Prophets, Joshua, 6:15 – 6:16, 6:20 – 6:21: And it was on the seventh day, that they rose early at the dawning (of the day), and they circled the city after the same manner seven times; only on that day they circled the city seven times. And it was at the seventh time, the priests blew with the trumpets, and Joshua said to the people, Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.

And the people shouted, and (the priests) blew with the trumpets; and it was when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down in its place and the people went up into the city, every man opposite him, and they took the city.

And they completely destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

All of the above takes place in the people who allegedly attacked the city. This city is inside them. They attack their remaining egoism and destroy it at all levels: inanimate, vegetative, and animate. That is, they take the life away from all desires that still exist in them, but are already separated from them by a wall and are defined as opposed to them.

Question: What is the egoistic walled city inside me?

Answer: It is all our remaining egoism manifesting in front of us as such. And there is no other way to conquer it but through a siege and precisely by actions like blowing a horn.

Question: What is this mysterious number 7, which repeats itself all the time?

Answer: These are Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut—seven steps that one must consistently ascend in order to completely destroy the egoistic intention for one’s own sake. Egoism itself is not destroyed and continues to be used with the correct intention.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/12/21

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Question: Why do you speak about the need to attain “There is none else besides Him” so often? Why is it so hard to understand that everything stems from above? Many people know that. Is “There is none else besides Him” a unique mantra in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: No, it is not a mantra, but an attainment, which means a feeling. We are in this one unique force, which totally controls us and we clearly feel it. You cannot escape it any more.

It is in this feeling that we must exist. It is indeed true.

This is the only force of nature! Even if you speak to scientists and physicists they will not negate this fact. They will say: “Yes, it is obviously so, although we have not discovered it yet.”
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/28/19

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Question from Facebook: Freewill is how to attain the Creator, but if our actions are predetermined, is the way to attain the Creator also predetermined?

Answer: The way to the Creator consists of two branches. One way is straight, smooth, and comfortable, like a highway. The other way is bumpy and you cannot drive a Mercedes on this road, but only a cart pulled by a pair of worn out horses. So our choice is in which way; a person chooses that.

The goal is set, the starting point is also. It is only which path that depends on a person. There are people who overcome it quickly and are already at the end of the way, already enjoying the attainment of eternity and wholeness above this world. You don’t need to die in order to attain this. You can attain it in our world. There are, however, people for whom it will take a long time to reach the ultimate goal. Still, everyone will reach it, but the question is how much suffering they will have to undergo.

The role of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to guide a person on how to follow the fast and easy road toward the predetermined goal.
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From KabTV’s “Answers to Questions from Facebook” 3/10/19

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Question: What reason does the Creator have for looking at a reality that has already been determined?

Answer: The reason is very simple, first, bring the person to the possibility of a true freedom of choice. And to do that, the person must transcend himself, transcend his nature.

Second, he must replace his nature with the nature of the Creator because only the Creator is free. And then, by ascending to the level of the Creator and acquiring the characteristic of bestowal, he will constantly be able to measure himself in relation to the Creator. Achieving the level of the absolutely free Creator is the result of all of our work.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 5/12/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Ibur (Impregnation) and Yenika (Nursing)”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

Selected Highlights

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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My new article on Linkedin “Evolution – The Next Level”

There used to be dinosaurs; now, there aren’t any. There used to be countless species that no longer exist because this is the nature of evolution. If this is so, will we, too, become extinct at some point in the future?

Evolution moves ever forward. Even though we do not see it, everything in nature follows a very rigid dictate. The final form to which evolution is moving is already set, and determines every form that precedes it. Therefore, when species become extinct, they don’t really vanish; they continue to exist but in a more advanced form. Were it not for the prior form, the current form would not evolve, as well. In that sense, every species that has ever existed exists within the species that inhabit the world today. Moreover, it enables the existence of the current forms of life on Earth.

When something completes its development, it morphs into a new form, and it seems to us as though it vanished, but it hasn’t, it has only progressed. Therefore, we must not forcibly eradicate any form of life, so that all life forms can complete their cycle, but we must also not regret it when a species becomes extinct. The important thing for us, as humans, is to see to our own development.

Today, we’ve come to a stage in our development where we should rise above the physical level and begin to study the purpose of our existence. This stage is the beginning of our spiritual development, when we begin to discover how we are connected to the entire universe, and that our purpose in life is not to secure our physical sustenance, but to reveal the interconnectedness of all of nature and experience it firsthand.

In the spiritual stage, we begin to feel how all of nature operates. We begin to feel nature’s “inner program” and understand “nature’s logic.” As we begin to sympathize with it, we stop feeling our own bodies and begin to feel nature as a whole. And since nature is eternal, this is the point where our physical existence no longer limits our spiritual one, and we transcend time and space as we acquire the qualities of nature itself: connectedness, balance, and harmony.

Once we rise to this level, we realize that this is the purpose of our existence. We find that when we “think” and operate like nature, we become one with everything. At that time, there is no end to our existence. We transcend personal interest and become loving toward all beings, as all beings are parts of us, and we of them. This is the eternal, spiritual reality, and it is the future of each and every one of us, as soon as we transcend our narrow egoism, which caters only to our current, fleeting selves.

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Medium published my new article “Time to Be Responsible Adults”

Let’s face it, we’re egoists. We don’t like each other, and even worse, we think there’s nothing wrong with it. We start measuring our attitude toward others from the zero point. That is, feeling indifference toward others is our starting point, our zero, and from there we begin to judge: If I have some affection toward another person, it’s considered good. If I dislike a person, it is considered bad.

This attitude is what brought us to where we are now, and the more we continue with it, the more we accelerate our decline. This is true not only of the social level, where human relations are obviously the key factor, but it also applies to every realm. From wars through poverty to climate change, our negative attitude toward each other is the cause of our misfortunes. It is time for us to realize that through our egoistic, narcissistic attitude toward others, we are leading the world on a downward spiral. Now we must become responsible adults and conduct ourselves as such.

We have entered a new phase in our development. The singular system that we all comprise has become so entwined that we can no longer remain neutral. Everything we do that does not help all people and all things, hurts them, and therefore us.

Additionally, the time between our mistakes and their consequences is growing shorter. We have always been dependent on each other; we have always influenced each other through our positive or negative thoughts and actions. These days, this mutual dependence is becoming evident. It is absolute and there is nowhere to escape. This is why it is imperative that we become considerate, kind, and caring toward each other, since each of us affects all of us in everything we do. It may be unpleasant news, but it is not nearly as unpleasant as the consequences of our refusal to acknowledge reality. The 121°F in British Columbia and the floods in Western Europe are but the prelude. The future will be much worse unless we act.

I am not saying this to scare people. I am saying this to bring it to everyone’s attention, since there is still time for us to prevent the cataclysm. The more we talk about it and think about it, the easier it will be for us to reverse the trajectory.

When we look at the climate and the natural and manmade disasters happening around the world, they may indeed seem incurable. But we must remember that besides us, everything in nature is in perfect harmony with everything else. Where there is harmony, there is balance and such disasters as we’ve seen this summer do not happen. The only place where there is no harmony or balance is among us, in human society. In other words, the upheavals we are seeing merely reflect the upheaval unfolding among us. If we restore harmony among us, the only element off balance in existence will regain stability and the storm will subside.

This is why we must work so hard on nurturing kindness and caring toward each other. Since we’re all egoists, having a neutral stance gives the upper hand to negative forces, which then reflect on all levels of existence. To balance out our inherent negative attitude, we must create an equally powerful positive attitude. This is something we can do only if we all pull together and resolve to install love, kindness, and caring where there are currently hatred, egoism, and dislike.
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My new article on Linkedin “Toward the Abolition of the Nation-State”

A comment on one of my recent posts about the state of the world stated, “There have always been cataclysm [sic] all over the world,” basically stating that it’s not the end of the world as we know it. Factually, that comment is evidently correct. Why then is there a point in focusing on what is going on today? There is a fundamental difference between what is happening these days and what had happened until today, even when the cataclysms are not as bad as past ones, at least not yet: Now they are happening everywhere, concurrently, and with growing ferocity and frequency. Another, very important, point: People are far more fragile and therefore far more affected by cataclysms than our ancestors.

The more these fires, storms, earthquakes, and pandemics plague the world, the more we will feel helpless. The gap between the life we believe we deserve and the life we actually have will become a chasm that will impel us to realize that we cannot cope alone. We will realize that only unity can save us, but our egos will drive us further and further apart. Finally, we will realize that until we deal with our egos, we will not be able to deal with our problems. At that point, we will realize that we have to overcome our separation, and that the most divisive element in our world is nationality. That will be the day when we decide to bid farewell to the notion of the nation-state.

There will still be elements that create diversity, such as culture or ethnicity. But diversity is not negative, but positive, increasing a nation’s strength and resilience. When people rise above their differences, they form stronger bonds than they had had before they fortified their cohesion. But when they are separated by countries, their intention is to stay apart and outperform other countries, and dominate them. This works contrary to the trajectory of reality toward unity. In fact, today, governments have become detrimental not only to other nations, but even to their own nations; there is nothing more egoistic than the government in each and every country.

The world will not be left ungoverned, but the government will consist of people who have been taught how to rise above local and personal interests, who feel and consider the world in its entirety, rather than a small section of it.

This may sound farfetched today, but it will not be long before we all realize that unity is a matter of life and death, that either we all adopt a reciprocal mode of thinking, or we will all perish. When that thinking becomes dominant, people will develop a more inclusive perception, including governors. Then, it won’t be inconceivable for a leader to actually have the benefit of the people in mind, rather than one’s own benefit or that of one’s cronies.

Also, there will not be a single, autocratic leader, but a council of individuals who are all committed to the well-being of the people. They will consult and jointly decide on the required policy in every matter. It will be a bit like the Sanhedrin that the people of Israel had had in ancient times, when people of high moral degree, whose minds and hearts were focused only on the benefit of the people, governed the nation and decided what was right and what was wrong. As I said, we are not there yet, but this is where humanity is going.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we contribute to create a sustainable community for the sustenance of life on the Earth?“

We can create a sustainable human community by means of education and dissemination of the knowledge that the quality of our life depends not on the extent to which we fill ourselves with all kinds of technical, technological and technocratic fulfillment, but on the contrary, our fulfillment depends on psychological comfort; it depends on the satisfaction we feel as a result of being fulfilled and of living in a harmonious world. The degree of our progress toward such a world depends only on such education and its promotion.

It can be achieved on condition that we organize our life as an altruistic and positively-connected human society. We can do so when we each “absorb” or take for ourselves only as much as we need to exist, and give the remaining part of our earnings or production to benefit the life of the worldwide global society.

This is how cells of a living organism exist and function. It is nature’s law, and it is how nature organizes life on the animate level. Every cell exists only for the goal of the existence of the organism as a whole, otherwise the cell becomes cancerous. This is how we need to behave: each person needs to act like a human cell relative to the whole “organism” of humanity. If we do so, then unquestionably we will each feel confident and live as a peaceful and harmonious society.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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