course of development. We need to constantly scrutinize humanity’s and each nation’s optimal form, while understanding each nation’s different nature and thinking about how to piece all people and nations together in complementarity.

There is a need for competition and the use of power that lets the stronger win, and there is also a rightful place for the weaker desires that demand government support for their lives. Both inclinations need to find their expression, and we can each make decisions according to our respective characters.

We need to understand the complex richness of nature, which does not let us simply be good people that can agree on something and hold that agreement. We change from one moment to the next. That is why, even during the process of signing a certain agreement, we can already find ourselves thinking about how to breach it and benefit ourselves at the other party’s expense.

The human ego today does not let any person or side hold onto anything that holds us all together. Accordingly, we can expect more and more friction between the left and the right as we further develop. Moreover, if we fail to regulate the friction, then the conflicts between the two sides could lead to major destruction, like another world war.

We need to understand that these opposite inclinations are embedded in our nature and they will increasingly unravel so that we create a system that balances them. It is similar to how, in electricity, we place a resistor between plus and minus where they connect and perform some kind of work. We similarly need to approach our inclinations, but we require something common for us all to work toward.
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Filed under: Israel Today, New Publications - No Comments →

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “When Will Human Population Exceed the Capacity of Planet Earth?”

There is a popular narrative today about human overpopulation being a problem—that it increases global warming, climate change and disease, to name a few.

However, in actuality, the more human population, the less suffering we each individually endure.

Moreover, we would not perceive human overpopulation as being a problem if we would upgrade our attitudes to each other, by positively connecting to each other above our egocentric, individualistic drives.

First, in relation to the statement, “the more population there is on the planet, the less suffering we absorb”…

We first need to understand that there is no such concept as redundant people in the world.

Not only can our planet handle many more people, a higher human population also does not equate to more suffering. Instead, when viewed from the perspective of humanity’s development toward its united future state, the formula looks like this:

The amount of people divided by the amount of suffering equals our ability to exercise free choice—to connect above the ego.

In other words, if there are more people, then the amount of suffering disperses among them, and as a result, everyone suffers less. For instance, say humanity needs to endure one million tons of suffering at a certain stage of its development. Then, what would you prefer: to be part of a humanity of eight billion people that needs to deal with that one million tons of suffering, or to be part of a humanity of two billion people taking on that burden? It is clear that we would choose the option of less suffering.

How does this work? To understand it, we need to take a bird’s eye view of humanity’s development.

We are currently in a process headed into a future of humanity connected as a single organism, where we will feel each other closer than we feel our own families. Today, we are at a crossroad: We can either continue following the path of our growing self-centered nature, where we seek fulfillment on a background of gradually intensifying personal, social and global problems; or we can exercise our free choice to engage in this process positively, connecting above our egoistic nature and rising above the problems.

If we realize our free choice in this process and start connecting above the ego, then no single person on the planet will appear to be redundant. Instead, every person will be viewed as a very precious creation, inseparable from society, who carries a significant portion of humanity’s load. Each person would be as important as cells and organs in our bodies, each working for the benefit of the whole body and looking out for each other in the process.

There are thus no redundant people. What is redundant is all the thinking put into restricting population growth. Instead of thinking about restricting the population, we should think about how we can guide our rapidly-growing population to a positively-connected society. By doing so, we would realize our ability to exercise our free choice and discover a new picture of reality above the one we currently perceive in the ego.
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Filed under: New Publications, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Children have a very developed sense of attachment. Suppose a child went to his grandmother’s for the summer, rested, got used to it, and when he leaves, it is like he is being torn away from this forever. But the older a person gets, the easier it is to break these ties.

And for someone who studies Kabbalah, on the contrary, the task is to build up connections as quickly as possible so as not to get stuck in spiritual work?

Answer: Yes, but to do it using what is called “this world.” For him, the whole picture of the universe, the whole system is one, he does not break it. There is nothing to give up, to break away from. It is such an amazing discovery when it all comes down to one single world. And there is nothing superfluous, everything mutually includes and mutually complements each other.

Comment: Moreover, people have different attitudes toward attachments. For example, you can remember the car you sold for a long time, or you can quickly sell it and forget it.

My Response: It does not depend on whether a person is more sentimental or less sentimental, thinks quickly or slowly, but on how much he is engaged in higher or lower things. If he is engaged in high things, then the importance of lower things for him disappears very quickly.

Let’s say he changed cars, changed apartments, but his head is still occupied with some higher problem.

I traveled a lot to different countries. Do you think when I was driving that I felt that I was somewhere? If they told me: “You need to go out to take a photo or a video,” so I went out, walked along the Champs Elysees, or filmed in Berlin near the Reichstag, or in Italy next to the fountains. That is, I did what I was told, and was not eager to see the sights.

And not because I am indifferent to these places, I really love architecture and paintings. I am a man of this world and once I was seriously interested in them. But if you are captured by a higher idea, then all these cities and countries spin like a globe.

I remember how, as a child, when I could not go anywhere, “abroad” seemed to me some kind of magical world, something unrealizable, extraterrestrial. I sometimes remember my childhood performances when we lived behind the Iron Curtain. It is a small pity that today I do not have that aspiration, desire, admiration. Everything is being suppressed by the higher levels I am at, by what interests me now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Acceleration of Life” 10/27/12

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Question: It is natural for a person to share his grief or his worry with others, but is this not welcome in Kabbalah?

Answer: We should not share personal states because they are only yours and the Creator’s. If these states are only mine and the Creator’s, based on the root of my soul with Him, and yours is based on the root of your soul with Him, then we can simply harm each other.

Two souls cannot feed from the same point, they feed from two different points, each for itself. Therefore, in our world, it is impossible to openly consult and talk about our personal states, about how everyone progresses, how someone goes forward and reveals the Creator, the upper force, and the world. This is the same thing since the entire system of the universe in which we exist is called the Creator or nature.

In Kabbalah, it is not acceptable to share our inner states because each of us will confuse the other.

We can talk about family, children, and everything that exists in this world because these are all animalistic states at the animate level. In addition, it is possible to discuss, not our momentary states, but the general actions that each person should perform on the path to the Creator since there is a common methodology, theory, and practice of spiritual ascent and revelation of the Creator.

But I should not talk with anyone about my personal contact, and what state I am in with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call We Should Not Share our Grief with Others” 12/16/12

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Question: There is a parable in which a husband and wife move to live in a new apartment. Early one morning the wife looks out the window and sees a neighbor hanging laundry. She says to her husband: “Our neighbor is a very bad housewife. Look at how dirty her clothes are.” The husband does not pay attention and is silent. Every day she looks out the window, sees her neighbor and says, “Oh, what a slob!” Suddenly one day she looks out the window in the morning, and sees the neighbor hanging clean clothes. She says to her husband: “You see, this slob has finally learned how to wash.” “No,” says the husband, “I just got up early today and washed our window.”

This seems to be our whole life. We look at the world through our dirty window, and badmouth other people.

Please tell me why we don’t notice that the window is dirty, but instead we criticize others?

Answer: It is more enjoyable for us to see what is happening at the neighbors. That is why we don’t see what’s happening at our place.

Question: Am I afraid to look into myself?

Answer: You can’t.

Question: So I keep seeing that there is dirt everywhere else. And do I have to clean it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: At what point do we notice that the window is dirty? How will we be led to the fact that this is our dirty window?

Answer: If there is no husband, you won’t notice.

Comment: This is the root of all troubles and wars, and we want to change the world, and we want to change others. This little parable is our whole life.

My Response: Yes.

Question: Who do you call a husband in relation to us, for example?

Answer: Someone from the side, someone serious who is on the same level with you or even maybe a little higher who can point you to understand the reason the world is dirty; it is dirty in you.

Question: Who can do this? Who is the husband who will clear the window for us so we will see that it was all about us?

Answer: The husband is the one who can rise above the female essence.

Question: Are we the female essence? In general, is all of humanity a woman?

Answer: Women, yes.

Question: Can we say that we are a woman, and our husband is the Creator?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Which means until the Creator wipes the window and says “Look, it’s all about you!” will nothing move? Are we going to solve problems at the ground level, kill others, or torture and torment them?

Answer: Yes. And then we justify ourselves.

Comment: That’s a very pessimistic end to the story.

My Response: This is our whole history.

Comment: I have to see that it’s all about me. We talk about it all the time.

My Response: It doesn’t matter. Even if you were to see and hear, you still wouldn’t want to see it.

Question: Won’t I request it anyway? So where is this gear shift after all? Where? How?

Answer: It will come from above.

Question: The fact that this egoism is in me, does it prevent me from seeing others and that all the dirt, all this dirty laundry, is in me?

Answer: Yes.

Question: It can only be from above, you say. Why do you keep saying that you need to love your neighbor?

Answer: These are the commandments. We must do this in order to correspond with the laws of nature. How to do it? When we are convinced today that otherwise we will not withstand, that we will not survive, then what is left for us?

Question: So do we have to be on the verge of life and death? And then we will begin to understand that we need to treat each other with love?

Answer: You see how simple it is. 🙂

Question: But there is only one moment that we have to be brought to the edge; that is what is scary?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And what about our reason?

Answer: Reason will not help. We do not live by reason, but only by our feelings.

Question: Then the human boundary is not necessarily between life and death, is it? It may be emptiness; it may be depression or some kind of inner cry?

Answer: But this boundary is when one feels hopelessness. And then he begins to realize that it is all about him.

Question: Does the Creator give us this understanding?

Answer: Yes. Or if some group of humanity will take on watering everything with love, watering the whole humanity with love.

Question: Are you saying that we need an example?

Answer: Yes.

Question: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam wrote about the last generation. These were his deathbed notes. After all the incomprehensible things he wrote in his Kabbalistic works, he suddenly wrote understandable notes called “The Last Generation.” There he wrote that a group of people should appear who will take on this law of “love your neighbor” and begin to live by it and spread it all over the world.

Do you think that this is not fiction or idealism?

Answer: Time does its own thing. I think that after all humanity will agree, out of desperation to accept this principle of a new life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23

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Filed under: Crisis, Globalization, Perception, Society - No Comments →

Question: How can the light affect people who do not study Kabbalah and are not in any way on the spiritual path?

Answer: The light will influence them based on the fact that they will be included in us and will quickly come to a sensation of the next degree of existence.

This is the core of our work with the world. They must know that there is a next level, and that is why we are suffering at the current level. The forces that compel us to rise to a new level affect us in such a way, and if we act in unison with them, we will be fine. Let’s start climbing with them, thank them, and use them correctly. This is the essence of the method of Kabbalah.

It tells us what to do: reach out to each other and work in unison with the forces that compel us to rise to the next degree.

Today humanity already sees that it is becoming global. There is nowhere to run. To go along with nature means to benefit oneself or it is to one’s own detriment. But people, like foolish children, don’t want to hear about it. And what will nature do? It will punish them until they obey. And that is why sufferings are ahead.

Comment: But according to your explanations, it is not their fault that they do not hear us.

My Response: Yes, and now it is because nature has already begun to clearly manifest itself in relation to humanity and to show it which direction is correct—the direction of unity, harmony, and a correct, kind, gentle attitude to oneself, to others, and to nature, the direction of reasonable consumption, integral upbringing, education, and so on. Nature shows all of this.

You can say, “But the same nature (Creator) has given us such egoism that man is unable to cope with his egoistic impulses. He doesn’t care about what nature offers him; he doesn’t want to do anything differently. What then can be demanded from a person?!”

From a person pretty much little can be demanded. This is indeed so. But a lot has to be demanded from Jews; pressure has to be applied to them, and it needs to be done correctly with understanding the essence of the pressure and pushing them to fulfill their mission.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Medicine From all Sickness” 10/27/12

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Question: Is it possible to say that the Creator plunged Himself into a state in which He perceives Himself as a creation?

Answer: No. All creations, in fact, are in one single, absolute, perfect state. In order for the creation to attain the Creator, it goes through all kinds of phases, which are called “exile,” so that they can attain from these phases of concealment, exile, and darkness the state they actually are in.

This can be compared to the way I deliberately make faces for my child as if I am angry, happy, suffering, or passionate about something in order to evoke all kinds of reactions in him, and he will begin to understand me better and develop.

Look at how many toys we invent, how many methods, not for the bodily development of children, but for their intellectual development. After all, if we did not do this, they would remain at the animate level as if they had been abandoned in a forest. How much humanity invests in kindergartens, schools, and education; this is a huge world!

All this is only in order to pull up a child who is born like a piece of meat, like an animal, and give him development. In just a few years, he goes through amazing revolutions inside himself and becomes a person who understands not what we understand, but more than that!

Can you imagine what is inherent in us from the very beginning?! What potential! All this is only thanks to the correct attitude to children.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is the Creator?” 10/27/12

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Question: What is the difference between the method of Kabbalah and other methods? You say that in other methods there is no way to draw light.

Answer: It is not that they do not have the ability to draw light. If a person does not have a point in his heart, there is no basis for the development of his soul, so there is no way to prove or show something to him. He will not be able to discover by himself to know which method suits them and which does not. Therefore, people advance through trial and error.

We are constantly getting confused in this life, inventing something, believing that we exist in some kind of reality and for the sake of it. Then, if a point in the heart arises in someone, this person comes to Kabbalah and begins, from this point, to build a correct perception of reality in himself.

There are not many such people. To date, there are hundreds of thousands of them, maybe even a couple of million along with those who are interested and those who are on the periphery. But this is a very limited number of people.

All the others, who do not have the embryo of the real state, cannot develop it. They live like the billions of people in the feeling of this world that cannot really create a picture of the next level for themselves. They just exist in this world.

But what can they do? Gradually, under the influence of suffering, they will begin to feel their insufficiency and will join those who have a picture of the upper world. In this way, everyone will enter this picture because they will be connected by their desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference Between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are Israelis united enough?“

In order to unite, we need to annul our egos toward each other.

What are our egos? They are our self-aimed inclinations that make each of us consider ourselves the greatest, that there is no one like us. Such an egoistic approach obstructs our unity.

Our problem is that we unhealthily seek how to overpower each other instead of searching for closeness.

Our egos stand in the way of us building a true nation. We might prosper in many fields, but that is only due to the competition in our midst. However, there is no unity.

Unity is at the basis of nature, and of the Israeli nation, and today it is nonexistent here. Moreover, our lack of unity is our greatest threat because unity is what should support us. We thus become increasingly vulnerable to our enemies the more disunited we are.

Based on the video “Are Israelis United Enough?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Filed under: Israel Today, Q&A, Quora - No Comments →