Entries in the 'Children' Category

A Network Of The Right Forces

laitman_934Question: Can you detail the basic principles of the educational methods of the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: The first principle: a person cannot educate himself on his own, and the teacher or educator cannot raise him! To do this a group called a “group of Ten,” of which he is a member, is needed. A guide who is outside of the group explains in how they should interact with each other to strive for the positive upper force. The negative higher force already exists in us. It is our egoism.

How do we attract the positive higher force? This occurs as a result of the correct interaction within the group, as much as ten egoists long to unite with each other. Along with this, each one nullifies himself with respect to the others and tries to increase and elevate the importance of the other nine people in his eyes. He tries to make an equivalent connection with all of them, thinking about them equally and absolutely balanced.

All ten people build a mutual connection between them on equal terms: Each one is higher than the others when he shows how he wants to give them everything that he has, and each one is lower than the others by demonstrating a desire to listen to each and every one of them equally in that he wants to create the correct network of mutual links between them. That is how there are three forces present in this network, positive, negative, and neutral.

So to the extent that they are ready, they gradually cultivate and shape everything and weave a network from the correct forces. Along with this, they pass through ascents and descents on the way and overcome every possible problem together. The Light then works on them in a positive manner because they are longing for it.

The Light eventually begins to be revealed in them and basically each one gives a negative force from himself, and all of them receive the positive force together. They begin to exist within a sandwich of the common collective positive force and the common collective negative force, which balances them. In this manner, from the two forces, they create a balanced system called a soul.

Within it they feel the upper world and the flow of special forces, emotions, and characteristics. This is the implementation of the method.
[199646]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

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New Life 806 – Good And Bad Qualities

New Life 806 – Good And Bad Qualities
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Don’t take care of yourself; take care of your relationships with others.

• How is it possible to determine which qualities are considered good and which are bad?
• There are no good or bad qualities that we are born with, but only a lack of understanding of how to implement them correctly.
• A successful person is one who knows how to integrate with his environment correctly.
• Not much of our innate characteristics can be corrected and we don’t know why we received particular qualities from nature, we just need to find how to use them properly within an environment.
• We were intentionally created differently from the start so we would complement each other in the connection between us.
• Our entire lives depend on the correct use of our qualities within an environment, meaning within the relationships between us.
[199718]
From KabTV’s “New Life 806 – Good And Bad Qualities,” 12/29/16

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Only Education!

laitman_232_06Question: In my opinion, humans are a bunch of well-dressed savages. This is proven by the experience of the Nazis being cultured, informed, and educated. How many blows of fate are required for us to become human from the viewpoint of Kabbalah?

Answer: I believe that the blows will not help here. Only education will help,  in which we can attract the positive force of nature. This is the only problem!

We can talk, discuss, think, and philosophize about the necessity to somehow balance a person to make him good or maybe beat him with a stick to drive him toward happiness, but this won’t help! All of these methods have already been tried!

Without the positive force of nature, the negative force cannot change anything by itself. You can drive a person in a corner, sitting there trembling with fear and continue to beat him, but this will not change his nature! It is impossible to demand that a person change his nature! It is only possible to offer to show him how to awaken and attract the positive force to balance the negative force, but not destroy it! Nothing in the world was created without a reason! We just need to awaken and attract another force.

We will not accomplish anything with the blows! Humanity has already gone through enough suffering so that with the help of Kabbalists they will also understand that what we need is for the positive force to operate in balance with the negative force.

Question: I understand how electricity or electromagnetic waves appear. But how does the positive force of nature appear? How will I know that I have attracted it?

Answer: A person begins to feel that he only wants to use a positive attitude toward those who are near or far, toward all of humanity, and toward all of nature: the still, vegetative, and animate.

In the first stage of correction, he puts the positive force into his life. In the next stage, he corrects his negative nature with the positive force because it is not only necessary to bring out the positive force, but he must also correct the negative force with its help.
[199014]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

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Traditional And Kabbalistic Knowledge

Laitman_632_4Question: What should I do with the knowledge that I have acquired and accumulated until I discovered the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: You can leave all the knowledge you have accumulated aside, but you may still find some of the previous knowledge helpful. If, for example, you studied education, the skills you have acquired will be very useful.

You can always apply Kabbalistic knowledge to traditional knowledge.
[199630]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

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New Life #341 – Altruism: Real Freedom

New Life #341 – Altruism: Real Freedom
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What are we missing to feel free; specifically how is this connected to relationships between people, and what is the profound difference between narcissism and altruism?

The influence of the surrounding society on us is very great. It determines values, norms, and goals for us.

At home, a small child runs from corner to corner and feels free because an umbrella of love is spread above him. Even an adult lacks a feeling of being loved. Only for this are do we need to love others. That is where freedom is. Altruism is what is most fulfilling. See how much joy children bring to their parents.

If you don’t have a feeling of altruism, you can never feel free. To be free is leaving the narrow concern for only myself and beginning to live for others. When we are involved with altruism, we awaken a special power inherent in nature, the upper force, the power of love.

The wisdom of connection develops a feeling in a person that there is a very pleasant and warm feeling with connection with others. Later on, a person begins to feel that the characteristic of giving is itself something sublime.

Every person can learn how to be free, to become freed from tensions and pressures. And beyond this, one can even break free from the limitations of death, leaving oneself and living within the whole forever.
[141399]
From KabTV’s “New Life #341 –  Altruism: Real Freedom,” 4/6/14

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New Life #340 – Freedom And Independence

New Life #340 – Freedom And Independence
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

Under what conditions will we truly feel free? What should we do and how does our feeling of freedom depend on building relations of love, closeness, and connection between us?

We have gotten used to all sorts of limitations that life imposes on us and it is within these limits that we are seemingly free.

Different desires continuously rise in us and we have to work hard to fill them. We are slaves to the beast inside us. We will reach a state in which there is abundance and everything one may desire in the world, but the question “what am I living for?” will torture us.

Today people in different places aspire for political independence, but this will not give them a sense of independence either. No one can isolate himself from others and feel free in today’s integrated world.

We will be able to feel free only when we annul the borders between ourselves and others, like a child in his mother.

Today I look at everyone with envy. Everything they have drives me crazy, their cars, their homes, their lawns… Escaping from the stress we feel is not a solution since it keeps coming back. We have to build relations of love and friendship. The frustration people feel today stems from the lack of the right good connections between us. There are barriers and limits.

We will be able to feel a good, unlimited, free life only when we are connected like organs in one body.
[141369]
From KabTV’s “New Life #340 – Freedom And Independence,” 4/6/14

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The UN Convention Rights Of The Child Is Pointless

laitman_547_05Comment: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly and opened for signature in November 1989. This is the most comprehensive international document for the protection of children’s rights. This convention is supposed to ensure the lives of children all over the world, but unfortunately in many places in the world children live in miserable conditions. Every year about 11 million children die before their fifth birthday and millions are hurt physically or mentally.

My Comment: No declaration can help. The UN is becoming an increasingly ineffective organization. You can declare anything, but it all depends only on people receiving the proper education. First of all, they must think about how to reach the true level of a human being and how to actually fulfill it.

But everyone in the world acts out of a need for control, and the UN, despite its assertions about its successful progress, it is really just “talking shop” for the great powers, and more recently, the Islamist extremists. The UN itself has led to the fact that no one takes them seriously.

Question: What do you think should be the rights of a child?

Answer: Adults must realize that they are responsible for the lives of young children more than for their own lives. We have to educate adults that way.

We are living in the 21st century and children’s lives are not considered of value yet. In many countries, like Syria and Lebanon, for example, minors are turned into terrorists and are sent out in front as a defensive shield. This, of course, is terrible.

Every adult must value the life of a child more than his own life, just like in a family. It is only through the right education that we can write a meaningful convention of children’s rights.
[197699]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/21/16

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New Life #339 – The Desire For Freedom

New Life #339 – The Desire For Freedom
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What stands in our way of being free? Why are we constantly chasing something, and when will we be able to attain real freedom? Even animals aspire for freedom. Man desires not to depend on anything.

Today, in the era of abundance, a person still does not feel free. He is enslaved to the impulses that emerge in him. Progress has brought us to the feeling of enslavement. This is the reason that the desire to get married and to have children is disappearing.

Life is one big rush. The question of  “Why am I running if eventually we all die?” comes up.

Drugs and antidepressants provide a sense of freedom from thinking about life, death, and the meaning of life. Freedom means breaking through the boundaries of life and death, knowing what lies ahead, and being able to touch eternity.

The aspiration to be free from death is concealed in every search a person makes in life. This is the reason that no one feels really free even when he doesn’t do anything or is on vacation. There is a feeling of discomfort.

The question about the meaning of life stems from the hidden question that is in everyone’s heart: if everything comes to an end, why should I run at all? The media blurs this internal pain.

Being free means opening new unlimited horizons and being free from the question that gnaws at me.

Terrorism and fundamentalism make a person feel that he is fighting the angel of death and that he is winning. The young generation don’t want to leave their parents’ home. The more you learn, the more pain you feel. For what…
[141237]
From KabTV’s “New Life #339 – The Desire For Freedom,” 4/6/14

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New Life #338 – The Ideology Of The Israeli Nation And The Next Revolution

New Life #338 – The Ideology Of The Israeli Nation And The Next Revolution
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What makes the ideology of the nation of Israel so special? What can we learn from leaders of revolutions throughout history and how can the Israeli society affect the future revolution?

Since the days of Abraham, the ideology of the nation of Israel has been the fulfillment of “love thy friend as thyself.” Two thousand years ago we broke away from that and since then we have been going downhill.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, our ideology is “love thy friend as thyself.” This is our constitution. This ideology is the internality of the nation, and it is time we return to it. Then we will be a light unto the nations of the world. Baal Shem Tov began spreading the love of others among the nation of Israel, and then Marx continued this ideal.

We don’t understand how this connection works, but it exists. The seed of Israel is found in every revolution.

Abraham was the first revolutionary. He brought a new force into the world, a force of giving, mercy above the force of receiving. The Jews have the hidden tendency to develop into something new.

Today only the nation of Israel can lead a social educational revolution in the world. The correction of the world is the transition from egoistic relations to relations of love and connection. This is the ideology.

The next revolution will not involve a dominant part and a part that is dominated. The connection between us will prevail, the upper force.

God is the upper force that dwells in nature, that connects everything, that develops everything. The next revolution will be according to the ideology of the nation of Israel.
[141185]
From the KabTV’s “New Life #338 –The Ideology Of The Israeli Nation And The Next Revolution,” 3/4/14

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Egoism In The Service Of The World

laitman_939_01Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: And it is natural that each and every individual feels himself in the world of the Creator, as a sole ruler, that all the others were created only to ease and improve his life, without him feeling any obligation whatsoever to give anything in return.

And in simple words we shall say, that the nature of each and every person is to exploit the lives of all other people in the world for his own benefit. And all that he gives to another is only out of necessity; and even then there is exploitation of others in it, but it is done cunningly, so that his friend will not notice it and concede willingly.

It is possible that a person doesn’t even feel that he uses another when giving, but it can’t be that we give something selflessly. In any case, it will be with the intention to receive.

The reason for it is that the nature of every branch is close to its root. And because man’s soul extends from the Creator, who is One and Unique, and everything is His, hence, so man, who extends from Him, feels that all the people in the world should be under his own governance and for his own private use. And this is an unbreakable law. …

This law can be called “the law of singularity in man’s heart.” No person escapes it, and each and every one takes his share in that law: the great according to his size, and the small according to his size.

Thus, the above law of singularity in the nature of every person is neither condemned nor praised, as it is a natural reality and has a right to exist like all parts of reality. And there is no hope to eradicate it from the world or even blur its form a little, just as there is no hope to eradicate the entire human species from the face of the earth. Therefore, we will not be lying at all if we said about this law that it is the absolute truth.

 

It is clear that this is our nature. The important thing is not to hide this law—this “absolute truth” that only our egoism operates in the entire reality—but to use it correctly. After all, egoism is the only material of creation, and if we don’t learn to use it correctly, we will suffer all of our lives.

A person’s entire life, from birth to death, is a fight. How is it possible to enjoy it and reach an eternal and perfect life? For this, we need not destroy our egoism, but to use it properly.

There is no force in the world that can correct our egoism. Therefore, people think that there is no solution. All of the governments, philosophies, nations of the world, and the cleverest presidential advisors can’t recommend any method of correcting human egoism. Competition and using others remains.

Only the wisdom of Kabbalah, by attracting the upper force not inherent to our level, our life in this world, helps us draw force of love and can show us how to properly work with our egoism. It turns out that egoism is very useful because we build the system of connections above it. By rising above our egoism in the form opposite to it, we discover the upper force of nature.

Egoism has an infinite number of forms of egoistic connections between us, and all of them are forms of the upper force of love and bestowal, but in reverse, like a stamp and its imprint. If not for egoism in its various forms, we would have no possibility of revealing the form of the upper force and attaining it. It would have been elusive.

But because we transform hatred into love, we reveal its shape. All of this we can experience this practically if we sit down in a circle and in half an hour through a simple conversation according to the integral methodology, we begin to discover the beautiful results of our connection.

This is despite the fact that people with opposite views, strangers to each other, are gathered in the circle. This demonstrates that, in reality, there is a positive force hidden inside the connection and it is between strangers. If they sit in the circle together and have a conversation according to the integral method, they begin to discover warmth, unity, closeness, mutual understanding, and a willingness to concede to each other.

They see in what form it is possible to connect and fulfill each other and how to help each other in the circle. From the very first attempt, they discover many laws of connection.

Our egoism is an indisputable fact, and everyone thinks in no other way than egoistically. It is also true that there is no other force in our world apart from it. All of the uniqueness of the wisdom of Kabbalah is in the fact that it knows how to extract from nature the second force that is positive and offsets the negative egoistic force to add plus to the minus, which is the force of connection.
[199864]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Education for Concession”

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