New Life 1314 – Emotional Balance In The Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

In an emotionally balanced family, the members of the family know how to get along with each other and how to help each other. The emotional balance of each individual in a family depends on the family as a whole.

Children who grow up in a connected environment know how to relate to others correctly, are comfortable to live with, and don’t invade anyone’s space. A child can cause a family to lose its balance and upset the general atmosphere. Parents should show that they are not impressed by a child’s extreme behavior. They should set an example by the kind of attitude that they show to others and by keeping their own emotional balance.

The parents’ goal is to show that there is a limit to any emotion or relationship.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1314 – Emotional Balance In The Family, ” 8/1/21

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Comment: A young girl writes: “I can draw well and play a musical instrument. I would really like to change the world, give it something. But what is the point if I study to be a musician or an artist if the world no longer needs it. Where can I put my skills, my desire to do something for others?”

My Response: First, there is a difference between a profession and a vocation. A profession is imposed on us by society based on what it needs. Therefore, if once artists, musicians, and poets were held in high esteem, today this is not the time. Maybe soon it will be like that again, but any period can drag on for two hundred years.

Question: So she needs to look for a calling?

Answer: Yes. If, for example, she draws, let her be a teacher of drawing. But the main thing is how she realizes herself internally in addition to earning. She also wants to make a hobby out of her profession. Not many people accomplish that. So maybe she needs to come to terms with it.

In addition, she is a woman, she will have a family and children. All this will overshadow her noble impulses a bit.

Comment: You have just touched on the matter of profession and vocation. Society pushes us to make a lot of money. Therefore, people with a vocation that does not bring large incomes have an inner break. A person does not know how to deal with the desire to make money, to become great, to change something on a global level.

My Response: First of all, making money is one thing. Changing something at the global level is different. Make it your profession? Make it your hobby? The person hasn’t decided yet. Therefore, it is difficult to give specific advice here.

I would advise him, first of all, to decide. He needs good, smart, grown-up people, maybe even a psychologist who would gradually explain to him what is best for him. Together they would “speak through” his inner world.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 7/13/18

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My new article on Linkedin “Time to Revamp Our Thinking about Our Children”

According to an essay published on July 20, 2021 in the Journal of Adolescence, over the past several years, there has been a significant increase in loneliness at school among teenagers. The essay, titled “Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness,” written by acclaimed Professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge and several other researchers, concludes that between 2012 and 2018, “adolescent loneliness increased … in 36 of 37 countries. Worldwide, nearly twice as many adolescents in 2018 scored high in loneliness than in 2000, with much of the increase occurring after 2012.” However, the researchers add that “Even with the recent increases … the majority of students did not report high levels of loneliness.”

So are adolescents lonely or are they not? I think that the problem is not that they are lonely, but that we don’t understand how they think and feel, and therefore often attribute to them emotional states that they are not experiencing because we think they’re built like us, but they are not.

Today’s teenagers are smarter, more sensitive, and more understanding than we often think. They look at us, at what we have (or have not) accomplished, at the consequences of our actions, and draw their own conclusions. They’re not as excited as we were about academic titles, about traveling, or about accumulating wealth and possessions. Everything is accessible for them at the touch of a finger on the cell-phone, and they don’t have the drive that we had to achieve, to be “somebody.” They see how “happy” it has made us and what a world we’ve built because of it.

When I look at my grandchildren, they don’t seem to me like they are suffering. It is a new generation with a different character. They ask pragmatic questions; they want to know what they will get out of everything they do, and when they don’t get satisfactory answers, they order a pizza delivery and stay at home with their social media apps and games. At best, they might ask a friend or two over, but often, they will communicate with friends only on social media.

Yet, the fact that they are alone does not mean that they are lonely. Some are lonely, and some or not, just as we were. For them, being alone for many hours does not mean that they are lonely. When we wanted to socialize, we went outside. When they want to socialize, they go online. They’re living in a different world, and the sooner we realize it, the easier we will make it on them to grow in it.

We must support them and care for them, but we must also let them grow on their own terms and in their own way. They’ll have their challenges like the rest of us, and they will need our help, but we must not force our worldview on them, since it will only prevent them from developing the worldview that they need to have in today’s reality, where everything is mixed and interconnected—physical and virtual, local and global, alone and together.

I am not implying that we should not see that they do not go the wrong way. However, we should also not force them to go our way just because we think our way was right for us. In fact, if it was right for us when we grew up, it is certainly not right for them, since the world where we grew up doesn’t exist anymore; we’re living in a different world. Therefore, today’s adolescents must find their own way, and we must help them search for it with confidence, knowing that they have a cushion to fall back on if they need to.

In addition to the above, I would teach them the basics of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of connecting people, so learning the principles of positive connections with people can be very helpful in a hyper-connected world. I think that if we adopt this approach, we will go through our children’s adolescence more easily and pleasantly.
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Question: Is restriction a condition for human development? Do I have to be aware of the reason and the purpose of the restriction so that I can advance quickly?

Answer: Restrictions provide us great opportunities to explore the world and the space around us. Without restrictions, we would not be able to feel anything.

We feel any system, action, or attribute due to restricting forces: why, for what, how?

If I do not encounter an obstacle and my hand does not touch anything, I seemingly fall through, I am lost, and I do not feel anything. And when I come across something, the interaction with the obstacle generates information in me.

Therefore, education is restriction.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 6/16/19

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New Life 1313 – Parents’ Agreement On The Education Of Their Children
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

As parents, we want our children to lead serious, balanced lives and to know how to relate to other people. We need to set the right example of agreement and acceptance between parents, an example of mutual respect. Children need to see that their parents are as one, sharing the same views. It is a principle that stems from “a man and a woman, Divinity dwells between them.” This means that the connection between them is the strongest. As a result of the parents’ example, the children will learn that they too need to try to live in agreement and mutual support. As parents we try to be as one, to share views, desires, and our perspective of each other.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1313 – Parents’ Agreement On The Education Of Their Children,”7/18/21

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Question: A teacher, who has always considered teaching as her vocation,  loves her work very much, and loves children, writes to you:

“I have been teaching for 20 years. I watched your clip where you say that school destroys the individuality of the child and that wrong things are being taught. I was trained to teach mathematics and I am teaching it. You say: ‘The problem is with teachers.’ Is there no problem with children?”

Answer: The matter, of course, is not in mathematics but in the general attitude of a person to person, a child to a teacher.

It is natural that children have complaints against their elders. They believe that everyone owes them and that they, as children, deserve special attention and treatment. And in fact it is so on one hand. On the other hand, we do not educate children.

Comment: But this teacher educates. She writes that she invests in them.

My Response: She put mathematics into them but not an attitude to people.

That is the problem. And this has nothing to do with mathematics or any other subject. This is the most important subject schools should teach. And it is not there. There are no such subjects in school, such lessons, such exams, nothing. There is discipline.

School does not transform a child into a person. It makes him a physicist, a mathematician, someone who knows how to tighten the screws, and so on.

Question: Is this why such an answer is so essential for her? It is humiliating the teacher in front of the whole class!

Answer: A student does not even feel this, or he feels like a hero, an open, straight forward person. It seems to him that he did absolutely right.

Comment: But she sat with him in the evenings preparing him for the Olympics.

My Response: It does not matter. She did all this because she is a teacher. She still did not bring up a person in him, and that is what she gets in return.

This is not her problem. It is the problem of all education and upbringing. We give children some kind of education, but we do not give upbringing. They leave school—every day after school and generally at the end of school—and they are beasts.

Comment: You said a terrible thing: “They are beasts.” And we are to blame for this?

My Response: Of course. If parents are always busy at work and children are at school or somewhere with each other doing who knows what and how, what do you expect?

Comment: They are mostly on their Smartphones.

My Response: And that is what they get from there.

This will continue until humanity comes to its senses and takes the whole matter into its own hands under the strictest control. Because a person cannot see and hear everything that is given to him. He must be brought up! And upbringing involves a very serious attitude to life. If this does not happen, then we see where everything is going. Even scientists now measure the existence of humanity in decades.

Question: What would you do in her place? Now she is faced with such a question: should she enter the completely silent class? The whole class was silent!

Answer: It is necessary to explain to everyone, to work on her mistakes and mistakes of all teachers, all students, in order to understand where this terrible flaw in education is.

Question: Do you think that teachers, the principal, and the students can sit down and talk about this? Can such a conversation happen?

Answer: I think it can. It depends on the class, of course.

Comment: In high school, for example.

My Response: It can.

Question: So the children are ready to have such a conversation with them?

Answer: If you do not speak, nothing will come of it. Then it will all be in vain. And, of course, it will be a pity for all her tears and efforts. I sympathize with her, I understand her, but she cannot relate to it the way she got used to during those decades of her work.

Question: You mean when she was respected as a teacher? When they would say “Thank you”?

Answer: Yes. She respected herself.

Question: Now a generation has grown up that says terrible things to your face. And we raised it?

Answer: Of course. We did.

Question: So we need to sit down together and talk. What would you say to children if you were a teacher?

Answer: Let’s understand our life, our relationships. Well, okay, we are already old people, but you are the next generation. What should you be like to make life kind, good, safe, reliable, and so on? And what should we do? How can we raise such people?

We need to talk about it, we need to think about it. Because our main goal is to raise a person, not a mathematician, a physicist, or anything else.

Comment: It will not be easy to soften them up.

Answer: No, there is no need to soften them up. They should realize at least somewhat that the world to which everything is heading is inhuman, cruel, and mechanical, a very unpleasant world, unsuitable for existence.

Question: And they will understand this if we talk to them?

Answer: I think so.

Question: Can these children change?

Answer: Yes, but not with one conversation.

Question: So the change will happen through a series of conversations?

Answer: Even if it is several years. What is the difference? We have to push it all the time.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/5/20

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In the News (NewYorkTimes): “All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore. …

“Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.

“A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate change and reduce household burdens for women. ”

My Response: It will be good for everyone. We will start thinking about the things we need to get rid of, what we need to stop producing, what is excessive. What is humanity occupied with? Production. So we will not produce what is not necessary.

Consumption will decrease and the birth rate will decrease accordingly. After all, in any family, when they want to have a child, they still plan: “Can we afford it or not, how will we cover the costs?”

Question: Do you think reason will prevail?

Answer: Everyone already has it, every family.

Only in animals everything is built on instinct, but another chain works for them: less food causes them to have a lower birth rate. Automatically. They do not think that it is necessary to give birth less, they have it instilled within their nature: less food, lower birth rate.

Question: Can you say that over time, we will become more conscious?

Answer: No, it is the same egoism that controls us and urges us to either give birth or not to give birth.

Question: Will it now lead us to the fact that predominantly we will not give birth?

Answer: People do not want to take care of others. Egoism is growing to such an extent. Why should I invest in these children who will not even thank me later? They just leave the house calmly as if they do not owe me anything, and I would like to demand at least something from them.

Everything revolves around egoism. Even if my children give birth to grandchildren, it still requires some kind of participation from me. I am not going to be the kind of grandparent who is burdened with the new generations.

Rabash said very simply about the attitude of children to their parents: “Close your mouth and open your pocket.” That’s it!

Comment: And it will get more and more drastic. In addition, the future is not particularly promising. In addition: “I want a quiet life.” And the birth rate will fall…

My Response: Everything will be fine. This is an auto regulated system by nature, no one else. Or call it “The Creator.”

Question: And what does He want?

Answer: He wants to create the most suitable conditions for our correction, for our self-correction.

We are at a crossroads: which part of our correction will the upper governance take upon itself and which part of our correction will we consciously take over.

So far, I do not see any movement toward this, no inclination on the part of humanity that realizes it should be different, more sociable, more ready to accept the challenges of nature consciously, and somehow address this, set these tasks for itself.

I do not see that research centers are created, as is usually done in humanity, to study this phenomenon: what is happening to us, to humanity, to society, to the family, to children and parents? There should be a lot of such institutions, different ones in every nation, in every group, in every country. We have to study all this.

We must produce all kinds of research on this topic. Instead, I see that not only statesmen are not concerned about this at all, I am not talking about them at all, they are only interested in their place, but even society, men, women, and families. There is no pressure, no challenge from society to create such research centers.

I have not even seen serious public research on the topic of the pandemic, really serious ones, not medical, not strictly specific, but concerning society, family, children, and so on. I do not see that they are engaged in this or that they are concerned about it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/10/21

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Comment: Gulnara writes to you: “It is very difficult to unite people of different nations and faiths. I think it is impossible. They unite during difficult moments, but then, when the difficulties pass, they hate each other again. National hatred and faith exist in people just like blood flows through their veins. It is very difficult to correct people. We have gone too far to be able to fix this.”

My Response: This is true. However, we all have the single upper force, the one Creator. Therefore, we can still unite, unite in Him! Then we will not have any opportunities to escape and hide. Only in this way will we be able to reach our single root and find the right connection between us in it.

Question: Is this what a person should discover and start aiming toward?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it our task to tell people about this?

Answer: This is, in principle, the solution to all our problems.

Question: Then there will be no multitude of nations but only one, the nation of the Creator, right?

Answer: Yes, just humanity.

Comment: Humanity.

I think we are getting closer to it. Of course, we still need some blows and disappointments.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/21

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New Life 1312 – How To Establish Good Communication Between Parents And Their Adolescent Children
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

We are all egoists and if we want to communicate, we need to adapt to each other by making mutual concessions. Building a family connection requires that each member of the family understands human nature. Parents should consult the kids about their family relations, which will help the kids to cope with conflict and reach agreements. Teens shouldn’t be suffocated or pushed to share their feelings. They need limits, freedom, and guidance. They need to know that they always have a protective shelter and a warm, loving home in order to feel secure.

Parents also need to set an example by showing the kids how they cope with anger and calm themselves down. Parents also need to show the kids that they don’t always think alike and that, sometimes, one of them identifies with the kids. We need to make children aware that the role of the family is to help them to grow successfully.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1312 – How To Establish Good Communication Between Parents And Their Adolescent Children,” 7/11/21

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Question: How can we work with people in order to bring them closer to an integral state?

Answer: Through conversations with them and between themselves about the meaning of life: “Why do we have such questions? Why, during the many thousands of egoistic developments of mankind, have we come to such a state when we have no idea where to develop further?”

Although the new generation is still striving for money by inertia, in principle, it is already beginning to show its fatigue and unwillingness to develop in the same form.

We see that egoism is no longer the driving force behind our development. We are ready to bury ourselves in our apartments with our phones and have no connection with anyone. The egoistic force of our development leads us to something completely opposite to it. Where did it come from? Why? Etc.

In general, there is a whole technique when, with the help of such clarifications, people begin to understand that the next level of development is supra-egoistic. It is aimed at ensuring that in unity we begin to comprehend the hidden nature—not inanimate, vegetative, and animate, but spiritual.

In principle, despite the fact that we are so developed, we are animals because we use the same egoism as all the previous levels—still, vegetative, and animate—only in a more exaggerated form. We must go to the next, collective level, Adam, to which the whole of humanity is gradually moving.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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