Comment: They say that we cannot escape from the constant ticking of the clock in our head. That is, we are in a hurry, we are constantly running out of time, and this causes stress and all sorts of problems.

And then, a traveler went somewhere in the North Atlantic on his yacht and started observing himself. He says the first thing he did was to throw away his watch.

Suddenly he felt that the body easily adapts to existence in sync with nature. “It felt like I am a part of it,” he writes. “It was easy to understand what time of day it was. It was harder to return to the world later. The feeling that I am a part of nature slowly went away.” He says he wants to go back there all the time. To throw away the watch and go back, but something always stops him.

Is it possible, without going on a yacht, to break free from this running, from time, from the ticking of the clock, the dial, all of it? Is it possible to do this in our world? Me, the stars, and nothing else.

My Response: That is good. Romantic.

Question: When you talk about rising above egoism, above this world, are you actually talking about rising above time?

Answer: Above time as well, but this is a completely different ascent.

One cannot express it. It is when your senses disconnect from the earthly ones, and you rise in these feelings to their common root—inanimate, vegetative, and animate—and connect with the Creator. You begin to feel the common root of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature.

Question: Does it mean that I am rising above my animalistic nature?

Answer: If you set this goal, then you must rise above the inanimate, vegetative and animate nature in you. This way you begin to feel that, in principle, you belong to the upper governing force called the Creator.

To the extent that you get included into the upper force, you lose the sensation of time and space, everything that is an attribute of our world. There is only one single force that fills everything.

Question: Is this the path of humanity—to adhere to this force?

Answer: Yes, but, of course, not in such a way that we have to go somewhere in North America.

We must somehow give up our world a little by not obeying it in something and look for the way we can obey the upper force of nature instead. Then we will succeed.

Question: Are we inside this upper force?

Answer: Yes, we are not exiting anywhere beyond it. We cannot exit, there is nothing else.

Question: Does it mean that our entire work is to start existing in accordance with it? Is this understanding called slowly leaving this time?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: Then he did well. He had gained some experience after all.

My Response: But what is next? He got rid of some restrictions of our world. And what did he get? Nothing. Emptiness.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/7/22

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Question: Let’s say a person who is not predisposed to spirituality stumbles upon material on Kabbalah and it impresses him. As time passes, he continues to live as he lived. Is such a shallow contact enough?

Answer: It will still affect him subconsciously, but, in general, it will not give anything in particular.

The question arises, is he moving specifically toward connection with other people, even on a simple earthly level? Did this information push him forward or not?

The most important thing is still connection. All his other thoughts, the fact that he gained some material, began to consider himself wise, great, and he can speak beautifully mean nothing. There must be a particular implementation.

But the implementation is only in connection with others. Or he works at the level of ordinary people, but still does it in order to bring all of humanity together. And this is a very important job. Or works at the level of Kabbalists. There is nothing else.

And if he just came and left, well, as he left… He will come again soon. How soon? In 100 – 150 years.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Get Hooked on a Spiritual Needle” 11/3/09

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In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane (George Orwell, 1984).

Question: In principle, intelligent, mentally developed people who have achieved certain heights in the human hierarchy are at the helm of human development. What do smart people lack to make everything good?

Answer: Love. The mind can only be balanced by love. If there is no love for other people, then this mind brings destruction.

Question: How can I add love? Where to snatch it?

Answer: This is an enormous task. This is the only thing we lack in our life. Everyone needs to work on this. The most important task is for people to start approaching each other with a smile, with love. It is very difficult.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/24/22

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where do dreams come from?“

Dreams are impressions of the material world or other various wandering currents in our subconscious that we see in our mind.

The wandering streams or currents of information, and the cell restructuring of the brain that takes place, bring about dreams. It is important to mention here that dreams relate solely to the physiology of our animal body, and have nothing to do with spirituality.

The dreams described in Kabbalistic sources, such as those of Pharaoh or Jacob, refer to a partial attainment of the spiritual world. Moreover, these dreams have nothing to do with showing us signs of the future. The wisdom of Kabbalah does not deal with such concepts. Likewise, dreams cannot be used for spiritual development, which requires clarity and absoluteness of efforts to connect with other people in a way that is balanced with nature.

Based on the video “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Michael Sanilevich on June 28, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Wolf Zimmermann on Unsplash.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” “Inner Observtion,” Chapter 9, Item 1

Selected Highlights

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Medium published my new article “Ill Will Is Scorching the Earth — Literally”

Flames of the forest fire of Ponto de Vilomara, on July 17, 2022, seen from Sant Fruitós del Bages, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

The current heatwave in Europe is scorching the land and killing its residents. So far, according to ABC News and other sources, “There have also been more than 1,000 heat-related deaths in Spain and Portugal” alone, not counting the death toll in France, Italy, and more is coming as the heatwave moves toward the UK. Worse yet, we are only in the middle of July; there is plenty of time for more heatwaves to come. According to scientists, unless we curb emission of greenhouse gases, heatwaves will grow even hotter and more frequent. They may, or they may not, but either way, we are the ones who determine what happens.

We need to understand that being at the top of the pyramid of creation means that everything we do trickles down the structure, from top to bottom. When it reaches the bottom, the inanimate level of reality, from which everything grows, it changes it. If we ooze ill-will, it creates negative changes throughout the system, which manifest in increasingly extreme climatic and geological events.

In other words, when human relationships go out of balance, everything goes out of balance. When our relations become extreme, everything becomes extreme; when we become violent, everything becomes violent. Each summer, the ramifications of the linkage between our relations and our world become more extreme, until we acknowledge that everything that exists, exists in a connected, hierarchical system and that whoever is at the top determines the state of the rest of the system.

It is not as if previously, we were better people than we are today. It is simply that there were fewer people, and therefore fewer elements that exude ill will.

Also, relationships between people in the past were less toxic than they are today. While there are fewer wars today than ever, the levels of suspicion and alienation between people are skyrocketing, to the point where people can no longer trust their own family members. As a result, wars between countries are rarer than ever, but divorce rates, domestic violence, and violence in the community, are at an all-time high.

Even the internet, which we invented purportedly in order to connect people, is being used to abuse, deceive, and exploit people. The world-wide-web proves that everything we create, we use against others. When there is such a negative element in a system, and that element is at the top of the system, how can the entire system not go awry?

Therefore, if we want the weather to cool, the sea-level to drop, and the storms to subside, we must cool the fire and calm the storms between us. Mutual concern, mutual responsibility, or at least the knowledge that we are dependent on each other, are necessary in order to restore balance in our world at all levels, from the ground we walk on to the hatred in our hearts.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “To Treat Drug Addicts, Build a Society that Heals Them”

Over the past five years, there has been a fifty percent increase in the number of homeless people in Israel. One of the surprising problems with homeless people is that even when they have a place to stay and adequate living conditions, they often prefer the street to housing because only there can they find drugs and alcohol. It is as though their addiction is pulling them out of the homes, into the street, and away from hope of a decent life.

Once someone is addicted to drugs, it is nearly impossible to reverse his or her situation. Drugs are so tempting to addicts that there is virtually nothing that can stand against them.

The solution to the problems of addicts is not on the personal level, but on the social one. If a society has a strong anchor that can lift such people and turn them into a constructive part of society, they might stand a chance. Regrettably, I do not see such an anchor in the current Israeli society; it has nothing to offer the addicts.

Worse yet, at the moment, I do not see a society in Israel. Once we build a society, we can build a society for homeless people and drug addicts, prostitutes, and all the other disadvantaged people in the country.

By society, I do not mean institutions or regulations. Society means people who feel connected to each other, who feel a bond and support one another. A society means people who get up from their seats to meet one another. If we had such people, we could build something.

When you bring a drug addict into such a society, he or she sees how people live, what they want, what are their goals, their future, and what satisfies them. Then, instead of focusing on their personal situation, drug addicts can see hope, and this will vitalize them and calm their incessant need to get away from reality through drugs.

In a sense, it will make addicts “hooked” on social life rather than on drugs. A society where people care for one another has such a magnetic power that people who come near it will not be able to disconnect from it. Drug addicts who come to such a society reject the drugs that they use to disconnect themselves from reality because it disconnects them from the “potion of life” they feel all around them.

Therefore, if we want to solve such problems as homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution, we should not focus not on the victims, but on the society around them. That society will determine whether they are healed or remain afflicted.
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Medium published my new article “Confidence in US Institutions Down — but US Is Not”

A recent survey released by Gallup analytics firm has found that the average level of confidence in US institutions among Americans is “at a new low,” and getting even lower. The alarming results show that 62 percent have little or no confidence in the medical system, 69 percent have little or no confidence in the Church, more than 70 percent have little to no confidence in public schools, 75 percent mistrust the US Supreme Court, even more mistrust the presidency, nearly 90 percent mistrust the media, and at the very bottom: Congress, garnering the mistrust of no less than 93 percent of the American people. A similar survey, by the way, conducted by the prestigious Pew Research Center, has found similar results, as well as emphasized President Biden’s low, and dropping approval rate.

When someone feels this way about one’s country, there is little you can say to that person. I believe in the accuracy of the findings, and I can only accept that this is how Americans truly feel.

However, I would say that we need to look beyond America and see what is going on elsewhere. I do not deny the problems that American society and American institutions face, but compared to where many other countries stand, America is in a good position.

I see other countries in freefall. In fact, the whole world is on a downward trend, and so the US is only part of a global slump. Nevertheless, compared to the rest of the world, it is better off than most. Even with the high inflation, I do not think that America is worse off economically than even the countries that are regarded as the strongest, such as China and other East Asian countries.

People like to ridicule America and point the finger at it, but they forget that it is precisely its diversity and democratic tradition that keep it out of danger. As I see it, it is too soon to wish America to RIP.

Another point in favor of America is its flexibility. It is not Russia or China, where it is difficult to change things. Its judicial system, with the relative independence given to the different states, allows the US to adapt and adjust itself to changing circumstances. Therefore, despite the confusion currently engulfing much of American society, I have faith that it will come out of it, and come out strong.

From my perspective, America’s strongest point is its democratic vigor. While politics is very far from me, I do think that we can look at how America absorbs and tolerates so much, yet builds itself and changes itself according to the changing events around the world. It can do this precisely because it is a democracy, because it senses the will of the people and builds itself accordingly.

In conclusion, despite the current slump, I think America’s resilience will help it through the decline. Those who cry out “Wolf!” cry out because they know there is no wolf, and when the dust settles on the upheavals and the false alarms, America will still be standing strong.
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While the embryo is in the mother’s womb, it is completely dependent on her and receives nutrition from her. But after birth, the umbilical cord connecting him with his mother is cut off, and he is forced to become independent. This is a sign that the child is moving to a new state, to a new degree, and can communicate not only with the mother, but also with forces alien to him.

Our whole world is based on interdependence, and the baby will still have to learn that he depends on someone. First, from his mother, then from his father, other relatives, a teacher at school, etc. , we become more and more aware of how dependent we are on the people around us.

When we become adults, we go into the army, work, meaning, we go out into life and begin to explore the world. And then we find out that there are strangers who can harm us, and we learn how to behave.

The correct upbringing consists of making sure that in any place, wherever I find myself, I feel as comfortable and safe as in my mother’s womb, so that there is always an environment around me that takes care of me, and I try to take care of everyone in the same way. I have to learn how to build a proper, kind connection with the environment.

Nature always teaches us how to be an independent individual, but at the same time actively work to unite the whole society.

During its thousand-year history, man has already developed to a state where it is necessary to begin to unite into one community, so that everyone feels that he belongs to all of humanity, and a good future is impossible without a proper connection with everyone else. Any person in the world is obliged to realize this and thus connect with others.

This is not easy to do in the modern world that seems very hostile and frightening to us, that threatens us with a nuclear world war. We need to understand that the state of the world is critical and can suddenly explode so that not even a memory of us will remain on this planet.

And at the same time, as we reveal the vital need to live in peace, we are seized with mortal fear of what may happen as a result of our antagonism. The situation is very dangerous, but at the same time significant because it clarifies to us where we have come to and that there is no other way out but to ensure global security for everyone around the globe. Otherwise, we will simply wipe ourselves off the face of the earth.

We live in a special time when everyone is obliged to understand this and start talking openly in order to find out what needs to be done to achieve common security and mutual guarantee around the globe.
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From KabTV’s “World” 7/12/22

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