New Life #360 – Music Connects The Hearts
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What is the essence of the connection between a musician and the audience for whom he performs? How does it connect us with a sense of harmony and how can we use this essence in teaching integral education?

The sound of music that a person plays is a means of connecting his heart with the heart of the listeners. Great musicians can feel how the audience before them swallows the sounds and the feelings they convey.

The sitting arrangement in a live performance is important in order to connect the audience; this is the reason that an amphitheater is built the way it is. Before a musician begins his performance he needs to tune himself to the fact that he is going to connect everyone as one.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #360 – Music Connects The Hearts,” 4/27/14

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New Life #359 – The Effect Of Music On People
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Music is a universal language that directly strums the strings of our emotions. What makes it affect us so strongly and how does it create the feeling of harmony, elation, and connection between us?

Summary

Music is a language that expresses our innermost feelings,; it can change our mood.

Music immediately reminds a person of something and arouses certain feelings as if it skips the mind. Music is an emotional language. It is different from ordinary language that requires understanding, a mind, memory and the ability to compare.

When I hear sounds, my feelings begin to operate to the rhythm of the sounds, they control me. We have an understanding and feeling. Our sight operates on understanding; our hearing operates on feelings,

In order to hear better we sometimes close our eyes so that our sight will not interfere with our attempt to focus on the music. Hearing belongs to our insight.

The sounds that we perceive give me a sense of harmony and balance. I enjoy the wholeness of the sounds.

There is something in musical harmony that is similar to the upper wholeness in nature. This is the reason that music elates us. There is nothing threatening in music and it brings quiet joy, tears, and something that is very internal, personal, and deep.

All of nature plays music and music can heal.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #359 – The Effect Of Music On People”, 4/27/14

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Question: We all know that more and more students use laptop computers to take notes during lectures, and don’t use a pen or pencil anymore. Psychologists Pam Miller from Princeton and Daniel Oppenheimer from the University of California, Los Angeles, studied 67 students and proved that those who take handwritten notes were better students who perceived the material better and retained it for longer periods of time than students who type do it more mechanically.

Answer: Of course, a person who writes also writes the letters in his mind since the letters are symbols that are depicted first in a person’s mind and then are presented on paper.

It is hard to remember letters that are typed, but when you write them, they are retained in our memory more easily because you draw them. This is the reason that writing, and especially reading a text from a book, is totally different from typing or reading on a computer screen.

Question: Is there a spiritual element here?

Answer: Not only is there a spiritual element, but a physical element as well. We must process the material, and this can happen only when we read the printed material or material that is written on paper, not material that is presented electronically, although those are the same letters that are in the book.

With regard to writing, everything is perfectly accurate and clear. People who write develop new habits. They develop new abilities to acquire knowledge and integrate ideas. However, when you type a text by hitting the keyboard, these symbols are not recorded in our brain.

Question: Still, there is no going back to the notebook and the pen.

Answer: We don’t need it. Today, there is no point in people writing for themselves because there are no good ideas.

The world already is advancing toward recognizing its worthlessness, toward recognizing the need for general correction.

We are about to see a general revolution in our attitude to the world that will reveal everything we must do and how to do it. We will discover how to write, how to read, how to speak, how to act, and most importantly how to be connected to one another. It is all in order to discover the real world inside us that we don’t yet feel.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/10/16

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Question: An unprecedented medical case was recorded in Poland. A woman who had brain cancer died during the 17^th week of her pregnancy. Her brain ceased to function, but her heart kept on beating.

The doctors did not dare perform a Caesarian section because they feared the embryo wouldn’t survive outside of the mother’s body. They decided to support the mother’s internal organs so that the heart would continue beating, and she remained alive. And the child was born.

The child’s father was by the mother’s side the entire time and read fairy tales to his unborn child.

Answer: This is a very touching story with a special attitude toward life. The father probably really wanted a child from this woman, and that affected the outcome because the developing embryo feels how his parents care for him and convey to him everything that they can. Such powers strongly influence the embryo’s development.

The doctors also acted in a very humane way because a fetus at 17 weeks of development in the womb is already considered a human, and therefore must be saved.

They used quite an unusual method to keep the mother’s body alive for the sake of the child, but we can assume that if they could have asked the mother, she would have agreed because the maternal instinct makes a mother do everything for the sake of her child.

I don’t know if she had consented to that, but judging by the father’s behavior, it seems that the doctors did the correct humane thing. Let’s hope that the child will be raised accordingly and will grow up to be a special, good-hearted person who will be a benefit to society.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/21/16

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New Life #358 – The Good Life Channel: Humor And Mood
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

What makes us laugh, what will we find if we learn to laugh at ourselves and how will the ability to laugh at human nature help us create a connection between us?

Summary

Humor leads us to dress up as all kinds of characters, freeing us from our seriousness. Through humor and jokes it is possible to educate and learn in a way that will be remembered by the learner.

Laughter is contagious; it lowers tension and relieves stress. We laugh because of unexpected phenomena. Humor and laughter must always come from love; otherwise, it hurts someone. An example is the use of gentle humor in relationships between couples.

It is worthwhile for a person to laugh about his weaknesses sometimes. Don’t “play” at being perfect.

As a society, we can laugh at our egoistic nature that prevents us from connecting with each other.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #358 – The Good Life Channel: Humor And Mood,” 4/24/14

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Comment: Few in the world succeed in living according to the ancient altruistic principle, “Do not do to your friend what is hateful to you” (Shabbat 31a). Leonardo Christov-Moore and Marco Lacoboni, scientists at the University of California, reached the conclusion that a method exists to get people to behave less egoistically and to experience greater altruism.

This conclusion was reached after many studies were carried out whose findings showed that it was possible to inject a vaccine into a person and obligate him to behave more pro-socially.

Answer: I would say this differently. A person is essentially a highly developed animal and it is possible to teach him to carry out particular actions so that he will not “dirty up” his house. It is just necessary to educate him correctly for this purpose, meaning that the concept must be conveyed to him correctly. Through it he will understand that he will be punished for some actions and rewarded for others.

We experience pain as a punishment and pleasure as reward. These create electrical impulses that flow through us and create various amino acids.

So it would be possible to invent a device that would transmit a signal with a particular frequency to a person that would penetrate a sensor sewn inside the person and this person would feel pleasure or pain according to his good or bad actions. In this way, it would be possible to turn a person into a “Pavlovian dog.”

If we begin to be involved with education according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it would seem that it suggests something else. It suggests that a person can be elevated to the level of the “device” that sends him the reward and punishment.

At the same time, a person must understand how he is built and develop to the highest state in which no punishment exists but only an immense reward. The person will understand that this exalted state is possible only when he is absolutely connected with others and builds an organic whole with everyone. In other words, we must bring ourselves to a state in which the positive impulse found in nature fills us all the time while the negative impulse gradually begins to function only to remove from us what is called the “dregs,” the residual garbage from our “good” efforts, and leave a place that can be filled with everything wonderful and eternal.

I believe that it is up to us to be in connection with the higher nature, not with the help of sensors but with whoever manages the sensors.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/28/16

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Freedom And Instincts

Question: The war of the sexes is the most fascinating battle that a person starts from early childhood.

At the age of 5-7 years, we already see a big difference between boys and girls; confrontations and conflicts start between these two groups, and on the other hand, they feel attraction.

How can we explain this game that continues throughout life?

Answer: Man is the most flawed and miserable part of nature. After all, all of inanimate nature, plants, and animals behave according to the instincts acting within them. Lion and lioness or elephant and elephant cow don’t question how to behave with each other.

Everything is clear to them and everything happens according to the laws of nature that control them. Each one knows what it needs to do and acts in this framework. Their life is much simpler than a human’s.

But man is left the freedom of action, since it is at a higher level of development than animals. Man can decide by himself what the correct relationship between a man and woman should be, as well as many other forms of behavior and attitudes toward society, nature, the upper force, and our whole life in general. All this doesn’t bother animals and not even humans when they are not very developed.

But developed people think about it and, when establishing relationships, must act artificially instead of following instincts. It is essential to study the nature of man and woman and to be aware of our current state as well as the final state that we have to reach.

Based on this we by ourselves need to build such a system of relations between men and women for mutual replenishment that nature itself would have created if it were dealing with it.

For this we have a lot to learn. It is impossible to resolve it ourselves without knowing the deepest laws of nature, human nature, and the ultimate goal of his evolution. It is necessary to comprehend the nature of men and women, to find out why we are the way we are and not different, and what forms of mutual relations we need to reach. It is obvious that we need to make up for each other.

But it doesn’t look like people understand this. Psychology of men and women is a young field of research in its infancy. And besides, we do not know anything at all about the general nature and an inner psychology of person: my view of the world, myself, my life and perspective.

We do not see and cannot imagine a future image of men or women, what will they be in a hundred or thousand years. It is necessary for us to know what the ideal relationship between men and women should be in every moment on the time axis. But we do not have any idea about it.

And so we can’t give our children a proper education on this subject without knowing what to tell them. In school curriculums this most important subject is also absent. All this brings disorder in our lives and many disappointments, problems, even tragedies. It is obvious that such education is necessary, and the wisdom of Kabbalah could provide invaluable help here.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/16

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Research (The Washington Post): “Hell might actually be other people — at least if you’re really smart.

“That’s the implication of fascinating new research published last month in the British Journal of Psychology. Evolutionary psychologists Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Norman Li of Singapore Management University dig in to the question of what makes a life well-lived. While traditionally the domain of priests, philosophers and novelists, in recent years survey researchers, economists, biologists and scientists have been tackling that question. …

“They use what they call ‘the savanna theory of happiness’ to explain two main findings from an analysis of a large national survey (15,000 respondents) of adults aged 18 to 28.

“First, they find that people who live in more densely populated areas tend to report less satisfaction with their life overall. ‘The higher the population density of the immediate environment, the less happy’ the survey respondents said they were. Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.

“But there was one big exception. For more intelligent people, these correlations were diminished or even reversed.

“’The effect of population density on life satisfaction was therefore more than twice as large for low-IQ individuals than for high-IQ individuals,’ they found. And ‘more intelligent individuals were actually less satisfied with life if they socialized with their friends more frequently.’

“Let me repeat that last one: When smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy.”

Question: How is it possible to unite people who have a high IQ?

Answer: People with a high IQ cannot be combined because they are united only in their respective fields and only in their narrow interests.

But a common platform can appear among different people with different levels of IQ, through the knowledge of the possibility of establishing a new level of perception, with the union of a higher purpose—and the rise to the next level of perception of nature and life.
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New Life 155 – The Passover Seder, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

How can we live a better life as individuals and as one Israeli family? What do we organize on the Seder Eve? And what can we learn by that in order to improve our life?

What is the Seder: We celebrate the discovery that there is order in creation, a plan, a program of development, a sublime goal.

In the beginning our forefathers were idol worshippers. Terach, Abraham, Egypt, and the connection to the upper force. This isn’t history. We celebrate the possibility of revealing the order to exit slavery and be liberated.

Humanity is led like a herd and does not perceive the order (“Seder” also means order in Hebrew). Very few understand and actually manage the order. Connecting to the inner software that operates nature makes everything go and leads to a good life.

Israel demands a new social order but doesn’t really understand what it is. This is exactly the feeling of darkness. The new order has to be compatible with the level of development defined by nature.

Moses understands the Seder since he knows how to connect to the upper force, and therefore he is the only one who can draw the people forward. He leads them to come out of the ego, ascending to a brotherly connection and discovering the upper force of love and bestowal among us.

We discover a common mind and heart through integral education, by learning the system of connections and through connection workshops. We are the slaves of the current social order: working, purchasing, spending, being in a constant chase! We are not able to escape this enslavement yet, but there is already a feeling of inner bitterness,

There are two trends today: growing external problems, multi-faceted crisis, and inner distress.

We will not be able to lead a good, healthy, joyful life without changing society. We need to connect and feel mutual guarantee among us. We are slaves to the social system we have built, to Pharaoh that forces us to live the way that we do.

Questions to think about: What manages me? What affects me?

We are the slaves of society, and therefore only the upgrading of our social values will help each of us. There is only one change we have to make: adding  the love of Israel to society, so that we will feel as one nation. We need a social-educational process: sitting together several times a week. We can also do it through the media.

Lesson # 1: The world is connected and integral today; all of nature is in a state of mutual complementation. Only man disrupts the balance in the world since he consumes much more than he needs.

What causes natural disasters, revolutions, and wars? It is actually we who are the lords of creation that are the most miserable. Why? It is because we cannot manage our ego. There are two conditions for managing our ego: rational consumption and good communication with others.

How do you communicate correctly with others? You rise above all the criticism that you feel toward others. In this way we reach peace, mutual complementation, and a truly good life. There is abundance in the world and the only thing we lack is connection. We can attain it by educating ourselves to live a new life, together, not under pressure or coercion.

A workshop for the Seder: Imagine that you have ascended all your egoistic feelings and that you are relating to others differently. Describe the new attitude out loud. We feel a new atmosphere among us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 155 – The Passover Seder, Part 2,” 3/12/13

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New Life 154 – The Passover Seder, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

What are the hidden meanings of Passover and the figures in the Haggadah and why do we keep the tradition for generations and celebrate the Seder?

Nimrod symbolizes the ego that erupted and separated people. Terach was a supporter of Nimrod. Abraham, his son, was against him. He realized that advancing according to the ego is a mistake. According to the ego a person who is more successful succeeds more. The opposite form is connection and mutual relations.

Abraham’s method was to use the ego in the opposite way, which allows a person to get to know his nature. A person begins to feel the force that builds the egoistic desires in him and to discover the Creator.

Nimrod and Terach realized that Abraham was ruining things for them. Abraham left with thousands of his followers. Abraham’s group moved to the land of Canaan. The ego grows and there are great disputes, but they try to keep connected above them. Ego and anti-ego: there is endless work that leads to the recognition of the source of life, of a new life.

Jacob’s sons represent different methods of working above the ego. Joseph represents the most advanced method. They went down to Egypt where there are the seven years of satiety, then the ego grows and Joseph’s method is exhausted.

These periods are called the levels in a person’s work above his ego, which are his help against him. Then there are the seven years of hunger in which a new king rises who doesn’t know Joseph. The ego has nothing more to gain.

The new ego called Pharaoh is very cruel. He doesn’t let us live and connect. A new force called Moses is revealed and says: “We have to fight Pharaoh!”

Nimrod is a level of the ego and in contrast to it there is Abraham’s method, Pharaoh is a level of the ego and in contrast to it there is Moses’ method. Moses is a special upgrading. We need the force that constantly builds a new ego in us, the Creator.

The children of Israel need to understand that the new ego is ruining them, and the ten plagues develop this recognition. They reach the state of darkness, the necessity and inability to connect. We drown in the swamp…the night of the exodus from Egypt.

We have no power to connect, but we have the power to escape from Egypt by a small force called Moses. This is an internal journey of developing the method of connection, the growing ego, and the gathering at Mt. Sinai.

The children of Israel begin to recognize God, the force of nature that is everywhere and develops everything. Pharaoh is the most cunning ego that requires the revelation of inner software that builds the ego. At the gathering at Mt. Sinai, the mountain of hatred is revealed, the Pharaoh that is among them.

Passover is when we begin to be a nation that is connected to the inner force that builds our nature, the upper force. The connection we feel among us is called the general soul, and so the evening of the exodus from Egypt is considered a birth.

So why do we clean for Passover? We clean ourselves of our ego. Hametz (leavened food) equals ego; Matza is the force of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 154 – The Passover Seder, Part 1,” 3/12/13

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