Question: When speaking about the relationship between man and woman, you described the “mirror principle,” according to which I see a reflection of myself in my partner since I radiate my egoism onto him. What does this mean? If it seems to me that my husband does not value me, does it mean that I do not value myself?

Answer: Why do you demand more recognition from him? In essence, it is your egoism that requires this fulfillment. And what do we gain if we rise above egoism and do not make such demands?

First, by doing so we will not suffer from feeling undervalued by our partner. Second, we thereby acquire a new quality. The demand for respect and power reveals its opposite: by overcoming a certain egoistic quality and beginning to rise above it, I receive a quality opposite to it. This allows me to gain a new tool, a new attitude toward the world.

For example, if earlier I demanded attention and respect from my partner, now I become more modest in my claims. After all, I already understand that if I look objectively, he treats me quite normally, it was simply that my egoism inflated the bar of expectations. So let us concede, let us reduce our egoistic demands.

I want my partner to be attentive, considerate, and to keep promises, I want to stop his endless “offenses” in everything concerning household matters, neglect of my interests, lack of signs of love and care. After all, with the years the husband calls his wife less and less to ask how she is doing, takes less and less care of her. And so, if I lessen my complaints, if I do not keep count of grievances and work hard on myself—because for me this is still very important—then I annul the former, spoiled connection between us.

I rise above the inflated demands and relate to my partner with love, like a mother to a child. Even if on his side there still remains “crime,” despite my efforts, I hold to the principle: “Love will cover all crimes.”

How do I thereby help my partner, considering that he also has joined into the framework of our course? I give him an example, and also awaken a readiness for the same reciprocal relation in him. Thus, here lies an invitation to a new life. In essence, I open myself in order to receive a new attitude from my partner. And I check this attitude not egoistically; on the contrary, what matters here is that we both mutually develop our relationship above egoism and support each other.

By my example I help my partner to rise above egoism. I make efforts, I speak with him about how good life will be if we rise above our natural, base, egoistic impulses. And as a result, mutual example and mutual support lead us upward.

Moreover, each of us now looks at the world correctly, sanely, with readiness to yield. Again and again, I see the world in comparison with myself as something perfect. The new outlook allows me to see it as perfect nature. It is no longer only about my partner, the whole world becomes my mirror.

This is a kind of psychological training, a psychological method of the highest order, which allows a person to ascend to a new perception of reality, of the world, of family, and of relations with the partner; it is a perception that we did not have before.

Of course we must first practice this in the family, and in the end, we will build a new world, new relationships. And here mutuality is necessary. We both must understand that we represent something like a small “laboratory” in which two egoists strive to use the egoism that has developed in them correctly. In our generation it has grown to such an extent that it destroys everything, and we want to use it as a lever and build healthy relations above it that will allow life to continue. Otherwise, only ruin awaits us.
[83478]
From the 32^nd conversation New Life 32 – New Kind Of Relationships, 7/11/12

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A child should grow up free. That is, he should sit and listen to his elders, but it should be interesting to him. And he should spend more time with his friends, with friends and teachers together. Go out into the fields, tinker with some small and big machines, and something else like that. That is, we must raise a child according to his ways.

Question: Do you think this is more important than, say, making him learn physics or algebra?

Answer: That does not accomplish anything. Only a few struggle through this, and only because they want to be above others.

Question: So you are least concerned with knowledge?

Answer: Indeed. We do not need it.

Question: So what you just suggested, what does it accomplish? Does it liberate him, what does it give a child?

Answer: What I propose develops a child in the natural flow of his activities. In that case, he will invent anything, not some helicopters or planes, but spaceships based on completely different principles, the ones we think those who visit us sometimes probably have, etc.

That is, liberation will give freedom to ideas, as we still do not know what potential lies in a child. Entire worlds are inside him.

Question: You are talking about freedom. What is the principle of this freedom for a child?

Answer: The principles of this freedom are free contact with nature, discussions, conclusions, arguments with adults and with their peers. All this is vital for the proper development of people. Otherwise, you just put them in some kind of square, I do not know, in a cube, and they cannot break free of it for the rest of their lives. You make their thinking formal.

Question: By doing so, are you stopping this whole progress? But in fact, this progress could have been out of this world?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What does this require of teachers?

Answer: This requires teachers to become different from the teachers we have today. We need to redo everything over a number of years. But we will come to very different results.

Question: Realizing this, will we ever come to realize we need to “jump off a cliff?”

Answer: Through a great revolution.

Question: What needs to be changed? The Ministry of Education, you know, everything is tangled up in here, the whole bureaucratic system.

Answer: All of it!

Comment: They would not want to…

My Response: I am not talking about whether they want to or not, whether we should fight for it or not. I am not calling for anything.

Question: So how will this happen?

Answer: I do not know. I am just stating the truth.

Question: Can our thinking be changed from above?

Answer: Anything can be done from above. By “from above,” I do not mean the government.

Question: So the upper force can turn our thinking around?

Answer: Yes.

Question: In what case will this happen?

Answer: I cannot say for sure, but it seems to me that when we are completely discouraged with what we have.
[348226]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/14/25

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Question: What does love give to a person?

Answer: Love gives a person an inner radiance that enlivens him. Life.

But the problem is that love is a much deeper relationship that we must reveal between us.

It is not about those feelings that arise according to a person’s inner inclinations, which are instilled in him by nature or acquired through upbringing. We must first reveal the proper values—to understand what is truly called love, to what extent we exist within the nature of mutual hatred and mutual rejection, and if that is so, then what must be done in order to attain love, since the source of life is love.

Question: Must we reveal what love is?

Answer: We must reveal the secret of life. This secret is connected with love. For without it, there is no continuation.

If there were no attraction between plus and minus on the still level, no joining and separating between molecules on the vegetative level, if there were no such calculations between living bodies, when one hates or loves another depending on the level of development, if there were no feeling of a mother’s love for her child on the animate and human level, then without this, nature would not develop, not even the simplest cell would exist.

Everything exists according to love and hatred, according to the force of attraction and repulsion. These two forces must be balanced.

Therefore, it is not by chance that it is written in the wisdom of Kabbalah: “Love will cover all crimes.” These two fundamental forces, located at the center of creation, must be balanced with one another, and then between them there will be proper, gradual development until such a degree that both love and hatred will develop to infinite proportions. And in this way we will attain the world of infinity, the world of truth, which is the goal of our development.

Therefore we still have to reveal how to come to the clarification of what love truly is—for it is the source of life.
[180108]
From the conversation “New Life 692 – What Is Love?”, 2/16/2016

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Comment: Empathy is the ability to feel emotions that correspond to the emotions of another person and compassion is the sympathy for someone else’s suffering.

My Response: It is as if you relocate into another person and feel their experiences.

Question: How can one develop this within oneself? As I understand it, if this feeling were cultivated, we would live differently.

Answer: Yes, then we would educate people accordingly. I believe this is possible. We simply do not engage in this. In general, from the age of 13 to 14, people are already capable of deeply sensing another person’s suffering. And they need to be educated for this.

Comment: This would absolutely, completely change the world.

My Response: Of course, without a doubt.

Question: So compassion can be cultivated in a person?

Answer: One can cultivate the understanding of compassion for another person and give a person the ability to comprehend how to perceive it to the point where in their compassion, a person will be able to share in another’s suffering, partially take it upon themselves, and thereby neutralize the suffering of the other.

Question: And will you not burn out from doing that?

Answer: No, because by neutralizing their suffering through your participation, through your empathy, and through your compassion, you gradually divide their suffering into many smaller parts, and in this way, the person calms down. And in doing so, you can lead the entire world to balance, to an inner state that can already be called bliss.

Question: So if compassion were shared equally among all the inhabitants of Earth, would it bring bliss to the world?

Answer: Yes, this is precisely what we must achieve in our unity. Because, in principle, we are certainly facing very serious problems ahead. After all, egoism is growing, and the upper light is being revealed more and more in relation to our egoism. That is, related to our egoism, we will feel increasing pressures to such an extent that if we cannot unite and share it all among ourselves, we will not be able to endure it.

Question: Now I understand the essence of what you always say: “Unity, connection, good thoughts, and good relationships.” The foundation of all this is compassion, is it not?

Answer: Yes, but it is practically not even compassion. It is the sharing of the enormous suffering: the opposition between the enormous desire and the enormous light that is meant to fill that desire, and the lack of intention “not for oneself,” which would allow the light to fill the desire.

Question: So fulfillment is only possible if it is for the sake of others?

Answer: Yes, that is why we need balance here. This can only happen through understanding how to learn compassion, how to share the opposition between absolute fulfillment and absolute emptiness among everyone.

Naturally, it will turn out neither less nor worse. But if we want it to be shared in this way, then the contradiction itself disappears. This is the special property of unity.

Question: And then, this bliss comes?

Answer: Yes, at that point, the sensation of opposition, impossibility, and inner cry transforms into satiation, into something higher, into pleasure. There is no longer any difference between enormous pain and enormous pleasure. They merge into one.

Question: And what, then, does pain become in this case?

Answer: It turns into pleasure because you have balanced them with one another.

Comment: That is something truly elevated.

My Response: That is how it happens, on a higher level.

Question: So pain is given to us in order to turn it into pleasure?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And the greatest pain ultimately becomes the greatest pleasure?

Answer: Yes, if you know how to reconcile these opposites, you receive pleasure.
[347365]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 8/15/25

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Comment: Elon Musk once said: “I want to be part of what changes the world. Making mistakes is not scary. The main thing is to make new mistakes each time.” I would like you to comment on this.

My Response: That is correct.

Question: So we make mistakes all the time?

Answer: Without that, it is impossible.

Question: It has always been said: “We learn from mistakes.” Do we really learn from them?

Answer: Not everyone does, but mistakes come precisely so that we may learn from them.
[302847]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 6/30/22

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Comment: “School doesn’t teach you to be happy.” That is what an eleven-year-old boy wrote.

My Response: That’s right! In school today they simply demonstrate that dullness, obedience, and the suppression of happiness are normal conditions.

Question: But in principle, the slogan of the school should be: “We must teach children to be happy”?

Answer: Yes, we must raise people who are happy.

We need a school that teaches the correct attitude toward the world, toward life, toward friends, toward teachers, and toward parents, and this does not require grades that someone else gives you, but rather that when you are taught, you yourself give yourself the grade.

Question: Can make such demands even of a little child?

Answer: That is what we must aim for. Explain this so that they themselves can grade subjects, textbooks, their instructors, and so on.

Comment: So the child can say: “Today I was not in shape. I should have read this, and worked on that a bit.”

My Response: That is good.

Question: There is a fear of making mistakes. School doesn’t teach that it’s possible and necessary to make mistakes. By the way, that is what the eleven-year-old boy says. Do you think one should make mistakes?

Answer: I agree with him.

Question: So is a mistake an important thing? And one must make mistakes?

Answer: It is inevitable.

Question: And what if I make a mistake?

Answer: It is okay. I’ll fix it, I’ll learn from it even more than from something I did without a mistake.

Question: So it is even more important than if you move forward flawlessly?

Answer: We constantly make mistakes and correct ourselves, make mistakes and correct ourselves.

Comment: Trolling, classmates’ mockery in this often the fault of teachers who expose children to ridicule.

My Response: To live in such a society, a child must be taught how to relate correctly to society, to the environment, that this is possible, that this is and will exist until we correct our nature. That it is the nature of man that compels him to be above others at any cost.

Question: And the fact that they put me down now, is that just human nature?

Answer: Yes, that is their nature, nothing can be done. But I must understand their nature and somehow, in some way, forgive them, accept them as they are. And maybe even correct them in this way.

Question: And I should feel that this is also my nature; it is the same, and I can do the same?

Answer: Naturally, yes.

Question: So, you would like to introduce the words “human nature,” “human egoism” almost from the first grade, so that a child would feel it?

Answer: Even earlier.

Comment: The amount of homework. “I think homework does not affect children’s performance and education,” says the eleven-year-old boy.

My Response: I think homework causes disgust, hatred toward school. And therefore, it is not needed. What is needed is simply that a child goes there (whatever they teach him and however they teach, better or worse, more or less interesting), but he comes back from there, and he doesn’t have this homework hanging over him.

Question: So that he doesn’t have this burden, that “I urgently need to do this, how will I go to school tomorrow!” And instead of homework what should there be?

Answer: Instead of homework there should be absolutely free time, somewhat structured, but felt as free, what he himself would like to occupy himself with.

Question: Himself? So that he finds his own niche?

Answer: Yes, everyone in something. We had a lot of clubs back then. I don’t know they probably do not now.

Comment: I don’t think so. There were Pioneers Houses, clubs.

My Response: There was such a huge House of Pioneers! And there were a huge number of clubs, and all were free. You went, signed up wherever you wanted. Even in several if you liked! And went, studied.

Comment: Do you remember the modeling club, radio.

My Response: Yes, and you didn’t pay for anything. I went, among other things, to a photo club. Photographic paper, chemicals, everything was free. Absolutely everything free! That is so amazing!

Comment: And how warmly the club teachers treated the children!

My Response: Yes, people with a character like that worked there.

Question: Where did it all vanish? What was so bad about it?

Answer: The time! The time is not the same. We fell into such a bad streak.

Comment: “We fell into it, ”that should be the name of this story.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: “School doesn’t prepare you for adult life,” this boy thinks.

My Response: I actually think that nothing can prepare you for adult life. We just plunge into it, like into a whirlpool. And that’s it. And then each swims out in his own way.

Question: What is preparation for adult life, if we’re speaking about it?

Answer: Here it is necessary to create special, absolutely clear, realistic pictures from life.

Question: In school? Right for the children so they learn to get out of them, to deal with them, and so on?

Answer: Yes, to discuss and so on. On the other hand, to give them some patterns, but realistic ones. For example: “How would you act if you…” and you give them a story.

Comment: You know, this boy’s conclusion is very interesting. He says: “I think that the main subject in school could be a subject where we are taught to understand one another. After all, the ability to communicate is the most important thing.”

My Response: That’s exactly right!

Comment: It’s as if he’s listening to you.

My Response: Make him Minister of Education. And that’s it. ☺

Comment: No knowledge is needed, only such conclusions.

My Response: And put all these ministers into school.

Comment: Exactly!
[347172]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 8/13/25

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Question: How should we work with insults? Children do not help their parents; they have practically abandoned them. Someone truly betrayed someone else, someone sold out a friend, and so on. How should we work with these offenses?

Answer: I think we need to reach a level of development at which we will understand that all the people around us are puppets controlled by the Creator so that we can properly correct ourselves in relation to these people, justify them, and wish them well.

Question: Is that possible?

Answer: Generally, yes. Not always and not immediately, but still…

Question: It is a long process, but that is the direction we should go in?

Answer: Yes! Otherwise, you are slandering the Creator. And that is a completely different matter. There the calculation is entirely different—it is a matter of how you perceive the universe: whether it exists on its own, or whether you govern it. If everything comes from above, then we have no other choice but to make ourselves absolutely submissive, agreeable, and capable of changing to resemble this upper force.

Comment: That is beautiful. I would cautiously suggest that our whole world is a world of sinners. We all exist in a state of hatred and constant offense.

My Response: Like little children in a sandbox.

Comment: And we respond, and respond; we keep responding. Look at all the diplomatic corps, how they clash: “You expelled my diplomats…”

My Response: Stop joking! Just stop. This is all…

Question: Then why are we being joked with like this?

Answer: So that we eventually become truly disappointed. Not in how the Creator made us this way, but in how foolish we were not to realize why He made us this way. And the answer is right in front of a person, but he does not want to see it. But all this is so that it accumulates, breaks through, bursts out, and explodes.

Question: If people begin to follow this direction little by little, what will our world become?

Answer: Our world will transform from today’s madhouse into a world where people are engaged in self-research, self-healing, and self-building.

Question: And through that, do they, as it were, bring the Creator into this world?

Answer: Yes, to the extent that this happens, the Creator is revealed within them.

Question: And what do you mean by “the revelation of the Creator in a person”? What does that mean?

Answer: The quality of bestowal, of love, which elevates us to an entirely different level of perceiving the world.

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

Answer: No, there can be no other path.
[346610]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/24/25

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Question: Don’t try to buy off your child with new sneakers, tablets, or toys. Then how do you “buy” a child?

Answer: By showing him that you are his friend, that you are supposedly on his level. And just imagine how much you have to remake yourself for that, how much you need to change.

Question: Yes, it is me who has to change. And what do you mean by the word “friend”?

Answer: You understand him, you are ready to help him, support him. The main thing is to understand him.

Question: Don’t overdo it with developmental courses, clubs, extracurricular activities. Let the child live through their childhood organically.

What is an organically lived childhood?

Answer: In general, yes. A child should do what he wants.

Question: To that extent?

Answer: In the end, he gets his desires and opinions from his friends anyway. So it is not really his own. But still, encourage him.

Comment: But you said you were surrounded by composers, by music. And little by little…

My Response: It did not really give me anything special.

Question: But it gave you an ear for music. You definitely have an ear. Do you still think a child should be given freedom of choice?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Keep your word. Say it once, do it the second time. Would it be better not to promise the child anything at all so as not to deceive them?

Answer: No, but if you want to demonstrate upbringing, then you must both promise and follow through.

Question: Let him make mistakes. Finnish researchers say: “What a wonderful mistake!” That is, I could even say for a mistake: “Well done. You made a mistake.” Can such an approach be used?

Answer: Not “well done.” But find the mistake, correct it. Here you have a mistake. And it is not an accusation, you are not blaming him.

Question: “Do not be afraid to overlove your child”—people say that. What does it mean to “overlove”?

Answer: Not to show excessive love, especially where it might get in the way.

Question: Can love get in the way?

Answer: Of course. Everything must be measured and in balance.
[346846]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/1/25

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Question: People used to meet and start families. There was happiness in having a child. Let me ask you a strange question. What was the parental happiness in having a child?

Answer: To see their future in the child.

Question: Is that how it should be?

Answer: Yes, of course. Children should be born and they should continue their family line.

Question: Today it seems to have disappeared. Suddenly, for many couples, a child has become a burden. Why?

Answer: Our egoism has divided us, disconnected us, placed everyone in their own corner, and that is it.

Question: But why does egoism need that?

Answer: That is how it works. Our egoism benefits when we are focused only on ourselves and care only about it.

Comment: And concerning our egoism, which is the closest and dearest to us, we say that it is a burden to us.

My Response: It is not the closest and dearest. We say that it is a burden to us because it prevents us from taking care of our true “child,” the one inside ourselves!

Question: So this “I,” my ego, is the closest and dearest?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: Look where we have gotten! I wonder what will come next.

My Response: It will get worse. We will reach a state in which everyone hides in their own corner and does not want to talk to anyone. That is it! I will only order, say, pizza and cola, or something else.

Question: And what will happen then? We are constantly leading humanity to some kind of dead end.

Answer: It is a dead end. Humanity must see its own dead end. But when it becomes clear that it really is a dead end, then an epiphany will come from this dead end—that we cannot continue like this.

Question: Do you think that there can be no awakening before that?

Answer: No, I think we must reach that recognition. In other words, there should be no wars or riots or violent outbursts, but there should be a clear awareness of hopelessness and deadlock. Then we will begin to think: “What should we do?” And then we will remember: “Wait, I once heard something from Kabbalists.”

Question: Yes, there is a book on my shelf, a clip saved, and so on. So they will look and begin moving toward correction?

Answer: I am sure of it.

Question: Do we need to keep dripping it in, putting it on shelves and into computers?

Answer: Absolutely! We have no other choice.

Question: Even if we keep coming to the same results?

Answer: It does not matter. If you have a small child who is growing and developing, you still have to tell him what to do and how to behave properly. You cannot just let it go.
[346011]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/3/25

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Question: I do not understand what it means to yield without canceling my own desire. What is the difference between a concession in which I cancel myself and one in which I do not cancel myself?

Answer: A concession in which I cancel myself is when someone stands over me with a stick and after a few blows I have no choice but to give up my desire and do what the stick-wielder demands.

But the concession we speak of in integral education is something I do of my own freewill. I want to yield because I understand what I gain by doing so.

I understand that I have no other way to grow, expand, and stretch my boundaries if I do not cancel myself. Concession means that I cancel my own boundaries and allow foreign qualities, desires, and goals to enter inside me. And I accept them as if they were my own. Otherwise I will not grow, and I will not be able to connect with anyone. I will forever remain inside my inflated self, which in essence is a puffed-up zero locked from all sides.

Absorption, assimilation, and mutual inclusion are necessary conditions for development; they are a form of life. We have all seen movies in which two cells meet, merge into one, and then begin to multiply and expand into a new body. This is only possible because each cell yields and opens up to the other one in order to unite. Without this, there will be no life—this is the entire secret of it.

This needs to be explained and emphasized from the perspective of society. On the other hand, we are being pushed in this direction by the global crisis that demands that we begin to connect our dead, isolated cells and build a living body from them.

I open my boundaries and try to use my desire, my habits, and all my abilities to fulfill the desire of another person. My concession lies in the fact that I disregard myself in order to fulfill the desire of my neighbor. Through this, I acquire their feelings, their reason, and their thoughts.

It all begins with a conversation. Each person must imagine an internal map of their partner. What does each of us want from the other? What does he demand, and what would he like to see in the partner? We begin to practice such discussions.

But we do this not like an ordinary family trying to simply improve their relationship, but in order to acquire and build new senses within ourselves that are capable of perceiving the other. In this way I exit my egoism and begin to see what is happening around me.

If a person can correct himself like this within the family unit, then he will also succeed at work, in relationships with others, and ultimately reach balance with all of nature. In this way we tune ourselves to perceive external reality. I no longer live only within myself, but I begin to absorb information from the environment outside me. And outside me there are vast forces that I currently neither know nor feel.
[100952]
From KabTV’s “New Life 40—The Key to a Good Relationship Is Mutual Concession,” 7/25/12

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