Is It Better to Live for Yourself or for Others?

631.1Question: “Don’t pay attention to anyone, just live for yourself.” What do you think of such advice?

Answer: That doesn’t solve anything. “Live for yourself,” meaning, I’ll live for myself, I won’t think about anyone else. And then what?

Comment: I’ll die just the same one day, that’s clear. What worries me is that everyone will forget me. All those to whom I gave so much warmth.

My Response: That goes without saying. They will forget.

Question: Then what is the conclusion if everyone forgets me, even those I’ve done so much good for?

Answer: I don’t intend to live in others because they are mortal too. So what is the point of investing myself in them?

Question: What is the point?

Answer: Only to come closer to the Creator.

Question: So I have my own individual purpose?

Answer: Of course, otherwise, what are people for?

Comment: When I say, “I live for others,” it sounds like I live for others. But you say, “I live for others in order to come closer to the Creator.”

My Response: Of course, because others too are here today and gone tomorrow.

Comment: So others and everything else exist only so that I would move and draw closer to the Creator.

My Response: Exactly.

Comment: That means this goal should always remain the main one before a person, the central purpose.

My Response: I can remember how much my parents invested in me, and that never leaves me. But when I look at my grandchildren, they could care less; they don’t feel how much their grandparents gave for them to exist. And so it goes, after one generation, that feeling is almost gone.

Question: So everything in this world is transient, fleeting, and only our closeness to the Creator is eternal?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Then what does it mean to come closer to the Creator?

Answer: To come closer to the Creator means to enter into an endless chain of care for one another. We must feel that mutual care is eternal.

Question: Is it eternal or does it lead to eternity?

Answer: It leads to the perception of eternity.

Question: When we hear, “You can live eternally, feel eternity,” we get nervous and dismiss it. Is it because we are always living for ourselves?

Answer: Exactly.

Question: If we could direct ourselves toward others, would eternity no longer seem like a fantasy?

Answer: Then we would begin to feel eternity. You would as if dwell in others, and in that you would feel infinity. You would draw closer in your feelings to the Creator, and time would disappear; only the feeling would remain.

Question: What is the Creator like? When I say, “to draw closer to the Creator,” what am I really longing for?

Answer: For absolute care for others. For the other!

Question: Without thinking of myself?

Answer: If I can forget myself and think only of the other, then I enter eternity.

Question: Is there not even a little thought of “what will I get in return?” Does that not exist?

Answer: That is your reward. You will begin to feel eternity itself, precisely in your attitude toward the other.

Question: So, is the ultimate goal closeness to the Creator, and everything around us is given for that purpose?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What about wars, suffering, tragedy, and illness?

Answer: Without them, we couldn’t feel all this. They are also necessary. The evil inclination was deliberately created so that we could feel ourselves rising above it.

Question: Is our task to rise above all that?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: I see. Thank you. You have even illuminated that. For people all this suffering is such a pain, and you say, “That too is for the purpose.”

My Response: It is necessary.

Question: But can it be done without it? To just go smoothly through life?

Answer: No, a person can’t do that. He must pass through anger, through the evil inclination; otherwise, he won’t be able to feel the good.
[349494]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 10/27/25

Related Material:
Living Through The Desires of Others
Not For My Own Sake
Bestowal: To Live In The Other

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