Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the best way of evaluating a person?“

We should appreciate only the aspirations and efforts that are directed toward the good of humanity; not toward our own good, the good of our nation or our family—but only toward the good of humanity. If we respect this direction of aspiration and effort, we will then see the degree to which we overcome our egoistic nature for the sake of belonging and contributing to the world.

I think that all people must overcome their egoistic desire. If we each contribute in such a way, then we should merit gratitude and respect from society in response. Everyone should value and be grateful to people according to the degree of their social contribution.

We are created such that we need society’s recognition. This is how, in essence, we express our “self.” If we will arrange a society that respects and appreciates its members for their social contribution, then such a society will protect its members and respond to their contribution to humanity. By doing so, we will enable every person to become an active member of humanity. We will see only positive aspects from every person relative to the whole human society; we will see the kind of contribution every person adds.

This is why we must establish such laws in our society where we will each be evaluated only according to our contribution to humanity. If we evaluate people by these criteria, if we will each know that others evaluate and treat us precisely in this way—then we will have no choice but to become healthy cells in the general body, or in other words, we will each realize our maximal usefulness to humanity.

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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Prophets, Joshua, Part 3, 14-17: And it was, when the people moved from their tents, to cross the Jordan, and the priests bearing the Ark of the covenant were before the people.

And when the bearers of the Ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bore the Ark were dipped in the edge of the water, and the Jordan overflows all its banks all the time of harvest.

And the waters which came down from above stood and rose up in one column, very far from Adam, the city which is beside Zarethan; and those that descended to the sea of the plain, the Salt Sea (Dead Sea), were completely cut off, and the people passed over opposite Jericho.

And the priests that bore the Ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm arranged on the dry land in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground, until the whole nation had completely passed over the Jordan.

The River Jordan is a very serious boundary between desires that are not directed toward the Creator, they are outside the land of Israel, and desires that are directed at the Creator.

Therefore, if you are still outside of Israel, outside of the desires for the Creator, you have completely different states. You can allow yourself, as they say, to take a walk in selfish desires, although this is still a borderline land.

But entering the land of Israel suggests that you are completely transformed, have changed your intentions into bestowal, connection, and love. This is the only way you can be inside the newly acquired properties, travel in this land, i.e., change your internal properties.

There is no reference to any geography here. All movements occur only within the desires, the best, the biggest, etc. You are fighting with your egoistic properties, which suddenly manifest themselves in you as intentions. This is already a much more serious, more internal struggle.

Question: It is written: “the feet of the priests that bore the Ark were dipped in the edge of the water, and the Jordan…” What does it say here?

Answer: These are completely different properties, a completely different relationship between a person’s desire and nature, which the Creator created specifically to correct a person, to raise him to His level.

The land of Israel is already the place, the desires, in which the Creator is located. And it is necessary that a person clearly feels where the boundary is between the Creator’s desires and other desires that are distant from Him.

Question: Is the “priest” in a person something very pure?

Answer: Yes, it is the very first sacred quality with which he wants to get closer to the Creator. After all, this is just a journey to come to adhesion with the Creator.

If with this intention you enter the new desires that have never been manifested before, that is, you are heading for a new, completely different degree, then you are moving forward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/21

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The wisdom of Kabbalah says that we must create such a society, such a connection between us that would be similar to the spiritual connection between souls. Then we will discover that we exist in a completely different dimension.

We will turn our attention to creating a more truthful connection between us. We are not talking about physical connection; rather, we will think how we can connect our inner desires, aspirations, and yearnings with other people, regardless of distances, language barriers, and any misunderstanding between us.

We must act in such a way that the contact between all people in the world will become absolutely open so that they would not feel any semantic, linguistic, or psychological barriers and could overcome any obstacles in communication with each other.

If we strive to create such a system of interconnection, we will really reach the next level of interaction, and this will make our relations completely different.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations” 6/9/21

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Question: How are the five spiritual senses revealed in the ten?

Answer: A spiritual Partzuf includes: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. Zeir Anpin is made of six parts: Hesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. So there is Ketter – 1, Hochma – 1, Bina – 1, Zeir Anpin – 6, and Malchut – 1. All together 10 Sefirot.

Each friend in the ten feels all five spiritual senses because the ten is one whole, like a single spiritual body or soul.

So you all have one soul. The fact is that in this world we all have one soul and this structure is called “soul,” or Adam.

In this spiritual body you reveal five senses called Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Apin and Malchut.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 4/7/19

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Deuteronomy 34:9: And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands upon him. And the children of Israel obeyed him, and they did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Question: What is the blessing that Moses gave Joshua Ben Nun to enter the land of Israel?

Answer: This cannot be explained because it is not a man but all the spiritual systems that govern us and the spirit that reigns in the souls that seek for correction. That is why they are included in the system called “Eretz Yisrael.”

It is not the corporeal land on which they stamp their feet, walk through the desert, climb over mountains, and head from the Jordan toward Jerusalem. These are internal changes in the souls that understand how to correct themselves and agree to overcome the egoistic obstacles that appear among them.

The blessing is the connection between the previous step and the next one.

Question: Does “Moses” in us, the property of bestowal and love, seem to say: “I am connected with you, I will be with you all the time; enter the land of Israel.” Is this a blessing?

Answer: Yes, but only if we really follow the path of Moses, the path of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/19/21

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Question: In Russian psychiatry, patients with mental disorders have always been called “soul sickness,” meaning their condition is associated with the soul. Western directions call it a mental illness (mentally ill), associated with the brain. Where is this soul and what is it?

Answer: I do not know what a soul is in terms of mental, psychiatric, and psychological formulations. From their point of view, this is the highest nervous activity of a person that we can study.

In fact, the soul is a much higher structure, one might even say, the highest, which we cannot realize and perceive to the extent, in those volumes, in that knowledge, or in those feelings in which we are currently. But we can study it in ourselves, only in ourselves, if we undergo special psychological training.

Such training is determined by Kabbalah very simply. We must begin to act above our nature. It turns out that this is quite simple because if our whole nature is nothing more than an egoistic desire to receive pleasure, then we must begin to apply certain exercises on ourselves that would help us rise above this natural desire to bring enjoyment to ourselves to a different kind of impressions from ourselves and from the world, that is to work in the opposite direction, to bring enjoyment to others, moreover, above yourself, in spite of yourself.

This requires a certain environment that will push a person to this, organize him or her. Then one would begin to feel completely different inner impulses, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward others absolutely opposite to what one experienced before.

And these are not just kind, good relationships, because in the end they are transformed into a very interesting structure where a person feels themselves rising above their nature. Since we define the world as something that is given to us in our sensations, we rise above our world.

It turns out that such psychological training allows us to rise above ourselves, to see everything around us in a different way.

And then a person begins to feel oneself divided into two parts: into such a paradigm where one treats everyone with their usual egoistic nature in which we were born and develop under the influence of the environment to that new attitude to the world that was born as a result of Kabbalistic trainings where one has an attitude to the world different from the past attitude, an altruistic attitude. Only this should not be confused with the concept of altruism to which we are accustomed to in our world.

A person feels that they consist, as it were, of two parts: from the perception of the world in bestowal and love, in going out of oneself, let’s call this the “higher perception,” and then the attitude that one feels in oneself to the world and back from the world to yourself, is called the soul. And one’s past attitude to the world and the attitude of the world to it in the usual mutual egoistic flow will be called the body.

Thus, according to our methodology, we begin to divide a person into an egoistic attitude to the world, a bodily one, and an altruistic attitude to the world, a spiritual one.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah and Psychology”

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Question: In the scientific community there are always disputes about the effectiveness and efficiency of the system of governance. What can you say about this?

Answer: First of all, we must set the goal that we want to achieve. If the goal is to raise the overall level of the entire system and its components so that it feels like an integral whole, then Kabbalah believes that such a system can be applied because it works on raising the individual egoistic objects above egoism to work for the common goal so much that it becomes primary. In this case, the personal egoistic goal is suppressed.

When people unite in groups where their community is their goal and the quelling of egoistic individuality, their own benefit, is the means to achieve a common goal, then Kabbalah gives us the right method of implementing these ideas.

The application of this technique leads to the fact that we begin to feel as a single organism, as one common whole, in which we no longer distinguish the separate individual traits of the people that make up this organism.

We are talking about its common essence, that is, about the new quality of bestowal that we have acquired together, annulling our egoistic qualities, reducing ourselves relative to others, only to achieve one common force, one common idea, one common goal.
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From KabTV’s ”Science of management”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Raising Ourselves”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 2, ‘Histaklut Pnimit,’ Chapter 2, Item 19″

Selected Highlights

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Question: I have looked at a lot of literature on governance, but I have not found a single work that includes the scientific foundations of Kabbalah. Maybe it makes sense to take at least the first step?

Answer: Kabbalah is the science of government, but the science of managing the world, society, states, etc. with the help of the positive force, the property of bestowal, the property of complete connection with each other. Therefore, for modern society with more than seven billion people, it cannot become a practical method of management and implementation.

I think that Kabbalah will have to be gradually introduced only in small groups that strive to reach the perfect level of management. They will really achieve the vision of a common system. In this case, they will be able to make the right decisions, verdicts about their behavior, the behavior of these systems, and so on.

But if, at the same time they turned to society, society would not understand them because it cannot implement the laws of the altruistic world, perfect communication, when everyone acts as in a single system, in addition to each other, when everyone does not feel like a single unit individually, but feels like a single link in the whole system and acts only in accordance with the whole system.

I do not know how ants feel in their family, but this is life within society. In the same way, a person no longer has his own life, but the life of all mankind, or at least of his country, or of his collective. Therefore, even if Kabbalah wrote a management manual about this, it would be a guide to managing an ideal team.

Question: Did I understand correctly that Kabbalah, in general, is the science of management?

Answer: Yes. But the science of governing by the positive force of nature, which is hidden from us by our own egoistic being.
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From Kab TV’s “Kabbalah and other sciences” 6/22/21

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