Comment: Mark writes:

Dear Michael, how do you feel about Dostoevsky’s famous phrase “The happiness of the whole world is not worth one tear on the cheek of an innocent child”? We all learned this at school, we were brought up like that. And the result is that we do not care about children’s tears. Why are we so terrible? There is so much pain around children!

My Response: Because we are like that!

Question: Why doesn’t even the fact that we bring children so much pain not stop us?

Answer: No one stops us!

Comment: Children played quietly in the sandbox, went to all sorts of clubs, and suddenly there is no sandbox, no clubs, nothing. This is what we did. For what? What did we want?

My Response: What do we want? Power! It does not matter at the expense of what. This is the law of nature!

Question: Will we treat our own children the same way if power were taken away from us? Is it all from the same foundation that you keep talking about? Is everything from there?

Answer: Yes, from the same egoism that the Creator created, which we must constantly feed.

Question: That is, our attack and resistance should go to the point of egoism. Why do we not come to that?

Answer: We cannot get to it. Only the Creator can reach it.

Comment: But we can at least understand that this is the basis of all troubles!

My Response: No, we also cannot recognize it to such an extent.

Question: So what are we going to attack all the time? Just something around? Will we be trying to change someone?

Answer: Yes, we will be appointing someone responsible, someone guilty.

Question: Will we be changing someone, executing them, putting them in prison, and so on? Until when?

Answer: Until when? As long as the world exists, while the Earth is still spinning.

Question: How will I see this?

Answer: I do not know if you and I will see this. I am very realistic about humanity, its nature, and its capabilities to rise above nature.

Question: Are there very few of these capabilities? Should some kind of miracle happen?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is a miracle something that is not in our power at all? Is this called a miracle?

Answer: Yes. That is, it is only in the power of the upper force.

Question: How can we ask it?

Answer: Want it. We only have desire. If we wish to change the world, the world will change.

Question: The world around me?

Answer: Yes, the world we are in.

Comment: In principle, everyone wants to change the world.

My Response: No, they do not want to! They do not understand that in order to do this, you need to want, really want, to support each other, so that together, with our joint desire, we would force the world to change.

Question: Would it actually force the Creator to change the world?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you think that a person’s desire to have a warm, good, kind, and loving surrounding is not that desire yet?

Answer: No, it is not even a desire at all. One does not desire in this direction.

Question: What is the desire? Should I have the recognition that I am bad?

Answer: No, not even the fact that you are bad. We do not even have to “draw and quarter” ourselves. We just need to understand that we can change the world if we want to.

Comment: But we want to!

My Response: We do not want to. We do not know what we want. We must imagine a joyful, complete, interconnected world, which wishes everyone good, connection, and love, and ask nature itself for this.

Question: Do I have to ask, as if, for others? Is this my main message?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Am I, instead, asking for myself all the time?

Answer: Of course, I am asking for myself.

We need to explain to people that if we ask nature to change the world and improve the world, then this will happen. Only if we ask together.

Question: Is this request really about changing me or about changing the world?

Answer: I believe that these are related things, they are the same thing. By changing ourselves, we change the world. If we want to change the world, we have to change ourselves.
[314730]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/12/23

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New Life 22 – The Need For Family And Coping With Male Possessiveness
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and experts in the field

The closest and most important relationship for a person is the relationship with their spouse. What is the impact of this relationship on a person? What is its impact on conflicts and their solution?

We all naturally need a family, warmth, and connection. In the past, people passed a plot of land, a house and a profession to their children, so they kept the family framework. The extended family wrapped the young couple and protected them. But today all of this has fallen apart. We need to learn how to rebuild our relationships and fill our lives with warmth and love. In many cases, the couple encounters difficult conflicts and situations that need to be addressed correctly in order to maintain and strengthen the relationship.

The power of separation is familiar to everyone, but how do you make a connection? How do we deal with life situations and connect from the place where we are? For example, how do we deal with a state of mistrust that emerges between a couple where the husband no longer trusts his wife?

The key to building the bond lies in the woman’s hands. She needs to strengthen him, to show him that she suffers from the situation together with him, that he really is the source of pleasure in her life and that she is as if breathing through him. She has to give him a warm relationship from the heart, to build a friendly relationship with him, to go out and walk hand in hand, to spend time together.

Men naturally feel a kind of possessiveness in relation to their partner, so the woman should show her husband that she is totally devoted to him and to the family. It is worthwhile to initiate pleasant conversations about things that arouse a feeling of sharing and communication, to create a warm and good relationship with the extended family of the partner and to always remember this principle: Love will cover all transgressions.

From KabTV’s “New Life 22 – The Need For Family And Coping With Male Possessiveness,” 6/26/12
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is world unity possible?“

The more we develop, the more problems and crises we encounter, and their purpose is to lead us to the realization that the only way out of a total collapse is through unity.

World unity is not only possible, it is a nature-set condition to which we all evolve.

While we currently experience the path to unity without awareness of this goal nature has set for us, and we thus feel more and more negative situations enter our lives, if we start learning about how nature develops to greater and greater states of unity, and scrutinize how we can align ourselves with such development in a balanced and harmonious manner, then we can switch our path to world unity: instead of a path of suffering, we would head on a path of increasing delight and awareness. We would thus be wise to search for how we can embark on a positive developmental path to unity.

If we make such a shift, our eyes would open to a new method of correction of human nature—one that changes our egoistic natures to their altruistic opposites, and our negative connections to each other would become positive and balanced with nature.

We would then become rewarded not only with total safety, comfort, happiness and confidence in this world and on this planet, but we would discover a whole new level of existence—one that is eternal and perfect.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “But the More They Inflicted Them”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 5

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Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Heat Waves Are Becoming More Common and Intense – Why Is This Happening?”
Indeed, this summer the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing record heat waves. July 2023 was the hottest month since we began temperature measurements, and there are also record temperatures in the oceans. The Mediterranean, for example, measured five degrees above average. There have been record heat waves in the US, Europe and other places.

The deeper reason for the heat waves is that we humans are nature’s highest level out of the four levels: still, vegetative, animate and human.

Accordingly, our attitudes to each other hold the most influence in nature.

While we develop with increasingly negative attitudes to each other, we likewise feel nature’s response to us in increasingly negative ways.

If, however, we want to cool down on the inside and on the outside, i.e., to become more restrained and balanced in our attitudes toward each other, then we will also experience how nature cools down in relation to us.

Our negative attitudes to each other are the sole element in nature that pushes the whole of nature out of balance. By becoming more heated toward each other, we similarly experience an external expression in rising temperatures of our inner growing ego-based negativity.

But we need to understand that there are two sides to our relations. They can either destroy or restore.

We are developing toward a harmonious and peaceful state of existence, where we will all be able to live on this planet in total safety, comfort, happiness and confidence.

The problem is that we are currently headed to that harmonious state via a path of increasing troubles and crises.

If we want to shift to a positive course and alleviate the need for various blows to wake us up to the increasing suffering that comes from living in an egoistic paradigm, then we need to educate ourselves differently to how we do today.

What does it mean to educate ourselves differently to how we do today?

It means that we start permeating values and examples of positive connection above our egoistic drives throughout human society, not just in our formal learning environments like schools, colleges and universities, but also in our media, culture, the arts and entertainment that we absorb on a moment-by-moment basis.
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Question: At some point, a person decides to stop receiving for his own sake. Whose decision is it: a person’s or the Creator’s?

Answer: A person’s.

Question: When a person understands the nature of his receiving, how can he find the lowest point from which he will push himself to the prayer and connection?

Answer: The lowest point is when a person feels that there is no one in this world lower and worse than him. It is from this point that he should begin the ascent.

Question: When the Creator reveals our illness or gives us some kind of shock, the first reaction is hatred and resentment against the Creator. Is it possible to change this so that there is only gratitude?

Answer: Thank and ask the Creator to change us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/23, “Habit Becomes a Second Nature”

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What helps me feel the importance and greatness of a friend? The fact that I am getting closer to him and I want to be together with him, and thus there already are two of us, and then there will be three, four, and so on until there are countless people who will work together on the recognition of the greatness of the friends.

To understand that a friend is as important and great for me as the Creator, I have to think more that he is on the path with me, that he is important to me, that without him I cannot reach the goal, and that he cannot do it without me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/23, “Habit Becomes a Second Nature”

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Question: People get together and separate, get together and separate. They do not have the strength to mend their relationships and their connection. It is easier for them to start over.

We know from Kabbalah that the whole of nature, generally speaking, is breakage. We are living in it and we need to correct it. What should people do anyway: try to glue their relationships together or should start over?

Answer: People have to understand that nothing is perfect. On one hand everything in nature consists of revealing contradictions, harmful properties, and so forth. On the other hand, our attitude to that should be very patient and consciously correct.

In any state, we have to see some opportunities for correction. And not only corrections but improvements in our life. However, this will be possible if we relate to this in the correct way.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23

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Question: The chapter “Two Points” in The Book of Zohar starts with “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

What does the beginning of wisdom mean? What kind of wisdom are we talking about? And why is fear considered wisdom?

Answer: The point is that when a person awakens some attitude toward the Creator based on awe of Him, it is the inception of human wisdom. From this point onward, a person can develop in this direction.

The Creator is an upper force that manifests itself in relation to people as a quality of love and bestowal. Therefore, in order to achieve a connection with the Creator, a person must acquire the same qualities of trepidation toward bestowal and connection. Then a person can advance.

Wisdom is the accurate perception of the Creator, the correct connection with Him, and the right understanding of His actions in relation to us humans. And the first step toward this wisdom, in order to establish proper contact with Him, should be awe of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 8/6/23

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