Question: The quotation attributed to Buddha, “If you truly love yourself, you would never harm another,” seems to be a simple wisdom. What can you say about it?

Answer: If you really love yourself and understand what kind of world you live in, the integral world, how much it is all interconnected, then you will not harm others because in this way you indirectly harm yourself.

Question: Why did you just connect “love yourself” with “the integral world”? After all, to love oneself is an egoistic desire.

Answer: But if the world is integral and you influence the world negatively, then it comes back to you.

Question: That is, I feel that it comes back to me? So if I love myself, then I will not do evil to another person because it will return to me?

Answer: Yes. If the world is integral, then harming oneself or others are one and the same thing.

Question: And in loving myself I still do evil to another person?

Answer: I also harm myself this way.

Question: Does this mean that everything comes back? Does the boomerang effect exist?

Answer: Because the world is closed. It is round.

Question:  What do you have to say about another quotation attributed to Buddha: “Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.”

Answer: In principle, this is also true.

Question: So I should be grateful no matter what I have. Even if I am in the worst condition, I should still rise to the level of gratitude?

Answer: Gratitude is a prerequisite for receiving the feeling of happiness, the feeling of the light.

Question: How can I be grateful if I feel so bad? It is just impossible!

Answer: It depends on your perception of the world. Why is it so bad? Try to raise yourself anyway.

Question: Even in this state, I am obliged to reach gratitude?

Answer: Gratitude must be present in any state. Even a second before death.

Question: Do all prayers begin with gratitude?

Answer: Of course. And if there is no such attitude, then to whom do you pray?

Question: The state is high, of course! So whatever my condition is, I first give thanks?

Answer: Yes. But this is because you divide yourself into two parts: dark and light, suffering and thanksgiving.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/15/20

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Question: After reading your books, I realized that you are not a socialist and you are not going to take property from the rich. But why would the rich start to pay scholarships for 80% of the population for their studies?

Answer: Naturally, such a gesture on the part of the rich cannot be voluntary at first. But, like during the revolution, these things are dictated by necessity. One person cannot have a billion while another does not have enough money until the end of the week to feed his family. This is a clear imbalance. Therefore, it will be necessary to balance these relations.

At first, it is necessary to force our relationship to a completely different structure—what is “money – commodity – money”?

As a result, a law must be adopted according to which everyone will receive a certain quantity of funds necessary for him, sufficient for a dignified existence. This will be accompanied by a commitment to work for the community in accordance with the capabilities of the individual and at the same time receive training in proper parenting.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

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Question: What are the limitations on the individual soul as part of the general soul, and how is its dependence on the general soul expressed?

Answer: An individual soul develops only to the volume that is necessary for its restoration in the general soul. If we take an individual soul, female or male, we will see that the phases of its development always take place in the general picture of the soul of Adam and not in any other way.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/16/18

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Fulfill the Highest Law of Nature

Question: As a rule, you do not recommend telling people about yourself and your family during round tables, especially if they are strangers. They should try to speak only from the level of their commonality and unity and not go into any stories. Why? Can’t personal information somehow unite and increase the connection between people?

Answer: I don’t think it’s necessary. I do not know what questions you are going to solve in your circles, but I mean that questions of attainment of the upper world will be resolved. By combining the desires and aspirations of the participants of the round table, a new spiritual platform will be created above our world to solve the problems of spiritual connection, above our desires and ordinary aspirations. In this way we will come to their solution and to the revelation of the upper world in our feelings.

Remark: But we’re talking about people who aren’t working right now. They are stressed, feeling some uncertainty, and have come to our course in order to improve their lives.

My Comment: Then they need to be told that the next stage in the development of human society is to unite people, which will save them from stress and help them go the right way. In the end, we must fulfill the highest law of nature—the law of global connection.

After this explanation, it will become clear to them that we are getting together to conduct workshops on connection and we will gradually come to it.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/9/20

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Question: How would you explain the expression from the Torah, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”?

Answer: The Torah refers not to the corporeal, but to the spiritual component of the work. In order to correct our egoism and make a person into a social element, which considers the connection of society and the similarity with integral nature as one of the highest values, we will have to work very seriously and deeply on ourselves.

The work here is not limited by anything, and we must do it. Its implementation will determine the state of humanity in the new era.

Question: Does “In the sweat of thy face” mean the inner work of a person with his egoism? Not to use other people for one’s own benefit?

Answer: Yes. And not only that.

Question: What is “shalt thou eat bread?”

Answer: Bread symbolizes the quality of bestowal, something we must procure. However, it is very difficult to procure this quality.

Question: Do I, at the same time, receive pleasure from bestowing to others?

Answer: From the fact that you are bestowing, because you feel that society needs you, you take care of society. All this is our task and our work.

Question: Does it mean that we need to work hard on our egoism in order to receive pleasure from bestowing to people?

Answer: Yes, but not for the sake of receiving pleasure.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

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Medium published my new article “Individual and Collective in Repentance”

“‘How will the Jews atone for their sins?’ wondered King David. To which the Creator replied: ‘When suffering will befall the Jews because of their sins, they should gather before me in complete unity. Together they shall confess their sins and recite the order of the Selichot, and I will answer their prayers.’”(Mishna) This exemplifies the very essence of the Israeli nation which requires us to adopt a collective approach vis-a-vis everything, for the good and for the bad.

This shattering of our peoplehood is what we should ask forgiveness for, for ignoring the growing gaps between us, for forgetting what is expected of us as a people, and for our actual behavior that is out of sync with mutual guarantee.

The Selichot (forgiveness), communal prayers said during the High Holiday season, represent a special time of introspection and repentance. But what should we be asking forgiveness for? This special period delivers the realization that, collectively, we have been heading more toward separation than toward connection with others in our lives, and this is the sin for which we need to ask pardon.

This has important implications for the Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. All our introspection — all we wish to reflect upon, examine, clarify, admit to, confess, seek pardon for — must also be carried out jointly and in full consideration of each and every member of the nation.

However, since we have been raised separately, we have been trained and encouraged to manage ourselves as individuals. As a consequence, we have grown distant from our communal beginnings and lost awareness of ourselves as a people. In other words, we have retreated from behaving as a society inspired, organized, and operated according to mutual guarantee.

The sensation that we are like the organs of a single body — the consciousness where each individual is not evaluated separately, but rather as an integral part of a healthy and fully functional whole — has degenerated. It behooves us to gradually awaken from this delusion of division and realize that we are being looked upon by others as a people, not as a collection of faction groups or separate individuals.

This shattering of our peoplehood is what we should ask forgiveness for, for ignoring the growing gaps between us, for forgetting what is expected of us as a people, and for our actual behavior that is out of sync with mutual guarantee.

There is no reason to be angry and reproach each other; there is no reason for arguing and using harsh words. Generally, such words achieve little, and often have the opposite effect. Take, for example, educating children. We raise our voices and command them to “be good, give in and share,” but our words seem to fall on deaf ears. Before they will comply, they need to recognize in us something that comes from deeper within. Remember your parents. Don’t you mainly remember their actions rather than their words? Because children observe everything and have a keen ability to recognize what comes from the real place of the heart, they learn best from personal examples; we are just the same.

We must take the opportunity the High Holidays provide in order to rediscover the ties of loving connection between us. We lack only the awareness of our division to be able to cry out and ask for the strength to unite, for the force of love and correction. Our ultimate goal is to internalize the notion that we are parts of one single body functioning in mutual guarantee and love.

The love that we are talking about is internal, deep, and hidden. It does not burst out in front of everyone as it is seen in films or theatre, where it is selfish love anyway. So it is difficult and complicated to demonstrate what it is like when all are connected and feeling as one.

After we come to this profound awareness of the state we should be in and realize that we have not even come close to exerting enough efforts in that direction, then we are ready to repent and to plead for help. When together we come to such a heartfelt demand for healing and unity between us, we are ready with a prayer that will certainly be fulfilled.
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Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Preparation for the Lesson 2

Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Lesson 2

Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Preparation for the Lesson 3

Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Lesson 3

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Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Preparation for the Lesson

Rosh HaShanah Convention 2020, Lesson 1

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The Creator obliges us to follow the program of creation, and therefore shows us that it is bad to remain separated from each other. But how can He show us that it is bad?

Only at the expense of suffering, otherwise we will not understand that separation is evil. Therefore, the Creator is forced to attach some unpleasant event to our separation so we can start feeling it.

We need to feel through the coronavirus pandemic that we are in trouble because of our separation. We need to link our physical and mental states together. The fact that we are so far from each other mentally and do not feel how beautiful the connection is, is the cause of all the misfortunes that have happened to us. The virus itself is not so terrible, but because it covers the whole world, it paralyzes all our lives. If it had hit a single country, it would not have attracted such attention.

But since it comes from a completely different level, from the global spiritual force around the entire globe, from the spiritual state, from the program of the end of the global correction, it awakens a very special attitude toward itself and plunges everyone into confusion and perplexity.

Scientists can’t come up with a solution, and there’s no hope of a vaccine coming soon. This epidemic is unlike any previous ones, which were more local, not aimed at correcting the last generation, and did not come from a common force called Mashiach that acts on all of humanity. This is the first time we have encountered it.

This is why such measures are being taken. After all, why does it seem necessary to stop all industry around the world, destroy the economies of all the countries, and radically change the entire lives of people just because of some virus? And if there was a war that would have killed millions, it would not have stopped, people would have continued to fight. Why are we stopping our lives because of the coronavirus?

It is because this power comes from the upper level—from where we are already connected together. And this power comes to show us that we have to connect here in this world.

Therefore, we don’t understand it and are perplexed. Gradually, we will start listening to the way the Creator is teaching us, and begin to understand how He treats us and what He wants from us.

Through this, we will hear the voice of the Creator, feel His actions, and be able to respond to them. We will get closer to each other and immediately see the epidemic abating. And then we will fall back into our egoism, and the epidemic will return.

In this way, we will get closer and drift apart, like a child who climbs into his father’s arms, then runs away from him, then gets scared of a dog and asks to be picked up again. In the same way, the Creator teaches us how to always strive to connect with Him.

The only difference between this world and the spiritual world is in who rules: me or the Creator. It is to this change of power that the pandemic should push us.

The Creator takes into account the global correction of the entire world: He thinks about the future of humanity, connecting all in one Kli and filling it with the upper light. We have already reached the home stretch of correction—the Creator is not very hidden.

It is us who cannot reveal Him, and He does not hide, influencing us from our connection. And so we feel a global blow to everyone, not somewhere more, somewhere less, but everywhere. After all, we are already on the home stretch and we only need to reach the finish line: the global connection.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/20, “Work With Faith Above Reason”

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