Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I prevent social exclusion?“

Orphie, a 14-year-old girl who was socially excluded at her school, experienced violence for several years, and eventually became the head of a boycott patrol. The aim of the boycott patrol is to support others harmed by social exclusion. For instance, the patrol gave a girl, Elian, whose entire class shunned her, a birthday surprise, comforting her with the warm words that they are her family, and that she will not be alone anymore.

We have built a society where a lot of children and youth share this miserable situation, feeling that there is no place for them in the world.

I would advise anyone who feels the problem of social exclusion to work according to the lines of such examples as what Orphie’s group did for that girl, Elian, and to give rise to similar frameworks for helping children, as well as educating about the phenomenon. I would support their growth to become the most significant force in our society, so that no one feels worse off than others, and to show that the most potent weapon against hatred is love. If such a force strengthens, then we will be able to prevent social exclusion as we head toward a much more positively connected society.

Nobody needs to feel alone or excluded. To make that a reality, we just need to develop mutual support in society.

Based on the video, “The Solution to Social Exclusion,” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you lose your maternal instinct?“

Recent research shows that mothers’ engagements with smartphones and magazines are harmful to mother-child communication, which in turn harms the child’s development. In the research, mothers using their phones to engage with social media, and also mothers reading magazines, spent up to four times less time talking with their toddlers (aged two to three) than when they were not on their phones or magazines. Moreover, the mothers with phones and magazines responded less to their childrens’ calls, had a lower quality response than when not on their media, and sometimes even ignored their children altogether.

What does it mean when we see mothers—symbols of devotion, love and care—pay increasing attention to their phones and magazines than to their toddlers?

It is a present-day example of how the maternal instinct lessens and the natural connection between mother and child weakens the more that the human ego grows. The phones and magazines add to the situation, but also emerge together with our natural development, which is a continual growth of the human ego that increasingly detaches us from each other, up to a point of detaching mothers from their children.

As a result of our egoistic development, less and less people today want to have children or grandchildren, and more and more people are becoming concerned solely with their individual lives. Such development needs to unfold until we reach a state of helplessness and desperation, where we will feel no livelihood or fulfillment in a life of growing detachment to one another.

However, together with the growing helplessness comes the opportunity to correctly diagnose the root cause of our growing detachment to each other—the overblown human ego that resides in each and every one of us—and to stop identifying our egoistic drives as being our “self” or our “I.” In other words, by realizing the ego behind our growing detachment from each other, up to a point of mothers losing their maternal instincts, we should accordingly stop listening to its demands, and stop relating to it as being a part of us. We would then be able to start correcting it.

At every moment, the ego prioritizes the fulfillment of our own desires over everybody else’s. The more the ego grows, the more it leads us to thinking of ourselves more and more over even our own families. In other words, the ego is self-love, and it directs us to love only ourselves more than we love our own children, spouses and parents, up to a point where we feel no love at all for anyone else.

After diagnosing the growing ego as the root cause of increasing detachment, which causes an array of problems in our lives, we should then organize our relationships so that we relate to everyone with loving and caring attitudes. In other words, by raising awareness of the need to enrich our connections with more love, consideration, support and encouragement, then the wider net of positive connection we cast over society will serve to positively influence us to reignite love at the family level. Mothers would then experience a revival of their maternal instincts, albeit on a whole new level: they will not be mere “instincts” but the mothers’ new drive to draw closer to their children, families and relatives would emerge from acquiring a higher level of consciousness, i.e. connection with the positive force of love and bestowal that dwells in nature.

Based on the video “How Mothers Have Become Detached from Their Babies” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are children not left out of wars and conflicts?“

Shahid, a 10-year-old living in a refugee camp in Syria, was interviewed and asked what she wished for herself this upcoming year, to which she replied, “A tent, to have a tent.” This broadcast on Arab social media deeply shocked many who were watching, that a child’s dreams can reach such a low.

The broadcast surfaced questions such as “How have we come to such a world?” and “Why can we not just leave children out of our wars and conflicts?”

The answer to this question is simply that no major player wants to leave children out of such situations, neither the UN, UNESCO, nor any other international organization or government. Funds are given to armies and terror organizations, which force people to continue living in refugee camps around the world. While there are organizations such as the UN and UNRRA that seemingly exist in order to protect children, it is all a lie. They are merely players in politicians’ hands.

Syria has been experiencing civil unrest for several years between Assad’s supporters and enemies. The grownups are engaged in fighting, killing and torturing each other, and the children gain nothing from this situation. Also, the children hold no influence over the grownups, who continue their conflict regardless. When such children grow up, they will likely also join the conflict.

If asked what I would wish for Shahid, then I would explain to her that she and everyone else can have not just a tent, but a home, and that the world is full of abundance, but the human ego pits us up against each other, not letting us enjoy the abundance that is right before us.

Our egoistic nature, which makes us each want to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, leads us into conflicts and does not give us peace.

If we want a good future, free from conflict, and if we want to enjoy the abundance that exists in the world, then we need to readjust our attitudes to each other: instead of letting our egos lead us into conflict, we need to start coming closer to each other. Our positive connection above our egoistic and divisive drives holds the key to us all enjoying a perfect and abundant life.

Based on the video “Why Are Children Not Left Out of Wars and Conflicts?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Medium published my new article “Education — We Need to Build Back Better”

The past two years have been nerve-wracking for children, parents, and the entire education system. The recurring isolations and lockdowns have not only affected the children’s social relationships, they also left everyone uncertain about the future. It is clear that things will not be as they were until the beginning of the decade, but it is unclear what they will be like. Either way, since we are destined to shuttle back and forth between physical and virtual connections, we might as well learn to make meaningful connections in both settings.

The current situation has already shifted us from our previous mindset about connections, but it has not yet established new ones within us. It is still hard to see what our new manner of connection will be like since we are not machines; it takes time to grow into a new mode of operation.

However, since nature never goes back, but always forward, one thing is clear: that which was will never return.
Whatever form we eventually take, it will be one where we are not only connected in new ways, but also more positively than before. Nature’s evolution is always moving toward increasing complexity and integration. Everything is becoming more interdependent, not less so, and this is true for humanity, as well.

Yet, while all other species accept nature’s dictates without questions, humans are disconnected from nature and have their own will. Nature still forces us to go its way, but it has also given us our own will, which grows in the opposite direction: While nature drives us to incorporation, we strive for separation. This is why animals accept what nature gives them and adapt, while we suffer and resist, but to no avail.

The suffering we feel is a clear disadvantage compared to the rest of the animal world, but human beings have an advantage that no other living being has: Instead of being forced into connection, we can think about it, compare it to separation, and finally choose it. Although we have no choice but to ultimately choose connection, since this is the course of all of creation, choosing it of our own volition means that we understand the logic behind it, the “thought of creation,” if you will.

There is no comparison between the pleasure and depth we experience when we choose to do something as opposed to doing it instinctively. This is our unique advantage, the merit of human beings over all other beings.

All the blows we have suffered since the beginning of time have led us to evolve from hunter-gatherers into clans, towns, countries, empires, and finally to a global village. The increased incorporation always happens against our will and at the cost of countless lives and indescribable suffering, but it need not be this way. If we understand where we are going and what we are destined to acquire at the end of the road, we can go there willingly and help each other transcend our individuality to form a conscious and unified humanity.

Our education systems should focus on instilling this awareness in us. This education should apply to all ages, countries, and cultures. If we make unity our top priority, we will begin to see the differences between us as welcome diversity, and our different perspectives as enriching our knowledge. If we want to stop suffering and enjoy the road we’re on, we need to rebuild our education system in synchrony with all of nature: toward connection, cohesion, and integration.

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Question: What is the correct education of boys?

Answer: The correct education is the realization of a man in his corporeal and spiritual manner so as to become an absolutely perfect element and fully realize what is inherent in him by nature, that is, to ascend and become similar to the Creator.

To become a common integral element of nature is what is inherent in us. Does anyone know that? No. This is what we need to study and reveal.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Generation of “Lady Gaga”” 3/10/10

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Comment: Why do altruists very often cause not gratitude, but resentment? Experts say, it is because we doubt their selflessness and see the calculation behind everything. Thus, the good deeds turn into a fat minus. Psychologists call this mass phenomenon “the syndrome of do-gooder derogation.”

It is believed that the most reliable way to avoid belittling good deeds is to do them in secret. If others accidentally find out about them, and this will eventually have a positive impact on your reputation, just consider it a bonus. Oscar Wilde said very beautifully: “The nicest feeling in the world is to do a good deed anonymously and have somebody find out.”

My Response: Yes. Others “accidentally” find out, in quotation marks.

Question: Does it mean that our world is built in such a way that we cannot do any altruistic action?

Answer: We can’t in any way. This is our nature. We can only make a mess everywhere, we use, break, and violate. We cannot act in any other way. Therefore we must think about the way to limit ourselves reasonably to such an extent that we violate everything around us as little as possible.

This is possible only through educating a person.

Question: Does a good deed at the level of our world exist?

Answer: A good deed at the level of our world is when we treat our world as our home, common to all of us, and we are like one family, and we take care of everyone.

If a person has such an attitude, then of course we will put this world in order. We have passed some peak of excessive consumerism, destruction, and distortion of everything possible, and now we have to put it all in order a little, i.e., limit ourselves in everything that is not necessary.

Question: Can a person come to this?

Answer: Nature will force him. There is such a thing as necessary and sufficient. Mutual restriction by all of us, which is voluntary and accepted by each of us in order to make our planet comfortable for ourselves and future generations, is necessary.

Comment: But people say: “This is what we want.” There are many such movements.

My Response: They do not really do anything. We cannot do it by force and we cannot do it by shouting in the squares either.

Question: How can we do it?

Answer: By educating people! All these environmentalists and Greenpeace only create a lot of noise and cause hatred and distrust.

Question: What should be the basis of this education?

Answer: To turn all of humanity into a family and the entire Earth into one comfortable apartment for everyone, into our home.

Nature will force us to do this. We are in such a state. Perhaps we will go through something else. For example, there could be a world war and half of humanity or most of it will be destroyed. It will come to this anyway. Nature brings everything to balance.

Question: Do you realize that this is a very long educational process considering who a person is?

Answer: This is a long process, but it depends on the understanding of the need for it.

Question: Who can be a teacher in such schools, such universities of life?

Answer: One who has risen a little above his egoistic natural level can be a teacher.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/2/21

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Comment: You received a letter from a young man.

Hello, Dear Michael!

I know that you will help me. I subscribe to all your programs. May you be healthy! That is the main thing.

I have been bedridden since childhood. I have a rare disease, which is progressing. My beloved parents and I have been fighting it since childhood. But it has gotten worse lately. It is painful to move. And recently, just six months ago, a new method of treatment appeared that has already helped many recover. But it requires an organ transplant from a close relative.

My dad immediately decided to become my donor. He was tested, and everything checked out. But I found out that it is very dangerous for my father. He is not all that healthy and nobody knows how the surgery will affect him. When I found out about it, I told my father that I do not agree, that I do not want the transplant, but he insisted. He does not want to hear anything. What should I do? How to convince him? I do not want it! I am afraid. Naturally, I want to get well, but I am afraid for my father! My mother is not saying anything and neither is my sister.

I am writing to you. Help me! I am exhausted thinking about it! In the meantime, I am getting worse.

My Response: You must give your father the opportunity to give you life again. I feel for you and for your father. This is something you must go through together.

Question: But what will he feel if he accepts it?

Answer: They are going through this together, through this surgery, together!

Question: Meaning, as if the father is giving him life again?

Answer: Yes! And the boy already understands, you can tell by his letter, that otherwise he will have a tragic end. How will his father be able to live on if the boy dies?

Question: So he is actually saving his father, among other things?

Answer: Of course. He should give his father the opportunity to help him.

Comment: No wonder he wrote both my mother and sister are quiet.

My Response: Because this is his personal decision.

Comment: He will instantly mature, he will become an adult as soon as he makes this decision.

My Response: True.

Comment: Such mature questions for these children!

My Response: Life is full of challenging decisions.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/1/21

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Kabbalah considers man and his upbringing only relative to the purpose of creation.

We exist in order to achieve a certain goal, and it is not within our life but in what we reveal in all nature, which is called the Creator. In Kabbalah, the concept of nature is equivalent to the concept of the Creator.

Upon reaching connection with all of nature, not only with what we now see and observe in our small world but with its wholeness, we begin to feel that we exist eternally and in perfection. It is this level that a person must reach during this life. This is the only purpose of our existence.

And this is not what our education gives a person. We teach him just like an animal teaches its young to survive, to create a family correctly, and to produce offspring. So, from generation to generation, we take care of our life at the animate level.

It doesn’t matter that our technologies develop because as long as our animate organism, our body, exists, we want to create seemingly the most comfortable environment for it. Therefore, this level is animate and a person does not differ from an animal.

In fact, it is the category of human that we can develop in us so that we feel an eternal, perfect state, when each of us rises above our petty egoism and reaches the general sensation of whole  nature. Nobody teaches us this.

If you want to uplift a person, you must show him a different perspective, what it is that is worth living for, what it is that is worth directing your efforts to. And if all this life is only inside the animate body, then I do not care about anything: I can jump from the roof, I can do whatever I want with myself. Nobody cares about me and I do not care about anyone because everyone feels like a little individualist.

All our relations in society are built on this: “I do not touch you, you do not touch me.” And this is completely wrong. From day to day we reveal how universal nature is, how interconnected we are in a small village, how the butterfly effect, mutual responsibility, and mutual influence on each other works.

From the side of nature, we reveal that everything is interconnected and is in such close dependence that there is no escape from it.

Question: Perhaps we are not yet aware that laws of interdependence apply directly to our lives?

Answer: Even if we are aware of them, we still cannot take over. Moreover, we do not yet have the opportunity to approach their realization.

The science of Kabbalah is being revealed in our time, it deals with this, and it can give us such an opportunity. But we are only at the beginning of the path and humanity does not yet understand what it is.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Generation” 8/24/09

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My new article on Linkedin “Propagate Sex Change to Schoolchildren? Absolutely Not!”

I was asked about my position on the issue of propagating the legitimacy of children going through the process of changing their sex. In North America, I was told, this is one of the most contentious topics. So, in short, I know that some people feel uncomfortable in their bodies and may feel better if they change their sex. But to propagate the idea to children, who are susceptible to any notion we adults install in them? Absolutely not! The fact that it might be right for some people does not mean that we should make it mainstream and even cool. The desirable way is to live the way nature has made us: male and female.

I have met people who felt like they belonged in a different body than the one they were born in. I spoke to them, and I understand them. It happens, just as any oddity happens.

However, it is very rare and should not be regarded as routine or common. I realize that today, you need to be courageous or be regarded as a freak if you dare to tell the truth, but trends that come and go according to people’s egoistic whims do not change nature. Nature has created us male and female, and this is what we should remain.

There is no clear line between males and females. Males have feminine qualities, just as females have masculine traits. Yet, every person has a biological gender, and that gender is the dominant one, except, as I said, in very rare cases.

When grownups feel that they are living in the wrong body, they can choose to perform whatever procedure they want on themselves. But until we are grown up, we should grow the way nature created us.

The social environment has a critical influence on children. When they are young, you can make them think and do anything you want. The Nazis, for example, educated Germany’s children to believe that they were superior to everyone else, not only to Jews, and that the rest of the world must serve them or be destroyed. Through books, lessons, and films, they brainwashed their children to believe that they were the superior race.

Just so, it is possible to install any notion in children’s minds if we use the education system and social media to facilitate it.

However, the results can be disastrous. If you spread the idea that sex change is normal, even “trendy,” it can lead children who initially have no problem with their gender to think that there is something wrong with them. It might push them into wanting to do something they will not be able to undo simply because they want to be like everyone else, and they feel that everyone is going in this direction.

We know that being popular means everything to children, and especially to adolescents. As a result, they might do things they will regret sometime later but will never be able to reverse or mend. If parents do not prevent children from making such mistakes, it can ruin those children’s lives for good. It is terrible, and it is wrong.

I think that instead of making the abnormal trendy, we should encourage people to be who they are and realize their potential just as they were born. If people receive recognition for who they are, and society rewards them and respects them for contributing their skills and efforts to the common good, people will not feel dissatisfied with themselves. At the same time, adults who feel that they are living in the wrong body should have access to using the possibilities that modern medicine offers to make them feel more comfortable with their gender.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the biggest problem of our current school system?“

The current school system has no objective to develop people into human beings, in the complete sense of the term.

In Hebrew, the word for “human” (“Adam”) comes from the word for “similar” (“Domeh”), and a human is considered one who becomes “similar to the most high” (“Domeh le Elyon”). In other words, becoming a human means attaining a state of similarity to the altruistic force of nature, which is higher and opposite to our egoistic inborn nature.

By learning how to become human in the fullest sense of the term, we then learn how to navigate ourselves in order to first not harm others, and then reach exalted states of positive connection above our divisive drives.

Then, instead of following the dictates of our inborn egoistic nature, which leads to a smorgasbord of negative phenomena throughout society—from increasing depression, anxiety, loneliness and stress through to rises in violence, racism, divorce and suicide, to name a few—we learn how to rise above our egoistic drives, which wish to self-benefit at the expense of others and nature, and discover how to become truly happy. We become truly happy when we know how to positively connect to each other in society, when we live in a thriving atmosphere of increasing consideration, responsibility and solidarity, and when values of giving to others, supporting, encouraging and generally connecting positively to each other fills our lives.

Therefore, the biggest problem of the current school system is that it has no objective to raise children to the fullest realization of their inner potential, which would result in a society that blossoms with happiness, confidence, support and encouragement.

We are thus faced with the fact that we need to restructure our education and upbringing, which includes the schooling system as well as everything that influences us with certain values, behaviors and examples in society. If we succeed in changing the education and upbringing of even one generation to guide people in reaching their fullest potential, then we would bear witness to a monumental transition to a new harmonious and peaceful world.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Generation” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 24, 2009. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash.

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