Question: We say that excessive consumption is consumption at others’ expense. However, in order to see the evil contained in it, do we have to peek at the end of the movie?

Answer: No. The Creator does not have a shortage of minerals, vitamins, oil, gas, water, or anything else. He arranges troubles for you in this world so you would begin becoming aware of your loss. You are losing out.

The Creator does not show you that in reality you are letting the spiritual world pass by because then you would lose the freedom of choice. Instead He puts you under the blows of this world, from which you begin to realize the evil of your nature. You don’t reveal the Creator as being the cause of your troubles, but your own egoism.

Then, unable to correct it, you begin to regret having it. That is how you gradually come to the realization of evil. So what should you do with it? How can you climb out of the trap? Slowly but surely, you come closer to the solution.

Lack of resources, natural disasters, and people stealing from each other are all artificial things at the end of the day. This is “small change” intended to help us eventually reveal the fact that we are stealing the spiritual world from one another.

In reality, why should I share what I have with you and satisfy myself with the bare necessities? It’s only in order to learn from this and acquire the desires that aspire to spirituality. This is the goal, and everything is structured precisely this way from the beginning. Otherwise every person would have gotten his own planet.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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The crisis is coming over the world, and people feel it, they feel that things are getting worse for them. And indeed, it will not get better unless we begin to correct it through harmony with the Creator or the surrounding Nature, which is the same thing.

This is why we need to look for people who will respond to our call; we need to disseminate, “throw information around,” and to better utilize the Internet as a medium. The Internet is practically our only opportunity to be everywhere for free. First, we need to bring ourselves in order, but on the other hand, when you start organizing others, you also organize yourself.

The first thing we need for our work is inner unity, and of course the most important aspect of our work is circulation. The crisis clearly shows us that we need to care more for others than ourselves. We will reach the goal faster going down the most reliable avenue if we disseminate Kabbalah. Through the nearing crisis, the Creator is showing us that we do not have time for ourselves. We only have time for the world: By organizing it, we will organize and correct ourselves.

The global crisis became obvious only a few years ago. For a long time, ecologists have been screaming that we are in trouble, but it was specifically the economic crisis that put us into a panic. Why the economic crisis? Because it reflects the egoistic connections between people: When these connections become global and integrated, it becomes a problem.

What is economics? It is a display, an expression of our egoistic connection: the amount each one of us wants but is unable to make and only does with what economic, egoistic bonds and relations according to the principle of “I for you and you for me” permit. Economics is pure egoism in its clear, harsh, real form. And when it suddenly enters a global and integrated state, we discover that this state is completely opposite to it.

We can negotiate anything, even atomic weapons—out of fear. But we are basically incapable of negotiating economics: Everyone is pulling the blanket over to their side. How else can it be?

This is our main problem. The economy is already manifesting in the world as a global, integrated, interconnected, mutually binding system, and people are not yet ready for it.

This is the greatest discord that can exist in our world, the greatest, acute demonstration of our nonconformity with the system which is now manifesting before us. We got caught in a net, an analog matrix, where all the parts depend on each other. We are incorporated in it against our will; we are bound inside it by the old ties of egoistic economy as before, and we have no way to escape. This is nature challenging us and clearly showing us: “Guys, time’s up.”

We need to move forward on our own and alleviate this state and bring humanity into complete accordance with this matrix through explanations, education, and so on. If we do not move in this direction even in the slightest way to the extent of our abilities, then the crisis draws closer.

The matrix has its own program of getting closer to us, and as a result, even greater contradictions happen in the world to the point of revolutions, wars, different cataclysms, and so on. The awakening of one volcano causes serious consequences on a global scale. What if  20-30 volcanoes erupt? We are hostages of the unknown, we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder—our Earth with titanic forces bubbling inside. We need to understand this and not provoke Nature’s harsh attitude towards us. Yet on the contrary, we disturb its balance and not just in ecological sense.

This is why all our groups, everyone studying with us must disseminate. Nature itself obligates us towards it. This is the only way for us to break ahead and approach the global matrix.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson from Moscow 6/14/2011, Shamati #4

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The crisis that has enveloped the world was very obvious at the recent conventions we held, including the one in Italy three weeks ago and especially  the one in Madrid, Spain a week ago. There the crisis is very apparent. The masses are in disarray, and the rate of unemployment among young people is 40%. And things only get worse every day. There are demonstrations and protestors holding sit-ins on the streets, and more.

I deliberately walked around the streets there and talked to people. They don’t know what to do and are holding protests in front of government buildings. But the government also doesn’t know what to do. Everyone is confused and no one is guilty. And it’s all because we are finding ourselves facing nature’s challenge.

Work places cannot be created out of empty space. And what for? By doing that we would only exhaust the remaining natural resources even faster, ruin the soil, and pollute the environment even more. Our water and air resources will dwindle even faster. So why should we stimulate the deteriorating economy? Just to give people work? With these kinds of consequences, it’s better not to give it to them!

In Spain I appeared on the most popular TV channel during prime time. Instead of speaking for just a few minutes, which was planned according to the program, the interview lasted thirteen minutes. Can you imagine—thirteen minutes on the morning news, among reports about the most important current events! They just couldn’t put an end to the interview.

My suggestion was simple and came down to one piece of practical advice: We have to sit people down to study. They should be paid unemployment benefits (which will also be the most effective money-saving strategy) and they should be taught about what kind of world we are living in, what exists in front of us, and what kind of challenge nature is throwing at us.

This is not someone’s whim or the interests of a certain party or government leaders. This is none other than nature, which is challenging us. And the challenge is for us to change. We do not have to change anything besides ourselves.

We have to become integral and global, in conformity to the current crisis. After all, the crisis is the sensation of one’s lack of conformity with the surrounding nature. Therefore, if we correct ourselves this way, everything will become balanced out and will reach harmony. This is what people should be taught.

The interview received a widespread positive response throughout all of Spain, as well as Latin American and North America, and that’s because it really is the only sensible way to come out of the situation that has formed. And Spain is not alone. Greece, Iceland, Italy and others are in a similar situation, and there are many other countries gradually entering this crisis. And in other places the crisis is coming in different ways.

That is how nature places a clear task before us: We have to change. We have to be integral with nature just like everything else it contains—the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Man should not think that he is above nature and that he can do anything he wishes. His most important task is to consciously become an integral part of the whole.

By becoming an integral part of nature, he begins to understand what it is, and suddenly discovers new depths in it: the worlds of Assiya, Beria, Yetzira, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and the world of Infinity. He no longer obstructs himself from nature with his egoism, but starts to feel nature as transparent. He finally understands and becomes aware of the forces that control everything, including himself.

This is the task we are facing today. Therefore, if we desire it and use the force of aspiration forward, which exists in many people in the world, then we really will aspire to self-correction, to the world’s revelation, to exiting from the state of dreaming, from unconsciousness. Then we will attain total equality with nature, the Creator’s level.
From the 1st lesson at the Moscow Convention 6/10/11

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Question: The global crisis has already announced itself publicly. When will the public start asking questions about what’s going on? When will the storm come?

Answer: This depends on us. We have to do our best to disseminate the method of our correction. Our message is simple, and we can offer it to the governments of the countries that are already in trouble.

The key problem is what to do with the sky-rocketing egoism. A human being has a normal, earthly desire to be provided with all that is necessary for his existence. He needs food, family, and the other things he can’t do without. Besides that, his egoistic desire aimed at receiving more keeps growing. It is so inherent in every one of us that we can’t even define what a basic necessity is.

Will a person be satisfied if he receives his daily bread, so to speak? No, he will not. What do we do with egoism then? What can we fill the black hole with?

The answer to this is as follows: Egoism grew so that we can transform it into spiritual desire, a spiritual vessel filled with attainment, bestowal, love, and finally with the upper Light. How is it done? How do we make a transition from a society of receivers, insatiable in its quest for material wealth, to a society of minimal consumption, grounded on basic needs?

If we don’t, the world will not be able to exist due to our rapidly depleting the planet’s natural resources. Consumerism will not be able to satisfy our egoism anymore. The people of the world won’t be able to shop store to store, filling their carts “to the gills.” The feast is over, and from now on, everyone gets only what he or she needs.

How then do people get fulfilled? We have to send all these millions to school. They will receive all the necessary goods in exchange for their studying. Otherwise, they are not entitled to even that much. And indeed, why should they be? Trouble is trouble, and everyone is in it. The government provides them with basic necessities, everyone continues to live where they do, stability is preserved, and at the same time, everybody starts studying.

What do they study exactly? They study the laws of life in the integral system. In reality, they are the laws of the group, but Kabbalah is not mentioned during the lessons. The subject is systems and mechanisms pertaining to a unified society. Getting all that they need, at least during the class, people hear and study the facts proving that we don’t have another way to survive but through unity.

You are dealing with “savages” coming to learn, who wish only to make money and get certain benefit. But gradually, they begin to understand there is no other option, that we have entered a new system, and that the world will develop differently now. Consumerism is finished; this type of society is dying out. It didn’t live that long anyway, at maximum for a hundred years, from the end of the 19th century through the 70s-90s of the 20th century. And even during this time there have been crises, including the Great Depression of the 30s.

Thus, people begin to study, while the government provides them with all they need, which is much less costly than creating new jobs. The latter is pointless since nobody will be buying what may be produced. Besides, the raw materials and energy are almost gone.

Thus, the most concise and cheap solution is to send people to school, regardless of where it may be: at home via the Internet, in theaters or auditoriums, or anywhere else. The key is to place everybody in an educational framework. In the meantime, studying is going to make one wiser and allow him to understand that he is entering a new world, where the previous laws do not work. Baal HaSulam writes it as well: We must all go to school and learn yet again how to live in the future.

Eventually, thanks to the studies, people will gain a new desire and start perceiving changes in it, until they come to understand that fulfillment can come from another, higher degree. The process will be gradual since we are dealing with a gigantic mass which is beginning to ripen. It will truly transform us as well.

As of today, we don’t have any other options. This is why no one can find anything. But just imagine how much Light these hundreds of millions can draw by merely listening to what they are taught. This is the solution that Baal HaSulam is pointing at, the solution that suggests itself to us logically since there aren’t any other means except for bringing people a little closer to the Light.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: We suggest that people should be sent to school to study the laws of the integral system of the world. Who will finance this kind of education and provide the masses with basic necessities at the same time?

Answer: Measure the output of modern industry’s production. Essentially, it doesn’t have much use and only ruins the world. We just keep wasting resources, while we don’t produce anything good and really useful. People exchange meaningless things, nothing more.

Industry was previously based on the rule of “money-commodity-money,” but today this model has lost the commodity element: We sell money for money. That is what our “trade” is: We pass paper to one another.

The only commodities that still matter are related to the sphere of basic necessity. A person needs basic shelter and sustenance as well as a certainty that they won’t be gone today or tomorrow. The only thing they need to understand is that luxuries are cancelled. Instead, you will receive ideal fulfillment, but not the one you used to imagine. And we will teach you how to obtain it.

We help a person to understand that in the integral society, he or she will find perfect fulfillment in everything that exceeds basic necessity only by unifying with others. After all, they can no longer be fulfilled by all sorts of meaningless things found in this world.

Question: What will the economic paradigm supporting such a society be?

Answer: A very simple one since all modern industry, legislative agencies, and financial institutions are driven by illusion and trade nothing but useless paper. In the meantime, they are sustained by the natural resources that are being successfully drained.

Take them out of business and just give them food as it will be much less costly because in reality, they produce nothing instead of something, air instead of goods. Exchanging meaningless things leads only to waste. Except for a few staples we need, all the rest are merely toys for which we are willing to ruin the Earth.

The consumer society is a game we play:

“The TV said: Buy it.”
“So buy it.”

Wide-eyed, you run to the store and start up a chain that engages you in return. So we are building a heap that will eventually bury us.

For thousands of years humanity has developed grounded on the basic necessities. The majority lived without luxuries; even the clothes used to be passed down from generation to generation. However, a century old feast of the modern era has ruined the planet. Like it or not, we will have to put an end to it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: You have said that in order to solve the global crisis it is necessary to reduce consumption. How does minimal consumption differ from vital consumption? For example, can a watch costing a thousand Euros be considered a vital necessity?

Answer: This question is not simple. I would even say there’s a catch to it. Let me explain it by way of a Kabbalistic parable that’s 2000 years old.

Once upon a time there were two friends. One was rich and the other was average, but they were both on the spiritual level. One day the rich man went bankrupt and then his friend started serving him like a servant, wishing to provide him with the necessary level of existence that he was used to. That’s because previously his friend had serrvants, so when he lost them, he felt like he lost something that was necessary.

This is an interesting example, but it is not suitable for out times because nature obligates us otherwise. We have no choice but to restrict our consumption since otherwise we will devastate the planet earth. It’s not just that we have to reduce our necessities, but we have to reach a state where we would be happy to get rid of our necessities, but are obligated to receive them because we have to exist in our bodies in this world.

I have a big desire, which includes the level of my regular life where I have physical necessities as well as social necessities, such as education, culture, vacations, and trips. No one says you have to give them up. You need an apartment, everything necessary for it, a wife, children, and so on.

The problem is our consumption above the norm. If you study the science of Kabbalah, you will involuntarily consume only what is necessary because the most important thing to you is spiritual fulfillment. Therefore, you are happy that you do not reveal these excessive desires inside of you and you would be happy even to get rid of the normal desires, but you need them in order to support your existence. This is called necessity.
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From the 1st lesson at the Madrid Convention 6/4/11

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Question: You are leaving for the Kabbalah convention in Spain, where you will also be giving interviews to the Spanish media. How are you going to explain to them what Baal HaSulam wrote about in his article “The Peace”: “We must but accept the yoke of heaven for the Creator as we are learning who He is”?

Answer: I hope they will hear me better than you do, better than people anywhere else in the world. Indeed, Spain is facing very serious problems.

I am scheduled for several interviews there, including a primetime interview on a leading TV channel that broadcasts to millions of viewers. We have become popular. Many journalists are willing to listen to us; they agree and quickly respond to our words.

As it presently stands, we have to explain what the current condition implies. The money is gone. No credit will help because it cannot be properly managed at this point. Would it help just to split the funds among people and stay in debt?

But what is there to do if there are no jobs and nobody needs what anybody may want to produce? Even if the European Union loans you some money to try to save the situation, what can you do? Open another store? Build another factory? What can I possibly produce? Is there anything left the world is still lacking today?

Try as I might, it will only make things worse since price-wise my products cannot compete with those made in China. How can we keep people’s jobs under such conditions? It is wiser to just close the business altogether. But what are we supposed to do with the unemployed, college graduates, and youth? Nobody has any idea.

You simply have nothing to produce. Even the food the world produces could feed eight billion people—we just don’t know how to distribute it correctly. How many cell phone upgrades can one have? Consumers are getting tired of novelties. Imagine what is going to happen when nobody will be buying products made in China any longer just because there will be no money for it. The goods may be cheap, but there’s a hole in the pocket, while one still needs food and clothes. Who will care about “toys” then?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: I’m stunned that a series of such dramatic changes in the world draws such a weak reaction from the leading nations. What’s going on with us?

Answer: I think that the “movers and shakers” of the world have understood that they’re not in control of the situation, and they’re trying to mitigate the blow. They are especially concerned with the sharp decline in oil production and the resulting sharp decline in the global economy.

This will undoubtedly impact global reconstruction. The automobile and aviation industries will be demolished, and a new public mode of transportation will need to be implemented. People will only be buying the bare essentials, which will crush many of the economy’s sectors.

Every tenth US citizen works in the auto industry. A string of bankruptcies will shatter the national economy and bring about the rise of extremist political parties, the kind that emerged under similar circumstances in the 1920s in Germany.

It is no accident that Kabbalah asserts that the next phase in the collective global development is either correction via the method of Kabbalah or fascism! I suspect that the US deliberately terminated their auto industry, correctly realizing that it would be the first to fall in the looming global crisis. This bought their other industries and their workers time to make a transition from the economy sectors so badly dependent upon oil, such as the automobile, to other modes of manufacture and consumption which are simpler, more natural, and direct. As for the media, they simply carry out orders from those who pay them.
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Question: Now that the crisis is intensifying all over the world with natural disasters and wars happening more and more often, how should we treat people who have experienced misfortunes considering that we feel their pain when we see what kind of suffering they are going through, but aren’t able to help?

Answer: The crisis is not moving in any single direction. It’s not just an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, floods and tornadoes  in America, fires in Russia, or national revolutions in the Near East. These are local events and that is why we worry only slightly when we hear about them, not taking it too close to heart. Our egoistic nature does not allow us to empathize with others any deeper. But if I’m afraid that the tsunami will reach me, then it’s an entirely different matter.

However, this crisis is multifaceted. For now it is being expressed as several separate catastrophes here and there, but in essence it is preparing ground for a fundamental worldwide jolt that will be common and global. This is exactly what people who understand what is happening are afraid of.

This will be a global economic crisis. When economic connections disintegrate in conditions of our total, universal interdependence, it will be a huge problem. This will be an immediate blow to everyone, causing people to go crazy because they won’t know what to do. Let us hope that before this happens we will be able to exert a positive influence on the world and prevent this kind of turn of events.

We shouldn’t think that in order to influence the world we have to enter the mass media or get the world’s leaders on our side. Rather, we are operating internally. We are connected with the world’s inner forces, the global, integral system that operates inside of the world. If we correspond to it and go together with it, then we act according to the laws of nature. We bring the force of unity and love into this system. It comes from us, from the part of humanity that desires a good connection between people.
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

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The essence of the global crisis is that humanity has “gotten stuck” or “bogged down” in nature and does not know what to do. Nature has turned its harsh side to us, threatening us with crises in various areas, and we don’t have an answer to that challenge.

On one hand, we developed inside of our nature and have reached a completely lawful result. If we had a chance to turn back time a few centuries and do it all again, we would still take the same path.

That is because this is our very nature—the growing egoistic desire with all of its derivatives. Scientific and technological progress, industry, culture, education, and human society are all natural results of egoism, and nothing can be done about them.

Until now we have developed the way our nature ordered us to. So how can we now influence it and correct it in any way to change the direction? Has anything like this ever happened in history? Never. In the best case scenario we can recognize the results of our development—whether they are good or bad, depending on the observer’s point of view. Meanwhile the train moves farther and farther along, and maybe we really don’t have another way out?

Scientific research of the manifestations of the crisis is a useful thing, but what does it give us? We are looking out of the window of a train, watching the view that is flying past us: At first it glitters with different colors, the sky is clear, and the green fields are filled with sunlight. But then, the colors start to wither, the grass becomes replaced by sand more often, and there are increasingly more glimpses of garbage dumps, dirt, and waste drains, and the sun becomes obstructed by smoke and smog. Can we do anything or will the train ride down this track until the end? Should we put a veil over the window and come what may?

There are many uncertainties here, but the science of Kabbalah does not even discuss this route and where it will lead us. It deals with the root of the problem: We are riding down the train of our egoism, which is constantly growing.

Development is necessary, but will we direct it in a different vein? Let’s reject the egoistic path in which we are unable to agree on anything and inflict so much harm to ourselves and nature. After all, every person thinks only of himself, and that is why we inevitably destroy our lives and the surrounding environment.

What if, instead of that, we will unite in love? Would we then treat nature and the environment differently? Would we still exhaust the earth’s abundant resources? Would we burn such inconceivable amounts of fuel? Would we throw out food when there are a billion people suffering from hunger? Would we give birth to one child here and to ten in another place? Would we then be able to reach balance?

Or maybe we wouldn’t have to look for balance between us? Maybe people’s attitude to each other and to the world as a whole would correct this world? And then the train itself would change and would ride forward differently? By correcting our attitude, maybe we would ensure an abundance of natural resources and crop yields so there would be more than enough for everyone?

Baal HaSulam wrote the following in the newspaper “The Nation”: Our planet is sufficiently rich to feed all of us. So why do we need this tragic war for survival, which complicates our lives from one generation to the next? If only we would achieve unity, compassion for one another, and love, then everyone would have enough of everything. That is because then the upper Light would fill all of our necessities. Nature itself would change from the inside.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/11, The World’s Problems, Overpopulation

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