Question: What basic feelings and virtues of each person deserve respect and why are so many people deprived of it?

Answer: We need to respect only the aspirations and efforts of a person that are aimed at humanity’s benefit. Not for the good of oneself, one’s nation, or one’s family, but only for the benefit of humanity. If we respect this, we will see the extent to which a person overcomes his egoistic nature for the sake of belonging to, and sacrificing for, the entire world.

I think all people should overcome themselves, their egoistic desire. If each of us sacrifices ourselves in this way, then in response we should receive gratitude and respect from society. Everyone—the children at home, the wife, the relatives, the parents, the environment, the friends, and the whole world—should be grateful to a person and appreciate him only to the extent of his contribution to society.

A person is created in such a way that he needs the recognition of society. By this, in essence, he expresses himself, his “I.” If we make society protect a person and respond to his contribution to humanity, this will obligate everyone to be an active part of humanity. We will see from everyone only good things in relation to the entirety of human society and we will see what contribution each one makes.

Therefore, we need to establish such laws in our society so that everyone can be assessed only by their contribution to humanity and so that it is easily visible.

If we measure a person only according to these criteria, if everyone knows that this is how he is assessed, this is how he is treated, then he will have no way out. He will have to become a healthy cell in the general body, that is, a person that is as useful as possible for humanity.
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The Round Table of Independent Opinions, Berlin 9/9/06

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New Life 1051 – Inner Consciousness, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The expansion of human consciousness happens through desire, a deficiency or hunger for an awareness of the entire reality. We become more conscious when we ask existential questions like, “Why am I alive?” and engage with a Kabbalistic group in order to discover the answers together. To the degree that I connect to others with attitudes of love and bestowal, I acquire the higher power that is between us. Development of consciousness means attaining a connection with the upper force; I recognize and activate it and this is how I advance and discover the truth. The higher power is bestowal and love and it is what manages our lives. To develop consciousness, we need to create a connection with this higher power.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1051 – Inner Consciousness, Part 2,” 8/21/18

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New Life 1050 – Inner Consciousness, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to attain a true and complete consciousness and experience a higher reality. A person normally lives within himself, within a field of pleasure and suffering, and what he imagines about himself and about the world is completely incorrect. When the desire for pleasure becomes aware of the higher power that produced and developed it, a spiritual consciousness begins to develop. The developing consciousness is built from emotion and intellect or heart and mind since these complement and influence each other. The more desire I have, the more intelligence I will have. A child who doesn’t want anything will not develop intellectually. Research on consciousness can only be accomplished by changing desire in a positive or negative direction.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1050 – Inner Consciousness, Part 1,” 8/21/18

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Question: How can one learn to listen to oneself and others and not just hear? After all, this quality will only improve relationships between people.

Answer: This requires an inner contact—a contact of the hearts. Once you desire to fulfill each other, you will be able to listen to each other.

And so people do not listen to nor see each other. They create a certain reality within themselves and treat it as a person who is actually outside of them. We do not see those who are outside of us; we see everything that is built by our egoism within us.
[233122]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/29/18

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Question: Many times I’ve heard you speak about the necessity of proper upbringing. What is upbringing according to Kabbalah? Can egoism be educated or do we need a properly educated egoist?

Answer: A Kabbalistic upbringing means an upbringing by means of the upper Light. It is when I, along with my friends, with the help of various actions described in the Kabbalistic methodology, attract the upper Light. The upper Light influences us and brings us to a state of unity where the Creator is revealed and where we all become one whole. This is the state we have to reach.

A Kabbalistic upbringing is supposed to unite us under the influence of the upper Light, revealing the Light under the condition that our connection, our mutual bestowal, will resemble its qualities. Then in the union between the upper Light and us, we will reveal its source—the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/29/18

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Question: What advice can a Kabbalist give to build a successful connection between parents and children?

Answer: It depends on the situation in which the child is being raised. He should not be in antagonism with his environment. A child should know that the family supports him as much as possible, gives him confidence, protection, and will always be behind him.

Then he will become a strong person. Surprisingly, exactly when he feels that a good family and love are behind him, he grows up to be brave.

This is a paradox that is especially noticeable in Israel: Here children are brought up very gently and later they are not afraid of anything, not in the army or during the war, which cannot be said about Arab children, who are brought up extremely harshly. This is how the psychology of the various layers of society manifests.

Give children maximum love and sensitivity and you will see that they become strong and independent.

Question: Wouldn’t this turn them into little egoistic bandits?

Answer: No, love and softness are not permissiveness. This does not mean that children do not have any framework. After all, you educate them, give them everything necessary for education, but at the same time you support them and they clearly know they have support behind them.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/29/2018

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Remark: Our generation is called the “Selfie Generation.” People fall from bridges, rocks, get into accidents and want to capture these moments.

My Comment: In principle, a lot of people work for death. Death is a dear point in our existence when I leave after me something I wish will remain related to my name to feel some kind of eternal existence.

Question: What does this narcissism lead to?

Answer: This leads to understanding that all this has no importance, no value.

Question: What will happen when we come to this?

Answer: We will begin to understand that there is emptiness in the world! It will be very bad! Then we will begin to seek life’s real fulfillment: eternal, perfect, enduring, existing outside the framework we exist in today before death or after death.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 7/3/18

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Remark: Soccer is the religion of humanity. Boys run and chase the ball in Iran, in Israel, in France, in Turkey, and in Germany. There is some kind of unity around the football.

My Comment: People need it. Better soccer than war.

I am in favor of people playing instead of engaging in wars and quarrels. But we will have to add a different relationship to this, to make this game non-egoistic so that people will start to communicate because there is still too much competitive spirit in soccer.

It seems to me that if the players themselves, after mutual defeat or victory, organized a good festive dinner all together, in an embrace, this would be a good example to the world of how it should develop.

As they say, friendship won. I hope that somehow, someday, we will get to it, and then people will see that there is a basis for good in these games.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/26/18

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In the News (BBC): “Adolescence now lasts from the ages of 10 to 24, although it used to be thought to end at 19, scientists say.

“Young people continuing their education for longer, as well as delayed marriage and parenthood, has pushed back popular perceptions of when adulthood begins. …

“There are also biological arguments for why the definition of adolescence should be extended, including that the body continues to develop.”

My Comment: I think we are faced with the phase of the inhibition of human development. Society has embraced an atmosphere in which people do not want to grow. They are comfortable without growing up; they want to remain as children.

We are on the threshold of a new world. The former incentives no longer work: a professional career no longer entices us and robotics threatens to end many specializations. In the coming decades, educational institutions will head into the virtual space, production will be automated, and the delivery of goods and services will be transferred to a network platform.

As a result, only a small number of people will be able to be engage in creative activities, developing something new. And what will happen with everyone else?

Adolescence can be extended up to the age of 40. What’s the difference? When a person finds something one can be useful at, then a person matures. And if not, then one will remain in their teens at a minimum wage.

Until recently, the age of active life lasted from the age of 15-20 years to 60-70. And now we have a long childhood and a long old age.

This is natural. When egoism grows, it is very difficult to exit it, to start doing something and somehow working with it. It is much easier to be absorbed with yourself through a computer and a smartphone, spending hours in your small room, knowing that your mother will cook something for you.

What is the solution?

The way out of adolescence is a desire for accomplishment. But in the modern world, this desire is weakening. For many, virtual reality toys are enough. People do not have any reason to grow up even in a simple, material sense.

On the other hand, they have time and the opportunity to understand that they are prisoners of their own egoism. It distracts them from what’s most important—the opportunity to rise above the ego’s operating system, to take control into their own hands, and find their purpose.

By discerning this, a person will finally come out of the kid’s room and find one’s purpose.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/23/18

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Question: Why do newborns cry so much?

Answer: They have very small minds. They feel only their feelings and cannot balance them with reason. That is why they are either happy or they cry.

Question: Does this phenomenon have a spiritual root?

Answer: This is a very small Kli (vessel), which lacks reasoning ability. That is why a newborn displays what it feels.

Remark: Your teacher Rabash used to say that when a child cries, no one pays attention, but when an adult cries, then we understand that there is some kind of prayer there.

My Comment: Among adults there are people with different sensitivities. That is why their tears are not related to spirituality. Kabbalists are prone to serious expressions of emotion, but these, as a rule, are rarely seen externally.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 12/31/17

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