Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does ego ruin my life?“

The ego positions us in situations where we regularly want to exploit others. We look at others through our egoistic lenses of how we can use them to benefit ourselves: “How can they do something for me?” “How can I trample on them in various ways?” Eventually, the ego kills us. It corrupts students in classrooms, people at workplaces and in all kinds of relationships—it ruins our lives.

Since the ego ruins our relationships and our lives in general, the immediate follow-up question is: What should we do with the ego? We need to take the ego’s reins and control it. We should not suppress or kill it, but use it correctly, because we have to use everything created by nature in ways that benefit us all.

Our bodies function automatically on nature’s still, vegetative and animate levels, knowing what is beneficial and detrimental for their functioning. However, on the human level, which is above the still, vegetative and animate, we do not know how to correctly function.

We thus have to learn the ways of positive connection to others, because our ego makes us relate to people and nature solely out of a desire to benefit ourselves alone. In addition to simply benefiting ourselves, the ego also sometimes makes us want to enjoy by suppressing others, i.e. exploiting, manipulating and abusing others. In other words, it makes us enjoy ourselves by making us feel superior to others. That is the truly negative form of the ego that ruins our lives, and learning how to control this ego and make it acquire a positive form requires regularly learning and promoting to each other how we can positively connect.

Based on the video “How the Ego Ruins Our Lives” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Baal HaSulam gave several commentaries on the Ari’s book The Tree of Life. One is called “Ohr Pnimi” – “Inner Light” and the second is “Inner Observation.” One is more specific and the other is more expanded.

In the section “Inner Light,” he explains that the primary reason for the restriction was only the desire for a new form of receiving in order to bestow that is destined to be revealed in the future thanks to the creation of the worlds, and not at all the feeling of any Aviut in the middle point.

The space that the Ari writes about is the space of desire, which felt itself opposite to the Creator and therefore restricted itself. Desire restricted itself to the perception of receiving fulfillment from the Creator, to being in some imperfect form relative to Him. Therefore, both the light of the Creator that filled it and the restriction itself was in the form of a circle.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/2/22

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How many people around the world today are in genuine fear and a sense of helplessness? They do not find any justification for their suffering, they do not know what to do, or how to feed themselves tomorrow or in a few months. Some worry about what will happen to their billions, while others do not know how to live when their last pennies run out.

Everyone suffers in their own way, but no one understands how to continue to exist. And we suddenly received such a gift from above that we can look at this world with a human gaze, and not as small and unhappy, beaten animals. And all this is thanks to the revelations of Baal HaSulam that have reached us and through his soul, and Rabash was a transitional adapter between us and Baal HaSulam.

Baal HaSulam was conduit of the light from the world of infinity to us through his perfect soul, which had reached its final correction. But he asked to lower himself, because otherwise, he could not connect with people. And only after he was lowered by many degrees, he was able to write The Study of the Ten Sefirot and The Introduction to The Book of Zohar. We do not understand the degree that he had before, the greatest height, from where he could not even tell anything in words.

Which means, it was at the degree of the GAR of the world of Atzilut and above, where the light is not clothed in desires. From there, he could not address the person and be heard, and therefore, he asked to lower himself. And in fact, he fulfilled his mission, which the Creator expected from him, knowing that he would ask for it and fulfill it.

And we are at an intermediate degree between Rabash, Baal HaSulam, and humanity. On the one hand, we need to rise up to understand what Baal HaSulam said. On the other hand, we need to go down to the people and understand what they need from us and in what form they will be able to accept our message. We need to reach both of these poles, above and below.

Baal HaSulam and Rabash spoke from above. And we are at the bottom, below the Parsa, in order to be able to touch and awaken the world, and then, together with all mankind, to ascend through the Machsom and connect to the upper Malchut. This is our mission.
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From a Conversation at a Meal Dedicated to the Memorial Day of Baal HaSulam

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Question: During the Second World War, pilots said that the aircraft was so responsive that while operating it, it felt like an extension of the pilot’s body.

A communication system is already being created today, artificial intelligence, by which aircraft will be able to secure the pilot, hear him, even replace him, and read from his brain everything the pilot thinks. You can say a lot of technical terms here, but what I am interested in is, without this technology, is it possible to establish communication with the machine? Is it possible to establish connection with the inanimate?

Answer: When a person works with a machine, feels it, and it enters his sensory organs and gives such a reflection of itself in his brain, in his feelings that he begins to be with it on an instinctive level, on such an instinctive connection it is as if it were he himself.

And then, without even realizing his actions, he controls the machine and the machine controls him. There is a mutual connection. But these are special cases.

Comment: I remember you told me that a carpenter, if he is a real professional, feels wood and even hears it.

My Response: Of course. It is natural.

Question: So this state of unity is possible?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You usually say: “To become one heart with another person.” But is it possible to become one heart with a car, with your business?

Answer: Maybe, because it is not with the machine, but with the image of the machine itself.

It is when you absorb the machine into yourself and start working with its image inside you; then you can really fully control it, and it responds to you.

Question: And you do not need any artificial intelligence? Is it your effort that is needed?

Answer: Yes, it is simply a merger. But it depends on which machine, of course.

It is easier with an animal. It is even easier with people. With plants somewhat too, partially. By the way, I even observed that when a person works on a plant, talks to it, the plant feels it.

Question: You are saying that natural materials are closer to working with. And if it is some kind of manufactured, processed piece of iron?

Answer: It is hard.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 8/18/22

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Question: What does it mean: every moment the world is new? Is it true or not?

Answer: It is because the data constantly changes. If we could see how things are changing, then, of course, it would be more understandable for us.

Question: Why does a person feel or not feel the changes?

Answer: It depends on the coordinates in which he is used to seeing and accepting the world. If for me, the world is something stable and inhibited, then I don’t see any changes in it. There are a few things I see, for example, once there were dinosaurs, but today there are none. In principle, I can say that the world is static, although everything is constantly spinning: the Sun, the Moon, the Earth.

In the same way we can talk about the development of the world. We see that the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature and man himself are developing. So, everything goes through its own specific dialectic of development.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express”, 9/23/22

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Question: Our life is no pleasure, but rather an attempt to escape from suffering, which means that in every moment we are looking for an opportunity to suffer less.

We think that we get pleasure by buying a new car or a garage, but in fact we choose slightly better conditions. But this still is not pleasure is it?

Answer: Of course, these are not real pleasures: eternal and constantly growing.

Question: In our world a person sooner or later loses the taste in any pleasure. And when one reveals spiritual fulfillment, doesn’t he get used to it?

Answer: No. He doesn’t have time to get used to it. Spiritual pleasure quickly disappears. But this happens because a person has the opportunity of the next degree, the next filling, and he endlessly advances.

Even when the pleasure of the first degree disappears, new desires are released in which he can immediately advance further and fulfill them. And since these are not egoistic desires, but rather desires for bestowal, they are neither neutralized nor destroyed; they accumulate and grow all the time.

Let’s say I bought a yacht. But after a month I got used to it. I no longer have that inspiration, that song inside, that I felt when I bought it. Pleasure disappears as the egoistic fulfillment destroys itself. Since plus and minus are opposite to each other, pleasure enters desire and extinguishes itself.

But if pleasure and desire are both aimed at bestowal, then they do not extinguish each other, but instead support each other. First, when they go together, they increase each other 620 times and there is a huge surge of ecstasy, the strongest pleasure. Therefore, in our world it is called a Zivug (coupling of opposites).

Even in our world, if a man and a woman correctly understand how to delight, then they please each other not for oneself, but for other. This is where such reciprocity appears, which increases the filling. I don’t enjoy her and she doesn’t enjoy me; rather, we delight each other. Here too, an increase in pleasure is obtained.

But in the spiritual world, this increases by 620 times, meaning it manifests itself as attainment of the deepest layers of nature, the source of pleasure. Moreover, it is not extinguished, but constantly accumulates. This is an accumulating process.

Unfortunately, we do not know how to properly use even the purely bodily, egoistic pleasures of our world. We are only engaged in self-gratification, and we lose a lot when we do so.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Highest Pleasure” 8/12/13

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Question: How does a Kabbalist look at states that seem uncomfortable in egoism?

Answer: He simply analyzes them like a researcher who studies himself and tries to assess all his states as objectively as possible, and most importantly, how in each state to achieve maximum connection with the Creator, with the upper force, because everything depends on it.

The more we attract the Creator, the faster we go through all the states. This is all our work.

I either try to get closer to the Creator in order to move faster, and this is an egoistic path of spiritual development, albeit a spiritual one, or I try to do it to please Him, to express my love for Him, in which case my enjoyment is the feeling of enjoyment that I evoke in Him.

And then I check whether I can do the same actions in relation to Him without feeling pleasure from it so that it does not bribe me and does not reward me.

If I can do it without a reward, this is already a good stage. Or maybe I should receive pleasure in order to please Him even more. In general, there are various further steps.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If the Body Is Uncomfortable” 8/6/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Ushpizin Aaron – Sefirat Hod”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions”

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice do you have for women to stay calm after giving birth?“

After giving birth, I think that the best would be for a woman to be among other women, like it was in the days of our grandmothers—that a woman lives among women, in an extended family.

Then, she goes through her states more naturally. She receives explanations, has a laugh here and there, and goes through the flows of life.

That is much better than staying at home alone. Loneliness is the source for all the different kinds of stress that women go through in such states.

Today, also, due to the Internet, women can find communities that suit her, to get answers, ask questions, have talks, and watch movies.

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