Question: Forbes magazine published the rankings of the highest-paid content producers on YouTube. Twenty-three-year-old Mr Beast tops the rankings with 2021 income of $54 million. Nastya, a seven-year-old Russian emigrant, holds 7^th place in the rating; she has  nearly 90 million subscribers.

And what’s going on in Tik Tok?! Tik Tok stars can charge $500,000 just for an advertising post. All of them are young guys under 25 years of age.

What do you think about such young people getting such large sums of money? It is clear that parents and others are behind them. But the fact that young people have such an income from advertising with Tik Tok—what do you think? What’s going on with his psyche? What’s going on with him?

Answer: Of course, this is a very big burden on the psyche. And what will happen to this child next, I do not know. I think that such children will fall into depression. They will not be able to balance themselves and be normal people. They will demand that they deserve everything and everything needs to be given to them. I wouldn’t want that. By no means.

Comment: What if you were to receive money for one of your clips and then more and more?

My Response: Just not that I would receive it personally, but for the organization. Let them spread Kabbalah all over the world and so on.

Comment: Even you, are you afraid that if suddenly you were tested…?

My Response: This is not allowed, in no case.

Comment: I thought you were already insured against this.

My Response: No! As long as you live, you can’t be insured. How can I trust myself? Am I completely in the hands of the Creator, and then suddenly I am my own master?

Question: So a person should not trust himself?

Answer: No. That is why it is said: “Do not believe in yourself till the day you die.”

Question: What kind of death are we talking about?

Answer: Egoistic death. And who knows how much more egoism there is inside each of us?

Comment: Do you think that these tests, which are carried out by people who have winning lottery tickets or who earn millions on YouTube or in Tik Tok…?

My Response: This is a misfortune!

Comment: This is not happiness and one should not be thankful for it; on the contrary, one should be wary.

My Response: I ran away from it. And I had the strength to do so; God led me very well so that I could avoid all this.

Question: And if this happens? Then at least give me a way out, a small loophole. So it happens that a talented person starts earning crazy money. And so young!

Answer: It’s a misfortune.

Question: But what to do?

Answer: You can’t do anything. I don’t think anything can be done against it.

I had such things, but they were when I met strong, serious people who could seduce me with wealth and so on. I was able to protect myself. But of course the Creator did everything, but I tried to slip off.

Question: So for example, if we are talking about a young man, then in general he can no longer slip off?

Answer: How does he even know what he’s doing? He’s still a boy.

Question: Yes, but he wanted to make money and suddenly he earned millions, billions, and so on. We know a lot of broken fates. Does this come from above? Is this a test? Is this how a person is led?

Answer: Yes! A person cannot live without limits, without a solid, rigid framework within which he exists. He just can’t!

Question: And why does the Creator do this to a person?

Answer: To show an example of him to others. As Shota Rustaveli said: “Give away the treasury to the homeless and free the slaves.”

Comment: Meaning, the conclusion is: if a lot of money comes to you, run.

My Response: Yes.
[305335]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/7/22

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Question: Suppose a person has a tendency to steal. What action should be taken against him?

Answer: Correction. Everyone steals. Everyone! Neither you nor I can vouch for ourselves either. It depends on where, how, what, consciously, unconsciously, or perhaps he was framed somehow.

You cannot allow a person to be around such things that he can steal. We must protect him from such actions. It all depends on the level of his education.

Of course if I have a natural tendency to steal, then I cannot just be allowed to do certain things. We must learn to measure the degree of correction of a person, and for this we need to see him and include him in us. It is not simple. Nobody has been able to do this yet. That is why everyone steals.

Question: How can we do this in a Kabbalistic society?

Answer: Everything is based on completely different principles in a Kabbalistic society. As Baal HaSulam writes in the book The Writings of the Last Generation, everyone receives as much as he or she is entitled to according to the amounts that society determines in accordance with the personal and family needs of a person. Therefore, one does not need to steal. There is nowhere to steal from, and no need to do so.

A person is constantly in a state of being influenced by the correct environment, and systematically undergoes training by improving on one’s own and attending improvement courses.

If we begin to gradually curtail our economy, close enterprises not by directive, but according to our education, and send people to classes, then the crisis would calm down and there would be no overproduction. First you need to invest everything in education.
[304956]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ideal Punishment” 10/5/13

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Comment: There is a famine in Brazil. People lost their jobs during the pandemic and found themselves without means of subsistence. They call it the “hunger pandemic.” More than 100 million Brazilians will no longer have meat, dairy products, and vegetables on the table, that is, in very limited quantities.

Brazil is one of the largest exporters of products in the world, especially meat. How can a country remain the biggest exporter while over 100 million of your own people, almost 50% of the population, have nothing to put on the table?

My Response: It is very simple: this is how we created the world. It is not nature that does this. Nature provides us with everything we need. Yet, we turn it over as we like, divide it, mold it in such a way that on the one hand we throw food away and on the other hand, people starve.

Question: But this is not a good world. Let’s say I am the leader of the country, I am developing exports, and at the same time, my people are starving. How is this even possible? Why do you say that our world is like that?

Answer: It is egoistic. You have to correct egoism for this. If you do not correct it, we will always have situations like this. There will be small black and white periods. But mostly they will be dark, black.

Comment: I am well-fed and I feel that I need to develop the economy and revenue and I am not interested in what is next to me.

My Response: It is a big problem to put the country in order. To do this, it is necessary to educate people, raise literacy, and create special conditions for proper interaction between people. No one will do this.

Comment: This is my wrong view. Let’s say the country’s leaders should see that their people are starving and stop half of the exports.

My Response: And what will happen? If they stop exporting, there will be no money. If there is no money, they will not be able to produce weapons or something else. Everything is attached one to another. Then they will eat you.

The egoistic world cannot be in another form.

Question: Do you think that even further the egoistic world will show itself more as a monster?

Answer: In any case, it will find a solution, a way for egoism to celebrate. There will be a ball of egoism all over the Earth.

Question: What would you do as a leader of the country if you had such an opportunity? People are starving in your country and you export a great amount of everything. How would you regulate this?

Answer: In principle, this problem has no solution. It can only come down to one thing: educating the population so that it is prepared for a paradigm shift, that is, to change the value in life from egoistic to altruistic; moreover, change to a very serious altruistic system where schools, institutions, and relations between people, everything would be subordinated to altruistic social relations.

Question: Do you think that because of this there will be no famine in the country and so on?

Answer: Then there will be nothing like that. But this is a gradual, long-term transition system. Basically, this is, of course: awareness, development of consciousness, and development of states between people and social relations.

Question: Do you think that this leads to mutual guarantee and to the fact that no one can starve next to me, that there is no such thing at all?

Answer: This is a fantasy. I understand that this is a fantasy. But, on the other hand, we need any way to come closer to this. I understand that this sounds unreal today, but nature will force us nevertheless.
[303763]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/27/21

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/4/22

The start of a new year (according to the Hebrew calendar) is a good time to reflect on the things that decide the quality of our lives. Economy is certainly one of the key factors that determine whether we live well or not.

Someone once said to me, “Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.” With that in mind, we should look at what is happening today. First, inflation is soaring, and this is bad news for all of us. Worse yet, we do not know why it is soaring. The war in Ukraine no longer justifies it, there is no pandemic in sight that shuts down the global economy, no shortage of oil, and no other apparent reason for the skyrocketing prices.

There are countless other problems and changes in the global economy. The job market is changing and fewer people are willing to work office jobs and prefer to work from home. There is a wave of resignations. Employers that were used to selecting from numerous applicants, sometimes have to pay for people to come only to be interviewed.

Another shift is accelerating automation. The shrinking number of people willing to work, especially in low-paying jobs, is injecting fuel into the robotics industry and more and more stages of production are now given to robots.

At the same time, people are not getting happier because they have more free time. Even though they have enough money to sustain themselves, their behavior is unbalanced, with exaggerated consumerism, prevalent substance abuse, violence, depression, narcissism, and countless other problems that together turn everything we do against ourselves.

Therefore, I believe that the root cause for the rising prices, and for the countless other problems I just mentioned, has to do with our relationships with one another. The economy reflects the state of society, and not the other way around. The economy does not cause social crises. Rather, when there is a social crisis, it is likely to disrupt the economy.

The problem is that the more we develop, the more self-centered we become. If you look at all of nature, you will find that the more it develops, the more cooperative it becomes—the exact opposite of humanity.

For example, more developed animals on the food chain have more complicated organisms. These animals then form a complex system where the survival and health of each species depends on the survival and health of every other species.

Our universe is another good example. It evolved from separate particles of hydrogen and helium that condensed into vast and complicated systems of galaxies, stars, and planetary systems, with channels that connect them and transfer matter throughout the universe.

Human society has also evolved impressively over the centuries and has become a global mesh where each part contributes its unique skills to the benefit of humanity. Why then are we not thriving? Because we hate the idea that we are connected; we are utterly self-centered, and the very idea that we are dependent on someone else makes us cringe.

To avoid being dependent, and to assert ourselves as the rulers, we fight against each other. It does not have to be a war between countries; we are fighting all the time: at work, at home with our partners and children, on the road, in the supermarket, and often even in our sleep. We are miserable.

The global economic downturn, therefore, reflects our social disarray. Because we are growing increasingly connected and increasingly self-centered simultaneously, the contradictory trajectories are tearing the fabric of human society. As a result, the economic structure we have built, which relies on mutual support and global supply chains, is breaking up.

The soaring inflation is only the beginning of our woes. Unless we adjust our relationships to match our level of connectedness, we will suffer from shortages that will lead to hunger and social disentanglement.

Our task, therefore, is not to change the economy, but to change the ill-relations we have with one another, which are sickening the global and local economy. The economy will be all well and good when the society is well, and the society will be well when we start seeking how we can help each other rather than hurt each other.

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The difficult situation in the world, the pandemic, and the war led to a sharp increase in inflation, which has not occurred for many years. Today this subject worries many people who are forced to reduce their spending and change their places of work. The most disturbing thing is that we do not really understand the cause of inflation.

The real reason is not the war between Russia and Ukraine, not the Coronavirus pandemic, which we somehow learned to cope with, and not the vagaries of the weather with extreme heat, extreme cold, and drought, not locust infestations, and not the shortage of oil, gas, or coal. There simply is a cycle according to which the world economy suddenly enters a recession.

Although there are many seemingly objective reasons for this, in fact no one can name one true reason that explains what is happening.

I think that the deep, true reason is that the relationships between people across the globe are absolutely wrong. They completely do not correspond to the state of the world, which has become closed, interconnected, and integral.

We must feel and understand that everyone depends on everyone and build the world economy in a more integrated, interconnected form as a global economy of the world. But we do not do that.

It turns out that we are lagging behind the world, which has become much more integral and connected. Yet we, people, in not only economic, but most importantly, human relations, do not build such a society. This is why such troubles happen to us.

Judging by the problems we are experiencing in human society throughout the world as a whole, as well as in individual countries, and especially because of conflicts between countries, it is clear that we are all egoists. Everyone is not thinking about the common world system, but on the contrary, everyone is thinking about himself without realizing that we are nevertheless dependent on each other.
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From KabTV’s “World” 9/22/22

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In the News (Stanford Business): “A Global Look at the Connections Between Happiness, Income, and Meaning”

“Wealthy people may be happier. But a new study finds that money can’t buy a sense of purpose.

“‘Humans think happiness is this one thing: You’re either happy or you’re not,’ Jennifer Aaker says. Of course, it’s not so simple: New research conducted by Aaker and her colleagues not only challenges the assumption that happiness is binary but also finds that the relationship between happiness and our sense of meaning can change depending on our financial situation.

“‘This is particularly interesting because research has shown when people get wealthier, they experience greater happiness,’ explains Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business who has extensively studied happiness, meaning, and money. ‘But this research suggests that the nature of happiness also shifts based on income.’

“In a forthcoming study…, Aaker and her coauthors find that meaning is a stronger predictor of happiness for people with low incomes than those with greater financial resources. In other words, people with more money may be happier, but people with less money view happiness as tied to a sense of meaning — the belief that their life has purpose, value, and direction.”

Comment: Money appears to buy a person and extinguish the search for the meaning of life. 

My Response: It clogs him.

Question: So we quite possibly will fall for money despite the fact that we have found a high meaning of life?

Answer: Money starts to twist you: Do this, do that, and just like that you’re gone.

Comment: Explain to us the system, the mechanism of this. I have found the meaning of life and I am happy that I have found meaning in life. Then abruptly such a force appears, which is called money, business, politics, and suddenly…

My Response: It’s the ability to create with the help of politics, money, power, or whatever. And you start participating in it and it swallows you up. Nothing can be done.

Question: Even in our case, there are a lot of questions here. Guys come and they seem to be completely immersed, but politics or business suddenly appear and it takes them away. We saw them burning with desire for the goal, but alas!

Why is this done from above? After all, the Creator directed humans to search for the meaning of life, and then found the meaning of life. Why is the Creator taking a person away?

Answer: He takes them away in order for a person to realize, once again by going through one’s desires, sufferings, goals, and opportunities to once again make a choice.

Question: Which means, a person has to make a round once again and it is unknown whether he or she will return in this life or in another one? Is this done intentionally by the Creator?

Answer: Of course, yes. Well, what will you do? It will be better next time.

Question: And what is cleaned up at the same time? What does this person have to clean up during this period?

Answer: The determination to find meaning and not sell this meaning for dollars, for a position, or for something like that.

Question: A person can be retained by saying, “Well, what are you doing?! Is it possible to change the meaning of life for this?!”

Answer: It depends on his current condition. But in fact, no, not seriously.

Question: Even based on your experience, do you think something could buy you when you came to your teacher hot and burning?

Answer: Nothing.

Question: Is this determined by all the previous sufferings that you went through?

Answer: This is the point in the heart that requires only one thing—the meaning of life. And it can’t accept the meaning as being in some government structure, in wealth, in a house in Hawaii or something else.

None of it is a draw. But this is because a person is created this way and not because he is so great, big, or special. So it’s just luck.

Comment: Your answer regarding an opportunity to create was unexpected. So with money, business, a person has a thought: “Now I will create.”

My Response: Yes, this is about creativity! But of course! If I can travel the world, buy, and sell. I’m not interested in wealth; I’m interested in the process.

Question: And what about politicians?

Answer: The politician even more so.

Question: Let’s say that in our case you see to a smaller extent that you can really create? Or not?

Answer: In our case, everything is combined together because we are spreading the method of correcting the world. And it turns out that without this, the world will definitely not be able to see where it will roll. So we are preparing a methodology for the proper development for it.

Question: So this should be approached as a real and high form of creativity?

Answer: Yes, real and the highest creativity when you are just preparing a methodology for the world.
[301995]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/7/22

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Comment: Until a person overcomes financial dependence on material work, it is very difficult for him to adjust to spiritual work. He can agree with you from afar: “Yes, you are saying an interesting thing, but I have a salary and I feel very good.”

My Response: I do not think that the financial channel should be closed. A person will have everything. Why not? I see that these guys who run around and break windows in the suburbs of London, Madrid, and Paris. They do not look like they are weakened from lack of food. All of them have mobile phones sticking out of their pockets.

Where do you see that this person is suffering from hunger? This is a hunger of a completely different type, an informational one. A person is lost. He does not know why he exists. He wants to know the meaning of life!

When he had a job, he had everything: a family, a house, a car, a vacation. He lived like an animal in a stall. He led a normal existence and looked at the world and saw I am like everyone else. In accordance with this, there was the appropriate culture, propaganda, brainwashing, and everything else.

And suddenly everything turned around with no school, lack of clarity as to what kind of work there is, no one getting married or starting a family. That is, everything turned toward an unclear direction.

Past motives: study, work, career achievement, money, home, family, children, car, retirement, health care—everything stopped working. The inner desires of a person have changed: “Now you will not buy me with this.” The desire disappears. “I will work, do something, out of necessity. I do not want to rush somewhere, fight to be an assistant professor or a successful person.”

These ideals are slowly fading away.

This is on the one hand. On the other hand, you cannot give people jobs anyway! You cannot think of anything for them!

Suppose, with the help of the media, you will specifically incite a movement in them toward universities, knowledge, specialization, and so on! And then what?

They will demand: “Give me a job!” So, it is better to calm them down somehow. Therefore, everything is lost. We are moving toward the fact that people will be unemployed, but they will not be considered as such since this will become a normal state.

A person moves into another area of work, the spiritual one. This work is in connection with each other, constant learning, communication, creation of a single human mass, a single community, and mutual guarantee. A person will be engaged in this.

Feeding yourself will not be a problem! Today 3% of Americans feed the whole of America and half of the rest of the world. If they were not paid extra for producing less, they would cover everyone with their agricultural goods. So, everything is completely different from what we think!
[302108]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If You Lost Your Job” 3/13/14

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Question: As a rule, in order to exist, a person needs a job. With the money earned, he can eat, buy clothes and shoes, pay for the Internet, and so on. Therefore he cannot imagine himself without a job.

The main fear of a person is to lose his job. When they lose it, many are even ready to commit suicide because they are so dependent on the corporeal part. What will replace it? Who will make up for it? Who will give a person the necessary confidence in life?

Answer: Only a society created on the basis of integral education will. We create these communities. We can teach people through the Internet, through virtual communication, and through television. We have all the opportunities for this. Just give us a world channel and we are ready to conduct all this even today.

We will be able to explain to people where nature directs us and that spiritual work is not some whim, not mine, yours, or someone else’s. This is a law of nature. We see how scientists are gradually beginning to reveal the same thing. That is, we have something to rely on. There are great, wonderful prospects.

Therefore I hope for a bright future and not for a terrible solution to problems that will still lead to the same result but with a lot of blood.
[302070]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If You Lost Your Job” 13/3/14

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Question: How were the interconnections in ancient Babylon arranged? What were the people doing there?

Answer: It was an ordinary, primitive society. They lived very simply. Babylonians ate mainly fish, as they lived in a valley at the confluence of two rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. They grew buckwheat and some wheat.

In principle, the birthplace of wheat is Israel. But the very first time it appeared was in ancient Babylon, as noted in the documents. The Babylonians baked barley bread, ate fish, garlic, olives, and olive oil, and drank water and wine. That was enough for them.

Question: And what did they do in general? Did they exist like animals?

Answer: Man did little in general, except for the last hundred years when he suddenly began to work according to the current system.

In those days there was a lot of unproductive work and everything flowed slowly and calmly. This was the case in all countries. And what did Indians do? What did Asians or Africans do?

It is nowadays that everything goes by minutes and charts because it is even better if the mechanisms work without stopping, and therefore, the problem of unemployment has naturally arisen. It had never happened before because people did not work at such a pace.

Even 150 or 200 years ago, what did man do? How much could he produce in a day and at what pace did he work? Naturally, in the world there was no such abundance and overproduction (with which it is not clear what to do) as there is now.

Comment: I remember that back in the days of the Soviet Union, there was a very narrow assortment of goods. And then American, Chinese, and Turkish products appeared, the range expanded.

My Response: It was all very good and attractive for a time. And today, both men and women are dressed in “rags,” walk in sneakers, and no one pays attention to beautiful, decent clothes. It even becomes somewhat provocative because it shows how empty you are inside if you are so dressy on the outside. Even at all sorts of diplomatic receptions, everywhere.

A university teacher gives lectures almost wearing shorts. Where is this polish, jacket, tie, and white shirt? Not to mention the students at all. In the 50s and 60s, there was no such thing as a student not wearing a suit and tie. I remember myself! I had to dress like this. And today…

But all this is correct because the focus is changing for different values, from external to internal. Now a person is not judged by appearances.
[302066]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ancient People and Cultures of the Past” 3/8/13

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I was the absolute master of my old robe. I have become the slave of my new one (“Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, or A warning to those who have more taste than fortune,” Denis Diderot).

Question: The philosopher Diderot spent almost his entire life in poverty and did not care much about material wealth, but he suddenly received a red robe as a gift. It was a beautiful red, satin robe! Soon after, he noticed that his chair was old and made of straw; therefore, he changed it to a beautiful, leather chair. Suddenly, he also spotted that his desk was shabby. So naturally, he replaced it with a large, gorgeous table. Not long after Diderot fell into debt.

Do we really have to live our lives in old robes to understand it?

Answer: Generally speaking, yes. And what is wrong with living your life as is, not investing all your energy into external things? Why would you care for them?

If we are talking about children or other living creatures, even kittens or other animals, that is a very different story. But if it is furniture or something material…

Comment: But man wants to dress well. It is in his nature.

My Response: If external circumstances do not force him, then he can by the virtue of his internal circumstances continue living as he were.

Question: In an old robe?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: Then there is no progress. Look, everything around us is about buying a new house, dressing well, keeping up with styles.

My Response: You need everything to comfortably pursue your goals while making sure you do not become a slave to your possessions or to the times we live in—a slave to your environment.

And all our free time should be devoted to “our beloved selves.”

Question: So, is this how we should live?

Answer: Yes. Why should I work for a robe, or a desk, or anything like that?

Comment: You are saying: do not waste your life, stay in your old robe, and take care of yourself.

My Response: Yes.

Question: What do you mean when you say: “Take care of yourself?”

Answer: Do what you want. Do what you deem important. Meaning, what you think is important and not what your peers think.

Question: So, your advice is to stop?

Answer: Instead of stopping, never even get into such traps. Do not fall for it.

Question: No matter how much I crave these things internally, right?

Answer: It should be a goal of the basic human developmental stage, that is, the animate level in a person not to follow any other goals, habits, and so on. Live for yourself! Although it appears to be egoistic. And so you will live for others: for a woodworker, for a carpenter, for a fashion designer, and so on.

Question: You just gave a very egoistic formula: live for yourself and not for others.

Answer: Choose a goal! And live for it. People must validate their path, direct and shape it in a way not to harm anyone, including themselves. That is about it.
[300637]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/27/22

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