Comment: You said that punishment is the impression from understanding that such an action should not be done, which means that the very action performed by a person should leave such an impression in him.

My Response: Simply put, a person should punish himself.

We must bring a person to a state where he evaluates his past action as a punishment from above, feeling that he was allowed to transgress some right action and do the wrong thing instead. He judges himself. This internal lynching causes in him such a state of bitterness, resentment, regret, and self-condemnation that this becomes an actual punishment for him.

He understands that he himself made a mistake. At the same time, it is necessary to help him come to the point that next time, despite future disturbances and impulses, he could no longer perform such an action. But this is possible only with the help of a special spiritual template, the upper light.

Kabbalah states very simply: “I created evil” says the Creator, that is, the Creator created our evil. “And I created the Torah,” that is, a special light to correct this evil.

We have no other weapon in our hands. If we really want to correct a person, then it’s done only with the help of the upper light, this special force of nature that created him.

And if we invent some restrictions ourselves, then they only harden a person toward nature, society, and even himself. He comes out of prison a big beast.

Therefore according to the Torah, in Israel in ancient times there was no punishment like prison. Instead, there were sanctuary cities. If a person inadvertently harmed someone and was being persecuted for it, he could run away to one of six such cities and stay there until all the circumstances were clarified or until the so-called jubilee year (shmita yuvel).

This is a certain year when a general amnesty is announced, all debts are forgiven, all leased lands are returned to the owners; that is, absolutely everything starts anew, from scratch.
[291936]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of innocence” 4/27/10

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Question: The modern education system is arranged in such a way that up to thirty people study in one class, and the teacher sort of commands what to do. You say that such an arrangement is completely wrong.

Answer: Absolutely wrong. It does not give the student the right role model. The student is not a member of the group, he or she is not in contact with the teacher, and the teacher is not a friend to the student.

Children do not sit in a circle, but face the board. They are given such and such data, remember this, and that’s it. A predisposition to raise oneself, to formalize one’s relations with others, with the world, and with nature is not created in a person. And this is the most important thing.

We see why there is a crisis in science, because all this knowledge does not give us anything and certainly does not bring happiness. Even what we do with this knowledge only exacerbates our problems.

Therefore first of all, the formation of a person is necessary. For this there must be small groups of students with instructors, teachers, who are practically at the level of students, as their friends. And gradually, by giving examples and organizing the right relationships between students, teachers should develop them.

Kabbalah says a lot about this. This is how we educate our instructors who are already working with our children. We see the benefits of this. Moreover, this is clearly a tangible benefit when children do not leave their parents, do not run away from home, and do not participate in any “pajama” parties.

A completely different person is being formed. You do not close him, you do not make a prude, but rather direct him to the right goal.

Society must take care of this and rebuild itself. And it doesn’t matter who to start with because both parents and children and all generations are in this state.

Nowadays if you look at the whole society, at people of all ages, none of them understand why they exist, since they are in a state of mutual dependence and mutual influence on each other. All of them need to be taught the correct perception of reality.
[291837]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Generation” 8/24/09

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Medium published my new article “When Violence Is Not a Crime”

There is an increasingly common phenomenon among sex offenders: They videotape themselves committing the crime and post it on social media. Back in 2017, criminologists Sveinung Sandberg and Thomas Ugelvik published a paper through Oxford University Press where they wrote, “At first glance, an offender videotaping their crimes seems like a counterintuitive and counterproductive thing to do. After all, when offenders reach for their cameras, they may inadvertently contribute to their own capture and conviction. …Yet, publicly available … higher court decisions suggest that, despite the apparent lack of logic, it is becoming increasingly common.”

Since then, the phenomenon has gotten worse. In trying to understand its causes, Sandberg and Ugelvik write, “When offenders reach for their cameras, it is a socially and culturally embedded choice. In short …these offences must be understood in the context of (1) the sexualization and pornographication of society, (2) a new culture of online humiliation and (3) a culture of instant picture-taking fueled [sic] by new technologies.”

These reasons may incentivize offenders to document sex-crimes, but there is a deeper, more pernicious reason for doing it: The offenders do not regard these acts as crimes at all. They see nothing wrong with what they do.

Worse, I believe that even the older generation does not think of sex-crimes as appalling as it pretends to think. For the most part, the attitude is, “It happens; they’re kids, what can you do?” Of course, no one says that, but this is the undercurrent.

For this reason, I believe that the problem is not with the perpetrators, but with us. When the education system focuses entirely on memorizing information, and devotes no time at all to building healthy social relationships, the current situation is the only possible outcome.

We need to rethink the way we look at education. We need to put human relationships—the ability to function as constructive, positive elements in society—at the top of the ladder. We have not seen the worst. If we leave matters unattended, they will deteriorate to the point where we will not dare set foot outside the door.

Human nature is destroying every bit of good that is still left on this planet, and we are worried about anything and everything besides our own nature. Even if there were any benefit in addressing environmental issues, our egos would not let us implement any solution if it demanded the smallest displeasing change in our narcissistic behavior. This, in fact, is exactly what is happening today.

It isn’t air pollution that is poisoning us; it isn’t opioids that are killing us; it isn’t SARS-COV-2 that is sickening us, and it isn’t hunger that is starving us. It is what stands behind them all, what induces all those plights. Our only enemy is our own wicked nature, and the only way to fix our nature is by teaching ourselves mutual responsibility and mutual care for every single person on the planet.

We have tackled each problem one at a time, and none of them have been solved, not one. Some problems may have abated a little, but they have come back, or will soon come back with vengeance.

It is time we dealt with the root cause of all these problems, our own ego, and solved the problem once and for all. Until we admit to ourselves that we are our own worst enemies, that we cause all the problems that we then try to fight, we will not be cured. If we understand where the problem lies and agree to work together, we will have a fighting chance.
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Question: Many people write to us that they live with resentment: “I cannot forgive my parents for destroying our marriage.” “I was in trouble, and my closest friend did not help. I will never forgive him.” Teachers are resentful toward ungrateful students, parents are resentful toward children who abandoned them; there are a lot of grievances and offenses.

How should we deal with resentment?

Answer: Frankly speaking, I will say that I cannot be offended by anyone because I know human nature. As much as I know the nature of man, I understand that I have no one to be offended by. If you really want to be offended, then, as it is written: “Go to the craftsman who made me.”

This is the truth. How can a person have any thoughts, feelings, qualities, and actions? Nothing about him is his own. He is completely wrapped up in what nature does to him, meaning, the Creator.

Question: This is an elevated state. Let’s go back to men on this earth. Children do not help their parents; they have practically abandoned them. There are some who have truly betrayed, cheated a friend, and so on. There are a lot of reasons. How should we deal with resentment?

Answer: I think you need to reach such a degree of your development when you realize that all other people around you are puppets controlled by the Creator in order for you to correct yourself properly in relation to these people, to justify them, and to wish them well.

Question: Is it possible?

Answer: In general, yes. Not always and not immediately, but…

Question: It is a lengthy work, but should it be in this direction?

Answer: Yes! Otherwise, you are slandering the Creator. And this is a completely different matter. The calculation is completely different. How do you embrace the universe as if it exists by itself or do you control it? If everything comes from above, we have no other choice but to be absolutely submissive, agree with, and change to be in likeness to this upper force.

Comment: It is beautiful. I will carefully assume that our whole world is a world of sinners. We are all in a state of hatred and constant resentment.

My Response: Like little kids in a sandbox.

Question: Why are we played with like that?

Answer: So that we really get disappointed. It is not about why the Creator created us like this but how stupid we are not to guess why He made us like this. There is an answer in front of a man and he does not want to see it. But this is all in order to accumulate, break through, and explode.

Question: If there is such a direction and we slowly walk in this direction, what will our world turn into?

Answer: Our world will turn from today’s mental hospital into a world where people are engaged in self-examination, self-healing, and self-building. To the extent of this, the Creator will be revealed in them.

Question: And what is the “revelation of the Creator in man”?

Answer: The quality of bestowal and love that elevates us to a completely different level of feeling the world.

Question: Are you sure that there is only one path, there is no other?

Answer: No there cannot be any other path.

Question: There are no haters, only the Creator is in front of me?

Answer: Of course!
[291527]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/29/21

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Question: The number of children and adolescents diagnosed with depression, attention deficit disorder, and hyperactivity disorder, problems with concentration, memory, and sleep is growing rapidly. Children are less and less happy.

Psychologists believe that the problem is that children have been deprived of the opportunity to play. We are not talking about computer games. Playing games is a space of freedom, where children themselves set the rules, develop skills of independence, courage, overcoming difficulties, and so on.

Today, this space is growing smaller and smaller; computers, schools, and society are stealing it from children. Playgrounds are empty. No one knows what it is to play hide-and-seek, blind man’s bluff, and so on, the games we used to play.

What is so important about a game?

Answer: Communication! Communication between children, of children with each other, is a necessary, absolutely necessary state of growing up.

Of course, it has to be through the game. All of life is a game. We also play, but our games are different. When children stay at home and do not communicate with others, even assembling Legos or another building set, or even some kind of supercomputer, they will grow up unhappy. They do not have normal, natural communication with their own kind in childhood.

We must develop through the same stages as all of nature has developed: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. That is, we must give a person all these four stages of development in his childhood so that the child crawls, so that he gets dirty, so that he scratches his knees, so that he explores something around him. We should not sit him on the couch. Let him make everything, everything he can, out of planks, out of bricks, out of chairs. I remember we assembled a car out of chairs.

And it is imperative that he does it not alone, but with other children.

Question: If we take it away from children now, to what future will all this lead?

Answer: To a very ugly one. These are children who are born without any communication skills, who have no natural development.

We, as kids, had a large playground, there was a large German Shepherd named Gelz. I rode it like a horse when I was little. Communication with other children was constant, the game was constant.

I remember every time I was forced to go to music school, I looked at the children who were going to play, and I had to go to music school with this big folder of sheet music!

Question: So your conclusion is a game, but how to introduce it today? What to do today in the current stalemate?

Answer: I do not know. We are doing everything to rebuild our entire world for computers.

This is not right. I see that children do not leave the house.

Comment: Do we need to restructure the entire school, educational, and parental system?

My Response: All of them should be built for the development of communication! The development of communication can be in the game, in dancing, in collective sports.

Everything else is not a sport. It is only the development of egoism.

Question: Can someone just start restructuring all of it?

Answer: First, we need to describe it. We need people who want to describe it all. Then you can already push it somewhere, promote it, and publish it. So that people will start reading, discussing. But it all has to start with a simple description of to where we have come.

Egoism will lead us into even deeper wilds.
[291570]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/18/21

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In the News (“The Rescuing Hug”): “In 1995, a pair of twins, Brielle and Kyrie Jackson, were born 12 weeks premature. Each weighed only about 2 pounds. One of them was not expected to survive.

Comment: From that some scientists drew the conclusions that if we could, with such pure, childish intention, hug a sick person or treat another person like that, then there would be no diseases.

My Response: In general this is true. It is necessary to create a field of kindness in which all of humanity will be placed. Then of course, there will be no problems!

Question: So this case is really conclusive? Such pure natural warmth?

Answer: Here, yes. There is pure nature here.

Question: We are all so dirty and egoistic in this world. Can we at least get close to that state?

Answer: Not in an easy, natural way. It needs to be explained and shown, and we need to work with it. But humanity has other tools for realizing the evil of its egoistic nature. Instead of pushing others away, bring them closer and embrace them. We can convince people that this is for good, that it is necessary. Nature gives us such examples.

There would be no life without it. It’s not simple that one life is born within another. The embryo should be in the mother for nine months. What a long term! How many weeks? How many lunar months?

Question: Is the baby in such a state, like this one twin sister hugging the other? She is growing in such care and warmth?

Answer: Yes. Moreover, there should be the same cosmic relation, like the Moon and the Earth. This all goes according to the lunar calendar, according to the lunar months. Once upon a time, women had their usual monthly flow all together, at the same time. That was the impact of the Moon.

Then all this was obscured, egoism was shattered into many more parts, and this did not happen anymore.

Once, the female body worked in accordance with nature in a single cycle. And further egoistic shattering led to the fact that the relationship between everyone became worse and worse.

Question: How to at least come closer to such a state? I really want to treat someone else like this.

Answer: We need to understand that we are in a single mechanism, that we are nourished by a single upper force, and we must take into account that only by the right relationship with it will we come to the correction of our own nature and the whole world, and discover the upper state for ourselves.

Question: And then we can have such a relationship with each other?

Answer: Yes, of course. We will feel that we are all together in the same uterus, that embrace each other, and that there is no difference or distance between us.
[289808]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/11/21

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The four types of human temperament correspond to the four stages of development of egoism.

The phlegmatic is slow, heavy, simple, relatively primitive egoism. A person may be a great scientist, but his external manifestation, his pace, and his internal frequency are of this type. Next come the sanguine, melancholic, and only then choleric.

When we study the four stages of egoistic development, they are arranged exactly like this: the first stage is passive, the second is searching for the opposite of the passive stage, the third stage is incomplete realization and feeling of lack in this realization, and only the last stage is the real developed desire.

However, in principle, each of these stages also includes all four. Therefore, we say that there are four stages, and if we divide them into four more, then there are sixteen.

The biggest desire is choleric. But we are talking about “net” desires and in no case about the “color” of these desires. Both an artist and a locksmith can be choleric.

Comment: If the last stage is choleric, then we can assume that we are now at a stage where this type of reaction prevails.

My Response: Yes, it really prevails. However, the fact is that the internal stress experienced by a choleric who does not see where he can apply himself forces him to lie down on the sofa. There is a huge internal imbalance within him, anxiety with absolute external apathy. This is how a choleric manifests nowadays.

Therefore, if you look at him from the outside, you can say: “Well, what kind of choleric is he? The choleric runs from corner to corner, rushes, does not know what he is looking for.” In fact, he has nowhere to run. He has an internal turmoil because he does not see any external purpose. There is a conflict between his internal and external state.

These people are the most acutely susceptible. The choleric is a creator, a carrier of a huge desire; he is not an executor but a carrier. Therefore, people of all temperaments should be brought together in a team so that something could be born as a result of their mixture. It turns out that choleric people are necessary.
[81696]
From Kab TV’s “Conversation about Integral Education” 5/24/12

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Question: Some psychologists were asked the question: “How to avoid failures?” They said failures could not and should not be avoided because we learn from failures. They said further that how often we fail is not what matters, but how many times we rise and how we react to falling.

This is a good answer, but after all, failures break some people or force them to abandon the goal, some become passive or helpless, and others fall into depression. Failures always bring pain. What is the correct approach to failure?

Answer: Whatever should be will be. What should happen will happen. We must be ready for everything and understand that life is like this,  good times, bad times.

Question: Does it mean that bad times are always followed by good times?

Answer: Maybe good times will come for a little bit, touch you, but they  will come. And then bad times come again.

Question: How will I change then? Will I no longer suffer and be hurt from this?

Answer: No. We are arranged in such a way that we just run away from failures. We cannot analyze them correctly, acknowledge them, correct something, and prepare ourselves for something. We simply cannot. We only work to escape from them. This is a completely wrong action and philosophy itself.

If we link these two states, failure and good luck together, then we will turn ourselves into the ones who have control over them, and we will not be weak-willed either during failures or during successes.

Question: That is, do I sort of connect black and white?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do I not perceive it as a failure?

Answer: You rise above both states and therefore go through them easily. We just need to understand what it means to “rise above them.”

It means rising above your life aspiration, to stop chasing luck. Understand that today, now, you are within luck itself, already inside it.

This is like when physicists say that there are all sorts of black holes. So in fact, we ourselves are in a black hole, in an astronomical black hole.

Question: What is behind it?

Answer: Nothing and we need nothing. Relax and understand that you are inside nature. Let it guide you. The main thing is to surrender to nature.

Question: Am I leaving the oars? There is a current, and I let go of the oars?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is there a current?

Answer: Even that does not matter to me.

Question: Is this even possible?

Answer: If you believe in a wise, great, eternal, almighty nature, then in my opinion, this is the most reasonable solution.

Besides, everything you come up with to go against it on your own only highlights the insignificance, limitation, misunderstanding, ignorance, and disagreement with this great nature inside which we exist.

Do not resist anything. Do not invent anything. Just try to understand what nature itself means, agree with it, cling to it, and you will find the most optimal component of your existence.
[291088]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/15/21

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I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection (Sigmund Freud).

Question: Do you think this statement is correct?

Answer: It is correct. For a child the father is everything! For a boy, yes. It is biological, it is natural. This is an example!

Question: How can this be connected with the fact that we do not feel our father? Humanity does not feel the Creator, the upper governance, and this is why humanity is like it is. Can I say that?

Answer: Of course! If we felt the Creator as the upper force that generates and defines us at every moment, then naturally we would be different. But that is not possible. Otherwise, we would have no freewill.

Question: So if we felt the Creator, would we feel all this love and goodness and be overwhelmed by them? And that is why we were given freewill?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Were children who either did not have fathers or their fathers were rough given freewill?

Answer: No a child cannot be blamed for anything. He gets into a certain situation and that’s it.

Comment: That is, you adhere to the hard line that for example: if there is a divorce and there are children, especially if they are boys and the father leaves the family, then.

My Response: That is even worse. It is a lifelong trauma.

Question: And we receive questions, mostly from women, who write to us all the time: “What, is it better to have such a cruel father?”

Answer: Not if there is such an atrocity, of course. But a normal, demanding father, even if he goes a little too far is still better than being fatherless.

Question: And how can someone become a good father?

Answer: One must be educated.

Question: Fathers?

Answer: Fathers, from childhood. It is necessary to take people, I would say young men, and try to explain to them what fatherhood is, what taking care of another means, and make good fathers out of them.

Question: And also explain to them that the future of children depends on it?

Answer: Explain everything! Of course! Otherwise it will not work without defining the goal.

Question: So you think it is necessary to create such a school for fathers?

Answer: Yes, it is necessary.

Question: And then, we can correct the future of humanity?

Answer: Of course! We will determine the whole future generation by this.
[289709]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/7/21

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In the News (rfi.fr): “France is launching an experiment that uses virtual reality to stop men convicted of domestic violence from reoffending.

“Already tested in Spain, the technology offers a ‘total immersion’ experience by way of a headset that allows the offender to view things from the point of view of his victims. …

“‘It’s a kind of empathy machine’ that highlights the emotions felt by victims and ‘makes men understand fear,’ explained Guillaume Clere, founder of the Reverto start-up, which collaborated on the project with the French Justice Ministry. …

“‘Studies have shown the correlation between low cognitive empathy and violence,’ Clère told AFP. …

“The headset device ‘has the ability to fool the brain’, explained Géraud de la Brosse, who is running the project for the French Directorate of Prison Administration.

“’It is a way to open a dialogue with the perpetrators,’ he told La Voix du Nord news site.”

Question:  The goal is to make criminals realize and feel that they have harmed others. Confront them with an aggressor who is like them and acts just like them. The idea is that they will find themselves in a position of weakness and understand what happened. Will they understand this?

Answer: This is, of course, an interesting idea—to put yourself in the shoes of the victim. This can be taught. I think this will help fix it.

Question: So they can suddenly realize and be horrified: “I was like this?!”?

Answer: Of course they will be horrified. If this is done correctly, then it will have a very strong impact.

Question: Do you think this is really a parenting moment?

Answer: This is the moment of education. After all through this you explain to the person and show him who he is.

Question: Can we say that this is the revelation of evil?

Answer: Of course this is the revelation of evil, the most real. I am for it. The idea is good. If the technique works, then this is very interesting. This immediately leads to repentance. And then, as a consequence of this to correction, remorse, and so on.

Question: Can we say that a person will no longer commit such a crime if this experiment passes?

Answer: No. I do not know how much this will affect a modern person who experiences constant external irritations that confuse him all the time, it depends on what they are and against what crimes it is used.
[289885]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/4/21

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