Question: Yesterday we held a round table in Afula which was attended by the city’s mayor, the head of the regional council, and leading specialists in education. The discussion was about the educational system in the 21st century. Our message was that children have to be prepared for life in the new, tightly interconnected world. The discussion participants did not object, but the impression was that we are trying to sow wasteland. Will people be able to understand the challenges facing humanity before it’s too late?

Answer: If they won’t, then suffering will force them to. A live example is Europe, which is deep in debt. Its leaders do not know what to do, yet they feel and understand that a split will entail a very serious catastrophe. On the other hand, they don’t know how to unite. Even multibillion tranches of assistance do not guarantee them a bright future.

It would be nice to pay once and get rid of the problem. This does happens in life: You make a concession and unload a great burden off your conscience. However, in this case nothing is working. Europe’s problem is a lack of communication.

Many people are already saying that it is necessary to create a single government or at least a single financial agency.

But how? After all, in that case it would be necessary not only to cancel the governmental boundaries, but all other boundaries as well, to annul all the differences. The common financial system means common social security and pension provision for everyone, common funds and conditions…. Stated differently, it requires the same attitude to everyone, and that means there will be one European nation and one boundary around all of Europe where everyone are equal.

Initially this concept is scary because nothing like this has ever happened in history. People don’t yet understand that the solution can only be found in unity. A person is driven by what he personally lacks, and unification is not on that list. Only great problems can push people to that. It is possible to advance forward under blows, meaning suffering or by common sense, either by a stick hitting you from behind or by a carrot enticing you from ahead. So choose one of the two.

For now we are driven by the stick, which is especially hard on the Europeans. But soon Americans will also feel its blows.

The only thing we can do is explain what is happening to the world, presenting the facts. An experienced expert sees and understands the problems. In the same way, all people have to see with their own eyes that which they do not notice yet. Using videos, movies, songs, and other media it is necessary to inform them of what is happening in the world today. Even if a person is far from this, he must nevertheless learn about it at least slightly.

That is how we will ameliorate the situation, turning every person into a specialist in some sense so he will be wary of heedless actions and will be willing to cooperate. Besides, by virtue of this we will gradually make the authorities aware of the need to organize an environment that provides people with an upbringing.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/11, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Is it possible to have a universal economic theory for everyone today?

Answer: The economy is a reflection of our interconnections. The science of Kabbalah essentially explains the economy to us, or how we provide for one another. When taking care of others, I make a calculation: How much do I have to receive from them in order to bestow to them?

This is exactly what Baal HaSulam writes in the Writings of the Last Generation and “The Nation”: how to set up the right interconnections, what fair distribution should be like, what balanced consumption is, and how to receive only the necessities and put all the rest of your efforts only toward helping others.

This is the economy. Granted, we haven’t yet learned to describe it using formulas such as this, which will be clear to modern economists. We ourselves still lack the clear understanding and sensation of the nearest, smallest levels which we will ascend as we make the transition from the current, capitalistic economy to the economy of balance.

We understand that spiritual “fuel” is necessary for this because in the material sense every person will receive the necessities according to his nature and no one will have any excesses. Then what will motivate people? After all, the egoistic desire does not disappear; it only grows, especially in the spiritual world where it is billions of times stronger. That is why there, we receive the upper Light, and not just the “crumbs” that we get here.

Thus, our problem is the transitional period when we go from using others for our own sake to using ourselves for the sake of others. How can I consume the minimum and enjoy by bestowing? For that I need the upper Light to turn my nature “inside out.” How can I want this, how can I ask for this ahead of time, avoiding the suffering?

Obviously, suffering will make us be willing to do anything. But I have to independently imagine the picture of bestowal so the current state will seem worse than death to me. The future has to shine so bright that I will desperately want to escape the present. There, up ahead, a life so wonderful is waiting for me that the current existence loses all meaning. It only bothers me and I have to put an end to it.

How can we depict this picture? On one hand, it holds great suffering, but on the other hand, it is the suffering of love, longing for something great. In our world people often give up their entire lives in order to attain the picture they have painted for themselves. A person can spend his entire life working as a plumber or electrician. Then why are people running after something else? It’s in order to receive a supplement, although on the animate level they don’t need it at all. This is not just an unforgettable vacation anymore, but a sum in your bank account, which gives you pleasure in and of itself.

Thus, we are not yet able to explain the transition from suffering to longing. We do not have a feel for the real economic measures that will be used parallel to society’s upbringing. This is what we will have to do in the future.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/11, “Peace in the World”

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Opinion: (Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission President): “A Greek default would have unforeseeable consequences and cause the euro zone crisis to spread, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying in mass-selling Bild daily.

“‘If we give up on Greece, there is a big danger that the crisis will spread to other countries,’ Barroso told Bild in an interview to be published on Monday, echoing comments of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Barroso noted the euro zone had no experience with the possible bankruptcy of a member state.

“Barroso added that Europe needed to correct the ‘orgy of consumption’ that had taken place in some countries due to the introduction of a strong common currency with low interest rates.”
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Opinion (Alex Jones, an American talk radio host): “The international banking cartel is using Obama and the US military to start World War III.

“The controllers of the New World Order believe they can achieve their one world government by destabilizing every country in the Middle East and Northern Africa and draw Russia and China into crisis to create a world-wide catastrophe. Once this event occurs, and the world is brought to the brink of total obliteration, the global banking cartel plans to move in with their final phase: a one world government and eugenics agenda.

“We are right now in the beginning stages of World War III. If this situation escalates, it can result in the worst world war that mankind has ever suffered.”

My Comment: My only comment is that we have to disseminate rapidly the knowledge about the true cause of the crisis, about nature’s design and goal of our development, and about the method of advancing along this path. It should become known to the masses, and then it will be clear to everybody, even to the President’s advisers.
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In the News (from The Financial Times): “From Mr George Soros and 95 others: Sir, the euro crisis needs a solution, now. The current measures are too little and too late and are precipitating global financial turmoil. The euro is far from perfect, as this crisis has revealed. But the answer is to fix its faults rather than allowing it to undermine and perhaps destroy the global financial system.

“We, concerned Europeans, call upon the governments of the eurozone to agree in principle on the need for a legally binding agreement that would: 1) establish a common treasury that can raise funds for the eurozone as a whole and ensure that member states adhere to fiscal discipline; 2) reinforce common supervision, regulation and deposit insurance within the eurozone; and 3) develop a strategy that will produce both economic convergence and growth because the debt problem cannot be solved without growth.”

My Comment: None of these proposals can be realized in practice because they are based on the previous state of man and society: “an individualist and egoist among his own kind.” And today it is already “an individualist and egoist in the network of mutual guarantee.”

If we do not take into account that the world has become globally dependent and integrally connected, not by our economic and industrial trade ties, but within itself, due to its development, we won’t succeed in anything and will always shoot off target. When solving any personal and common problems, we have to take into account the new conditions and our interdependence.
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Opinion: (Mohamed A. El-Erian, Pacific Investment Management Co.): “Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Mohamed A. El-Erian said organizations such as the International Monetary Fund need to act with European banks at risk of being engulfed in the region’s sovereign-debt crisis.

“‘We’re getting close to a full-blown banking crisis in Europe’ … ‘We are in a synchronized global slowdown. There’s very little confidence in economic policy making both in Europe and the U.S.'”

My Comment: Although the participants of the IMF and the World Bank meetings are already disappointed by their own abilities, they do not see any other options. What’s needed for them to hear us? I think it’s the voice of the people. When the available funds for solving the crisis run out, protests will begin in the developed countries of Europe and the United States. The revolution will take place in people’s mind: They will understand that they face the problem “above themselves,” which they cannot solve, and then they will hear the voice of the Mutual Guarantee movement.
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Question: How can the mutual guarantee be used as a coefficient in a formula? Is it really possible to measure human relations: 50% or 75% of mutual guarantee?

Answer: Of course relationships can be measured: There are 125 degrees of mutual guarantee (the same 125 spiritual degrees of which you have probably already heard). Everything can be measured precisely because according to the way that a person relates to others, every soul consists of Rosh–Toch–Sof (head, inner part of the body, and limbs), and here are parts that he restricts and parts that he uses partially, half, or quarter way.

There is no problem with measuring the mutual guarantee in spirituality—it corresponds to your degree. And are you are asking how we should evaluate the mutual guarantee in the economics of our world? Mutual guarantee does not and cannot exist in our world. The first degree of mutual guarantee is a spiritual degree.

Right now we are in a transitional period called “the time of preparation,” preparing for the entrance into the spiritual world. When I say that the mutual guarantee needs to be entered as a coefficient into the economic formula, I mean that the entire problem with the breaking and the crisis we are now experiencing is the fact that we lack one parameter from a higher degree.And when we acquire it, we reach peace, fulfillment, and balance for a certain time. And after  each time, we will feel like we have lost this balance—the lack of mutual guarantee and economic instability.

This will keep happening on every new degree, until we reach a state when every person suffices with the necessities needed for living, which he himself will determine. At the same time, every person will give the maximum to the extent of his abilities, and he will also determine this maximum himself. This is how corrected everything will be.

But if a person has not yet reached this state, the desires that he is not yet able to work with are being guarded. And this protection is not imposed by his forces since he is not yet capable of it; it is done through the environment, which pressures him. Baal HaSulam explains that the society of the future will be evaluating how much every person needs as well as encourage people by giving them medals, influencing people with encouragement or judgment.
[57526]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/2011, Shamati #219

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There are disorders taking place everywhere, including menacing cases that become expressed spontaneously and uncontrollably, and no one can predict the outcome of what is happening. Just like the crisis itself, its waves are rolling over everyone and no one is left in peace. The rich are forced to help the poor, while the poor manipulate the rich’s dependence on them….

Every economist in the world has his own opinion about the reasons for the economic crisis that is taking place. But we are forgetting that the crisis is not economic, but pertains to all of civilization: There is not one area of human activity that is not undergoing a crisis.

The crisis is happening in all of the social systems we have created: healthcare, public assistance, marriage and family, education and upbringing…. Undoubtedly, everyone started paying attention to the crisis when it became being expressed in the economic and financial realm because our survival depends on this directly. But to reveal its causes, we have to examine it as a whole, as a crisis of civilization.

The reason for the crisis is just one thing: every day, the world is becoming more interconnected and interdependent from within, by nature, and therefore, every day it is becoming more and more opposite to the external connections and culture that we have imposed on it in the form of separate countries, societies, opposing systems, and so forth. Precisely the difference between the world’s unity, which grows bigger every day, and the culture of separation we have created, is the crisis that is growing worse.

We are incapable of stopping the expression of the world’s inner globality and integrality. This is coming from its original nature, which we are unable to influence.

We also cannot observe the constantly growing opposition between the world’s inner structure, where its unity is being revealed, and the external one, humanity, where its divisions and contradictions are being expressed. This is evoking a multifaceted crisis inside of us.

The only solution to the problem of the developing crisis, our growing opposition to nature, lies in all of humanity’s gradual attainment of unity, mutual guarantee, and balance between humanity and nature, reasonable consumption. However, this contradicts our egoistic nature and therefore it is possible only when the environment exerts a wholesome, positive influence on every person.

For that, it is necessary to form a new social, personal consciousness that can be attained through universal global education and upbringing about the global, integral connection among all people that is being expressed in the world. To achieve this, every country has to decide to form an environment around its society, a setting for educational influence.

Creating a mass media system that involves scientists and experts who explain the new, global world, its new social laws, the need to follow them for the sake of survival, is the educational part. Creating large virtual and non-virtual connections that will pull people in, give them an example of unification and joy in it, is the part of upbringing.

Undoubtedly, by taking the first steps in this direction, we will immediately and clearly feel the crisis receding.
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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society. Meaning, because each person in the world draws his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and care for the well-being of the whole world.

We have proven above that the total subordination of the individual to the collective is like a small wheel in a machine. He draws his life and his happiness from that collective, and therefore the well-being of the collective and his own well-being are one and the same, and vice-versa. Therefore, to the extent that a person is enslaved to himself, he necessarily becomes enslaved to the collective.

Does this mean we have been enslaved? Will it be necessary to subjugate every person and country to the demands of a specific regulation? Then where is freedom of the individual? Where are equality and justice, if they will coerce others to do something?

The issue here is that a new, all-enveloping system is gradually “dressing” upon our world and we are compelled to submit to it. There is no other way to go. We have to accept this global, integral system that is being revealed everywhere today. We have to help each other do this and even obligate one another because we depend on each other. No one can fence himself off from others and communicate with them “at a distance.” The world has become very small. We are drawing our resources from the same sources, we are all “knitted together.”

The system of global interconnection is imposing mandatory circumstances on us. However, it is not imposing arbitrary rule, but the principle of mutual guarantee. We have to take care of one another and at the same time we have the right to obligate one another to observe this principle. No one can use the advantage of force to impose his own will and laws on another. This is not talking about someone’s personal whims, but the will of the general, integral system that is expressing itself and imputing common obligations to all of us.

Because we are all totally interconnected, we have to get organized according to the universal system that nature is demonstrating to us. If someone does not accept it and does not leave us with any other alternative, we have to take care to ensure that he will nevertheless desire to adapt to the new conditions, if not by his own desire, then against his will.

How? Very simply. We will sever all connections with him, will isolate him, leaving him one-on-one with the global system. Today we don’t need wars or atom bombs. It’s enough to deprive a country of the vital arteries, to close off the channels through which it exports and imports goods and raw materials. We won’t buy its production and won’t trade with it, and the country will fall apart, including its industry, energy, and other systems.

Today not one nation can manage without others or shift to autonomous mode. That is how interconnected everything is. Therefore, we have to explain to societies, countries, and governments what they don’t understand yet: The only way we will survive is by observing the law of mutual guarantee, and in no other way.

Thus, the well-being of the whole world depends on the well-being of every society and every country, and vice versa. All of this leads to far-reaching consequences, which we cannot even imagine. Every person will feel that he depends on everyone in every way. Even when I prepare a cup of hot tea, the whole world participates in it together with me.

This situation is dictating a completely new worldview, a new sensation of the world to us. From here on I am entirely and fully under the power of others, directly dependent on them. And if I am aware of this, like an animal that cannot put food and drink into its own feeder, then the understanding of the system of mutual guarantee allows me to take my place in it like an obedient boy.

That is why it is so important to start educating people today. We all have to open our eyes to where we are.

The path there is not easy. We see this by Europe’s example, which is fighting the financial crisis. It’s leaders are having a very hard time understanding the meaning of what is happening. They blame one another, but in reality no one is guilty. It’s just that until now everyone behaved egoistically, but now we are being deprived of that possibility.

The same thing goes for our group. For the world the issue at stake is material life, whereas for us – it is spiritual life. We have to understand that spiritual life depends on the revelation of the system of mutual guarantee. We will begin to live spiritually only in it and thanks to it when we establish interconnection, harmony, fair distribution, and single-hearted relationships among all of us.

Then, from our degree of spiritual interaction, we will be able to pour this knowledge, this educational method into the world, onto the degree of material interaction, giving the world all of the abundance that will pass through us. With the help of upbringing, we will give people the vessels, while the Lights coming from us will fill them with the sensation of life.

In principle, the world already understands that it really has become “round,” but on the other hand, it still does not feel the entire extent of its interconnections. In the near future we will see with our own eyes that every person opposing mutual guarantee will be subject to very powerful blows. All of the “smart-alecs” who don’t want to create good relationships with others, who don’t aspire in the direction of order, interconnection, and mutuality – be it separate people or entire nations – will experience the negative consequences of their own gambles boomeranging back at them.
[57858]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/11, “Peace in the World”

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Question: Yesterday, on October 15th, an event was held in Tel Aviv called “Uniting for change in the world.” During one of the discussions an activist said that he is sorry about how weak the protestors are, “We won’t achieve anything because we let the authorities take apart our tent cities. We have to be more aggressive to be heard….”

Answer: This is the regular egoistic approach. We acted this way throughout all of history. But who said this is fair or just? That kind of struggle won’t lead to any results because any “accomplishment” will be achieved at someone’s expense. What’s required here is general social agreement, compensation via all-enveloping consideration.

In reality, all of the disorders, all the hatred and animosity, all demands of the social protest are intended for us to reveal the upper force. If people try to establish good relationships on the social plane, they will reveal nothing but evil. In the egoistic reality, there is no hope for peace. However, while they are inside of that reality, they cannot imagine or envision anything different.

This is why people are demanding to take money away from the rich. We already know the price of pretty words about fair distribution.

Therefore, we have to remember that we are dealing with “children” who do not understand the ways of the universe, are in no way connected to the forces operating in nature, and do not see the true, final goal. It’s as if I take my disobedient child by the hand and lead him in the right direction. On the way he shouts next to every fast food stand, “I want ice cream! I want potato chips!” So what should I do? I buy him an ice-cream and lead him further since otherwise he would remain in the same place and continue going wild pointlessly.

This depends on who organizes the correction. If we give the instigators freedom to act, their “correction” will lead to disorders and bloodshed, which might have unpredictable consequences, both in separate countries and in the whole world. Besides, they won’t attain what they desire because they are going against the goal of creation. Instead of correcting the interconnection between people, only hatred will become revealed in them, more and more. That means one way or another, we will have to explain the real state of affairs to the world.

As for those who “wave their fists in the air,” their rants will end with the first blow that misses. We were all young and hot-blooded once. Everyone, including the government, understands that at this age it’s necessary to let a person “go wild.” But nothing can be achieved that way.
[57777]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/11, “Peace in the World”

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