Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/7/23
Posted on December 7th, 2023
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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “Why Human Civilization With Its Progress Still Hasn’t Resolved Wars and Horrors”
There is a thought-provoking anecdote about the development of human civilization. A plane crash survivor lands on an island inhabited by cannibals. These cannibals, led by an intelligent European-looking chief, plan to feast on the survivor. The survivor, bewildered by the chief’s apparent culture, asks, “Aren’t you influenced by civilization?” The chief’s response? “Sure, I’ve been influenced. When I eat you, I’ll do it with class—using a plate, fork and seasonings. It’ll be quite sophisticated.”
This story makes us think about why civilization has truly failed to stop wars and horrors.
Civilization needs an inside job. That is, to change human civilization for the better starts from changing the person from within. In fact, there are no horrors. The so-called horrors we witness are just people displaying their inherent egoistic human nature, which is enjoyment at the expense of others. That nature is what needs fixing. No matter where we look, on personal, social, international and global scales, human egoism is out of balance.
If people were given the freedom to harm each other, exempt from punishment and with no injurious consequences of their actions, then we would see immense barbarity. Also, together with such barbarity, we would also see people using plates, forks, knives and spoons when they eat, simply out of habit.
Besides wars and barbarism, we see our egoistic human nature playing out in much of what we consider normal and appreciated in our lives. For instance, take a sports stadium packed with dozens of thousands of people, some of them rooting for one team, and the others rooting for another. It shows how we fundamentally stand against each other.
Our readiness to root for one side while simultaneously devouring the other is the point within us that needs changing. I would personally put an end to such events, i.e., any kinds of competitive events that foster hatred and superiority.
I am not against competition in general, just that which breeds hate. We should put our heads together to create competitive events that do not emphasize who is bigger, better, faster and stronger, but that let us seek the success of unity above our egoistic and divisive nature.
If we set ourselves on such a course to compete against our egoistic nature in order to elevate unity above it, then we would eventually find that we have no need for borders between countries or any other forms that segregate people. However, first, within these borders, we need to undergo this correction: that we compete to rise above our egoistic nature, our hatred of others, and create an atmosphere of love, mutual consideration and positive connection above egoism.
Eventually, we would find that we are a single nation spread worldwide. The difference between the way this concept plays out here compared to others who have tried to implement such a vision is that their mistake was trying to build a collective transformation without changing the egoistic human nature dwelling within each person. They ignored the inherent evil within us. We rather need change within us before any collective transformation.
Today, we have reached a stage where we can learn from these past mistakes, that the use of force to build societies leads to nothing positive. However, we have yet to build a true human civilization.
Civilization means realizing the importance of strong positive connections above our inborn egoistic nature. That is the core of it. When we prioritize such connections, we align ourselves with nature’s laws of interconnectedness and interdependence, and we then come to sense a new harmonious and peaceful world open up to us.
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Question: How can we free our hearts from other desires in practice in the ten before studying the Torah?
Answer: Throw all your problems and worries out of your heart, except for one: you want to connect with your friends and the Creator into one whole. That is all.
Just as little children in kindergarten are attached to their teacher, you want to be in close contact with your friends and the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah 11/22/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “When One Feels Oneself in a State of Ascent“
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Question: My husband and I both study using our method. How can we reach concessions if we are both very hot-tempered?
Answer: Start competing with each other to see who will concede more to the other.
Question: If I get married, I am afraid that the Creator will lose His importance to me and fade into the background. Can love for another person interfere with the spiritual path?
Answer: No. True love for the Creator never interferes with the love for a person.
Question: I have been studying for 12 years, but my husband does not study Kabbalah. However I see how, during this period, his approach to Kabbalah changed from absolute hatred to a high reverent attitude toward you and the methodology. At first, I felt only one-sided fulfillment, not in a mutual connection, but from the moment he began to be imbued with the ideas of Kabbalah, a new mutual connection appeared between us. What is this transition from one-way fulfillment to mutual connection?
Answer: A new Kli has appeared from the two of you, and you feel it. But this is just the beginning, then you will feel much more.
Question: How can I be sure that my chosen one is the woman with whom I will serve the Creator together?
Answer: You must feel this, according to the goal you must reach. First, your chosen one should aim toward the same spiritual goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/23, Writings of Rabash “Discernments in States“
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Question: It is said that if a person reveals the measure of hatred in himself, then he is not led from transgression to transgression, and thus he enters into love for the Creator. Is it possible by revealing the evil in ourselves to avoid descents on our path?
Answer: No, it is impossible. In any case, there will be descents, and a person should be ready for them. He must understand that it is the descents that lead him to an ascent.
Question: In order to reveal love and good, we must reveal all the hatred and evil. What helps us to balance this correctly so that evil does not come out but remains exclusively in our inner work?
Answer: The main thing is to be in connection between us and try to reveal the influence of the Creator on us. Then we will understand what He wants from us.
Question: What is there in the stony heart that is corrected only in the last place and requires breaking?
Answer: It is stony, after all, therefore it needs to be broken.
Question: To the extent that we nullify our egoism, we gain more strength from the Creator and go deeper into self-knowledge. Is this a renewal of the connection?
Answer: It is in this way that we receive new properties from the Creator instead of those egoistic properties that we had and that we want to get rid of.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Transgression Does Not Extinguish a Mitzva“
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Question: What conditions of spiritual work should we accept?
Answer: We must understand that the connection between us and the Creator is our path.
Any path consists of two points connected by a straight line. Our first point is the connection between us and the last is the connection with the Creator. That is the line we are following.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “For Bribe Blinds the Eyes of the Wise“
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In the wisdom of Kabbalah we study the shattering of the upper world, the upper soul, and its cascading to our world through gradual breaking and destruction.
The very last level of our world is the one that cannot be corrected. We correct it only by existing in our body for many cycles of animalistic life. We need it only in order to start from it and to rise to the first level of the soul.
This is why we must exist. Why should I furnish myself with completely unnecessary things that interfere with this upper eternal perfect goal? I really only need what is necessary, meaning, convenient, comfortable, and good, something that will not distract me from reaching my most desired goal.
It is desired because there I can finally reach perfection and eternity, and stop being connected with this world, its horrors, violence, dirt, and lies. What is the point of messing around with this?
That is why it is so easy for me to be separated from everyone who think and rant about various topics: newspapers, government, politics, slander, vanity, and everything else. I feel sorry for the people! They spend the world, their lives, and all their time and energy on it! I look at them and they are shouting, scolding each other in the Knesset or in a parliament, thinking they are going to decide something.
Nobody will solve anything. It is like playing in a sandbox.
While you are given this animalistic body, provide it as much as it needs to exist normally and comfortably, so that it does not occupy you. You need a bathtub, gas, refrigerator, air conditioner, a car, i.e., things you need for the average normal level of a modern person. If today we distributed everything that is on earth among everyone, our level would be much higher than average. But we do not need this; we need to give everyone a normal average level.
Everything else should be directed only toward the development of each and every one. Everyone must study, learn how to get out of this sandbox, and how to become normal adults, to reach a balance with nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lost a Million” 11/6/11
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Olga writes:
I was struck by your statement that nothing belongs to a person. You also said that if a person has two desires. On the one hand, he believes that the whole world belongs to the Creator, but on the other hand, something also belongs to a person, then this is a problem.
On the one hand, I understand that if only it were so, then there would not be these terrible wars – nothing belongs to me and that’s it. But is it really true that nothing belongs to a person?
Answer: Yes, nothing belongs to a person. What can belong to him?
Comment: Then she writes: “But still, my life, my family, my apartment, and so on is mine!”
My Response: This is yours. For just a couple more years and that’s it. You will leave all this, just as they, your family will leave it in due time. Nothing belongs to a person. He came, visited, and left.
Question: You said that if a person has two desires, then this is a problem. On the one hand, he believes that the whole world belongs to the Creator. He does believe this, after all. But on the other hand, something belongs to a person. Is this quirk a big problem?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: This means that everything belongs to the Creator, this is your formula that you hold on to.
My Response: Or vice versa, nothing belongs to a person.
Comment: Either everything belongs to the Creator or nothing belongs to a person.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Then the question is: to whom does everything belong?
Answer: What is the difference?
Question: Is there no difference? Does it mean that I can live with this formula: nothing belongs to me?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Then would there be no wars or borders at all?
Answer: What can I say about it? There would be no wars… As if people live according to this formula. Everyone wants to live for his own sake, for himself, and so that everyone else obeys him.
Question: Then there is this question, and she asks it: “Why then are we given the feeling that something belongs to us?”
Answer: So that you would fight it, correct it, cut out everything that you think is yours, and give it to the Creator!
Question: So, are you saying here that there is a host of everything?
Answer: Of course, there is a host. He was, is, and will be.
Question: Tell me how to come to this state that everything is not mine?
Answer: In general, it is very good and very simple. One just needs to tune in to it. Then from morning to evening, from evening to morning, a person lives as if this all is not his.
Question: In principle, is this the feeling of the Kabbalists who wrote this quote?
Answer: This is their feeling; they live and were living like this. What is wrong or hard about it? Nothing.
Question: That is, in principle, if you come to this state, does the lightness of being appear?
Answer: No! I would not say that this is lightness. As if they are doing this because of the lightness! No.
Question: Do they not recommend it because it will make life easier for you?
Answer: No, of course not! These are not the conditions; these are absolutely not the reasons. These are reasons for a person to change himself to reach this state.
Question: What should disappear in me? What should I kill, crush, or turn over in myself?
Answer: Egoism. That there is nothing of yours in you, including yourself.
Question: Is this my egoism saying: “Everything is mine”? Is this the basis of all the troubles, by and large? That “Everything is mine” is egoism.
Answer: Yes.
Question: It is our nature—egoism. When I say “everything is mine,” is it our nature?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why complicate the work so much?! To this extent?!
Answer: So that, from this point onward, you would work on yourself and understand that you do not belong to yourself in any way either. When you come to this, you cross the border between life and death calmly and easily.
Question: Do you mean that death is the result of something belonging to me?
Answer: Of course. Life belongs to you.
Comment: My life belongs to me.
My Response: Yes. They take it away from you. This is called death.
Comment: And if my life does not belong to me, then there is no death either.
My Response: There is no death.
Question: Have you and I come to the formula of immortality?
Answer: Yes. So far. There is even further, but at least this.
Question: I want to summarize. Do you think that it is possible for a person to come to this state where nothing belongs to me?
Answer: It is in the person’s power to come to a state that nothing belongs to him, and he does not belong to himself either.
Question: This addition “I do not belong to myself,” why do you add it strenuously?
Answer: Because this is the most important thing.
Question: Do I not belong to myself?
Answer: No.
Question: Do I belong to someone?
Answer: To the upper force.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/30/23
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Question: After the Creator is revealed to a person as “there is none else besides Him” and “the good who does good,” can the states when he still can’t justify the Creator come to him?
Answer: Yes. It is said about this, do not believe in yourself until the moment of death. This means the death of the ego, because until egoism has died in you, you cannot be sure that the worst egoistic states will not return to you.
Question: So you can really forget about such a big revelation as “there is none else besides Him”?
Answer: Of course, you can. Everything is in the power of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/23, Writings of of Baal HaSulam “What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work?”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Miracle of Hanukkah”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 36
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”
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Selected Highlights
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